tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52088442024-03-19T06:28:30.167-04:00T. Crown's MusingsEven those who learn from history are surrounded by those doomed to repeat it.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger423125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-86028800785523656322021-09-08T15:23:00.006-04:002021-09-08T15:31:27.887-04:00You Broke Your Ankle On That Last Heel-TurnOf all the things I'd expected to see in 2021, "the staff of the former Weekly Standard becoming apologists for abortion" was not one. I've said for years that being in professional punditry usually means that you're for sale (or at least constantly open to being malleable) to some extent, but what Jon Last & Co. have done the last couple of weeks has been off the charts.I blocked these folksUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-57919835424795782892019-07-12T17:46:00.003-04:002019-07-12T17:46:54.308-04:00But For Constant Intervention Abroad, Richard?Can political parties have souls in the way political romantics like to think?
"We're fighting for the soul of the [Republican/Democratic/Libertarian/Very Silly] Party" is the sort of thing a certain group of people -- namely, people who don't know what souls are and who think politics is anything other than war by other means -- tend to say. It rallies their fellow believers, it inspires Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-60186536886891025742019-06-20T14:20:00.000-04:002019-06-20T14:34:24.859-04:00They All Fall Down, Part Some Large Exponent of Ten
If you gaze too long into The Donald, The Donald gazes back into you.
And everyone is dumber for it.
The problem of Donald Trump hit the conservative movement like a problem-shaped figurative landmine hitting a foot, which is to say reactively, with explosive force, and with a great deal of collateral damage. (That metaphor sounded much cooler and smoother when I started than when I finishedUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-26639824938351817672019-06-05T09:43:00.001-04:002019-06-05T09:43:27.326-04:00Probably could have left it at this, to be honest.People are losing their ever loving minds.— Casey Mattox (@CaseyMattox_) June 5, 2019
Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-21816992889772248562019-06-04T18:29:00.002-04:002019-06-04T18:29:22.841-04:00I need to do this more often.I forget how much fun I have writing something that doesn't need jump cites until I do it, and then I get addicted again.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-34204493298498301792019-06-04T16:38:00.000-04:002019-06-04T16:41:24.155-04:00The Beatings Will Continue Until the Stupidity EndsThe most attractive part of the human body, based on centuries of human experience, is not the face, or the legs, or the midsection, or the chest, or the hips, or any genital; but, rather, the navel. This has come into starker relief now that we as a society have discovered that our ability to share our most trivial insights with a waiting world is quite literally at our fingertips. It is made Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-65031148064889053802019-04-22T16:30:00.003-04:002019-04-22T16:30:17.824-04:00Words Make the Man.The language we choose tells others a great deal about us. For example, my wife jokes that I'm one of the few living speakers of American English who visibly suffers real pain when he accidentally dangles a preposition, or says, "To who?" or really, any of a litany of offenses against a perfectly-useful Latin-infected Germanic tongue. This suggests that, at best, I'm a pedant fighting a romantic Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-54814633368511681872018-11-08T14:55:00.001-05:002018-11-08T15:10:52.986-05:00That Time I Was Sort of Banned From Twitter But Not Really But Really I WasNothing I write will appear on twitter.com ever again. When I first started on Twitter in 2009, I used it as a place to gripe about experiences while driving very long distances. Overtime, I abandoned that for the most part, and instead focused on family, politics, humor, and culture. My blogging fell by the wayside, as did my long-form writing. I interacted with people that I sort of Unknownnoreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-68165869977362911482016-04-06T15:49:00.002-04:002016-04-06T15:49:20.577-04:00They All Fall Down: The Year Madness Finally Won
About five miles from my office lives a very nice young lady, who just cleared seventy years out of a womb and on this Earth. We'll call her Mrs. Martin, because she's a fairly unassuming woman who would be scandalized to know someone's writing about her on the internet. (When I asked her if I could, she said, "I don't think I'm important enough to be on the INTERNET.") Mrs. Martin is a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-62992207895212627172016-02-29T13:29:00.001-05:002016-02-29T13:29:49.108-05:00Vote for the Non-Crooks. It's Important.
Donald Trump must be slowed and then stopped. It begins tomorrow. You can help.
Tomorrow, I'm going to vote for Marco Rubio, or if the polling average corrects slightly, Ted Cruz. I will do this despite enormous reservations about both men. (See below for more.) I will do this despite the fact that neither is even my third choice.
I will do this because forcing Trump to go to Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-76008776829283198322015-06-23T09:26:00.002-04:002015-06-23T09:36:15.110-04:00The Empty Joy of Forgetting: Presumably, Confederate War Dead Are Next"The war is over. The Rebels are our countrymen again,” the Commanding General of the United States Army said, explaining why he would not allow his men to laud and Lord over the broken army that had just surrendered to him.
On April 9, 1865, Ulysses S. Grant accepted Robert E. Lee's surrender on behalf of what was left of the Army of Northern Virginia. The terms were unbelievably generous, Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-6274071900398813882014-12-10T13:08:00.001-05:002014-12-10T13:08:18.367-05:00Another Proposed Modern Catholic Advent Hymn(Ref.: This post.)
Sons of David (And Daughters of Magdalene)
On a cold-swept mountain near Bethlehem
A crying babe was born
On a broken glacier near Bethlehem
A brand-new Light was born
Born of the House of David
Born for the Magdalene
Born for the Heavens above
Refrain
We were born in a manger
We were born for the stars
We were born of mere humans
We were born to go far
On a cold-swept Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-34352544447580442872014-12-10T12:42:00.002-05:002014-12-10T12:42:25.868-05:00Advent Hymns by Modern Catholic TasteAfter yet another round of modern Catholic liturgical music and reminders that in this blessed season we are to avoid being happy or even liking our eardrums, I've decided to offer my own liturgical offerings for Catholic masses. If it helps in their adoption, I can divorce my wife, become a Jesuit, renounce my Order, and "marry" another man.
Who am I kidding? That won't help, that'll make it a Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-79409134502312414782014-01-19T15:42:00.003-05:002014-01-19T15:42:41.879-05:005 Reasons Everyone Should Stab Himself in the Chest in His Twenties1. You'll understand your body as never before. Until you've burst open your body with a sharp, bladed instrument, you tend to think of your pulse and heartrate as data. Oh, look, my blood pressure is up to 130/78, I may want to do more running or My resting heart rate is up to 60, I should check out on the internet whether that's a good idea.
But when you feel the cold steel separate your skin,Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-25085683020970091902013-10-16T08:31:00.000-04:002013-10-16T08:37:31.340-04:00New Right-Leaning Hacks Needed: Must Have Life ExperienceThere is a term for a family that pretends away terrible and
self-destructive behavior, and it's not "healthy." It's time to confront
some hard truths about our own, even if we often agree with them,
especially if we do.
The Right's political chattering class is exactly as useless as that on the Left and the ... well, the rest of the Left.
Now,
I need to clarify what I mean by "useless." Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-53205309267723182702013-06-14T21:10:00.002-04:002013-06-14T21:11:34.675-04:00Why the Immigration Bill is Doomed to SucceedVidalia, Georgia, is actually a pleasant place. Most Yankees would
think it a blip on the road as they drive through (do Yankees drive?),
but it's actually in many ways a very pleasant Georgia town with nice
people, a certain kind of picturesque landscape, and a subtly bustling
work ethic.
Vidalia is (unfairly) famous for one thing and one
thing only: its sweet onions. The soil in the Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-15031854720835078822012-09-09T15:33:00.001-04:002012-09-09T15:34:01.303-04:00A Review of Blood Song (Raven's Shadow #1)Having been through more fantasy and science fiction series than any functioning adult should be comfortable admitting, I am leery of writing anything overly adulatory about the first novel of a series, especially when that novel is not merely good but quite possibly great.
This is because first-in-a-series novels are like first dates. On the one hand, you can end up meeting the woman of your Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-39152700906707480932012-08-15T15:56:00.006-04:002012-08-15T16:15:41.200-04:00His finger touches God'sMy good friend Ben Domenech has been putting out one of his usual, depressing-because-it's-so-insightful series, this time on modern video games, and the relationship between those who play, those who create, and the medium they share.
In probing the moral reaction to playing the bad guy in a video game, Ben recently asked,
Decisions like these have moral consequences. And if video game playersUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-63327686376882555862011-08-21T14:48:00.003-04:002011-08-30T14:54:23.332-04:00You likely didn't notice, but third-tier blogger Dan Riehl and his erstwhile patron and chunin-rank pundit Mark Levin engaged in a minor series of hissy-fits over vaguely, sort of, nominally not-complimentary things about Michelle Malkin and Sarah Palin, respectively, that appeared at RedState.
Now, I should note that I have no particular beef with Mark Levin -- among second-rate bloviators and Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-48806961571640442192010-09-22T22:45:00.002-04:002010-09-22T22:52:12.012-04:00Dear Friend,Two days ago, I acted like a boor and a pig. Because I was speaking to union voters, I thought, "Who'd fucking notice?" Now Republicans are acting like they've never said that word before, like if they hit their thumbs with hammers while crucifying a teacher in a garage, the fuckers.Talk about hypocrisy. We're talking about people who've had people near them comparing President Obama Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-54292149165915463302008-08-31T08:14:00.004-04:002008-08-31T12:08:13.905-04:00Sarah Palin has a son named Trig. Trig was born roughly four months ago. Trig has Down's Syndrome. Sarah and her family have a tough road ahead of them, as my grandparents did when my uncle was diagnosed with what is, apparently, a much more severe case than Trig has.Sarah Palin is pro-life, and unabashedly so. Given that ninety percent of children diagnosed with Down's are murdered in utero, andUnknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-82660648068957543372008-06-13T19:51:00.003-04:002008-06-13T20:21:01.178-04:00Arguably the worst series of ideas I've heard in a while, I'm ever impressed to find the short-bus riding Chuck Hagel on board for the dumbest of the ideas presented. Let's see: Our goals are apparently (1) to increase government spending (2) increase Federal subsidies of local concerns (3) increase Federal ties to local concerns and (4) give urban political machines the tools they need to expandUnknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-16710874020439378012008-05-01T21:11:00.008-04:002008-05-02T07:45:12.809-04:00Donatism is one of the oldest, most tempting of heresies. It posits that the spiritual value of a sacrament is in direct relation to the spiritual worthiness of the dispenser; in shortest form, a corrupt priest cannot give an effective sacrament. There is something intuitive -- which is not to say correct -- about this heresy, which of course makes it all the more dangerous. It is a heresy, its Unknownnoreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-20392857415346284632008-02-08T23:20:00.001-05:002008-05-01T21:11:05.290-04:00FOR HE IS RISEN.Don’t be surprised if many of the young people enthusiastically supporting Paul today wind up crossing the line in a general election and using some of that enthusiasm in support of Obama. I’m sure there are many who gravitate to Paul because of individual issues or out of anger against the establishment. Those followers will drift to third-parties or sit out the election Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5208844.post-6700002801378939482008-02-03T00:08:00.000-05:002008-02-03T01:42:14.899-05:00When I was at RedState, there were only three bloggers who I felt should never have been given posting privileges of any sort, for different reasons. Each was a Josh Trevino addition -- but let me be absolutely clear about something here: So was I. (Er, that doesn't make anything better.) Let me try it this way: Josh scores so many hits, you'd expect a few misses along with them. Moreover, given Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0