Anticipation

     Much of the power of the Catholic liturgical calendar flows from its regularity. We know each season, each celebration, and each commemoration. We can see them coming. And though they are the same as last year, a host of factors freshen them as they return. Despite their regularity, the cycle renders them new.

     Part of that is the anticipation of each liturgical event. Anticipation, we are told, is itself a component of the thing anticipated, inseparable from it. With some of the feasts this is obvious, Christmas being the best example. Today’s commemoration is preceded by the sacrificial practices of Lent and is driven home by the contemplation of the Cross.

     But there’s an aspect to the Passion that’s seldom pondered. We aren’t the only ones who see it coming.

* * *

     Jesus of Nazareth, at once fully human and fully divine, was not unaware of the fate He faced. He told His followers that it was coming. During the episode of the Transfiguration, He conversed with Moses and Elijah about it:

     And it came to pass about an eight days after these sayings, he took Peter and John and James, and went up into a mountain to pray. And as he prayed, the fashion of his countenance was altered, and his raiment was white and glistering. And, behold, there talked with him two men, which were Moses and Elias: Who appeared in glory, and spake of his decease which he should accomplish at Jerusalem.
     But Peter and they that were with him were heavy with sleep: and when they were awake, they saw his glory, and the two men that stood with him.

     [Luke 9:28-32]

     And later on, He prayed at Gethsemane to be spared:

     And he came out, and went, as he was wont, to the mount of Olives; and his disciples also followed him. And when he was at the place, he said unto them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and kneeled down, and prayed, Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me: nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done.
     And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him.
     And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground.

     [Luke 22:39-44]

     His anticipation of His impending torture and death was inseparable from the agony thereof. It was a single Passion, unitary and complete.

* * *

     The Passion is too solemn a commemoration to be burdened with a long, sententious exposition. Let me close with one more thought.

     Jesus, though divine, never referred to Himself as the Son of God. Those words came from the mouths of others. He called Himself the Son of Man, a title whose significance is unappreciated by many. It served to humble Him in others’ eyes, but it also carried a subtext: I am here because of you.

     For even the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many. [Mark 10:45]

     He had not come from His own need, nor from His Father’s need, but from ours. He lived, preached, traveled, suffered, and died for us. We needed Him. And so He gave Himself to us.

     May God bless and keep you all on this Good Friday in the Year of Our Lord 2026.

A Little Peace On The Side

     [The following first appeared at the old, much lamented Eternity Road site on September 12, 2006. I’m reposting it as a memory refresher, for everything discussed below still pertains to political discourse and the Left’s tactics today.
     The Left’s approach to hammering its lunacies into the public mind has been highly consistent. It’s had remarkable success, especially at inducing decent persons to self-censor. Yet all its tactics are founded on lies and vilification. We must challenge them on everything they say, especially their absurd notions about “social justice.” Nonsense has no place in serious discourse. – FWP]

* * *

     In its attacks on the Right, the Left frequently employs the notion of "code words:" phrases of innocent appearance that conceal sinister intentions. For instance, we have this from two prominent Embarrassments-at-large to the United States Congress:

     Politicians know this trick well. In 1994, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., likened tax cuts to racial epithets, saying, "It's not 'spic' or 'nigger' anymore. They just say, 'Let's cut taxes.'" Later that year, Rep. Major Owens, D-N.Y., used similar language to describe the Republicans' Contract With America: "These are people who are practicing genocide with a smile; they're worse than Hitler." [statements made during the debate over the Contract With America]

     Ann Coulter, the great conservative provocateuse, characterized such rhetoric thus:

     When arguments are premised on lies, there is no foundation for debate. You end up conceding to half the lies simply to focus on the lies of Holocaust-denial proportions. Kind and well meaning people find themselves afraid to talk about politics. Any sentient person has to be concerned that he might innocently make an argument or employ a turn of phrase that will be discerned by the liberal cult as a "code word" evincing a genocidal tendency....

     Vast areas of public policy debate are treated as indistinguishable from using the N-word (aka: the worst offense against mankind....The spirit of the First Amendment has been effectively repealed for conservative speech by a censorious, accusatory mob. Truth cannot prevail because whole categories of thought are deemed thought crimes. [From Slander: Liberal Lies About The American Right]

     This use of the "code word" notion as a sword is generally understood among persons of conservative and libertarian inclinations, but less attention goes to the Left's use of code words as a shield: a screen of attractive but irrelevant concepts deployed to prevent critical examination of something they favor.

     Consider the following, found at the head of this Web site:

     Finding peace in this world we live in seems like a daunting task. We watch as our own government is unmasked to reveal it's naked aggression, it's use of torture in the name of freedom and it's unholy alliance with corporate power and right wing religious extremists. Where are they taking our nation and and do we as a people even care anymore about peace, social justice and truth?

     Ignore the strange grammar and punctuation if you can. Ponder rather the implications of the statement, whose maker is undoubtedly in favor of "peace, social justice, and truth"...by her own interpretation, anyway. Read the most recent half-dozen of her posts and try to determine for yourself what her definitions of those things would be.

     They surely sound good, though, don't they?

     "Peace" by the norms of the liberals usually means surrender to socialist and communist insurrections, which they call "reform movements." "Social justice" by their lights means the erection of ever-larger transfer programs and laws that offer preferential treatment to their favored mascot-groups. "Truth" to a liberal...well, an Eternity Road reader is more than capable of judging for himself. But the terms themselves carry so pretty an aura that virtually no one is willing to compel their elucidation. So liberals get to hide their true intentions behind them: spinelessness before the march of totalitarians and thugs worldwide; exploding government spending and the ceaseless proliferation of laws that infringe upon freedom of speech, association, commerce, and the rights of private property; and the negation of objective standards by which statements of fact might be deemed pertinent to an issue and subjected to critical evaluation.

     Nobel Laureate Friedrich Hayek was especially harsh about the pseudo-concept of "social justice." Justice, he pointed out, refers to two things:

• A state of affairs in which each individual has that which is his by right;
• A process invoked to investigate situations alleged to be unjust and to correct them as necessary.

     The two meanings are tied together inextricably. A justice process cannot function to any advantage unless one can determine the just state of affairs toward which it must strive. But to determine that endpoint, one must concede that it once existed in reality, or that it would have existed except for an injustice that prevented it. This is impossible except by defining the rights of Man and specifying them for the particular persons in the controversy at hand. Thus, it is inherently an individualist premise; it cannot be "socialized" except by destroying the objective basis for the very thing it seeks to protect.

     Of course, socializing everything in sight is what the Left is all about. In liberals' ideal world, every imaginable human action is either compulsory or forbidden. There would nominally be "laws," but there would be administrators and commissions -- staffed wholly by liberals, of course -- with unreviewable plenipotentiary power to interpret those laws. Elections and legislatures would become meaningless; infinite power would rest in the hands of persons whose decisions could not be challenged, and who could be removed from their thrones only by death. That's the precondition for all "progress" by these "progressives'" lights.

     But for anyone to perform that analysis aloud must be prevented. It would give the game away in a rather final manner. So rather than campaign for infinite power for liberal mandarins, they prattle about "social justice," and hope that no one notices the opposition between the first word and the second.

     The thickness of the miasma that steams from such rhetoric -- accusations of "code word" employment by persons on the Right; deployment of "code word" defenses to avert critical analysis of the notions of persons on the Left -- makes it all but impossible to find a route back to wholesome, constructive discourse. Worse, calling a liberal on it is a glove hurled in his face. The fundamentally decent ones mostly lack the insight to see what their rhetoric really means. The indecent ones cannot abide the imputation that their favorite tactic is a tip to their dishonesty. Which suggests that the Era of Code Words is likely to hang around for a long time to come.

Small Lives

     [A short story for you this evening. Not everyone aspires to greatness. Quite a lot of us have no ambitions of that magnitude. But think about the children of a family of great wealth and power. Think about the pressures that might be put on them. Not all of them will respond the way their greatly accomplished and admired relatives would like. – FWP]

* * *

     Jack’s playing was as blazing as ever. The Black Grape crowd was mesmerized by the guitarist’s endless fresh improvisations. Rolf had backed him for three years, yet he was as impressed by the skills of Onyx’s star guitarist as he’d been at their first encounter. He strove to concentrate on his own role: keeping a steady, solid foundation with his Schecter six-string bass against which Jack could spin jazz-rock arabesques from his dazzling white Gibson Les Paul.
     Hal, at Rolf’s left, strove with equal effort to maintain the percussive thunder that undergirded the jam. It was just as invisible as Rolf’s bass, and just as vital to the support of Jack’s virtuosity.
     It was the trio’s two hundredth performance for a paying crowd, and it was special. They were locked together as tightly as if they were a single instrument. The crowd seemed to sense it just as sharply as Rolf did.
     The jam had been going on for nearly twenty minutes when Jack played the agreed-upon phrase that signaled the wind-down and the conclusion. Twelve bars more, and it ended to a thunder of applause. Onyx’s star stepped to the mike, said “we’ll be back in a little while,” unslung his guitar and set it down. Rolf and Hal did likewise. The three stepped off the dais with Jack in the lead.
     Hal ambled off to the men’s room, whether to relieve himself, have a smoke, or whatever. Rolf merely took a seat at the far corner of the bar and asked the bartender for a tap beer. He was sipping quietly mere moments later as the crowd converged on the guitarist for autographs, questions about appearance dates, or whatever.
     Bet there’s lots of whatever tonight. There were three girls up front who couldn’t tear their eyes from him. Two of them had wet spots in their jeans. Ten to one he doesn’t go home alone.
     “You look lonely.”
     The observation came from directly behind him. He set down his beer and half-turned to confront a tall, very pretty blonde who looked to be some years older than he. She wore a subtly probing look that was not at all invasive or threatening. Reflexively, he looked her up and down.
     A dress and heels? Here?
     “Good evening, Miss.” He extended a hand, and she shook it.
     “So far, anyway,” she said. She took the stool next to his and waved to the bartender. “White wine, please.” Presently the barman set a glass before her. She raised it to Rolf. “Skoal.”
     He grinned and hoisted his stein in reply. “Salud.” They clinked and sipped.
     “Sarah,” she said.
     “Rolf,” he replied.
     “Why no crowd of fans around you, Rolf?”
     He shrugged. “Sideman.” He nodded toward Jack and his cluster of admirers. “The star does the shining. Hal and I just bask in the glow.”
     It elicited a chuckle. “You’re all right with that?”
     “I couldn’t do what I do if I weren’t.”
     His phrasing seemed to pique her. “A man who knows his subjunctives!” She clapped perfunctorily.
     “Thank you, thank you. I’ll be here all week. Try the veal.”
     A second chuckle. “Yeah, right. So what do you do when you’re not backing up Mister Wonderful?”
     It was his turn to take particular note of her words. He looked her over a second time, more carefully.
     She carried herself with a relaxed, unaffected poise that seemed completely natural. It gave her a presence that went beyond mere good looks. Other women he’d known who shared her beauty and self-command had been more focused on their own images than on anything around them. Her attention was entirely on him.
     He took a moment to collect his thoughts.
     “Well,” he said, “not much of importance. I work in the lumber mill in Laurelton five days a week. I do yard cleanups on weekends for extra cash. Friday and Saturday nights I do this, if we can get a gig.”
     “Sounds…regular,” she said.
     He nodded. “Unexciting, but quiet.”
     “Like it that way?”
     “I do. It’s the life of a regular guy in a regular little New York backwater. Uncomplicated, undemanding. Pays the bills with a little left over. I can go on doing it as long I don’t slice off a finger or tick off my bosses. Maybe I’ll make supervisor someday and watch other guys slice off their fingers.”
     Her gaze flickered over to where Jack was entertaining his fans.
     “Like him?”
     He shrugged. “He’s okay. Pretty good guitarist.”
     “But you don’t pal around.”
     “Nah. There’s always a hubbub around him. I prefer the quiet.”
     Her smile quirked. “And yet,” she said, “you’re a rock musician who plays in noisy nightclubs and bars.”
     “I guess that’s how I fill my hubbub quota.” He finished his beer, rose, stretched, and reseated himself. “What about you? On your way to fortune and glory?”
     The smile vanished. “No, I’m sort of hiding from them.”
     It was curious enough to elicit a reciprocal probe. He wondered if it would be welcomed.
     Only one way to find out.
     “Are you—were you a performer too?”
     He could feel her gathering her courage.
     “No,” she said at last. “I’m a Forslund.”

#      Throughout Onyx’s second set, Rolf felt compelled to split his attention between his bass and Sarah. She remained at the bar despite it putting her sideways to the dais. Her eyes remained upon him, not in a demanding way, but simply companion to companion. She seemed to have linked herself to him in some way that extended beyond their half-hour of conversation.
     He fancied he could feel the link. Its weight was simple and comfortable, like a handclasp.
     I like it.
     He forced himself not to think beyond the moment. He was there to play, not to preen or strut.
     Or fantasize.
     The duel in his head made a forty-five minute set seem three hours long.
     The crowd was just as appreciative as earlier. When they put down their instruments for the night, the swarm that followed Jack was as large and ardent as before. Rolf slipped through the crowd gracefully and beelined for the corner of the bar, where Sarah had remained.
     “Doing all right?” he said.
     She nodded. “Just enjoying the music. I’m glad you came back this way.”
     He smiled. “I’m glad you’re still here.”
     “Say, why a six-string bass?”
     “Well,” he said, “the extra range is nice, and Schecter makes a good one. But in my case it’s more that I started out as a guitarist. I tune the Schecter to a standard guitar tuning and play a sort of combined bass and rhythm guitar. Jack suggested it. He says it gives him a lot to work with. Besides, it fills in our sound.”
     “Do you and…Hal, you said?” He nodded. “Do you two always do what Jack wants?”
     He shrugged. “I guess. It keeps the tensions down. Besides, he’s the draw. No one comes to hear Hal and me.”
     “I have a lot of trouble with that.”
     “Hm? What part?”
     “Doing what I’m told.”
     That pricked his curiosity. He peered at her.
     Forslunds mostly tell other people what to do.
     “You never said what you do for a living,” he said.
     “I work at Albrecht’s.”
     “Doing what?”
     “Selling women’s clothes.”
     “Does it suit you?”
     “It’s fine.” Her smile twitched. “I run the department. Anyway, the Forslund Trust is the majority shareholder in the company.”
     He wondered at her offhanded consent a position in a service industry.
     Her family’s wealth would allow her to do whatever she pleases.
     “What were you thinking just now?” she said.
     “Hm? Oh, just that you must enjoy it.”
     “I do,” she said. “It’s not a big deal, but I’m good at it, and it lets me live on my own instead of at Forslund Manor. Besides, I don’t get a lot of petty little orders from people with brassy titles.”
     Without thinking, he murmured “Or other people named Forslund.”
     Her eyes flared wide.
     “What?” he said. “Did I offend you?”
     “No,” she said, and looked a little away. “It’s just…I didn’t expect you to be so sharp.”
     He tried to lighten the tone. “Never underestimate a sideman. We could be just pretending while we await our moment to strike.”
     She looked him full in the eyes, her expression utterly serious. For a moment he became afraid.
     “Sarah…”
     “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s a long story, and it would probably bore you.”
     For a moment they sat in silence. He reflected on the strangeness of the encounter.
     A Forslund in a working-class bar. A beautiful woman worth a ton of money, all alone…except for me.
     Why me?
     “Rolf?”
     He turned to find Hal standing behind him.
     “Hm?”
     “Gleason wants us out. Jack told me to get our stuff into the van,” Hal said.
     “What, Jack doesn’t plan to be involved?” Rolf said. “Has he suddenly lost the use of his hands?”
     The drummer shrugged and indicated the guitarist with a nod. At the other side of the tap room, Jack was flirting aggressively with two very attractive brunettes. Each of the girls had an arm around the other, They looked enough like one another to be sisters, and neither seemed to be trying to edge out the other.
     He's in for an interesting night.
     “Moment please, Hal.” He turned to Sarah. “Sarah, this is Onyx’s drummer Hal Fraser. Hal, this is Sarah Forslund.”
     Hal’s eyes went wide. Sarah extended a hand with perfect aplomb. Hal took it hesitantly.
     “Pleased to meet you, Miss Forslund. Apologies for interrupting your chat. Rolf, we’d better get busy. Gleason wants us out of here before midnight.”
     “Sarah,” Rolf said, “would you like to continue this conversation?” She nodded. “Then please wait here while I engage in a little manual labor. It shouldn’t take long.”
     “You’re coming back?” she said.
     “Yeah. Wasn’t that sort of implied?”
     She nodded. “Okay.”
     He slid off his stool and ambled toward the dais.
#      Rolf shoved the last of the amplifiers into the van, closed and locked the twin doors, and wiped the dust from his hands. “Good gig, as always.”
     “Number two hundred,” Hal said.
     “Well, goodnight guys. See you tomorrow night for number two-oh-one.” Rolf started back toward the Black Grape.
     Jack looked at him curiously. “You’re not going back with Hal?”
     Rolf shook his head. “I’ll beg a ride from Sarah.”
     The guitarist looked at him levelly. “You know who that is, don’t you?”
     “She told me.”
     “So…then what if she says no?”
     “Onteora Taxi is still in business, isn’t it?”
     “Geez.” Jack shook his head in disbelief. “I thought I was doing well.” He glanced behind him at the brunettes who awaited his attentions.
     “You are,” Rolf said. “Have fun.” He returned to the bar. #      Rolf found Sarah where he’d left her.
     “Sorry, I didn’t think it would take that long,” he said. He remounted his stool. “Where were we?”
     She merely looked at him. Her expression was opaque, unreadable.
     “Sarah? Everything okay?”
     “What…” She paused and visibly gathered her forces. “Rolf, what do you want out of life?”
     He gaped.
     “Rolf?”
     “Yeah, I’m all right, just…give me a minute.”
     It’s not a question I spend a lot of time on.
     “Well,” he said after a few moments, “essentially, just to live it. Quietly. Peacefully. I want to be able to meet my bills and save a little. I want to keep getting better at what I do. But I don’t have any grand ambitions. I love music, but there are plenty of opportunities to enjoy that.” He waved at the dais, now cleared of Onyx’s trappings. “I’ll enjoy it while it lasts, but it’s bound to end pretty soon. Jack’s good, but he’s not Marquee quality. When it’s over, I’ll just…live.”
     “You’ll keep playing, won’t you?”
     “Well, yeah. Probably not the bass, though. If I’m with people I love who want to hear me play, I’ll play for them. Otherwise, I’ll play for myself.”
     She locked eyes with him again. “Would you play for me?”
     He held back the reflexive assent and studied her face.
     Of course I would, but…what else? What’s she really asking about?
     “Sarah,” he said deliberately, “what do you want out of life?”
     She closed her eyes and drew an audible breath. He waited.
     “I want,” she said at last, “what you want. What you already have. A quiet life. A small life. Inconspicuous. Unimportant to anyone but those who I love and who love me.”
     “That would…satisfy you?”
     She nodded.
     “From what you’ve told me,” he said, “it seems like you already have all of that.”
     “I do,” she said. “Except for one thing.”
     He closed his eyes and strove to slow his heart.
     “Sarah,” he said, “I will play for you whenever you ask.”
     She gazed at him for a long moment. Presently she nodded, stepped off her stool, and held out a hand.
     “Come home with me,” she said. ==<O>==

     Copyright © 2024 Francis W. Porretto. All rights reserved worldwide.

Nostrum Assassination Time

     Good morning, Gentle Reader. Welcome to a bright new Monday. I’m sure it will be filled with all the things that have made Mondays beloved throughout the world. And now that we’re past that blasphemy, what do you think of the title?

     In truth, I never disliked Mondays. But that’s because I enjoyed my work. Many people can’t say that. For them, work is something to be minimized, something to get away from as early and for as long as possible. Yea verily, even today, when you can make a living from commenting at X/Twitter.

     But that’s a depressing subject, and not germane to what’s on my mind just now. So let’s have three centered asterisks and proceed thence to the main event.

* * *

     There are innumerable bits of pseudo-wisdom in circulation these days. Most of them are pitched in short, punchy phrases. That makes them easy to remember. It also makes them context-free, and therefore easy to refute.

     But in truth, a lot of those bits of pseudo-wisdom can be handy. Given the appropriate circumstances, a bland saying that encapsulates a common sentiment can be enough to pull you off the mat and get you back into the fight. Try this one: “As long as you have your health…”

     For a man who’s down on his luck, who’s suffered reverses and disappointments that have drained him of zeal, that can actually be good over-the-counter soul medicine. “Hey! You’re young and healthy. You’ve got will and skills. Stop moping and get back in there!” That can do the trick for some. But I wouldn’t prescribe it for a soldier under siege who’s low on ammo and at imminent risk of being overrun. “Hey, as long as you have your health…” -- ? Naah.

     How about this hoary old saying: “Practice makes perfect.” Does it? Suppose you’re practicing the wrong thing? A piano student has to practice his fingerings, but he has to practice the right ones, and practice them correctly. More, once he switches from the piano to a stringed instrument, those well-practiced fingerings become useless at best. Context is everything there.

     Or try this one: “As long as you’re happy.”

     Is there anything more fleeting than happiness, or more elusive? Can we even pin it down and stop its squirming long enough to say exactly what it is? Even Aristotle couldn’t do it. All he could say on the subject is that Happiness is what we seek as an end in itself and for no other reason.

     I’d bet that most people aren’t even aware of when they’re happy. When it’s upon them, that’s that. They don’t have a consciousness of happiness as a specific state of mind. Rather, they have a consciousness of unhappiness, whether from pain, or failure, or frustration, or what have you. They know that state of being as a specific one, regardless of the reason for it.

* * *

     I forget where I encountered it, but in some work of fiction the viewpoint character observes to himself that No maxim is meaningful without qualification. Nostrums require context to be judged useful or useless. Otherwise they just hang there, suggesting something that can be constructive in the right circumstances, but useless in others and destructive in still others.

     Realizations of this sort have helped me to kill an old, pernicious habit: giving advice. I’ve become too conscious of the limits of my knowledge, especially my knowledge of other people’s lives and circumstances. Others’ lives are quite as complex as my own, and sometimes far more so, and I will never, ever know them to any great depth. So these days I sympathize and shut up.

     Just an early-Monday-morning thought from an old man who’s tired of commenting on politics and has nothing fresh to say about fiction. And there it is again! Monday, the tormentor that never relents! Will we never be rid of it?

     Back later or tomorrow, I hope. After this Monday crap is over, anyway.

Martial Spirit And The Martial Virtues

     Just this morning I encountered this:

The United States has been at war 233 of its 250 years. That's 93% of its entire existences

In its 250 years it has invaded or bombed 70 countries that's more than 35% of the whole world.

There is no greater threat to world peace than the United States

— The Resonance (@Partisan_12) March 28, 2026

     …to which my friend Tom Kratman replied:

This idiotic meme pops up regularly among the insuperably ignorant, and incarnate idiotic.

Short version: No, in order to get this result you must count as war things more properly categorized as law enforcement and count as years any year in which any violent action, to include…

— Tom Kratman (@TKratman) March 28, 2026

     Take care not to miss this portion of the latter:

     That said, yes, we are warlike, [with] more martial spirit than, most likely, the rest of the planet combined. So tremble in your boots.

     From a practical standpoint, there’s value to be had in having the rest of Mankind fear us. Oderint dum metuant, as the Roman military class liked to say. If we must be hated, let those who hate us remember our martial spirit, and the extraordinary military power that looms within it. But it’s worth a few moments to linger over what tempers that spirit: the martial virtues, completely and properly understood.

* * *

     All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle…. All real men like to fight. – General George S. Patton

     Let’s skip over the “No true Scotsman” objections and ask instead whether there’s any truth to Patton’s characterization. Are “real Americans” that pro-combat? Do we really court war because we love to fight? Do we – or our politicians or generals – court war at all?

     Perhaps some professional soldiers like to fight. It validates their choice of career, at least when they win. But that eagerness to go to war isn’t uniform among the uniformed. Even among the eager ones, it’s tempered by an awareness of the costs of war.

     Sayings about why men willingly go to war are many. One of the more frequently encountered sentiments, at least among those who write about warfare, is that when the bullets are flying, you don’t fight for your country, or your cause, but for “your buddies:” the men next to you, armed as you are, endangered as you are endangered, and who fear as you fear. You recognize them as fragile human beings whose lives could end at any instant. And whether consciously or not, you hope they see you the same way.

     In the wars of the Nightmare Century, most of those who went to war did so under compulsion. Today that’s less often the case. Yet even in full awareness of the potential price, innumerable thousands still sign up. I’m friends with a young woman who did so less than a year ago, and who’s already overseas, serving in a “hot zone.”

     In his movie Jack Reacher, Tom Cruise playing the title character sums up the motivations involved:

     There are four types of people who join the military. For some, it's a family trade. Others are patriots, eager to serve. Next, you have those who just need a job. Then there's the kind who want a legal means of killing other people.

     In recent decades, owing to the end of conscription, the first two motivations greatly outnumber the third and fourth. But that doesn’t imply that those men actually hope to go into combat, as General Patton would have us believe.

* * *

     The first of the great martial virtues is this one:

Strike the necessary blow, but no other.

     Contemporary American forces excel at this. They practice remarkable restraint in the use of force. They’re scrupulous about not targeting noncombatants. They’re merciful in victory; an enemy who surrenders need not fear that he’ll be killed “as a lesson to others.” While American standards aren’t observed worldwide, they are nonetheless admired by the militaries of all nations.

     The second great virtue is conditioned by the first one:

Strike decisively.

     No farting around! Determine what you must do for a swift victory and do it without hesitation or encumbrance. No firing rounds into the air. No bombing because you like explosions. Locate the enemy force, close with it, and defeat it so thoroughly that it and its political masters know and admit that they’ve been defeated.

     Much of the agony of the Vietnam War arose from “farting around.” Military theorists of the era regarded that conflict as an opportunity to test their notions, most prominent among them the idea of “sending signals with force.” Communication with the enemy during wartime is mandatory, but it’s the job of diplomats and statesmen, not of soldiers whose lives are on the line. What fraction of America’s 56,000 Vietnam War dead would have lived had the “signals” nonsense been dismissed and our field commanders ordered to strike decisively?

     Third and last among the great martial virtues is this one:

Do not shy back from what’s necessary.

     This third virtue enfolds the other two. If war is necessary, go to war. If an objective must be taken, then pay the necessary price to take it. If a blow must be struck, strike it with all necessary force, speed, and resolve. That is courage; less is cowardice – and cowardice always costs more lives than courage.

     A head of state may be wrong about whether his nation must go to war. A strategist may be wrong about whether his chosen strategy fits the contest. A field commander may be wrong about whether a particular objective must be taken. Such things can seldom be known with certainty ahead of time. That’s why we must close ranks behind them, for to deny them our sincere support would endanger our nation and our men at arms. Yes, even should the aftermath prove our involvement misguided.

     That’s another of the lessons of Vietnam. Had our politicians marshaled their courage, ignored the carping from the Left and the media, and ordered our commanders to fight the war as it needed to be fought, the Viet Cong would have been eliminated and South Vietnam would have remained free of Communist dominance. Perhaps we should not have allowed ourselves to become involved in the first place. Opinions about that remain mixed. But once we were involved, our forces should have been allowed to fight the war to a decisive victory.

     All other martial virtues – strategic wisdom; tactical daring; courage in the trenches; magnanimity in victory and realism in defeat – are derived from the great virtues above.

* * *

     It all sounds so easy when an armchair blatherer like myself discourses on it. But if great virtue were easy, it wouldn’t be rare. That’s as close to tautology as a proposition can come.

     A nation’s military exists to support the decisions of its government with force. To be effective, it must embody the martial virtues. Ours does. Because it does, even those nations that have had to surrender to us know that we can be trusted – that there will be no looting, no deliberate infliction of humiliation, no destruction for destruction’s sake, no interval for American forces to “rape, pillage, and burn.” What other nation could say the same?

     May God bless our fighting men and these United States of America.

Once In A Great While…

     …an entertainer does something that’s worth celebrating:

     Stand-up comedian Mark Normand believes in making fun of everyone, equally.
     When asked about his latest Netflix special, Normand said he wanted to be "inclusive," meaning he wanted to make fun of people from all walks of life.

     And he meant it, Gentle Reader. He included a joke about Muslims in his plan for a recent cable comedy special. One of the “platforms” on which his special is to appear was upset:

     "They go, 'Yeah, we got some bad news there. We reviewed the special again. We'd like to take out the Muslim joke.'"
     Normand explained that staff told him that the last time "a comic did a Muslim joke," they got bomb and death threats. But the 42-year-old said he refused to take it out.

     They argued back and forth. Normand broke the deadlock with a bargain:

     "OK. I don't love it, but OK. I will take it off on one condition," he recalled saying. Normand then said he told those on the call that he would only approve the social media plan if they admitted Muslims are dangerous.
     "I want you to admit on this call that they're a dangerous people. And they were like, 'What? No. What, are you crazy?' And I'm like, 'You got to admit it, or I'm keeping it, or I'm posting it.'"

     The resistance continued. The executives were apparently terrified of allowing the joke… and equally terrified of admitting why they were terrified. Could it possibly get any better?

     Normand won the throw-down:

     "You can say, 'Hey, I love this group.' But then you don't live near them. You know, we're all talk. We're all signaling. We're all virtuous, but you don't actually act that way."
     "So they admitted it," Normand said to his surprise; and while he did reveal he was "half joking" when he made his request, the comedian had a good time getting "a group of HR homos" to say, "All right, they're dangerous. We'll see you later," before hanging up the phone.

     How could anyone not be put in mind of this famous passage from Atlas Shrugged:

     "Mr. Rearden," he had said once, "if you feel you'd like to hand out more of the Metal to friends of yours—I mean, in bigger hauls—it could be arranged, you know. Why don't we apply for a special permission on the ground of essential need? I've got a few friends in Washington. Your friends are pretty important people, big businessmen, so it wouldn't be difficult to get away with the essential need dodge. Of course, there would be a few expenses. For things in Washington, You know how it is, things always occasion expenses."
     "What things?"
     "You understand what I mean."
     "No," Rearden had said, "I don't. Why don't you explain it to me?"
     The boy had looked at him uncertainly, weighed it in his mind, then come out with: "It's bad psychology."
     "What is?"
     "You know, Mr. Rearden, it's not necessary to use such words as that."
     "As what?"
     "Words are relative. They're only symbols. If we don't use ugly symbols, we won't have any ugliness. Why do you want me to say things one way, when I've already said them another?"
     "Which way do I want you to say them?"
     "Why do you want me to?"
     "For the same reason that you don't."

     Rand’s focus was primarily economic. She, who wrote at a time when the U.S. was still overwhelmingly European and Christian, would not have foreseen the tensions of today. But her novel’s various conflicts over production and trade are as applicable to today’s racial and creedal tensions as they were to the proto-fascist conditions of the postwar years.

     You cannot dispel a terror by refusing to speak of it.

A Political Fantasy For A Sunny Spring Morning

     [As I’m rather tired today, have a bit of whimsy that I posted at the old Eternity Road site on October 8, 2011. The ideas in it still tickle me – FWP]

* * *

     As one who writes frequently on political topics, I am of course given to the occasional bout of daydreaming, as in: If Fran Porretto were given the privilege of completely rewriting the American political system, how would it look?

     Most such daydreams should not be published at a family-friendly website, as they involve far too much rope and far too many lampposts. But now and then, an idea spools itself out that might...just...work...

     Much of our current trouble stems from the severe diminution of the sense of responsibility, at every level of our political structure. It's gotten worse as Washington has sucked all power and authority upward, out of the states and lesser political units, thus increasing the distance between the supposedly sovereign citizen and those who make the laws and dispose of his tax money. Representative governance, where the representatives and executives are chosen by popular vote, cannot be completely shorn of that tendency. However, it can be mitigated by reinforcing those aspects of the system that conserve responsibility and removing or weakening those aspects that reduce responsibility.

FWP's New Order Of The Ages:

     Start from the Constitution of the United States, as it stands, but with the following revisions:

     Have the Electoral College choose the president and vice-president directly, without reference to anyone's nominees. That process gave us six genuinely great chief executives in a row. It would also put a stake through the heart of the political parties, which have deserved to die for a long time now.

     Have each state legislature choose the state's Electoral College delegates, without regard to any popular vote or other criterion but the legislators' own judgment. That puts the state legislators on the spot, directly responsible for the quality of the men who assume the powers of the presidency, and gives those who choose the legislators themselves increased incentive to choose them wisely and watch them closely.

     Along with this reversion of power to the state legislatures, let's have them elect our federal legislators as well. Perhaps Congress could serve as the Electoral College; I can't see why it wouldn't, since the power to determine the president in the event of a deadlocked election rests with Congress anyway.

     But who should elect the states' legislators? Why, the counties' legislatures, of course! ("Boroughs" in Alaska; "parishes" in Louisiana.) Each county should send assemblymen to its state's assembly in proportion to the county's population, plus one state senator per county. As with the choice of electors, there should be no dependency on a popular vote or other expression of "popular sentiment."

     As for who should elect the county legislators, at this point we're close enough to the citizenry that popular elections become thinkable. America is a land of 3143 counties, which works out to about 100,000 persons per county on average. Of those 100,000, perhaps 30,000 will be qualified to vote; we'll get to the qualifications in a moment. The combinatorics of a population of that size suggest that a voter will be no more than three or four "handshakes" from direct acquaintance with a candidate. Thus, voters can be reasonably expected to learn enough about those who seek seats in the county legislature to make informed choices among them, and to be responsible for the consequences. If we blow it, we'll have no one to blame but ourselves.

     Now, the qualifications for voting for the county legislature:

1. Each voter shall be 21 years of age or older;
2. He shall have performed a minimum of two years' active service in the county police, or the state militia, or any branch of the nation's armed forces;
3. He shall reside in and own real property within the county;
4. He must not be currently incarcerated for a felony or misdemeanor.

     (Though I doubt there are any, feminist harridans in the audience should read all uses of "he" as "he or she." I have too much regard for the English language to pollute my prose with the "politically correct" but grammatically execrable forms they prefer.)

     Qualification #1 ensures a minimum degree of maturity. Qualification #2 ensures that the voter has demonstrated his concern for the commonweal by direct service to its defenses. Qualification #3 gives the voter an enduring stake in how the county is governed. Qualification #4 prevents those who have an interest in violating the law from having any opportunity to suborn it. And (hopefully) needless to say, no one shall be permitted to stand for election to the county legislature who is not also qualified to vote for it.

     But of course, along with these entirely sensible restrictions on the power of the franchise, there must be correlated restrictions on the power of the legislatures, to wit:

1. All occupants of public offices, without exception, shall be subject to recall. A majority vote of the lower house of the legislature responsible for the election of an official shall constitute a nonprejudicial removal of that official from his office. (Nonprejudicial means he may contend for that office in the future, if he chooses to do so.) In the case of county legislators, a majority vote of the county's enfranchised residents shall constitute a recall of the county legislator at issue.
2. No legislature may impose taxes on any political unit except the ones directly below it. Thus, Congress may tax the state governments, and no one else; the state governments may tax the county governments, and no one else; and the county governments may directly tax the citizenry.
3. Laws, Acts, and Bills of Appropriation shall be proposed in the lower house of a legislature only. The upper house may ratify them or vote them down, but it shall possess no power to amend them.
4. Either house of a legislature, by a two-thirds majority, may repeal any Law, Act, or Bill of Appropriation previously passed by that legislature, with no requirement for concurrence by the other house.
5. No legislature shall be permitted to delegate lawmaking or regulatory power to any other body, whether elected or appointed; all laws and regulations binding on anyone shall be debated and voted on by the appropriate legislature in open session, in all their particulars.
6. There shall be harsh statutory penalties, written explicitly into the Constitution of the United States and the subsidiary charters of the states and counties, for legislators and executives who propose, vote, or act to violate the explicit terms of the Constitution or any subsidiary charter to which they have sworn fidelity.
7. A Bill of Particulars, filed by a member of the legislature responsible for the election of an official, if approved by a majority vote of the lower house of that legislature, shall impeach the official so accused and compel him to stand trial before the upper house of that legislature. A two-thirds majority of the upper house shall be sufficient for removal from office; a three-fourths majority shall be required for the imposition of the relevant criminal penalties. No person removed from office under this procedure shall henceforth be eligible for any office of public trust, at any level.

     Now you're looking at real federalism. Let's have some opinions!

Regaining Peace

     Have a little something to pin your outrage meter:

This young black girl attacked, then k*IIed a McDonald's employee over the employee accidentally putting onions on her burger.

A person lost their lives because this savage animal couldn’t communicate that she didn’t want onions on a burger. pic.twitter.com/HacaG4whp0

— Liberacrat™️ (@ViralVideos) March 23, 2026

     Murder over onions! We’ve reached a new nadir in social relations. I’ve no idea of the race of the victim, but does that really matter?

     It’s not possible for anyone to concoct a defense of such behavior. But of course, the ever-vociferous defenders of black savagery will try to defend it anyway. Probably with something about “the N-word.”

     The apologists for “chimping out” behavior have a slightly easier time:

This is absolute hell on earth.

- No social decorum
- Loud
- Violent
- No respect for authority
- Incompatible with civilized society

I completely understand segregation now and why Americans didn’t want it to end.

Someone should run on it. It would have my vote.

You? pic.twitter.com/wTSzuWpdQs

— Amiri King (@AmiriKing) March 24, 2026

     “It’s just high spirits.” “They were celebrating.” “Nobody got hurt.” And of course, “It’s racist to criticize it.” But what if the crowd of revelers were White and the critic were black? Then we would be told this:

“Black women CANNOT BE RACIST to white women…are you kidding me?”

Ummmm….anyone wanna tell her? pic.twitter.com/p04FVdWtK5

— Ashley (TeamTrump47) (@TeamTrump47) March 23, 2026

     I have acquaintances who struggle over these things. They’re desperate to believe that it’s not a racial difference. The racial correlation must be explained away. But how? The usual fallback is “culture:”

We can't even have nice hotels anymore.

Shalonda and Shakeesha assault a police officer after he tries to break up a hotel squabble between 7 or 8 reprobates.

How do we fix this violent culture? pic.twitter.com/pS282rgTZ6

— Shane (@shane7777ssss) March 23, 2026

     He who asks “But aren’t we all immersed in the same culture?” will usually be dismissed with the usual denunciation (“Racist!”). That’s just the way it goes, these days.

     Smart Whites are done with trying to civilize the uncivil. We’re also done with excuses like “systemic racism” and “the legacy of slavery.” Now all we hope for is peace.

* * *

     How do American Whites get peace when our environment is permeated by savages? I suppose we could exterminate them, but that’s a distasteful prospect. All that rotting flesh… no, there must be an alternative.

     Time was, the prescription was segregation. They have their part of town and we have ours; they have their businesses and we have ours; they have their institutions and accommodations, and we have ours. It worked reasonably well. Yes, there were still occasional violent incidents and spells of “acting up.” But judged by the standard of peace, it was preferable to what we endure today.

     Legally, bringing it back would be next to impossible. Practically, the degree of interpenetration of the races makes it a challenge. Yet it’s already happening. New, all-White enclaves are being formed, often by older Whites and usually in less populated areas. Many of them, though not all, are also all-Christian.

     When blacks attempt to move into such an enclave, they soon find that it’s not possible. No one will sell or rent to them. Cries of “racism!” change nothing, for the residents are all private persons who cannot be compelled to sell. No cooperative complex or homeowners’ association was ever more stringent in its admissions policy.

     There are problems, of course. Municipal police, regulators, and zoning boards are hostile to such communities. Ambitious politicians use them as whipping boys when “on the stump.” They’re sometimes targeted by black racial activists. Yet they remain attractive for what they offer: peace and public order.

     Niven and Pournelle’s Oath of Fealty offered a vision of such a community, albeit without racial segregation. While their depiction had many virtues, a single-race arcology of that sort would undoubtedly be targeted for abortion while in its planning stage. It would need too many approvals from too many local and regional authorities.

     And as I write this, I find myself looking toward the sky. Toward Luna and beyond.

* * *

     Please don’t think too harshly of me, Gentle Reader. I’m old. The old are more desirous of peace than the young. I sense that many other older Whites feel the same as do I. It’s very hard for us to get peace in any quantity, these days.

     To any younger readers: please imagine a state of society in which older Whites who’ve “made their piles” elect to relocate to some airless planetoid rather than endure the Sturm und Drang of our ever more violent and disorderly Earthside environment. Think about what it would signify that we would rather render ourselves inaccessible to you – and you inaccessible to us, of course – than remain exposed to race-based crime and chaos. Are you really so sure that “solidarity” with “our black brothers” is worth losing touch with us? Think of how hard it is to find a babysitter these days. (Never mind what they charge.)

     That’s all. I’m tapped out for the present. Do have a nice day.

Demonstrator

     [A short story for you today. As it’s Passion Sunday, on which Catholics read from the Gospel of John about Jesus’s final miracle before He went to Jerusalem, I thought a related tale might be appropriate.
     This story first appeared at the V2.0 site, now defunct, on March 26, 2023 – FWP.]

***

     The last of his perceptions dimmed and winked out. He found himself without sensation of any sort, not even that of his own weight. Though his eyes were open, they saw nothing. His ears registered no slightest sound. His senses of smell, taste, and touch were equally idle. It gave him a eerie sense of displacement, as if he were floating in an ocean that had no water. Yet not even the gentle motions of such a body, stirred by sun, wind, and tide, could he feel.
     But he remained aware. The thought stream that had bedeviled him continued unbroken.
     What place is this?
     Am I not to face judgment?
     He could still detect the passage of time. What meaning has time, in the complete absence of sensations, material things, and the events that accompany them? How would one measure it?
     Yet he had not ended. He persisted. The sequence of his thoughts continued, unbroken by death.
     Therefore there is more.
     I will wait. What else I can do, after all?
     A soundless reply, words without volume or timbre, arrived in his consciousness.
     Reflect.
     It startled him, jolted him into a new plane of consciousness.
     Is it You, my God?
     Again the reply was undeniable, though it transcended perception.
     I am what I am.
     It stilled him, turned his thoughts back upon themselves.
     To persist is to have significance. I have a destiny to fulfill. Yet afloat in this void, I have no way to seek it out or embark upon it. What, then?
     The reply was the same.
     Reflect.
     He did so.
     I cannot act. Yet I persist. Therefore, I am to be acted upon. But how?
     No answer came to him.
     Could this be punishment for my sins? Helplessness as the penalty for squandering my life? But did I truly squander it? I worked. I prayed. I did my best for my loved ones. Surely those were not sins.
     Still nothing.
     Perhaps I do not understand sin.
     He examined the course of his life, straining to remember its details down to the smallest minutiae. He found a few peccadillos, but nothing against the Commandments or what they implied. He slowly became convinced that, in that timeless place where his thoughts continued to flow, he did indeed await a destiny yet to be fulfilled…but that his future lay in the hands of another.
     I am to be used.
     The idea might have brought resentment, but it did not.
     If I can be used, then despite my death I have worth. It will not be my own deeds that fulfill that destiny, but the deeds of another.
     With that thought there came a mighty roaring. Insubstantial forces seized and held him. Power unfathomed by men had massed around him and taken him up for use. His ponderings ceased and were replaced by an ecstatic peace.
     Let all be as it must be.
     He sensed rather than heard the words of his liberation spoken.
     LAZARUS, COME FORTH!
     And it was so.

#

     “Did you sleep, brother?” Martha said.
     He shook his head. “I rested, but I was aware. How long…?”
     Her face spasmed. “Four days.”
     “It did not seem so.”
     “We feared that he might fail,” she said. “That you would be lost to us.”
     He shook his head. “He has never failed, sister.”
     “Did you…expect it?”
     “Not at all. I knew only that…something awaited. That I had an unfulfilled destiny, but that it was not mine to initiate it.” He smiled. “I realized that I would be used for a task of which I was not capable.”
     “And it was so,” Martha said. “Many came to believe today. Many who had been skeptical even knowing of his other deeds.”
     Lazarus nodded. “I among them.” His heart filled afresh with joy and peace. “What an honor, to be used thus!”
     Martha bowed her head.

==<O>==

     Copyright © 2023 Francis W. Porretto. All rights reserved worldwide.

***

     May God bless and keep you all.

Rest In Peace, Chuck Norris

     I can’t quite believe it. Chuck Norris, the martial arts legend and hero to millions, has lost a match – to the Grim Reaper! Incredible. The man was still in fighting trim in his eighties. No black-cloaked buffoon toting a scythe should have stood a chance against him.

     But there it is. Norris passed away at the age of 86 from an undisclosed sudden illness. The world is a sadder place for his departure from it.

     Let us enumerate some of his many achievements in remembrance:

• Death once had a near-Chuck-Norris experience.
• Chuck Norris doesn't read books. He stares them down until he gets the information he wants.
• Time waits for no man. Unless that man is Chuck Norris.
• When the Boogeyman goes to bed, he checks his closet for Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris can slam a revolving door.
• Chuck Norris doesn't sleep. He waits.
• Chuck Norris' tears cure cancer. Too bad he has never cried.
• Chuck Norris counted to infinity—twice.
• When Chuck Norris does push-ups, he isn't lifting himself up—he's pushing the Earth down.
• Chuck Norris can divide by zero.
• Chuck Norris can hear sign language.
• Chuck Norris doesn't wear a watch. He decides what time it is.
• When Chuck Norris enters a room, he doesn't turn the lights on—he turns the dark off.
• The flu gets a Chuck Norris shot every year.
• Chuck Norris can build a snowman out of rain.
• Chuck Norris doesn't dial the wrong number. You pick up the wrong phone.
• Chuck Norris has a grizzly bear carpet in his room. The bear isn't dead—it's just afraid to move.
• Chuck Norris' cowboy boots are made from real cowboys.
• Fear of spiders is called arachnophobia. Fear of Chuck Norris is called logic.
• Chuck Norris once kicked a horse in the chin. Its descendants are now known as giraffes.
• Chuck Norris can cook minute rice in 30 seconds.
• There is no theory of evolution, just a list of creatures Chuck Norris allows to live.
• Chuck Norris can do a wheelie on a unicycle.
• Chuck Norris doesn't play hide and seek. He plays hide and pray I don't find you.
• Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.
• Chuck Norris can speak Braille.
• Chuck Norris can make a Happy Meal cry.
• Aliens are real. They're just afraid to come to Earth because Chuck Norris lives here.
• Chuck Norris can strangle you with a cordless phone.
• Chuck Norris can win a staring contest with his eyes closed.
• Chuck Norris' roundhouse kick is so powerful it can be seen from space by the naked eye.
• Chuck Norris once won a game of Connect Four in three moves.
• Chuck Norris can unscramble an egg.
• Chuck Norris can drown a fish.
• Chuck Norris can delete the Recycle Bin.
• Chuck Norris can clap with one hand.
• Chuck Norris can make onions cry.
• Chuck Norris doesn't age—he levels up.
• Chuck Norris can win at solitaire with real cards.
• Chuck Norris' calendar goes straight from March 31st to April 2nd. No one fools Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris can start a fire with an ice cube.
• Chuck Norris doesn't do refunds. You do.
• Chuck Norris can microwave popcorn by staring at it.
• Chuck Norris can sneeze with his eyes open.
• Chuck Norris doesn't vacuum. He scares the dirt away.
• Chuck Norris can hear sign language over the phone.
• Chuck Norris doesn't spell-check. Words conform to him.
• Chuck Norris can cut through a hot knife with butter.
• Chuck Norris can parallel park in two moves.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need a GPS. Locations report to him.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need sleep—he recharges by staring at the sun.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need food. Food needs Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need a belt. Gravity submits to him.
• Chuck Norris can make a campfire with wet wood and attitude.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need a parachute. Gravity is afraid to pull him down.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need Wi-Fi. The internet connects to him.
• Chuck Norris can solve a Rubik's Cube by staring at it.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need a map. Maps need Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need oxygen. Oxygen needs Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris can make a mime talk.
• Chuck Norris can make a ghost haunt itself.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need a mirror. Mirrors reflect what he allows.
• Chuck Norris can make lightning ask for permission.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need a shadow. Shadows follow him.
• Chuck Norris doesn't need luck. Luck needs Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris can roundhouse kick the future into the past.
• Chuck Norris doesn't tell jokes. Jokes tell Chuck Norris.
• Chuck Norris doesn't cheat death. He wins fair and square.

     Chuck, you’re already being missed. Rest in Peace, old warrior.

Creating Your Own Problems

     Good morning, Gentle Reader. Happy Vernal Equinox (traditional). Wherever you are in this blessed land, I hope you’ll enjoy beautiful spring weather today, because I won’t. Here on the World’s Largest Piece of Terminal Moraine, it’s predicted to be overcast and damp all day. Bummer.

     I’ve come reluctantly to the conclusion that, with the notable exception of the Gentle Readers of Liberty’s Torch, people are pretty BLEEP!ing stupid. They’re nearly always the source of their own miseries. They overspend and then complain about being broke. They cloister themselves and then complain about having no friends or social life. They try to drive North-South on East-West roads, get smacked up, and then complain about “careless drivers” and high insurance premiums.

     The enveloping diagnosis for this malady is “It’s Someone Else’s Fault” syndrome. Given its prevalence, I have no doubt that you’ve observed it in someone you know. There’ve been days when I’ve imagined it everywhere.

     That may be because it really is everywhere.

* * *

     A brief vignette: Many years ago I had a coworker whom I shall henceforward refer to as “old Ray,” because that’s how he was known around the office. “Old Ray” couldn’t be bothered about things the rest of us regarded as the basic requirements of courtesy, such as tossing trash in a trash can rather than on the floor. He was a well-respected senior engineer, but so heedless of his surroundings that he created chaos for the rest of us.

     In particular, “old Ray” regularly failed to check whether the coffeemaker had ended its cycle before grabbing the carafe and filling his mug. He created many messes in this fashion. I, being a snotty little shit, upbraided him for it one day when his proclivity had left a large puddle of coffee on the floor of our office. He took umbrage, and a shouting match ensued. Management intervened before blows could be struck.

     I was taken aside and admonished for the incident. I’d “created the problem,” you see. “Everyone” knew that we had to make allowances for “old Ray.” I asked whether management was aware of the effect on the rest of us, and was answered with a “what can you do” shrug. I went back to my own labors shaking my head.

     It got me a reputation as a boat rocker. “Be careful around Fran,” the office gospel ran, “He says things.” Never mind that I was also the one who “does things,” such as solving others’ intractable problems and cleaning up after “old Ray;” that was deemed immaterial.

     I realized then that the rest of us were fated to clean up after “old Ray” until his retirement date should arrive. Management policy had deemed the status quo preferable to an uproar. Given that consensus, I, who’d evoked an uproar, was “the problem.” We’d been doomed to trash tossed aside in hallways and regular puddles on the floor.

     No, I didn’t stay there very long.

* * *

     Why am I exercised about this particular subject, you ask? Because few have grasped a simple fact of life in society:

Politics is not the source of solutions,
But of burdens, dissatisfactions, and disharmony.

     A private problem can be mitigated or solved by private means. A politicized problem becomes everyone’s problem. It draws the State into the matter and compels everyone to “take a side.” Such an expansion of the scope of the problem creates several things:

• Resentment among the unwillingly involved;
• Hard feelings between those who disagree about the matter;
• An opportunity for the State to expand its powers, which it will surely exploit.

     As if further irony were required, it also lessens the feeling of responsibility among those who did the politicizing. Now that it’s “everyone’s problem,” they can sit back while “everybody” – meaning the State, of course – does whatever will be done about it, good, bad, or indifferent.

     It’s madness, but it’s everywhere. “The personal is political!” shout the rabble-rousers of the Left. That means the end of privacy – the end of private action in response to private problems. It means that we must wait upon the State for the remediation of what displeases us. Finally, it means those who disapprove of you, whatever the reason, can bludgeon you into complying with their preferences. Assuming they can assemble a local preponderance of force, that is.

     I’m not going to thrash this into the magma layer. I just needed a moment to vent about… well, about “things as they are,” including ordinary people’s lack of resistance to the politicization of what should be private matters handled privately. We keep getting sucked into it, when a moment’s consideration should make it plain that politicizing an “issue” nearly always makes it worse.

     For the love of God, stop politicizing petty shit! Stop trying to compel others to conform to your preferences! Accept human variation as long as it does you no harm. If you find it intolerable, either wall it off, or move away from it and build a wall around yourself.

     See also this old tirade. And do have a nice day.

The Last Bastion

     There are days when I oscillate between black despair and a degree of fury so murderous that I can only thank God that I’m too old and frail to act on it. Today is one such day.

     Get a load of this:

     THE FACE OF EVIL.
     This is Alice Mann. She's responsible for the bill a senate committee passed yesterday that would MANDATE MMR vaccination for All kids in MN.
     No exceptions. Even for homeschool.
     This is Effectively saying: vaccination or jail.
     This woman wants to strap down children & inject them w/severely undertested, Big Pharma GMO concoctions directly into their veins...whether parents agree or not.
     That's evil. An authoritarian overreach & body violation so severe, it should make any human being shudder with disgust.
     It goes against the very thing America stands for & holds dear: Freedom.
     Pro tip: If you want people to vaccinate...make your product safer, test it properly, & educate us on why we should do it.
     Do not force it. You evil, evil woman.
     Personally, I don't trust Big Pharma & won't poison my kids. Especially for a natural infection w/a ~100% survival rate, & can be managed naturally.
     So anyway. Anyone know a good state to move to? (I live in MN 😭)

     Minnesota – its legislature, at least – has decided that the Fourth Amendment doesn’t apply to its juvenile residents. Granted that a state that could elect a mannequin like Tim Walz Governor has a collective screw loose, this still goes beyond anything I’ve seen from the Land of 10,000 Lakes to date.

     It might pass legal muster, albeit barely, were this requirement to be applied solely to children enrolled in a “public” school. But to make it unconditional and sweeping is a defiance of the Fourth Amendment’s guarantee of bodily autonomy.

     I’ve ranted before about the power of small groups with narrowly focused agendas. It’s old news; I shan’t do so again this morning. But a passing mention of the incredible power they can wield would not be out of place. The medical-products community is such a group. Apparently the reaction against the mandatory application of vaccines, brought on by the insanity of the COVID-19 debacle, has provoked vaccine vendors to a counterattack. Minnesota, its government having already gone fully anti-individual rights, was a well-chosen entry point.

     Blue-state legislatures throughout America will note this and emulate it – not because of the horror of mumps and rubella or unbounded faith in vaccines, but because bodily privacy is the last bastion of individual rights. If an individual’s physical corpus is not his own, with the right of arbitrary and absolute exclusion that accompanies the right of property, then nothing can be one’s own. Force becomes the sole standard.

     I have no doubt that those who favor this execrable measure will defend it on the grounds of “precedent” and “public health.” But that merely strengthens the indictment of the concept of “public health.” What is it? On what grounds have “medical authorities” been granted an enforceable easement into our children’s bodies? And if it can be defended in the case of school-age children, how would it not apply to all of us, from the cradle to the grave?

     I can feel myself about to start frothing at the mouth, so I’ll close now. Have a nice day.

Our Invisible Servants

     Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, Gentle Reader! As befits one who has “green blood,” here at the Fortress it’s a day of celebration. Bet you didn’t know that Patrick was born in Scotland, kidnapped by Irish raiders, and sold as a slave to a Druid priest. Or that missionaries he ordained were deemed responsible for converting much of Europe to Christianity. But that’s why Patrick is considered high in the Church’s hagiography.

     However, I’m not here to rhapsodize about ol’ Paddy. I’ve been thinking about what most of us take for granted nearly all the time. We hardly ever see it. We almost never think about it. Yet it makes our lives possible and pleasant… until it doesn’t.

     On Sunday evening, the Fortress suffered a “backup.” Water that was intended to run down the kitchen sink drain and thence to the cesspool came back up through the shower drain instead. Very unpleasant. But one doesn’t call a plumber on Sunday, especially after 6:00 PM.

     Monday dawned bright and early. Thank God, Roto-Rooter of Long Island was answering its phone. By 9:00 AM, a tech was here to deal with the problem – and what a problem it was! A significant segment of outfall pipe had clogged so completely that water could no longer pass through it. To compound the damage, that pipe – originally installed in 1959 when the house was built – was close to rotting through. The tech had to take down a piece of wall, cut into the pipe, remove and replace it. He managed it, and before 11 AM, at that. Moreover, he put the wall back up and cleaned up after himself. I wanted to applaud.

     No, it wasn’t cheap. $1500! But that’s the sort of thing one faces when plumbing from 1959 goes bad.

     But it got me thinking about our invisible servants. Plumbing is certainly one such. When it’s working more or less to specification, there’s no reason to think about it. When it fails, as ours did Sunday evening, we start to froth at the mouth. We don’t thank the failed parts for their service as they’re hauled away. Then there’s the cost, about which let no more be said here.

     Plumbing. Heating systems. Floor joists. The foundation itself. The roof overhead. All doing what they were designed to do, continuously, whether or not we take notice. Until they don’t, of course. Then the swearing begins.

     I steeled myself and said a prayer of gratitude. I gave thanks for them all, and promised that I would henceforth try not to take them for granted. I also gave thanks that I could afford the repairs. And I think I’ll be doing more of that in the future.

     God didn’t provide those things to us directly, of course. Rather, He equipped generations of men with the imagination to conceive of them, the skills to design them, the power to fabricate and install them, and – insert extra thanks here – the talent required to diagnose and repair them when they fail. Those men are the “proximate causes” for our invisible servants and why they serve us so faithfully for such long stretches of time. They too deserve our gratitude, even if we have no idea of their names, faces, or the lives they led.

     Other men with talents other than ours are gifts to us. The division-of-labor economy that makes their specialties viable is a gift, as well. The free market economy that smoothly provides them in the necessary quantities is beneath it all, of course… and let’s give special thanks that the Big Parasite (you know what I’m talking about), for all its attempts, hasn’t yet managed to destroy that completely.

     No, it’s not cheap. Neither the products nor the services come to us for free. But let’s also give thanks that, with a few pitiable exceptions, we can afford both to purchase them and to service them when they fail us. That, too, is a gift, for who among us, were he transported to North Korea, Cambodia, Burma, or Laos, would be able to maintain an American standard of living and all the servants that go with it?

     Enough of that for now. My cesspool service has just arrived. I must brace myself for his exactions. If the week continues in this vein, I expect to be bankrupt by this coming Sunday. Pray for me. When you’re finished giving thanks for your plumbing et cetera, that is.

The Seining

     This question is being raised ever more often:

     As I’m one who both reads and writes science fiction, this is often on my mind. Granted that “you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find a prince,” the problem can’t be reduced solely to sifting through the massive heaps of SF being published annually. The science fiction genre has always known great internal variety.

     The origins of SF brought us both gee-whizzy stuff and thoughtful explorations of all kinds of questions. Consider two of the earliest SF writers: Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. These men both wrote SF, but their aims were radically different.

     Verne wrote about marginally imaginable adventures and possibilities, with a focus on the “gee-whiz” factor. If you’ve read his stuff, you can see that at once: From The Earth To The Moon, 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea, Master Of The World, and so forth were aimed to dazzle the reader with possibilities that were out of reach when Verne wrote. (Yes, some of them remain so today.)

     By contrast, Wells, a historian by inclination, was much more concerned with societies. His books The First Men in the Moon, The Island of Dr. Moreau, and War of the Worlds invoked pseudoscience to make possible an examination of how people behave, and how societies are transformed, when disturbed by something unprecedented.

     So even at its origin, the science fiction genre knew some internal variety. Yet for reasons beyond the scope of this screed, SF in English was dominated by Gee-Whizzers – with emphasis on space opera and time travel – until the emergence of a single, seminal figure: Robert A. Heinlein.

     Heinlein has been called “the dean of science fiction,” with great justice. He was the first to meld the speculative bent of the Gee-Whizzers and the probing orientation of the Social Analysts with deep characterization and graceful style. To read his pre-1970 novels for the first time is to touch a priceless treasure. The initiate is often overwhelmed by that first acquaintance, in a “Where have you been all my life?” sort of fashion. Even his juveniles, such as Time For The Stars, Citizen of the Galaxy, and Tunnel In The Sky are packed with insights into the psychodynamics of both individuals and societies.

     From Heinlein and several of his near contemporaries (e.g., Isaac Asimov) flowered ever-newer strains of SF. They improved steadily over the years, broadening their outlook as they refined their storytelling powers. No, they weren’t entirely consistent. Then as now, it was what a publisher believed he could sell that determined what would reach the SF reader. Sometimes, a writer whose income was primarily from his stories would feel forced to pander to the devotees of some particular sub-genre. Some had to turn out lowbrow romances; others had to write porn. There were also some “dry spells” during which a large fraction of the SF reading community felt under-served; the “New Wave” period is part of that. Yet today’s SF writer is typically a considerably better writer and storyteller than those of a century ago.

     All the same, he might not write what you want to read.

* * *

     Selecting among writers requires more delving than was once the case. The space-opera buffs don’t want the sociological studies. The time-travel aficionados shrug aside the post-apocalyptic stories. As the varieties multiply, the job gets harder.

     There’s also the related problem of auctorial sensibility. A writer’s values come through his stories no matter how hard he tries. If the reader has important differences with those values, it won’t matter how well told are the writer’s stories. Thus a freedom advocate like your humble Curmudgeon cannot abide socialists such as Octavia Butler or Kim Stanley Robinson. Nor would a hard-driven atheist, violently allergic to any treatment of the supernatural or the spiritual, be able to stomach novels such as these, these, or these. (And that will be my only plug for my own crap.)

     This is a subject in which reviewers could play an important part. Amazon reviews can make or break a writer. But seldom do reviewers spend many pixels on the writer’s sensibility. If his values powerfully shape his stories, reviewers should mention that – and them. But it doesn’t happen often.

     To sum up: the reader must seine diligently among the tens of thousands of SF writers currently publishing to find the kind of material that will please him. It’s a chore, but it’s in service to one’s own satisfaction with the entertainment he selects. And do please review! It’s a service to other potential readers. Also, it’s sometimes invaluable as a catharsis after finishing a novel that proved not to be to one’s taste.

Closets

     Happy Ides of March, Gentle Readers. For some, it wasn’t day to celebrate. But, coming right in between Friday the 13th, Pi Day, John 3:16 Day, and Saint Patrick’s Day, I feel it deserves mention at the very least. But who wants to read about that sort of thing? Onward to today’s reflections on misadventures past and present.

     Yesterday and the day before, I spent assembling… drum roll, please… customer-assembled furniture. That’s never a happy occasion around here; if you’ve done any of it yourself, you’ll know why. But the C.S.O. decreed that “we need more storage space.” This, after filling all my closets and cabinets and a 2000-square-foot basement, to boot. Well, needs must and all that. So I bought two knock-together cabinets from Amazon and suffered through the sequel.

     But it gave me cause to reflect on one of the signal differences between the sexes. I am utterly convinced that when Ug came back to his cave after a long day of mammoth-hunting, Mrs. Ug, after berating him about not leaving his antelope thighbone at the entrance, would thereafter declaim that they – meaning she — needed more storage space.

     Before the C.S.O., my house was relatively spacious. I had five closets, and none of them were much occupied. The basement was vast, empty, and tranquil; I would occasionally practice my roller skating down there. I did not foresee that once we mated, that would no longer be the case. Beth took all that emptiness as a personal challenge.

     The Fortress is quite full now. All of it: the living spaces, the closets, the basement, my barn, and the shed I purchased last spring. I didn’t fill it up. I assure you of that. I had almost nothing to do with it, except for paying the bills. My part is to fetch things from top shelves, pry things out of overfilled cabinets, and trip over the dogs.

     Men don’t do this sort of thing. We have our necessities and our luxuries, of course. For some, it’s books, or records; for others, it’s guns, or skiing gear, or fishing tackle. But give us a spacious home with ample closets and it tends to stay that way.

     (Gentlemen: This is why, should you marry a woman who already has her own home, you should insist that she keep it. You should also insist that she give you a key to it. That way, when she moves all her crap into your home, you’ll have somewhere to retreat. Trust me on this; the alternative is an RV in the back yard, and she’d fill that just as swiftly.)

     For the majority of women, security seems to mean possessions. A case of the worst sort will heap her things up around her until she can no longer see the walls. But even a relatively sane woman (5 to 7 crazy at most – cf. this handy reference) will completely fill the available space, and will constantly hector you about “that pile of junk you keep for no good reason.”

     So now we have two brand new cabinets, totaling forty cubic feet of storage… and one of them is already full and the C.S.O. has plans for the second one. I, for lack of an alternative, must just sit back and watch. But I plan to put a deadbolt lock on the door to my tiny closet. I’ve caught my sweetie glancing covetously in its direction a little too often lately.

     What’s that you ask? No, she doesn’t have a key to the gun safe, either. And she never will. But I have more than one reason for that.

     Have a nice day.

What We Walked Away From

     I was going to take today off – I built “customer-assembled furniture” yesterday – but when I encountered the following, I knew I’d have to write about it:

     Imagine how your life as a woman could be without the influence of feminism -
     You grow up with married parents. They stay together through thick and thin and work to keep their marriage harmonious because divorce was never an option.
     You have a big tight-knit family with several brothers and sisters.
     Your mother and grandmother teach you how to be a great homemaker, and you get married in your late teens or early 20s. You never have to waste any time in college or go into debt for a useless degree.
     Your parents and extended family helped you find a great husband who provides for you and your children. Your marriage also lasts a lifetime and divorce is never on the table.
     You're head-over-heels in love with your husband because you never became jaded by going through a string of romances and heartbreaks before you met him. Your parents taught you to date with purpose and find someone who was compatible by asking the right questions before getting emotionally attached, and taught you to save sex for marriage so you never got used by men who didn't want to marry you.
     All the women in your family are also housewives and the older women visit you often and help you with your children and housework, so you're never overwhelmed with motherhood when your children are young.
     All the women in your neighborhood are housewives too, so you're friends with many of the women in your neighborhood and get together with their families often.
     None of the kids in your family ever step foot in a daycare center or public school. You have an unbreakable bond with your parents, grandparents, and children.
     No one in your family ever steps foot in a nursing home because everyone is taken care of by family in their older years.

     Please think about it for a minute or two. Then come back here.

* * *

     The sexual revolution was the only one known to history in which everyone lost.

     Time was, I thought it contained a healthful element: a liberation of sorts. Even today, I’m unable to disavow that idea completely. But it went badly wrong. Our posterity had better study it and learn from it.

     It wasn’t just one thing, either. There were a lot of flaws in the ideas of the Sixties and early Seventies. They flowed together and became a huge wave that’s crashed down upon us. What we styled “liberation” became the casting-off of all restraint, including the restraints of humility and good sense. They were slowed by the AIDS panic of the late Seventies and Eighties, but when it became clear that AIDS was pretty much a disease of homosexuals and intravenous drug users, they came roaring back at full speed.

     We ruined ourselves for one another. We became untrustworthy, calculators and sensualists with little regard for what our forebears had learned from theirs. What better things we had within us, we cast out as impediments to the pursuit of pleasure.

     We ruined ourselves. Then we went on to ruin our children.

     I’m glad you can’t see me just now.

* * *

     Strange things have come about because of our heedlessness and crudity. I could go into gruesome details, but I’m not up to that this morning. Consider yourself spared a litany of a sort you’ve seen from me before. (Feel free to thank the customer-assembled furniture I spent yesterday assembling.) But I will mention one thing that’s become unpleasantly obvious, to me at least.

     Very young women on social media are actively pursuing much older men. That includes men in their sixties and seventies. Men who are firmly married. Yes, men like me.

     This was almost unknown two or three decades ago. It’s not completely unprecedented – there have always been fortune hunters among both sexes – but they were both uncommon and disdained. To compound the ironies, these young women seem largely uninterested in money or status. They want old men because… drum roll, please… we’re old!

     No doubt some of my coevals preen themselves over this new phenomenon. Some probably exploit those young women as shamelessly as any young rake. But when the face in the mirror looks like something that sleeps under a bridge and the body beneath it makes the numbers on the bathroom scale spin like the wheels of a slot machine, complete with jackpot bells, you can’t kid yourself.

     So why? What makes us their preferred targets?

* * *

     There’s a known, well understood tendency among older men to idealize “the good old days.” For most of us, what we’re lamenting is our lost youth and what it enabled us to do. But some of today’s laments have another genesis. They’re for times when things were simpler, when we could believe that we had some grasp of “how things work.” And while that, too, might be an idealization, it’s surely something men of all ages would value.

     The typical man of middle to late years can’t fool himself that he knows “how things work.” He’s had all such pretensions beaten out of him. (That process kills some, embitters others, and turns still others into curmudgeons.) In particular, he’s aware that he doesn’t grasp contemporary relations between the sexes. But just four or five decades ago…

     Never mind. I know how tiresome this sort of thing can get. Besides, I have some sprucing-up to do. I have a lunch date! It’s a young woman who just moved to Long Island. She wants to talk to me about what life was like in the Sixties. It’s as good a reason to get out of the house as any, don’t you think?

     Have a nice day.