“Miraculously, just as soon as we were given personal responsibility, it was taken away. In the darkest of ironies, after 345 years of having our personal responsibility stripped from us by governing white society, we allowed that same white society to take it right back. Their method for taking it had certainly changed. Rather than callously telling us we couldn’t be responsible for ourselves, by outwardly barring and banning us from various institutions, this time, they began telling us we shouldn’t be responsible for ourselves because it was unimaginable that blacks would suddenly be expected to perform at their level. This ushered in a period of black victimization, which our community readily embraces to this day.” –Candace Owen, Blackout
In part of her book, Candace Owen shined a light on the true purpose of the Great Society agenda. People close to Lyndon Johnson knew that he despised black people, and he made sure that they would see themselves as dependent on the government forever. By “enslaving” them once again, he guaranteed their political support of the Democrats into the foreseeable future.
Even though many of us on the Right realize that the Democrats often acted against the wellbeing of the black community (as in fighting the Civil Rights Act and participating in the Ku Klux Klan), they managed to hide their true identity. As time went on, blacks became convinced that in spite of evidence to the contrary, their lives should be entrusted to the Left. Although programs of the Left have repeatedly crippled blacks in America, they have remained loyal.
I’ve grown to hate walking through my suburban Atlanta neighborhood. The unease has been building for years, but in the insane year of 2020, the tipping point has been reached. The misguidedness of too many of my neighbors can no longer be tolerated. The only thing that gives me comfort now is the knowledge that very soon I’ll be leaving for “redder” pastures.
Who knew that beneath the leafy, idyllic exterior of my suburban redoubt lurked so many hearts – or rather, minds – of darkness. I won’t say “hearts” because, after all, they mean well.
Colonel Walter Wenck was in command of no one and nothing. There was nothing to command. Technically, he’d just been appointed chief of staff of the Romanian 3rd Army, part of German Army Group B. Again, technically, the 150,000 men of the Romanian 3rd Army held an 85-mile section of the Eastern Front just north and west of Stalingrad. Actually, the Romanian 3rd Army had ceased to exist over the past 48 hours. On 20 November 1942, a huge Soviet counteroffensive had smashed into the shoulders of the German salient at Stalingrad and pulverized the Romanian, Hungarian and Italian formations in their way. Soviet armored units poured through the gaps and roamed freely across the snowy steppe in the rear of the 300,000 Germans at Stalingrad. What was left of the Romanian 3rd Army was in headlong retreat, its path marked by columns of acrid black smoke spewing from ruined vehicles. Scattered units tried to turn and fight, but there was no front, no line of resistance. Just the maelstrom and sudden death as Soviet tanks appeared out of the snow.
Right now, there was nothing between the Soviets and Rostov-on-Don but air … and the remnants of broken units wandering in the steppe. Somehow, Wenck knew, he had to impose order on the chaos. At this moment, the Russians were concentrating on closing the trap on Stalingrad. But that wouldn’t last. If they reached Rostov, not only would Stalingrad be lost, but anyone south of the river Don between Stalingrad and Rostov would be doomed. That included the 1,000,000 men of Army Group A in the Caucuses. So Wenck went to work.
Too much politics corrupts both the mind and the soul. So, for a moment, I will step back into the past and reflect on a favorite subject and reference, The Outlaw Josey Wales.
As many of you may already know, the Clint Eastwood film is based on a novel that began life as The Rebel Outlaw Josey Wales and was republished as Gone to Texas. The author was listed as Forrest Carter or Bedford Forrest Carter.
I promise that these posts won’t all be about rare diseases, but somehow I’ve managed to roll the genetic dice and have them come up snake-eyes twice. As I mentioned yesterday, I contracted a rare (1 in 100,000 to 1 in 1 million people per year) but, fortunately, curable form for cancer. Several years ago, I was diagnosed with a different but also rare disease (1 in 50,000) called Hereditary Angioedema (HAE). What’s that? I had to ask as well. A genetic deficiency causes me to not produce a protein that is needed to keep part of my immune system in check. A cascade of protein reactions that would normally be checked by this missing protein results in fluid leaking out of my cells into the surrounding tissue causing major swelling. It’s like my body is trying to heal from a wound by sending fluids, but there is no wound. My swelling occurs internally in my gut and causes three days of intense vomiting and cramping (imagine having your intestines pinched closed for a couple of days). Others with this condition will have their throat swell closed which is life-threatening. I seem to be the originator of HAE in my family and unfortunately, I passed it on to one of my sons.
Why am I grateful?
In the Western world, we have celebrations to mark life events in the first half of our lives—graduations, weddings, baby showers—but, we don’t celebrate becoming middle-aged. Instead, we often bemoan the “midlife crisis.” Turns out, that’s the wrong way of looking at middle age. In this episode, Arthur is joined by Chip Conley, founder of the Modern Elder Academy, who has dedicated his life to helping people through the transition to the second half of life. They discuss how “middlescence” can be a joyful and fruitful time, if managed well and share some advice for having an even happier second half of life than the first.
References and further reading:
One of my patients today mentioned how excited she was that Joe Biden was going to be our next president. That caught my ear, as you might imagine. Most of my Democrat friends are understandably thrilled that Trump seems to be leaving the White House. But she is the first to express actual enthusiasm for Joe Biden. I asked her what she hoped Mr. Biden would do with his time in office.
She immediately responded, “He’s forgiving student loans! That’s just a brilliant economic move! I mean, these people are trying to improve themselves. And once they get their diploma, they can earn more money, so they pay more taxes! It’s a win-win! How on earth can Republicans so short-sighted?” I nodded sagely, thinking to myself, ‘Don’t respond to this. Get back to medicine. Do not respond, you moron. Shut up and do your job. Don’t respond…’ So naturally, I responded:
“That’s a brilliant point! And I completely agree. For example, I wasn’t making any money in my previous practice, so I bought this one. It cost a lot of money to buy it, of course, and I didn’t have that kind of cash. So I took out a business loan. Now I’m making more money, and I’m paying a lot more taxes.”
I was in third grade when President Kennedy was murdered. They let us out of school early but didn’t tell us why. I walked home with my sister Joan, who was in fifth grade. My mom was watching the TV and told us what happened. I now have an apartment just over a mile from Dealey Plaza where it happened. We walked there yesterday and took pictures.
It’s a Thanksgiving feast of legal analysis in the faculty lounge (don’t worry, the profs issue opinions on the best side dishes for your holiday meal), as Richard Epstein & John Yoo convene for their first post-election session. On the menu: Do any of President Trump’s legal challenges to the outcome of the election have a chance in court? Are attempts to get state legislatures to change their electoral votes constitutional? Would a president Joe Biden actually have the power to issue a national mask mandate? Will increasingly restrictive COVID rules at the state level withstand scrutiny by the courts? Was Justice Alito out of line to issue politically-charged remarks at the Federalist Society convention? And finally, the question of the hour: does President Trump have the power to pardon himself?
In the Land of Confusion podcast that we taped Friday night, I gave a brief update on the election results in the House of Representatives. At that time, five races remained undetermined, according to RealClearPolitics. Two of those have now been called, one for each party. Here is the current status of the House as detailed by RCP (here):
The Democrats lead 222-210, with three races undecided. Thus far, this is a gain of 10 for the Republicans and a loss of 9 for the Democrats. Of the three undecided races, two were previously held by a Democrat and one was previously held by a Republican.
On the flagship podcast this week, James Lileks talked about how young people who yearn for driverless cars will miss out on the freedom of driving oneself, and made a brief aside about the disappearance of manual transmissions. Growing up in the early ’70s, most of us learned to drive in big sedans with automatics, but after the oil embargo suddenly there were scads of Japanese cars with precise little manual transmissions.
It helped that the early Japanese imports had horrendously bad automatic transmissions and not much torque. So we became converts. We still own several cars with manual transmissions, although they are harder to find than ever. As long ago as 2001, we had to go 300 miles to find and purchase a CR-V with a manual.
This week on the UK’s Fastest Growing Podcast™ Messrs. Delingpole and Young get a little contentious. After reviewing the week’s Covid news they turn their attention to the US Presidential election and words fly. Words such as “Tesla,” “shotgun,” “fragging” and the “C-word.”
Things get so heated the bleep machine gets pulled out. Crikey.
If you want the ultimate movie night, now is a golden opportunity. Until this pandemic abates or is dealt with, movie theaters across the country are trying about anything they can think of to stay afloat. Between customers too scared to come in, capacity restrictions, or out and out mandatory closures, while actually competing with movie studios going right to streaming while still charging premium screening costs to struggling theaters, many theaters may not even be around in another year. So they’re innovating.
Since you are not legally permitted to publicly show anything in your DVD collection, but you can show it privately, theaters are letting you privately book their giant screens and sound systems, and let you see your favorite films “on the big screen” the way they were intended in the first place. Tonight we took up a local theater on the opportunity.
I don’t know how many movie theaters will survive the pandemic. Many were doing poorly before COVID anyway, and now they’re practically begging for customers. In recent years even the large multiplex theaters have been offering customers the ability to book a screen, but the pricing has usually been affordable only for businesses, and the times available have likewise been in the daytime. This makes sense of course, as these are large buildings to heat or cool, and to staff for concessions and cleaning, so if one is going to open up for a private event, it needs to be remunerative. In this, the smaller independent theaters have a bit of an advantage – they only a few people on duty. Our local theater has decided to get in on the act.
Saturday, especially in Southern regions of The Golden State, many Californians saw to it that The Tree of Liberty Witnessed a Whole Lot of Enthusiasm on Saturday. From Breitbart:
Thousands of people in 16 California cities took to the streets on Saturday, Nov 21st 2020 to protest Gov. Gavin Newsom’s curfew order requiring people to stay at home after 10 p.m. Carrying Trump/Pence flags and “Open up California” banners, the crowds began to gather at 10:01 p.m., including in Huntington Beach and San Clemente.
I’m a conservative. I don’t like chaos, I’m not attracted to nihilism and social destruction. I like things to proceed in an orderly manner, following sensible rules, and leading to understandable results that inspire confidence. Having said that…
For four years I’ve watched the Democrats and their cohorts in the media (which is to say, pretty much everyone in the media) make a farce out of politics. It started with Hillary Clinton paying for Russian-made dirt on candidate Trump. It continued with Hillary Clinton making up a Russian collusion narrative in order to save face after her unexpected defeat in 2016.
#BREAKING NEWS: Pa. Health Sec. Dr. Rachel Levine has issued a one-night suspension of alcohol sales starting at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Nov. 25, which is the night before the Thanksgiving holiday. https://t.co/iVngbGjRoZ
— KDKA (@KDKA) November 23, 2020
For the first time that I can remember, I wish that I were ignorant of politics. To want to be ignorant about anything is so contrary to my nature. Although I know that I can’t undo what I know, I can’t help contemplating what life would be like if I didn’t know the disruption that was happening in the election process . . .
I could focus on getting my ingredients together for Thanksgiving. I make my own cranberry sauce with cranberries, sugar, dried cherries, and a bit of fresh orange juice; I love to watch the mixture bubbling and rollicking in the pan. And savoring it with the juicy turkey.
Or I could imagine the smells of my mother’s stuffing recipe made of matzah and other goodies, scents that fill the house with memories and joy.
The President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, of which I am a member, has asked everyone to post a daily expression of gratitude this week to help aid in healing many of the open wounds in our society. I thought that Ricochet would be a good place to post since this is where I spend most of my “social-media” time.
Ten years ago I had a hernia repaired. During the surgery, the doctor placed a mesh to strengthen the repair. Shortly after my recovery, a lump began to grow above the repair along my beltline. I assumed that it was scar tissue caused by disturbing the underlying tissue to place the mesh so I didn’t do anything about it. I thought that it would be an out-of-pocket cosmetic repair and I used that as justification to avoid having another surgery. Late last year I changed my mind about having it repaired. Constant rubbing by my waistband and belt was causing repeated bleeding and it had grown enough for me to notice a change. My surgeon’s visual diagnosis was a squamous-cell or basal-cell carcinoma, a little scarier than scar tissue, but not anything to worry about. After the resection, the tests came back positive for dermatofibrosarcoma protuberans, a rare cancer that is locally aggressive but with a greater than 95% survival rate. Two resections and a round of radiation therapy later I seem to have a clean bill of health.
John Anderson, AO, is the former leader of the Australian National Party and served as Deputy Prime Minister when his party entered into a governing coalition with the Liberals under John Howard from 1999 to 2005. Now retired, he has a podcast and YouTube channel in which he asks “people he admires to join him in a conversation, something between an interview and a fireside chat.”
He recently sat down with our own Peter Robinson:
I didn’t think I could be shocked and appalled by anything else in 2020. I was wrong. France has banned public Masses, supposedly due to COVID-19.
Let me explain for non-Catholics. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the source and summit of the faith. We believe the sacraments were instituted by Christ to impart the grace of faith through the sensible signs of what they signify. The Mass is the Catholic faith.
I recently heard of a statement made by Neil deGrasse Tyson that I thought must have been a misquote. I looked into it and, sure enough, that wise man who’s quoted on tee shirts and coffee mugs said, “The good thing about science is that it’s true, whether or not you believe in it.”
Whoa. The list of superseded scientific pronouncements is a long one, but I seem to recall a couple of real bloopers from his own field of expertise. It was once thought – as late as the early 20th century – that our own galaxy was the extent of the universe. Lo and behold, it is now accepted that there may be 100 billion galaxies comprising the universe – and counting. Now that’s a major whiff.
Powerline just posted a must-read essay from the great David Horowitz. The whole thing is frighteningly perceptive as you might expect (Horowitz spent 20 years as a communist radical in his younger days, and he understands the left as few do), but here is a very brief taste:
Democrats are not democrats; they are totalitarians. They have declared war on the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Electoral College, the Senate, the Supreme Court, the election system, and the idea of civil order.
I would love to hear my Democrat friends attempt to argue with any of those points.
