The Dinosaur In The Room

Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert cartoon, has gotten himself in big trouble because he said this.

He's being called a racist for what he said. All of the newspapers who carried his comic strip have dropped him, his publisher has dropped him and his agent has dropped him. He's being roundly criticized for that video.

To me, this is a massive example of the divide between the Elites and the Normals. Nothing that Scott said is controversial to the people I know. Even if they disagreed with his prescription, they would certainly understand it. So why the wild response from the Elites?

The reason they went bananas is not because we were furious, it's because they all needed to prove their cultural bona fides to their friends. All the people they socialize with expect them to be scandalized and so they are scandalized. Meanwhile, here on planet Earth, Scott is actually well behind the curve.

I've got close friends who are dyed-in-the-wool progressives who came to Scott's conclusion a long time ago. They won't speak it out loud, but in private conversations, they all say it. It's not like they used to shop in Compton, but now there's an effort being made to avoid Compton-adjacent sorts of places.

That needs to be addressed and it's not going to be addressed from the fainting couch.

One more thing. None of the black commentators that I've seen from either side of the aisle know what time it is. They keep trying to trade on their skin color and its value is dropping every day. I tried to say this sort of thing here.

From time to time on Twitter, I see videos of race-based beat-downs. They always go in one direction, a young black man, possibly with friends, beating someone of another race. Given the DOJ statistics on such matters, it's somewhat representative of violent encounters, but it completely obscures the frequency of them. That is, you never see videos of pleasant interactions, just the attacks.

There was one recently where a white high school boy was attacked while he was sitting at a table. I won't include it here because the violence is horrifying to see. What I'm noticing that's worth a blog post is the rising tide of racial animosity against blacks. You used to see a couple of nasty comments in response to tweets like that. On this one, the rage went on for pages. The quote tweets were off the charts. This is very bad medicine.

There is so much that is wrong with what's going on, but it all starts with denying the dinosaur in the room. What Scott said is right on the money. What I'm seeing is real. The change coming over my progressive friends is real. Meanwhile, the news media and the academics are living in a feedback loop of virtue signaling and the black commentators are delusional.

We need some serious honesty from both of those groups. Above all, we've got to stop the modern-day Nazism of painting one race as oppressors and another race as victims. It is very bad medicine.

Bonus Video

Dig this kid talking about how his school has warped his racial attitudes for the worse.

Crawfish Etouffee And Black Eyed Peas

 One was a success, the other was a failure.

I've never liked my etouffees. The graininess of the flour in the roux always dominated the texture of the dish. I stumbled upon this video from the kitchen of Emeril Lagasse that changed the way I do them. The key was to make the roux, sautee the vegetables in it and then add stock and let it simmer for a while. The simmering softened whatever flour wasn't consumed in the making of the roux. The result was excellent.

I used this recipe, also from Emeril.

The end result was the best crawfish etouffee I've ever made.

I recently also made some black-eyed peas, using smoked turkey wings as the seasoning meat. I used this recipe from Southern Living, but I misjudged the amount of peas I had in the pot and it was coming out more like soup. I decided against adding more dried peas, the others having been soaked overnight, for fear of ending up with some soft peas and some that felt like pea gravel in your mouth. Instead, I added some rice to soak up the excess liquid.

Big mistake. Peas simmered become soft peas. Rice simmered becomes paste. The taste was fine, but the texture was dreadful. Oh well.

D-E-I Is D-E-A-D

... at least in the red states.

Thanks to the leadership of Rob DeSantis in Florida, the civilized red states are fighting back against the forces of bigotry and racial hate that bring Diversity, Equity and Inclusion into their schools. Dig this.

The University of Texas System has paused new diversity, equity and inclusion policies at all of its campuses, according to an announcement Wednesday by the board's chairman.

The system directive comes amid growing criticism from Republican state lawmakers about such diversity initiatives in higher education and a warning to state agencies from the governor's office that using DEI in hiring decisions might run afoul of federal and state laws.

Unlike the Republican leaders who are my age and older, who are still trying to get along with the press and the academics, the younger generation has figured out that their gooses are cooked if they don't bring a halt to the far-left indoctrination going on in our schools.

Two things come to mind about this.

1. If the progressives are right and they really are fighting for the lives of blacks all across America with these DEI initiatives, you'd expect to see a migration of black Americans from red states to blue. If you don't see that, then DEI wasn't addressing an issue all that important to them. One might even conclude that it was all a power fantasy dreamed up in the faculty lounges of the major universities.
2. If the elimination of DEI leads to the return of a classical education, as Governor DeSantis is trying to bring about in Florida, it may well unseat the Ivy League as the education powerhouse. The progressive schools are watering down their incoming students by doing away with standardized testing and teaching ever-flabbier content by tossing white, European sources. That's a recipe for weakening the end product of the universities.

As for the migration part, dig this story of a woman uprooting her family from Massachusetts and moving to Florida to escape the cultural madness of the progs. Will there be similar motivations for blacks and progressives to leave the red states?

I left my blue state and everything I’d ever known behind to save my kids. Here is my story from last night’s episode of TimcastIRL pic.twitter.com/Ih6IjIKA7R

— The Redheaded libertarian (@TRHLofficial) February 24, 2023

A Few Vignettes

I used ChatGPT to find an obscure town in Iceland, translate a couple of sentences into Spanish and take an Aquinas quote and put it in Hillbilly.

Note: I've changed the Aussies' names to Angus and Malcolm so they stand out from the other boys' names.

I'm loving this.  Enjoy.

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As the boys pondered the new clues they'd learned this morning, Bobbylee spoke up. "You know, fellers, every reckonin' of the heart, be it righteous or wrong, be it 'bout things evil in theirself or somethin' just kinda grey, is a must-do, so that them who goes 'gainst their heart always messes up. That's Aquinas!"

Easily the deepest thinker and most well-versed in classical philsophy of the six, Bobbylee would recall appropos quotes from the greats and throw them intp his mind's Cuisinart with his rebel patois and put it on puree. What came out was both true genius and completely indecipherable.

Jimmy Winters sat there in stunned silence, trying to figure out just what in the world that meant. He blinked a couple of times and then shook his head rapidly. "Right, Bobbylee. That's a good point. What we need to do now is figure out what the professor did with the copper tubing."

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Jimmy broke the silence. "I think the professor is trying to throw us off his tracks. It's like Hercule Poirot said. 'When you look your most innocent is when you are up to something.'"

Angus laughed at this. "Poirot was a wanker!"

"No, he wasn't!" replied Malcolm with surprising fervor.

"No?"

"No, he was a nancy boy! All them Frenchies are. Nancy boys, the whole lot of 'em," pronounced Malcolm with certainty.

"That's right," agreed Angus. "Those Frenchies are a load of pooftahs. It's like Great Uncle Jack told us," and here, Angus dropped his voice as low as it would go to imitate his Great Uncle Jack. "'After the war, lads, half the children born in France looked like Yanks and half looked like Aussies. Them Yanks outnumbered us ten to one, but we made up for it with pure Australian vigor!'"

Johnny just sat there with his head in his hands, hoping none of the teachers were hearing this. One of these days, the Aussies were going to get all of them in a lot of trouble.

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The boys had all Wednesday off to search for more clues. On Tuesday, a white sheet had blown off Mrs. Zucker's clothes line and drifted through the school grounds. Convinced they were facing a KKK invasion, the teachers immediately put the school on lockdown and the principal called the police. With efficiency seasoned with a healthy dose of exasperation, the police arrived and apprehended the sheet.

Convinced the sheet could just as easily have been a march of the Klan through East Weevil High, the principal took no chances and mandated a day of racial justice training for the staff.

They loved every minute of it.

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Jimmy Winters, 13, was Johnny's cousin. He'd lived with the Wilson family ever since his parents died in a boating accident involving a gaff, a misplaced rope, a spare car battery and a poorly-secured can of marine petrol.

When the boat exploded, it had been tied up at the dock. The remains were cremated, of course, and it was anyone's guess as to how much of who was in each urn.

Jimmy felt certain the blue urn with the gold piping held mostly his mother. It smelled faintly of tequila and cheap Margarita mix.

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The class erupted into a stream of confused questions.

"Ms. Scharnhorst, my daddy is Honduran and my mommy is German. What box should I check?" asked Olivia.

"Ms. Scharnhorst, my grandfather was Japanese. Does that make me Asian or Pacific Islander? asked Lucas.

For her part, Ms. Scharnhorst was completely unprepared for these questions. Her classes in college had always assumed, as her racial justice training materials put it, "no mongrelization of the races."

In those brief moments when he looked up from his phone, Jaime Velasquez liked to tweak the teacher in Spanish. The teacher knew about as much Spanish as the average resident of Ísafjörður, Iceland. Now, seeing a chance for an easy layup in front of his friends at the back of the room, Jaime stood up and said, "Esto es lo más estúpido que he oído en mi vida. ¿Qué te pasó? ¿Te pegaron en la cabeza con una pelota de fútbol?"

Convinced that any disagreement with a student of color was inherently racist and having no idea at all what the boy had said, Ms. Scharnhorst simply nodded and smiled at him. She wondered if he was asking for a taco.

Jaime's friends all sniggered behind their books.

Chickens Are Not Basketballs

Finally, I break from novel-writing! Yay!

A young man who is a devout Catholic, recently took a stand at his high school to defend both his faith and the young ladies at the school. He peacefully, but loudly protested the school's decision to allow boys dressed as girls to use the girls' restrooms. His school suspended him and then when he tried to return to school, had him arrested by the police.

It was a Catholic school.

A student at @StJosephOCSB says he was suspended and later arrested for organizing school protests against biological males in girls' bathrooms. High school student Josh Alexander shares what he said when he spoke out in class about gender issues and what happened next. pic.twitter.com/XAahL1Uu6U

— EWTN News Nightly (@EWTNNewsNightly) February 17, 2023

This is a perfect example of how "inclusion" isn't inclusion. Calling a chicken a basketball doesn't make it a basketball no matter how often you shout it at people. The progressives have adopted the word into their rotation of favorites and lash us with it ad nauseum.

You cannot be inclusive of both traditional Catholics and genderqueer people. You cannot be inclusive of both orthodox Muslims and gays. You cannot be inclusive of both orthodox Jews and antisemites. Period, end of story. Inclusivity itself is a nonsense word as eventually, one allowed group will logically exclude another.

Here, a Catholic school has decided to favor sexual fetishists over Catholics. Yes, it's that stupid. It's the ultimate example of the internal contradiction of the obsession with "inclusivity."

Because the left owns 90% of the culture, it can simply scream at the rest of us until we submit and agree that chickens are basketballs.

It makes driving the lane for a layup quite the adventure, no?

Bubba Johnson Blows His Coop

The story here is mine, but after an over-capacity outage, ChatGPT just came back online, so I asked it to take my dialog and add the redneck accent. I did a cut and paste with most of its replies without editing. There were some I didn't want it to change and I think you'll see which ones those are. The prompt was simple. "Write this dialog in a redneck accent."

I don't know as I like it all that much. Y'all will have to judge for yourselves.

This tells the story of how the redneck boys mentioned in the previous post came to the town of East Weevil, Indiana.

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Bubba Johnson walked unsteadily away from his still, looking at his hip flask, wondering how it had gotten so empty. It had been full at noon, but now, around 6 PM, there were only a few swallows left.

He was about 20 yards from the still when it blew. The force knocked him down, although the moonshine might have had something to do with it, too. A piece of white-hot shrapnel from the back of the still streaked through the yard in the opposite direction like a tracer round, past the chicken coop and drilled itself into a nearly-empty gas can over by the propane tank.

Bubba sat up and rubbed the dirt off his hands, retrieving his flask from the ground nearby. The gas can blew up. 

Bubba stood up as quick as he could and dusted the dirt off his overalls, waiting for what he feared would happen next.

When he heard the paint containers that had been piled next to the gas can start cooking off, he sprinted for the tool shed and the trailer parked beside it. Bubba may have been half in the bag, but he was no dummy. As he ran, he yelled to his wife who was serving dinner to the kids and Meemaw. "Darlene! Git the stuff and the kids and git to the truck!"

Darlene Johnson looked out the window, saw her husband go sprinting past the dilapidated double wide, saw the flames, heard the paint cans starting to blow and came to the same conclusion as Bubba. "Y'all youngins better finish up them vittles pronto, 'fore I count to three! One, two, three! Alright, now grab yer stuff and throw it in yer backpacks, 'cause we're hightailin' it to the truck!"

Meemaw calmly sat at the wobbly table and finished her cigarette.

When the propane tank went, it blew the chicken coop into the sky. The Johnsons were always short of everything - money, materials and luck, so Bubba had used the propane tank as the back wall of the coop with the hens' boxes on the top of it. Mercifully for the birds, they were killed instantly. More mercifully for the feral cats that lived in the woods surrounding the property, the sky began to rain partially-cooked chicken.

The cats, who regularly came over to the Johnsons to mooch food, looked at each other in wonder. As the chicken fell from the sky, they couldn't help but think they'd run out of all nine lives and were now in kitty heaven.

A partially-cooked chicken thigh landed on the hood of Bubba's rusty F-100 with a meaty SPLAT!

Chicken feathers wafted gently through the air.

Bubba was knocked off his feet by the blast, but he'd been expecting it. He was quickly up and reached the tool shed in no time at all. He ripped the door off its rotting frame, opened his trailer and shoved his best tools into it.

In the house, it was chaos. The kids first shoved the red beans and rice into their mouths and then shoved things into their backpacks. The Johnsons were always short of the goods of this world, but they were rarely short of smarts. Each swiftly packed as shrewdly as five people could possibly be expected to in such circumstances.

Bubba was three months behind on the rent. The double wide had received none of the promised maintenance from the landlord. With the calculated acumen and efficiency that is the hallmark of the South, both the Johnson's house and the landlord's finances were falling into ruin. Bubba knew this was the last straw and he had to get out of Verbena, Alabama or face charges for the destruction of property that, if auctioned off, couldn't have gone for more than $1.37.

Meemaw calmly went back to her bed and retrieved her massive purse. She checked its contents and saw what she expected to see. Alka Seltzer packets, some facial tissues, her cosmetics, some cigarette lighters, a couple packs of Camel Menthols and her handgun with a box of shells.

As Darlene and the kids swirled around her, she walked to the refrigerator, opened the freezer door at the top and pulled out her unopened carton of cigarettes. She walked out the door and got into the cab of the truck. She knew Darlene would pack her clothes for her as a well-bred Southern daughter ought to do.

Darlene called out, "Hey there, Bobbylee! Y'all take the keys and drive that ol' truck on over to your paw so he can hitch up that trailer right now!" She threw him the keys and he caught them in stride, having anticipated this moment. He ran to the truck, threw his backback in the back and jumped behind the wheel, nodding politely at Meemaw sitting in the middle of the bench seat.

Meemaw winked encouragingly at Bobbylee. "Boy, you should have see your Pawpaw and me git out of Hattiesburg after he stole me from that Mississippi lawyer. We had buckshot in our tailgate instead of tin cans on the bumper." Bobbylee wondered why he hadn't heard that story before and if any of it was true. Meemaw had a tendency to make her points with fictional melodramas from her past.

The truck's 352, one of the few things that could be trusted in the Johnson's world, roared to life. Bobbylee, 14, expertly drove the truck over to the trailer and backed it up so Paw could hook it to the trailer hitch. He jumped out the door to help.

Even though she ran this way and that packing things, Darlene kept her head and avoided the soft spot in the kitchen floor. She was convinced it had rotted out and if she stepped on it, she'd fall right through the cheap linoleum onto the dirt below. Darlene made sure to grab the tin can behind the sack of flour in the kitchen cabinet and pull out the roll of $100 bills tied up with a rubber band. It wasn't much, but it would get them where they were going.

In the truck's cab, Meemaw lit another cigarette.

Bubba had packed the cooler and with a mighty heave that wouldn't have been expected from his wiry frame, threw it into the back of the truck. 

TJ, 13, ran over and tossed his backpack in the truck along with some fishing poles and a tackle box. Betty Lou, 9, came over with her backpack and a small suitcase and daintily climbed in the bed of the truck.

Darlene rushed over and tossed a couple of beaten up suitcases in the bed of the truck. One of the latches flew open, disgorging clothes into the rusty bed.

TJ came back, threw in a pellet rifle and some boxes of ammo, climbed in the bed and put the clothes back in the suitcase, which he sat on to keep closed. The trailer attached, Bobbylee jumped into the back of the truck and squeezed in with the other kids and the family's goods. Bubba ran over to the truck, saw the rifle and yelled at TJ. "Throw that thang out! Y'all know we cain't be carryin' guns in the back of the truck! We'll just hafta git 'nother one later." 

TJ reluctantly tossed his rifle into the dirt as the truck sped down the dirt road and out onto highway 31 before the last of the chicken feathers fell to the ground.

The boys looked at each other and nodded. Their handguns were in their backpacks. Heck, Paw had one in the glove box, so what were a few more?

"We got kinfolk in Norf Caroliner and kinfolk in Indyanner," said Bubba to Meemaw and Darlene. "We'll flip a coin to see where we'll go." His wife nodded, but as he tossed a quarter in the air in the cab, Meemaw, with catlike quickness, swatted the coin out of the air and out the open window where it bounced on the pavement and was quickly lost behind them.

"We are not going to North Carolina. Billy Bob and Carol may be kinfolk, but I will not stay with them. They are barbarians."

"What in tarnation is wrong with Billy Bob and Carol?" asked Bubba in disbelief.

"That woman gets her roux from a jar," pronounced Meemaw with undisguised disgust as she took another drag on her cigarette.

In the back of the truck, Betty Lou looked at her older brothers with an air of superiority. "I am clothed with strength and dignity; I can laugh at the two of you. I speak with wisdom, and faithful instruction is on my tongue."

Bobbylee looked at her in confusion. "What?"

"I have packed with wisdom and grace, while you two have packed with no more sense than God gave the possum."

TJ replied with a look of scorn and asked, "Whut on Earth could ya have packed that was so good?"

Betty Lou opened her backpack and took out a dark brown disc wrapped in cellophane.

In unison, the boys said, "A Moon Pie!"

With a look of complete satisfaction, Betty Lou calmly unwrapped the chocolate-covered cake and marshmallow treat, tossed the wrapper onto the highway and smiled at the boys. She haughtily turned her head away from them to watch the countryside going by, munching on her Moon Pie in triumph.

The boys opened the cooler to see what was inside. They grinned at each other. In the cab, Darlene watched them through the rearview mirror and could read their minds. She shouted back at them, "Boys! Only one each!"

Bobbylee reached into the cooler and brought out two Cokes, leaving the Budweisers for Maw and Paw. He handed one to his brother and they leaned back on the cab of the truck and sipped. They could hear their parents singing "Trashy Women" as it played on the stereo and the truck sped down the road.

Aussie Boys, Sheilas And Inclusivity In The Classroom

 OK, here we go with excerpts from my ChatGPT story. I spent a couple of hours this morning playing with ChatGPT and ended up with the sections below. The setting is a small American town and the two Aussie lads are straight out of a 1950s family TV show, with obvious alterations. Imagine if a bunch of the characters from a wholesome, old-school Disney family movie were transplanted into a modern grade school. The kids are 7th or 8th graders.

This part is mostly expository dialog, setting up things for later.

Enjoy.

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"There's somethin' fishy goin' on at the professor's house, mate," said Bobby with his rich, Australian accent.

"Yeah, it's a bit sus if you ask me. I reckon he's got some secrets he's tryna keep hidden," replied his older brother, Edgar.

"Not half as strange as that bloke in the library wearin' a Quinceañera dress and caked in heavy makeup. What a bloody wanker," said Bobby.

"Aw, gross, mate. I don't know what kinda sick stuff he's into, but it ain't right. Gives me the shivers," replied Edgar, sounding disgusted.

"He looked like that weird critter we saw down in Coober Pedy before we came to America. Remember, Ed? The one that made us sick to our stomachs," said Bobby.

"Yeah, I remember. Poor thing was lyin' there in the hot sun, all dried up and dead. Just like that bloke in the library, he's dead to the world," replied Edgar, making a comparison to the strange animal they had seen.

"That's a right shame, mate. The animal didn't deserve that, but that fella might be a different thing. Someone oughta give him a good knockin', if you ask me," said Bobby.

"I hear ya, man. We can't let him keep gettin' away with handlin' the toddlers at the library. It's just not right," replied Edgar, feeling angry about the situation.

"Say, have you seen that new sheila, Kathy, at school? She's a real ripper, mate," said Edgar.

"Yeah, mate, I have. I reckon I'm sweet on her. I wanna tell her how I feel, but I'm a bit of a coward," replied Bobby, sounding nervous.

"Aw, don't be a drongo, mate. You gotta go for it. She could be a top chick, for all you know," said Edgar, trying to give his mate some encouragement.

"I don't know, Ed. I don't wanna cop a rejection," said Bobby, sounding worried.

"Fair dinkum, mate. But you'll never know if you don't give it a burl. And who knows, she could be as keen as mustard," replied Edgar, giving his mate a bit of a pep talk.

"Okay, you're right. I'll give it a crack. I'll tell her how I feel," said Bobby, feeling a bit more confident.

The boys mounted their bicycles and began to pedal home.

"Edgar, have you noticed that all the other blokes at school are always talkin' about porn? It's a bit of a joke, if you ask me," said Bobby.

"I know, right? They're a bunch of galahs, the lot of 'em. Can't get any real action, so they resort to watchin' it on a screen. They're not exactly top-notch, if you know what I mean," replied Edgar, sounding unimpressed.

"I don't get it, mate. What's so great about watchin' that stuff? They're a bunch of flamin' drongos if you ask me," said Bobby, sounding annoyed.

"Fair dinkum, mate. It's just sad. They're not worth our time. We're better than those muppets," replied Edgar, his tone contemptuous.

"I hear ya, Ed. They're just a bunch of gutless wonders. We're the real deal, mate," said Bobby, sounding determined.

"Spot on, mate. We're the real deal. They're just a bunch of sad sacks," replied Edgar, giving his mate some support.

They pedaled on in silence for a while. Then, Edgar spoke up.

"What about that new redneck family who moved into town? They've got some pretty impressive tools," said Edgar.

"Yeah, mate, I have. They've got everything from power saws to welding torches. I wish I had half the stuff they do," replied Bobby, sounding envious.

"I know, right? And have you seen the stuff they're building? It's like they can make anything out of nothin'," said Edgar, sounding impressed.

"Yeah, they're always building something. I reckon they're real handy blokes. We could learn a thing or two from them," said Bobby, sounding thoughtful.

"You're not wrong, mate. They're not like the rest of the losers in this town. They know how to get things done," replied Edgar, admiring the redneck boys.

"I hear ya, Ed. I reckon we should go over there and check out their stuff. Maybe we could even learn somethin'," said Bobby, feeling excited.

"Good idea, mate. We'll go over there and see if they can teach us a thing or two," replied Edgar, feeling just as enthusiastic.

"Hey, do you reckon we could teach those redneck boys a thing or two about boxing?" said Bobby, sounding curious.

"I don't see why not, mate. We're pretty handy in the ring, if I do say so myself," replied Edgar, sounding confident.

"I reckon they'd be up for it. I mean, they look pretty tough, but we could show 'em what real boxing's all about," said Bobby, feeling excited.

"I agree, mate. We could show 'em some moves and techniques. Maybe even train 'em a bit," replied Edgar, sounding interested.

"That's a good idea, Ed. They look like they could use a bit of guidance in the ring," said Bobby, feeling excited.

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"Good morning class, today we're going to talk about inclusivity. It's important to be accepting and welcoming of everyone, regardless of their race, gender, or religion," began the teacher in a kind, but firm tone.

"We must ensure that everyone feels safe and respected in our classroom. It's not okay to use hurtful words or make fun of someone because of their differences. We must celebrate diversity, and recognize that our differences make us unique and special," she continued.

"We all have different backgrounds, beliefs, and experiences, and it's important to listen to one another and learn from each other. We must be open to new ideas and perspectives, and embrace the beauty of our differences," she said, her voice rising with passion.

Edgar raised his hand and said, "Excuse me, miss. I just wanted to say that I really reckon Catholic theology is tops, especially how it's based on biology. It's fair dinkum logic."

Bobby then spoke up, "And I reckon it's bonza to recognize that not all people of colour have the same views on everything. Like the Muslims, for example, who have a fair dinkum logical and reasonable basis for their rejection of homosexuality."

The teacher's expression shifted to one of horror. "I'm sorry, but I have to stop you right there. We cannot condone bigotry or intolerance of any kind in this classroom," she said sternly, her voice firm.

Edgar chimed in, "But miss, ain't we supposed to be fair dinkum inclusive of everyone, even if their views don't line up with ours?"

Bobby nodded in agreement, "And if we're supposed to be accepting of everyone, then wouldn't that include the Catholics and the Muslims, even if we don't always agree with them?"

The teacher took a deep breath and replied, "Yes, inclusivity means accepting and respecting everyone, even if their beliefs differ from our own. But we must also remember that inclusivity does not extend to harmful or oppressive beliefs that seek to marginalize or harm others."

The boys looked at each other and smirked. "So, miss, if inclusivity means accepting everyone, doesn't that mean you have to include the Catholics and the Muslims, even if you don't agree with them?" asked Bobby, a hint of mischief in his voice.

Edgar couldn't help but laugh. "Yeah, you can't exactly be inclusive and exclude a couple of billion people around the world, can ya?" he said with a grin.

The teacher's face flushed with anger. "That's enough, both of you! You're being disrespectful and disruptive. If you don't stop this behavior right now, I will have to refer you to the principal's office," she said sternly.

Despite the teacher's warning, Bobby and Edgar couldn't help but feel frustrated with her inability to acknowledge their point. As they returned to their work, they muttered under their breath about the teacher's lack of logical argument.

"I can't believe she couldn't see the bloody flaw in her own argument," grumbled Edgar.

Bobby nodded in agreement. "Yeah, it's like she's just spouting off all this PC crap without actually thinking about what it means," he said with a roll of his eyes.

The boys couldn't help but feel a sense of superiority over their teacher's inability to keep up with their critical thinking skills.

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Kathy listened carefully to Bobby's rational arguments, her eyes intently focused on him. As he spoke, she felt her heart beating faster and faster, and she couldn't help but feel drawn to him.

She had always been drawn to Augustinian theology, but she had never had the courage to mention it on Instagram. Now, listening to Bobby, she felt like she had found someone with whom she could discuss "Confessions" and the teachings of Augustine.

As the discussion ended and class resumed, Kathy found herself glancing over at Bobby more and more often, feeling a sense of excitement and curiosity growing inside of her. She couldn't wait to talk to him more about theology, and to see where their discussions might lead.

In addition to being drawn to Bobby's intellect and theological knowledge, Kathy couldn't help but notice his well-defined muscles. As she listened to him speak, she found herself admiring the way his biceps flexed under the fabric of his shirt.

She felt a sense of attraction to him that went beyond just his mind and his spiritual beliefs. There was something about his physical presence that made her heart skip a beat.

As class ended and Bobby walked out of the room, Kathy lingered behind for a moment, lost in thought. She knew that her feelings for him were growing stronger with each passing day, and she couldn't wait to explore this new attraction further.

Kathy couldn't help but feel conflicted about her growing feelings for Bobby. As a devout Catholic, she was well-versed in the teachings of Matthew 5:27-28, which warned against the dangers of lust and adultery.

She wondered if her attraction to Bobby was a violation of these teachings, and if her thoughts and feelings were sinful in the eyes of the Church. She knew she needed guidance and advice, and contemplated stopping by St. Gorgonia's to talk to Father Chukwuma about it.

As she walked to the church, her mind raced with questions and concerns. She wondered if she was doing something wrong, and if her desires for Bobby were in conflict with her faith.

When she arrived at the church, she entered the confessional and poured out her heart to Father Chukwuma.

--------------------------

The Nigerian priest listened patiently as Kathy poured out her heart to him, but since she visited him multiple times a week, he couldn't help but feel exhausted and overwhelmed.

This was her fourth visit this week and it was only Tuesday. As the redheaded Irish girl continued to talk, Father Chukwuma found himself nodding along, but his mind was elsewhere. He couldn't help but feel drained by her constant need for guidance and reassurance.

Father Chukwuma cleared his throat and thought for a moment. He knew that Kathy needed to do some spiritual reflection, but he also wanted to give himself a break from her frequent visits. So, he came up with a plan.

"As penance for your sins, Kathy, I want you to read "The Exegesis of Transpositional Graces" by Father Howard Wilcox," he said sternly, his voice laced with authority.

Kathy looked surprised but nodded obediently. "Yes, Father. I will do that," she replied.

Father Chukwuma smiled to himself, convinced that no one on Earth, Father Wilcox included, had any idea at all what that impenetrable book said. He hoped that it would keep Kathy too busy to bother him with her constant visits.

"Very well. You may go now, Kathy. I absolve you of your sins, whatever they are," he said with a hint of exasperation in his voice. His honesty with the girl surprised him. He had unintentionally revealed that he hadn't heard a word she'd said. In his own defense, he figured it couldn't possibly have been all that different than her confession this morning before school, although he had no idea what that was about, either.

Kathy nodded and left the confessional, eagerly searching for a source for the text on her smartphone. A confirmed bibliophile, she limited her searches to hardbound editions.

Father Chukwuma had assigned "The Exegesis of Transpositional Graces" to Kathy as a way to keep her busy and away from his confessional. He had tried to read the book himself and found it hopelessly dense and impossible to comprehend. Father Wilcox loved big words and complicated sentences and used them in profusion even when he didn't have anything to say. 

Father Chukwuma couldn't stand books like that even when they made sense. The dry, academic language made him feel like he was wading through mud. 

It was the perfect thing for Kathy. That girl was the grade-schooler equivalent of an African Rock Python. It felt like every visit was a constriction of her spiritual coils around him, slowly squeezing the life out of his soul. He loved her dearly, but she was a constant trial for him. What she really needed, he thought, was a boyfriend. He wondered if that was what she had been on about in the confessional.

Coming Soon

 ... is a ChatGPT experiment that I will serialize here. I've been wasting hours with the thing, learning how to write stories in partnership with it. I've got an idea for a comedy adventure story for boys along the lines of the old Hardy Boys or Bobsey Twins books from long ago. In my case, the young characters will be more, err, sophisticated, shall we say? Yes, more sophisticated, but still innocent.

I've discovered that ChatGPT will translate dialog into whatever dialect you'd like. For example,

Prompt

write this dialog in a broad, cockney accent

"Why are we doing this, fellows? I don't think this is a good idea. Instead, we should go around the back and break into the professor's study."

ChatGPT Response 

"Woi are we doin' this, fellas? I don't fink this is a good idear. Instead, we should go round the back and break into the professor's study."

Further Prompt:

write that in a redneck dialect

ChatGPT Response

"Why we doin' this, y'all? I don't reckon it's a good idear. We oughta go 'round back and bust into that there professor's study."

This could be hilarious or it could be awful. We'll see. 

ChatGPT Is Fun, But It's Like Wrestling A Greased Pig

I bought a subscription to ChatGPT at $20 per month to play around with it. My initial experiments have been trying to get it to write some fan fiction from Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. If I don't constantly fight with the thing, the results end up as vapid, feminist versions of the old, 1980s After School Specials on TV. It wants to change the outcome of the story to teach insipid moral lessons. Ugh.

As a case in point, many of the knightly combats in Malory end in death. "And he raised off his helmet and smote his neck asunder" sort of thing. ChatGPT changes that to the knights agreeing to be friends forever, no matter how much you describe the characters as mortal enemies.

The styling is primitive, too. While it will write in the style of modern authors fairly well, it's way off when it comes to Sir Thomas Malory's style. Le Morte has lots of sentences that start with "and." As in, "And then, Sir Tristram came unto La Beale Isoud without brushing his teeth. And La Beale Isoud said unto Sir Tristram, "Go thy way, Sir Knight. Thy teeth look like the mold on a pivy postern!"

Finally, there is the blatant feminism. Every female character will end up independent and strong if you don't constantly correct it. In Malory, they are crafty and motivate all of the stories. They tease and tempt the knights with great guile to get what they want. In ChatGPT, female characters wouldn't know how to get a man to do what they want if chaste seduction fell out of the sky in the form of an anvil and hit them on the head.

Still, it's a lot of fun. I'll post some examples later. Meanwhile, here's what it's making me think of right now.

And then the lady strode between the two knights and informed them that violence never solves anything. Chastened, they realized that women have a lot to teach men and they agreed to be friends and attend the local Pride march together. The lady then left them, informing them that she was late for her board meeting at her renewable energy nonprofit.

The Bubble Doom Loop

From time to time on Twitter, I see videos of race-based beat-downs. They always go in one direction, a young black man, possibly with friends, beating someone of another race. Given the DOJ statistics on such matters, it's somewhat representative of violent encounters, but it completely obscures the frequency of them. That is, you never see videos of pleasant interactions, just the attacks.

There was one recently where a white high school boy was attacked while he was sitting at a table. I won't include it here because the violence is horrifying to see. What I'm noticing that's worth a blog post is the rising tide of racial animosity against blacks. You used to see a couple of nasty comments in response to tweets like that. On this one, the rage went on for pages. The quote tweets were off the charts. This is very bad medicine.

What gives? Here's my answer.

You may need to click on that image to read it.

Our Elites, the academics, politicians, entertainers and news media, living in a nearly hermetically-sealed bubble where they talk to no one but themselves, have spent decades creating an environment of racial hatred. That image illustrates where we are today. All of the racial pride months celebrate how this or that group overcame straight, white men. That demographic and their wives have had quite enough of it.

When a video comes along showing racial violence, it's a match to gasoline. It's bad enough to see a beating captured on video, but after years and years of being told that the other races are sunshine and light while you're the scum of the Earth, explosions of fury are perfectly predictable.

So why didn't our Elites predict it? Because they aren't talking to us, only to each other. Ben Shapiro captures it perfectly here.

Like I said at the top, the videos aren't representative. What they are is ignitors for something horrible.

I can't tell if any of the people in the faculty lounges are seeing this. If they are, I wonder how many of them are brave enough to suggest a course correction. My random sampling of USD's work says that the answer to both questions is no.

The solution is not rage against each other, but to fight to burst the bubble of the Elites before this thing consumes us all.

Super Special Bonus Link

The Elites just can't stop adding incendiaries to the pile. Dig what the Metropolitan Museum of Art is doing now.

Living Under An Intolerant Religion

 You knew this was going to happen.

I am a 42-year-old St. Louis native, a queer woman, and politically to the left of Bernie Sanders. My worldview has deeply shaped my career. I have spent my professional life providing counseling to vulnerable populations: children in foster care, sexual minorities, the poor...

All that led me to a job in 2018 as a case manager at The Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital, which had been established a year earlier. 

The center’s working assumption was that the earlier you treat kids with gender dysphoria, the more anguish you can prevent later on. This premise was shared by the center’s doctors and therapists. Given their expertise, I assumed that abundant evidence backed this consensus...

I left the clinic in November of last year because I could no longer participate in what was happening there. By the time I departed, I was certain that the way the American medical system is treating these patients is the opposite of the promise we make to “do no harm.” Instead, we are permanently harming the vulnerable patients in our care.

Today I am speaking out. I am doing so knowing how toxic the public conversation is around this highly contentious issue—and the ways that my testimony might be misused. I am doing so knowing that I am putting myself at serious personal and professional risk.

The author, Jamie Reed, goes on to quote case after case of transing gone very, very wrong. Here's one.

How little patients understood what they were getting into was illustrated by a call we received at the center in 2020 from a 17-year-old biological female patient who was on testosterone. She said she was bleeding from the vagina. In less than an hour she had soaked through an extra heavy pad, her jeans, and a towel she had wrapped around her waist. The nurse at the center told her to go to the emergency room right away.

We found out later this girl had had intercourse, and because testosterone thins the vaginal tissues, her vaginal canal had ripped open. She had to be sedated and given surgery to repair the damage. She wasn’t the only vaginal laceration case we heard about.

She and a colleague attempted to collect data on the adverse effects and then warn the other professionals at the hospital. They were first silenced and then fired.

This isn't science. This isn't ethical behavior. These are the actions of intolerant, religious fanatics. In fact, given the choice between evangelical young-earthers and these secular progressives, it would be hard to argue that the science and ethics would be worse under the evangelicals.

What we're living through is a religious revival of sorts. By that I mean the sort you really don't want to experience.

I'll take the hellfire and brimstone preachers over the people who willingly poison and mutilate children.

Railroads With Torn Up Tracks

 ... end up going off the rails.

#winning

I recently came across Moms4Liberty and added them to my reading list because of things like this. It's an expose on Social Emotional Learning (SEL), which is another way of saying "Secular Religion." Their essay focuses on whether or not SEL is religious and therefore unconstitutional, but I have a much more basic concern. The people pushing it are naïve to the point of self-destruction.

In that essay, there's a link to a foundational document on SEL. Here's an excerpt.

Five Stages of Religious Change

This is not the first major shift in the American religious landscape. Studying previous sea changes, historian William McLoughlin has adapted Anthony F. C. Wallace’s map for cultural change to a religious context and proposes this map to be used in today’s currents of change.

1. A crisis of legitimacy means that individuals cannot sustain the common set of religious understandings by which they believe they should act. The questioning of conventional doctrines and practices, leads to an uncertainty in one’s sense of identity.

2. Cultural distortion leads to individuals concluding that their problems are not due to personal failure, but institutional malfunction. They start seeking to change structures or reject them.

3. A new vision emerges. New understandings of human nature, God, spiritual practices and ethical commitments are articulated.

4. Small communities start to form to experiment and innovate with religious, political, economic and family structures in search for a new way of life. New practices give meaning and make the world different. Others are recruited to join the new path.

5. The process of institutional transformation. The movement of the religious middle ground towards the new, which makes transformation possible.

That document is glad to see a remaking of our society, brought about by the destruction of our existing religious institutions. Hurrah for them! They posit that something better will take its place.

Why? If you rip up the railroad tracks, why would expect the train to continue on its journey in peace and safety?

Dig this bit of foaming-at-the-mouth racial hate from Disney.

Why does Disney hate white people? pic.twitter.com/yEiCfijZJ9

— Nick Adams (Alpha Male) (@NickAdamsinUSA) February 7, 2023

When you have an entertainment colossus like Disney producing racial propaganda videos geared towards children, why would you anticipate peace, love and harmony resulting from the obliteration of societal norms and traditions?

Comanche society made sense. It worked for thousands of years. We are the Comanche and you're not. We will raid, kill, kidnap, rob and destroy because you are not one of us. The Vikings did that, too as did every single pre-civilizational culture in human history. If you destroy the structures of civilization, why wouldn't you expect to return to the systems that existed before?

SEL sounds so great in the faculty lounge. In real life, well, things might get a bit dicey.

Smothered Chicken

I've been trying to do this the right way for a long time and I finally hit it out of the park. I followed the recipe from Paul Prudhomme's Louisiana Kitchen, but the method is the same for almost all the smothered chicken recipes out there. It's a simple, 4-step process.

Season the chicken and then dredge it in seasoned flour.

Fry the chicken until it's about halfway done. Paul recommends a deep oil bath, but others are fine with just a thin slosh of oil.

Make a roux with the oil and sauté the Holy Trinity plus the Pope in it. If you used a lot of oil, pour all but about a half cup out. You don't need a ton of roux, just enough to sauté the vegetables.

Put it all in a Dutch oven and add a lot of chicken stock. Cover and simmer for 20-30 minutes.

The end result was fabulous. My mistake in the past was getting the ratio of roux to stock wrong. It's a little bit of roux and plenty of stock. In fact, this one wiped out about 3 cups of my homemade chicken stock.

I served this over some white rice and the resulting meal was excellent. 

Harry Potter And The Warsaw Pact Of Transgender Howler Monkeys

How's that for a gumbo of metaphors?

First off, let's tackle the transgender thing. From a recent post, here's the theoretical basis for transing yourself:

There is no creator, and so we are free to create ourselves. The body is an object with no intrinsic meaning. We give it whatever meaning we want, using technology to undo what is perceived to be natural.

If you're a woman, you do not become a man when you take testosterone, get your breasts cut off or start presenting as a man, you become a man the moment you say you're a man. The drugs and slicing are lagging indicators to your manhood. Like Harry Potter, you say some magic words, wave your wand and Poof! you are whatever you say you are. The poison and knives simply reinforce your magic spell.

You get to create your own fantasy. Since you deny the existence of objective reality, your fantasy is as real as anything else.

Why Not Using Pronouns Is Violence

In order for you to maintain your fantasy, others must acknowledge that it's true. If they don't use your pronouns, they aren't claiming their own fantasy world, they are destroying yours. No, that doesn't make any sense, but then again, none of this does, so who cares?

The contradiction: You get to create a fantasy world where you're a man. Using the logic of the trans, if someone else creates their own fantasy world where you're not a man, they are full of hate. You get your fantasy and they must play along. You are an emotional 2-year-old, unable to negotiate the rules of a shared game.

As bad as people with contradictory fantasy worlds are, worse still are the people who deny the fantasy worlds exist at all. This is what is meant by "denying someone's existence." They are not just making an argument, they are destroying reality itself for you.

Further, someone who says that a woman's body makes you a woman, isn't just popping your bubble, they're popping all trans bubbles everywhere. If any transphobe is allowed to speak to any trans person, it is a threat to all trans people.

Cue the howler monkeys. 

When a threat is made against a trans person's fantasy world, they begin howling. Their allies jump in and begin howling, too. It's their group defense mechanism. They are responding to an attack, not on an individual trans, but on the entire tribe and so the tribe goes on the attack to destroy the threat.

The Warsaw Pact Of Perverts

Under a treaty like the one that bound the Warsaw Pact nations, an attack on one is considered an attack on all of them. Each nation is obligated by treaty to mobilize their armies and fight the invader, even if the enemy isn't attacking their territory.

Suggesting that reality is objective and trans is a ridiculous fantasy is a threat to all perverts everywhere. If you posit that there is only one reality and there is a moral obligation to accept that, it implies that morality itself is objective. Objective morality is an existential threat to OnlyFans, PornHub, the furries, the drag queens, Tinder and more. One doesn't need to lay out a specific, objective, sexual morality to be a threat to the Warsaw Pact of Perverts. It's enough to claim that objective morality exists.

Claims of objective morality represent a clear and present danger so a pre-emptive strike by the perverts is a reasonable response. Cue even more howler monkeys. The enemy must be driven from the field! Disable their social media accounts and get them fired from their jobs!

Howl! Howl! Howl for safety! Howl until the threat is gone! Howl some more to make sure all of the other predators see that you are powerful! HOWL!

When progressive Catholics like the flaccid Cardinal McElroy of San Diego or the creepy Father James Martin argue for "a radically inclusive Church," they're surrendering to the howling. They're not just giving up the faith, they're giving up the notion of objective reality itself.

And so here we are. We're living in a nation where the most powerful social group is the alliance of sexual degenerates. One of their most vulnerable subgroups are the trans lunatics. Their borders are the hardest to defend, so the response to an attack on them must be swift and overwhelming.

That's why you're a hateful, transphobe bigot.

Jonah And The Transgender Whale

The Book of Jonah, 1: 1-3:

The word of the Lord came to Jonah, a son of Amittai: "Set out for the great city of Nineveh, and preach against it; for their wickedness has come before me."

But Jonah made ready to flee to Tarshish, away from the Lord. He went down to Joppa, found a ship going to Tarshish, paid the fare, and went down in it to go with them to Tarshish, away from the Lord.

Modern version:

So God contacted Jonah and said, "Yo, dude! I need you to go tell the Ninevites to get their act together."

Jonah replied, "Right. Like I'm doing that. Get someone else to do it, man. I'm outta here." And then Jonah booked a flight to the Caymans.

Jonah is not the story of some guy swallowed by a fish. Origen, a biblical scholar of the 200s, as in 1,900 years ago, said that some parts of the Bible are allegorical and not to be treated like eyewitness accounts. As Andrew Klavan might say, your shopping lists are literally true, but they don't speak deep truths about life. Shakespeare's plays are fiction, but they do speak deep truths about life.

Anywho, the story of Jonah asks the question, "What happens when you refuse to serve God?" Jonah runs away from his duties and his life falls apart. Out of alignment with his purpose, he gets what he wanted, a cruise to Tarshish, but finds out that what he wanted wasn't what he needed.

Like a girl who finds herself with a big scar where her breasts used to be and a body wrecked by testosterone injections, chasing self-generated fantasies doesn't work out so well. This passage from yesterday's blog post says it all.

We do not receive meaning from God or our bodies or the world, we impose it. What we take to be real is merely a linguistic construct.

Good luck with that. Let me know how it works out fighting biochemistry.

It's not that God is necessarily going to zap you from the sky. You can doom yourself by your own hand with alcohol, porn, greed and anger. The Greeks called it Nemesis. She was the goddess of retributive justice. She was karma, if you will.

Let's update Jonah for the girls getting tempted into transing themselves by the LGBTQ activists.

The Lord said to Susan, "I will have need of you in the coming years. You cannot serve me if you become an outcast. At times, it will be difficult, but I need you to follow the norms of your culture and go through puberty with as much grace and dignity as you can."

And Susan, after consulting an LGBTQ groomer on TikTok, said, "Forget that! I'm a dude!"

After that, it was only a matter of time before Susan was swallowed by a fish.

Here, you can see from Susan's long beard that she's well down the path of transition...

... and it's going great!

No Reality, Just Power

In my continuing effort to understand the transgender mania, I am now reading The Genesis of Gender: A Christian Theory by Abigail Favale. It's a work of genius.

Abigail was a radical feminist who taught gender theory for about a decade at a university whose name escapes me right now. During that time, she converted to Catholicism, as unlikely as that sounds. In doing so, her eyes were opened to the Catholic world view and she came to realize that gender theory was utter twaddle. Part of her book is spent describing the underlying ideas behind gender theory. Here are a few relevant quotes.

First, words define reality and each of us gets to choose our words and what they mean.

There is no creator, and so we are free to create ourselves. The body is an object with no intrinsic meaning. We give it whatever meaning we want, using technology to undo what is perceived to be natural.

We do not receive meaning from God or our bodies or the world, we impose it. What we take to be real is merely a linguistic construct. Ergo, we should consciously wield language to conjure the reality we want. To be free is to transgress limits continually to unfetter the will.

Woman and man are language-based identities that can be inhabited by anyone, because truth is just a story we tell ourselves and all self told stories are true.

Under this construct, communication becomes impossible because we are each making up the definitions of the words we're using and those definitions aren't accessible to the person to whom we are speaking. This is why Matt Walsh's What Is A Woman? is so frustrating to watch. 

In that movie, we see all these academics and professionals tell Matt that woman means many things, different things to different people. Not being insane, Matt pushes back, saying their definitions are circular nonsense. It doesn't make them pause because that's the point of gender theory. It is meant to be nonsense at an objective level. Everything is subjective to these people.

Wanna know why this is happening? The French philosopher and total idiot, Foucault, channeled by Judith Butler is the answer.

Power dissimulates as ontology. Ontology refers to the philosophy of being, of what exists. What Butler is saying here is that what we perceive to be “real” is actually a fiction that is created and enforced by institutional power. In the postmodern perspective, truth is suspended in air quotes as ultimately unknowable (or nonexistent). All that remains is power. Knowledge, then, is not a matter of discerning or recognizing what is true, because “truth” itself is a construction of power...

From birth, human beings are categorized by gender and given separate social scripts, so to speak. The continuous enacting of those scripts upholds the illusion that those categories are real, rather than social constructs.

In other words, there is no shared reality, there is only the reality each of us creates for ourselves. Or goal is to achieve freedom, freedom from the power structures, read: straight, white men, who are trying to force an image of reality on us for their own, evil purposes.

This is how SciAm publishes absolute rubbish these days. It has swallowed the pill and entered the looking glass of subjectivity.

Again, none of this makes sense. Physics is objective and universal. In order for Butler and Foucault to be right, there would have to be an interface between physics and subjective truth. On one side, dropping a bowling ball on your foot would smash it, but on the other side, you would get to define what "bowling ball," "smash" and "foot" meant.

The question of the transgender movement, then, is not whether or not my daughter is a man, it's these: Who determines what is real? Is there such a thing as objective reality?

You might want to get those questions squared away before you drop one of these on your foot.

Special Bonus Insanity

This clip from What Is A Woman? now makes sense to me. Or at least I know what the professor is trying to say. It's complete bullocks, of course, but there's a point he wants to make with his non-responses.