The nowhere pope of the postmodern age

So I noticed something.  In the months following the election of Pope Francis, the news media lit up like a solar flare.  This was especially true after his famous 'who am I to judge' remark about the LGTBQ movement.  Every week, if not every day, there seemed to be stories about Pope Francis.  All of which gushed with praise and adoration and optimism about how Pope Francis was beginning the good work of finally burning that old time religion to the ground.  For example, this one always comes to mind, from the rag dedicated to proselytizing our youngest into a world of Sodom and Gomorrah debauchery and nihilism: 

That was just part of the new age of post-modern propaganda that rotated around Pope Francis like a hurricane.  Reminds you of the messianic visions of Obama in 2008, don't it. 

Anyway, I notice in comparison to that, the press has been rather quiet about Pope Leo XIV. But so has everyone else.  Certainly in comparison to the almost daily posts unpacking the latest Pope Francis interview or talking point.  Oh, people mention Pope Leo here and there.  For instance, those of more traditional sympathies noted that on June 1st, otherwise known as our last month long foray into post-Christian paganism and dreams of a post-Western world for the year, Pope Leo chose to talk about families and mom and dad and having those babies.  

So naturally, this is what I saw after June 1st on most media outlets that bothered to mention him at all:

At least Vatican News added the family admonition to the important news

Over at Where Peter Is, where every word that proceeded from the mouth of Francis seemed to warrant its own special column (except his trashing of transgender activism), I saw no mention of his June 1st musings.  Just a column reflecting on how Pope Leo can effectively continue the reforms and activism of Pope Francis, and one reflecting on the real meaning of his emphasis on unity.  

Whether it's the Church righting itself, or people wanting to refrain from rushing in, or what, I don't know.  Clearly Pope Leo is not what the press initially hoped or imagined.  By now we know that thing we used to call the news media is merely tabloid propaganda.  They have no desire to cover news, merely promote.  And so far, it seems whatever they want to promote and what they see in Pope Leo XIV are not one and the same.  At least it looks that ways thus far.  So we'll see.  Just something I've noticed.  

For a bonus giggle, here is a Youtube video (posted on WPI) in which we realize Pope Leo and Pope Francis will be, well, the same but with different name tags.  And unity properly understood is when we realize it's the fault of those traditionalists and more conservative types misreading what Pope Leo no doubt intends to mean:

Heh.  That sort of thing always makes me chuckle.  The old leftwing trick of asking why can't conservatives stop being so damn divisive and just admit it's all their fault.  I find the stunning lack of self-awareness among those, including Christians, who tack Left is usually the most amazing thing.  And most annoying.  

What we can expect to hear all day every day from the American news media for the next four years

 

My boys chuckled and said that in four days, they have heard more negative press coverage, more stories invoking scandal and controversy, more unfavorable analysis of what is actually happening with the incoming administration, than the total of the last four years combined.  

Not only that, but we caught a segment on one of the news shows pondering if Trump can live up to his campaigning and fix the economy as he promised.  We immediately asked fix what?  For three years the press insisted it's a mother beautiful economy.  Even on election night, on the ABC round table, they questioned why Americans just couldn't feel the awesomeness of our strong and robust economy.  Most likely something to do with many Americans not being able to afford shelter, fuel and groceries was our guess. 

But it's so nakedly obvious.  All pretense of not being ministries of lies and propaganda for leftwing globalism has long been tossed out the window by the media. Though it didn't work this time, just like it didn't work in 2016.   And my oldest son, no fan of Trump that he is, maintains that Trump's loss in 2020 was not some universal mandate for the Left.  He believes had Trump not told his supporters to sit on it and reject early voting, he might have won then.  

So the idea that the media and leftwing establishment has the power it had, even in 2014  - when BLM could change the appraisal of our history, leading to Talibanish purges of our historical monuments and memorials unhindered, and experts were trotted out to explain that Islamic terror attacks in America is the new normal, and that obviously boys should use girls bathrooms or the Fed will pull your funding - might even less true today than 2016.  

Though there is a positive, if you think on it.  Years and years ago, at the defunct Catholic and Enjoying It, Mark linked to another blogger who addressed the issue of Catholics voting.  At the time, Mark was moving toward his 'pox on both houses' position.  But the blogger stated that there was one unarguable reason to vote Republican.  Because as soon as Republicans are anywhere close to the majority, and certainly when they hold the White House, the press gets busy and begins telling us just how terrible things are in America and the world.  Mark agreed then, and I agree today, with the caveat that now the press isn't content with reporting the bad, but it will report that everything is bad whether true or not.

I wonder if this is true

 

I just don't have the time to look it up, times being what they are.  It's from the Internet, and I've developed a strong distrust for anything I find there, especially on Social Media.  In fact, I was going to post on the increasing number of Social Media posts I see that are dead wrong - photos don't match text, facts wrong and such - until I was informed that it's part of the whole posting gig.  That is, it benefits posts to have many comments for some measures of stats.  Thus they post things that are wrong and sit back as hundreds rush into to say 'Hey!  That's wrong'.  It's a comment, and that's what matters. 

That's not the only problem, but it adds to the distrust I've had for years.  So the above image could be bunk and nothing more.  The only reason I post it is because last year, during our local media's attempt to convince us that the mid-80s are life threatening, I looked up the all time high temps for the Midwest.  And I believe there were only a couple times that the all time highs weren't in the 1930s.   You know, the Depression, those droughts and dust bowls and all.  Because I noticed this referenced the 1930s as a comparison date, and it seemed to fit with what I found last year, I decided to post.

The point being my belief that the climate changes, just as it always has.  That often times we're watching cycles of changes where the climate fluctuates, changes, shifts and changes again.  I'm not saying our approach to STEM hasn't had an impact on the climate.  It probably has to a degree.  But it's simpler than the politics of Global Warming.  Or the two months long daily apocalyptic coverage of our summer temps this year. 

What would Omar think?

Omar would be shocked

I've written before on my propensity to attribute nostalgic feelings to certain times, seasons, music and even movies.  One of the movies we watch each year as part of our annual cycle of traditions is the old 1985 yarn The Jewel of the Nile.  A subpar sequel to a surprise hit the previous year, it has all the hallmarks of a movie rushed through production for the buck of it. 

The story - and I use that term loosely - involves romantic novelist Joan Wilder finally getting her big break.  She yearns to be a serious writer.  That opportunity presents itself in the person of Omar Khalifa, a fictious leader of a fictious realm in a non-specified region of the Nile.  Yeah.  They could make up entire African regions back then.

Anyway, the ruse begins to unravel as Miss Wilder discovers all is not well in Omardom.  What she thought was the serious biography of a major political figure was just cover for a sinister plot of war, conquest and worse.  When she confronts him, she announces she will let the world know the truth.  He responds that she has no idea about the truth.  She's a romantic novelist.  That's why he hired her.  If he wanted the truth, he would hire 60 Minuets!

Ah, I finally get to the point.  All that came flooding back to me as I watched what could generously be called a leftwing hit piece and propaganda broadcast presented by Lesley Stahl for 60 Minutes.  I mean, my jaw dropped, and you all know how cynical I am about the modern thing that used to be called journalism. 

It was stunning.  It didn't even pretend, and yet I found myself asking 'Does she really think she's seeking the truth?  Does she really believe she is being unbiased, fair and balanced? Or does she know it's a hack partisan hit piece and propaganda circus and that's the point?'

My sons who were watching it with me immediately caught one telltale sign.  Whenever she interviewed a leftist activist bemoaning the horrors of conservatives and the need for the government to filter dangerous speech, she let them have an open microphone.  Basically, sit back and let them speak, a few cheers and high-fives along the way. 

The most hilarious part was when Ms. Stahl pointed out that the professor interviewed, Kate Starbird of the University of Washington, has been threatened.  And the professor said yes, she received a death threat once.  My thought was 'only once?'  In the Internet world, if you haven't had a death threat, you're a nobody.  I always get a kick out of the times journalists feel the need to bring up death threats, and when they don't.  

When she showed interviews with Ohio representative Jim Jordan, however, a good 2/3 of the interview was not him speaking.  It was Ms. Stahl overdubbing and giving us a play by play, telling us her version of what he was saying, rather than letting him say it.  Giving commentary on the nature of the interview itself, often with negative assessments.  And obviously trying to catch him at something, including asking him if Biden was actually elected and then focusing on his pause - because you know what that means.

No. As bad as I know the thing that used to be journalism is, I was legitimately stunned.  Again, that she accepted various leftwing talking points as gospel truth was bad enough.  But it was the partisan hackery.  The naked cheating on behalf of the cause. Of loving her some leftists, while having naked contempt for Jordan and the very thought of challenging leftwing narratives.  If it wasn't so serious, it would be hilarious.  More of a SNL skit or a Monty Python segment.  You could almost laugh.  Almost. 

Because it is serious, however, you really can't.  And it shows the Fourth Estate consummating its marriage to the powers that be.  And that includes warning us that if we try to do anything about it, we will have a target on our foreheads.  And the press, operating ever more like a secret police branch for the Left, will fire at will. 

BTW, money quote section from the segment: 

“Katie Harbath spent a decade at Facebook where she helped develop its policies around election misinformation. When she was there, she says it was not unusual for the government to ask Facebook to remove content, which is proper, as long as the government is not coercing.

Katie Harbath: ‘Conservatives are alleging that the platforms were taking down content at the behest of the government which is not true. The platforms made their own decisions. And many times we were pushing back on the government.’”

Note, she doesn’t deny that the government was trying to get content removed. She merely says the platforms weren’t influenced by the government, which I can actually believe. I feel most were happy to ban and remove all sorts of non-conforming content on their own. 

Also, according to 60 Minutes, she even says it’s proper, so long as the government isn’t ‘coercing’. 

At which point I would have liked Ms. Stahl to ask her if it is always proper as long as the government isn’t coercing, and to define coercing.  But that would require journalism.  Not the thing we watched that evening. 

Orwell never went this far

The headline alone says it all:

Some states are trying to make sex binary?   You've got to be kidding me.  Go back twenty years and say that and you'd be met with blank stares from everyone in the room.  This shows the speed with which we're sinking and sinking fast.    

It's all about power and the removal of the Christian Western tradition.  Pick almost anything assumed to be true, and throw it on its head. It can be as ludicrous as you want.  Right now, go through the Mental Health industry.  Because despite statistics to the contrary, we're convinced the MHI is infallible and can do no wrong and solve all of our problems.  If it says C-A-T spells dog, then by golly it's true.  The press will approve this message.

At the end of the day, this is telling us that O'Brien was holding up five fingers.  Because four fingers is really five.  The MHI says so, the press affirms it, and you had best get with the act or else.  When your society has reached that level, it's no longer case of when will it collapse, but when did it collapse. 

UPDATE:  In keeping with the press as the machine of lies and exploitation, I was shown this.  It's about a young person dragged into the madness of post-gender reality, and who has died.  Before the death, there was a fight. in school  In the 'oppressed is always good and can do no wrong/oppressor is always evil and can do no right' template, there is not even an attempt to ask who might have started it.  Transgender = oppressed = always good = can do no wrong.   That's all we need to know. 

But the part that gets me is that the media has been trying to squeeze what exploitation it can from this, with the usual activists and lawyers jumping on board.  Yet the only thing we know about the death at this point is from the preliminary autopsy here:

The latest police statement says preliminary autopsy information indicates that the teenager "did not die as a result of trauma".

So the only thing that has been said is that the death was possibly not due to trauma.  It reminds me of that ABC story that shocked the world and then was swept under the carpet. You know.  The one involving Matthew Shepard that admitted one of the men accused of killing him was, in fact, part of the LGBTQ community.  That is, it wasn't a "hate crime."  Yet it was the main impetus for ramrodding the - then - controversial notion of 'hate crimes' and 'hate speech' into our social order.  

I wonder what really happened with this poor youngster swept up in our modem age of expedient insanity.  I doubt we'll ever know.  I do know that our media is now to the point of literally letting us know it is promoting BS and lies and doesn't even care.  At least it could have left the part about it possibly not being due to the trauma out of the story.  That it knows it can put it right there in front of us, and then proceed to push the agenda based on BS, shows where we've gotten to, and just how crazy things have become. 

Not Fat Bear Week!

 Heh: 

That made me laugh.  This is what the press does.  It can blame the GOP exclusively on any shutdown, so we are treated to an endless parade of - anything - that demonstrates the harm that will be done.  They do this when, say, a Republican is in the White House and the economy is struggling.  I recall in the 80s, in the midst of the rebounding economy, it was a regular feature for newscasts to showcase 'those who are falling through the cracks'.  In the years leading up to the 2008 collapse, I remember newspapers and news broadcasts focusing on endless families and individuals wallowing in debt, or struggling with bills, or anything that said we were heading full steam into a recession. 

On the other hand, during the 1990s, apparently everyone was doing well.  I took note at the time regarding the change in mood when the press covered the economy.  It was, quite frankly, the greatest economy in history.  And apparently nobody was falling through the cracks, since you seldom heard about it.  Whether pop culture or the press, there was no showcasing of the poor, the poverty stricken, the ghettoes, the individual families interviewed to show not everyone was enjoying the bountiful harvest of Clinton era policies. 

Same during the Obama years.  In fact, it was the Obama years in which I learned no matter what the economic reports, it was always good news.  If unemployment went down, that was good.  If it went up, that could be good, too.  If the economy slowed, or seemed to be limping along, it always seemed to herald positive news for the future.  

Just like today.  As I said here, no matter how bad the inflation, the cost of living, the number of Americans unable to keep up, it's always framed in a 'but economist predict great news for the future!' Likewise, there are no anecdotal stories about Mr. and Mrs. American who are being hurt by the current economic situation.  Again, because of who is in the White House.  

But when the blame can be dropped on the GOP?  Why, we learn that our world hangs in the balance.  We meet individuals who will be devastated, we're told of specific people who will be harmed.  And we learn that above all things, we might not be able to have Fat Bear Week!  

Sometimes I don't know whether to laugh or cry.  

Pope Francis and ideological commodities

I don't hate Pope Francis.  I don't think he is the Antichrist.  I don't think he sneaks around and throws banana peels in front of nursing homes just for fun.  I don't  go home every night and stick pins in my little Pope Francis doll.  

True, I don't care for how he conducts himself.  I don't like his 'do as I say, not as I do' schtick.  I don't care for his inconsistencies and at times incoherent ramblings.  I disagree with his political liberalism and nakedly Marxist based Liberation Theology.  I don't like the priorities he has established, where fealty to various leftwing (let's be honest) political agendas are the deal breakers versus fealty to the Gospel, the teachings of the Church, and the virtues of Christian living.

With that said, he has pointed out things I do agree with. One has been calling out the practice of seeing human beings as nothing but commodities. I don't think there is an issue with commodities per se.  But humans are not a commodity.  And he is correct in pointing that out.

But there are many ways to turn humans into a commodity.  One way that has become almost universal in our modern media culture is humans as ideological commodities.  That is, humans, human lives, human suffering, and human death matter only insofar as they can be shamelessly exploited to defend established narratives or advance political and social activism and agendas. 

This is most flagrantly demonstrated by the modern news media not giving two damns or a hell about human misery, struggles, pain or even death unless they can be used to further the press's pet objectives.  For instance, the killing of three black victims by an avowed white racist.  

There are literally dozens of Americans murdered in the country every day.  Most go unreported beyond a local news story.  Many are all but ignored even then.  Then why this?  We've had killings of multiple people in our neck of the woods over the last few weeks.  Why haven't they made the national news?  Earlier in the year a young newlywed who was not black was hacked to death by a black man with a machete.  Why didn't CNN or ABC or the NYT or other outlets rush out here and make that front page news?  Why is this killing of three people suddenly round the clock, top of the hour, international front page news?  Why is it still making news a week later? 

For obvious reasons, that's why.  I won't belabor the point or insult your intelligence by writing it all out as if you're too dense to know why.  This is a grave sin and intrinsic  evil, to so use and exploit, or ignore and dismiss, human death and misery simply based on ideological convenience. I'd like to think when Pope Francis calls hellfire down on the idea of making human beings into commodities, at the front of his mind is the modern media's flagrant exploitation of human beings for the sole purpose of advancing an agenda.  For using human beings as nothing more than ideological commodities. I'd really like to think that's on his mind when he speaks of such sins. 

Revealing to say the least

And worth pondering when we consider the state of affairs today with our modern corporate media. 

So a visitor here linked to this old weather broadcast from 1973:

The key takeaway?  The forecast calls for high temps at 97 degrees for the next day.  And apparently that's just hunky-dory.  In fact, he says it will be a great day to get out and go on a picnic or enjoy outdoors because there won't be any rain if the forecast goes according to plan.

I've written how, over the previous weeks, we've had ginned up hysterics about heat waves and heat advisories when the temps have at times stalled in the high 70s.  Or at best, they've made it to the high 80s.  Yet not only do they issue advisories and warn of extreme heat, they get the reaction from the people accordingly.

On the day it only topped off at 77 I didn't see any interviews of the 'man on the street.'  When it hit high 80s here (and 91 in Columbus), I saw them interview some folks who bemoaned the heat, the misery, and struggles with such debilitatingly hot temps.  They needed the guy from the clip above to cheer them up, since to him at least, in 1973, a 97 degree day was just awesome for being outdoors. 

Of course, as I mentioned to the individual who posted the link, it might have been because in the 1970s - when I was in elementary school - the buzz was about the impending ice age just around the corner. I've heard some Global Warming activists insist there was no such thing back then, that nobody was talking about an forthcoming ice age.  That, like so many things that advance modern progressive agendas, is false.  I remember sitting in Mrs. Griffith's 5th Grade homeroom class and being told we were heading into a new ice age at the rate we were going.  With all of the attached upheaval and horrors that such a development would incur.  

So obviously what we're seeing isn't new.  I don't think most sane people think it is.  But unlike then, when the narrative changed pretty quickly by the time I was in high school, this narrative isn't going away.  And a generation of young radicals and fanatics, convinced the world will soon explode and anyone who doesn't think so is an enemy of their survival to be dispatched accordingly, is on the rise. 

One more weather report just for fun, and a fair question

So these are screenshots from two different weather apps from my neck of the woods yesterday.  The first at 4.48 PM (Right), the second at 4.51 PM (Left).  It was at the height of the Heat Advisory, an advisory that led to some schools releasing their students early.  Warnings were everywhere.  And the local news gave updates through the day regarding the rising temperatures.

Granted, we are a bit north of Columbus, and it may have made it to the low 90s down there.  But I'm old enough to remember when a single day in the low 90s did not constitute a heat warning.  Typically, advisories came with heat waves, which were several days in a row of 90s, preferably mid to upper 90s.  

Nonetheless, the advisory covered our area, too.  And the highest temp of the day, based on one of the weather apps, was 89 degrees.  It's not as funny as the Heat Advisory the other day that had the high temp only make it to 77.  But again, 89 degrees in our part of the country, in late August, is not unusual.  And until recently, not particularly noteworthy.  Hence, this is propaganda, not science, not meteorology, not weather reporting. 

BTW, I noticed the difference in the two temps.  I wondered about that.  One is from my phone, and I don't know its source.  The other app is from the Weather Channel I believe.  But 5 degrees difference is significant.  It made me wonder, as I am wont to do.  If the all time high that day was 88 degrees, did we set a record?  And is there a definitive source for temperatures that is always appealed to when we hear them talk of records breaking?  Sort of an atomic clock for thermometers?  If not, how do we know they're all keying off the same source for determining daily temperatures when we hear talk of daily records? 

Plus, note the one on the right.  It was the cooler temperature, but the higher 'feels like' (at 93 degrees).  The other had the higher temp, but the lower 'feels like' (at 91 degrees).  Is it me, or is that too subjective to warrant 'thus the records are broken, thus Global Warming, thus we're  going to die, thus we must overhaul the world no questions asked!'?  I'd like things to look a little more, shall we say, consistent before we charge forth and obediently find new ways for corporate interests to line their pockets and politicians to stack their votes. 

He must be making progress

I posted on Vivek Ramaswamy the other day.  Now ABC has done a hit piece on him.  My guess is that he's showing some potential.  

At this stage, the former media is more a propaganda/secret police agency.  It operates to maintain narratives by elevating or ignoring stories accordingly.  If someone is brutally murdered, the first questions are what group identities, skin color, or other designators are involved.  The answer to that will determine if it is a story plastered across front page headlines for days or weeks, or if it is covered for a day and then dropped.  We darn well know this is true.

But the press also launches attacks on anything or anyone that might challenge or otherwise harm the ascendancy of the political Left.  As in the ABC piece linked above.  It's nothing other than 'my hunch is he's a bad man, a very bad man.'  It's more gossip column than news article.   It provides some details, but wrapped in a bunch of accusations and opinions that he's really in it for all the wrong reasons.  That's because people think so. 

Hint: when someone relies on accusing someone of ulterior motives, it's best to ignore.  No matter what field they write for. 

The rise of the Weather Carnies

So we've all heard about the heat waves this year.  Every morning for over a year and a half the national morning news shows have opened the broadcasts with a weather crisis story (along with daily Trump/Jan 6 stories).  Granted, I haven't seen every broadcast.  I usually only watch in the morning during the week when I'm getting ready, but not weekends.  My wife and I share a coffee, and watch to see the weather and local traffic.  Then we watch the opening of the national broadcasts at 7 AM.  We watch through the opening segments, which is our cue to wrap up the morning routine.

But during the week, I do believe for over a year and a half, every national broadcast on the three networks has led with a weather crisis story each and every day.  Doesn't have to be weather in the US.  It doesn't even have to be much of a story.  But some form of 'severe weather' headline must be shown. So when it heats up like it did this year, you can bet they were going all out in their coverage - as they did.  

Now, one of my beefs with the Global Warming political narrative is that tendency advocates have of hedging their bets.  It isn't enough for them to declare their beliefs about the climate.  It isn't enough to just stay with the facts.  They have to find ways, clever or goofy, to convince me it's more than just change, but an apocalyptic holocaust in the making that will doom mankind if I don't obey get with the political program. 

To that end, the meteorologists on the news, or the scientists interviewed, or the various climate activists banging their drums, can come off more like used car salesmen rather than experts or scientists.  And that tendency to inflate or spin or just BS makes me wonder. 

For instance, it has been hot in some parts of the country.  That much is true.  And at least some records in our 140 years of keeping track have been broken.  Not in our neck of the woods, it's worth noting. For one week - naturally the week we went on our belated anniversary vacation - the temps got into the 90s.  And the local news stations went crazy with the warnings.  But that was it.  It's been the 80s or less for most of the last month or so.

Not to cry quits because of facts and reality, however, when the heatwave in the Southwest was at its height and the news outlets were warning the rest of the county it was coming our way, our own weather stations jumped on the bandwagon.  By the end of a rather cool first week of August, they predicted the scorching heat wave was coming our way.  But nothing happened.  It didn't get that hot.

Not to cry quits because of facts, they went ahead and issued a regional heat advisory for central Ohio, on the off chance it at least made it to the high 80s (the forecasted high for that Friday).  It didn't.  It stalled at around 84 degrees.  

Not to cry quits, they kept the heat advisory and insisted if you add that rather ambiguous and subjective Heat Index, it could almost feel like 100 degrees!  Yet not only was the afternoon high only 84 degrees, there was actually a rather pleasant breeze out of the north that day. I took advantage of it to work some in our outside herb garden.  My guess, off the cuff, was that when the breeze picked up it was probably closer to feeling like the high 70s, at least in the shade.  And for late July and August in Ohio, that is cool (these are usually the dog days when high 80s and low 90s and no rain are the norm).

Finally they cried quits and by mid afternoon cancelled the heat advisory.  They still insisted that if you count the heat index, in some places the 'feels like' temperature at least was close to 100.  Which is quite a heat index bump.  I'm old enough to remember that when the heat index was mentioned (it was introduced in the late 1970s), it usually bumped the temperature from high 80s to low to mid 90s.  But this time it was supposed to be an over 15 degrees bump, or so said the local meteorologists.  

All of this is to say that we didn't witness science, or journalism, or expertise, or information that day.  We witnessed the equivalent of snake oil salesmen peddling their wares.  And that's the sort of thing that raises warning flags with me.  

With Global Warming, we are continuously treated to a never ending list of slick sales pitch style rhetoric that even the most sympathetic listener has to question.  Like the famous 'exactly when is it weather and when is it climate?' question that always seems to fluctuate depending on the temperatures and locations at hand.

Or this.  Given the strange morphing of Heat Index to apparently any number that gets the 'feels like' temperature close to 100, I begin to doubt things like this:

Fact is, it's been closer to one of the mildest and coolest summers I remember for this time of the year.  And it's been that way all over central Ohio.

But the news casts, local as well as national, have pounded the pulpit about extreme heat, Extreme Heat, EXTREME HEAT every morning of every day for weeks and weeks.  Every extended forecast has assured us that by the end of the week it's going to be a scorcher!  90s and 100s are just around the corner!  Yet by the time those days reach the left of the graphic later in the week, they've dropped to the mid to low 80s or lower. Even yesterday, the extended forecast had the high temp jumping into the low 90s.  What did it end up being?  84 degrees.  

Yes, I realize we'll probably be pummeled in the Fall, as September and maybe even October see the temps skyrocket to the 90s or hotter.  It's been doing that in recent years, even as spring has lagged later and later, with cool temps and even late frosts becoming common even into late May and June.  Climate does change.  But the hysteria, the medicine shows, the weather carnies have almost become a joke.  

As a bonus.  We were watching the news on NBC, and the forecast was for high 80s.  The meteorologist said we were still going to be lower than average, though the forecast suggested we'd be getting close to normal.  The graphic showed the average and the highs and lows for the day, with the forecasted high being just shy of the average.  Then in the next weather segment later in the broadcast, the headline on the screen said that today we would be 'unseasonably warm.'  How, pray tell, are we unseasonably warm according to the statement on the screen when the meteorologist said we would be below average?  Again, car salesmen weather carnies.  

This time we mean it!

What my boys mean

 

I've mentioned before that one of my boys said debating a modern liberal is like playing a game of Monopoly with someone who keeps throwing pots and pans at you.  It's a goofy illustration, and yet it's entirely accurate. The point is that there is nothing you can do. What they're doing has nothing to do with the game.  They're not even cheating, where you can call them out or even try to out-cheat them.  They're throwing pots and pans.  

That illustrates the choking levels of duplicity and hypocrisy seen in the above headlines.  One song says we'll defend ourselves against crime and is called a racist hate song.  The other song calls on the killing of white people in South Africa, is accompanied by an uptick in violent attacks against white  people in Africa, and we're told it's no big deal.  So says the "Experts".  Facts, consistency, truth, principles, common sense, context - none of these things matter. 

So like the above duplicitous hypocrisy in reaction to two separate songs, we shouldn't be shocked to see this:

I saw this take off across social media and leftwing outlets.  Ha ha ha! , is the reaction. That's simply hatred of a person and crowing over his misfortune for daring to challenge a leftwing narrative.  Or so it seems. 

Of course the big point of this whole rigmarole is that this was a country song that went to Number 1 on the Billboard charts in the first place.  Billboard is for ranking general popular music.  There are other charts of genres like Country music.  Exactly what constitutes country and what does and doesn't reflect a crossover on the charts has changed over the decades.*  Suffice to say, there have only been a few dozen bona fide country songs that have topped the pop music Billboard Charts over the many decades of its existence.  Of those non-mainstream pop songs that have topped the charts over the years, many eventually fall quickly since it isn't their main genre.  

From the latest search on the Country charts, August 9, 2023

From a quick search on the 9th.  But things like I'm talking about assume a desire for truth, facts, knowledge and reality.  Remember, over 40% of Americans couldn't identify the historical event commemorated by Independence Day.  And three Jeopardy contestants, smart enough to get on Jeopardy, couldn't fill in missing words in the opening line of the Lord's Prayer.  Things like knowledge, truth or facts are irrelevant to those who follow the modern way.  And the Left makes bank on this fact. 

The worst part isn't the stupidity and ignorance and lack of knowledge.  It's that increasingly I feel our pundits, our scholars, our journalists, our educators and our activists are betting the farm that people remain lazy, stupid, ignorant, uninformed and devoid of a concern for actual knowledge and education. Things most of these professions should want to remedy, rather than depend upon. 

Remember one of my ongoing principles:  If agreeing with you demands I reject truth, facts, common sense, truth, or knowledge of a subject, then I'll choose to disagree every time.  And I'll also be highly suspect about anything else you advocate. 

"Fat, drunk and stupid is just how we want you to go through life, son." 

*It isn't as easy as 'how many country songs have topped the Billboard Charts'.  That's because just what is a country song or country artist can be pretty subjective.  For instance, there is actually quite a debate about John Denver and Kenny Rogers.  Both were technically country singers, but many argue their strong showing on the Billboard charts came from songs that were more popular music with a country twang than actual country music.  Then what about duets or other situations?  Nevertheless, even with the broadest definitions, the number of any vaguely defined country songs that have topped Billboard over the decades is in the several dozens of the thousands of weeks and song titles in the chart's history - at best.  So it should be no news that it dropped after the hype and hysteria died down.  What is noteworthy is that it made it in the first place.  At least for those factually inclined. 

The media template for reporting on mass shootings

 

And that's how the media does it.  There is no real room for debate.  I welcome anyone to demonstrate that I've missed something, but I don't think this is too far from the mark.  

If all people everywhere stopped paying attention to the News Media

We might just become informed.  Here's a startling headline: 

A Christian group has amassed more than 12,000 signatures to oust the Tennessee Republican leader who expelled two Black lawmakers 

Here is the story.   Of course if you follow the peanuts, you find out this is a 'Christian' activist group entirely allied with the modern secular Left, right up to embracing the eugenics of the 21st Century.  Hard left.  Note the story doesn't say 'hard left Christian group' or 'leftwing Christian group'.  

Nope.  In this case, just Christian group.  Of course it is dishonest; a falsehood that is so because it purposefully neglects to tell you what you should know, and what we darn well know it would say if it was a conservative Christian group going after a liberal Democrat. 

I sometimes think if people just stopped paying attention to the media, it might go away.  If anything else, we might begin to find out what's really happening in the world.  After all, we wouldn't have to go through the effort of unlearning that half truths, diversions and false narratives that inundate us on a 24/7 basis before we even get started looking for the information the press doesn't tell us.  

BTW, the fact that the lawmakers were black appears irrelevant.  And it came down to one vote difference.  Yet every single news outlet rushed with the emphasis being only on skin color.  Which reminds me that the only thing worse than naked racism is nakedly exploiting racism.  Again, turn off the news and cancel the subscriptions, and you might just learn what's happening in the world. 

Uh oh

Looks like that ad campaign you might have seen, the "He Gets Us" campaign about Jesus, is going to show on the Superbowl.  CNN has the scoop here. 

What's the problem?  Apparently the donors and individuals behind the campaign might not be leftists, that's what.  It's a Jesus that might not be in full lockstep with the Left.  Sure, some of the ads have shown Jesus as an immigrant, an oppressed refugee, a women's rights activists, a social rebel, and that's all fine and good.

And the ad for the Superbowl might not even aim anywhere close to below the waistline or any such cherished avenue for the Left.  And yet, we find they might be evangelicals.  They might be conservative.  They might not think like those on  the left demand they think, especially about sex stuff.  

And we all know Christians are seen by so many as hypocritical, judgmental and discriminatory.  Says so right there in the article. That's unlike the good people complaining who obviously just want people to think the way they think or else.  

Yeah.  It's that nauseating.  In a world in which something called journalism existed, the naked hypocrisy displayed in the article, as well as the obvious lies about diversity and inclusion, would be front page news.  As it is, they can actually say with a straight face that they are merely against the hate that demonstrates itself by failing to conform to leftist tolerance.  

UPDATE:  In case you cared, here is some web news thing that talks of this - from a clearly anti-Christian perspective.  Some of the Twitter posts it chooses to display are funny,  but also telling.  

When you read this piece at NPR

About the discourse between public schools and parents, consider this scene from the Brit series Midsomer Murders (it's supped to be copied to the pertinent scene so you don't have to watch the whole episode - up through about the 1:22:51 spot):

Because what was that NPR piece other than manipulation?  Power of suggestion.  Note that there is nothing in it that screams 'propaganda piece for the Left!'  Nonetheless, you can't miss that the piece is nothing but that.  And you know, in your gut, exactly what you are supposed to think about the situation once you're finished reading the piece. 

It can be spotted, however, for several reasons if you think on it.  First we have context and know what it's all about.  We get the fact that parents, in 2020, were suddenly confronted with what their children were really learning or not learning in schools.  Then concerns brought to educators and school boards were met with pushback rather than dialogue in more than one instance.  Sometimes flagrant and condescending pushback.  Teachers, acting as if the Internet isn't a thing, were found on Zoom or other platforms calling hellfire down on conservatives or explaining why parents don't have the right to know what their kids are learning. 

All of which prompted parents to begin confronting the school boards when the opportunity presented itself.  No doubt some parents behaved as inappropriately as some of the teachers and school boards.  Note, however, the focus in the NPR piece.  

The piece also does the usual, emphasizing vast conservative funding networks, something almost never mentioned when the press discusses liberal activism.  Likewise, it suggests that the 'silent majority' is really on the side of the teachers and school boards who want this to go away.  The reporter knows this because it's the silent majority.  

Perhaps the giveaway part, however, is this little bit on down in the piece, quoting an anonymous principal who identifies as a Republican in a predominantly conservative district: 

"You can't [use newspapers] anymore. You can't use CNN because the parents will go nuts on you. You can't use Fox because it's so out there. It's hard to teach kids about what's going on in any kind of context, because there is no context anymore."

Note that.  You can't use CNN - because of those rascally parents going nuts on you..  Not that CNN is a problem.  The problem is those nutty parents.  You can't use FOX either.  Why?  Says the Republican in the conservative district - because FOX is "so out there".  The problem in this case being Fox, not the nutty parents.  

And I'm supposed to believe this is some conservative Republican principal who sees no problem with CNN but considers FOX out there?  This is as if to say 'see, Republican Conservative says FOX is a problem, but otherwise it's the parents when they question CNN'.  The power of suggestion. A big thing in our modern institutions and our modern media.  But if you step back and don't let distraction or misdirection fool you, and think things through, you'll be able to spot the illusion almost every time. 

The legacy of Feminism

Is best summed up here.  Some woman I've never heard of receives praise and adoration from her fellow sisters and an enthralled audience.  Why?  Because she boldly announced she is leaving her husband of fourteen years.  Why?  Because she wanted a life more focused on herself, that's why.  And being a woman, she can proclaim such a reason as 'self-love' to an adoring world and receive endless accolades and high-fives. 

Yep.  I've said before that I haven't been able to find an earlier example of a group of people able to declare themselves the only thing that matters and being socially applauded for the trouble.  Not that men haven't been self-absorbed, self-focused rascals over the ages.  But they had to wrap it up in something pretty: God, king, country, providing for the family, helping the village - something. 

But with feminism, at some point it stopped being about the right to vote and became 'women should focus on themselves - because, that's why.'  Certain things, like sexual liberation, were eagerly welcomed by men who apparently thought this would solidify women as one dimensional sex objects for men's sole consumption.  Women played along. 

Now, of course, men have been all but emasculated by feminism and what women want.  Think on abortion.  The current dogma says a birthing person woman gets pregnant and can decide if it's a precious life or a worthless bunch of sludge to be eliminated.  Men?  What can they do?  Not a damn thing, that's what.  They stand in the corner wearing a 'castrated dunce' cap and wait for the woman to decide - keep the baby, at which point the man had better fork out the bucks to pay for it, or terminate the baby, sorry about your luck guy.  

I've often said it's likely that men of this age will not be the men future generations of men look back to as anything other than a cautionary tale.  So beholden to women did men become as sex became the only thing that mattered, they would happily sell their sons down the river in order to get some, no matter what women do, say, or grab for. 

Naturally women aren't the only benefactors of this idea.  The whole 'it's about me' has poured over into almost everything.  So that most young radicals and activists are proud to say it's their world to save and inherit or drop dead.  After all, why should women have all the fun?

By the by, if I could add one more thing.  The power of this feminist narrative is such that when I bring things like this up, I can almost bet 50% of conservative men and 2/3 of pro-life, traditional Christian women will pounce on me with some version of 'Hey!  Women should have rights!'  As if raising a question or challenging the narrative in any way is the same as saying women should have no rights.

I know this for a fact.  I can't count the times in conversations I've mused on the impact that this approach to feminism has had, and even some of the most down home, stay at home, Ephesians 5 women will fire back that I'm some how suggesting women should be what feminists say men have always wanted them to be. 

That's power for a narrative.  Beyond proving my axiom that no matter what liberalism hoists on the world, at least 1/3 of conservatives will jump on the bandwagon, it shows just how engrained the world's approach to feminism has become.  That' s why most men, no matter how much they lament the state of things, stay quiet, at least in terms of looking deeply into the modern state of women's issues.  Sort of like white people questioning not just BLM, but the whole modern culture of modern black Americans.  You don't dare.  And you can bet if you do, half of everyone who normally agrees with you will turn on you and fire. 

It's like Birth of a Nation for black Americans

 

Yep.  This isn't just getting it wrong, as movies often do.  This isn't having to combine characters or chisel away a few facts for dramatic coherence.  

This is pure racist propaganda.  It turns a brutal elite group of warriors charged with doing their empire's dirty work where imperialism and slavery were concerned into brave and heroic superstars.  It completely flips the truth and facts of the period to maintain the 'all White Westerners are Nazis, all others exceed Jesus in superior virtue' narrative of the modern Left.  In so doing, it appears to rewrite the actual history of the subject in a way that would make D.W. Griffith blush. 

Dropped

In three ... two ... one.  The story of four Muslim men murdered in Albuquerque exploded on the news feeds this last weekend.  Multiple broadcasts reported on the obvious connection between the victims.  President Biden jumped in.  Authorities expressed concern for the Muslim community.  By Monday that was one of the lead stories at the top of the morning news across the networks.  Concerns about Islamaphobic hate crimes on the rise were mused on as Albuquerque  officials rushed to protect mosques and other Muslim centers.

Then the news broke last night that a suspect was apprehended.  A Muslim.  Of possible Middle Eastern descent.  They mentioned it this morning on the back end of the first hour of the broadcasts.  This obviously wasn't what the press had hoped for, because we all know what the press was hoping.  So I'd say that's that.  The whole thing will be dropped like a hot potato.  By Friday Albuquerque will return to its rightful place as the location where Bugs Bunny should have turned left. 

RIP to the victims and their families.  Their pain of loss will continue, even if the coverage they might have received will not.  

The US Ministry of Lies swings into action

By now the earthshattering news of the Roe decision has shaken things up.  Even now I'm listening to the Ministry frame this as a threat to women, gays, minorities, Jews, and anyone you can imagine.  To hear the liars on the press, the bodies will begin piling up any minute. 

Meanwhile Justice Roberts is being portrayed as an impotent compromiser suggesting this is the result of rightwing political hacks rather than Supreme Court justices.  Whether that is a fair take on Roberts' statements or not, I don't know.  I'm just shocked at the naked partisanship that we all know, but never ceases to shock when it goes to the next level.  

It should get more interesting in the coming months.