There were protests outside the German Embassy due to the legation refusing to offer condolences for the death of the late President. It also refused, at first, to fly its flag at half staff.
Later that day it relented and the flag was at half staff.
January 16, 2024
In a surprise to no one, Trump won the Iowa Caucuses. The Republican, and perhaps the nation's, march to disaster commences. The GOP is set, absent some of the predictions set out below, to either elect a vengeful septuagenarian juvenile who will take them into defeat yet again, or who will become an unprecedented in character President who will hold that office with a minority of Americans having actually voted for him.
Either way, it's the death of the GOP. Backing a repeat loser isn't a path to long term success. The overall question is when a replacement for the GOP emerges, and whether the Democrats reform themselves in the meantime. If there's any silver lining to a Trump victory, and that's a big if, both of those things would be it.
A repeat from yesterday:
June 15, 2024
Martin Luther King Day
Wyoming Equality Day
Iowa Caucus Day
On This Week, a Democratic member of Congress noted that Republican politicians who had opposed Trump were now rushing to endorse him, least they meet the ire of the MAGA crowed.
Probably two of the recent Wyoming endorsements fit that category.
Tonight at 7:00 p.m. the Iowa Caucus's will open in frigid weather, apparently not taking note that this is at least technically a day off for a lot of people (it isn't for most people). Gathering at 7:00 p.m. in order to choose a candidate for your party will be weighed, by many, against the agony of going out in the cold.
That's the only hope for those running against Trump.
It cannot help but be noted that the Iowa Caucus, while it probably made sense at one time, emphasizes the antiquated and downright stupid way the US picks its President. States position themselves to be first to pick, which none of them have the right to be. At least caucuses are party elections, not funded (I think) by the state. Most states have primaries which are party elections on the state's dime, which isn't just, and is arguably, in my view, unconstitutional.
To add to things, this year, Trump's ability to even hold office is presently in front of the United States Supreme Court.
Given all of this, I'm going to close this issue out with a few predictions, giving percentages.
I think Trump will take Iowa, and I'd give that a 100% chance. Biden will of course take Iowa.
I'm giving Haley a 60% chance of taking New Hampshire. New Hampshire doesn't like to look like Iowa's lapdog and it is a East Coast state with a history of acting independently.
Irrespective of that, if I'm wrong on the matters noted below, there's a 75% chance that Trump is the GOP nominee and a 100% chance Biden is the Democratic nominee.
Now, here's where some will think we're off the rails.
I think there's a 60% chance the United States Supreme Court will find Trump an insurrectionist unqualified to hold office.
When they do that, if they do, there will be a massive outbreak of right wing violence across the country.
If they do that, Haley will be the nominee.
I feel there's a 55% chance that Trump, who is an old man, who looks unhealthy, and who in my view is showing signs of dementia, will die before the election. He's showing signs of decline every day.
If he dies, and I think he will, Haley will be the nominee.
I feel there's a 40% chance that Biden will pass away of natural causes before the election.
If he dies, and I don't think he will, I have no idea who the nominee will be.
In a Biden v. Trump rematch, Trump will win. I don't want him to, but he will.
In a Biden v. Haley match, Haley will win. The Democrats seem incapable of accepting that they're going with an unelectable candidate.
Assuming that Biden and Trump are the nominees, at some point after Super Tuesday, there's a 55% chance that somebody announces a major third party run. I'm not sure who it will be, but Christie, Manchin and Cheney are all figures in that. My guess is that it will be Manchin for President, with Christie as VP.
Everyone always states that no third parties ever win, even the GOP itself was a third party that in fact won, displacing the dying Whigs. A third party here would displace the dying GOP. I'd give a third party as 60% chance of winning.
Given the furor he stirs up, there are a lot of things I fear this election many feature that I'm not going to post, as I don't want them to look like something I'm endorsing by mentioning them. Indeed, I'm afraid that they'll happen and desperately hope they do not.
This will close this edition. The next one will come out on the morning after, so to speak, of the Iowa Caucus.
People should pray for the nation.
DeSantis came in second, defying hope for rising Haley. Vivek Ramaswamy dropped out, and is likely to disappear from politics forever, unless Trump wins, in which case he'll resurface as some sort of early Trump cabinet choice.
The current tally:
Republican:
Donald Trump: 20 delegates
Ron DeSantis: 8 delegates
Nikki Haley: 7 delegates
Vivek Ramaswamy: 3 delegates
Democrats:
Oddly, they aren't releasing their results until super Tuesday, March 5, but it's obvious who the winner is.
Cont:
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has dropped out of the GOP race.
January 19, 2024
Donald Trump, the son, grandson and twice the "husband" of immigrants if you discount that Christianity (he claims to be a Presbyterian) recognizes marriage once, for the period of a person's natural life, mocked Nicki Haley, the daughter of an immigrant, by calling her "Nimbra".
Not that it will matter. Trump loyalist are so enamored with the one time Democrat that at this point there is literally nothing whatsoever he can do to dissuade their loyalty, including the fact that in a second Trump administration it will largely be others with an agenda who govern. This base is now the majority of the GOP, the party having largely ceased to exist on an historical basis.
January 20, 2024
Former Presidential GOP candidate Tim Scott, whose campaign didn't go anywhere, has endorsed Donald Trump.
This may be cynical, but frankly I think Scott is angling for the VP ticket, and I'd guess he has a good chance of getting it. He would, in fact, be a good choice for Trump.
cont:
Donald Trump pretty clearly confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi in a New Hampshire campaign rally, claiming that Haley was in charge of all the "troops", meaning that she could have called on National Guardsmen to protect the capitol.
Haley wasn't in office at the time.
Haley in turn called on his mental fitness.
More people should be. Trump doesn't act like somebody who okay mentally. He's old, and in the footage of the rally, he does not look well.
January 21, 2024
Asa Huntinchinson endorsed Nikki Haley.
Trump, in a weird sort of way, endorsed Viktor Orbán:
There's a great man in Europe. Viktor Orbán… He’s a very strong man. It’s nice to have a strongman running your country
Orbán is the poster child for the far right's endorsement of Illiberal Democracy.
Trump also rejected the rule of law in the executive in the same rally, stating:
And you will have the rogue cop, the bad apple, and perhaps you'll have that also with President But there's nothing you can do about that. You're going to have to give the President immunity. I hope The Supreme Court will has the courage to do that.
These statements from a man who will only be a "dictator for a day".
Trump, on the same day he confused Haley for Pelosi, made reference to having run against President Obama, which he never did.
Cont:
And now it's down to two. DeSantis dropped out and then endorsed Trump. His dropping out, however, probably does Haley a favor.
January 22, 2024
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum has now endorsed Trump, having dropped out of the race some time ago.
It's clear where all this is headed. Republican politicians are going to go to Trump on bended knee, irrespective of what that means.
January 23, 2024
Everything about this strategy is wrong.
First of all, the Democrats do not need to campaign as the party of infanticide, everyone knows they have blood on their hands and wish to continue odd making them wet. Those supporting infanticide have nowhere else to go, and are going to vote Democratic no matter what.
Secondly, the numerous center right voters who would normally vote Republican but who are rational about Donald Trump and what he stands for have been working their way around to vote for Biden/Harris, but being reminded of this, particularly if they are devout or at least adherent Catholics/Orthodox/Muslims will drive them away as it'll make the election about abortion and they can't go there. This section of the electorate is big enough to determine the election.
Finally, Kamala Harris is one of the most dis-likeable candidates imaginable. Joe Biden won the election in spite of her lat time, not because of her. Nobody needs to be reminded that if in the high likelihood Joe Biden dies or becomes disabled in his second term, she becomes the far left successor President.
So, it was at this point, the Democrats lost the 2024 election. The question is, who will win it?
Doug Burgum, who ran a disappointing race against Trump for the GOP nomination, will not run for another term as the Governor of North Dakota.
While it's mere speculation, a lot of Republicans are lining up to kiss Trump's ring (or other things) in hopes of becoming his VP. Of those doing that, Burgum is actually a good choice.
On other matters, Elise Stefanik, attempting to explain away Trump's obvious mental lapse the other day, managed to issue one of the most confusing attempts at the same ever. Stefanik has prostituted her talents to Trump and obviously will plumb any depths in her effort to sell herself into a position in his anticipated administration.
Oh Rich, but for Wales.
One of the things that Trump has been promising is to drill, which his audience likes to hear. Funny thing is:
January 23, 2024
U.S. oil production has been holding at or near record highs since October, topping the previous peak from 2020, even though the number of active domestic oil drilling rigs is down by nearly 30% from four years ago.New technology is the reason why there is higher production with fewer rigs.
And also:
The U.S. set a new annual oil production record on December 15, based on data from the Energy Information Administration. Although the official monthly numbers from the EIA won’t be released for a couple of months, we can calculate that a new record has been set based on the following analysis.Prices at the pump have been declining.
Huh.
The irony of this is that Biden can't advance this matter for two reasons. One is that while he hasn't restricted domestic production, as some in the GOP like to imagine, he also hasn't promoted production either. This is happening on its own and is technology driven. It shows how the economy, absent radical moves in it, is impacted much less by a President's policies than by outside economic forces.
January 24, 2024
Trump took the New Hampshire primary, Biden, who wasn't actually running in it, took the Democratic one.
Trump used the opportunity to threaten Haley.
Just a little note to Nikki, she is not going to win, but if she did she would be under investigation by those people in 15 minutes. I could tell you five reasons why already, not big reasons, little stuff that she doesn’t want to talk about, but she will be under investigation in minutes and so would Ron have been, but he decided to get out.
January 25, 2024
Biden received the endorsement of the United Auto Workers.
Trump has declared that donors to the Haley campaign will be barred from Camp MAGA. In the same tweet he called Haley a "bird brain"
Trump doesn't appear to be well, in my amateur diagnosis. A nation that can vote for somebody saying these things isn't well, either.
January 26, 2024
I think the border is a very important issue for Donald Trump. And the fact that he would communicate to Republican senators and congresspeople that he doesn’t want us to solve the border problem because he wants to blame Biden for it is … really appalling.
But the reality is that, that we have a crisis at the border, the American people are suffering as a result of what’s happening at the border. And someone running for president not to try and get the problem solved. as opposed to saying, ‘hey, save that problem. Don’t solve it. Let me take credit for solving it later.’
Mitt Romney
January 27, 2022
John Barrasso's second wife, Bobbi, died of brain cancer this past week. She was a very nice person and had been a judicial law clerk after graduating from law school. I knew her somewhat from law school and her service as a clerk.
The Governor noted her passing:
Governor Gordon Statement on the Passing of Bobbi Barrasso
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon has issued the following statement on the passing of Bobbi Barrasso, wife of Wyoming Senator John Barrasso. Bobbi passed away in Casper after a two-year battle with Glioblastoma brain cancer.
Bobbi was a treasure, a Wyoming native who always put her family and the people of the state first. Jennie and I send our prayers and deepest condolences to John and their family.
Bobbi was a longtime friend, a stalwart supporter of Wyoming and a resolute warrior against cancer. She always put service ahead of self. As a compassionate soul, she advocated tirelessly for Wyoming children, education, mental health and suicide prevention. She made a difference, and has left an indelible legacy. The Lord doesn’t make many as good as Bobbi. Wyoming was blessed to have known her. She will be missed.
The Governor will issue a flag notification once services have been announced.
A former coal executive who claims to be "Trumpier than Trump" has announced for Joe Machin's seat in West Virginia.
January 31, 2024
In Illinois, a hearing officer in an administrative process on Trump's eligibility to be on the ballot found Trump had engaged in an insurrection, but recommended the election board demur to the courts. The board in turn found that it lacked the power to remove Trump.
cont:
Elected Park County Precinct Committee members who were booted from their positions by the county Party for failure to attend meetings, including former Senator Alan Simpson, have been reinstated, although it may be temporary. Other's booted include former Wyoming House speaker and party chairman Colin Simpson, Powell Mayor John Wetzel, Park County Commissioner Scott Steward and Northwest College Trustee Dusty Spomer. At least Alan Simpson claims that they were booted for failing to meet the party's current ideological expectations.
A petition has been filed with the state party to keep them booted.
February 1, 2024
In the play stupid games category, the Oregon Supreme Court ruled that ten Republican state senators who refused to attend the state Senate for six weeks in an attempt to stall Democratic-backed bills cannot run for reelection.
February 4, 2024
Joe Biden won the Democratic South Carolina primary. Oddly, the Republican one is on a different day.
February 5, 2024
Listening to the weekend shows this weekend brings on a sense of despair.
Trump now leads Biden by 5 points in the polls. Granted, November is nine. . . only nine, months away.
J.D. Vance came on television and outright advocated for Trump to ignore the rulings of the Supreme Court if they're against him. Increasingly, the hope that Trump will not be the next President has been placed on the U.S. Supreme Court enforcing the 14th Amendment. While Vance didn't say that Republican Secretaries of State should ignore such a ruling, it's impossible now not to regard that as highly likely, meaning that we're headed for a grave constitutional crisis in which it is potentially the case that the Supreme Court declares him ineligible, states place him on the ballot anyhow, and he wins the electoral vote, but cannot be seated.
In that instance, the next four years will be rough, and frankly, there will be violence regarding this.
A decent candidate, in these circumstances, would suspend his race. Trump is not decent.
Kristi Noem has been banned from the Pine Ridge Resevation.
February 6, 2024
Intersting article on what local GOP figures are going to do re Trump, if their prior positions on Trump or Cheney are known.
Quite a few are falling in line with Trump, not surprisingly. Some are not, however, notably Cale Case and Alan Simpson.
Last Prior Edition:
Those who protest vehemently belong to small ideological groups," Francis told Italian newspaper La Stampa. "A special case are Africans: for them homosexuality is something 'bad' from a cultural point of view, they don't tolerate it".
"But in general, I trust that gradually everyone will be reassured by the spirit of the 'Fiducia Supplicans' declaration by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: it aims to include, not divide," the pope said.
We all see things through thick lenses of our cultures, and the history of our cultures. This was true even of the authors of the Gospels, which sometimes come through on certain items in their writings.
I think Fiducia Supplicans demonstrates this.
For that matter, to use a bad secular example, I think Justice Kennedy's opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges did as well, which is not to say that the documents are analagous. They are not.
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy seems to have generally believed that the Obergefell decision overturning tens of thousands of years of understanding on the nature of marriage would be met with rapid universal acceptance, rather than turning out to be the metaphorical shot heard around the world that gave us Donald Trump in short order.1
The Supreme Court, in Obergefells, and the Papacy, in Fiducia Supplicans, are reacting to the same development seem to have made the assumption of thinking that what happens in European cultures is what happens, or what even really is of major concern, all over the world. That just isn't the case in this instance.
A pretty good case can be made that "homosexuality", as Western Society regards it, doesn't even exist, although certainly same sex attraction and sexual conduct does. They are not the same thing. Therefore, when the Pope says "A special case are Africans: for them homosexuality is something 'bad' from a cultural point of view, they don't tolerate it" it might in fact be the case that the opposite is true. That is, the "special case" is Western Europeans, for whom homosexuality exists, and is not a "something 'bad'", or at least a significant number of Western Europeans, of which North and South Americans are (once again) part, have now been schooled or accepted that it isn't bad.
In most, of the world, homosexuality is regarded as a European thing. Again, the conduct occurs, but not the gender characterization. And in no society, does it occur with the frequency it does in Western Society, which is also the society which as become the most libertine, albeit only in the last seventy years, particularly in regard to sex and manifestations of sex, including outward manifestations of sex.
We've dealt with that before, but now that It's come back up in this fashion, it's worth looking at again. Pretty much everywhere this conduct occurs, it's strongly associated with a variety of factors, one of which, in its broad manifestation we now see, is a wealthy society that has lots of idle time. Put another way, it's a factor of resources and availability to them.
This is true of a lot of human disorders that are closely related to elemental needs and what we tend to universally see is that when we have a society that is heavily deprived of an elemental needs, a disordered desire for it, combined with disorder conduct, pops up in a minority (never a majority) of the population.
Food is a good example.
Scarcity of food will result in a massively strong desire to eat. In some people, that leads to desperate acts under desperate situations. Cannibalism, for example, comes to mind in regard to the Donner Party, or the residents of Leningrad. People took measures they normally wouldn't.
Not everyone did, however.
At least in the Soviet examples, which repeated in various fashions from 1917 through early 1944, most people didn't. People would starve instead.
Conversely, in food situations where there's a surplus of food, the entire population will tend to gain weight, but not everyone tends to become excessively overweight. Modern dieticians will yell in horror at this, but overweight, and truly grossly obese are not the same things. Grossly obese happens for a number of reasons, including people having a makeup which is extremely efficient in order to avoid famine, but it's only in an unnatural situation of surplus calories that it manifest itself.
As a scene in Sam Peckinpah's Major Dundee presents it:
Sergeant Chillum: Don't look to me like them gut-eaters has been feeding them very good.
Wiley: Did you ever see a fat Apache?
Sergeant Chillum: I ain't yet.
This scene depicts the pick up cavalry formation taking the kidnapped children and feeding them, but the point raised, accidentally, is a good one. Native Americans lived in a state of nature, and in that state, they were in good shape and not packing around extra weight. No culture in a state of nature does.
When things become disordered, such as in famine, some people will do something that can be argued to be disordered, eat other people. When there's too much food and no real need to work too hard, physically, to obtain calories, everyone puts on weight, but some will very much to their detriment.
So what's this have to do with homosexuality, let alone Fiducia Supplicans? Well, quite a lot, really.
Just as, in a balanced state of nature, or close to one, people don't get fat, and don't turn to cannibalism, in a balanced state of nature, they don't turn to the range of sexual deviations that they do in an unbalanced one.
In a state of nature, people live in pretty small communities and there's pretty much a 1 to 1 sex ratio. Men would only be separated from women for very brief periods of time. A war party, for example, might separate for several days, but not months. The Great Raid of 1840, for example, which is regarded as the largest Native American raid every conducted, just lasted two days. Add in travel, and the warrior bands were gone longer, but it probably wasn't much more than a week, if that long.
Hunting parties are also often cited for periods of separation, but in a healthy native state, the separation was often just a matter of hours. Women were usually close enough to a really large hunting party that they could partake in the processing of the game. There were undoubtedly exceptions, but by and large, this was the rule.
Taking the war example again, consider this from Ethiopia's mobilization order of 1935 when Italy invaded:
Everyone will now be mobilized, and all boys old enough to carry a spear will be sent to Addis Ababa. Married men will take their wives to carry food and cook. Those without wives will take any woman without a husband. Anyone found at home after the receipt of this order will be hanged.
Emperor Haile Selassie
Married men, take your wives. Not married? Find a woman who isn't married and taker her.
It's only once you begin to mess with the basic human living patters that the opposite is true. Industrialization, which we'll get to in a moment, really brought in a major disruption from the normal living patter, but there are preindustrial examples that are notable. War provides a pretty good example again.
Major military campaigns in antiquity relied on theft of food, which is not ordered, and which is well known. If the fighters were separated from women, they also rapidly descended to disorder. Early military campaigns (and some recent ones) are famously associated with "rape and pillage", and by men who would not ordinarily do that.
Another example of adjusting to desperate times might be taken in Muhammed authoring his troops, who were ready to go home as they were tired of being without their wives, to have sex with their female saves taken in war. This is widely denied by Muslim scholars today, but it seems to be fairly well established and in fact the practice has been resumed by Islamic fundamentalist armed bands and its the origin of Muslim sex slave trading, which is an historical fact. That this is basically an example of licensed rape can't really be denied.
Conversely, in Christian societies the "marital debt" was taken very seriously up until recently, and it was taken so seriously in the Middle Ages that a wife of a man who wished to go on crusade could veto it simply by citing the marital debt. That's fairly extraordinary, but telling, in that she could simply declare that if her husband departed her needs in this category might cause her to fall into sin, and therefore, he couldn't go. Moderns like to look down on such things today, but in reality that was a very natural and realistic view of human sexuality.
Same gender attractions play in here too, but within bands of men kept away from women for long periods of time. The most famous example of that may be the Spartans, who were fierce warriors trained from young adulthood, in the case of men, to be soldiers. However, the warehousing of men, and boys, away from women brought about widespread homosexual conduct as the living conditions were, rather obviously, completely abnormal.
So too are much of our current living patters.
Industrialization separated men from women and parent from child in a major way, recreating the abnormality of living conditions noted above on a society wide level.
And that's deeply unnatural.
It wasn't until the Industrial Revolution that men left their homes every day, working long hours, and were separated from their wives and children for what amounts to well over half of their adult waking hours. And this was not only true of industrial laborers, but also of their white collar bosses. In many industrial societies, moreover, this was amplified by the fact that men further segregated themselves, or were segregated by society, even on off hours.
It was essayist Henry Fairlie who noted:
Work still gives meaning to rural life, the family and churches. But in the city today, work and home, family and church, are seperated. What the office workers do for a living is not part of thier home life. AT the same time they maintain the pointless frenzy of hteir work hours on thier off hours. They rush form the office to jog, to the gym or the YMCA pool to work at their play with the same joylessness.
Fairlie wrote this in 1986, well after the most aggressors conditions of the Industrial Revolution had slackened, but he did note in The Idiocy of Urban Life what that had been like. Men left early in the morning and walked, on average, seven miles to work. They worked their all day, and then returned home after twelve hours of labor. Well over half their day had been spent away from their family.
By the 20th Century that had, in many heavily industrial regions, created a new pattern of living he didn't address, and one which lasted well into the 1970s. Men left for work in blue collar jobs, worked all day with other men, and at quitting time, they hit the bars. Men in the American Rust Belt, for instance, commonly hit a bar every night on the way home, spending a couple of hours drinking beer in an all male company, save for the barmaids whose tips went up as the beer flowed. Rough and tumble places, these were not the equivalent of charming English or Irish pubs of the same period. The maleness, if you will, of their work was all the more amplified by the nearly universal membership of men in organizations that excluded women.
Not surprisingly, this all encouraged conventional sexual vice. Some men, a minority but nonetheless an appreciable nature, took the jousting with bar maid and waitresses further, with some of the women reciprocating. When Hank Thompson and Kitty Wells sang about the "wild side of life" it's easy to wonder why they were hanging out in bars, not really appreciating that a lot of men in particular simply did. Indeed, the term "family man", conversely, had real meaning.
Not to dump this exclusively on blue collar workers by any means, philandering conduct was common in the white collar world as well, to such an extent that it became instantly recognizable to people who went to see 1960's The Apartment, the entire theme of which plays out through the vehicle of cheating married executives using their younger colleagues' apartment.
Indeed, when I was young, I can recall my parents openly talking about professionals in town who had affairs and mistresses. This certainly didn't include anyone in my family, which was 100% Catholic and meant it. That conduct was clearly not approved of, but my point is that it occured. While never discussed in this fashion, in the context of what we're discussing here, the mistresses were sometimes targets of opportunity, so to speak. Secretaries and assistants. Indeed, I heard a lawyer of the generation prior to mine, once relate of the generation of lawyers two generations older than hers, that quite a few of the paralegals of that old, now largely dead or very old, were effectively mistresses. One such assistant had mysteriously had a child out of wedlock when that was pretty rare, and it was widely known who teh employer father was.
There's a lot more that could be explored here, but the point is that the contra natural working conditions give rise to departures from morality and nature. Even now, or particularly now, you'll hear a close female colleague of a male be referred to as his "work wife". I've even heard a person refer to herself that way. Work wives have no marital debt, but hidden by the statement is the vague suggestion or fear that they might be providing such a service, illicit thought it would be.
Homosexuality, in large part, comes about, I strongly suspect, due to something similar.
In an earlier thread, we noted that there are in fact cultures that not only have low incidents of homosexual conduct, but none. As we earlier posted:
But what would be the conditions that bring it about in our culture?
We're not even supposed to ask that now, but for most people who have same sex attraction, it's a pretty heavy cross to bear. We should be looking at how it comes about.
Well, what we know is that if we separate men from women, particularly in their formative years, we'll get it at a higher rate than when that doesn't occur.
Going back to war, that fountain of all problematic things, we can look back as far as the Spartans to find this. Spartans, faced with a constant threat of war, took up separating men from women large-scale and raising boys in barracks. It also had a notable degree of homosexual conduct.
Hmmm. . . separate young men and keep them separates just as things begin, for lack of a better way to put it, turn on, and . . . .
The Spartans were a notable early example of this, which in turn tends to be exaggerated. It's not likely that every single Spartan male was a homosexual. It's also not the case, as is sometimes suggested, that Ancient Greece was wildly homosexual. Indeed, Plato abhorred it and regarded it as contrary to nature and proposed the Athenian assembly ban homosexual acts, masturbation, and illegitimate sex in general.
Going forward in time, when we really start to see references to the acts (but not a claimed "homosexual" status) comes with the first semi modern navies. It was a constant concern, for instance, of the Royal Navy, which perhaps might be regarded as the first modern navy. A great navy, it was not necessarily recruited in the most charming way and many sailors were simply press-ganged, a type of conscription, into it against their will. As press gangs favored hitting bars in ports, many of the men conscripted into the Royal Navy already lacked a strong attachment to home and family, and ports were notoriously associated with prostitution. Anyhow, a lot of men away from sea for months, or years, at a time, and a lot of them being fairly young. . . well the problem rose again.
It replicated itself in large modern armies as well, interestingly often among the officer class. In European armies where the officer class was made up of minor nobility as a rule, the men in it had entered as the only other real employment option, if they were not set to inherit the estate, was the clergy. In some European armies officers were strongly discouraged from marrying, which in part reflected the fact that their pay was very bad, as their countries knew that they could rely on family money. While it didn't occur universally in every such army, in some, such as the pre World War One German Army, there was a strong streak of hidden homosexuality.
English private schools, which were widely used by the upper class, were notorious for homosexuality for the same reason. Homosexual conduct became so common in them that homosexuality used to be referred to elsewhere as "the English Disease". Private schools were segregated effectively by class, and very much by gender. Unlike the charming portrayal in the Harry Potter series of works, boys went to boys schools and girls to girls school. Quite often, over time, parents enrolled their children in the same schools they'd gone to. Overtime, a closeted institutional homosexuality, or at least its common occurrence, crept in.
It could be legitimately asked how on earth any of this relates to our current era, but it does in more ways than we might imagine.
In most Western societies today, we make no effort, for the most part, to separate men and women in anything, formally. But as we've already detailed, we do send men, and now women, out of their families and into an unnatural environment on a daily basis. People often meet their future spouses in periods of time when young people are constantly together, such as in school or university, but as soon as they are established, we pull them apart.
Starting during World War Two, moreover, a false academia combined with the corruption and destruction of the war, gave rise to the Sexual Revolution. We commonly think of that as arriving in the 60s, but in reality it probably really started in the 1940s with the publication of Kinsey's false academic narratives. That was the first shot, so to speak, and the publication of Playboy the second one. While Playboy was opposed in some localities into the 1980s, by the 1950s it was so well established, in spite of completely rejecting conventional morality, and in spite, moreover, of publishing photos of women younger than 18, that the ground had been massively lost. The pill followed in the early 60s, work patterns changed due to the introduction of domestic machinery, and sexual morality took a beating. Once its natural purpose was obscured, and then lost, which really basically took all the way into the 1990s, the widespread acceptance of homosexual sex was inevitable.
None of which means that a large number of people will take it up.
But what does mean, that some people, in some circumstances, will. And the unnatural conditions that we live in, amplified by societal moorings having been cut by the Sexual Revolution, help bring that about. And as society has chosen to simply embrace everything that deviates from the norm, and natural, as it applies to ourselves, those afflicted have almost no place to go, but deeper in, no matter how destructive that may be.
All of which is a good reason that people in this circumstance need blessings, if blessing are properly understood.
And which would, therefore, support Fiducia Supplicans.
But none of which suggests that the Church's view on sex is what is causing a decline in attendance in Europe, and that a wider acceptance of homosexuality as normal, as some would urge, would actually do anything. This all is a problem in the West, to be sure, but the underlying evolution of thought that some have, that this is all natural, is not supported by the evidence.
The evidence supports the contrary.
Which gets us back to our original point. African and Asia, for all of their problems, have lived closer to nature, longer, than we have. But that is rapidly changing, and in much of Asia in particular it already has. People who like to imagine that there is such a thing as broad progress, for which there is no good evidence, would argue that this is all progress, so that everything we have noted as a byproduct of the evolution of industry in the West will necessarily happen everywhere else. But that's not necessarily the case at all.
And indeed, in the West itself there seem to be an awakening of tradition, and a desire to return to a more rooted lifestyle. Ironically, evolutions in technology may bring that about. We know that populations are declining everywhere in the Western Northern Hemisphere, which is seen as a disaster but which in fact may emphasize this sort of return to the village.
Footnotes:
1. Obergefell is an incredibly weak decision which, if it were to reappear in front of the United States Supreme Court today, would be reversed. My prediction is that it will be within the next decade as it devoid of solid legal reasoning.
When it was handed down, it was my prediction here that it would cause massive social disruption and resistance, which in fact it has. Pollsters like to point out that the views on same gender unions have moved greatly since it was handed down, which is true, but what they seem to miss is that it was basically the last straw on the part of traditional social conservatives, as well as (Southern type) populists on forced social change. The latter group had long ago accommodated itself to divorce, to people shacking up, and begrudgingly to homosexual conduct but it wasn't about to be told that homosexual unions equated with marriage. In very real terms, Anthony Kennedy, whether he realizes it or not, has always been Donald Trump's running mate.
Related Threads:
February 5, 2024
I have low interest in the Grammy's, but I was passing by the television when Long Suffering Spouse was watching it. It was just as the Album of the Year was announced, which went to Taylor Swift.
Swift, as we all know, has been the subject of an insane far right conspiracy theory that GOP pundits right now try to nervously laugh off (if you haven't heard it, listen to last weekend's This Week in which the pundit calls it crazy and then realizes that he's pretty much called the entire GOP crazy, tries to laugh it off, and then goes into a tirade about how all football fans are voting for Trump. Um, crazy much?
Anyhow, Swift, with perfect timing, lingers in her very brief acceptance speech to state she's going to give an announcement that she was going to wait until April to give. Oh my, what could it be? A wedding announcement or. . . the much feared Biden endorsement?
Nope, her new album is being released.
Nicely played.
Swift contrasts nicely with Myley Cyrus, who won her first award.
Not so nicely played are the machinations of one Mike Johnson, who it is now clear is nothing more than a puppet of Trump's. He went on Meet the Press to defend himself, was slammed on that show, and on all the rest of them.
And JD Vance is now pretty much an outright fascist. Perhaps more so than Trump is claimed to be, although he's paving the way for a violent rejection of the United States Supreme Court. Vance is pretty desperately campaigning with Donald for the VP slot.
Last prior edition:
The Battle of Admin Box, so named as it was in a rectangular shaped area of the Indian Army's 7th Division administrative area, began, with the British Indian Army defending its position against a Japanese offensive in Burma which was calculated to draw off British troops from a larger Japanese offensive.
The Chindit 16th Long Range Penetration Brigade left Ledo and marched south toward the "Aberdeen" area in Burma.
The Red Army took Lutsk and Rovno in the Ukrainian sector.
The Germans withdrew to a smaller perimeter within the Korsun Pocket, which the Germans were able to resupply by air.
Think of President Xi. Central casting, brilliant guy...He runs 1.4 billion people with an iron fist. Smart, brilliant everything perfect.
Donald Trump.
And people are thinking of voting for this guy?
Hopefully something we'll avoid finding out first hand:
Churches of the West: Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church, Casper Wyoming: This Church was put in place in the early 1950s due to the expansion of the City of Casper, and has an unusual history. The church it...
Our prior entry, done quite some time ago, lacked an interior shot. I could have simply added it to the old post, and I likely will, but here it is as a separate entry. More detail on the Church appears in the original entry.
Patty Hearst, a grandchild of newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, was kidnapped from her apartment in Berkeley, California by the Symbionese Liberation Army. She was 19 at the time.
The group had first appeared in November when it had murdered Marcus Foster, the black Superintendent of Oakland Public Schools, and wounded his deputy superintendent Robert Blackburn.
The name of the entity, it might be noted, came from this, according to the organization:
The name 'symbionese' is taken from the word symbiosis and we define its meaning as a body of dissimilar bodies and organisms living in deep and loving harmony and partnership in the best interest of all within the body.
It's hard to seem how murdering public school superintendents fits that supposed goal. Robert Blackburn, who survived his wounds, noted:
These were not political radicals, They were uniquely mediocre and stunningly off-base. The people in the SLA had no grounding in history. They swung from the world of being thumb-in-the-mouth cheerleaders to self-described revolutionaries with nothing but rhetoric to support them.
Emblematic of the times, the goof ball entity was a kind of sort of Communist terrorist cell that rapidly became disenchanted with "the people" after distributions of food, which it had demanded as a ransom in Berkeley, didn't go well.
In April, the group raided a bank in San Francisco, in which Hearst seemed to take part, although she denied doing so willingly. She nonetheless was convicted due to the actions and served two years out of a seven-year sentence before Jimmy Carter, ever the kind man, had her released. Bill Clinton pardoned her.
In May the organization moved from the Bay Area to Los Angeles, where they got into a shootout at a sporting goods store where Hearst, on guard duty, fired shots. A shootout a couple of days later at a supposed safe house killed six of them.
Hearst was arrested in September 1975, back at a San Francisco safe house.
Hearst, as noted, was convicted, but she claimed she had never participated willingly, and had been raped and threatened while a captive. Given the nature of the SLA, that's certainly possible. Early on, however, after her arrest she had said that she comported her thoughts to theirs and was given a choice of being freed or fighting with them, and she elected to fight.
After her release, Hearst married Bernard Lee Shaw, a policeman who was part of her security detail during her time on bail. They had two children. He died in 2013.
The Provisional IRA bombed a bus on the M62 Motorway in England, killing nine solders and three civilians, including two children.
The Yom Kippur War resumed, but only as between Syria and Israel, with 500 Cuban soldiers joining a Syrian tank unit. Fighting resumed in the Golan Heights.
Time Magazine featured Speaker of the House Tip O'Neil on the cover, with the caption "The Impeachment Congress.
The Japanese launched Operation Ha-Go in the Arakan, a major offensive against British forces in Burma. As was typical for Japanese offensive operations, it featured a strict timetable.
Stemming from the same region, the Swiss passed on a protest from Thailand, stating:
The Swiss Minister (Bruggmann) to the Secretary of State
Th. 1 Thailand
The Minister of Switzerland presents his compliments to The Honorable, The Secretary of State, and has the honor to submit a communication from the Government of Thailand which has been received from the Federal Political Department in Berne, with the request that it be transmitted to the Government of the United States:
“In air raids about the end of 1943 and January 1944 Anglo-American aeroplanes dropped bombs on Chulalongkon Hospital, Saowapha, on the Pasteur Institute of the Red Cross Bangrak Hospital and two mental disease hospitals. Such humanitarian establishments cannot be said in any way to be military objectives and the indiscriminate bombing thereof is not only a violation of the Geneva Convention [Page 1322]of 192925 but also of the principles of humanity. His Majesty’s Government therefore enters a strong protest against the unjustifiable act of destruction above mentioned.”
The Minister would be grateful to The Honorable, The Secretary of State, for an acknowledgment of this communication.26
Washington , February 4, 1944.
All Japanese organized resistance on Kwajalein ceased. Of 8,700 defenders, 265, many of them Korean laborers, survive. The American forces sustained 370 KIA and 1,500 WIA.
The Germans attacked the British 1st Division at Anzio, forcing it to fall back. The US 5th Army gained ground further south.
The Soviet 42nd Army took Gdov. Hitler ordered the 24th panzer Division to assist in the relief of the Korsun Pocket. Relieving forces are spearheaded by the Heavy Panzer Regiment Bake.
The U-854 struck a mine in the Baltic and sank.
President Roosevelt established the Bronze Star.
Executive Order 9419—Bronze Star Medal
February 04, 1944
By virtue of the authority vested in me as President of the United States and as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, it is hereby ordered as follows:
There is hereby established the Bronze Star Medal, with accompanying ribbons and appurtenances, for award to any person who, while serving in any capacity in or with the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard of the United States on or after December 7, 1941, distinguishes, or has distinguished, himself by heroic or meritorious achievement or service, not involving participation in aerial flight, in connection with military or naval operations against an enemy of the United States.
The Bronze Star Medal and appurtenances thereto shall be of appropriate design approved by the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy, and may be awarded by the Secretary of War, or the Secretary of the Navy, or by such commanding officers of the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Coast Guard as the said Secretaries may respectively designate. Awards shall be made under such regulations as the said Secretaries shall severally prescribe, and such regulations shall, so far as practicable, be of uniform application.
No more than one Bronze Star Medal shall be awarded to any one person, but for each succeeding heroic or meritorious achievement or service justifying such an award a suitable device may be awarded to be worn with the medal as prescribed by appropriate regulations. The Bronze Star Medal or device may be awarded posthumously, and, when so awarded, may be presented to such representative of the deceased as may be designated in the award.
Signature of Franklin D. Roosevelt
FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT
The White House,
February 4, 1944.
It's a surprise, really, to realize that Bronze Star was created this late, but like the Silver Star, it was created to reflect combat conditions that the US had not experienced since the Civil War.
