Archive → July, 2026
PA landowners now enjoy actual privacy rights
Bravo, kudos, and thanks to the unanimous Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Pennsylvania landowners now enjoy the actual verbatim privacy rights that both the US Constitution (Fourth Amendment) and the PA State Constitution (Article 1, Section 8) say we have.
This right to basic privacy has been a long time in coming, and like all individual rights, it was heavily, aggressively, shamefully resisted by actual Americans in government positions.
For a very long time, the idea of “Open Fields” ruled the way that wildlife enforcement officers accessed private property here in PA. Here in PA, PA Game Commission and PA Fish & Boat Commission officers would just walk right onto and deeply into a private property, regardless of its posted signs, regardless of the landowner’s demand that the officers leave, regardless of whether or not the officers had any probable cause or reasonable suspicion to be on the private property. Like kings, they would simply stride right up to within talking distance of a home, and start poking around.
You might not even hunt, or be a licensed hunter, or fish, and yet, these government agents just decided to watch you…
PGC and PFBC said this was both justified by law (it kind of was allowed by a somewhat related court ruling from the Prohibition Era regarding bootlegging moonshine), and necessary because of the unique challenges facing wildlife managers. Because PA has a strong anti-baiting law and culture among law-abiding hunters, it has been customary for Game Wardens to creep around private properties, looking for bait piles, salt blocks, some wildlife crime, etc. Without a search warrant.
But not all Game Wardens have been looking for illegal bait or signs of poached deer way out in our woods. They have also pretty brazenly walked right around people’s private homes way the hell out in the middle of large private properties, apparently at the request of the PA State Police, who were already limited to search warrants.
They have also surreptitiously hidden spy cameras on these private properties. In places where all Americans presume they can fully enjoy their rights to privacy without being interrupted or disrupted or alarmed by the sudden appearance of a man with a gun. Without “the king” surveilling them, without any reason other than simply wanting to.
That the PGC long adamantly defended this un-American behavior understandably rankled people, to the point where some sued the PGC over what was truly egregious behavior by people who should know better. And yesterday, they won; we all won. A unanimous PA Supreme Court held that our individual right to privacy is greater than the PGC’s desire (not its proven need) to simply walk around and see what Americans are doing within the privacy of their own properties.
Yes, managing wildlife is difficult. Yes, trying to outwit lawbreakers who bait deer and bear is hard. But, Americans’ constitutional rights supersede all other considerations.
And it is the role of government to protect our rights for us, not to officially chip away at them, in the name of government efficiency. People in government know this, and they should conduct themselves accordingly. But as you and I have seen so, so many times throughout our careers, once people get some power, especially the power to rule over others, they really do not want to let go of it. Americans are supposed to have government employees who are immune to this draw, but guess what, we don’t. Human nature has not changed.
As of today, government officials may not simply walk onto your property or mine, without a search warrant or without exigent circumstances, such as chasing an armed bad guy who happens to take refuge on your property, or without actually seeing a bait pile while on an adjoining property.
The result of this freedom is that poachers are going to poach more wildlife, no question about it. But that is the price of individual freedom and limited government. If the role and purpose of government was to be always efficient and always effective, we Americans would have no rights, and our government would be totalitarian. America is not that kind of place.
Better that some bad dude goes free than all of us suffer the indignity and danger of armed government agents just walking around our private properties, watching us…
Thank you to the Institute for Justice, which has done yeoman’s work for all of us Americans who cherish our freedoms. And thank you to the hearty Pennsylvanians who chose to stand and fight back against official injustice, like our predecessors did 250 years ago.
I-81, the 1950s relic
While making an epic deep-South deep-dive last week, I had the interesting experience of driving on a great long stretch of the I-81 interstate. Holy Moses. I have returned alive and in one piece to report back on this journey-by-traffic, and to ask a basic government policy question.
Originally started in 1957 to connect northeastern Pennsylvania to Upstate New York and southern Canada, for moose hunters, one presumes, today I-81 connects Upstate New York/ Canada with Tennessee, and in doing so it transverses New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Maryland, Virginia, and penetrates deeply into Tennessee, where I-81 ends and I-40 then seamlessly takes up the west-ward flow of vehicles and young men.
In its day, it seems that much of our 1950s built infrastructure was considered grand, even sometimes grandiose. Sure, back then, the idea of paving hundreds and hundreds of miles of highway with bazillions of tons of mined quarry aggregate and petroleum tar probably seemed an achievement just short of landing on the moon. And indeed, building modern highways is still a real achievement of science and technology, as well as physical manpower.
After all, a road is nothing more than liquid rock, which was mined, picked, blasted, bulldozed, lifted, trucked, crushed, and re-constituted in heated form with tar that, when it all settles and dries, provides a comfortable high speed driving surface. It is nothing less than a miracle to remove millions of tons of rock from the ground, process it, then put it back on top of the ground so that humans can easily and smoothly travel.
Today, Americans take good roads, smooth roads, for granted. Probably like everything else in our lives, to be honest. But the harsh truth is that our road system is aging, and I-81 is a good example of both the old combination of muscle, modern science, and good government, in short a real miracle, meeting up with the harsh reality of fulfilling our dreams by failing to maintain the big investments of yesteryear.
What did not follow in I-81’s wake, in either functional or miraculous form, was the simple funding necessary to operate and maintain this and all of the other incredible roads that make up our interstate system.
The I-81 experience today of driving at modern posted speeds of 60-70 miles per hour, on a crumbling two-lane roadway, that is chock full of bumper-to-bumper traffic, sucks mightily. Such a wild experience begs the question: Why the hell is 2026-level traffic expected to safely transit from Canada to Tennessee on a crowded two-track?
Why the hell is I-81 almost entirely two lanes in each direction, for hundreds and hundreds of miles, with only a few three-lane passing zones on steep hills thrown in helter skelter? It is a study in modern combat driving. It is a study in strange political choices, funding priorities.
The same can be said for the two-lane I-78, which brings New Yorkers and New Jerseyites westward into Pennsylvania, where, after fleeing their fouled nests back east, they settle here and begin voting for the same damned failed policies and ideologies that fouled their nests and drove them out in the first place.
Come to think of it, keep I-78 at two lanes.
And now come to think of it, while remembering a couple of the conversations I had with locals in the middle of rural southern Tennessee farmland on the Mississippi border, maybe this is the reason why I-81 remains a two-track the entire damned way: Keeping the damned Yankees out!
And with that in mind, now I understand: The narrow road and the local Southern attitude are both relics of the 1950s. Yep, now it all makes sense.
I-81 in both directions is packed with high speed traffic
Not to be confused with Harrisburg, PA, but it happens anyhow
First and only Stars-and-Bars I saw the whole trip, and this in central VA. None in rural TN, where I saw they dominated the American flag forty years ago.
Southern humor. Works for me
Said living former PA politician texted back “Reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” Different guy, same name.
Canada’s forest fires influenced life on Southern American roads
“Yankees”… talk about a 1950s Southern attitude…
On the 250th anniversary of America, this sign held special meaning to me
Southern humor. Note the “Dukes” sign
Southern rural TN is spectacularly beautiful
Foggy Ireland
Ten years ago several young Syrian toughs confronted me on a boat in Mallaig, Scotland. Freshly imported into Scotland as supposed victims, they knew that they were untouchable, and they pushed everyone around, acting like they owned the boat. It irked the American crap out of me and I stood my ground. Been a while since I had a good donnybrook, which is always good for a man’s vasculature, and I squared off.
The captain walked over to me and quietly confided “Ya, ya kin take ’em, and we will all cheer you for it, but the coppers will lock you up and ship ya home, no matter who started it.”
So I drank that bucket of Syrian sh*t and enjoyed the quiet ride across the loch and to my hunt for red stag.
Not long after, Scotland had a Syrian prime minister who said wildly racist crap about the native, indigenous white Scots people, and he derided both Protestant and Catholic religion. The Scots had imported their own invading force, intent on destroying Scotland from within. No “Bravehearts” these.
A couple years later I toured the spectacular Worcestshire Church in Barmouth, Wales, (Bugs Bunny forever destroyed my ability to properly say or spell Worcestshire) and commented to a local man how sadly empty and un-used it appeared. Yes, he confirmed, the church sits neatly cared for and tidy, but the Welsh government acts to dissuade the Welsh people from attending church.
The following year, the government of Wales began removing public statues of white people, because white people statues somehow represent racism, they said, because apparently white people are inherently racist, they said. Or something nuts like that, they said. Whatever their nutty cause (imagine removing statues of black people because of their skin color…it is nuts), the Welsh government was making culture war on its own people.
England’s government has obviously gone to war against its own native people, importing millions of illegal, unvetted, unknown criminals from culturally opposing places, allowing them to run violent rampages daily against the native, indigenous people, and then arrests and harasses the victims of said rampages. Whether I am willing to submit myself again to this craziness, I doubt that I will even be allowed into England as a tourist at present. Thought crimes like those committed on this blog are officially deemed much more serious offenses than knifing people, and the British government is quite effective at tracking the different opinions held by others.
So one supposes that Ireland just had to join this war against native Europeans, and against its own native Gaelic speaking indigenous people, and so the Irish government began doing all the same things as the aforementioned “UK” member states. A stroll through Dublin a few years ago revealed more tattooed Pakistani men than native Irish on the streets, more Arabic spoken than English, or Gaelic, more new mosques than churches. As in Wales, the beautiful old churches sit empty. Irish coppers (Gardia) will indeed jail an Irish guy for stopping racial harassment and sexual violence by Pakistani men, while looking away at the Pakistanis’ crimes.
The official Irish Government war against Irish culture and people is well on its way. Despite countless generations of Irish fighting and dying to maintain their independence from Romans, Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Victorian England, modern British…the list of invaders and occupiers is long…now, Ireland is embarked on a foggy headed policy of self-erasure.
Conspiracy mongers dwell heavily on the unnatural coincidence of all of Western Civilization suddently and simultaneously committing “Harry Kary,” or ritual seppukku suicide. I do concur that it is odd as hell. But it is not some shadowy, secret handshake cabal causing this.
Rather, this “suicidal empathy” immigration policy is the inevitable result of too much material success putting too many people to sleep. Way way too many people in France, Germany, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and America have too much, and thus take way too much for granted, and have too many creature comforts and food and ease of living, to realize that they cannot drain their own collective bank account for the benefit of myriad total strangers, without losing it all themselves.
The old adage about soft times making soft men, resulting in hard times, which then make hard men, tough men, making tough and sometimes brutal decisions about life and death, seems to be playing out here. I observe the America’s young socialist brats have no idea just how hard and tough the old Americans like me can be, will be, need be.
An Irish song comes to mind about the likely future, as told by the Irish past:
As down the glen one Easter morn to a city fair rode I
Their Armed lines of marching men in squadrons passed me by
No pipes did hum, no battle drum did sound its dread tattoo
But the Angelus Bell o’er the Liffey’s swell rang out through the foggy dew
Right proudly high over Dublin Town they hung out the flag of war
‘Twas better to die ‘neath an Irish sky than at Suvla or Sud-El-Bar
And from the plains of Royal Meath strong men came hurrying through
While Britannia’s Huns, with their long range guns sailed in through the foggy dew
Oh the night fell black, and the rifles’ crack made perfidious Albion reel
In the leaden rain, seven tongues of flame did shine o’er the lines of steel
By each shining blade a prayer was said, that to Ireland her sons be true
But when morning broke, still the war flag shook out its folds in the foggy dew
‘Twas England bade our Wild Geese go, that “small nations might be free”
But their lonely graves are by Suvla’s waves on the fringe of the great North Sea
Oh, had they died by Pearse’s side or fought with Cathal Brugha
Their graves we will keep where the Fenians sleep, ‘neath the shroud of the foggy dew
Oh the bravest fell, and the Requiem bell rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide in the spring time of the year
While the world did gaze, in deep amaze, at those fearless men, but few,
Who bore the fight that the freedom’s light might shine through the foggy dew
As back through the glen I rode again and my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valiant men whom I never shall see more
But to and fro in my dreams I go and I kneel and pray for you,
For slavery fled, O glorious dead, When you fell in the foggy dew…
Screenshot
J6 bodycam footage is available!
If you are at all curious about what really happened on January 6th, 2021, in Washington, DC, then you should be interested to see the thousands of hours of various DC Metro Police Dept. bodycam footage that is now available.
I was at J6, out in front of the US Capitol, peacefully protesting. And yet a lot of things happened that day, at that location, that I had no idea about. I know what I experienced, and saw, which was a lot. But when I see the bodycam footage, a whole new world opened up. I see some protestors acting like a-holes towards the police, as well as protestors doing what they could to defuse and de-escalate the confrontations.
It is telling that the US House J6 committee burned their files when they completed their false dog and pony show against President Trump and against us patriots. They destroyed their own “evidence” because they did not want anyone else to see what a sham that “evidence” was, and the falseness of the case they brought against President Trump.
It is telling that the DC Metro Police fought tooth and nail to keep the public from being able to see this unedited video footage. Almost like this police force is trying to hide things…
Well, now we get to see a lot of different angles of what actually happened on January 6th, ground level. I have watched a lot of it, and most of it is pretty boring. But here and their are important scenes that shed light on what actually happened. Some of it I can recall watching from down in front, looking up.
Thanks to Judicial Watch, you can see the footage here.
Young Washington movie is 9/10
Last night I was encouraged to go see a movie, which happens quite infrequently lo, these many past years. Because, for many years now, Hollywood has dropped the ball, and has produced only dreck. Like most Americans, I do not pay to see dreck. Hollywood box office bomb after bomb after bomb keeps driving home the point that Americans do not want dreck and will not pay for it. Rather, most Americans see movies to be entertained, informed, inspired. Not to be preached at, especially about counter-culture values emanating from failed frootloop academics living in worlds of stupid theory and perpetual Marxist revolution.
I fall into the camp of Americans that will go see a movie if it informs, inspires, and entertains me. So, last night I went to see Young Washington, a movie about America’s greatest Founding Father, George Washington. This movie informed me, inspired me, and entertained me, and I can therefore recommend it to you, too.
But don’t just take my word for it, Men’s Journal confirmed that this movie inspires its audience because it is factual, and the facts surrounding George Washington are inspiring.
Mind you, Men’s Journal is just one of many formerly useful and interesting institutions/ magazines/ information outlets subsequently captured by the far Left and re-purposed to spew anti-America agitation propaganda, far-Left counter-culture propaganda, etc etc. So the fact that this leftwing outlet asked the question if the Young Washington movie is accurate, is not surprising; Men’s Journal will always seek to criticize any popular movie or book that is patriotic or espousing traditional American values. What is surprising is that the magazine published an article confirming that the movie’s main claims are accurate.
Mind you, Men’s Journal did not list the things that are good or inspiring or entertaining about Young Washington, it just confirmed that it is accurate, and left it at that. They did not encourage you to go and see it. They just did a fact check. As if Men’s Journal does this routinely on any other movies.
What is good and inspiring about Young Washington is that it tells us how young George Washington worked hard, took risks, made sacrifices, and heart-felt earnestly prayed to God a lot. What is inspiring about that is that all of this hard work, risk taking, sacrificing, and prayer paid off. It created a man whom his arch enemy, King George III of England, called “The greatest man in world history.”
The movie perfectly and incredibly accurately depicts the American Indians, caught between French and British forces from north and south, and also being pushed ever westward by impoverished European colonists and their feudal aristocratic overlords. The movie also accurately represents the inevitable tension resulting from the American frontier’s merit-based opportunity system clashing with European feudal entitlement, which ultimately gave way to 1775’s violent rupture between serfs-no-longer American colonists and their overbearing, self-entitled, yet unimpressive European overlords.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident…” is the logical outcome of the American frontier, on which young George Washington was raised, and tested, then confronting and contesting a feudal Europe. And the free and prosperous America we now live in is the logical outcome of the merit-based frontier having prevailed in that contest.
Seeing a movie capture all of this “first principles” stuff is eminently entertaining, and your money is well spent, because face it, this happens only once every five or twn years these days.
I give Young Washington a 9 out of 10, and not a 10/10, for a couple reasons. First, some of the scenes are kind of hackneyed rote stuff that has been used too many times in most of the Mel Gibson movies (e.g. The Patriot) and similar genre movies. Long, artificially drawn out overly dramatic moments that do not cause tears to fall, but rather tears at the belief and tolerance system. No one takes this long to die in real life. No one acts like this in real life. Ever. Second, I spotted at least two and possibly many more percussion rifles in use by British and Colonial militia troops, as well as by American frontiersmen. Big time no-no for a film based in 1755, when flintlocks alone reigned on the battlefields of Europe and America. Percussion systems first emerged around 1810, and did not become military issue until the 1840s. Lastly, about half of the scenes are filmed in places and on landscapes that just do not physically exist anywhere in Pennsylvania, especially in Western Pennsylvania. That strains credulity, even if I logically accept the plain fact that finding any undistrubed landscapes anywhere to film on is getting difficult.
Many many years ago, as a paid non-profit land conservation professional, I helped the National Park Service conserve the Fort Necessity Battlefield and also Braddock’s Trace, out in Western Pennsylvania. These important places are depicted in the movie. That same NPS park manager and I then went on to work together on conserving the Flight 93 crash site and its surrounding landscape, after 9-11. So, I have some personal knowledge and appreciation for the rugged Western PA topography, and for the specific place where young George Washington put himself to the test, and succeeded.
It was the rugged and demanding wild landscape that created the original Israelites, who gave us The Law, and then it was the rugged, demanding, and wild landscape here in North America that gave the world America, a nation based on The Law and a light unto the nations, really the only light unto the nations on this entire planet. Thanks to George Washington. And this is why conserving rural landscapes is still so important: They are our unique American culture of freedom.
This movie meant a lot to me, more than I would have expected. Maybe you will have the same positive reaction. A lot of us Americans have an awful lot of unrequited expectations built up over the past ten or fifteen years of crappy Hollywood movie output. A lot of un-met need. And this movie, Young Washington, meets those needs.
Poster for Young Washington movie
Happy USA 250th at National Mall big success
Spending two days in the DC-area 102 degree summer heat is not usually something I choose to do, but I gladly did it this week. And I am here to report back two facts: 1) The USA 250th Birthday National State Fair Semiquincentennial Celebration on the National Mall was a big success, and 2) Everyone I met there at the National Mall, and then yesterday at Mount Vernon, was a conservative patriot. This I consider to be not a success, but a failure by the political Left in America. More on this in a moment.
First, let me report on the USA 250th Birthday National State Fair Semiquincentennial Celebration on the National Mall. It was a lot of fun and I am glad I went. They had an active rodeo ring and horse riding competition, with hundreds of active fans cheering from around the fence at any given time. They had a huge Ferris wheel, which we rode in, and got a unique view from and of the DC skyline. There was a long line to get onto this ride at all times, and the two young ladies we rode up with said it was their second or third trip on it.
The FIFA or Fifi or FAFO whatever whatever huge screen soccer watching area was jam packed with thousands of fans, most of whom wore American flag shirts, pants, hats, or draped a flag over their shoulders. America was playing Bosnia when I was there, and the fans were cheering lustily. The line to get in went around the block.
The empty part of the National Mall that people try to show as evidence that this event is not popular is empty because there is nothing happening there. The state booths and the activities are almost all down-the-way, or back the other way. Everywhere else I went there were lots of Americans showing lots of interest in the events and music and exhibits etc etc. The live music was constant, fascinating, and performed by really talented people. No matter where we went, live music was being played.
The Princess of Patience was able to find one frozen ice cream treat out of all the food being marketed. And as far as I could see, the food vendors were struggling to keep up with the constant demand. A lot of food booths had staff promising that the next food delivery was due at any moment, and the hot, sweaty visitors were lined up and waiting. Gotta say, “artichoke dip-stuffed jumbo pretzel” and “bacon-and-cheese stuffed jumbo pretzel” sounds like a lot of work to make, cook, and then deliver ready to serve.
How about selling just ye olde regular big salty soft pretzel, with lots of yellow mustard? Strangely, I looked and never saw just regular old burgers and hotdogs being offered. The food was all creative and fancy, semi-gourmet. That would put a kink in your cowgirl rope, if you were trying to serve up fresh food to a constant stream of hungry fair-goers.
The state booths were fascinating and informative. I stopped in at Guam and had a long, fascinating talk with the friendly reps there, both of them Native, one of whom helped the Princess of Patience charge her phone. I learned about the 80-year American military presence on Guam (still a necessity, due to Chinese imperialism in the Pacific Ocean), and how the Natives are developing their own identity and tourist trade. Similar to Hawaii.
Pennsylvania’s booth seems clouded in controversy, but you would not know that when visiting it. PA’s booth was the best of all that I visited, because it had so much interesting information, and because the fascinating exhibits linked our glorious history to our excellent present. Lots of framed historic American and Pennsylvania flags, antiques, a life-size copy of the Liberty Bell… who the heck scrambled hard at the last second to put all of that together into a coherent exhibit? Thank you very much to US senators John Fetterman (D) and Dave McCormick (R), and to the many corporate sponsors who under-wrote the costs.
It is disappointing that my own governor, Josh Shapiro, did not participate. This big event, our nation’s 250th, should be a bi-partisan celebration. A person’s hate for someone in politics should not outweigh your patriotism for America or your pride in the state you represent. It is tough not to see this as a childish tantrum, but then again, I have yet to have any Democrat friend or family member explain this phenomenon to me without them going immediately from zero to a hundred on the Angry Meter. And it is hard not to see that as a childish tantrum.
Support for America should not be partisan, or even politically questionable. Especially on our 250th birthday.
Which brings us back to the attendees. What on earth is happening in America that people’s personal hatred of a president is so corrosive that they will vandalize national monuments that he has had cleaned up, and that they will boycott a fun, informative, unifying “national state fair” on the National Mall, on America’s 250th birthday?
Every single person I met and chatted with (dozens) there at the National Mall was a conservative patriot. The attendees had a great pride in celebrating America’s 250th Birthday, and made real showings of that pride in their choice of clothing, hats, and words of happy encouragement with one another. That there was no one Leftist (who I saw) just there out of love for America or pride in America says a lot of bad stuff about the political Left in America.
Ditto for yesterday’s day spent at Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. The place was LOADED with American tourists, Boy Scout groups, all wearing patriotic colors and clothing. We all stood in lines to see just about anything, and despite the 102* blazing heat, everyone was just as friendly, happy, and good natured as the audience had been the day before at the National Mall. How refreshing.
Mount Vernon has incredible updated displays and exhibits, with a significant emphasis on the roles and daily lives of African slaves there, and presumably also across the South, until 1866, when the Republicans took away the Democrats’ slaves.
The George Washington Grist Mill and Distillery was closed, I guess due to the high heat, but come on, people. On July 4th week? On the week of America’s 250th birthday? Something there stank of sabotage….NPS staff who cannot bring themselves to work for a president they disagree with. That was not professional behavior or being devoted to America, if not to the man who temporarily runs it.
I fear for an America that is once again divided into halves. One half, my half, is proud of America, happy to be an American, will work with anyone to advance our great nation forward. The other half (or third) is angry about America, at war with America as we were founded, constantly faulting America, trying to set us back, trying to subvert us, and is actively boycotting our great nation’s 250th birthday celebration.
One guy I spoke with on a train was headed out of DC for the weekend. He is a Democrat lobbyist, an attorney, wearing a fabulous Swiss watch, and more or less said that DC was being inundated with knuckle dragging backwoods types, people like me, I guess, for the 250th celebration, and he had to get out of Dodge in order to enjoy the holiday weekend.
It is curious to me that the political left cannot enjoy sharing America with others. Either the political Left has absolute and totalitarian control of America, or they are miserable boycotters.
Kind of like 1860, a LOT like 1860….which America lived through, and came through stronger, after everything got sorted out.
On the other hand, I and the millions of Americans like me wish you a Happy Independence Day and a Happy 250th Birthday, America!
I took all of the photos below. Any reproduction requires attribution, please.
President George Washington’s face, made from a clay mask while he was alive. In 1776 he lead America to freedom
George Washington’s grist mill and distillery, which made him more money than anything else he did. Washington made rye whisky, which is now coming back into vogue, and which I can occasionally enjoy
General George Washington crossing the Delaware River imposed on the Washington Monument on the National Mall
The Washington Monument, the National State Fair Ferris wheel, and the “Arc d’Trump”
The Arc d’Trump, the big Ferris wheel, and the Washington Monument at dusk, a once-in-several lifetimes view. Smithsonian Institution on the left
Washington Monument lit up in celebration of America’s 250th birthday, with a temporary “national state fair” building in front
American soccer player Malik on the JumboTron on the National Mall, with the US Capitol in the background. Pretty unique view
Earliest known depiction of Uncle Sam, on an 1876 Centennial celebration flag, welcoming “all nations.” Legally, not as an invasion force
My view from the Ferris wheel, looking at the so-named “Arc d’Trump” and the US Capitol in the distance. The soccer game JumboTron is visible in the distance.
People from around America inscribed their best wishes for America’s 250th Birthday
Your faithful author and the Princess of Patience
Two friendly all-American federal police provided me with a grand entrance onto the National Mall
Yours truly, visiting the Truth booth. Truth Social is the official voice of President Trump, because former Twitter couldn’t stand the truth
So-called “Arc d’Trump” has great symbolism, especially with the Ferris wheel and the Washington Monument in the background
Pennsylvania’s booth had the most amazing exhibits, including this old flag from my home turf
Copy of the Liberty Bell at the PA booth
Soccer…nope
With the FiFi or FAFO or FIFA or whatever the hell soccer thing it is that is happening right now in America, Americans are being offered a front seat view of a sport that never caught on here. Soccer is big everywhere else around the world, because you just need an inflated ball, and bingo, you have a game.
Well, please allow me to set straight the wondrously gawking European guests here right now about our sports choices here in America: We like blood and guts and body armor.
Football (which soccer is not and never will be) is America’s official sport even more than baseball. Because our football involves military level strategy, tactics, gear, and military level hand to hand combat, it best captures the imagination of high testosterone men. Had the NFL not politically and culturally abandoned high T men, and patriotic men, and self respecting straight men, it would still be broadly popular.
But even in its deliberately weakened state, American football remains far more manly and exciting to watch than a bunch of too-skinny guys, who wear skinny jeans when not running in circles for pay, run up and down up and down up and down and around the damned field over and over. In soccer, whenever there is any manly contact, the referee starts effeminately tossing rainbow colored flags all over, the guys all stand around bitching and whining and gesticulating, and then it’s over. People start running in circles again.
Soccer is incredibly boring. I feel bad for those cultures that believe soccer is exciting. Watching paint dry must be one of their other national sports. In American football, men settle disputes in manly ways: People get dragged, carted, or helped off the field, such is the damage. That is true manly combat and contest, it is cool, it is exciting, and it is far superior to soccer.
Yeah, Europe has its rugby, which is manly, and bloody, grant you that. But it is also an ill-disciplined anarchic gang fight blur, which American cities have daily, for no charge. It impresses us Americans a little bit more than soccer, which will never catch on here.
Welcome to America, European cousins! Don’t forget to branch out your interests while you are here, beyond accepting that our American football is THE football. Shoot some guns, eat some red meat, enjoy your freedom, then take some manly toughness and defiance back home with you. God knows, ever-more autocratic Europe needs a huge dose of manliness, testosterone, and American style football-and-six shooter-style frontier justice from its people right now.
Glad you guys came here for the soccer, and left with your own must-have list of guns. Don’t forget to buy a Stetson cowboy hat on your way out, too. You want the EU bureaucrat people back home to know you mean business.