I hope you all had a happy, blessed, gratitude-heavy Thanksgiving.
I hope you did not spend the day alone in a New York apartment, sitting on your toilet, hunched over your smartphone, obsessively typing bilge out onto social media.
Like this guy seemed to:
Only to be reminded that graywashing American history is how authoritarianism thrives.
Democrats: it is literally violence to “misgender” someone, even unintentionally, even if they are of a chosen gender you’ve never heard of“.
Unless…:
…they are inconvenient to the trans political movement. Then, you can follow the sort of reasoning that would shame Archie Bunker.
I just got the best idea for a horror story.
Check this out: a computer application slowly, insidiously saps the compassion, perspectivel, moral equilibrium and finally, intelligence from millions of unwitting people.
Who would we get to write a story like that?
Oh…
Crap. It’s too late.
It’s a shame, too. Given Hollywood’s constricted sense of imagination these days, it’d likely become a franchise spawning sequels and reboots for decades).
It’s Thanksgiving.
I’ve written before about what Thanksgiving means to me, personally – on this blog’s first Thanksgiving (checks notes) twenty years ago. It’s still true in every respect.
I was on the road, driving somewhere the other day when the notion of listing the things for which I’m grateful popped up. I started trying to list them all – and the list only really came to an end when the car stopped, far too soon, at my destination.
So what the heck – I’m just going to start a stream of consciousness list of things for which I’m grateful on this, our country’s festival of thanksgiving.
I’m thankful for my family, and my family in law. Looking back over the past twenty years since I’ve been writing about all of us, there are so many ways things could have turned out differently, and much worse – but yet here we all are, and things are all right.
And I’m thankful for the family I grew up in – my sister and my brother, of course, and my father, who is blessedly still with us. And for my mother, who we’re spending our first Thanksgiving without, this year. And as I noted back last spring, I’m profoundly grateful for one of the greatest gifts my mother and father gave us all – boring, non-remarkable childhoods, free of the sort of pointless, mindless drama that has always afflicted less fortunate families, and that a certain segment of society has taken to celebrating these days.
The more families I get to know, the luckier I know we all were, and are.
So for Bun, Zam, Syd, Watermelon, and of course Barb, Jim and Dad, I’m happily thankful.
Oh yeah – and Pickle, the cat. Best cat ever.
‘m thankful for the career I have. I blundered into it 24. years ago, more out of boredom with my short career writing instruction manuals – and yet after all this time, I still look forward to going into the office every day, literally or virtually.
I’m grateful in particular for the job I have with the company I’m at. Not naming names – but it’s a place I genuinely enjoy being, with people I genuinely enjoy working with. There aren’t many places where a UX designer with a BA in English could land on two engineering patents. For that story alone, I’m exceedingly thankful.
I’m grateful for the path I took to get there – all its myriad chicanes and hairpin turns. Starting in radio at 15, burning out on it when I was 21, getting back at 22, out again at 25, nightclub DJing, technical writing, and the various twists and turns that got me here.
At the very least, there are a lot of stories to bore my kids stiff with.
On the other hand, every once in a while I can offer someone a perspective they don’t have. And that is a great feeling.
Oh, yeah – I’m immensely grateful that my first run at “Mentoring” in my career field has been successful; my first mentee – actually the child of a long-time friend of the blog – got their first job in the field after an amazingly and satisfyingly short time (by my standards, not theirs) learning the trade. That was such a blast.
I’ve become keenly aware in recent years that there are people who’ve been very important at one time or another, that I will likely never see again. The time for chance serendipity random encounters gets shorter every year. So one thing I didn’t expect, but for which I’m intensely grateful – my show and blog and, to an extent, social media have led me back into contact with a lot of people I likely wouldn’t have via the normal course of random encounters – high school and college classmates who tune in, and occasionally shout out on my show’s various social media feeds. In three particular cases – my college friend Ray Zentz, and my high school and colleg4e classmates Eric DeMar and Pennie Werth – they passed away, very unexpectedly, and (gulp) way too young. And in this past couple of course, I’ve been blessed to have had at least some contact with each of them, while I still could.
And for my many friends who are still with us, and who I do get to see and hang out with? Yes, I’m even more thankful for each and every one of you!
It’s easy enough to say “I’m thankful to be healthy”, and it’s true. But in the four years since my crash weight loss (most of which is still gone), I’ve become humbly aware that most guys who spend as many years sedentary and overweight as I did, aren’t nearly as lucky as I am, to be as relatively healthy, after all that, as I am. I’m very aware I’m as lucky as can be. “I’m healthy” is, in this case, delivered with a bit of “whew – close call” as a happy nod. And for that, I’m thankful.
Back to a bit of nostalgia – I’m thankful for my entire high school class. I can’t say I’m friends with everyone in the Jamestown High School Class of 1981 – but this past couple of reunions have blessed me with a deeper appreciation of quite a few people who, between cliques and crowds and circumstances I barely knew in the day, with whom I’ve spent more time over a few drinks at reunions than we ever did in high school, and intensely glad for the opportunity.
I’m glad I got the education I did. It’s become the fashion these days among a certain crowd of conservatives to dunk on the modern college education – and from what I see among 20-and-30-somethings today, there’s something to it – but my BA in English has served me far better than I’d ever thought it could when I graduated from college. It taught me how to think, reason, look for the question behind the question, for the additional questions that every answer launches.
And of course, “education” is more than just curriculum and schooling. I’m thankful the many unintentional lessons I learned from some of the amazing people I met, and the collateral effects of the things I learned, in class and out.
I’m grateful that this version of the RIchard Thompson Band released this version of this day-appropriate song:
Perhaps a bit less ethereally? I’m so happy to have a band again. Oh, it’s just a classic rock cover band – it’s not the flaming-hot passionate “mission in life” vibe the twenty-some me wore back in the 1980s, when I took my swing at being a rock star, or at least a songwriter, producer and whatever else came my way. But I get to play guitar in front of rooms full of people who seem to enjoy it. And even if it’s a slow night at an out of the way bar, my Fitbit says I burn 6-7000 calories and rack up a zillion steps, so even then it’s a win-win.
Anyway – for that, I’m thankful.
Given the sturm und drang of this state and nation’s political scene, I’m deliriously grateful for the voice this blog, and the NARN, have given me over the years. On the one hand, social media have given everyone a voice, of sorts – and what people have done with that voice is another entire subject. But being able to do this on my own terms (within FCC and Salem Communications rules, natch) for all this time? To the extent I’m still sane, that’s probably why.
Of course, I’m grateful for the friends I’ve made during all these years of writing – Professor Reynolds, Gary Gross, Joshua Sharf, Sheila O’Malley, and the group of local bloggers that, about this time 19 years ago, started coalescing into that radio show: Scott Johnson, John Hinderaker, Brian Ward, Chad the Elder, Atomizer, Michael Brodkorb, and of course Ed Morrissey, King Banaian, Brad Carlson and Jack Tomczak. And of course, for the many friends I made in the “Minnesota Organization of Bloggers” days – including the three whose contributions still bless this blog, Mr. D, Jeff Kouba and First Ringer.
Why, yes – even Paddyboy! I’m thankful that Pad – someone I’ve considered a friend for over three decades, and to whom I owe an odd little debt of gratitude from back before the word “blog” meant anything but something that happened about an hour after you ate a gas station burrito – drops by, pique and all. I owe you a drink or two. Have your people call my people.
And I’m thankful for this little ephemeral bit of internet I’ve been wrangling this past 20.75 years.
As I noted elsewhere around the time of the 20th anniversary, writing this every weekday morning has been sort of a Zen-like lesson – come rain or shine, feast or famine, writer’s block or fit of logorrhea, the exercise of sitting down and writing, five mornings a week, has been a way of centering myself for this past two decades. For better or worse – I have to think it’s better – one of the great takeaways from doing this has been, I think, one of the great lessons of life; keep plugging away, and things eventually explain themselves.
Of course, I’m profoundly and humbly thankful that people still choose to read it, after all this time. Thank you all!
I could keep at this for hours more. And perhaps one day I should. But cooking calls.
And so to borrow a line from that first Thanksgiving post on this blog, way back when:
But I forgot one. I’m thankful to be here. Now. Doing what I’m doing, and with the chance to be doing the same thing – or better – next year.
Thanks to all of you. I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving and a blessed holiday season.
Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.
I have so much for which I should be grateful – and I’ll be going through the list, as far as I can, tomorrow.
But I’m going to jump the (if you’ll pardon the expression) gun, and say I’m thankful I’m not that this grift.
Whoah – did I say grift? I meant, “dinner party“:
Jackson and Rao are the founders of an organization called Race2Dinner. For $5,000 the two women will attend your eight-person dinner party and bring along “Lisa Bond, our Resident White Woman.” For that price, they will berate you about your racism. They will share their own experiences with racism, which sometimes don’t sound like actual racism. But if you object or even if you agree, they will tell you that’s what white women do and you’re part of the problem. The two have a lot of observations about “what white women do.” White women are mean to each other, for instance. When they are accused of racism white women accuse black women of being “angry” or “crazy.” White women also say they’re not racist. White women like dinner parties. And they like to say they’ve donated money to the ACLU. If you suggest that black women may be mean to each other or that they may like dinner parties, you’re also a white supremacist. Because how would you know? Don’t say you have black friends because that too would be a sign of white supremacy.
Questioning whether spending $5,000 to have people call you names is also “white supremacy,” and the authors explain, “we are tired of it.” The fact that you are complaining about the price is evidence that you “see this work as charity. You doing us a favor. … White supremacy culture has you believing that you are doing us a favor by even caring about racism or antiracism. This results in your incessant demands that we educate you—on your own racism, on a system you created to harm us for your benefit. For free.
On the one hand, it sounds as hellish as the left tells us Thanksgiving with one’s family ostensibly is.
On the other hand, if I had a lot more money than bills – or friends who’d be willing to pitch in – I think it’d be fun to pony up, invite the ladies, and watch the sparks fly.
To: Every Single Progressive
From: Mitch Berg, Obstreperous Peasant
Re: Berg’s 18th Law
To some extent, I created Berg’s 18th Law to protect me, and people like me, from going out on long, brittle factual limbs.
The law is pretty clear:
Nothing the media writes/says about any emotionally charged event – a mass shooting, a police shooting, anything – should be taken seriously for 48 hours after the original incident. It will largely be rubbish, as media outlets vie to “scoop” each other even on incorrect facts.
But after a couple of days of listening to people like you claiming that all conservative social and economic thought was a form of “stochastic terror” aimed directly at LGBTQIAetcetc people, it’s worth noting that I wrote it even more for you.
I’m going to guess most of you didn’t know that Sunday was “World Toilet Day“ (I personally celebrate the Eastern Orthodox Toilet Day, which is December 3)
Something I didn’t know about the humble toilet; to at least one part of Big Left and, to at least one part of Big Left, it’s a social justice issue:
So, if you’re having trouble keeping this straight – and if you’re sane, you should – let me break this down for you:
Separate, safe toilets for women are in essential to human dignity – except in the United States, where they are a sign of toxic bigotry.
I hope that’s clarified things for you.
Are you old enough to remember when our Expert Class (TM) sicced it’s PR machine, and Big Left’s army of howler monkeys, from Stephen Colbert down to its horde of demi-human twitterbots, on anyone who expressed even ambivalence about Ivermectin?
“Hahaha, he’s peddling horse medicine!” was about the level and extent of the discourse?
Are you that old?
If you’re a toddler, yes – you are.
If you’re older than a toddler, you remember the “expert” response – from the ridicule…
…to the regulators:
But never mind history; they’re trying to change that:
“Hey, it’s not our fault if you took all that gaslighting and all those insults seriously! We’re the FDA, maaaaan”.
Don’t get gaslit.
Shooting at an LGBTQetcetc club in Colorado over the weekend.
While the perp was apparently “on the radar” (in a state where the progressive prosecutor ensures there are no consequences for being there), expect this atrocity to be used less for gun control and more to demonize any criticism of LGBTQetcetc activism of any kind in any place – pushing the notion of “stochastic terrorism”:
“Stochastic terrorism” is just a silly concept that dovetails with “words are violence” and opens the gate for any favored group to shut down all debate because the very existence of the debate will drive people to violence. Of course, no one, at least no sane people, believes it exists, but it is a handy cudgel with which you can belabor your opponents.
“If you say you disagree with me, it must be because you want me dead”.
That’s how society gets to Orwell’s “Duckspeak” – when it becomes impossible to commicate in any but the most innocuous terms without fear of some consequences, rational or not.
Hard to live in a civil society with that hanging over every social question.
Joe Doakes from Como Park emails:
Liberals call for Covid Amnesty. They say Conservatives should forgive
Liberals for all the bad things resulting from government’s response to
Covid. They say none of those bad things are Liberals’ fault because
They Didn’t Know.Nonsense. We knew when the Diamond Princess docked in February 2020
that Covid afflicted mostly old people with existing co-morbidities. We
knew the death rate was 2% of those affected while the death rate of the
entire cruise ship population was 14 out of 3711 or .3%. And that’s
using the phony numbers from counting all respiratory illness deaths as
Covid deaths. Covid was never a threat to the population at large – it
was never more than a bad flu – and we knew it early on, which is why we
learned to elbow bump and wash our hands while singing the alphabet song.Yes, but Liberals were forced to impose lockdowns, mask mandates and
school closings because all the best scientists said so. If there were
alternatives, They Didn’t Know.Nonsense. The Great Barrington Declaration was signed in October 2020
by some of the worlds leading experts in epidemiology to codify in a
simple statement what medical and statistical experts had been saying
since the panic began. Lockdowns, mask mandates, and school closings
were never the correct way to respond to the outbreak – traditional
responses were the correct way – and we knew it within a few months.Yes, but those people were outliers, malcontents, reactionaries and
nay-sayers. Liberals were forced to rely on government bureaucrats and
computer models because Liberals had no other source of information.
Liberals were left with no choice but to implement lockdowns, mask
mandates and school closings to avoid the looming surge of infections
and resulting hospital overloads.Nonsense. Governor Walz announced his lockdown based on computer
modeling that was proven wrong within two months. There was no surge
and hospitals were not overloaded but instead laid off staff for lack of
business, keeping beds open for Covid patients who never arrived. The
models were worthless and we knew it long before school resumed. Nurses
knew it too but danced in the hospital to prove how much smarter they
were than those of us watching. They had time to dance. They had no
patients.Yes, but lockdowns, mask mandates and school closings were necessary to
prevent the virus from spreading until we had a safe and effective
vaccine, which was not generally available to the public until after
President Biden took office. Liberals had no choice but to enact
temporary stopgap measures to keep the public safe.Nonsense. There was never any compelling evidence that lockdowns, mask
mandates or school closings prevented the virus from afflicting those it
targeted most – the elderly frail population – and considerable evidence
that warehousing sick elderly with healthy resulted in killing far more
of them. Controlling for age, existing illness, and quality of medical
care, there is very little difference in Covid mortality between states
like Minnesota (strict restrictions) and Florida (few restrictions).
There is substantial difference in economic difference and, I suspect,
in education outcomes.The blogger Sundance writing at Conservative Treehouse coined the phrase
“pretending not to know” to explain why Liberals keep doing things which
Conservatives can plainly see are wrong, but never expect to be held
accountable for the consequences. That’s what’s happening with Covid
Amnesty. Liberals are pretending they didn’t know so they shouldn’t be
held to account.They knew.
And did it anyway.
And we’re never going to forgive the damage they’ve done.
Now, let’s talk about the election.
Joe Doakes
Forgiveness without atonement is meaningless.
And that’s what those asking for the “amnesty” are trying to sideslip.
No amnesty. As noted elsewhere, I’ll settle for a Truth and Reconciliation commission.
So you read the headline of this Strib article, and you think perhaps straw-purchased guns are turning up more often, or maybe that some people out there with clean criminal records are going out to Fleet Farm, picking a gun from the display case, conducting a completely legal and above board purchase, and then embarking on the life of crime.
But then you read the lead, and it’s…
…about stolen guns being used in crime.
That were purchased legally, at one point or another.
I’m not sure if they’ve thought this through.
Unless some enterprising gang conducts a heist from the loading dock add Glock USA, literally every firearm available in the United States was legally purchased at one point or another.
“Even the Mauser KAR 98K grandpa brought back from World War II?“
Well, yeah, the German government purchased it from Mauser in the 1930s or 1940s, and give it to some soldier, from whom your grandfather got it by means fair or foul.
I don’t mean to make light of what is, honestly, a fairly scabrous campaign on the part of big left, the anti-gun movement and the media; the latest chanting point is “there’s a very fine line between legal guns, and legal gun owners, and criminals“.
Of course, with the owners, there is almost invariably not. The overwhelming majority of people who commit crimes with guns have significant criminal records and aren’t allowed to touch, much less own, a firearm.
With the guns? I mean, as long as you gloss over theft (or the federal felony of straw purchasing), it’s both technically true and complete balderdash.
Nancy Pelosi – who has been Speaker of the House for most of the time this blog has been a thing – is back to being a mere Congresswoman from San Francisco.
Dean Phillips feted her on Twitter:
You can say exactly the same thing about Francisco Franco and Pol Pot.
No, she’s neither. But she is cynical, opportunistic, theatrical, has a dubious relationship with the Constitution, and somehow became immeasurably wealthy while “serving” in Congress, not that that means she’s corrupt nosirreebob.
But it’s fair to say she has certainly lowered the bar for “powerful female leaders”.
Have you noticed a lot of news stories detrimental to the narrative the left wrapped itself around before the midterms, have suddenly come out now that the (most of) the votes are counted?
Why, yes you have.
Same as it ever was.
Via Zeynep Tufekci – One of the very few reporters who actually reported on Covid – the answer is “not much at all“.
Read the entire thread:
My theory as to whatever happened to it as a news story? The Democrats didn’t need it as a campaign wedge.
I’ve always detested “Generational” politics. Among all the things that divide us as a nation, artificial, externally-defined demographic trends have to be the dumbest of all.
Still, a huge chunk of the population perceives them – and perception is reality.
David Hogg – like many “prog” human message bots before and many more to come – repeats a set of chanting points that years of indoctrination have inflicted on a disproportionate share of Generation Zs:
Among all the ideas that are sapping the vitality of American civilization, there may be few more corrosive than the devaluation of the term “right”. To much of GenZ, the term is interchangeable with “virtues” at best, “stuff we want” at worst.
The notion that inalienable rights come with ineluctible responsibilities eludes many of all generations – but Millennials and Zeepers appear to be the most vocal in imposing their misapprehension on the world.
So if you’re a Zeep and reading this:
Hope that helps.
Reading this piece by John Phelan at the Center of the American Experiment about the rise and fall of Hubert Humphrey, it’s a little bit amazing how little, in someways, has changed over the past 60 years:
“We’re not going to let the political philosophy of the DFL be dictated from the Kremlin,” Humphrey said. “You can be a liberal without being a Communist, and you can be a progressive without being a communist sympathizer, and we’re a liberal progressive party out here. We’re not going to let this left-wing communist ideology be the prevailing force because the people of this state won’t accept it, and what’s more, it’s wrong.” His Republican opponent in Minnesota’s 1948 senate race had voted against the Marshall Plan for European aid, and Humphrey charged that “if American policy had been decided by the vote of the senior Senator from Minnesota, we might be negotiating with the Russians now in London instead of Berlin.”
Especially regarding the behavior of the left’s vanguard elite (emphasis added):
Whatever the motivation, Humphrey was now in the front line of an increasingly bitter civil war in the Democratic Party. Many young activists, drawn into politics and the party by the struggle for civil rights, were bitterly opposed to the Vietnam war. Known as the New Left, as distinct from the old left of Rauh’s coalition, their opposition escalated along with the war. Wherever Humphrey went, he was met with abuse from anti-war protestors. At Stanford in March 1967, for example, demonstrators mobbed his car screaming, “War criminal!” “Murderer!” and “Burn, Baby, Burn!” Several tried to break through the police cordon, and a can of urine was thrown over one of Humphrey’s Secret Service men. Humphrey had little affinity for the student radicals. Recalling his time as a student at the University of Minnesota in the 1930s, he said, “I didn’t have much time to join a protest movement, I was concerned about being able to earn enough to eat.” He compared the protestors’ “foul language and physical violence” to “Hitler youth breaking up meetings in Germany.” In 1966, referring to his battle with the DFL Communists, he told reporters “I fought those bastards then and I’m going to fight them now.”
Of course, that was at a time when “the greatest generation“ were still in their prime working years, and the degenerate radical left was a relatively new abscess. Today’s “new, new left“ is the children, grandchildren and indoctrinees of the hippies Humphrey was talking about.
Remember when Jesse Ventura got elected governor?
He had what appeared to be a “deer in the headlights” look about him – like he never expected to win the race, I had no idea what to do when he did. When he said “we shocked the world“, he was being inclusive.
There are those who say Donald Trump was in the same basic boat; He never really expected to become president. I don’t necessarily believe that.
But I could read this next story and wonder if he’s really thought all that terribly hard about running again.S
Stay with me, here.
Now, I was never a Donald Trump fan, but it would be dishonest not to say that he did some great things in office, and punched way above his weight on many levels.
One of his greatest achievements? The sentencing reforms he drove halfway through his term, reducing federal sentences for petty drug distribution convictions and renegotiating sentences imposed during the insanely oversentenced crack epidemic, started breaking the log jam of the black vote.
This was one of his announcements last night:
Is he actually going to do a complete 180 on one of the best things he ever did for the actual party that nominated him?
The number of assaults on teachers in classrooms.
The superintendent’s salary.
The achievement gap.
Two of those numbers are getting worse. One of them is getting better.
Any guesses?
Here you go:
There is, of course, a highly competitive market for Big city schools superintendents. The market for “top” candidates is incredibly competitive, and the salaries show it.
I’ve been trying to figure out why for a couple decades now. All of them talk about metrics that improve, but year over year things always get worse.
I’m trying to figure out any other field were actual accomplishment plays no factor in skyrocketing salaries.
How do you upstage a 900 pound gorilla?
By upping the ante on the gorilla’s battle:
And now there are two serious GOP candidates for President other than Trump.
Douglas McKinnon, in The Hill, suggests an option for Democrats uneasy about Joe Biden as President in 2024 (with emphasis added):
That reality speaks to the need for a proven vote-getter with lots of money and a logistical machine behind him. In Politics 101, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) meets — maybe even exceeds — those qualifications…
…If the answer is “yes,” the “solution” is really not complicated at all. In one scenario, Biden could ask Harris to resign and replace her with Newsom, who then becomes the heir apparent for 2024. Or Biden could replace Harris with Newsom and then resign himself, making Newsom the president before 2024 and arming him with the full force of the Oval Office.
Now, I may just be a caveman, but I see nothing in Article II, Section 1 about the President appointing the Veep under any circumstances.
Ever.
Still, Mr. McKinnon might be onto something.
Biden can’t “appoint” a Vice President. But he can appoint his cabinet.
So here’s the plan the Dems could use:
Alternate plan:
It makes as much sense as McKinnon’s idea, and is actually (more or less) Constitutional…
…for all that’ll matter for the next two years.
Biden and Trudeau, prancing about Beijing…
…in Mao jackets:
I’d say “call the metaphor police”, but I guess it’s “Metaphor Red Guards” in this case…
I mean, I’m not wrong…
… it apparently also is to “diversity“:
It’s raising a hackle or two:
Where, indeed?
You voted for Mary Moriarty for Henco Attorney.
Granted, it was a closer race than one might have expected; the endorsed DFLer won by 20 points, rather than the expected 40-50.
Still, Henco spoke: they’re OK with carjackings, home invasions, random gunfire ripping through (black and brown people in North Minneapolis) houses, and criminals getting sprung over and over.
They made their choices. Now, they’ll be getting the consequences, good and hard:
Great job, voters. Enjoy the abortions.
[1] Yes, formally you’re still “citizens”. But honestly, “subjects” is a better term.
Democrats, 2020: “It’s time to eliminate the Electoral College and make the Senate more “democratic” and reflective of the popular vote!”
Democrats, 2022, probably: “Uh…”
“…checks and balances and enumerated powers are good, Winston!”
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