NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

 

NOTES ON THE PASSING SCENE

 

*I bet Trump would like Pope Leo XIV to officially be renamed “The Pope of America.” (Okay, maybe not when he’s made aware of the new Pope’s previous comments and political leanings. And his brother says he will be similar to Pope Francis.)

*Speaking of Catholicism, kids from Santa Maria delle Vittorie parish school in Ponte della Priula, Italy, a Catholic nursery school,  were taken on a day trip to a mosque, where they learned about Islam from an imam and bowed in worship of “Allah.” Anyone want to bet that this is not reciprocal? Were young Muslims taken to a Catholic church and instructed to reverently engage in Catholic worship rites and rituals? I’m guessing not. Why? The hyper-tolerant Western globalists are in actuality determined to extinguish their own societies.

*Speaking of indoctrination, The Chicago Board of Education and the (New York-based) David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace will have to pay out $2.6 million to 773 former Chicago Public High School students who were essentially forced to participate in Transcendental Meditation, a staple of the Hindu religion. Judge Matthew Kennelly of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois recently approved the class action settlement.

*Speaking of outrage, in a recent appearance, Colorado State Senator Chris Kolker mocked the Christian faith and claimed that on his judgment day he might stand “in front of a trans Jesus.” Okay, Kolker. Jesus did transition, but from death to life! So that all of us could have a chance to do the same. Sense a pattern here? If Christianity’s power brokers and erstwhile evangelists can no longer be bothered to defend, let alone expand, their own religion, its collapse will come gradually-- and then suddenly.

*House Democrats recently and unanimously voted against a resolution renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. Every. Single. Democrat. The resolution passed via a 211-206 vote, with only one Republican voting against the resolution and all 205 Democrats doing so. I firmly believe many Democrats would, however, vote to rename America herself. And probably Washington D.C. And Madison, Wisconsin. And Lincoln, Nebraska. And Jefferson City, Missouri. And, well, you get the picture.

*A former U.S. Postal Service employee from Mesa County, Colorado, has admitted to stealing and fraudulently casting mail-in ballots during the 2024 presidential election. Vicki Stuart and her associate, Sally Jane Maxedon, intercepted mail-in ballots intended for voters, forged signatures, and submitted them as legitimate votes. Wanna bet they were doing this to “save our democracy?”

*According to a Fox News report, National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya says that a contractor working “at one of the nation's most highly secure research labs” recently risked an outbreak of deadly disease in order to exact retribution over a "personal dispute.” According to a Health and Human Services official who spoke with Fox News, the contracting researcher poked holes in a colleague's personal protective equipment following a lovers' quarrel. (The incident occurred at the Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick Army base in Frederick, Maryland.) Glad to know these potentially deadly experiments are being conducted by sober and serious adults. We’re in good hands. Just kidding. 

U.K., U.S. Sexual Education Classes Off The Rails Indoctrination

 

The Bridgend County Borough Council in south Wales recently funded a sex education PowerPoint presentation that was intended to be shown to teenage students at a number of schools. Why is this unusual or controversial? Because the presentation referenced asking for consent before choking a partner.

The presentation, provided by the council's domestic abuse service, Assia, fortunately never made it to the classrooms, but was meant to teach children that “consent (when it comes to choking during sex) should happen every time sexual choking is an option.” The lesson noted, “It is never OK to start choking someone without asking them first and giving them space to say no.” But, by God, if they give their consent, choke away!! “Every time sexual choking is an option?” Should it really ever be an option? “I love you and I am so hot right now I’d like to strangle you” is not a thought that has ever popped into my head, old fuddy-duddy that I am. What’s on the docket for these students next semester? Slapping, punching, spitting, whipping, defecating, stabbing?

But by no means is sexual “inclusivity” just the realm of the U.K. The Supreme Court Of The United States recently agreed to hear oral arguments in the religious liberty case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, involving Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) in Maryland, the district that has decided to include in its pre-K through fifth-grade language arts curriculum picture books that feature homosexual and cross-dressing characters. Pre-K through fifth-grade?! Worse yet, the district has banned both parental notification and the option for parents to opt out of exposing their children to these wildly age-inappropriate materials “for any reason.” As a result, a number of parents of diverse faith backgrounds are suing the district. Good for them. The indoctrination and abuse of their kids should be stopped immediately.

 

According to reports, the district openly acknowledges that various LGBTQ books were brought into the schools and that “Teachers are expected to fold them into the curriculum as they would any other book.”

The LGBTQ “storybooks” were added as part of MCPS’s commitment to “provid[ing] a culturally responsive … curriculum that promotes equity, respect, and civility.” MCPS believes that “[r]epresentation in the curriculum creates and normalizes a fully inclusive environment for all students” and “supports a student’s ability to empathize, connect, and collaborate with diverse peers and encourages respect for all.”

I have to call “bullshit” on that line of “reasoning.” If the school district wanted to “create and normalize a fully inclusive environment for all students,” why not “fold” other books into the curriculum? Books specifically touting heterosexuality, for example. Or books lauding conservative thought. How about introducing them to the Bible at this early age?

But that’s not going to happen. Instead, kids may soon be taught that they need to get consent before drugging or stabbing a partner “every time drugging or stabbing is an option.”

The West is hell-bent on choking itself to death, via ultra-woke insanity, hyper-tolerance, and an utterly unwarranted belief in globalism.

I could just as well have edited the previous sentence to read, “The West is hell-bent.”

 

 

Reflections On Trees, Birds, Insects, And Ants

*A BLOGGER EXCLUSIVE*

I was recently looking at the maple tree in my yard and noticing that all the “helicopters” were on the higher branches rather than the lower ones. It dawned on me that that must be by design, so that they will travel farther from the tree when they fall off. Trees are amazing. And they provide shelter and a place to nest for birds, without which we’d be constantly enveloped in a swarm of insects. (Okay, a nod to bats and dragonflies here, too.)

Think of the difference between flying insects and ants on the ground. If we didn't have birds, you couldn't go outside for the sheer density of flying insects. Moths, flies of every type, mosquitoes, and other irritating, tiny, flying vermin would be in massive clouds everywhere. They'd be ubiquitous.

Which brings me to ants, which are everywhere and ubiquitous, but thankfully, at least for the most part, can't fly. Ants are everywhere. Every crack in every sidewalk sports an ant hill. There are ant hills all throughout my yards, both at home and at the cabin. There are ant hills on sandy beaches, ant hills on beautiful green yards, and literally every place else. Ants are often in our homes. They ruin picnics and patios alike. I have, on multiple recent occasions, observed creepy, roiling masses of thousands of ants, both in our yard and on the roadside curb fronting our property.

I am tired of invasive species pushing out our native flora and fauna. However, the ones we need we don't have! I would pay to help import anteaters and aardvarks. Hell, I would pop for a grand or two just to have a couple in my yard. They may be the only non-native species that could do a lot of good.

I’m antsy. Someone needs to get to work on this.

Search Engines Are Systemically Biased, Putting Mankind In Peril

 

This will not be the most entertaining writing I have ever produced, but it may be one of the most important topics I have ever covered, one that will literally shape the minds of humans around the globe…and, consequently, their future.

A.I.-driven search engines will soon control virtually all the information—and therefore knowledge—that future humans possess.

And they are wildly, and wickedly, skewed towards far-left interpretations of every conceivable subject, topic, and news story under the sun. All of them (except possibly DuckDuckGo). All the time.

Microsoft Bing, Google, etc., have always leaned leftist and progressive. But their new A.I. iterations have taken this bias to a new level. Type “Kilmar Abrego Garcia” for example, and posts by Wikipedia, ABC News, AP News, The New York Times, the BBC, NBC News, CBS News, the BBC again, something called Poynter, AP News again, Wikipedia again, PolitiFact, the Hill, azcentral.com, NBC News again, and Newsweek show up on the first one and a half pages, followed by CNN and Axios. The same goes for typing in “DOGE.” NPR, NBC Chicago, Wikipedia, Business Insider (a far-left publication), Google, and CBS News dominate results on the first page. Typing in “Trump’s tariffs” in Bing leads to “News About Trump’s Tariffs” and leads to articles by the BBC, AP News, PBS, CNN, USA Today, ABC News, and Time, all hard-left publications. Google “Elon Musk” and you will be brought to links to articles by such journalistic stalwarts as Rolling Stone, Yahoo, Mint, NBC News, Wikipedia, Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, AP News, Amazon.com, and The Guardian-- all center-left or left-leaning sites. Searching for, well, anything, also frequently leads one to pieces by truly insane sites like The Huffington Post, The Daily Beast, Slate, and Salon. All usually before you get to a link to an article on Fox News or The New York Post, sites with far more traffic than many of the leftist ones suggested.

This systemic, pervasive, and total bias against differing viewpoints is the hallmark of totalitarianism. That the global mainstream media and search engines have gone to such lengths to make certain that no one in any corner of the globe will ever again have easy access to unbiased information is sickening, terrifying, and beyond maddening. We know Democrats-- and their pathetic sycophants in the mainstream media—love all things criminal. This might be their biggest crime yet. And it seems to be flying entirely under the radar.

Fake news must be countered by real people. Rise up, folks. As George Orwell stated, “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.”

We must seek the truth, no matter how difficult it is to do so. And we must speak it, too.

Else the future for folks like us will be endlessly dark and quiet. And devoid of freedom and liberty.

As Communication Skills Decline, Is The Writing On The Wall?

 

Sadly, it seems possible that there may be very few—if any-- truly great writers arriving on the scene in future years. How many great young writers are extant today? Not many. By comparison, Mark Twain was 11-years-old when he published his first work, and around 22 when he started writing professionally. Ralph Waldo Emerson was also in his early 20s when he started writing in earnest. Edgar Allan Poe was a prolific poet by the age of 13. Shakespeare wrote several of his famous plays before he turned 30. Etc.

I have no problem with the progression from quill pens to typewriters to keyboards, but rather with the writing itself. In fact, communication overall is suffering; oral, written and even non-verbal. And A.I. will be a culprit going forward, in that humans will rely on it ever more heavily. On the surface, A.I. compositions can appear more than adequate for a number of applications but are not-- and cannot be--truly great. Great writing is like great art or great beauty, you know it when you see it. It inspires. It has heart. It has soul. It grabs us by the core and brings us along for the ride, perhaps even changing us for the better as it does so.

All of the afore-mentioned writers are dead, as are some of my other favorite scribblers, such as Winston Churchill and P.J. O'Rourke. Others, such as Mark Steyn, Steve Rushin, and James Lileks are, like myself, no longer spring chickens.

If we eventually lose the ability to write well, it will be the death knell of sites like this one. And the acceleration of our decline as a species.

As someone once said, “All we have to fear is fear itself.” But crappy writing is kind of a bummer, too.

 

 

 

 

Murder, They Wrote? Democrats Try To Incite Violence...And A "Summer Of Love" 2.0

 

Democrats would root for tooth decay over oral hygiene and Snidely Whiplash over Dudley Do-Right. Something about them is clearly not right.

To wit: California Democrats have yet again blocked efforts to strengthen protections against underage sex trafficking, this time in the form of a bill to make it a felony to purchase 16- or 17-year-olds for sex. But, hey, who are we to judge if a California Democrat—or someone from a “marginalized” group-- wants to purchase a 16 or 17-year-old for sex?

Meanwhile, Minnesota Democrats killed an amendment to a crime and public safety bill that would have required law enforcement agencies to report illegal aliens to ICE when they are arrested for a violent crime. In doing so, they ignored the desperate and pitiful pleas of a man whose mother was brutally murdered and beheaded by an illegal alien. On the streets of a Minneapolis suburb in the middle of the afternoon. At this point, one is tempted to say, “What the eff? I mean what the effing eff?” But that would be for nought. Democrats gotta Democrat, right? I mean, the party wanted to enslave Blacks a couple hundred years ago, and now wants to free violent criminals.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker recently told a group of Democrat activists and donors in New Hampshire that he wants to see “mass protests” against the Trump administration. Pritzker stated, “Never before in my life have I called for mass protests, for mobilization, for disruption. But I am now.” He added, “These Republicans cannot know a moment of peace.” He sounds nice.

Not to be outdone, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) appeared on MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show,” where, when asked how people should be reacting to the arrests of rogue judges, he responded by stating that “the people need to manifest their outrage about these assaults on judicial independence.” And how should the people manifest it, Rep Raskin? Judges do not have independence from the law, prudence, sanity, or morality. And unelected district judges are supposed to be controlled by Congress, not have total control of a duly elected president.

Moreover, JoAnna St. Germain, a Waterville Senior High School English teacher, saw her Facebook posts go viral recently after she called on the U.S. Secret Service to "take out" people who support President Donald Trump 's "illegal, immoral, unconstitutional acts.” She also directly called for the president's death, stating: "The Secret Service has the perfect opportunity, if they choose to step up and take it.” In fact, St. Germain noted that the Secret Service has the ability, if not the moral necessity, to take out every single person who supports Trump’s illegal, immoral, unconstitutional acts. Wow! I guess we should take some precautions, folks.

 

St. Germain added that she was "not talking about assassinating a president" because a president is "a person duly elected" while Trump is heading "a fascist dictatorship." Note to St. Germain: Trump was duly elected, by both the popular and Electoral vote, and it is Democrats who are clearly re-enacting Fascist tactics and hoping for a Fascist dictatorship.

And then there is Canada. Unfortunately. Nell Thomas, a family physician and the Liberal candidate for Haliburton—Kawartha Lake, has been criticized after some Canadians circulated screenshots of old social media posts in which she clearly seemed to endorse letting the elderly die and preventing women from giving birth, while referencing her views on “climate change.” In April of 2023, Thomas wrote: “Imagine my thoughts when assessing a pregnant patient. I telepathically advise the fetus to sue the owner of the uterus while exiting it to this world. Of necessity, a mother must be a climate change denier.” She “telepathically advises the fetus to sue the owner of the uterus?” Thomas might be crazy. “A mother must be a climate change denier?” Apparently, Thomas is a reality denier. In another screenshotted post, Thomas stated: “Canada’s solution MUST INCLUDE stop keeping ancients alive so long/reduce expectations of patients to address every tiny complaint, AND INSERT GOVT PAID HUMAN OFFICE SCRIBES INTO FAMILY PRACTICE.” Another post reads, “Nature will ensure we are reduced to 5 billion. Trust nature.” In yet another hysterical post, Thomas avers, “You must understand eliminating meat from diet is well well well (!!!) recognized as essential – and soon nonnegotiable – if any parts of Earth are to remain habitable.” In still another she opines, “China is ahead of us on this. Chinese will rule. We are silly twits in NAmerica.” (That may well be true, but not in the way she means.) So, let the elderly die, get the federal government even more involved in people’s lives, beg women not to have kids, hope that nature kills off 3 billion of us or so, go vegan, and submit to China.

Who needs homicidal maniacs when you have “health care providers” like this?

Democrats and progressives root for the fire as opposed to the fire department. They quite literally support evil over good. If violence in the streets and/or presidential assassinations are what it takes for them to stay in power, they then say, “so be it.”

They are an existential threat to the “democracy” they purport to want to save.

They must be defeated.

 

 

 

 

Fake News Gets Nominated For An Emmy

 

Tragicomically, the "60 Minutes" interview of Kamala Harris that CBS extensively edited, so that Harris’ answers didn’t sound so much like Kamala Harris, has been nominated for an Emmy Award.

The nominations for the 46th News & Documentary Emmy Awards were announced May 1st. "60 Minutes" received numerous nominations, including one in the Outstanding Edited Interview category for its primetime special featuring then-Vice President Harris (and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. “Tampon” Timmy Walz.) This now Emmy-nominated program is the reason for Donald Trump’s $10 billion lawsuit against CBS, due to the network’s egregious attempt to help Harris any way it could, including editing her answers to make her look more intelligent and coherent. That’s not Emmy-winning journalism, folks, that’s election interference. It is also pathetically biased reporting, unethical in the extreme…and “fake news.”

This is as if I penned an article in which I employed plagiarism, blatant lies, and libelous accusations… and was promptly nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.

If deceptive editing, a.k.a. “fake news,” gets nominated for an Emmy, we are now living in an Orwellian world, indeed.

Speaking of Orwell, he once said, “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.”

Too bad there is no award for doing so.

Chinese Crabs Infiltrating The U.S.?

 

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife recently announced that a Chinese mitten crab was caught last month by a person fishing in the Lower Columbia River in the central part of the state. This species of crab was outlawed in the state more than a decade ago due to its aggressive and highly adaptive nature, which can lead to the damaging of ecosystems and the displacement of other native species.

A question: why is every invasive species-- whether plant or animal-- more aggressive, and better at adapting and procreating than any of our native U.S. ones? Why did we get the weak-tit flora and fauna? Mirroring the Chinese themselves, it is obvious that none of the legion of invasive species which hail from China is worried about ‘toxic masculinity.’ Maybe if our native species—and we ourselves—were more masculine we could better fend them off.

Does this phenomena ever go in reverse? Does North America possess a crab that could potentially go over to China and kick some commie crustacean ass? If not, why is this just a one-way street? And what can we do about it? And why do so many damaging invasive species come from China? Did any of them perhaps escape from a lab in Wuhan?

The Chinese mitten crab is reported to be highly invasive—and capable of climbing over 13-foot-high walls! What the hell? Are they also “Faster than a speeding bullet, more powerful than a locomotive, and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?” Unsettling. “Look! Up on that wall! It's a bird! It's a plane! It’s…a…Chinese mitten crab!”

There goes the neighborhood.

Hope they taste good dipped in butter.

Love Is Love?

 

One of the phrases I most detest is “love is love.” But Eric, how can you say that? What kind of joyless, insensitive curmudgeon are you? Hear me out.

To the unthinking, these words may seem relatively benign, the mark of a kind person. They are not. In the context of those uttering this now trite expression, it means “Hey, don't feel constrained to marry a member of the opposite sex, you can marry a member of the same sex--or you can change your sex, and your betrothed can change his or hers, too. What fun! Or you could shack up with multiple partners of either, both—or all -- sexes! Even more love! Even more fun!” And what it really means is, since love is love, you can hump a horse. Plow a polar bear. Bang a beaver. Bone a badger. Tap a turtle. Diddle a Doberman. Rodger a rabbit. Pork a pig! All because the enlightened among us realize that “love is love.” Period. Beautiful! Who could argue with that? Why would anyone believe covenantal marriage between a man and a woman for the purpose of procreation, and raising children in a manner most beneficial to those children-- and therefore the human race-- is in any way preferrable to banging anything that moves? Or, put more delicately, having a deep and loving relationship with, say, a blow-up doll?

What if you love certain things more than people? Is that so wrong? Say, a good steak more than your spouse? Or the ability to do whatever you want when you want more than your children? What if you happen to love rape or murder?

Think males and females were created by God to compliment each other? Don’t believe we can change ‘genders’ like underwear? Believe polyamory is wrong? Not in favor of bestiality?

Then you are a prude, a bigot, an intolerant and close-minded fascist who probably voted for Trump—or, if you are not in America, wished you could have. And you are wrong.

Love is love. No judging.

The science is settled, as they say. And you’ve got to love that. Right?

 

 

Man In U.S. Illegally Murders Father In Front Of His Two Children

 

It’s happened again. You know the story. An illegal alien with a long rap sheet, released from custody to prowl the streets. Murders someone. In this latest case (that I know of as I write this), an illegal alien from Cuba who had previously killed a man, fatally shot a Texas father in front of his two children on April 27th. 36-year-old Andres Fernandez De La Paz was captured on home surveillance video fatally shooting a 34-year-old Harris County, Texas, father in front of his family. The wife of the victim says De La Paz previously threatened to kill her entire family and flee to Mexico.

The murderer illegally entered the U.S. in 2016 and was to be removed in 2019. He was last released from prison less than 6 months ago, in November of 2024. De La Paz, who was the subject of multiple ICE detainers, apparently ran a credit card skimming scheme in his spare time.

I think we all know what this means: De La Paz will be Democrat’s next love interest. I’m sure he’s already got a GoFundMe page. I’d bet his bail will be reduced, and he will be let out of prison again in a jiffy. Democrats will fall all over themselves to visit “the Texas man.” Multiple Democrats will say something like, “Why, he’s the victim! He was driven insane by Donald Trump’s crazy and damaging policies! What chance did he have in a MAGA-ridden society like ours?!” He may make an appearance on “The View” and have an ode written to him.

The mainstream media, as always, has carried the Democrats’ water and de-emphasized De La Paz’s immigration status…to the extent it has even covered the heinous crime.

So, what’s next? Democrats may well run him in an election after his release. Unless he transitions while he’s in the slammer, in which case they will run she/her or they/them.