Fairy Forts: Being Truly Green, and Emerald
On a really neat hike around Howth, Ireland, guided by a really neat guy named Mark, I was introduced to the weird world of Irish politics two weeks ago.
Just two weeks before I had an even stranger introduction to Irish politics, when at the Yuengling beer plant tour in Pottsville, PA, a little Irishman with a big Brogue said to me “Yer nawt Oirish, becauz yew doon’t leev ‘n Ireland, and I’m nawt Oirish becauz ah leev ‘n Northr’n Ireland.”
The little master was quite assertive in his girly long shorts (thankfully these have not yet arrived in America) and me, for the first time in my life not knowing what to say and how to not say it, I simply said “Brother, you need another beer.”
And yes, he did drink another beer. Guess that meant he’s not really Irish…
So two weeks later on Howth, I described this encounter to our guide Mark, himself of Belfast like the non-Irish Irishman in the girly pants, but Catholic, and he responded like a PhD historian.
To wit: After 750 years of English occupation, colonization, violence, repression, uprisings, death, mayhem, chaos, cultural suppression, etc., the Irish are still sorting a few things out now that the English are mostly out.
The idea that an Irishman from Belfast is not really an Irishman is to me, like, I don’t know, let me think of something incongruous, well, it is like finding out something so incredibly outlandish that your whole world view goes topsy turvy for a week. That was the effect.
But Mark said matter of factly “Oh yeah, that is the mentality and attitude up there [Belfast], and that is why I left to come down here [Dublin].”
You would probably have to live there over a few lifetimes to figure it all out, because just as I was starting to comprehend the political and cultural dynamic of Northern Ireland, Mark then went on to describe Irish MP Danny Healy-Rae in the way someone from some deep urban ghetto cloister in New York City or Los Angeles would describe a rural NRA member farmer in flyover country.
It was not pretty, but hey, who am I to judge, and I just sat and nodded along. Mark was an excellent guide and passionate about his homeland and his happy life there. I can relate, and so like I said, I just nodded along.
Danny Healy-Rae is probably all alone in his singular rural style of political representation the world-over. Despite having a lot of rural areas and a lot of fired-up rural people, I do not think America has anyone like him in politics. Danny Healy-Rae is both principled and colorful, with a straight face.
The incredible irony of Danny Boy’s place on the political spectrum was totally lost on Mark, who only moments before was explaining Irish politics very cogently, and advocating for new roads in the deepest rural areas as “progress.”
See, Danny Boy objects to new roads being built through really rural areas, especially those places that have “fairy forts.”
Yes, fairy forts. Wonder if you will, laugh if you must, but the man is indeed worried about how new roads will destroy or impact ancient fairy forts. Setting aside the rural traditions and folklore about fairies and fairy forts (and I do tend to side with both Native American Indians and Native Irish on their spiritual sensitivities to real things in the natural world that city folk aka Town Mice completely miss), fairy forts are real.
A week after Mark had explained Irish politics so clearly to me, we visited Stonehenge.
Have you gone there? Stonehenge is literally surrounded by fairy forts. Lots of hill forts and burial mounds and mystery places clearly built by the ancients for mysterious purposes that were really important to them and unattainable to us desensitized moderns. I was not expecting this side of Stonehenge, and it turns out it’s the presence of all those hill forts and mounds that make the big Stonehenge rocks so important.
After seeing this unexpected oddity in person, I looked up “fairy forts” and read most carefully this one (of several) reference. Naturally the Irish ones came to mind first, because of the footage of Danny Boy talking about Fairy Forts in Ireland’s parliament.
Archaeologically a “fairy fort” is a fascinating historic remain, and it’s evident why the ‘hick’ locals in all these places both revere and fear them. The English seemed to have plowed theirs extensively, which is very bad from the view of the historian, archaeologist, or Druid.
Turns out that Danny Boy is not only concerned about new roads destroying Fairy Forts, but he is also publicly concerned about the explosion of rhododendron in rural Ireland.
Now as much as Mark mocked Danny Boy’s unpersuaded opinions about man-made “climate change” (like Danny Boy, I too am unpersuaded by the heavily politicized, faked data behind the mere statistical models purported to be and shouted to be irrefutable “science”), Mark admitted he did not know the flora and fauna subjects along our beautiful walk on Howth. Nonetheless, he mocked Danny Boy over the rhododendron thing, too.
That flora issue includes the tidal wave of invasive plants moving in on the beautiful Irish countryside. That would also include rhododendron, and you will not find a bigger faunal representation of imperial Victorian England (something Mark is very much opposed to) than the various copses of rhododendron planted and quickly spreading from one end of the Empire to the other.
In other words, Danny Boy is objecting to invasive rhododendron for environmental and cultural reasons, things that his detractors say they care about, and his supposedly proud Irish compatriots are mocking him about it. They mock him simply because he comes across as a hick, not because they actually know better than he or care more for the environment than he.
I think this hillbilly Irishman MP, Danny Healy-Rae, should get a lot more credit from his fellow countrymen than he has thus far received. At first I thought he was just an aggressive environmentalist trying to keep roads and invasive plants out of undeveloped Paradise. Now I think he’s also a keen historian!
We will return to Ireland. Several other friends and friendly couple friends of ours were simultaneously touring Ireland when we were there, and between us all we all pretty much covered the whole country by car, bike, kayak, and foot. The collective photos we all took showed Ireland in all its splendor. What a beautiful, unspoiled, undeveloped, magical place is Ireland.
Turns out that Ireland, the whole entire place, is one big beautiful, magical fairy fort!
We are coming back, and we hope that Danny Boy has succeeded in diverting the roads, protecting the fairy forts, and uprooting the rhododendron. Mark, you will have to come with us, because I think you should see Ireland through our eyes. It might help you better appreciate the incredible natural beauty you have.
And this next trip might help us all better figure out Irish politics, because as we can see with Danny Boy vs. the liberal Irish, Irish politics are a complete mess where up is down and left is right. When you have liberals advocating for environmental destruction and keeping the symbols of imperial England, and the conservatives opposing them are the greens, things are just not yet sorted out.
That’s the best way to put Ireland. It just isn’t yet sorted out. But it is beautiful, thanks to the fairy forts.
Howth and the “Eye of Ireland”:
Britannia, Rule Britannia
Any institution that disregards a substantial native resource that is accessible and usable is shooting itself in the foot. Plenty of companies and governments make the mistake of missing out on key resources – human, material, or other – and are the poorer for it. They also know they must constantly be on the watch for it, and correct it.
When it happens to a private company, the company is less competitive than it could be, less profitable than it should be. The profit motive keeps companies sharp and on the lookout.
When this disregard occurs happens to a nation with its leadership, it is criminal, and unfortunately, there is no built-in measure or quantifiable yard stick. While many people will keep going and going as a nation ails until they and it go over a cliff, there are others who have long, old, and wise vision, and who would sail the ship of state into calmer, better waters. To ignore their leadership qualities is to waste the best resource a nation has. Democracy is the constant battle between these forces of cold comfort and patriotic ambition.
Take England as a bright and shining example of a great nation that is self-destructing by deliberately excluding its best leadership.
By any measure, material or intellectual, England is one of the world’s greatest civilizations ever achieved.
Begun and long run as a monarchy (like every other part of the world), a might-makes-right social structure with barons, dukes, counts, and attendant aristocrats to whom power and wealth naturally flowed (like every other part of the world), and a large underclass of poorly educated laborers barely able to survive (like every other part of the world), England today is in some ways a good example of meritocracy. More opportunity exists for more people. Democracy has largely worked.
The monarchy’s political wings have been clipped, the aristocracy was purposefully driven from the public square, and the most Marxist punitive measures possible were instituted to steal generational wealth so that any semblance of monarchical or aristocratic England would be eliminated.
As a result of these artificial policies, the National Trust now owns more castles and great halls than do private families, and some of England’s best natural landscapes (the natural environment) have been permanently damaged. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot!
One can argue that England is more of a meritocracy now than it was, but that is really difficult to prove, because the government is the new monarch. Isn’t it?
England’s bureaucracy is nothing short of an unassailable, unaccountable, unchangeable, singular power.
Few entrepreneurs really get ahead in England, because the regulations and taxes are so damning; holding on to generational wealth is nigh impossible, due to the death taxes designed to strip successful people of their rewards. A universally low-income population is the new goal of the English bureaucracy.
Even worse, some of England’s greatest personalities, strongest patriots, most well educated and biggest thinkers have been purposefully marginalized. These people are the residual aristocrats, the heirs to the dregs of the monarchical system that actually produced England’s greatest generations in WWI and WWII.
Can anyone imagine an Admiral Jacky Fisher or Admiral Roger Keyes rising to lead England, today?
My grandmother is rolling over in her grave as I write this, but MomMom, times change. Nations change. Needs change. My grandmother (MomMom) Jane was a true-blue Daughter of the American Revolution, a fierce advocate for meritocracy and a fierce opponent of monarchy or aristocracy. She raised us all on stories of the American revolution, its just response to the unfairness of aristocratic England, and the cruelty of King George.
But today, things have really changed. Those old symmetries and forces no longer exist, and in their place have arisen other forms of monarchy and repression. England today is wracked by a lack of social structure or universal national standards, by anarchy masquerading as government. A huge vacuum space has opened up, and the entire nation could implode.
Today in the place of King George is a cruel and tyrannical English bureaucracy and judiciary, that rules the English citizens as though they were serfs. Very little due process, no free speech, and ambiguous political correctness as the new unattainable measure. Say the wrong the thing, write the wrong thing online? Off with your head!
It is time for England to return to its greatness. To do so, she must draw upon one of her greatest and most ignored human resources, to resurrect many of her finest patriots, her most committed citizens, and employ them in leading the nation away from the brink on which it stands, and back to greatness. This would involve tapping into the aging aristocrats who remember a truly Great Britain, and who would Make Britain Great Again.
We have all learned over the past 250 years that monarchy is not such a good thing, and we have also learned that politically correct Marxism is just as arbitrary and anti-freedom as any monarch. The solution to what ails England today lies in the collective wisdom and patriotism of England’s best elders, the last connection to a truly Great Britain (not necessarily a Greater Britain); its aristocrats who care the most about the most English.
It is time Britannia, it is time for Britannia to rule Britannia once again.
Or put it this way.
Do I own my things, or do they own me?
A recent correspondence with a man about a possible mutual exchange of what The Boss Lady here calls “rusty old junk” made me think, hard, about the things we surround ourselves with. These are things that, on their surface, bring us pleasure.
History is important to a successful civilization, and for most people collecting the detritus and symbols of history is a meaningful touchstone to the past. It is deeply satisfying to own and admire authentic representations of human history.
Collecting can be as simple as little cast iron figurines and cornstalk dolls, from a simpler and more humble time, and representative nonetheless. These are fairly inexpensive and fun to display in the living room, and still carry an intriguing punch for the Saturday lunch visitor.
The other end of the spectrum has items so valuable that they must remain under lock and key for all but the most pressing times. These are more investments than for joy.
One guy I know has probably the largest private American battle flag collection extant. It is so large in number, and the flags so large in size, that he must loan them out to various museums around America, despite the capacious capacity of his own home. In museums, these powerful bullet-ridden symbols of American freedom and sacrifice are on public display for any and all comers to see. My friend gets a sense of satisfaction from both owning and sharing these flags. Not a bad way to collect. The flags are insured and in pretty secure environments. He can recall them at any time should be desire to sell or trade one.
I could go down the line of friends and acquaintances who own and collect expensive horses, automobiles, memorabilia, clothing, machinery, and so on. There is even the guy who at great expense built a majorly off-road pickup truck that he refuses to allow mud on, even when he is in conditions where he must.
Those who hunt with antique firearms face a true dilemma, because sporting guns are by their nature thrust into the most rugged and potentially destructive and damaging environs. Carrying your sleek 1912 Purdey double rifle on a bear hunt in northcentral Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Mountains is a risky proposition no matter how slow you go. But go you may feel compelled anyhow. I would.
Using the rifle’s open sights, you might kill a bear under true fair-chase conditions with the classiest gun in the entire state. Such would be a lifetime achievement. On the other hand, you might drop the rifle, fall on it, bang it, or scratch it in those rugged hills, thereby incurring an expensive trip to gunsmith Abe Chaber in Connecticut, or a ship-and-wait to gunsmith Mike Rowe down south. The incredible satisfaction of both owning and successfully hunting with such a fine firearm is measurably balanced by the risk to the rare gun. And no, money is not the issue with such a gun; the issue is its rarity, impossibility of replacement, and one’s absolute duty to protect it in its original condition, as much as practicable.
So when this fellow and I got into horse-trading mode, and he demonstrated a tangibly possessive and prideful feeling about his own “rusty junk,” it jarred me, got me thinking. Do I own my things, or do they own me?
To own a piece of history and be buoyed by it, informed by it, inspired by it, is one thing. But to be a slave to those things, to turn them almost into graven idols of worshipfulness, is nearly blasphemous. It is dangerous, because it causes us to lose perspective. These are, after all, only material things, by design made by men and destined to return to the earth from whence they came. The most important things in life are not things; they are our family members, our friends, our community, and so on.
So it got me wondering, that’s all.
Do I own my things, or do they own me…
Chautauqua Institution’s Destruction
Chautauqua Institution was once a fine place to visit, many years ago.
It was safe, quiet, full of interesting people reading books or lecturing about the most recent book they had written. The on-site opera and orchestra provided just about everyone with any artistic taste with something.
Decades later, it has been completely taken over by the same people who have targeted every other American institution for capture and control, or destruction.
Chautauqua is now a summertime parade of communists, bigots, America haters, partisan political activists. Each speaker is treated to lavish welcome ceremonies as if they are the most gifted thinker on Planet Earth, when in fact they are the meanest, most close-minded political street brawlers in America.
The place reeks of radical, angry politics everywhere you turn. The air is poisonous with hate and tension, but always sold as love and open-mindedness.
I think the institution is still physically safe, for now, but my own kids have this sense that all is not well there. They have grown up going there every summer, and they report back feeling that same tension that anyone with different views feels there now. Unwelcome.
The last time I was there, or one of the last times, I sat at the Amp for a lecture by Donna Brazile. Of course she was presented as some kind of open-minded Deep Thinker, when in fact she is a narrowly partisan fighter and proven liar. Brazile helped fix Hillary’s illegal cheating “win” over Bernie Sanders in the Democrat primary.
When Brazile spoke that day, the entire Amp was a cheering section for the lady. There used to be rules against cheering or clapping for speakers, but the hyper partisan activists who now populate and run Chautauqua observe the same kind of rules on decorum as they do the laws they disdain for border security and illegal aliens living in “sanctuary” cities. That is, they make the rules as they go.
Having just received some emails from one of the Chautauqua administrators, I had to write this. The guy is either a huge liar, or a huge fool. To assert that Chautauqua Institution is anything but a far-left training camp and summertime re-education society is to deny the obvious reality as reflected in the speakers they invite, the speakers they DISINVITE, and all of the other far-Left programming there.
The CHQ administrators purposefully exclude alternative views they disagree with, even though CHQ is supposed to be all about alternative views. “Dissent” and “dialogue” is only acceptable from those who agree with the CHQ administrators and their partisan, liberal guest voices. This means that Chautauqua is an artificial, fabricated environment. Reality is concealed. Stealth is their way.
I understand the mindset of Liberals. I grew up with them. Liberals are very close-minded and very, very uncomfortable sharing any kind of space – physical, emotional, or intellectual – with anyone else. Let’s face it, Liberals are the very angry, hate-filled bigots they always said they were against. Chautauqua now perfectly represents that hateful culture, and the people now drawn to it and most happy there are like-minded tyrants and control freaks. Zero tolerance for opposing views.
And no, CHQ’s in-house “conservative” David Brooks is not a conservative. He is a RINO Republican, a moderate, which means he is pretty much a liberal. But he is there so the institution can falsely claim to cover all philosophical corners.
Please, spare us the visibly false claims and the pretensions to openness. Like the Boy Scouts of America, the education profession, academia, the media, Disney, and almost all other once-great institutions, Chautauqua Institution has been overthrown and captured by bigoted political partisans, who have now bent the place to their warped purposes.
Everyone have a nice summer. It won’t be at CHQ for me. The Chautauqua of my youth has been destroyed.
Why I support President Trump
When Donald Trump threw his hat in the ring to compete for president of the USA, I was like most other people: “Oh please, give us a break.”
Donald Trump came across as a TV personality, a funny guy with a heavy New York accent and a big self-promotion streak. Like most people, I did not think he would last a month as a candidate.
And then after that month had passed, I began paying attention to what he was saying, and just as important, what his competitors were saying. The guy was taking flak from all corners within the Republican Party. Some of it was fair criticism, and a lot of it was BS, petty and snide cuts meant to hurt Trump, not to promote the guy who said them.
Like a lot of conservatives, I was a Ted Cruz supporter. But when Cruz’s campaign began trying to flip past primary election results using BS legalisms (“I am a lawyer and I am here to prove to you folks of Indiana that your votes for Trump were actually meant for me”), I saw Cruz as another Washington DC insider with more ambition than principle. And that is when I became a Trump supporter.
I still was not sold on Trump as Trump, but I was sure as heck not going to vote for some DC lawyer who tried to reverse already settled primary election results. I called the Cruz campaign HQ and complained, and turned my attention to Trump.
Trump was all over the place. On a given Monday he would speak my language, like putting America first and stopping seventy years of American taxpayer underwriting of the rest of the world’s defense and industrial development. And then two days later Trump would get in a verbal pissing match with some moron Hollywood “celebrity” or other political establishment person.
This erratic communication style both bothered me and intrigued me. On the one hand we finally had a candidate who was walking tall, bucking the political system and doing it with refreshingly straight talk. On the other hand, what the hell was he doing trading barbs with these lowlifes, whose sole contribution to the world was the occasional theatrical skit (both actors and politicians)?
It seemed so beneath a presidential candidate. But then again, as the weeks went by, this out-of-nowhere candidate was beginning to speak about policy in a more articulate way. His rough public edge remained, but his policy acumen was building impressively. When the Pennsylvania primary arrived, I happily cast my vote for Trump.
And when Trump and Clinton finally collided at a debate, his superiority was overwhelmingly clear.
And ever since that first debate, I have watched in amazement as Donald Trump has refused to back down in his quest to protect American workers, citizens, and taxpayers from the incredible number of tentacles reaching into our lives, our nation, our security, and our wallets.
Most of his policies and political picks I agree with. Mostly, I like that Trump is pushing back against a bi-partisan anti-citizen establishment that is both in elected office and deeply entrenched in the DC bureaucracy.
His “Make America Great Again” message is something I pooh-poohed at first, but it now resonates strongly with me, especially the more I think about and see how much the rest of the world has been taking our taxpayer money, from our one nation, and using it to both help their nations AND to undermine America. That is nuts and it cannot continue.
Finally, the mass hysteria aimed at Trump, the insane things and total lies about Trump that I see and hear when I watch cable news, all those supposedly honest reporters who are so obviously partisan, who also try to damage Trump by omitting all of the successes he has had. And add in all the violent words and behavior aimed at Trump and his supporters. All of this negativity is fabricated. It is total BS. It is just a bunch of spoiled losers yelling and screaming because they did not get their way. None of it has any substance.
All of it is unfair and undeserved, and that as much as anything else makes me support Trump, an underdog up against an intertwined political and media establishment.
And the Mueller “investigation”? We now know that the original FISA warrant was obtained under false pretenses, using the Steele “dossier,” itself a political hit-piece filled with phony baloney. The whole “Russia collusion” thing was in fact a Clinton activity, and she should be under investigation. Not Trump. Mueller should be ashamed of himself for what he is doing. He is badly damaging America, and those who support him care only about damaging America so they can hurt Trump. That makes them anti-America in my eyes. Yes, their behavior makes them the actual enemies of everyday Americans.
So I do support President Donald Trump. Yes I do. And I do more and more every day. The guy has grown on me from the beginning of his entrance into politics, he is doing a good job as president, and the false accusations, the hypocrisy, the actual insanity surrounding him daily, only proves to me that he has earned my support.
Keep leading us forward, Mister President. We support you.
OK, call me a Whig
For those like me who are bothered by the simplistic, almost child-like identity politics of partisan political party identification, there is always the third way out: Independent.
True to its name, being an Independent means that one is much less driven by one-dimensional partisan interests, and much more broadly politically driven, by more philosophical interests.
Oh please, don’t kid yourself that the Democrats and the Republicans today represent philosophical strands of thought on government involvement in the lives of the citizenry. That is a joke.
Both main political parties, Ds and Rs, are each practically wholly-owned subsidiaries of their respective special interest groups. Because I believe in economic freedom, among other things, I am more drawn to the Rs than the Ds, who have now pretty much openly embraced socialism.
Socialism is the opposite of economic freedom, and socialism requires tremendous inroads into personal freedom to achieve its artificial “income equality” outcome. The Ds have completely thrown in with the communists, the socialists, the chaotic ANTIFA, and the 1%-ers like George Soros who fund all the anarchic, violent, anti-America street melees. If you like your doctor, you will not be able to keep your doctor, as the previous ANTIFA president demonstrated, despite his lies to the contrary. There is nothing here with this group or amalgamation of groups for the average American family trying to get by comfortably and live a simple, happy life.
However, there are plenty of Rs who are D-lite. Call them RINOs, GOPe, whatever, they are part of an established, elite political class who have elevated themselves above the broad interests of the citizen taxpayer. Their interests are narrowly economic and even more narrowly financial. Big corporations, the Koch Brothers, US senator Mitch McConnell’s big and financially rewarding ties to the Chinese government, the various guises of the Chamber of Commerce, etc.; all seeking to funnel as much financial gain into as few big pockets as possible. At the cost of Americans’ freedom now and future liberty.
Like the Ds, this GOPe group also tries to manipulate national policy for personal gain, with open borders and no checks on the el-cheapo labor force that comes with a huge cultural and school tax price tag. Obviously the GOPe has little in common with the interest of The People, either, though more economic freedom can be found here than with the Ds. Nevertheless, the GOPe RINOs are not really committed to defending citizen freedom and liberty.
Thus the demand for the Independent identity. The problem with the Independent Party is that it is frozen out of many states, where there is a bi-partisan death grip on electoral process. If there is one thing both Ds and Rs can agree on, it is that they and they two alone must control, if only occasionally share, political power and outcomes for everyone else.
This is why there is so much collusion and bi-partisan deal making in places like Pennsylvania, where our closed Primary artificially limits voter choice. Being an Independent in most places, like Pennsylvania, means one cannot really vote in a meaningful way in the primary election, arguably when votes matter most.
If the Republican Party of the 1860s was the vehicle for the great Abolitionist movement, much of that great spirit is now gone. Obviously. Oh yes, we have the congressional Freedom Caucus, a refreshing group of patriots and individualists. But they are largely outnumbered by the corporatists within their own party.
And never mind that the Ds demand their minorities aka modern-day slaves remain and vote on the Democrat Plantation, just like they did in the old days. And that everyone else fall in line with their autocratic control schemes. Or else.
I do not identify as a Democrat and probably never will again (to do so would be like gleefully standing by the road screaming “Heil Hitler” in 1930s Germany as the latest Democrat Socialist Messiah drove by), so trying to figure them out is a waste of time.
So, I am now reaching and looking farther back in time for a political identity, back to more philosophical times, to when big ideas had relevance to everyday lives. And in that past I find the old British Whig Party actually captures my current philosophical views.
The Whigs of the 1700s-1800s believed in spreading political power and decision-making to the citizenry as broadly as possible.
The Whigs believed in Abolitionism, the movement to abolish slavery. Plenty of economic and financial gain at stake there, so it was a truly principled stand in the meanest sense.
The Whigs believed in a parliamentary monarchy, which was radical at the time. Though the Magna Carta had been written and signed by the British king so many centuries before, its notions of freedom, representative government, and due process for the average citizen only took a few centuries to refine and percolate up and out to the point where the monarch’s absolute grip on power was actually, truly challenged by erstwhile representatives of The People.
That slow progress also involved a couple civil wars that were spiced nicely with religious feuding. Lots of heads rolling in the streets, families burning at the stake…what the Chinese call “exciting times.”
So given they had witnessed the great evil and cruelty carried out in the name of official religious control and power, the Whigs were naturally against the establishment of all religious tests for citizens, and against an official, established state religion. On this score they eventually lost, as Anglicanism is now the official state religion of Britain.
Similarly, Scotland has the Church of Scotland as its official place of worship. Not that either of these churches are very Christian nor pro-Western today. The Whigs correctly viewed official religions as being against the interests of the People, and nowhere is that more evident than in the Church of England’s official anti-West, anti-freedom do-gooder political meddling.
In short, Britain’s Whigs were non-conformists who believed in a third way: diffuse political power, as opposed to centralized power. They promoted economic freedom and individual liberty for all, including for the lowest slave.
British history and people may appear rather blase and boring to today’s casual reader, but rest assured it was nothing of the sort. An overabundance of violent civil wars resulted in the seemingly placid society one enjoyably visits today.
As a result, the Whig party was transcendent for almost two centuries. With its enlightened philosophical views came maximum freedom and opportunity for the greatest number of Britons, ever. Many Whig views found their way into the American Constitution.
Given the anti-citizen Uni-Party political establishment here in America, the weakness of the Independent Party, and my own Constitutionalist views, I am mighty tempted to join the 1700s Whigs. At least they stand for something real and valuable.
And what does it say that in 2018 we must now reach back to the early 1700s Britain to reconnect with our greatest individual rights and needs in 21-st century America?
The real NFL stats
The other day a political website overflowing with the typical hatred for the current president published a supposedly carefully analyzed essay that boasted the NFL is doing just fine, despite the NFL’s politicization and the current president’s subsequent criticisms of that politicization.
Though supposed to be a careful numbers analysis, the essay was full of personal invective against the president. It is a hint that the numbers argument is not strong enough to stand on its own.
This essay stated that current NFL advertising payments demonstrate the NFL is in full financial health; that there is no measurable financial result from the NFL’s politicization or the public disputes and discourteous behavior many of its employees have shown toward average Americans and the US president.
In short, the NFL is doing fine with the American people and President Trump has no traction.
It was the kind of article that I had to read three times over to ensure that the writer really meant what he wrote. And in fact, he did mean it, and yet it is just another example of how just about everything has been politicized, and how anything that can be politicized to score a point will be so used. Even if it is so obviously factually wrong.
Never mind that this week’s New Yorker magazine has a front cover showing a dead, bleeding Donald Trump at the bottom of an escalator. That is obvious bias and unhinged crazy (imagine if it had been the past president so portrayed). What is more intriguing is when someone reaches into a random numbers hat and tries to make a coherent argument, as the subject essay did, and pass it off as careful logic.
The problem with arguing that the NFL is doing great! fantastic! so there! based on current advertising payments is that those payments are not directly connected to actual league performance. Those ad numbers are heavily indexed and fixed long ago to past data and calculations of expected market performance. Long before Colin Kaepernick started his anti-America kneeling thing. Long before the NFL was politicized.
The cited NFL numbers are heavily lagged, meaning they reflect past, not present or even close to present performance. Also, these ad numbers are relative to other markers/ variables that are either unrelated to NFL performance or are fixed. This means they either cannot or likely will not change due to NFL performance for a long time. This means the market-driven financial fallout from the politicized NFL’s self-inflicted damage is yet to be tallied or measured by the sectors being cited by the essay (unless you are looking at short-term sales of NFL merchandise, which has been yo-yo-ing for the past two years, or half-empty NFL stadiums and unbelievably low game ticket sales, as one would expect as a result of the NFL’s politicization and purposeful alienation of at least half of America).
Using the advertising measures in that political essay in a logical way, an actual analysis in five years would be appropriate. That would catch the standard market-based reevaluation of the NFL’s actual performance. And that probably won’t be a happy situation; certainly nothing for political writers to crow about. I am willing to bet that the NFL will be in real trouble in five years, as a result of openly disrespecting their audience and market.
I conclude this by looking at the most telling, most relevant statistics: Low ticket sales, half-filled stadiums, NFL merchandise sales way down, measurable TV-broadcast NFL game viewership down.
But by then the essay in question will be long forgotten, because almost all such essays are done for their immediate effect. That is, they are trying to create an appearance, a narrative, with the simple goal of damaging and reducing the president’s current polling numbers among his supporters. Accuracy, facts, numbers do not matter. And no one else in the legacy media will call them out on their inaccuracy, anyhow.
Essays based on numbers written by politicos who are ignorant about numbers and markets are not really, truly, meant to persuade people that the numbers are meaningful. Rather, high-churn essays like this are simply meant to score temporary political points. Just like the vast majority of the US establishment legacy media. It is just another angle, that’s all.
Stzroke Stzrike Three, You are OUT
Turns out criminal FBI agent Peter Stzrok III is actually not an FBI agent. Not really. Not in the sense that he worked at the FBI all his career.
Peter Stzrok III is a CIA agent who also served as the envoy to Iran for the Obama administration. He worked closely under former CIA director John Brennan. The FBI is just his latest DC insider gig. Peter Stzrok grew up in Iran.
Peter Stzrok III is a 100% political operative who has been given the very highest secret clearances to the most important American policy and defense secrets and policies.
And he is 100% pro-Iran… as in pro-Khameini, pro-Shia (Shiite), pro- radical Islam terrorism-exporting modern day Iran. This is why he was used as the Obama Administration’s envoy to Iran. It is one of the reasons the Obama Administration airlifted $1.4 BILLION in CASH to Tehran. It is one of the reasons the Obama Administration ENABLED Iran’s nuclear weapons program.
Peter Stzrok’s father, Peter Stzrok II, also known as Peter Stzrok, Sr., was also an American double agent. He was deeply involved in all kinds of anti-American foreign actions, while being employed as an American agent.
When people complain about a “deep state” rooted in American government, Peter Stzrok III is the Exhibit A. What is now coming to light is a sickening realization that America’s government has been infiltrated by our worst enemies, and they use their taxpayer-funded positions to work against American interests.
Along comes Donald Trump putting America first, and all hell breaks loose.
Stzrok’s emails, texts and memos make it clear that he had plenty of co-conspirators in the FBI and DOJ helping him derail the incoming Trump Administration with a slew of false accusations and fake legal investigations.
This is Stzrike Three against Peter Stzrok, and it is high time this man be arrested, interrogated, and a long and serious investigation begin into how a crook like Robert Mueller got so close to up-ending and leading a coup against a newly elected president.
Did America have a Stzroke?
With his brazenly arrogant personality and his private corruption, FBI agent Peter Stzrok has now made a name for himself in so many ways.
Unbeknownst to the American people, Stzrok started out making a power-abusing political insider name for himself at least in 2015 by disabling a serious criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton. He then went on to try to frame candidate Trump and his political allies, and bury evidence of incredibly illegal activity by staff and leaders at the FBI and DOJ.
Stzrok’s damning emails, text messages and memos leave no question that the man is a corrupt partisan political warrior, using his awesome official law enforcement position to advance a partisan political cause that is contrary to how the American people voted in 2016.
Everything Stzrok has done has been illegal and totally un-American, from the fake search warrants to the wiretaps and domestic spying, to the use of federal law enforcement powers to re-write interview notes that bear no resemblance to what really took place, to colluding with Fusion GPS and the Perkins, Coie law firm, and the Hillary Clinton for President campaign.
This past week Stzrok testified before Congress and provided a view into how distant the Washington, DC insiders have become from the American people. Stzrok’s arrogant, contemptuous, smug lying and dismissive attitude struck everyone as the essence of what has gone wrong in Washington, DC.
Stzrok’s damning testimony increasingly revealed how out of touch he and his FBI and DOJ colleagues are, how insulated and unaccountable to the rule of law they are, and how corrupt the past administration was.
So we must ask, Did America just have a Stzroke?
Is America now paralyzed or disabled by this one criminal FBI agent?
We ask, because everything that American has ever stood for is hanging in mid-air. The rule of law is hanging suspended. If Stzrok gets away with his criminality, then what?
Elected Democrats were actually applauding Stzrok’s testimony real-time, because they are so deeply opposed to those holding the elected majority that they will side with anyone who has done anything, like Stzrok, so long as their own party’s narrow political interests are advanced or protected.
To those who recall their seventh grade civics classes, this is not how America works. The good of the nation always comes first, before political party or person.
It is now unclear if America is still a nation of laws, or if official lawlessness and political willpower are the new standard for running government.
Stzrok is not acting alone. He has many known criminal compatriots in the FBI and DOJ; despite his and their known crimes, he and they still work there; and no legal accountability has been brought to bear on any of them, many of whom actually brazenly continue to act in political ways in what are supposed to be purely professional jobs.
It is as if there are two sets of rules, two legal standards in America now: A lenient standard for one political party allied with the mainstream media, and then another impossible standard for the other party and its political allies. Stzrok is clearly being protected from being held accountable, as was Clinton, Loretta Lynch, James Comey, Andrew McCabe, and many others in the past administration.
On the other hand, American military personnel are serving jail time right now for having done a smidgeon of what Stzrok et al did. Trump and everyone around him are being falsely investigated for fake reasons.
So what happens now?
Does Stzrok get the last word in, and thereby pound a stake into America’s heart?
When I left the US EPA in DC in 1998, several of my colleagues asked me in disbelief “Josh, are you really willing to give up all this power you have as a federal bureaucrat?”
Folks, public service has never been about amassing personal power. It is supposed to be service to our fellow citizens, who pay all those federal paychecks. Personal politics and private values have no place in those federal jobs (or any other government job, be it township, county, or state level), where decision making must be about the good of the nation.
Unfortunately, like the FBI, the EPA also developed an insular and unaccountable staff culture, where personal politics override science and everything else. I hated it, and I could not in good conscience be a part of that corruption. So I removed myself from it.
I hope America has not just had a Stzroke, and that we are not paralyzed. If the rule of law has been suspended, and there is no accountability, and political willpower to amass political i.e. coercive power overrides everything, then our nation is over. The great experiment has ended, and now it is merely a political slugfest that inevitably becomes an armed slugfest that will eventually determine who ends up holding power.
It is now ratatouille season, and for the rest of the summer
Summer time means gardens.
Summer gardens here in urban and suburban America mean tons, literally, of zucchini and tomatoes.
Some gardeners can their success. Using Mason jars, they boil, steam, stew, blanch and otherwise prepare their hard-won vegetables for the long pantry sleep or freezer burn.
Not I. Oh, I like to eat, especially fresh vegetables.
So my thing is to give away some extra garden produce and eat like a king every day, lunch and dinner.
Probably the easiest and most wholesome meal possible out of the basic garden is ratatouille. If this word has too many syllables for you, like it does for me, and it makes you think of fancy French men in white chef’s hats, take heart. It is this easy to make: some diced zucchini sauteed in olive oil. About 3/4 of the way to done, fresh tomatoes are thrown in the skillet and simmered down amidst the sautee action. Maybe an onion, if you like onions. More olive oil (we use California Olive Ranch) can only make things taste even better. Then some home-grown herbs (no, not that), like basil, rosemary, dill, garlic.
Keep simmering and sauteeing. Low flame.
When it is all becoming a big mush, sprinkle it with cheese. Don’t mix it in. A blend of grated hard cheese like wine goat or parmesan, with some decent Vermont cheddar, and let the skillet lid sit over a very low flame for about three to five minutes.
Turn off the heat, and let the skillet sit there on the burner for a couple minutes, with the skillet lid still on. Magic is happening in there. Don’t lift the lid to peek, or you will let the magic slip out and away.
Serve yourself first, because everyone else around you will dive in on the ratatouille and it’ll be gone in a minute.