Category Archives: News and Notes

Updates, new commentary, announcements, and more. Enjoy!

Real Education v … STEM+M???

25 Sunday Jan 2026

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Andrei Martyanov’s article today goes in the same direction as my essay from 2024 about Alex Dugin’s theories and Russian education reform. I haven’t checked in lately, but I assume Moscow is plowing ahead. It appears that assumption is correct. From Andrei:

All of us went through this. It is a good sign together with the transition from the baloney of Bologna Process in education and discarding all those “degrees” like Bachelor’s (equivalent of incomplete higher education) and all other M.S. to the system of concentrated professional higher education in specialties with a strong emphasis on overall culture and STEM bases from public schools. In military of the XXI century (albeit it was true already in 1960s) moreover? Don’t trust me, here is the US Army:

Since the 1980s, America’s world ranking in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) has declined, placing our once unquestioned supremacy in technological innovation and application on par with or behind those of our economic and military adversaries. A recent warning from the Office of the Secretary of Defense Acquisition and Sustainment Industrial Policy declared the paucity of STEM-educated Americans may lead to a “permanent national security deficit.” The lack of STEM education extends to Army officers. In 2018, the Army Strategy assessed the strategic environment to include partners, allies, and adversaries leveraging “advanced capabilities” such as cyber, counter space, electronic warfare, robotics, and artificial intelligence (AI). This assessment has proven true in the Russia-Ukraine War, an artillery-heavy war interwoven with the burgeoning development and implementation of new and evolving technologies that demand innovative thinking, alliances, and strategy informed by STEM+Management (STEM+M)

There is ALREADY “permanent national security deficit”, that is why Pentagon, CIA et al have difficulties grasping what is happening. Difficult to make a sense of capabilities when you have majored in English Literature, Journalism or Business from University of Phoenix. That gets us into this funny territory of System of Systems, because nations and their militaries are exactly that.

Sounds about right for Russia and, sadly, for the USSA.

2025: The Year That Was

31 Wednesday Dec 2025

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Here’s to a happy 2026.

Traffic here at the blog has been much better this year than in the past 5+ years. Thanks! My crowning achievement of 2025 was Judging Athena, my first critically acclaimed novel. Sales haven’t been quite what I wanted, but they’ll get there.

If one reads carefully, then Athena answers a lot of questions. For instance, Laurent Guyenot recently wrote an ode to the “sun god.” Think what one will, but Athena herself explained him and all of pagan legend. Also, Athena deals with family formation; the opposite is unfolding in the US and the EU, as this story explains – VPN and translation may be required. Mine is a better alternative to postmodernity. If you haven’t already, then now’s the time to buy it and check everything out, great story and all!

Next year? Well, the next novel is already with the publisher. And I have two more finished (first/second) draft novels behind that. And then, there’s more.

See you in the new year!

Perrin

Merry Christmas 2025 to All

25 Thursday Dec 2025

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Merry Christmas to the Western Christian world!

As Tricia told young Paxton the other day, “…Christmas is about Christ, first and foremost. We, all of us, got the Greatest Gift. Anything we give each other, all of it trivial in comparison, is just a reminder of our shared debt, faith, and, of course, our love and friendship.’

Joy to the world!

Beauty Will Save The World

20 Saturday Dec 2025

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More than just a military expert, Andrei Martyanov is a very astute cultural commentator. He reiterates a point from America’s Final War:

Those Who Read My Books …

… they may have noticed that in my latest book about war I seemingly go on a strange tangent, but it is not strange. It is directly related to the issue. Here it is.

But even more has been accomplished by Russia in staring down a combined West. Modern Western culture has become recognized as ugly in every sense of the word, from freak shows at the demonstration of fashions, to people looking increasingly dirty from tattoos covering their bodies, to the body positive movement extolling unhealthy and aesthetically repulsive lifestyles, to the rampant use of drugs. The modern West has lost the understanding of beauty. The late Roger Scruton warned: “Beauty is vanishing from our world because we live as though it did not matter.” It has almost completely vanished, pushed out by the post-modernist dystopia and perversion of the Western intelligentsia. As Dostoevsky wrote in The Idiot, “Beauty will save the world.” The West has lost the meaning of and desire for beauty, thus losing the tool for its own salvation, and the world has taken note.

While I didn’t quote that part of his work in my previous review, I did highlight it in my Kindle. It’s not strange and it’s not a tangent. The Dostoevsky quote is telling, or it was to me. A culture and its literature go hand in hand. And Andrei’s article is the third I’ve seen over the past month or so lamenting the collapse of Western (American) culture and books.

I contacted two of the three dismayed authors regarding Judging Athena, the book Emma Cazabonne called, “a novel in total defiance of postmodern trends, where the emphasis is on faith, prayer, thanksgiving, going to church, obedience to God, clean honest dating, and a genuine understanding of the real dimension of marriage, in real joy and happiness.” The Substitute isn’t as pretty, but it also defies the postmodern mess. Most of my forthcoming books, both those with the publisher or in draft form, do the same.

Americans really should turn off the TV and start reading books that uplift rather than distort. I, for one, hope they do so now. But as Chris Orcutt kind of noted in our recent interview, the better messages of today might have to wait for future audiences. If you’re reading this in 2025-30, then please get ahead of the trend.

Through the End of the Year

16 Tuesday Dec 2025

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Coming this Friday or so, I’ll have the 2025 Christmas story! A good one.

Then, before the end of the year, we’ll, of course, celebrate (Western) Christmas, and then, I’ll post my Big Review of Chris Orcutt’s BTTA, Ep. 1: Bad Boy.

Remember to check the Telegram channel(s) for other things I thought were a little important.

COVID-25?

05 Friday Dec 2025

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Right in the middle of his talk with Judge Nap, Pepe Escobar revealed that the usual suspects (literally, the same ones from 2019-20) are allegedly planning the next “pandemic.” If it happens, or when it happens, I have no doubt that the idiots and hoax lovers will go all-in again. (14:30 if the YT timer thing doesn’t work.)

Christmas Tunes 2025

02 Tuesday Dec 2025

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Not one, but two friends recently reminded me about the secular nature of so many of our 20th century Christmas songs. Many, most, even, of them are still good songs. But they do lack something. Or Someone, rather. Ergo, a few alternatives:

After all, Tis the Season!