Category → Family
MIssing Charlie, Missing America
Today is the one year anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s murder in Utah, on a college campus supposedly devoted to learning, education, ideas, free speech, debate, and so on. Because you were a kind person with a big heart, I miss you, Charlie, and so do a lot of other people. Tomorrow is the 25th anniversary of the 9-11 Islamic jihadi attacks on America.
Since the day Charlie was shot by a political leftist incapable of free thought or debate or learning or free speech, America has been subjected to an increasing onslaught of anti-free thought, anti free speech, anti debate, anti ideas by the political Left, especially on college campuses.
Incapable of standing and debating, the political Left and its Islamic jihadi allies always use violence, coercion, suppression, and censorship. Claiming victim status until they have sufficient power to firmly control their political opposition, political Leftists, and their political and cultural allies, demand equal footing in every venue, in every institution. Then, when they have enough votes, they take away everyone else’s vote.
And now, at Ground Zero in Manhattan, where 25 years ago the Twin Towers were hit by two jet airplanes hijacked by Islamic jihadis, and where over 3,000 Americans subsequently lost their lives in horrible deaths, the political Left is once again demanding shared space. Yes indeed, there are demands for a mosque (!) at the Twin Towers site. Because the murderous Islamic hijackers deserve to be remembered as victims, too. As though the murderers are the same as their victims.
Charlie Kirk stood for reasonable debate, but he also stood up firmly for Western culture, Western ideals, Western values. We must carry on this legacy, most importantly through voting for strong pro America, pro freedom candidates.
Charlie’s vision for America (and Europe) challenged people especially on college campuses, because his message was incompatible with the Left’s destructive moral relativism that has taken hold everywhere.
The same moral relativism that demands the 9-11 Islamic hijackers be treated the same as their victims has also infected the minds of the Lindsay Clancy jurors, who are now openly saying in front of cameras in public interviews that Lindsay Clancy was the real victim, not her three little children that she strangled with her bare hands, in her home, in their bedrooms, surrounded by all their teddy bears, toys, and other symbols of safe, happy, hearth and home. These women jurors are talking about “compassion” for the murderer, to the point where they would have her be found not guilty of brutally murdering three innocent children.
In other words, a year after Charlie was shot in the neck by a Leftist, America is still suffering from the Left’s attack on basic human morality and essential civilizational values held the world over, except in materially successful capitalist countries, like America, where citizens have so much stuff that they can afford to invent their own problems. Like so-called “compassion” for brutal child murderers.
Charlie, we miss you, we need you now more than ever, and I know I speak for many when I say that your legacy of freedom, core Western values, and open debate as fundamental to our American culture is not forgotten. Today we remember your martyrdom, and tomorrow we remember the martyrdom of the 3,000 innocent Americans burned alive, crushed alive, thrown into a fifty story fall to pavement alive, by Islamic jihadi murderers.
Hopefully, the lesson we Americans take from all this remembering is that we do not allow yet more Leftists to take elected office and perpetuate, nay, increase, all of this mayhem.
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1932, 451, 1984, and now 722
Numbers are an important part of advanced human cultures. Numbers are how we calculate things. Numbers give substance to the things that advanced cultures measure and value, like raw materials or produced widgets or dollars in your bank account. While numbers are often thought of as mere “math” and thus relegated to the world of nerdy geekdom, in many ways, a particular fixed number can come to symbolize or represent certain ideas or cultural markers, too.
One fixed number that has become common parlance in some political discussions, on both the intellectual left and the violent left, is “88.” Apparently, the number eight followed by another number eight can mean, to some people, the eighth letter of the English alphabet, H, followed by another H. In an apparent crypto secret language, this is supposed to mean “Heil Hitler.”
The number 1932 is the year that Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World was published. Huxley watched the rise of the racialist Nazi German state, coupled with the rise of modern science, and foresaw how such a diabolical mating could produce truly evil offspring. Like selecting which child with what genes to preserve alive, and which to kill off. To the point where the government (in the book) was allocating certain outcomes of intellectual and physical capacity to every human born under the government’s control. Most people (in the book) were designated as low intelligence physical workers, and had their embryo so tweaked while in utero, and a lucky few embryos were left alone to develop normally and live up to their full potential.
Brave New World is rightfully an important book because of its warning against too much government power, and against the use of science to artificially manipulate human outcomes from the embryo stage on through the end of life. For a book written almost a hundred years ago, it sure seems prescient! Human DNA, freaky and immoral experiments, coercive governments everywhere… our own 2026 does not seem too far removed from the bad world that Huxley foresaw in 1932.
The movie THX1138 is loosely based on Brave New World, as are many other futuristic, dystopian movies. Most of them have robots controlling human populations with extreme violence, many of them involve humans trying to escape their walled environment.
Another number that is used a lot in all kinds of political discussions is 1984, which is the title of a book by George Orwell. Published in 1949, after the Soviet Union’s Iron Curtain fell across Eastern Europe and the mask came off of the homicidal Russian socialists, the book 1984 refers to the then-far-off year of 1984, in which Orwell foresees the possibility of a “dystopian” state, where totalitarian government has its boot forever on the human face.
Dystopian is the opposite of utopian. Utopia being the promised land euphoric state of socialist bliss and abundance and easy living harmony absolutely danggummit guaranteed by all socialist dictators and genocidal mass murderers, like Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot, a few others. And it was the 1945 fall of Adolf Hitler’s racialist socialist thousand year utopia, coupled with the 1947 un-masked USSR socialist project’s oppressive dictatorship, that led Orwell to pen his warning to all who might follow in those same footsteps in the future.
So, the number 1984 has come to mean dystopian, totalitarian government, cruelty, mass surveillance, no individual rights. In a nutshell, socialism.
Another iconic number is 451, the number in the title of Ray Bradbury’s book about the temperature at which paper (books) burn. In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury foresees a society where books are burned by the government, to prevent humans from accessing true knowledge. This is done to keep humans ignorant of truth and fact, to deprive them of access to knowledge, to make them dependent upon the government for all information. And in Bradbury’s book, if you have books, you had better hide them. Because the police will come and put you in jail, and burn all of your books.
Bradbury got a good dose of his fears from the famous Nazi book burnings in the 1930s and 1940s. Those were themselves based on the massive book burnings held by the Church in the 1300s through the 1700s across Europe. Because information control is everything…and ideas about individual freedom and individual rights can never be tolerated by a totalitarian government.
Given the past bout of official censorship that our planet did not enjoy over the 2020-2022 covid19 plandemic, it is impossible to argue with Bradbury’s fears. But that was merely about digital access and digital information. Literally today, we have Anthropic, the artificial intelligence company, digitizing rare books, and then shredding them and destroying them.
Now why would someone desire to make digital copies of books, but then destroy the actual physical book? Is it because they want to be the sole arbiter and source of what those original books actually said? What if the digital versions are edited or deleted or monkeyed with? Unless you have the actual physical book copy in your hands, you would have to rely on the digital version being presented to you.
Finally, I would like to introduce a new number to our list of politco-cultural numbers discussion: 722.
The number 722 is the important page number in my edition of the 1965 book Dune, that majestic and iconic sci-fi thriller that has spawned a bunch of movies (the 1984 version of Dune is the best, ironically, if we are talking about symbolic numbers).
On page 722 of my edition of Dune, readers are exposed to a purportedly dangerous and radical idea, at least in the current parlance of our brave new world of socialist academia and its attached totalitarian political functionaries: The human gender binary.
“Paul said: There is in each of us an ancient force that takes and an ancient force that gives. A man finds little difficulty facing that place within himself where the taking force dwells, but it’s almost impossible for him to see into the giving force without changing into something other than man. For a woman, the situation is reversed…..These things are so ancient within us, Paul said, that they’re ground into each separate cell of our bodies. We’re shaped by such forces. You can say to yourself Yes, I see how such a thing may be. But when you look inward and confront the raw force of your own life unshielded, you see your peril. You see that this could overwhelm you. The greatest peril to the Giver is the force that takes. The greatest peril to the Taker is the force that gives. It’s as easy to be overwhelmed by giving as by taking.”
It is interesting to see that the number twelve be shaped so strongly by the Taker today, when the other eleven were all Givers. For today the jury in the Lindsey Clancy trial was unable to come to a unanimous verdict. Lindsey Clancy admits to having strangled her three children to death. The jury was simply charged with finding her guilty of murder, or not. Accounts of those present in the court room say that the eleven women on the jury were openly in support of a Not Guilty verdict, and that the one man on the jury seemed to be the lone voice wanting her to be held accountable for murdering her children, with her hands, in their home.
You know, all these futuristic dystopian books that predicted an upside down world, where government has absolute control through censorship and violence against the population, and where basic truths are no longer accepted by those in power, these predictions or warnings all seem to have come to fruition in the Lindsey Clancy trial outcome today.
For almost a whole generation, school teachers and academics, and now elected officials, tell us the un-truth that humans are not binary. They say that there is no woman or man, that the gender lines are blurred and false, and that we each have our “own truth” that may deviate from the measurable and demonstrable truth that we can see, calculate, scientifically map.
We Americans are at profound risk right now. We have a culture where a woman can strangle her own small children, and not only be surrounded by adoring groupies dressed in pink, but where a jury of women, of motherhood and Givers, cannot find this murderous witch Guilty of the crime of murder. Of innocent, vulnerable little children, by their mommy.
This cultural shift away from basic justice might be a result of all the abortion-on-demand-up-until-age-ten stuff that has been pushed, or all the “my truth says I should murder you because I don’t like your politics” stuff that has been pushed. The whole “By any means necessary” socialist chanting stuff. The idea that wrong is right, and murder is justified if you feel OK with it that one time, because her gender is, at that moment, your biggest identity marker.
Moral relativism run amok. The natural outcome of moral relativism.
The number 722 and all that it stands for is going to be attacked, demonized, and Dune will become relegated to the heap of books to be burned, for stating the obvious, the scientifically proven, the basic binary of life on our planet. Get yourself a copy of Dune and hide it away in your attic, for future generations of prospective readers, along with copies of 1984, Animal Farm, Brave New World, and Fahrenheit 451. To know the truth, and how to arrive at right and not wrong decisions.
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The light that shines twice as bright lasts half as long
If you live long enough, you get to appreciate every minute alive more and more, because more and more, the people you know, love, work with, rely upon themselves fall prey to the end of all flesh. Some die unexpectedly and terribly, like my friend Dr. Holly Engelman, hit by a car while crossing Front Street in Harrisburg just days ago.
Others die of some unexpected disease or ailment. Several years ago, the state’s Furbearer Biologist, Tom Hardisky, had a massive heart attack while gardening. Tom was a friendly source of 24/7 inspiration and help to Pennsylvania trappers. And then one sunny morning, he was gone. In his early fifties.
My friend and fellow Dauphin County Planning Commission board member, Keith Oellig, died of a heart attack while stacking hay bales on his farm. In his mid fifties.
Live long enough, and the list just keeps growing. And today we add another to it: Janet Hodge.
Janet Hodge has been the long time webmaster for all of the web pages I own. She and I hit it off after just a couple minutes interviewing one another for the job, and the rest is history. Janet died a few days ago of a cancer she had been battling for a year. My web management needs are not so intense, and so her sickness resulted in just a couple delays here and there, with subjects that were not that important, anyhow. Her friendship was the best part of our relationship.
Janet Hodge is still shown on the Smithsonian Institute’s website as one of America’s living legacy people; a person who embodies some aspect of traditional American culture in a big way. To work with humble Janet was a big honor and enjoyment for me, and I will miss her technical support and her friendly camaraderie.
Here is her obituary, and some related links. Here.
Rest in peace, Janet Hodge. Yes, you died young at 66, but you also achieved more than most Americans could accomplish in two or three full lifetimes. And the light that burns twice as bright, lasts half as long.
Folks, don’t sit around wasting time; get out there in the world and leave your positive mark, leave a good legacy. Like Janet.
I took this photo in Rome. This is 1600’s street art, a reminder that death awaits us all
Careless speeding & Poor traffic controls take another friend
We lost a most wonderful friend yesterday afternoon. One of the nicest people you could ever meet in your life, needlessly lost her life, while trying to cross North Front Street in Harrisburg.
Three factors caused Dr. Holly Engelman (55 YO) to be struck and immediately killed by a car: Careless driving, at speed far above what is posted (40 MPH transitioning to 35 MPH), in a marked crosswalk that lacks sufficient traffic controls to make drivers slow down and give the occasional pedestrian the right of way.
The driver whose car collided with Holly as she crossed within the crosswalk was young, driving way too damned fast, like almost everyone drives these days. And instead of seeing the adjoining lane blocked by a car waiting for Holly to make her way across Front Street, and taking note of it, her killer simply sped around it.
As Holly stepped past the stopped car, she was hit by the other car. While she was in the marked crosswalk.
Yes, this crosswalk at Vaughn and Front Street is marked on the pavement, and yes, it has signs on both sides, and yes, it has a flashing light and signs hanging over the crosswalk. But what it does not have is a couple rumble strips on both sides. Rumble strips, or speed bumps, can force drivers to slow down, by dint of the discomfort they cause when driven over at high speed. If designed to really slow a car down, they will immediately remove the tailpipe when hit at high speed.
Otherwise, these crosswalks are dangerous enticements, death traps that promise safety, but deliver death and injury.
I always drive the speed limit on Front Street. It is a residential street and also a low speed artery into and out of Harrisburg City. And yet, no matter where I enter Front Street, with however much lead time between me and approaching traffic, my doors are always blown off by passing vehicles that are going between fifty and sixty MPH. Some faster than this. Never fails, everyone is in a huge hurry to get into Harrisburg or out of it.
Plenty of tailgating, plenty of aggressive zooming up behind a vehicle that is already going the posted speed limit. As if Front Street is a race track, the Autobahn, a highway. But it is none of those things. Front Street runs along the scenic Susquehanna River, and right along the walking/ biking path above the river bank. Very little margin for error in this corridor, really no room for high speeds.
And yet, drivers speed there, and crash there, all the time.
There is no police presence on Front Street. Zero speed enforcement. None, ever. Not even at this one crosswalk.
Holly was a gentle, kind, beautiful person, with an uninhibited, attention-grabbing Woody Woodpecker laugh that made everyone around her laugh with her. Big time community volunteer, while also holding down a regular science job. She had a PhD in some polysyllabic hard science field that involved test tubes, lab rats, genes, big buildings, whatever, the whole gemish. Brilliant person, always positive to be around. Her two sons are good kids, smart in their own rights, and also hard working. Ditto her husband Andrew.
There is no replacing a Holly when something like this avoidable killing “accident” takes place. Holly was one of a kind, a super person of tiny stature who gave much more back to the community and society around her than her tiny size would indicate. She was one of the Princess of Patience’s best friends here in Harrisburg, and our home has been in mourning all day.
Folks, slow down in your vehicles. I do not understand why the hell so many people routinely drive like a bat out of hell in parking lots, or on residential streets, where people are around and where the margins for error are tiny. Nothing “pressing” in your life or mine is worth taking someone else’s life over. Driving fast in these enclosed spaces isn’t getting you anywhere any faster, but your risk factors are going through the roof.
And for those who will debate me on this, consider the young lady driver who killed our friend Holly. She likely faces the serious charge of manslaughter, in addition to reckless driving, etc etc. Her young life will never be the same, and will probably be much worse for a long period of time, simply because she was in too much of a hurry to slow down for Holly walking in the crosswalk.
In 2019, a young guy crashed into my truck’s rear, at pretty high speed, as I was stopped at a red light in Lewisburg. For about forty miles on our drive up Route 15, I had watched him staring at the dumb phone in his lap. He kept on slowing down as he became more absorbed in what he later told me was “the stupidest stuff.” And he would then suddenly speed up when he realized that other vehicles were passing him. He yo-yo’d like this for forty miles, and never once saw me waving to him, looking at him, trying to get his attention. He totaled his brand new Mustang, and hurt me.
Nothing on your social media feed is worth killing a Holly over, and if something on your phone really is so important, then pull off the road and give it your full attention. You, me, Holly, and the other person on your other end will all benefit.
Goodbye, dear Holly, sweet Holly, smart and humble and gentle Holly, mom Holly, doctor Holly, wife Holly, good friend Holly. We miss you very much.
UPDATE: Local news is covering this well. Here is a good example, and the reader comments are illuminating.
The scene of the crime. Killing a pedestrian here is no “accident.” It is negligent homicide, manslaughter.
How many signs and lights do drivers need? Apparently a lot
Another view. Northbound. People blasted through here while I tried to cross. Supposed to yield, a couple vehicles stopped, but most paid no mind
Is this the skid mark at the strike location?
Dr. Holly Engelman, on the left, as always
Kempton Gunmakers Fair 2026 starts with a bang
The annual Kempton Gun Maker’s Fair started today, at the Kempton Community Center, in Kempton, PA. This is the former Dixon’s show. Dixon’s black powder shop is still operating, and why they ever gave up ownership of this national show, I will never understand.
For those easily startled and alarmed and triggered by the word “gun,” you can do a bong hit and relax, because these are guns of the 1776 variety. Mostly flintlocks, some percussion, all artistic beauty. They are loaded by pouring black powder down the barrel, and then ramming down a patched lead ball on top. Shooters of these fine instruments might get one shot every 45 seconds, if they are really fast. These are mostly used for primitive hunting and shooting competition, and are constructed of especially pretty, and expensive, sometimes rare, wood.
Hunters toting these rifles in the woods are committed to challenge. To giving animals a real high chance of survival. No long range assassinations possible here, the Long Hunter must have excellent wood craft, and get close to his quarry. A shot over 100 yards is considered long distance, and though the guns are very accurate, the human hand-eye coordination factor is the fly in the ointment here. Hold-through after the flash in the pan is imperative. Thus the nickname “flinchlocks”, because that fiery flash in your face makes you flinch, and miss.
My usual experience, anyhow. And so any legal animal taken with one of these primitive black powder guns is truly a trophy.
A great deal of 1770s period clothing and accoutrements are available, for those wishing to step back in time. Tools, tomahawks, spontoons, halberds, pikes, and naval spears are all part of the kit, and are therefore available.
I went to check on the status of a percussion rifle being made for me, to take a class on flint knapping, to see long time acquaintances, and to pick up some really neat hand crafted gifts for people who appreciate them. Ended up selling a pile of dry curly maple and black walnut stock lumber I have had stashed for many years. Whatever I get for that will go towards paying for that percussion rifle being made.
Funny little circle, that.
If you are at all interested in black powder guns and all the related stuff around them, like beautifully made leather “possibles” bags, or a blacksmith’s hand made steel tomahawk, or a set of naval pikes for your office decor, the Kempton Gun Maker’s Fair is worth your visit. It runs through Sunday.
Jim Chambers Flintlocks is one of the powerhouse lock and parts makers in the world. Jim and his crew here
A colorful attendee from New Jersey, upon whom I bestowed Most Hirsute of The Show award.
Antique style arms and armor. Need a curaiss for Monday’s board meeting?
David Martin, a talented cabinet maker from Bloomsburg, talks with talented gunmaker Mark Wheland, from Blair County. At age twelve, I started my trapping career on Mark’s family farm in Pennsylvania Furnace. Funny small world.
Making homespun wool thread on a traditional spinning wheel
Gary Fatheree and his super cool wheel locks from Germany, Denmark, and some other formerly European country. You can successfully bag dinner with these
Gunmaker Rod England and gun barrel maker Jason of Rice Barrels teamed up. Rod makes beautiful 1860s style percussion locks and breech plugs, long range sights, and makes Henry style rifle kits. Jason makes perfect barrels to your exact order on his CNC machines. In fact, that percussion rifle I came to check on has Rod’s lock and Jason’s barrel, a .62 caliber Forsyth rifled masterpiece.
More wheel locks, a snaphaunce, and an assortment of related 1500-1700s style guns
Spark Mumma from Jonestown, PA, makes beautiful hand crafted items from cow horn, bone, and wood. I bought one of his large scrimshawed salt shakers
In flintlock rifle circles, Alan Martin needs no introduction. His guns are objects of artistic beauty
Someone talented spent a lot of time making these beautiful “letter openers”
Every year artisans from across America submit their best work to be judged in a competition. Rifles, knives, scrimshawed powder horns, ornate leather bags are the most common items
You can stand amazing beauty only so long, before resorting to the “smart” phone
Some vendor tables
Blacksmith making a naval spear head with socket. As a part time blacksmith myself, I will attest that making a quality socket is the hallmark of a real talented smith
Master class on knapping flint
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Tools and detritus (debotage) of flint knapping
Thank you for helping us learn how to make our own gun flints!
Two blacksmiths compare notes
ETAR 2026 is unbelievable!
The Eastern Traditional Archery Rendezvous has been kind of perking along the past few days, with campers setting up their sites, vendors setting up their tents and booths. Holy moly today was the strongest official opening day I have ever seen since 2000, when I started attending. Back then it was hosted at Denton Hill State Park in Potter County, and was a pretty decent sized event. But this, now, today….
Honestly, ETAR might almost be suffering from its own great success, because man oh gees, there were a LOT of people there. And one imagines that by tomorrow afternoon, the start of the weekend, a LOT more people will be joining the gang. Saturday will see a big push of day trippers. When I pulled out of the third parking lot at 5:00 PM this afternoon, having arrived at noon and still had to go find distant parking nonetheless, and what a beautiful afternoon it was, like Vermont kind of weather, campers were still pouring in and setting up. People were parking way up on Oregon Hill Road by English Run Road and walking quite a ways to join the event at Ski Sawmill.
This event is really an unbelievable success, and it is probably due to a natural reaction by a segment of Americans fed up with technology saturation 24/7. Toting your traditional long bow and a quiver full of arrows around to shoot instinctively at 3-D targets all day every day is about as non-tech as life can get. Lot of camaraderie and old friends. I saw my brother in law, of all people. Bought a nice new ceramic knife sharpener for camp, by Steamboat Super Sharpeners. Also got some tee shirts for family members, who could not be there with me…
Up on today’s speaking roster was Rose Anna Moore, a noted tough participant in the TV show ALONE, who was choppered out of deep British Columbia grizzly country because her inner toughness was greater than her body was tough. I first heard her speak in 2021, or 2022, at ETAR, and was impressed. Since then, she has grown her non-profit group to educate and help and heal about 500 people annually. Her place in the world is in the woods foraging, hunting, fishing. Fascinating person, and worth the event entry fee alone.
Lots of families, lots of dogs, lots of tents and custom campers and friendly strangers who are happy to talk about almost anything. ETAR is the antidote for what ails an over-technified nation like ours. It is what every family and friends summer should be, and it runs for few more days. You should go. I wish I could stay, but the Kempton Gun Maker’s Fair starts tomorrow, and a man cannot be in two places simultaneously (no marriage jokes, please, not yet, anyhow).
ETAR 2026
Everyone I know who uses sheath knives already has waaay too many knives. I myself have an awful lot of hunting knives. I do not know how this guy did selling his knives.
3-D archery targets of every shape, size, animal, alien and zombie known to humankind
Local sporting good store
The Outdoor Artist can make all kinds of outdoors stuff into pretty art for your home
Outdoor Artist, one of about 100 vendors at ETAR
The main 3-D archery field
Rose Anna Moore and some fanboys
Nessmuk’s carries wool clothing and fancy custom axes. We are fortunate to have them in the Wellsboro area
Rose Anna Moore in a vulnerable moment, when she is not battling some grizzly bear for a rotting salmon carcass
Rose Anna does interpretive presentations the old way. Her outdoor kit is laid out on the table, and the audience is invited to come up and handle stuff
Archery targets are hidden away across the entire ski slope complex
Just what you need: More camo
Prospective bow buyers testing the wares
The big tent
The Big Jim’s tent
Like a summer fair or carnival
The old steam engine that powered the old sawmill here, surrounded by campers. Lots and lots of campers
People and their bows
Main camping area
Non-stop wagons taking people hither and thon. ETAR is a big event and there are a lot of places to go
Fancy campers, basic tents, truck caps…
Parking and camping area at Ski Sawmill
David and I share the same tee shirt, and I have the hat. We hit it off immediately
Why isn’t PA in the National Fair in DC?
Came as news to me that there even was a national state fair. Being held on the National Mall, in Washington, DC. Cotton candy, rides, Ferris Wheels, fried foods guaranteed to jump start your heart and then clog it, stuffed teddy bear prizes for your sweetheart, strong man competitions, rope-pulling contests, the usual fun stuff seen at most county and state fairs around America for the past 100 years or more.
Either I do not spend much time online, or the marketers for this big event were not aggressive about it. I just knew nothing about it, read nothing about it, heard nothing about it, had seen nothing about it until a week ago, when it was a couple days away from opening.
Turns out that this “National State Fair” is really big time. Almost a World’s Fair in some ways, with new technology and products being debuted. Pretty darned cool. It runs for a month, and covers America’s 250th birthday celebration on July 4th Independence Day. We are told the fireworks “will be like nothing you have ever seen, that Washington has ever seen.”
Yeah, OK, but is there a place and a role for one of my black powder cannons? Those things really go BOOM.
And so it came as a shock to see recent follow-up articles about how my home state of Pennsylvania is not (or was not) participating in this National State Fair on the National Mall in DC. Pennsylvania, the Keystone State, not participating in America’s 250th birthday celebration in Washington? Really?
Pennsylvania is called the Keystone State for some good reasons, some historic reasons. We were the keystone colony and then state that held together the northeastern and southern colonies and then states. Home of the Declaration of Independence. Pennsylvania’s natural resources literally built the America you experience today. Our own coal fueled the mills in Steelton and Pittsburgh that smelted our own iron ore into steel, that in turn became the railroad tracks laid on Pennsylvania oak railroad ties (of which I have sawed up many on my own sawmill).
The state of Wyoming is not some western name. It is an eastern name, from the Delaware Indian word for “great grassy plains.” The state of Wyoming is named after the Wyoming Valley in northeastern Pennsylvania, because it was the eastern railroads built entirely of Pennsylvania materials that deposited European settlers out on the Wyoming plains (after the Indians had been forced onto reservations). I do not know what the various Indian tribes called what is today Wyoming. But I do know that Pennsylvania had a big hand in making it so.
Pennsylvania coal, iron, and old growth hardwood timber drove the Industrial Revolution in America. Forty minutes due east of Harrisburg is the village of Cornwall, in Lebanon County. An enormous pit there is now filled with water, but it used to be filled with men mining heavy iron ore from the ground. In 1776, those pits were opened to produce the iron to make the cannons that Revolutionary War general George Washington needed to face off against the most hardcore British military, with much of the subsequent cannon blasting and men bleeding happening on Pennsylvania soil (and again at Gettysburg in the Civil War…hmmmmm… this Keystone State thing just keeps raising its head).
I could go on and on about Pennsylvania history in the founding and development of America, but you should get the point here. Pennsylvania got the nickname “Keystone State” for a lot of good reasons, worthy reasons, hard-won reasons.
So, Pennsylvania, having played such a huge role in the founding and early development of America, should naturally be well represented in America’s 250th birthday celebration in Washington, DC, right? Right? RIGHT?
Ummmm, nope. PA governor Josh Shapiro very recently stated to the press that his administration was unable to locate any PA businesses who wanted to participate in the National State Fair, or who could afford to participate in it.
Apparently, I was not alone in learning this new information, as both of our US senators, John Fetterman and Dave McCormick, have in the past 72 hours leapt to action, together, to find both interested businesses and the private funding to get them situated at the National State Fair.
Their bi-partisan action to save the day for Pennsylvania on the national stage is news in and of itself, because just finding a Democrat who wants to be caught dead anywhere near a Republican, much less work with one towards some common shared goal, like, say, a National State Fair in Washington, DC, is harder than raising Lazarus from the grave.
So bravo! to senators McCormick and Fetterman, who say that they have received an outpouring of interest from all of the associated and related and even distantly related associations, groups, and individuals and businesses. PA -based manufacturers and inventors are especially keen to showcase their wares at the event, and have now publicly said so.
Which brings me back to the lurking elephant in the room (it is more of a big donkey than an elephant): Why is Governor Shapiro not out in front of this, leading the charge down to the National Mall? Why did he just kind of low-T diss this event and downplay it, as if it is no big deal for PA to be AWOL on something so important as the national celebration of America’s 250th birthday?
Does Governor Shapiro really, truly, sadly suffer from an affliction of TDS so terribly fatal that he became grossly partisan and petty about something so important?
What a big missed opportunity this is for a man who has represented himself as a political centrist, a uniter and not a divider. Governor Shapiro has aspirations of being re-elected this Fall, and of possibly running for President of America in 2028. As a former Democrat myself, I find myself shaking meself’s old head, once again, at the sad turn the Democrat Party has not just taken once or twice, but which now continues to take even farther off and over a steep cliff.
That someone of Governor Shapiro’s caliber is sulking and boycotting America’s national 250th birthday celebration is a baaaaaad sign. Bad for our body politic and bad for Governor Shapiro’s larger political aspirations.
Past PA governor Ed Rendell was as partisan a politician as you could find anywhere. Rendell was a huge and tireless champion for the Democrat Party. And yet, Rendell also took every opportunity to work cooperatively with his political opponents when those opportunities were given. Rendell understood that it is better to bask in the spotlight of national appreciation with political opponents, than it is to sulk alone in some partisan silo, holding one’s ball close to the body and vowing to never play with those kids ever again. That behavior is bad for everyone.
Pennsylvania’s Governor Shapiro likely has better things to do than read this blog, but if he does, I would (and do) ask that he hightail it down to the National Mall, and share the spotlight with the two US senators from Pennsylvania, McCormick (R) and Fetterman (D).
Promoting Pennsylvania is Job #1 for elected officials from Pennsylvania, and doing that with a smile on one’s face makes everyone involved look like emotionally healthy adults. And it makes all Americans feel like there are still some sane, normal people involved in retail politics. People we can look to for leadership. People who care about all of America, and not just about their own little slice of the electorate, off in some corner, away from everyone else American.
Now, please excuse me while I go hang my Happy 250th America flag on my front porch.
Happy Solstice Father’s Day
Father’s Day 2026 coincides with the longest day of the year, the Summer Solstice. In traditional societies, both winter and summer solstices are central to religion and culture, often gathering people together for initial crop harvests, or for winter-time prayers for a successful coming-year crop yield.
Is it not meaningful or symbolic that celebrating Fatherhood got the longest day of the year in 2026? After all, fatherhood, which is also stewardship, careful management, husbandry, a pile of other synonyms and principles for judicious oversight and watchfulness, is central to any successful family and enterprise?
Fathers have always been central to healthy families, and there is no reason to artificially exclude dads now from healthy families.
About twenty years ago, a dear old friend from Penn State emailed a photo of a single mom, tattooed and pierced, holding her young child. An early form of meme, the photo’s caption said something about how women don’t need no stinkin’ men in their lives and can do everything just fine themselves. It was an angry feminist attack on men in general, and on fatherhood specifically, summing up the then-spiraling and now-spiraled-and-disintegrated state of American society and family alike.
Boy, or man, did that meme age poorly! Nowadays, even the most ardently leftwing sociology professor is acknowledging the necessity of two-parent homes for having children grow up into healthy, adjusted, functioning adults. The data today is simply overwhelming: Men and women together build the soundest, most resilient families. Everything else is somewhere on a Bell Curve’s downhill slope toward failure.
Historically, Dad was both provider and defender. In a world of fang, claw, and tooth, the mighty arm of Dad could wield a spear, a knife, a sword, and keep hairy death at bay. And because both hunter-gatherer and agrarian societies are based on human muscle, Dad’s brawn was central to family survival.
Today, in the West, Dad has been re-invented, mostly against his will and against his interest, against the interest of happy and healthy families. Part class clown and all goof, Dad’s role in popular culture has taken a steady beating from the far-left anarchists running American academia and media. But nature has not changed, and human nature has not changed, and despite heavily promoted fuzzy notions of utopian lifestyles, do-it-all moms and super-women, Dad is still just as needed today as he was a thousand years ago, or a hundred thousand years ago.
If nothing else, a hundred thousand years of human evolution still wants, needs, the comfort of Dad’s words, his encouragement, his bravery, leadership, risk-taking, his steadfast commitment to his family. Not every Dad is up to the job at 100% all the time, but just showing up every day is about 75% of the job. And like in baseball, batting 75% is pretty damned good. Most kids will cut their own Dad some slack, if they believe that he has tried to do his best to be the father they needed.
Thanks, Dad and Dads everywhere. We all love you and we all appreciate you. You are the longest day in our lives, because you have the heaviest influence on us. Hopefully, Dad uses his influence for the good and health of his family. After all, that is being a Dad…
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Make the most of your summer!
Summer is really in full swing now. Outside temperatures are warm to hot, plenty of sunshine, school is out, beaches and picnics and state parks beckon. Fresh air, some vitamin D sunshine on the skin. Summer really is our best time to relax with family and friends, take a breather from non-stop work, take family vacations, go play with our kids or grandkids. Work never ends, and there are few opportunities to stop working and just focus on family, except for the summer.
Man, I love summer time.
I myself enjoy summer gardening. We grow the basics: Various tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers for canned pickles, butternut squash, and a bunch of herbs and spices like basil, sage, rosemary, and dill. We also grow peaches and apples; our cherries were marauded to death by the grackles and squirrels this year. All of our home grown food is pesticide free, chemical free, which normally costs more when you buy it.
I get a big enjoyment from growing our own food, and whatever is extra, is frozen in ziploc bags. Zucchini is cut up and frozen, tomatoes are washed off and frozen whole. We eat a lot of ratatouille in the summer, because zucchini and tomatoes are so abundant. Throw in a few eggs, and you have shakshuka. Very nutritious, healthy, low fat food.
Whatever it is that you enjoy doing in the summer, make sure you do it to the max. Miss no opportunities, because these long hours and sunny days will not be coming back. Take them not for granted! Your kids will remember every moment at the beach with you, fishing with you, picnicking with you, for the rest of their lives. These are special and meaningful days.
I hope you have a great summer. Make every minute of it count.
Does your happiness determine your politics?
Having grown up with leftists, and been surrounded by leftists, and worked primarily if not almost exclusively with leftists for the first 2/3 of my career, I have developed a loose theory of political orientation: Our happiness determines our politics.
Americans holding leftist political views tend to be less happy, dis-satisfied, or just generally unhappy.
“If you are not angry, you are not paying attention” went one popular leftist bumper sticker in the 1990s. Anger seems to be a self-recognized trait among leftists, a bond uniting them.
Given that what seems like 98% of political violence or culturally-based violence in America is committed by Democrats or leftists, it would follow that anger and unhappiness are driving traits in the left. Anger and hate are precursors to violence.
Karl Marx, the 1850s father of Marxism/ socialism/communism and the ends-justify-the-means political tyranny, was a notoriously dis-satisfied guy. One famous letter from his father to him excoriates Marx for never being happy and always looking to blame others for his own failures. To think that Karl Marx’s political descendants would fall far from his ideological tree is really stretching the truth of natural human character.
I could go on and on and really develop this theory, like Ten Commandments level envy is the core of evil “equity”/ thieving redistributive politics, but if you doubt this, look around yourself. Look at the people around you, and ask yourself, Who is angry, and who is optimistic and positive?
And then figure out the politics of the angry, dis-satisfied people and the politics of the happy, optimistic people. In my experience, with a few exceptions, the unhappy people are almost always on the political left. And the optimistic people are almost always on the political center-right. The few exceptions to this rule have all been rural Democrats from around Central PA. Maxine, Robb, a few others I know from rural backgrounds, all seem to be happy people and also liberal-left.
And of course we all know some gruff, jaded, grumpy old conservative curmudgeons…
So it just made me wonder if our life experience, family background and upbringing, etc determine our happiness, and then our politics naturally follow that. It seems to be the case, much more often then not the case.
My two cents.
Your experience may differ, but I doubt it will by much.