09 Saturday May 2020
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Better late than never! The TPC column ‘o the week!
Next week, we turn the TPC sights on … the schools. No, it’s not beating a dead horse. Dead schools, maybe…
08 Friday May 2020
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Regret and a Few Other Items
Before the warranty ran out, they used to come to our house. I can still see those old, green Sears Roebuck and Company service trucks rolling up the long gravel driveway. After the warranty expired, when the little riding mower needed tuning – and it usually did – we had to take it to the store. In all circumstances, they kept the blades sharp. Surgically sharp.
One day the old man was circling through some tall grass in the backyard. As he passed by where my maybe four-year-old self stood just off the carport, something flew out of the deck chute. It landed and started hopping. I investigated. At first, I thought the large toad had been very lucky. It seemed okay. Then, I noticed its head. The top was missing, sheared off by those surgically-sharp blades. The cranial space where I supposed a frog’s brain should reside was empty, an open concave depression. Via hyper-lobotomization, Craftsman instantly converted this poor amphibian into a politician! It didn’t seem to mind, however, continuing to blink and hop. Content with the transformation, Toadie disappeared around the corner, out of sight, and out of memory until recalled by recent events.
Part three in a developing series about education in the new abnormal will come along in the near future. I hope. For now, it’s Regret and some other odds ‘n ends. We all have regrets. Here’s mine:
Picture © Perrin Lovett, 1915 for 2020. Time travel, that’s how…
In 1915, Regret became the first (of three) girly horses to win the Kentucky Derby. This accomplishment came without the benefit of and fifty-seven years in advance of Title IX. Some suggest she was the original gurl-power inspiration behind the WNBA. What’s your excuse?
Fear, you say? Well, you should be afraid. Some people throw around the word “fear” like it’s a bad thing, like it’s that other, really bad “F” word, you know, freed@m. Fear is good! We were given fear to help us be afraid. Fear is an American Value – life, libertine, and the pursuit of fear. Remember, we must socially distance ourselves because we’re all in this together. As Duuuuh-bya “The Decider” Bush just remarked: “If we don’t rise the virus, we’ll can’t be beat again. Heh, heh, heh.” No, I still don’t miss him yet.
I also don’t miss going to the grocery store without constantly being reminded that we all need to “stay safe” – cause that’s just what I think of when I go to the grocery store! I don’t miss people walking whichever damned way they liked down the aisles, buying as much bacon as they wanted. I certainly don’t miss the days when nobody cared about you because you hadn’t yet put on the mask. Where yo mask? Wear your mask!
Just kidding! I really, really, really care about your fear and saaaaaaaafety (imagine a sheep bleating that word, painfully). However, I must inform you that the mask probably isn’t enough.
Let’s flatten the curve. Get that disinfectant inside you somehow. The invisible enemy can’t win if we all pretend we’re astronauts. As such, do it right! Wear a gosh-darned NBC suit! That means a total hermetic seal and an independent air supply. Order your suit HERE. Don’t forget the SCBA kit! And, remember, all the protective gear in the world is worthless if you don’t decontaminate before you take it off. Get a decent shower booth or airlock for Fauci’s sake! Yeah, yeah, it’s a little pricey. Just do it. We have a war to win.
Speaking of war, I have to admit that the Imperial biowarfare attack on China and Iran has been a smashing success. What appears to be sloppy blowback is nothing more than spectacular confirmation that the people will put up with anything – while demanding more. And more is coming…
Speaking again of war, something is amiss in the Pacific Ocean. You’ve not heard about it from the mainstream media, so it must not be that important. Even if it is just the usual advanced decay of a dying empire, rest assured that if a swarm of sea-skimmers sends a carrier or two to the ocean floor, all deceased crewmen will be counted by the CDC as “virus” deaths.
The CDC’s numbers are about as funny as what comes out of the Treasury. It occurred to me this weekend that the Empire has racked up as much debt THIS YEAR as it and the former Republic did from about 1789 until the mid-to-late 1990s. By the end of this year, the equivalence might span from 1789 until around 2008. How does the $10 Trillion ANNUAL DEFICIT sound to you? Yeah! If only we had a Republican Senate and a conservative businessman in the White House! The good news is that we’re flattening the invisible economy. The Fed has printed nearly an entire year’s GDP *POOF!* of new fake money, in only about eight months. Hold our beer, China. We’re setting records! USA! Usa. u…
The Real Regret
Okay, and now we come to a literal pandemic, the one that’s 1,000 times deadlier than the Hoax of ‘20. We also find out if child murder gets added to The List of subjects that may not be criticized (the too real story). The great horror of our sad time is abortion. I’m not in any way suggesting that Eric Rudolph had the right idea about the clinics, I just wanted to type “Eric Rudolph” and “the right idea” twice in one sentence. But I do agree with Ann Barnhardt: we may effectively call the true American national date of death as January 22, 1973.
There’s been much buzz recently about homeschooling. I’m for it while the usual suspects are against it. For them, home school is somehow an authoritarian abomination but home abortion is the right (and now easy) thing to do. The modern magic of the “TelAbortion” has helped double the rate of infanticide in some states. At a time when decent people could expect another baby boom, Americans are adding to the most ghastly set of statistics ever assembled. In the past 47 years, the great and exceptional dead nation has slaughtered 62 Million of its own children, 300,000 of them killed in the first four months of this year. With figures like this, one need not even contemplate the unimaginable international toll.
What are we to do about all of this? Just blink and hop along? At least the brainless frog didn’t chase after my dad, demanding more.
06 Wednesday May 2020
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01 Friday May 2020
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Christianity, college, education, schools, The Satanic Left, TPC
Mission to Destroy Western Civilization Rebrands Under COVID-19:
Understanding the Satanic Schooling Movement
Well, well, another week and more national affairs. Hang up the spacesuit, adjust your Halloween mask, grab a refreshing glass of Clorox, and let’s once again discuss the state of the schools.
Last week we examined the ongoing collapse and gave thought to the future. This week is much the same, except we begin with a word or three from the loyal opposition. My title today is a rewording of Mission to Destroy Public Education Rebrands Under COVID-19: Understanding the Christian Homeschooling Movement, by one Chrissy Stroop. “Chrissy” looks a whole lot like “she” may have started out as a Christopher and is, uh, transitioning. It has a Ph.D. in Russian history – lemme guess, a big fan of Trotsky?? – and doesn’t seem to think well of Christians or Christ or anyone slightly to the right of old Leon. My guess is that it hates God because it blames God for its illness. So, it has resorted to “logic and science,” except, of course, for the logical science of sexual biology, transcranial magnetic therapy, or lithium bio-chemistry.
However, this hateful, projecting, and deeply mentally-ill man did give me an idea. Its repetitive and derisive language about the “Christian Right” – and that is what my side is, thanks – made me realize what the other side is. Meet the Satanic Left. That’s really all there is to Xir Stroop’s article. I can’t criticize him, uh her, or … whatever, directly. But, in general, that faction’s biggest gripe about the current shutdown is the lack of direct access to the kiddies, whom they view by-and-large as targets and snacks. Sadly, they’ve had to resort to sneaking around the public parks (where opened) for their thrills. Yeah…
You were warned about the “Satanic Left,” in the schools, before:
Towards the end of class, a boy asked Tom a simple and direct question: ‘Why are our schools so bad?’ …
He looked the boy in the eye and without hesitation said, ‘Because they’re run by feminists, queers, and communists.’ … Later, he almost kicked himself: ‘“Feminists, queers, and globalists” would have been more accurate. Or, just “satanists…”’ He let it go.
–THE SUBSTITUTE, Ch. 11
Homeschoolers and Christians did not ruin the government’s (that’s who runs them, Xir Stroop) schools. The government and the Satanists did. And, holy hell, they did a fine job of it. They’ve destroyed themselves, Stroopy. Just in time for this article, I have new (and NOT improved) statistics!!! The “Nation’s Report Card” for Civics, Geography, and History is now out, courtesy of the National Center for Education Statistics 2018 NEAP Report.
First, the good news: these people are consistent if nothing else. The national scores in the various social studies mirror those results in reading, math, and science. And there is nothing else – except total and complete failure. Thanks to the efforts of the Satanic Left, only 15% of Eighth-graders are proficient in history – with similarly dismal results in the other subjects. And, that’s based on their weak standards and even weaker instruction.
Embedded deep somewhere in those findings, one will come across graphs showing the “progress” from 1994 until 2018. This is the modern period of all the fads like No Child, Common Core, STEM, STEAM, and the Rainbow Delusion. Trillions of dollars spent and millions of souls crushed and what’s the result? Nothing. Fifteen percent proficiency. Failure.
They take the big measurements in the Fourth, Eighth, and Twelfth grades. I’ve noted before that, in most subjects, there is a drop in proficiency as the child advances towards graduation – as if the schooling itself increases ignorance. That’s most subjects; in the other subjects, there is virtually no change over an entire generational period. Fifteen percent understanding with a ninety percent graduation rate. God can’t do any better?
Again, it’s not the money. Two years ago, I compared Mexican school literacy rates (94%) to those in the Detroit government schools (7%) (SEVEN % !!!) (and that beat Detroit’s math rate of 5%…). I ran the math on spending Detroit’s way to success:
Working, toying with the myth that increased funding raises test scores (and, presumably, learning retention), to get Detroit up to Mexican levels of literacy, they would need to spend about $189,000 per student per year. Over 13 years, K – 12, that’s $2,457,000 – without compounding any interest. It might be, if it was affordable, better to just set that sum aside for each “student” in an idiot trust.
They can’t read, write, add, or think. It’s no surprise that the poor victim children know little of history. They’re never taught nor encouraged to learn on their own. Here’s publik skool herstory in a nutshell: The Big Bang gave us the miracle of Evolution, leading fish to walk on land and the Egyptians to build the Pyramids, which may or may not have flown. After the Holocaust, everybody died because of AIDS, uh climate change … no, because of Corona. God is dead. Long live the rainbow!
That won’t cut it. Of the NEAP failure, US Secretary of Education (not in your beloved Constitution), Betsy DeVos, said, “We cannot continue to excuse this problem away. Instead, we need to fundamentally rethink education in America.” People, including DeVos, who cannot think, cannot “rethink.” NEAP’s own Peggy Carr said something very stupid about “democracy.” I think Mr. Ironsides was on to a few things…
Back to the here and now, read THIS STORY. As things are, many parents around the nation-shaped kind of place are having a rough go of homeschooling. If only they had more faith in Trotsky and less in God… Said a frustrated mother, Alexandra Nicholson of Massachusetts: “We tried to make it work the first week. We put together a schedule, and what we found is that forcing a child who is that young into a fake teaching situation is really, really hard.” Yes! Yes, that’s the problem, babydoll! Forcing a child into a fake teaching situation is more than just hard, it’s sinful. And, it’s what the “schools” normally do every day of the year. And, Mrs. Nicholson, it would be much better to just let your son play outside. This predicament is possibly the result of poorly educated Gen-X and Millennial parents forced into attempting that which they were never prepared for – the blind leading…
Seventy-two percent of parents say they are concerned that their children will fall behind – because of what the virus did… How can you fall behind 15% or 7% proficiency?! Again, this is a great chance and hope for change. That’s what has the Stroops of the world so frightened. We can obviously do better. Much better. But, it will take a little work on the part of the parents and the children (and, again, with any of the good teachers who will help). It will require us to scrap forever those systems and “experts” who intentionally created this mess. It can be done. This may be the greatest contribution of the Corona Hoax.
Another benefit may be the departure from the modern college racket. Why only skip this fall’s semester or the 2020-21 year? Why ever go into the pound of flesh slavery for four to six years of drugs, weight gain, and incoherent Marxist social engineering and very little else? Today, in the current year, a college education is a severe waste – and worse – for all but a small handful of individuals, at a few select colleges, who major in a few select fields. For the majority, it’s only higher debt, without higher (or lower) education. It ain’t worth it! There are many better alternatives.
One of them may be the brand new Harmel Academy, as recommended by a commentator at Vox Day’s superior blog. Harmel is a two-year trade school, on the campus of a Christian college (sorry, Xir Stroop) in Michigan. It incorporates a traditional humanities curriculum into a program that forges future electricians, welders, machinists, and computer techs. The price? $18,550 a year for everything – tuition and board. That’s the cost of a semester’s tuition alone at many of the indoctrination centers. A Harmel student should emerge better educated than most Big State or even (Poison) Ivy League victims. And, he’ll be ready to start working in fields which sometimes pay at or near six-figures in the entry levels.
A plausible scenario: “Joe” goes to Harmel and becomes a well-rounded plumber around the time his peers are stumbling into the second or third year of Big Debt U. He starts making $80,000 a year doing a respectable job that is always in high demand. He can afford to marry “Suzie” and allow her to stay home and raise their children. More than 2.3 children. The 5 or 6 children of Joe and Suzie grow up happy, well-adjusted, debt-free, and steeped in classical Christian education. They move on and repeat the cycle. Something resembling an older America starts to take shape. Western Civilization lives! God wins! Satan, ever the loser, loses.
22 Wednesday Apr 2020
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The Coronavirus Hysteria May Be The Best Thing That Ever Happened To The Schools
Hello, beloved readers! Kindly join me for an updated exploration of one of my favorite pet subjects, the terminal decline of America’s government schools. Before we get too deep, as the title suggests, I think the current and ongoing closure of the public schools because of the Chinese chest cold and ensuing mass hysteria may be one of if not the best thing that has happened to these institutions since their inception and near-instantaneous corruption. Mind you, this one is a little long and a little link-heavy. But, it’s one of my most important articles yet. If you value your children, your grandchildren, and the future of society, then the following is of great importance. Besides, under house arrest, you likely have all the time in the world.
We Have A Problem
Now, pick a measure – any measure. If it’s a positive, as in laudatory of excellence, then the US ranks far outside the international elite. If it’s negative – school shootings, wasted money, bullying, teen pregnancy, suicides, etc. – then the US is probably the number one country. Within the states, there is a wide variance between performance levels. Worldwide, there are myriad ranking systems. The US is far off the mark in all of the serious assessments. For my purposes, I picked one:
The Center On International Educational Benchmarking (CIEB) at the National Center On Education And The Economy has posted its Top Performing Countries list for 2018. The top countries are Canada, China, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong, Japan, Poland, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan. Notice anyone missing? There are many good (or very bad) reasons for the absence. According to the CIEB, the US ranks just outside the leaders in reading, and just above the world average. The findings regarding science are similar. However, in mathematics, the US ranks well below the international average and ridiculously below the number one nation, China. This dismal performance comes in spite of the US’s massive expenditure per pupil, per year. For 2015, according to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), the US was second ($12,800) in spending only to Norway ($15,100). Norway also failed to make CIEB’s top ten. For reference: China spends approximately $2,400 per child per year (based on 2017 Chinese junior high expenditure and a 2020 Yuan to Dollar conversion).
Contrary to what the idiot politicians and the make-work educrats say, it is not the money that holds back American children. It is the very (hellish) school system itself. It has been, for over a century, specifically designed to produce failure. Adding more money to the US school budget, in an attempt to boost performance, is akin to the old adage about extinguishing a fire with gasoline. All of this, I have written about extensively, before. My second CFF column was education-related. See, also: HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE. That’s in addition to over 250 articles and posts, 8% of the total volume, at my blog. I even set up an education resources page, which has only been viewed about a dozen times. And I also wrote a novel (which you should buy) about these matters. And, here we go yet again.
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22 Wednesday Apr 2020
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Good News! 2020 Should Be a Better Year For Flooding – Accuweather
That means less floods than we saw, nationally, in 2019. The good meteorological masters ast Accuweather crafted a map of the most at-risk locations this year. Would you believe that most of them are in or near major river valleys?! True. Take a look. The best part is that, unlike a Chinese virus, one can still visually observe the waters rising. “How high’s the water, momma?” Now, I have that song stuck in my head…
With eleven more stories and that cool video!
21 Tuesday Apr 2020
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19 Sunday Apr 2020
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What is the American Dream in 2020? I think we’re all past the point in believing in a nice little house (maybe any house) and the two kids (or even any human relationship). All that has been completely killed by the ancient enemy and, if we’re honest, by us. At least by the older generations. Thanks, assholes!
So, what is it today? Getting that stimulus welfare check and wearing a mask to Walmart to fight over toilet paper? This isn’t a dream. It’s become a reality. It’s a nightmare.
Anyway, I just learned that, like everything else, one of my favorite places, the Smokey Mountains National Park, is closed … until. This reminds me of the closure back in the 90s when the Republicrats couldn’t issue enough debt fast enough and decided to punish the people. Then, as I suspect now, the fact that the gates are closed does not mean that one can’t go in and hike or camp. I discovered that there was no force field absolutely prohibiting entry. Best of all, the crowds are gone and no pesky rangers will stoop around your site. There have been no virus sightings in the hills. So, maybe that’s the place to go. About the only dream that’s left. Happy hiking.
15 Wednesday Apr 2020
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It Was Bound To Happen (Again)
Hey! Did ya hear about the dead guy they pulled out of the harbor? He’d been shot twenty-seven times, hanged, burned, and dragged behind a car before being encased in concrete and tossed in the water. Dr. Fauci said it was the worst case of Corona he’s seen yet…
Ah! It was Sunday morning. Easter Sunday and Tournament Sunday! I woke up happy. Outside the window, the sun was shining and all the little birds and lizards were carrying on as if nothing was amiss. Therefore, I discounted as a bad dream what I thought had befallen me on Saturday.
In my dream, wanting to do a little writing amidst a different setting, I had driven to the local Starbucks. But, it was closed. So, I went to the public library, only to find it also closed. Next, I ventured over to the old cigar shop. It too was closed. I tried the bar. Closed. The other bar. Closed. The gym. Closed. Bookstore. Closed. As I drove around, I noticed that just about every single business was shuttered. There were few souls about. Disheartened as I wondered how any of these essential businesses could possibly survive, I wanted some comfort food. The grocery store was open! But, at the front door, standing beside a roped-off queue, was a manager in a hazmat suit. When I approached, he yelled something about “one more!” into a walkie-talkie. Peering inside, I saw a host of sullen, frightened, mask-wearing zombies shuffling around like cattle while trying to follow arrows taped to the floor. The intercom screeched about “saaaaaaaafety.” I left.
But, it was all a dream, I thought. So, I ate breakfast and headed over to Saint Mary’s for Easter Mass. However, I found the front (and side) doors locked. Posted conspicuously was a sign which informed me that no services would be held “for the duration.” It instructed that none were permitted inside and that I was to “seek shelter immediately,” although I was free to drop a monetary offering through the mail slot. The sign also encouraged me to join, via the fake reality of television, “pope” Bergoglio for a fake mass complete with fake communion.
Desiring something real, something orthodox, I drove down the street to Saint Ignatius Melkite Church. The real deal, I thought! Their door was unlocked, but when I tried to enter, I was met by a Deacon wearing a gas mask. He bore me backward with a Lexan police shield and ordered me off: “Join us on Facebook!” he invited – if one could call it that. I heard the door lock from inside as I staggered sideways toward the street.
Sensing that something was definitely wrong, I decided to try one of the churches in protest. Alas, each – Methodist, Baptist, Lutheran, Episcopal, even the rock ‘n roll warehouse joint – were closed down. A few allegedly offered something online. All, it seemed, were still willing to accept cash in-person – the cash, but not the person. I’d heard that in other states, they were arresting and hunting Christians (well, the few they could find anymore) so I assumed this absence was defensive if overly reactionary. But downtown, I finally found a working preacher, or what I mistook for one. It turned out he was just a crazy homeless character, ranting away on a corner. His “sermon” centered around little green men trying to take his bottle. He, too, was accepting of fiscal donation.
I took matters into my own hands and simply said a prayer. As if in answer, the notion came immediately to my brain that I could head to the National and get a better parking space. I knew that I couldn’t purchase a beer until after noontime, but I figured I could watch practice chips and wander through the gift shop while I waited. So, off I went, excitedly wondering if Tiger could pull it off again.
It was eerie. The only traffic I passed, coming off the Calhoun Expressway onto Washington Road, was a tumbleweed. I indeed found the very best parking space, the one immediately adjacent to the main patron gate. It was me and me alone in the vast, grassy parking lot under the pines. And, like the churches, the gate was closed and locked. I was reading a sign that said something about “try us in November, if any of us survive,” when a loud, tinny voice spoke from behind at a distance. It was a Sheriff’s deputy barking disjointedly into his car’s loudspeaker. He said something about “shelter in place” or, it might have been “save yourself,” and then he departed at a high rate of speed as if the virus itself was after him.
Bewildered, I went home. After lunch, I decided to put out a few signs of my own. With colorful chalk, uh, donated by the kids next door, I set about leaving inspirational messages on the sidewalk for my fellows. I wrote, “It’s A Hoax!” I was in the process of scribbling out, “COVID is Chinese for Big Lie,” when it started raining. All my work was washed away.
Anthony Fauci is the Chicken Little of epidemiology though I think he actually believes some of his own hysteria. Well, really, he’s a chicken little with the guns of a police state behind him. But anyway, he does bring to mind Mencken’s warning: “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.” You’ve probably thought this through, already, and if so, you’re right. The odds that the government which hasn’t told the truth about anything in 150 years is finally telling the truth about a cold bug are somewhere between zero and absolute zero. They literally label homicide victims, terminal cancer cases, suicides, and heart attacks as Corona “related” deaths. And they still can’t get the numbers high enough. Meanwhile, the Monopoly money flows and the economy burns.
Yet and still, for whatever reason, the masses have fallen for the predictable lunacy once again. The elites aren’t just covering for the monetary mess they made; they’re angling for total control of the population. Two hundred years ago, the population would have, by now, strung them all from lampposts. Today, the people play along, even getting ahead of the “leaders” in a mad rush to impose solitary confinement on themselves and to sacrifice any remaining vestiges of liberty.
Mencken, again: “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” The man said, “Boo!” so get to clamoring, cattle. As Jerome Adams might say, “do it fo yo pop-pop!” The alert is extreme
Patrick Henry said something about forgetting God and forging chains. Sam Adams hoped the chains would set lightly upon the would-be slaves. I’d just as soon see the chains used as whips to drive our “elites” far, far away. (I’ll likely sooner see the green man who stole Preacher’s bottle). So, this is what a late-stage Empire in terminal decline looks like during its very last days. Cool! I’ll have national affairs to write about forever, or until such time as I make like the yinshi.
What’s next? Let’s see… I think I’m first going with the laughable closure of the failed government schools. There’s a lot going on, theoretically, though very little, educationally. There’s the new normal and all the fun it brings. And, will it be Venezuela, Iran, Russia, China, some other innocent target, or a combination thereof? Time will tell and you’ll read it here.
12 Sunday Apr 2020
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Imagine this: you “create” a fictional character, writing about him sometimes. Then, the next thing you know, he’s writing on his own:
From TPC, Sunday, April 12, 2020:
12 April 2020
A Letter to the Editor by Tom Ironsides: Celebrate Life & Hug Your Children
Dear Mr. McCart:
Greetings. I do not think we have ever met, such are my strange interactions with the “real” world. I was asked to write something for you publication by our mutual friend, Perrin Lovett, whom I have cc’d if for no other reason than to stem his incessant pestering. It is my understanding that he is working on another of his usual columns for next week (and, for that, I am blameless). The attached submission (DOC and PDF) is not what I gather he was interested in. However, as noted in the letter, it kind of sprang into my heart more than my mind. While it is admittedly a little out of my character as some know it, I hope it is sufficiently interesting. If so, then I concluded it with a brief bio, lifted from my college faculty page (my apologies, but the picture would not transfer). The title, while provided by me, is ultimately your call. I ask only that my email address or other direct contact information NOT be included with the letter.
As an aside, Mrs. Tuggle’s weekly work is always interesting and delightful. Please pass that message along to her. The rest is certainly … something. Thank you.
Sincerely,
Tom Ironsides
PS: Go Cavs!
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Celebrate Life And Hug Your Children
Dr. Thomas H. Ironsides, II
Dear Mr. McCart and Friends:
My acquaintance and your colleague, Mr. Lovett, asked or begged me to write something regarding late events, both biological and geo-political. Some of my experience and opinion I understand he has recently relayed, and more of which I believe he is currently imagining. Personally, I have just about had it with my house arrest, which to my great credit, I have been breaking on a regular basis. No apologies to Sheriff Hagaman. So, of that, I have little more to say or to think. Instead, as I was instructed to write “from the heart,” I will tell you a story. It’s a little late in coming back to my mind, however, it is perfectly fitting for this Easter Season.
On the afternoon of Friday, February the 14th, I was entertaining myself in the quaint downtown of my adopted Blowing Rock. Happening upon the wonderful Art and History Museum, and having never ventured therein, I decided to peruse the galleries. Immediately, I stumbled upon what I at first took for a community party. Soon, I realized it was a public wake for a local dignitary. Someone informed me that it was not, in fact, a funeral; rather, it was a celebration. And so, I would like to share some of that experience and brave spirit with you.
The woman of the hour, of the day, was a little girl. Her name was Bexley Svana Moffat and she was only a few months into the ripe young age of two years when she unexpectedly succumbed to leukemia. Please read her unusual and heartening obituary, as linked, courtesy of the Austin and Barnes Funeral Home:
According to Saint Jude Children’s Research Hospital, approximately American 3,000 children are diagnosed with leukemia every year. Around ninety percent enter into remission and are effectively cured within ten years of the onset of aggressive treatment. Why is the minority taken by this accursed disease? Most can imagine the horror of losing a precious baby. Some of us, unfortunately, know the shock and lasting pain, first-hand. In dread times such as these, we do well to remember our temporal existence in and on the physical Earth. As hard as it is to fathom, sometimes the little ones are more needed elsewhere. Our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, said, “Let the little children come to Me, and do not hinder them, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these.” Matthew 19:14.
Well, from the very little I know, and as you may readily gather from that infectious photograph, it is a much brighter day in Heaven. That face and especially those big, blue eyes say, “Hello! I’m sweet though a bundle of fun trouble!” The parting message left for us first-person by Bexley, notes that among the things she loved the most were her mommy and daddy, her grandparents, and her puppies. You just know each was the world among the others.
It’s fascinating, to me, that I write about this brief encounter, particularly as I consider its context in my life. Why am I still here? For decades, I walked hand-in-hand, as a partner, with death. My own demise could have easily found me a hundred times over and yet it did not. I surmise the Almighty must require bubbly sweethearts more urgently than gruff, stubborn jarheads. (Who could blame Him?) And I could have told you a similar story about Gloria, but after thirty years, my words still fail me. I trust Bexley understands both my ponderings and my discourse.
This adorable little stranger-friend whom I never knew has given me the strength and the joy to look upon otherwise unspeakable tragedy as the celebration of the eternal. For this Miracle, I might deem her Saint Bexley (though I think she is not one for formal pretense).
I leave you with the following thoughts: our days, currently, have about them a bleak disposition. Some of us are sick. Some are scared. Some are unemployed. We lack a certain direction or purpose. Yet, it is all but temporary tribulation. Just as the Mightiest Son rose for us, so the smallest daughter helps us to raise our darkened spirits. So, right now, go on and hug your children – of any age. Leave a social distance between you that you couldn’t slip a piece of paper through.
Thank you and may God bless you,
Tom Ironsides
[dthi/fac.jpg] Dr. Thomas H. Ironsides, II (Ph.D., Harvard) is Professor of Classics at Saint Thomas of Aquino College. When not teaching Roman philosophy and culture, he is also President of the American Classical Education (ACE) Center. He previously retired as a Paramilitary Operations Officer and Acting Deputy Director of the Special Activities Division, National Clandestine Service, United States Central Intelligence Agency and as a Colonel with the United States Marine Corps. Given his experiences, he is adamantly opposed to gratuitous warfare and attendant international usury. Currently, with an aching back and sore thumbs, he attempts to build by hand a small cabin.
PERRIN LOVETT 
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