Wednesday, December 30, 2020

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow

I don't think anyone's really going to miss the end of 2020, do you? In retrospect, the omens were there for anyone to see, with so many people talking about it being the start of a "New Roaring 20s,"* and we all know how that turned out: the aftermath of the Great War introduced a spiritual nihilism, prohibition, the first sexual revolution, massive labor unrest, the rise of Marxism, the Great Depression, and finally—a decade later—a second world war that included the Holocaust and culminated in the introduction of nuclear weapons and the start of the Cold War. 

*Not to be confused with the TV series of the same name. We could have used Dorothy Provine this year.

And now here we are, one year later, and the first year of the new Roaring 20s has given us the worst twelve months since, what? 2001? 1968? 1941? It doesn't matter, I guess, except in degrees. It's like asking whether you'd rather have your skull smashed or your heart torn out. No matter which one you choose, it's gonna hurt. I know there are people out there who think 2021 will be a better year, and you can't blame them for that hope. Hey, I hope it's better, too. 

In a way, New Year's provides us with a choice, a fork in the road. One path continues the status quo, the other leads to something new, different, uncertain. Sure, this may be symbolic more than anything else; after all, you don't need to wait for a new year to start to make decisions about your future. Seeing that date 1/1 does make things so much easier, though.

The Monsters
I suppose this last essay of 2020 serves as something of a "best of" for the blog; over the past year, I've written several times about the foreboding nature of 2020, of those prescient movies and television shows that seem to reflect in their black-and-white images the nightmarish visions of today; paranoia, people ratting on their neighbors, the dehumanizing isolation into which so many have been fooled or forced. From 1984 to "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street" we see it all unfolding before us. The scientists in the Outer Limits episode "The Architects of Fear" assumed they had the answer, if only the right question is asked, but found out that they knew nothing at all. It is, indeed, Apocalypse Theater, and every time you see this rerun on TV you wonder how it can be happining, whether or not this Great Reset is in fact a Great Betrayal, and you want to cry out, in David Shoemaker's words, You told us this was fake. You lied!   

Tomorrow at midnight, another year joins the pantheon of history, and there are those out there who think that we're headed for some kind of epiphany in which this brave new world will take care of everything. To say that I'm apprehensive about the future is an understatement; 2020 looks to me like it was just the prelude to a complete meltdown: soft totalitarianism, social credit systems, elections that don't count, unending constraints on basic social interaction, globalists who want to control what we can and can't think and say and believe, wars and rumors of war—from biological to civil—and you can't even face them with a smile, because nobody'll see it behind your mask. 

It only takes Two
But then, there are those two paths I talked about, and invariably the stories from Apocalypse Theater offer us that moment of choice, when disaster can be averted, when our leaders pull their fingers away from the button at the last moment. Perhaps, a la Jack Benny in the TV version of The Horn Blows at Midnight, we'll have a little angelic intervention on our behalf. And, of course, we haven't even begun to discuss that other popular genre, the post-apocalyptic story. In the Twilight Zone episode "Two," it is suggested that humans (in the form of Charles Bronson and Elizabeth Montgomery) can, after all, come together to create a hopeful future: true, that's only after the war has been fought, but at least there's a future, and that's something to hang on to. I always like to think that, in a twist on the old saying, where there's hope, there's life.

          There would have been a time for such a word.
          — Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
          Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
          To the last syllable of recorded time;
          And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
          The way to dusty death.

Tomorrow night we say "Good Riddance!" to 2020 and look forward to 2021, but we'd better be careful what we wish for.

Friday, December 25, 2020

Merry Christmas!


This is not an add for Coke, which produced the product, but Vendo, which made the machine that kept the product cold. What a wonderful, vivid ad, and a great way to wish a Merry Christmas to you all!

Thursday, December 24, 2020

The 24 Days of Ad-vent, 2020: Day 24


Plymouth rocks! Seriously, there's just something very, very inviting about this ad. Perhaps it's the vividness of the colors, the red rug in the entryway, the wreath hanging on the front door and the red decorations hanging down from the walls. Maybe it's the arms laden with gifts on what probably is Christmas Eve. The holly inserted in various parts of the frame. Whatever, it's an evocative tableau—especially this year, when we're not supposed to travel or get together with family and friends or do any of the other things that reinforce our humanity and bring joy to others. Maybe next year—if they'll let us.

Monday, December 21, 2020

The 24 Days of Ad-vent, 2020: Day 21


Anthropomorphized bears apart, I enjoy ads like this because they remind me of when we were allowed to socialize at Christmastime. Or any time of the year, for that matter.

Sunday, December 20, 2020

The 24 Days of Ad-vent, 2020: Day 20


Ah, those were the days, back when we were allowed to have parties and get together with other households.

Saturday, December 19, 2020

The 24 Days of Ad-vent, 2020: Day 19


Lamps on your Christmas tree? That's what they were called back then. Whatever they were called, I'll bet they looked great.

Friday, December 18, 2020

Thursday, December 17, 2020

The 24 Days of Ad-vent, 2020: Day 17


I'm surprised we didn't have one of these when I was growing up! Looks like a friendly old soul, doens't he?

Tuesday, December 15, 2020

The 24 Days of Ad-vent, 2020: Day 15


Who'd turn away Santa when he comes bearing these kinds of gifts? And only a penny! Curtiss had some wonderful brands back in the day; Baby Ruth and Butterfinger are now manufactured by Ferrero.

Saturday, December 12, 2020

Friday, December 11, 2020

Thursday, December 10, 2020

The 24 Days of Ad-vent, 2020: Day 10


For a kid, getting a catalog like this was almost as exciting as Christmas morning. Notice I said almost.

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

The 24 Days of Ad-vent, 2020: Day 9


I
 allow myself to indulge in Rice Krispie Treats a couple of times a year. Always had them as bars, though, never as a Christmas confection. I think it's time to start a new tradition!

Tuesday, December 8, 2020

The 24 Days of Ad-vent, 2020: Day 8


I don't  know how many of you remember what soakers were; they were like the Santa Soaker above, and kids took baths with them. You unscrewed the top and poured out the soap, and when it was empty, you kept it and played with it as a toy. I still have some of them from my youth; Top Cat, Alvin, Bullwinkle and the like. If I'd had a Santa, I'd have it on display right now, with the rest of our decorations.


Sunday, December 6, 2020

The 24 Days of Ad-vent, 2020: Day 6


This is not a wonderful way to say "Merry Christmas." It is a wonderful way to get a concussion on Christmas morning.

Saturday, December 5, 2020

The 24 Days of Ad-vent, 2020: Day 5


A festive ad for a festive assortment. I really like how these vivid colors just jump off the page.

Wednesday, December 2, 2020

De Vincenzo 1968, Atlanta Motor Speedway 1978, Trump 2020?



As we see the issue with President Trump and the fraud over the Presidential Election, I am seeing parallels with two incidents, coincidentally in the State of Georgia, that this election has become.

In 1968, Roberto de Vincenzo lost the Masters on one of the strangest infractions ever seen in the game.  In the late stages of the tournament, the Argentine had par 4 on the 17th and playing partner Tommy Aaron wrote a bogey 5 on the scorecard.  The infraction would cost the reigning Champion Golfer of the Year (Royal Portrush) a playoff with Bob Goalby the next morning.

Ten years later, at the Dixie 500 NASCAR Cup Series event in Hampton (the current Folds of Honor QuikTrip 500), Richard Petty seemingly crossed the finish line first at the late-season race. But upon a review of the scorecards in an era before transponder scoring (used in the early 1990's), Donnie Allison had won after the scorer had missed a few laps Allison made when the car crossed the scoring station but his scorer and backup failed to register it on the pen and paper system where the scorer wrote numbers on the clock every time the car crossed the scoring line.  That infraction was caught by a 16-year old Brian France, the third-generation member of NASCAR's founding family and uncle of current NASCAR official Ben Kennedy.  The France family also successfully mediated a dispute between amateur and professional racers that gave us the national governing body of motorsport, the Automobile
Competition Committee of the United States, after the AAA Contest Board disbanded in the wake of the 24 Heures du Mans disaster in 1955.

They relate to the dispute that our President, Donald John Trump, is fighting over fraudulent votes.  The President is challenging the scorecard, unlike de Vincenzo in 1968,  as if television evidence shows he had made birdie (4) on the 15th and it was scored by his marker as a triple bogey (8), and a par on the 17th (4) was written as a bogey (5), and another par (4) on the 18th was written as a bogey (5).  It would be the equivalent of the 1978 NASCAR case if Biden had been given lap "dumps" where a scorer had pre-filled an entire 10-lap scorecard to make it seem Biden had made ten extra laps when he did not, and the chief scorer did not catch it.

The two hypothetical cases are similar to what actually happened in those years.  But the President, like he does in business, sees fraud at the business, he has to go into the fraud prevention bureau to report the case, then investigate what happened.  And in this case, we have massive fraud being conducted by the Left's choice cities in order to rig elections.  A shrink buster is being attacked by those who are doing the shrinking.  What coincidence do we have with normal business investigations?  We saw it drive down Enron and later take down Ahold (later swallowed by Delhaize).  The President has a country to save from urban elites that want a utopia from a third term of socialist leadership.  And he is doing a better job than de Vincenzo in 1968 to catch the fraud.

The 24 Days of Ad-vent, 2020: Day 2


Hey, we're all a little nuts around here, aren't we?

Tuesday, December 1, 2020

The 24 Days of Ad-vent 2020: Day 1

Considering what a miserable year 2020 has been, and how things are likely to be even worse next year, I thought it appropriate to resurrect our annual "24 Days of Ad-vent," in which we look at vintage ads of the past. What better than retreating to the comforts of the past, after all? 

And since this year has probably driven us all to drink, what better way to kick things off than with the great Barbara Stanwyck plugging Royal Crown Cola. RC's still around; have yourself a bottle!



Wednesday, July 22, 2020

PC Police Again, and An Old Movie Reference for a Vintage-Themed Show

T
he PC Police Strikes Again.  Our modern Zinn/Hannah-Jones worldview of history strikes again, and the real Curse of the Bambino roars its ugly head again.

In the early years of the NFL, team nicknames often were influenced by the local baseball team that often shared the ground with the NFL team.  We saw that with the Giants at the Polo Grounds, the Bears at Wrigley Field, the Lions at Briggs Stadium, and the Braves at Braves Field, which became the Redskins when they moved to Fenway.

The real Curse of the Bambino has been the number of men's and women's football and futbol teams, lacrosse teams, and other teams that have called Braves Field, or later after its configuration changed, Nickerson Field, home, were short-lived.  Nickerson was also the original stadium of the Patriots.

The 50-year old Blackfeet Nation-designed logo is being retired at the behest of the PC police, disregarding its post-merger titles won during the Jack Kent Cooke era after the Blackfeet designed their logo.  How have we become a nation that claims history is offensive?  It seems today's leftist crybabies have the floor, and cannot be thrown off it.  We saw it with CrossFit, and now we see it with the entire anti-police movement, the anti-history movement, and even sports teams with names these activists dislike.

If we keep up with this, only the liberal activists will always be right.

Vintage Movies Strike Again.  Radio Television Luxembourg's Press Your Luck 2019 on ABC has done it again.  In the first season, a winner from the 1983-86 revival of Bill Carruthers' flop Second Chance that lasted much longer (only being done in by the antics of Mark Goodson) appeared.  In January (when the shows were filmed), one episode features the one demographic that few would expect to be pushed on television (over 60 years old) playing.  All three contestants on the July 19 episode were champions on the 1983-86 version.

But the episode's name harkens back to Spielberg characters from Poltergeist II: The Other Side, where Carol Anne utters the signature phrase:  "They're back!"  And the reference for the champion of champions episode carries that exact title, celebrating the fact former champions return 35 years later for a "champion of champions" match.  It had me thinking vintage television reigns supreme again when doing revivals of classic game shows for a new generation to play.

Friday, June 12, 2020

Cancel Culture gone awry: Mr. Glassman's retirement and how Mao's Cultural Revolution caused it

The words from George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four, a well-known 20th century novel warning of the dangerous times ahead, are appearing truthful by the day.

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

This is showing its ugly culture with the Left's ideal of total conformance to their worldview or they will face severe penalties, has appeared. In 2014, businesses were mandated to support the erotic liberty worldview under an executive order signed by the Obama Administration as payback for Exxon Mobil shareholders rejecting the New York City city-state's plan to impose special rights for perversions, which was solidified by Obergefell and now the “Equality Act” bill. Now, businesses are being told to conform to the Left's other viewpoints, such as the anti-police “Black Lives Matter” organisation, and no dissent of the Party's view is permitted, as the Orwell novel would have noted.

According to Black Lives Matter, they are now demanding a total annihilation of police and replacement by “social workers”. A friend from elementary school served in the local sheriff's department and was hit with a career-ending injury by an assailant, who did not serve additional prison time after his conviction for the career-ending injury. Now we are seeing the activists push towards the entire playbook of the Left. Their Instagram photo glorified activist Malcolm Little, who was part of the massive push of indoctrinating Islam in the 1960's. The mission statement is pushing for sexual liberty activism and the murder of babies – regardless of race. Black Lives Matter has made it clear sexual liberty means people should have the right to kill children all the way up to the day of delivery, special protections for pedophiles, and special rights for sexual perversions, including the right for same-sex couples to adopt and teach their form of child abuse on the child. The Radiance Foundation, led by Ryan Bomberger, who spoke at the 2019 state March for Life, has posted a reason why the entire movement is inappropriate. He specifically calls out their support of erotic liberty, abortion, ignorance of fathers, the mandate certain groups pay taxes that go to selected other groups based on race, creating in effect free money for life and buying votes ("repatriations"), abolition of police and prison, and Communism. His article is mandatory reading.

The cancel culture mandating total support of the Left's causes has gone rampant. Just this week, CrossFit founder and CEO Greg Glassman, a Rand Paul-esque libertarian whose events I have competed for years, warned activists that want to deify George Floyd (which he is being proven correct) the way the Left has deified various “martyrs” to their cause – in fact, there is a push by the Left to make a sexual perversion martyr's birthday a federal holiday, replacing Memorial Day or Washington's Birthday as the Left wants to follow with the aforementioned article.

Mr. Glassman was well-aware of the SARS CoV-2 virus (which causes COVID-19) and numerous research that was proven faulty, most notably the University of Washington Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) reports on SARS CoV-2. On June 6, the IHME posted onTwitter, “Racism and discrimination are critical public health issues that demand an urgent response.”

Mr. Glassman responded back, “It's Floyd-19”. Various other supporters of Mr. Glassman called the IHME frauds based on what they said about the COVID-19 pandemic with an explanation of the IHME fraud, stating, “Your failed model quarantined us and now you’re going to model a solution to racism? George Floyd's brutal murder sparked riots nationally. Quarantine alone is ‘accompanied in every age and under all political regimes by an undercurrent of suspicion, distrust, and riots.’ Thanks!”

When you research Mr. Glassman's history of attacking health research sponsored by the three major soda companies of The Coca-Cola Company, Pepsico, and Keurig Dr. Pepper for spewing spin in support of the companies, it should be known those three companies' beverages are known for high amounts of refined sugar, high-fructose corn syrup, and other dangerous chemicals (including caramel colour, aspartame, saccharin, and other chemicals that we know), he has seen enough of bogus science in health research. My dance friend has done many seminars on dangerous beverages where she takes packets of sugar you see at restaurants and tapes packets to show how dangerous a can of soda is in relation to chemicals in it Mr. Glassman saw a correlation of the IHME's inflated COVID-19 numbers that were disproven were a fraud and their push to declare racism a public health crisis to warrant massive government funding, and knowing how fraudulent the research would be to support leftist causes, forced him to respond in anger. How many times has bogus research results led to serious problems?

Almost immediately, the cancel culture struck CrossFit, with disaffiliation and cessation of sponsorship by bigger name firms because of Mr. Glassman's honest truth about bogus research. The fact people have deified Mr. Floyd the way Mr. Martin and others were deified for being crooks is disturbing. This cancel culture infuriated me when the local box, like many others including athletes, sent a statement denouncing Mr. Glassman. I responded by warning that we have become inundated with a resurgence of Mao Tse-Tung's Cultural Revolution of 1966 where any views opposite of the Left's worldviews were being eradicated based on the ideals of Chairman Mao. Our familly escaped cross-straits in the late 1940's. Why are we now glorifying the People's Republic when they created this major crisis we are currently enduring?

Mao's Cultural Revolution here has erased religious liberty and threatened churches while special rights are given to sexual deviancy movements. There are cases now where female athletes have complained over perversion activists allowing males to compete in their events, and costing them scholarships and prizes for unfair competitions. The Maoists are gloating with the Cooper River Bridge Run and Boston Marathon wins by default. They are turning the West into slaves of their wants. Yet, thanks to our leftist crybabies, these activists are following hook, line, and sinker the way of the Chinese Communist Party. Mr. Glassman's retirement is a byproduct of the Maoist Cultural Revolution the Left has imposed on us for anyone who opposes their worldview. No wonder my legislators ignore us because we do not fit their clique.

The real danger was exposed by Mr. Glassman, and it is the Maoist Cultural Revolution where, in the spirit of Nineteen Eighty-Four, only the Party has rights and they control everything. Mr. Glassman, in his description of junk science, offended “the party” as referenced by the novel of Mr. Orwell, leading to activists jumping lock, stock, and barrel into attacking him over speaking the truth that offends “the party”.

Works Cited:

Monday, June 8, 2020

Whatever happened to common sense?

In the seventh chapter of Joshua, the defeat of Joshua's troops at Ai led to the discovery of Achan's looting, where he admits he stole 200 shekels of silver, 50 shekels of gold, and others, hiding them in his jacket.  When discovered, Joshua asked why he had done such.  The consequence of the loss in battle, and Achan's looting, was death by stoning.  That warning was given over 2,500 years ago, and we are seeing the same consequence again after one incident in Minneapolis.

In the Minneapolis incident, we have a gentleman who comes to a convenience store, purchasing with a fraudulent $20 bill various sundries.  That's the first violation here.  As we learned in the indictment reports, he complied with police reports at first, but when officials uncovered the fraudulent scheme and had him handcuffed, the trouble began.  He acted in a manner that he did not want to be arrested.  As was exposed, we have a case of a habitual offender, and he started to act in his old manner when he refused to enter the police cruiser as warranted.  He had deliberately resisted arrest.  Why he did so is the question we must ask.  Meanwhile, Lt. Bob Kroll of the Minneapolis police department had an e-mail to fellow police with this position in the union that manages police.  He called the riots a "terrorist movement," and specifically called out leaders for reducing the size of police departments, and taking police funds to support anti-police community activists.  Lt. Kroll's letter also noted the repeat offender status of Mr. Floyd.  The only reason I am referencing this is that we must understand what happened according to official reports.  One little nudge that grew the officer suspicious was what happened.  But the ensuing riots and the activism of such "BLM" types is more disturbing, and that is what we are discussing.

But before we go further, I am reminded of what happened a generation ago in my hometown.  Two Alabama prisoners escaped and stole vehicles, crossing two state lines into South Carolina.  After that, they kidnapped a man, driving him just a few miles north of my home, shooting him to death, then throwing his body on the side of the road while they abandon the car, stealing a second car, this time with blank cheques ready for their next bit of criminal activity.  They follow their way to the local mall, using the fraudulent cheques to purchase köln and other toiletries.  The clerk at Belk was very suspicious, calling police as happened in Minnesota recently for the bogus currency.  Initially, officers centered the action on the accomplice of the two, freeing the two fugitives.  Sgt. Thomas C. Harrison Jnr questioned Thomas Ivey, who was one of the fugitives.  As that happened, Mr. Ivey's gun fired, hit the ground, and bounced into the policeman.  After that, Mr. Ivey shot Mr. Harrison five more times to death.  In 2009, Thomas Ivey sent executed with lethal injection for his antics in killing a policeman.  We remember total unity were we wore black and white ribbons for him (there was also a shooting a few months back involving a teacher who was a close friend of mine;  thankfully, she recovered and now runs a homeschooling Web site, and her oldest graduated from Upstate last year).  Sadly, activists would not allow such unity of community as was the case back in the day, and the modern-day BLM crowd would probably claimed they wanted justice for Mr. Ivey, disregarding his criminal behaviour and blaming it on race (as I remember one international amnesty organisation pushed).

The anti-police mentality, especially by the social justice warriors, is too reminiscent of rapper NWA's "Foxtrot the Police," the centrepiece of the 2015 movie Straight Outta Compton, a hit song where police are called "white bread, chicken sierra, mike foxtrot".  This type of bashing the police and attacking them for the faux currency ruse attacking police sadly forgets what happens when people steal and want to steal.  We see these riots as post-modern relativism, self-centredness, and the idea certain groups are "empowered" to have special rights most people do not have, such as the right to make our laws, policies, and rules that most people are not entitled to have.  This is why the Roy Cooper-Donald Trump battle over the Republican National Convention at the Spectrum in Charlotte is crucial.  Mr. Cooper's accomplishments were to use the courts in a "pocket veto" by refusing to defend a marriage definition passed by a clear supermajority in the Tar Heel State as the state's Attorney General and overturning the amendment himself, then activists followed by posting newspaper headlines showing Mr. Cooper's stance on Jesse Helms' grave to celebrate eliminating the Moral Majority and letting the immoral minority rule, showing regular America has no rights, on the Left's chosen social justice warriors who base the world on race, sex, and behaviour have rights nobody else has.

These "social justice warriors" are pushing for the abolition of bail where habitual offenders are booked, then are released to do more dirty deeds.  They also want certain groups to be empowered with rights others are not entitled to have.  We see that in every hearing in the United States Senate over a judicial or cabinet-level (or sub-cabinet level)  nominee, where Senators such as Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and others have questioned judges for being Catholic, Evangelical Protestant, or the like because they would end the party of the far-left that has coddled criminals, rewarded sexual perversion, promoted baby murder, and the ilk have had in being superior to others in policy making.  How is it the perverted can adopt children and promote their child abuse on the children by denying them a father or other, and how is it we can elevate lewd behaviour to a protected class when Americans oppose it 4:1?  If you have a Biblical worldview, you are disqualified from office, according to the Left's social justice warriors, where only those who believe in their worldview are allowed.  This also goes along with a push by some extremist activists that I heard locally say they want to :tax the white farmers out of existence," then impose a new tax on businesses so bad that they ejected television media trying to cover the meeting where the new tax passed.  We did not have talk radio to fight back, which we now have.

Now we have these same social justice warriors working to push full Deconfederatisation, removing of Confederate history (including Fort Sumter and those who fought on the Gray side) and war history where Memorial Day would be replaced with the birthday of sexual perversion activist Harvey Milk, and following the ideal of 1984 where only the Party (left-wing activists) can dictate law, policy, and what is taught while nobody else is allowed a voice.

The looters that break into a Specialized bicycle store in Miami during this outbreak to steal $12,000 UCI Grand Tour or ITU-level bicycles, let alone those who break into any store to steal $1,000 televisions, clothes, and the incident just a few hundred metres from my friend Kimberly's restaurant where someone drove a stolen vehicle into a pawn shop that sells jewelry and guns to steal them all in the name of "social justice" are pushing relativism into a deeper state of mind.   The view of these Achans is that of moral relativism, and specialised justice where certain "oppressed" groups have rights that the majority are not entitled to anything.  These Aachans believe they have right to ransack a merchant's store and will not apologise, unlike Aachan.

The double standards are not just in stealing with these social justice warriors.  A very popular Asian descent ("sansei") motor racer nicknamed "Young Money," which is also used by a rapper, had his FIA competition licence suspended by ACCUS (selected national series among the member clubs require a driver carry an FIA competition licence) and fired by his team when, in an online incident with a friend, he dropped an N-bomb (nota bene:  World of Outlaws is not a member of ACCUS, and he has been winning recently on the Outlaws).  Meanwhile, rappers, R&B artists, and other such blast the same offensive word in their songs and on-air with MTV networks (MTV, VH1, Nickelodeon, BET, et al), and they do nothing.  No wonder motorsport fans in the US have been angry at the double standard where a rapper uses the word and is praised, but a superstar driver uses the same word and has a virtual prison sentence.  What does it say when these groups have rights to write our laws, policies, education regulations to push "diversity and inclusion" (meaning to replace American history and Constitution with feelings of these activists) that have led to 58% of college graduates into saying there is a legitimate reason to legalise mob mentality with riots that block streets where social justice warriors can overrule everyone else.

And this type of mentality is now hurting our boys.  While city-owned ball fields are staying closed because of the pandemic, you can see thousands of girls doing dance classes outside and they are able to participate in activities, while boys with no rights to play ball because their fields are closed are left to the sidelines.  Our county just spend millions in tax hikes to build six new ball fields behind Walmart and Prep -- and they are configured for girls fastpitch.  While girls cannot do football or fastpitch, the girls doing dance are happily able to participate in summer activities, while boys are left behind with no activities available -- the perfect storm for social justice warriors that are working to demand the women's national football team be paid more than the men, without regards for the fact men's players play in Europe in 34-38 game seasons in the world's most prestigious leagues, while women play on streaming services and very few games on television.  Some area are dictating new schools can only offer girls' sport, and the future is to use social justice warriors to eliminate boys events where Friday Night Lights is futbol for girls and boys are sent to nothing, just as envisioned by Christina Hoff Sommers' The War Against Boys, where she notes girls have a football team as role models and boys only have criminals.

What is next in this social justice?  Are we going to see school chorus, now prohibited from singing Bach, Händel, and Haydn, because of religious overtones, singing the latest Beyoncé Knowles, Melissa Jefferson, or Janelle Monae hit song from the charts?  What type of lesson does that teach except it follows the "diversity and inclusion" agenda of the Left, while we ignore reading Shakespeare and singing Mozart.

We have to beware.  Social justice warriors are erasing common sense.  There are consequences for violating the law.  The consequences are even worse for resisting arrest, especially when you're gloating over your heinous crime.

Wednesday, April 22, 2020

“It’s About Saving Lives”…Or Is It?

N
one of us have ever experienced anything like how the Coronavirus pandemic has altered our daily lives.

Some are working from home for the first time. Some – far too many - are not working at all.

Concerts and plays are gone. Sports are gone – even on television. Movie theaters are closed. Most stores are closed. Going to church? As long as you stay in your car – and even then you risk legal trouble in some cities.

No more going out to a nice dinner in a restaurant. No getting together with friends in your home.

Doesn’t leave much, does it?

But we have been told repeatedly that these Draconian measures are absolutely the right thing to do, and we’ve been shown death rate numbers based on models that would scare a staunch libertarian into sheltering in place.

So we went along. And since we’ve never been in this situation before we all complied without asking a lot of questions.

As this is being written the U.S. is either at the peak or near the peak, and now the numbers are expected to start dropping – fewer deaths, fewer hospitalizations, fewer cases of any kind, even the 97% or so that are asymptomatic. The original estimates of loss were highly exaggerated.

And yet…the response to all this seems to be not a loosening of restrictions, but further constriction. Masks that were optional in some cities are now mandatory. Grocery stores that were open to everyone are now limiting the number of shoppers at any one time. And the governor of Michigan apparently won’t be happy until the streets of Detroit are completely deserted.

And now a lot of those questions that should have been asked a few weeks ago are becoming more pervasive.

But when they are asked, the response is usually the same: “It’s about public health.” “It’s about saving lives.” And then the discussion stops. Because if you disagree, you are against saving lives. What kind of monster are you, anyway?

I fear that going forward, “It’s about saving lives” may become the new “It’s racist” – a way to shut down a legitimate debate and brand one’s opponent as a terrible person by claiming a moral high ground. But few issues are so clear-cut, and few decisions are so binary.

We’re approaching a tipping point, when federal and state officials will contemplate stretching a “temporary” curb on civil liberties and the Bill of Rights, which apparently no longer apply when there is a virus.

One more month? Two more? The rest of this year? One Harvard study now claims social distancing should be maintained until 2022.

It does seem ghoulish to talk about acceptable risk and acceptable loss. But there are other types of risks and losses as well, that will multiply at a frightening rate the longer we remain under these restrictions. Companies lost. Livelihoods lost. Hope lost.

Keep this in mind as well - if it was this easy to shutter businesses and throw millions of people out of work, lock up houses of worship and institute near martial law over much of the country, it's only going to be easier next time when a politician deems it necessary. That could be a Democrat shutting down gun stores for 'public health reasons,' or a Republican forcing abortion clinics to close.

We are still a nation of laws. And we need to start remembering that. Especially now.
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