My wife and I when we were dating – 30 years ago, at a college formal.

My wife and I are about the same height. I’m 6’2”, and she’s 6’1”. I didn’t know it at the time, but when we got married, she swore to herself that she would never weigh more than me. Well, when she was late in pregnancy with our first child, it started getting a little close, apparently. Again, this is all unbeknownst to me. Anyway, she started buying my favorite ice cream, making sausage gravy and biscuits without me even asking, and at supper time cheerfully suggesting, “Why don’t you have pizza and beer for supper! I think there’s a game on! Why not?” Being male, I didn’t really give all this a lot of deep thought, except to think, “Golly, this is swell!”

As many of the denizens of the PIT know, I write a web comic called The Third Shift Detective. The art is bad, the writing is worse, and the handwriting is deplorable. It has been suggested (@garymcvey) that I do a animatic video version. Now that is a lot of work. However, what requires less work is just narrating the images. So here is the first story arc of the series. Later ones will have more polish and possibly better art and writing.

Having read the book by Bishop James Pike, The Other Side, about his experiences of paranormal phenomena following his son’s death by drug overdose in 1966, it inspired me to write this paper. I feel I need to be in some communication with someone who knows about these matters.

I had for some years been investigating various religions in search of some deeper meaning of my life. I won’t go into detail here, but my life had been a mess. I have undergone psychiatric therapy and finally came to the conclusion that my life was what I made it. As a mature woman, I can no longer blame others for negative actions.

It’s wealthy white people who tend to be the most “woke.” They see themselves as the “white savior” — as Atticus Finch. But as someone once said, if you’re going to be St. George, you first need a dragon.

To be Atticus Finch, you need a racist society that routinely lynches blacks. So, in their self-narratives, America must become that society. Atticus Finch also needs a Tom Robinson – noble, oppressed, and helpless in the face of an evil society. So, in the woke progressive’s self-narrative, minorities must be without agency, requiring white saviors to act on their behalf.

All this would be no more than a bit of harmless self-delusion if white progressives kept their self-narratives to themselves.  But, to become heroes in their own eyes, they must be heroes in the eyes of the world. So, they must tell minorities that they are helpless. That the system is rigged against them and that they cannot make their lives better by their own actions. To the extent that white progressives are believed, lives are destroyed. White progressives are exploiting minorities for their own ego trips.

Viktor Frankl liked to quote Nietzsche, “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” Frankl believed that a great deal of the failings of people and societies was due to the loss of meaning in our lives. Something more important than us, that gave us a reason to continue to live the best life we could – a glorious, righteous struggle against long odds that gives one an easy answer to the eternal question, “Why am I here?”

Frankl observed, “Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.” He said that more than 50 years ago. I think that our world of social media, video games, drug abuse, and sexual chaos would horrify Dr. Frankl. But I also think that he would be very curious to see how people would respond to being placed in a state of such material wealth and spiritual poverty. I think that Nietzsche and Frankl would be particularly fascinated by Chris Rock.

Mr. Rock is an American comedian who has made an incredibly lucrative career out of being black. He can be very funny at times, but so much of his schtick is based on race that it’s hard to imagine what he would joke about if he weren’t black. This creates an obvious problem: If it’s such a hardship being black, then how did he get so rich by being black? I think this is one reason his routine hammers the discrimination against blacks so much. Without that, then why are we laughing at these jokes? But I think there’s more to it than that. And I humbly suggest that Nietzsche and Frankl would likely agree.

I consider myself a well informed, relativity intelligent voter with an understanding of issues. At 74 years young, I have seen a lot of climate. In my opinion, the climate isn’t changing but the weather does constantly. That is what weather does. A deviation from the mean is not a catastrophe. The same can be said for CO2 levels. CO2 is arguably the most important item for sustainability of human life. Of course, water could be as important.

I had a discussion with one of my neighbors. She appears to be a normal person. The discussion was non-political and it stayed that way. It started something like this:

View original artwork here.

Biden is claiming world leaders have been urging him to run to save the world.

“I get calls from people all over the world. World leaders are calling me, and they’re almost begging me to do this, to save the country, save the world”

I’ve listened to @jameslileks‘ ruminations on his daughter’s departure to Brazil with a slight sense of dread. Gnat is a year or two older than my eldest, so his commentary over the years has given me a preview of what to expect. Today, I had my own “daughter in Brazil” moment.

After picking up the kid from high school this afternoon, I let her practice driving on the way home. Just then, a song kicked in from my 7,500-plus list in iTunes shuffle. The song I would use to rock her to sleep as a baby: