A Bracing Bicycle Ride and Global Warming

It makes me wonder when terms change. When "Global Warming" morphs into "Climate Change" and then bears such illegitimate children as "Climate Justice". There is nothing that braces you against such things as a bicycle ride in a frosty forty mile an hour wind. A wind that stops your wheels at the Beverly Bridge that bows upward high enough to accommodate battleships it seems. Anyhow I stay with the original terms. I stick with "Global Warming". Could it be that such a phrase was becoming embarrassing? Why isn't it still a world where winter seems in quite little danger of becoming extinct or even an endangered species? Rather winter seems on days like today to be very much alive and thriving; and it wouldn't surprise me to hear that layers of ice are being added rather than subtracted to the polar ice caps in spite of all the settled science that gives us just twelve years to get our act together to unthaw the Arctic.

Yet Another "Conversation"

I have to wonder what oppressed world our librarian must be living in. As I was reading "Lord of the World", a dystopia by Robert Hugh Benson, the library custodian came into the reading room with all these set-up chairs. Alas, a lecture! Would it be the one that repeats and repeats like a bad stylus skipping on vinyl? Conversations About Race. We've had so many that should you miss one you will be able to get unbigoted on another soon. Of course these lectures are so needed in this coastal community which I must conclude must certainly be a Jim Crow HATE ZONE. At the least our town is a little too caucasian for the caravan caucasians who will no doubt be arriving in their Cortez Green New Deal hybrid cars (these aren't junkers which I would think the non-privileged would own). But I just hoped for a second that maybe the stylus was able just this once to get to another track? Perhaps instead of finding out how Anti is America, we might just this once have a showing of a black and white Frank Capra Film, say "It's a Wonderful Life" or the patriotic "Mr Smith Goes to Washington" but I suppose such films express an America that is against the true narrative we are given. But no. When I got to the front desk there was the advertisement: By golly, another "Conversation"...

Well I suppose I should really stop resisting. I should root out all my ancestral racism that must have certainly accumulated, at compound interest no doubt. It's obvious in my lack of melatonin and in my MAGA hat. So my resolution....to keep up with our tolerant times I could remedy my terrible lack of awareness (don't you just love this word?) for social justice and start subscribing for my race reports from the impartial outlets--- CNN, MSNBC, Huffington Post, New York Times, Al Sharpton, Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, and of course (how can I forget?) that Social Justice Warrior extraordinaire,Jussie Smollett. Besides listening to these truthfully tolerant and diversity voices I should plan on attending all these Conversations. Next week's will even be different (just for a little diversity): "Conversation about Collusion." Unfortunately, I think I'm busy that night but I'm sure there will be a replay. The stylus has a lot of skip still in it.

Running on this Winning Political Platform

With much more thought and meditation on the subject of walls I felt inspired to come up with an even more radical political platform than perhaps even Miss Speaker Pelosi could even elucidate. I just know I will be able to make it on the Democratic stage with such a platform as I here will present. You are the first to hear it. I don't claim originality for it. I began thinking of walls and how they don't work and I began thinking of other things that don't work. One of many objects that came to my mind was a winter item. It is something that so many in our patriarchal past were culturally conditioned to think worked. But as I thought about it I realized this was just a cultural construct that I came to assume without thinking, really thinking about it. Without further ado this is what I came up with to rest the success of my future political life upon: METAL SHOVELS DON'T WORK. Besides not working and making this case, I will also make use of the objection that metal shovels are decidedly immoral. I'm already prepared to defend against the extremist toxic uncompassionate conservatives. They will no doubt ask: "How can an inanimate thing be immoral?" And "How can a metal shovel not work, not do what it was designed to do?" To both questions I have the perfect leftist logic. Yes, indeed. As to the immorality of a metal shovel---why it is obvious, isn't it? Snow certainly has rights. Is anyone really prepared to be so without compassion to say snow doesn't have the rights to remain just where it falls? Of course it travels in caravans all that way from the sky and lands on driveways, streets, sidewalks, backyards. Doesn't it have the right to stay there? Doesn't it have white privilege?

And as to working: why have you ever tried to pick up leaves with a metal shovel? They just don't stay put. Especially when you have a wind, even a stiff breeze, even a breath that would puff out a candle will knock all that work off the shovel in a second. Or try shoveling water which all snow eventually turns to---it just doesn't work. Never mind that it is for snow. I say, using leftist logic again, that because I have proven it doesn't work in these cases I have highlighted the obvious fact that it cannot work and should be abandoned.

As to my electoral possibilities residing on this unique platform I can already see the go fund me pages bursting with donations, and I imagine that it won't be long when CNN or the Huffington Post will seek to interview my candidacy. They will present me as truly being the avant guard---the future face of the Party.

Walls and Wildlife

One of my friends who happens to be of the liberal persuasion is against the wall. She is against it not for the typical reasons compassionate leftists give. No. She is against it because it will prevent the migration of wildlife. As I do she has a heart for animals. I tried to reassure her that there will not be a problem at all for deer and muskrats and cougars and tarantulas and all other beasts of the field. Why do you not think so?" she asks incredulously. I thought back to my having been educated on the subject by such brilliant prognosticators as Miss Pelosi or Mr. Schumer and told her that it is well documented that Walls don't work. "They don't?" she asked, a little doubtfully. It seemed my own assurances didn't carry much weight so I enlisted my allies. "The Democrats all back this settled science," I told her. Nancy and Chuck have been telling us this repeatedly. She waited a moment. Then she announced confidently: "Well in that case my anxieties have been assuaged! I am quite relieved." I wanted to further her feeling of well being for the creatures great and small so I went on: "Another reason walls don't work is there are such things as tunneling. All you need is have gophers lead the pack. They will tunnel under the wall and all the wildlife will certainly follow. The tarantulas of course will climb. So all will be well." My liberal friend left with such happy assurance that she skipped away. I was overcome with gladness to be of help to my friend's unsettled conscience in my own little way. But it was really those who convinced me that should be thanked. I never knew there were so many wall experts out there. All I can hope is that my friend retains the democratic belief that our ancestors were quite ignorant in thinking that walls worked and that borders were anything but the worst kind of bad.

The Absence of Fathers in Parenting Magazine Photos. Why?

Simple. Fathers aren't part of feminist families.

The Captain at the Helm in the Abusive Waters

When one puts Cupich as captain at the helm how really can the barque of Peter ever right its course?

Film Nutrition

I am a fan of old films. I just discovered a real beauty: "Give Together" a 1944 movie with Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer. Spectacular acting, an intriguing story, creative dialogue, wholesome humor and romance---the scene where Charles Boyer shatters his tea cup at Irene Dunne's announcement of her 'unusual engagement' is one of the funniest seconds (it was that long) in all of film. With such films I must confess I'm continually astonished at the difference in the nutrition of the past versus the junk food films of today. What was served on the big screen of yesteryear (as this fine film) was organic asparagus shoots compared to the sugared up, nitrate-laced fatty swill fed pork of today. How ironic in a generation where we spend so much effort in diets and feeding the body on the healthiest of organic foods. Maybe we should pull away from the table when today's carcinogenic celluloid is served. I'm afraid that such poisons no spiritual liver was ever meant to handle.

A Pattern of the Pravda Media?

So now the pravda media is telling us Jussie Smollett did his thing to further his career. Really? Wouldn't going to acting school be furthering his career, or perhaps taking a lot of off Broadway acting parts? Certainly there must be something else in his motive? I wouldn't mind furthering my writing career but a noose and bleach don't immediately come to mind.

Jump Starting Your Career Jussie Smollet's Way

So now the pravda media is telling us Jussie Smollett did his thing to further his career. Really? Wouldn't going to acting school be furthering his career, or perhaps taking a lot of off Broadway acting parts? Certainly there must be something else in his motive? I wouldn't mind furthering my writing career but a noose and bleach don't immediately come to mind.

A New Hero in the Hate Crime

Really should creating a hate-crime be a crime? Should it come with prison time? After all, shouldn't we cheer such a deception done for the common good alerting the country of the evil racists and homophobes and deceitful fundamentalists and MAGA maniacs that after all the collusion charges still stand by their most capitalist president? All one can say is isn't it really the most neighborly thing to create calumny against caucasians? For a few simple reasons. To begin with one can't deny caucasian privilege. So how can one really complain about someone lying to the police to get his point across? How can one be upset about putting these privileged patriarchal Trumpsians in their place? After all it certainly isn't the guy that puts a noose around his neck and says he was bleached by two white boys (who turn out to be two Nigerians who just needed employment) that should incur any righteous indignation---but those that still dare to stand up for the caucasian kids (that probably would've done it anyway if they had the chance) should incur the indignation of all folk who see this country rightly as one huge HATE ZONE. No, these caucasian privileged who wear MAGA hats are really those that should be denounced. But you say, they weren't even there. What does that matter? Again I reiterate: We can automatically assume they thought it; and we can safely surmise they have a MAGA hat hanging in a closet with other hate-clothing. Such bigotry one must denounce even if you have to do it with a little fictional fib.

Of course Mr. Jussie Smollett must be held up as a hero after all. Just as Colin Kaepernick one needs heroes a boy (not a toxic one) can look up to. Thus one must look at this whole story rightly, or should I say, leftly? Anyhow, one has to announce the danger of such despots that wish to resist globalizing sovereignties. (the only thing we should have sovereignty over is a woman over her body when she has a fetus inconveniently attached to her, but I digress) That being said, we are convinced by our truthful media outlets that it is all the bad people that wish to make such a country as the one you live in and perhaps your father lived in, great again? Ipso facto one is guilty if he has such an exhibit A as a Maga hat as a head covering. In such a case doesn't one automatically stand convicted? It certainly shows them to be a racist republican or a republican racist, whichever is worse. Let us not come against Mr. Jussie Smollett for his little fib in that it really is meant to expose with a little innocent fictional evidence, that caucasians, at least the Trumpsian ones, are so treacherous that little fibs to the police are perfectly justified and should at the least be overlooked and perhaps even applauded. Why if OBama was still president wouldn't he have invited this fine young hero to the White House? Of course Trump never would and this shows how much a racist our present tyrant is. But back to Jussie: Such a novel use of imagination! To pick one of the coldest days on record in Chicago to stage such a plot of Maga hats and bleach and noose is a work of pure genius worthy of any ivy league academe! If one has any political acumen at all he can surely see that his young man is certainly going places in the Democratic party! Perhaps we can get him on a fast track to be an Illinois senator...and then---perhaps in only a few years he will be a much longed for presidential hopeful after Trump has ruined the country with all the immoral walls that don't work. We can only hope.

A Visitor From Kenya to St Mary's Men's Group

Today at our St Mary's Men's Group we talked about the phrases in the King James Bible that have become common idiom up to our own day. We were especially glad to have a pastor visiting from Kenya who is here for a short visit. Africa he said has two challenges: one posed by Islam and the other by the values of the West. He further said that they who were African believers were continually praying for America who they regarded as the New Jerusalem that has unfortunately lost her way---but had great hope for her in America's President Trump who they saw as Nehemiah who was also called upon to build a wall---his was about old Jerusalem; and this wall was not regarded as immoral or one that wouldn't work. Refreshing to have the old world African perspective---quite different than the diet we daily get from CNN and MSNBC and The Huffington Post. From now on I will keep my eyes out for the Kenyan Daily.

Response to a "Feminist Grandmother"

Many, I'm afraid, adopt such a feminist moniker today thinking that the label is a way of alerting others that one is on the side of women; or that the early feminists were a good lot of idealistic folk and that the later more radical version hijacked the term and corrupted the more positive pristine ideology. I think this is a disastrous confusion. The later feminists didn't actually hijack the term. It is a term that represents a particular ideology, potently insidious, just like Nazism, Communism...(in fact the early feminists were influenced by Marx. They simply applied "class division" to gender.) My point is that the word feminist has ideological overtones and comes from a genesis that is not very good. In equating the term with "femininity" and "woman", it is at least redundant: we already have "femininity" and "woman" two terms we already can use wedded to the adjective "authentic". Imagine I applaud myself as being part German by calling myself an "Original Nazi" or a "Christian Nazi German Socialist" thinking I am redeeming the N-term from what it came to eventually mean. Gloria Steinhem and Hillary Rodham and Simone de Beauvoir are just the fruit of the original feminists. I would advocate rather for "authentic femininity" or "true womanhood" as a foil against the feminist lie that they are the representative and advocate of a better womankind.

Where to Find Beauty Tips

One time while I was teaching a high school class I noticed the girls were passing around a YM magazine. I asked them why they read such a magazine. In traditional language it would have been called 'worldly'. "Oh, Mr. Stevenson, we don't read it. We only look at it for its beauty tips." I asked them if they ever read the Bible for its beauty tips. "Oh, Mr. Stevenson, do you want us to wear sackcloth," was the response. "No," I returned. "The Bible is actually full of beauty tips from your Creator, the one who formed you. And his tips will not fade. They are the true cosmetic that will last."

A Voice Is Heard

A voice is heard in New York and Virginia. Rachel weeping for her children because they are not.

Running for Office

I am thinking of running for office. I know that these days to do so you have to come up with an energy plan. But since A.O.C. and Ed Markie came up with the Green New Deal or the New Green Deal or the Deal New Green....whatever it is...I am at a loss. I had been thinking of such a deal myself, but being an environmentalist as I am, I'm concerned about the windmills because they not only litter the landscape with sterile steel that is quite inorganic, but also kill high flying birds like hawks and seagulls and ospreys; and starlings in their great migrations will get massacred. The courts no doubt will under the GND have to deal with many mass murder lawsuits of migrant birds. And I'm concerned about hydro-electric because I'm on the side of salmon. Imagine, just imagine you swim all that way upstream from the ocean to your birthplace, jumping up endless falls, slithering up over sharp rocks to, in the end, find yourself facing the immoral wall of a dam! How does one justify that? So when it comes down to it all that is left is the sun. Maybe I will run my political platform on sun energy. Until we discover the well hidden secret of photosynthesis and find out how we can tattoo photosynthetic cells onto our skin I think we should just rid ourselves of all else. Live the ascetic life. Turn any heat off. Stop burning wood. Stop filling up with gas. No TV. Nothing you need to plug in. And until we build a bridge of solar panels across the Atlantic and Pacific we will have to resist any inclination for Paris, London, Tokyo or Shanghai. In the meantime, no more computer. Thus I am typing extra fast so that I can shut down this library computer and try and convince my liberal librarian that she should shut down the library until further notice. Perhaps until sufficient solar panels can be produced by the energy from solar panels and once that is done, and only then, should she with such a climate conscience open the library doors. I think I stand a good chance with such a platform of environmental ethos to make a good showing in the primary. Move over A.O.C. You just aren't radical enough. When it comes to saving our planet from it's twelve year death I am ready to be really the radical that should be listened to by the electorate. Of course a fringe benefit will be the elimination of the immigrant crisis. I see the caravans moving south. South from the north down through Mexico into Guatemala and Ecuador where we can expect some warmer weather and won't be so desperate for solar panels. I even suspect that A.O.C. herself might be tagging along.

Some Questions of the Green New Deal

For A.O.C. and her green new deal... did anyone ever tell this LED bright bulb that energy (like money) doesn't grow on trees? Has she thought a minute from whence comes the energy to recharge a $4000 Prius battery (I prefer my internal combustion $20 battery, thank you very much) ? Or to mold in the furnace the stainless steel of a wind mill? Does she really think that in the strict 12 year window that we have before Armageddon, that we will be able to have the same intelligent efficiency of a blade of grass to harness the sun? Does she believe that say, fossil fuels shouldn't be a choice and abortion at any stage should be? Does she believe bicycles are more efficient than planes when traveling around the globe? Are we really so gullible as to believe that the energy it takes to do renewable clean and green energy is available from renewable clean and green energy? I remember someone once said that the bigger the lie the more readily it is to be believed. And so,will it be that such non-logical thinking and deception will become commonplace and the Carbon tax will be the great chain that we will welcome upon our ankles? Will we, in the end, welcome this new environmental tyranny? Yes, tyranny is most dangerous when it presents itself as a good. May we resist the irresistible.

Light and Darkness Ever More Discernable

Light and darkness sometimes have times when the distinction is so strong that it seems as if good and evil should be readily discernible. And it seems, doesn't it, that these are such times--- when abortion and infanticide can be applauded by politicians and something celebrated with shining a false pink light on Manhattan buildings. But then again even when Our Lord was personally present to us we didn't recognize him and even sunk so low as to accept thirty pieces of silver for him. It doesn't seem like we've gotten any better in the past two millennium. But the good thing is when we see the deadly darkness about us, (sometimes it even dresses up in white) we will be more drawn to him who is the Light.

A Costume or Babies?

I find it interesting that many don't even blink when a governor talks about making an infant, newly born, comfortable while the physicians and mother discuss whether to allow the baby to live or whether to put it down---mind you only if the mother has any physical or psychological or emotional misgivings; and yet it is the governor in costume (admittedly in bad taste) when he was in medical school that indites him as a thoroughly evil nonredeemable soul. After all compared to an unwanted baby a costume back in school days really reveals the character. (I'm sure none of the secular puritans on the Left have ever been guilty of being anything but always Emily Post proper). Oh my, I'm glad we have our priorities right! It is like we are heading to Auschwitz on a non-stop train and complaining that Dr. Josef Mengele doesn't wash his hands before surgery.

Even Though GW Will End the World in 12 Years

Even though Global Warming will end the world in 12 years according to our current congresswoman/scientist Dr. Alexandria Cortez, I hope that instead of discouraging the warming I wish to encourage it. My bicycle ride this morning was to the tune of ten degrees and I imagine coming downhill at a good clip on the Beverly bridge the wind chill was, let's just say, quite brisk. But of course this is still balmy compared to what the midwest has recently experienced. Had you rode a bicycle in Milwaukee or Minneapolis in the past week you would've certainly been convinced---even if I think you had been thoroughly indoctrinated by the climate scientists---that whatever we could do to warm up the globe would be quite a worthwhile endeavor. Pardon me now while do my part and throw some good ol' West Virginia coal into the furnace.