Hey everyone, how are you doing? How was your Thanksgiving? Seriously, I want to know (if you're willing to share).
The reason I ask is twofold. First and foremost, I care. Seriously, you all are pretty great. So I want to know how you're doing, and how your Thanksgiving holiday was. What'd you eat, what was your favorite, what traditions (or lack thereof) does your family have? The whole nine yards, I'd love to hear about it.
The second reason is admittedly educational in nature. As I've mentioned, I have a few different projects that are consuming my intellectual bandwidth for the foreseeable future, one of which is addressing our ever-increasing erasure of the concept of localism, and acknowledged distinctions between real, physical places on earth. What I mean is, there's been a gradual but observable erosion of the real distinctions between the concept of "here" and "there" as distinctly different locations, with distinctly different inputs and outputs with which to assess how "here" should do X as compared to "there" doing X. Social media and the broken narratives of our legacy news establishment has facilitated the creation of a lens for people to view their immediate surroundings that is largely a distortion, or simply erroneous.
I'll get more in to detail about this topic in some future podcasts I'm outlining, but one area where this distinction is obvious can be found in the ways different states/cities are handling Covid-19 restrictions. We had three Thanksgivings (mom's side, dad's side, in-laws), and all three were different ends of the spectrum.
Dad's side: canceled over Covid fears. Later, they requested that we stop by to say hi (so they could see their granddaughter), and that'd we'd wear masks and hang out in the yard. There's a lot to say about how I felt about this, and the fact that they later invited us in to see some remodeling, and asked if we wanted to come back later to hang out, but I'll leave it at that.
Mom's side: A few people didn't come over fear of Covid, and also because we were exceeding the restrictions the county had put in place for in-door gatherings. A had a few family members who had been exposed, or had actually had Covid in the recent past, so they wore masks. Other than that, it was a pretty normal meal.
In-laws: Normal Thanksgiving. Immediate family, same as usual (the big gathering is usually around Christmas). Delicious food, good time playing games, etc. Standard fare.
One concern I have is that the Thanksgiving restrictions that various locations put in place are just their test-run for Christmas/New Year's. Anyone who thinks that the next 2-3 weeks will bring some improvement (whatever that means) in whatever criteria they used to establish these Thanksgiving protocols is being a bit naïve, in my estimation. Agree or disagree with the necessity of them, but I have no doubt that it's only going to get worse. Looking at how different localities are responding (some based on their own specific data, some based on 'What is such-and-such place doing? Let's emulate that.') is also an aspect of the increased migration I predict will occur along ideological lines, i.e. the physical space we choose to live in will begin to match our online spaces/communities. Covid is just one factor (of a growing many) that will begin to motivate people to move to places that are governed along their preferred ideological lines.
I know that's a bit scattered (I've been feeling scattered lately, to be honest). All that to say, I'd love to hear how your Thanksgiving was, the ups and downs, favorite dishes, your predictions for Christmas gatherings, and how your locality (or the locality of where you celebrated Thanksgiving) played a part in how you conducted/ felt about all of it.
One last thing. My favorite dish: Strawberry Rhubarb Pie, always. Close second is my mom's sweet potato casserole. Those two might actually be tied, now that I think about it. The ham also turned out amazing, but so did most everything else. I just really, really love Thanksgiving food 😊
While driving yesterday, I had an idea to help facilitate more regular content creation, especially during this time when it is all but impossible to make videos outside of livestreams from my phone. The idea is that of a biweekly post that roughly takes the form of a newsletter, of which this is shall be the first volume. As an aside, evidently a synonym for biweekly is 'fortnightly,' which I'd totally use if it weren't for the association with a game of stupid dances.
My current plan for the format is as follows, though obviously this is likely to change.
-Introduction, brief life updates, and maybe a thought or two I've had lately that I wanted to share with you.
-What books I have been going through, and any excerpts or takeaways I feel are worth sharing.
-Any other noteworthy podcasts or media I've consumed lately.
-What stories I'm paying attention to (if any) and why
-Any questions I might have for you guys
-?
Alright, it's called TL;DR for a reason. Let's jump in.
As I mentioned earlier, we have Covid again. I'm not going to ...
I know it's been quiet here lately. I'll eventually explain what's been going on with my personal life (most of it has been a mixture of our new baby being really, really difficult, and perpetual sickness. For example, last week three our of the four of us had to go to the hospital) but this is what has consumed virtually all free time outside of work and family time.
Please consider helping us bring justice to these bastards. Their indifference and complicity in the harm done to these kids has to stop. Please help us make that happen.
For those who missed it, here's an open letter I wrote to my community last fall after the suicide of a former student, himself a victim of this school district:
https://returntoreason.medium.com/an-open-letter-to-the-citizens-of-albany-county-ca507fa24cd8
Thank you for everything you do. You guys are awesome, and I look forward to filling you in on what's been going on in the near future. See you soon.
ps- I will be...
Salutations! I hope you all had a fantastic Christmas. Here is my list of top ten the things I learned/conclusions I reached from this past year. Some are directly related to events, others are not. Either way, I tried my best to create a list of useful ideas for you to incorporate into your view of the present moment. I hope you find this list useful, as many of the items on it are lenses I find incredibly important for understanding the world around me. As always, I welcome any feedback you might have!
In Part 2, I use Conquest's Three Laws of Politics to expand on my specific critiques of Peterson's Manifesto, and flush out some of my own axioms that I failed to explain in Part 1. This is where I get into the nuts and bolts of how institutions deviate from their original purpose and begin to generate and pursue their own interests.
What began as a singular episode critiquing one of my intellectual heroes has turned into a multi-part series going after some foundational axioms of mainstream Conservatism.
In this introductions, I discuss Permanent Washington and the concept of accountability, and sew the seeds for what's to come in either trusting or rejecting many mainstream Western institutions.
It's worth mentioning that this recording, along with every other part in this series, has taken almost (in some cases more than) a day to upload. I have no idea why my internet is failing me as hard as it is, but here we are. Hopefully you find these recordings in time to assist you in your vote tomorrow 🤙
I've been wanting to do this for a while. It might have taken me two days to figure out how to get this from my phone to my computer, but I finally got it to work.
On Saturday, I used the voice recorder app on my phone to record a podcast covering Karl Schmitt, his discussions of power, and how we can map this onto our contemporary situation with The Regime that runs our country, and the Bureaucratic State which does its ideological bidding.
After listening to it, I realize there is some more context I need to add to the ending, so I might record another one tomorrow or Wednesday. Either way, it feels good to be recording stuff again. As always, I welcome your thoughts and feedback!
"We don't know where this thing isn't."
-Bret Weinstein
@JamesDerian suggested I pin and regularly update a thread of sources I'm compiling to illustrate the total societal takeover of Far-Left Orthodoxy, including their explicit targeting of our kids for indoctrination. Here is that thread.
Compromised entities:
Nickelodeon
Cartoon Network
Kellogg's Cereal
Mattel Toys
Lego
Sesame Street (SESAME STREET 🤦♂️)
PBS
CNN
The New York Times
The Washington Post
NPR
NBC News
Gender/Sexuality
Cartoon Network celebrating transgender children:
https://twitter.com/stage13network/status/1377332951659151360?s=20
More Cartoon Network trans stuff:
https://twitter.com/cartoonnetwork/status/1377259794294259717?s=20
Cartoon Network on "normalizing gender pronouns"
https://twitter.com/cartoonnetwork/status/1338539346530537475?s=20
Lego released "rainbow set" for Pride Month:
https://www.lego.com/en-us/aboutus/news/2021/may/everyone-is-awesome/
"Queer up your morning routine" with Kellogg's new cereal featuring edible glitter, ...
