Category → Fruit of Contemplation
Pictures worth a bazillion words
Three Gay Men Saving Western Civilization
If you don’t already know it, you should know that three gay men of particular note are actively saving Western Civilization right now.
We bring attention to them and to this subject for a bunch of reasons, mostly because one tires of hearing the same nonsense accusations and stereotypes against conservatives and gays alike, and also because Western Civilization is under crushing assault right now. So it is important to document that gay men are a prominent part of the conservative movement for individual freedom, free speech, and freedom of conscience, all of which are anathema to the political Left.
If you think you are standing tall for freedom by having an NRA sticker on your pickup truck, a Trump hat on your head, and occasionally donating to conservative candidates, get a load of these three guys. Take note; these three gay guys are really moving the freedom ball down the field, more than anyone else.
Douglas Murray – defender of and advocate for modern Western civilization, Christendom, Judeo-Christian values, intellectual freedom, you can find him at https://rumble.com/c/DouglasMurraySpeaks and at https://x.com/DouglasKMurray. Douglas is the incisive, witty, friendly intellectual warrior on the general civilization scene. He clashes frequently with Muslims who openly hate and deride Western Civilization, and yet who love living in Western nations like Britain and America. Douglas is an international hero.
Scott Presler – Stop the Steal, conservative organizer, powerfully motivating speaker, he can be found at https://earlyvoteaction.com/ and at https://x.com/ScottPresler. I met Scott in November 2020 at the Stop The Steal rally at the Pennsylvania Capitol in Harrisburg. He was justifiably fired up, and got everyone else fired up. Scott has persistently shown the moribund, lackadaisical, lazy, unperturbed, uninvolved, sleepy GOP how to get the work done that can win elections. In fact, Scott is more trusted by more grass roots conservatives than is the GOP. He has been really active in Pennsylvania the past couple months, leading incredible voter registration efforts everywhere. When he was in my home county of Dauphin, our own county GOP made no mention of him, or of his work. Probably because he made us look bad. The guy is a national powerhouse for conservative ideals and individual freedom.
Last but not least is Brandon Straka, founder of the #Walkaway movement. He can be found at https://www.walkawaycampaign.com/ and at https://x.com/BrandonStraka. Brandon sells “I Used To Be A Democrat” tee shirts that are selling out lately. A former gay liberal, Brandon realized – like Douglas and Scott – that regular Americans care not a whit about his sexual orientation. We may not want to hear about it all the time, but we also just don’t care. Gay? OK with us. Just pay your taxes and work like the rest of us. Brandon has been chipping away at the bizarre cult fixation so many well meaning people have on the Democrat Party, and for that we all owe him a big Thank You.
One person I deliberately leave out here is the politically ambiguous, or disingenuous, Glenn Greenwald, whose Jew-by-birth anti-Semitism automatically disqualifies him from carrying the freedom banner. No friend of freedom, this guy is against the underdog minority. Yuck.
In sum, being gay doesn’t automatically mean you have to be a Leftist. I know a lot of gays who feel welcome in broader society realize this, and they see the destructive results of leftist/Democrat Party policies. They are not only welcome in the conservative movement, many of them are leaders in it. Here are three. Maybe you know of others.
Powerful Pictures
I USED to be a Democrat

I used to be a registered Democrat, until 1992, the last time I voted for a Democrat for president, when Bill Clinton became president and immediately went to war against private gun ownership. Guns in civilian hands is a sign of a healthy nation, and when politicians want to disarm the civilians, it is a bad sign, that tyranny is awake and active. The Democrat Party hates private gun ownership and is constantly trying to end it. Kamala Harris is on record that she will come and take our guns, if she is elected. No way.
So I am not a big believer in political parties, because as the Pennsylvania GOP has shown over and over, it is really just about a small handful of wealthy elite people here making most of the decisions. This is not democratic, open, transparent, or good for representative government. Both political parties suck, it is just that one is much worse than the other.
That said, one thing that is really acutely toxic to democracy is a group like today’s Democrat Party. This is the political party of tyranny, of big government, of market intervention, of no gas stoves for you, indoctrinating little girls to cut their breasts off in school, and so on. Today’s Democrat Party is anti freedom, anti choice, anti child, anti education, anti family, anti religion, anti science, and anti America. It is so bad that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. of all people had to leave it. So as bad as the PAGOP is, the Democrat Party is worse, and it must be resisted at all turns.
I have yet to have a meaningful conversation with ardent Democrats. They to a person turn off, tune out, walk away, get really angry and defiant. Not one has been able to have a calm conversation about politics, or to calmly explain what they stand for and why they stand for it. Way too many are waving around signs that have some nonsense about Trump and Project 2025. Trump had nothing to do with the Heritage Foundation’s ultra nerdy conservative wishlist Project 2025.
The #WalkAway movement is really valuable, and anyone feeling like they are uncomfortable with the Democrat Party can simply Walk Away from it like so many others are doing. I am not saying you have to become a registered Republican, although the more independent minded voters that register as Republicans, the greater the likelihood that The People can finally defeat the bad GOPe. If you become an Independent or No Political Party, you will suddenly find yourself…unburdened by what was.

You are a Zionist, so am I, the Irish especially
Whether you think you are a Zionist, or not, you absolutely surely are one if you love your country. And it turns out you are in good company, because literally everyone else around the world is also a Zionist, albeit in shades of grey that suit each person and nation. The Irish are especially Zionist, they who have been exhibiting intense nationalistic pride and fervor lately in defense of their homeland.
The Scots, on the other hand, are nowhere near being Zionist, as they have completely given up on their own nation and turned it over to people who violently hate them. How sad; pathetic, really. They of Highlander and Claymore fame have no self pride, no sense of their own fantastic history. The irony here is that the nation that once dominated Scotland so brutally, England, is right behind them, also swirling down the “diversity” toilet bowl and throwing national pride and defense of homeland over the side of the boat filled with foreign invaders who hate them.
What is Zionism, this strange sounding word? Why call nationalism Zionism? Good question!
Zion is the ancient Biblical word for Israel, and in its most essential form Zionism is just simple old nationalism for Zion, which is simply a national pride in and defense of one’s homeland. Here it is Zion (Israel, Jerusalem, the Holy Land), but you can have nationalist feelings like Russiaism, Francism, Chinism, Brazilism etc. All the same thing about different places.
Generally speaking, that is all Zionism is, and literally everyone around the planet has some degree of national pride in their own country, whether they are from Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Canada, Russia, France, or especially Japan and China. Thus, it follows that everyone has their own form of Zionism, though they might call it something different than that exact word. It is really simple:
Zionism = nationalism = universally felt love of and pride in one’s own country. Everyone feels it, everyone is it, everyone is Zionist. Everyone, especially the Irish. Go Irish!
The fact that Israelis are also proud of their nation and devoted to its defense like everyone else around the world is devoted to their own country is no surprise or deviation from the international norm. Israeli nationalism is no different than anyone else’s nationalism, except that Israel’s nationalism, called Zionism since the 1850s, is recorded throughout the Bible and begins about 3,500 years ago. That is a pretty old claim on a piece of real estate! Especially when we think of the Franks claiming what ended up becoming France only a thousand years ago, at most.
Recently I saw a video of some goofball lout yelling at participants in a pro-Israel rally, “Zionism isn’t even a part of Judaism,” he said over and over.
Really? I don’t think he is right about this.
If anything, the historical and Biblically commanded devotion of Jews to living in and militarily controlling Zion AKA The Holy Land AKA Israel AKA Judea is one of the most fundamental tenets of Judaism. In the very beginning of the Bible, and repeated again and again throughout the Bible with different characters, God promises to Abraham that his Jewish descendants will inherit Israel. So strongly did Jews feel their Zionistic nationalism 1,960 years ago, that they ended up in a war (year 67 CE) with the world’s leading superpower, Rome. And then again, seventy years later (year 131 CE) the Jews rose up and duked it out with the Romans again. And then again in the 1940s with the British Empire, and now again with the Islamic Empire.
So yeah, Jews are super nationalistic and Zionism is fundamentally a part of Judaism. Always has been, always will be.
True, there are Jews who say they are not Zionists, but hey, there are chickensh*t traitors in every group, people looking for what they think is the easiest way out of whatever situation they find themselves in. Those Jews decrying Zionism and Israel are, no surprise, the least involved, least devoted, least Jewish Jews you can find anywhere. So for them, attacking the most visibly Jewish thing, Israel and Jewish nationalism, is their way of trying to disassociate from being Jewish. After all the hell that Jews go through for simply being Jewish, I can’t say I blame them for wanting to check out.
Interesting, then, that Christian America has SO MANY PLACES named Zion!
In the Bible, Zion was always the Promised Land, and to America’s European founders, America was the new Promised Land. And so they named thousands of places in America and across America after Biblical places, including Hebron, Zion, Jerusalem, etc.
America has a Zion National Park, and my area of central Pennsylvania has a ton of places named Zion (see some of the photos I took below).
The point is, when a person opposes Zionism they are opposing just one country’s nationalism. Now why would any person oppose just one country’s nationalism, and not everyone else’s? I mean, I don’t think I have met anyone who loved French nationalism who did not also grudgingly recognize German nationalism and pride. Lots of us Americans are nationalists for America, but we understand why others feel strongly about their own country. Right?
So why are only the Jews being singled out for attack and de-nationing among an entire planet filled with people and nations? Why is only Jewish nationalism such a terrible thing?
I think we all know why. Zionism is being singled out because the same evil envious loser people who always hate Jews have simply found another way to show that they hate Jews. And so Zionism is attacked by people who themselves have tremendous Zionism for their own country.
Oh, the irony of people claiming that Zionism is a “colonial settler ideology,” when Zionism is simply the 3,500-year-old unbroken Biblical and modern history of Jews living in their ancient homeland, Judea/Israel/Zion. Jews cannot possibly be strangers or colonists in their own homeland, and so it is richly ironic that it is the land-stealing Islamic imperialists and Arab and Turkish colonialists who oppose the Jews. Across the planet, jihadi imperialism has spread Islam (Two Billion People total) by force and violence far beyond the Arabian Peninsula, and yet these same colonists covet this tiny little sliver of land held by the smallest of peoples, the Jews (Ten Million People total).
The Han Chinese ethnic group numbers somewhere close to a billion people, in one of the largest nations on the planet, and yet they maintain a sincere fear of being replaced, and so the Han Chinese maintain one of the most aggressive, largest militaries on the planet, and they are in a constant state of imperial expansion.
If we have to render unto Caeser what is Caeser’s, and if the Han Chinese get to keep testing everyone else’s boundaries, and if political and jihadi Islam never stops trying to take over other people’s lands, can’t we just let the tiny Jews enjoy their tiny little Zion, their ancient Promised Land? Is that really too much to ask? I don’t think so. You yourself don’t want to give up your own Zion, either, wherever that happens to be.
Every human being is a Zionist for their own Zion, whether that Zion is actually in Zion or is in France or China or Russia, America, or Italy.
A picture is worth a thousand words
I am recovering from Alaska
To our three loyal readers, my apologies for not posting in two weeks. The reason our blog here has been quiet is I was away in Alaska, almost every day spent in remote locations with no cell or wifi, the nights spent falling asleep immediately, and I just returned a couple days ago.
Alaska tourism can be done several ways – cruise ship, fly to main city like Anchorage or Fairbanks and use tourism services to sightsee and experience, or, my preferred way, go all-in hands-on. And so I spent ten days in remote locations, hunting, fishing, and hiking, marveling at God’s creation. Fortunate am I to have a long time friend who lives there, and who has long shared my outdoor adventure interests here in PA and there in AK. While he was looking for a moose more than anything, he did have a grizzly tag in his pocket, and that is the animal “we” ended up getting.
I say “we” because we were a team, because only a fool hunts alone in grizzly country, especially around the salmon streams when the fish are running, and because it takes two large men to effectively get out and cape out a large bear after one of them gets the critter. Large here was about 600 pounds; it was trying to elude a 1200-pound monster that nearly ran me over, which is terrifying and exhilirating. It is my friend’s bear, not mine. But I was “in on the kill” as used to be said in the old days.
Despite having field dressed and butchered well over a hundred big game animals in my life, I have never before seen connective tissue between muscle and skin like on his grizzly bear. We had three custom fixed blade hunting knives, and they all went dull about 3/4 of the way through the job (my JRJ made of ATS-34 was the last to go dull and the one we both alternatively used as we closed in on finishing the job). Dull due to extremely tough hide, a thick fur filled with dirt and grit and small rocks after we winched it through the woods, and that unbelievable connective tissue that just did not want to be cut. The part of skinning a big game animal that is usually the easiest, pulling the skin off the carcass, was really challenging and tiring with this grizzly. Again, I have neither seen anything like it, nor could I have been challenged to adequately imagine the toughness of that connective tissue. No wonder these huge beasts bite the heck out of each other without showing real wounds!
While I had a black bear tag in my pocket, and wolves were on the menu, I was actually most excited to be present for my friend when he got a moose. Getting a moose out of the woods is a quintessential American wilderness experience, and the one I have not done before. A trip to AK just to eventually help your friend get his moose out of the woods is a worthwhile trip, regardless of what else one might do there. However, when the beautiful male grizzly presented itself, my friend took it. As for the black bear tag I purchased, I actually walked right up to a small black bear deeply enmeshed in a blueberry bush on a steep mountainside drowning in the roar of a nearby glacial stream’s torrential rush. I could have easily killed it, but I would not shoot a bear that small here in Pennsylvania, and so I did not shoot that bear. I think if I am going to remove a black bear from the face of the sacred Alaskan earth, it will have to be a real wall hanger. So I watched this small one duck down, try to hide, and then run like hell up the mountainside, over logs, rocks, and sticks and through devil’s club like nothing was in its way. Even the small bears are impressive.
As for the salmon fishing, I could have as many pinks as the law allows, and my friends’ freezer grew full of them and short of room they preferred to save for the silver coho salmon. And so I dutifully fished daily for the no-show coho, and felt the pang of defeat when the report came in from Juneau that the cohos were there in force, on the day I was leaving. Fishing is almost always “You should have been here yesterday” or “You should have stayed one day longer,” and this rule of thumb applies just as much to Pacific salmon species as it does to striped bass or tuna in the Atlantic.
Thanks for checking in here, friends. I had a hell of a grand trip to Alaska, got my head cleared, my lungs expanded, my blood moving, my heart pumping, my legs working again, and reveled in the this-is-oh-so-right feeling of a pack and rifle over my shoulder.
A little bit of risk is good for us sedentary Western men; it keeps us sharp, feeling alive. Combine risk with hard hunting, and you end up feeling your most alive possible. Back here in PA we have a month to go before pack-and-rifle early muzzleloader season, and then another month after that before bear and then deer seasons give us that brief but intense visit with our inner and most honest, truest paleo inside.
Pictures to come.

A 22″ grizzly skull may not sound that big by itself, but it was attached to a 600 pound body with enormous muscles and claws

We beat the weeds looking for a bull moose, only to find one standing on the highway on a return drive home

Setting up a moose stand is like setting up a deer stand back East, except the moose stand comes with grizzly bears, wolves, and moose

Stalking AK black bear habitat is a lot like being in PA black bear habitat, except AK has blueberries -and- high bush cranberries, salmon berries, tons of mountain ash berries and rosehips, while PA is lucky to have any blueberries or blackberries at all, due to our overabundant deer

A pink “humpy” salmon, probably the most prolific edible Pacific species. Back East we pay five bucks for a can containing about one quarter of this fish’s meat. I was allowed six a day.

A fine looking salmon river that you must share in close quarters with cool grizzly bears on the one side, and annoying, jostling, foolish foreign tourists on the other

Whether you harvest an animal or not, simply being in Alaska with your pack and rifle is sufficient for a complete overhaul of mindset and heart

Endless vistas of countless mountainsides, each loaded with black bears, grizzly bears, sheep, caribou, and moose. A paradise of God’s creation.

















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































