Friends, I, like many, watched most of the opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics last night. It was...weird, to be sure. To say it was "avant garde" would be an understatement. I didn't care much for many of the post-modern elements, but I have to say, in the organizers' defense, that I didn't perceive any reference to the Last Supper as I watched. It's now being claimed that the show included mockery of the Last Supper, by inserting drag queens and the like into a vaguely similar tableau, but that might be overinterpreting the matter. I saw no explicit reference to Christianity at all. Be that as it may, one would be hard-pressed to name any Olympic ceremony that interpreted gender norms quite so loosely and creatively. My favorite part was the end, when Celine Dion sang, the Eiffel Tower was lit by a spectacular light show, and the Olympic flame ignited a great big cauldron at the base of a hot air balloon, which then ascended into the heavens. Neat trick, that. My takeaway: it's a shame the damage that wokeness has done to "high culture", but that damage is not yet quite so severe that the pageantry and esprit of the Games has been entirely eliminated. Thank heavens for that!
In other news, lest we forget, the stakes in the 2024 elections are high, not just in presidential terms, but in terms of the future of our courts and our system of separation of powers. More and more Democrats want to pack the Supreme Court to negate the power that Trump-appointed justices now have there, and realistically they are just one highly successful election cycle away from doing it. If they were to capture the White House, the House, AND the Senate, with a better than nominal majority in both chambers, they would probably push ahead and subordinate the Supreme Court to their whims once and for all. At that stage, "democracy" really would be a dead letter. A leftist Supreme Court would give even less heed to what the voters think than, oh, the Democratic National Convention, for instance. So do what you can to prevent Kamala Harris from becoming president, sure, but don't neglect the importance of a strong Republican showing in House and Senate races as well.
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/jul/26/democrats-renew-push-to-expand-supreme-court/
Finally, DJT is reaching out to crypto enthusiasts and to the cryptocurrency industry, which is most interesting. It demonstrates, among other things, just what a critical innovation crypto is and how integral it has become to "the market" as a whole. I personally think there's no danger that crypto will ever displace the U.S. dollar, but it's a valid investment vehicle, and the U.S. government certainly has no business regulating it into oblivion. And, yes, I have invested in crypto, so my motivations here are almost entirely ulterior!
Dr. Waddy from Jack: The French must have learned from our Super Bowl halftime shows. No doubt the central figure in the tableau
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack. . . was a nostalgic reprise of the "Goddess of Reason" briefly afforded forced veneration during the French Revolution, yes? And after all, American taxpayers have paid , through the National Endowment for the Arts, for such redeeming works as "Piss Christ" (God forgive us), Santa's elves depicted having sex and the Madonna festooned with excrement. Pusillanimous countenance of the imposition of the now casual blasphemy and vicious contempt for widely accepted standards of considerate behavior and expression by once rightfully shunned degenerates is a measure of Western civilization's disgraceful, cringing apology for itself. Dang right Islam wouldn't stand for it.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO DR. WADDY AND JACK
ReplyDeleteJust wanted to clarify some of my posts from the last article, where I blasted Trump for his reaching out to the LGBTQ and Faith Communities at the same time. I realize he feels he needs to do that, although I disagree to some extent. BUT, he has done it anyway, so what can I say. HA!
I just hope he wins and repairs some of the damage that has been done to my favorite country, The United States of America. However, in doing so I think his best appeal has been (and there needs to be more of it) is what specifically he plans to do, generally speaking to fix this and that.
As I recall, (and I could have misunderstood) he had a list of these things, 47? Correct me if I'm off field on this.
And by the way, as a Christian, I have no hard feelings for those who have different orientations. That's their choice. However, the appeal to patriotism is a bit much with a patriot Bible.
Anyway, my point was that Trump's competence should appeal to all and any groups without his catering to any one group in particular.
Hope this clears things up a bit. Hoping TRUMP wins!
Ray from Jack: Thanx for the update. I think DJT's effort to alleviate the incalculable moral damage done our favorite country (our incomparable good fortune to be able to say that) begins with his very election itself. That alone will bring emotional devastation and disarray to the antiamerican left which would give us a good start back to our country's redemption from their presumptuous misgovernment. Himself? I think he'll come out smoking on Jan.20. How could he not? He's a hell of a man; they have tried their vicious best to ruin him and he's still kicking! Surely he has constructive payback in store for them and do they ever deserve it. The country would be better for it, to their incalculable frustration and juvenile antipathy.
ReplyDeleteRAY TO JACK
DeleteThanks Jack. Let's pray that Trump does become our President Elect come November 2024, and then to The White House in January 2025. I still fear for his safety, but I'm praying his people protect him to the maximum, and also the VP he has picked in the person of Vance. I also pray that whatever The Left does to tamper with the election process fails.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I see Harris has spewn the first of her to be expected many arrogant gaffes: in speaking of JD Vance she declared with characteristic leftist pedantry "Vance will be loyal only to Trump and not to America". Gee, just imagine a VP being loyal to the President; is this a notion for which she has harbored scorn during her tenure?
ReplyDeleteJD's reaction was highly satisfying to see. At a rally he ripped into her with words to the effect of " I spent four years as a Marine enlisted man" (maybe you'd like to try hacking that Kamala). "I risked my life in Iraq in America's service and the man. . ." (to whom, yes, I will be loyal in office)" with whom I am running just took a bullet for America" . Then he roared: "what the HELL gives you the right to question our loyalty, ehh!?" That's good stuff.
I hope she blesses us with many more haughty and comical pronunciamentos. Leftists always overreach when they think they are in the driver's seat and she appears to think HAS won already because she's running against despised Trump and she is by definition entitled. Keep gaffing there Kam, especially at your glorious coronation in a couple weeks+.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Some people delight in sneering at a general public which they despise. They had a chance at the Olympics to do so to the entire Christian world; not so long ago they could not have dreamed of such a luscious opportunity.
ReplyDeleteThe latest group to take unanticipated advantage of the bizarre embrace of reflexively counterintuitive presumption in Western customs since the '60s was in full display in that casually blasphemous snit. For them it is not enough to rightfully and successfully demand that people with sexual proclivities outside the experience of most NOT be disadvantaged or excoriated for it. Oh no, society must have its nose rubbed in it, yeah! Far beyond acceptance, it must tolerate, enable and celebrate its unlimited public enactment in settings in which it does not belong, say, like the venue it disgraced in Paris before the world.
I've never seen a drag show but my impression from seeing pictures of it is that it has , heretofore, been considered just good raunchy fun to be enjoyed by adults in settings which can be avoided if one wishes to. My guess is that most who enjoy such harmless frivolity mean it only to be that.
But a sour minded coterie has chosen to preempt an otherwise worthy cause and presume of it a cloak of immunity from condemnation for a spectacle degenerate beyond measure. Here in the states we have seen this urged on public libraries and schools on pain of denunciation and legal hazard for "discrimination" and hate should they demur.
It is gratifying to see the international uproar this has generated. May Christianity resolve to confidently stand up for itself in the face of such indecent humbug opportunistically foisted on a worldwide audience by contemptuous lowlifes too obtuse to comprehend its profundity.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I might add, the Paris abomination had to have been enabled by officials who sincerely and perversely endorse such dreck or by pitiable administrators paralyzed into acquiescence by fear of the characteristic vindictive wrath of a far left which presumes full advantage of the dysfunction this causes.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Far too often and of course especially so in leftist dominated governments like that of NY or our present Federal administration, government assumes that EVERYTHING is its business! What I'd love to see would be a restored DJT simply say from time to time "no, that's not government's business". And he could enact that conviction by working to end government involvement in such areas (eg. art other than that treasured by most Americans or broadcast venues which serve the interests only of a haughty leftist elite).
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Any comforting modification of Scotus sought by Dem brats frustrated by our insolently lawful high court, which requires a Constitutional amendment, is DOA. Flyover country would see to that through the prolix amendment process. But I think a change in the number of Justices can be done by statute and you are entirely right to predict that it is just what a dem President and Congress would do unless mortal fortune brought an unlikely radical takeover. Then of course they would purr contentedly in the status quo. But if not , I'm going to guess that filibuster by Americans would be possible though (?)
ReplyDeleteYou're so right, Jack -- the opening ceremonies were decadent, debauched, and degenerate, but they were also depressingly typical of what such ceremonies tend to look like nowadays. When L.A. hosts the games in 2028, you can bet that eyes will roll and jaws will drop. Who knows, maybe next time the blasphemy will be more overt!
ReplyDeleteRay, I agree that Trump ought to eschew identity politics, but he won't. He appeals often to specific groups and talks up his patronage of them, which is of course a game that Democrats play far better than we do.
Will Trump win by advancing specific, practical policy initiatives to make people's lives better? That I very much doubt! The voters couldn't wrap their heads around such proposals if they were forthcoming, I'd wager, and in any case the media doesn't care about policy. It cares about sound bytes and personal attacks and various other trivia, but certainly not substance. No, I think Trump will win by being slightly less unpopular than Kamala Harris. Or, alternatively, he will lose by being slightly more unpopular.
Jack/Ray, I still have my doubts about whether we will actually hold an election in November, or, if we do, whether Trump would be permitted to win it. But my concerns are less acute than they were, for the simple reason that, the more people EXPECT Trump to win, the harder it will be to deny him the chance.
Jack, I'd love to see Trump reduce the power of the federal government, but he did a poor job of it in Act One. He'd also need to convince Congress to go along with it, and why would Congress ever consent to its own political diminution?
Please explain what you mean, Jack: the American people could "filibuster" an expansion of the Supreme Court? You mean popular unrest would force the Dems to reverse themselves? I doubt that. I suppose it's just possible that the Dems could pack the court and then lose the next election, but I rather think the whole point of court-packing is to render moot all future elections, and it would be a great way of doing so!
RAY TO DR. WADDY
DeletePlease explain your statement "I still have my doubts about whether we will actually hold an election in November, or ,if we do, whether Trump would be permitted to win it."
Okay, fine, but then you just leave the reader "dangling" without any explanation of why you have those doubts.
Not trying to start a fight on this, because as you know, I am not your enemy. Should not even have to say that, but your statement is significant and important, and quite frankly, scary.
With that said, PLEASE elaborate on this. I don't think I'm overreacting, but to infer no elections is serious, don't you think?
Respectfully,
Ray
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Kamalagaffe #2 is at hand and its a doozy. A breathless ad celebrates her consummate " fearlessness" and says that that makes her much preferable to DJT.
ReplyDeleteUhh, has she had to endure the edifying rituals of indictment, including sitting in a hostile NYC kangaroo courtroom for days when he really had better things to do? This and a veritable grab bag of imaginative charges, brought by thoroughly partisan dem prosecutors in a concerted , coordinated (conspiratorial even?) campaign to ruin him so that he can never again rain on their incipiently totalitarian parade: has she any experience of the personal, emotional, financial and legal stress such organized calumny naturally works on any human being? Has she come within a fly's whisker of dying as he did with indomitable courage?
All this and he hasn't missed a beat or step in his determination to redeem our country. I'd call that proven fearlessness. And in maintaining that she bests him in fortitude, the Dems contemptuously expect independents to obsequiously agree. Keep it up Dems; your runaway train is still headed for the brink.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: I meant that since expansion of the Court could be sought by statutory legislation, that filibuster in Congress could be a way of blocking it should we find ourselves in the minority. Of course a Dem majority would no doubt first seek to change the rules of both Houses to prevent this. I wonder, can rules changes be filibustered?
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: True, probably no Congress would assent to a reduction of its powers. But a continued attack on the presumptuousness and partisanship of unelected Executive branch bureaucrats, building on the Chevron decision, ought to be quite popular. If nothing else, it could be seen as, in effect, enhancing Congressional power, I think.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Gads, the very thought of LA hosting a hallowed event is appalling. You know, I wonder if these hip America despisers realize that if the totalitarians take over the tumbrels will roll for them too. Most modern dictatorships have been very prudish ( of course knowing that takes a regard for history which is beyond their ken)and have made haste to "neutralize " any who celebrate eccentric "moral" turpitude.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: Apparently the Olympic opening ceremonies were marred by careless mistakes ( eg. calling S.Koreans N.Koreans, hoisting an upside down Olympic Flag ,although the latter might have been intended in order to signal general purpose disdain). But malice was much evident in gratuitous and clearly purposeful bad taste scenes expressing leering, sneering, fatuous contempt for Judaeo - Christianity, Western Civilization ( including France) and the sensibilities of most of the worldwide audience. Decapitated figures depicting whomever; a
ReplyDeletesnotty, presumptuous, blasphemous act crudely implying that The Last Supper was simply a Dionysian Bacchanal; these were the workings of woke, by definition , spoiled , oh so world weary brats. And to the immeasurable shame of the French and beyond that, the Western civilization of which France is such a key part, they were afforded an absurd and obsequious deference by the event's organizers and by the high officialdom which no doubt approved this travesty.
A commentator at Townhall today emphasized this overriding point: this was the left, which loathes and is committed to destroying Western civilization and its moral and spiritual foundation, Judaeo-Christianity ,at work, with the cooperation of the spiritually bereft, nihilistic woke rump. The grimly set radicals will deal decisively with those lowlifes after they no longer need them. Pusillanimously tolerated ridicule is a powerful tool for degrading a social or political entity or doctrine preparatory to its utter discreditation and subjugation. So said anarchy's sage, Saul Alinsky, accurately so in a Western world which countenances soul destroying debauchery with staggering ingratitude, sloth and tragic lack of hindsight or foresight.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: Edwin Markham's stirring 1898 poem The Man with the Hoe ended with this dread warning ". . . how will it be with kingdoms and with Kings when this dumb Terror shall reply to God after the silence of the centuries". It treated of the eternal peasant , seemingly still at that time bound forever to mind numbing labor and misuse by organized power.Unfortunately it was misused to justify 20th century oppression far worse than any imposed by Kings But I see in it an unintended modern analogy.
ReplyDeleteBy "dumb" he meant "unprotesting " and in that sense he could have been writing of the tragically wandering Jew, unredeemed for millennia and stoically making the best of it. The Holocaust fostered the following "reply" to God and to the world: "never again!". In what Israel did yesterday, in rendering justice to two of its worst oppressors ,for certainly not the last of myriad times, Israel affirmed this dread conviction. If those who cannot abide a risen Judaism, who insist on perpetuating this most atavistic and barbarian lasting hatred , antisemitism, actually succeed in beating Israel down let them beware: if Israel falls it may well take the world with it.
I should have said"Edwin Markham's TERRIBLY stirring 1898 poem. . . " Jack
ReplyDeleteI should also have said:" The Holocaust fostered the following reply to the world and appeal to the very face of God, 'NEVER AGAIN' ". Jack
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I say to those who have since Oct. 7 arrogated for themselves some detestable ersatz "justification" for reprising Jew hatred, with heretofore perhaps unprecedented malice, in a U.S. which has been on balance a welcoming place for Jewish people: your antisemitism is obvious in the viciousness with which you champion the "Palestinian cause"; in many of your demonstrations it has been blatant and unmistakeable. Your execrable oppression of American Jews in your regimented leftist "university" citadels and the obsequious tolerance extended to you by the antiamerican left, manifests unalloyed neomedieval hate. That you apparently suffer little self reproach over this merits consideration of a truly appalling possibility: that you are sociopaths and capable of all evil should you someday participate in a triumphant antiamerican left totalitarian takeover of America.
ReplyDeleteTake heed: you profoundly wrong definitively Jewish Israel and Judaism, which exemplify high civilization and which have demonstrated towering fortitude in even living day to day tasked by the likes of you! You bring immeasurable shame upon yourselves by presumptuously adding to Israeli and Jewish travails for which your pinched minds harbor little comprehension. For the young among you: wise up! The aging radical boomers who egg you on are beyond redemption; Father time will relieve the world of their curse but you will survive and some day perhaps bitterly lament your present injustice to a great, long suffering people.
Hi Ray. No worries. I'm happy to develop the thought further, although I can only speculate (as I did in a recent article about the shenanigans the Dems might pull). Think of it this way: if you believe that Donald Trump is a "threat to democracy" and a potential dictator, then what WOULDN'T you do to prevent him from taking power? You'd certainly throw the book at him in terms of lawfare... Check. You'd call him every name in the book. Check. You'd switch out your flagging octogenarian candidate for a younger model, just to boost your chances. Check. You might even ensure that the Secret Service relaxed its vigilance, to give maniacal Trump haters a fighting chance to veto his campaign with extreme prejudice. Check. So would people this fanatical contemplate cancelling an election on a contrived pretext, or interfering with the electoral college to forestall Trump's enthronement? I don't see why they wouldn't... In fact, based on their own tortured logic, I'd say they have a moral duty to keep Trump out of the White House AT ALL COSTS. That's how it looks to me. If they think they can get away with it, in short, they'll do it.
ReplyDeleteJack, I think the filibuster can be scrapped with a simple majority vote, and it already has been in judicial matters, for instance. My guess is, if the Dems ever get the presidency, the House, and the Senate with a majority of, oh, 53 or 54, they'll pull the trigger.
ReplyDeleteJack, I wonder if the assembled dignitaries had any idea what was coming in terms of the opening ceremonies. I doubt even they would give their stamp of approval to a program so bizarre. But "inclusivity" was a foregone conclusion.
Dr. Waddy from Jack: You may well be right but perhaps some who had misgivings about woke imposition were afraid to voice, let alone, act, upon their concerns.
ReplyDeleteThe antiamerican left's insane antipathy toward and its existential fear of DJT confirms in them their implacable, comprehensively destructive hostility, justifying any method of redemption, to America itself.
You make a good argument for the appalling possibility of a leftist coup should DJT win. General Austin could become a critical figure in such a confrontation. Would he obey orders; would a decisive force in the military obey him? Do we have a Boris Yeltsin willing to personally, physically confront the totalitarians? Gads what a year!
Jack, I don't have much doubt that an anti-Trump coup would elicit strong support in the military...but would they try it, knowing that it would inevitably fracture the military AND invite armed resistance at the state level? Let's face it: a stolen election might be the end of America itself.
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: A new hot Civil War would be as tragic as the first but it might inadvertently work the end of a curse: amoral militant neomarxism, which , though not fully analogous to the slavery the first Civil War destroyed, demonstrated in its 20th century manifestation equally incalculable evil. Too, we can sure that a triumphant antiamerican far left would work hellish comprehensive injustice probably outdoing its crude predecessors
ReplyDeleteDr. Waddy from Jack: I think its reasonable to assume that the term "inclusivity" is a characteristic far left preempted euphemism justifying any arbitrary, incipiently totalitarian imposition they will. Too late for the Olympics' organizers but such prejudgement on our part is only good sense. Do we question what cows "do"?
ReplyDeleteJack, I would say the results of a "hot" civil war in this country are wholly unpredictable. Given the squeamishness of modern Americans, my money would be on a permanent division of the nation into (at least) two parts, but I could be wrong. Maybe nuclear weapons would be the deciding factor -- God help us!
ReplyDelete