I think it is happening. After years and years of losing and coming back for the next whipping, it seems like the conservatives in the United States are waking up. Look at them: Look at the fighters: Recently, a moderately liberal friend reached out to me. He’s converted, in large part because of Trump and finally seeing liberal hysteria for what it is. He told me that more than a true belief in conservative ideas, he just hates the Left. Here’s what I told him: Strange times we live in. I’ve been saying that the Left has been at war with America for years, and now–when this idea seems to be going mainstream more than ever–I am actually more sure we will prevail than ever…why? Because we have truth, beauty, and justice on our side. And no matter how many times we hear up is down and wrong is right, Truth by its nature cannot be perverted permanently. And because of this… Trump is waking people up. Your instincts (destroy the Left) are understandable…but while we *should and must* destroy them, we must be sure to build up our own families, businesses, arts, religion, etc. After the conflagration (we are…Continue reading It’s happening…
Category: America
JFK calling Americans soft
Been busy with work, our first vacation with the baby, and trying to squeeze in my workouts, so I haven’t posted for too long–though I do have a series of posts in the upcoming weeks I am very excited by. Here’s something that’s been on my mind lately: In 1960, the average male in the United States weighed 166 pounds. Today, the average American female weighs 168.5. As I am getting older, my obsession with being big and strong has diminished. I am trying to be lighter, leaner, and more nimble. In reading about this, I’ve been wrapping my head around the fact that in the average male weighed 166 (!) just a few years after my dad was born. 166 seems so light to me. In researching this, I stumbled across this amazing piece in Sports Illustrated by President-elect John F. Kennedy: The Soft American Beginning more than 2,500 years ago, from all quarters of the Greek world men thronged every four years to the sacred grove of Olympia, under the shadow of Mount Cronus, to compete in the most famous athletic contests of history—the Olympian games. During the contest a sacred truce was observed among all the states…Continue reading JFK calling Americans soft
Skin in the game
My wife and I finally left the hospital with our baby after she spent 21 days in the special care unit. Twenty-one days of being poked and prodded. Twenty-one days of a feeding tube. Twenty-one days of being hooked up to loud, beeping machines. And 21 days not at home. Twenty-one days of tears leaving the hospital. Twenty-one days of uncertainty and fear. And then suddenly we got to take her home. And the 21 days doesn’t seem so bad anymore. Carrying our baby out of that hospital in a car seat was one of the best two or three moments of my life. I felt freer than I ever have in my life while also weighed down with the solemn burden of fatherhood. I know some people spend their whole life talking about the “good old days” and reminiscing about a time when they were younger, but not me. All I can think about is the here and now and the future! My little girl’s future. My daughter will, inshahallah, live until the year 2100. 2100. It’s only 2018. Eighty-two years ago it was 1936. World War II hadn’t even happened yet. Today’s day in age it can be tempting to…Continue reading Skin in the game
Contradiction
Hmmm… Russel Berger’s great sin against secularism? For posterity’s sake, the Left in 2018: They forgot the asterisk on that bottom tweet–*unless your ideas or beliefs are too diverse as we define it, in which case . . . you’re fired!”
Dispatches from the most bike-friendly city in the U.S.
One: Some government unit changed half of the busy street outside my gym into a bike lane–blocked off with pylons so no car may use the lane. This took away parking on one side of the street. Just like that, parking grew much more difficult than it already was for the gymgoers. To accommodate the now-heavier traffic, the city decided to limit street parking on the other side of the street from 7-9 a.m. and 4-6 p.m. so rush hour traffic can use both lanes. Result? People are changing their behavior but not in the way city planners hoped. Instead of biking to the gym, people go less often and–when they do go–are much more inconvenienced. Sometimes I think twice about going to lift when it’s around rush hour; parking is uncertain and ridiculous. During a normal hourlong workout, hundreds and hundreds of cars pass by the gym–thousands, really. A dozen bikes pass by. I also rarely patronize other shops along bike routes in the city. There’s never parking, and you can’t help but ask yourself, how important is that cup of coffee?, when you have to park four city block away? Not very. Two: Cyclists–insisting they be allowed to…Continue reading Dispatches from the most bike-friendly city in the U.S.
A worthwhile read on America’s opium crisis
***I drafted this post and let it sit for a few weeks. In the interim, a family friend traveled off to funerals for two brothers, both dead of overdoses within two weeks of each other. The boys’ parents are now childless.*** I am very interested in the opium crisis in America. Particularly, I am interested in the crisis’s effects on the American Way–our institutions and communities–felt most acutely in our nation’s small towns and suburban areas. My wife and I have both been touched by the crisis in the past few years as we’ve each had a twenty-something family friend overdose on heroin. Both of these young men had good parents, upper class upbringings. and intelligence. These kids had all the chances and love in the world going their way and still could not overcome their addictions. This has kept me thinking that opiate addiction must be intensely powerful. For this reason, my wife refuses painkillers, and I’ve adopted that position as my own. In my thoughts about the opium crisis, I wonder if it could be that–instead of addiction causing many of society’s problem–opiate addiction is the effect of more widespread problems? I’ve been thinking it’s probably no surprise that…Continue reading A worthwhile read on America’s opium crisis
No cowards here, just promises
This week, retired Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens advocated a Second Amendment repeal. And we, as Americans (both gun-owning and non-gun owning), must remember and cherish the moral underpinnings of our right to arms. I tire of Second Amendment advocates relying on hunting to provide the basis for our right. Hunting is a fun activity and provides a palatable, unobjectionable-at-a-dinner-party rationale for our right to arms, but it is entirely inadequate as a justification for private gun ownership. Our right to bear arms is a basic human right, not one granted to us by the Constitution. The Constitution, n its face, accepts this: the Second Amendment does not grant us the right to bear arms, instead the Second Amendment (as all of the Bill of Rights) mandates that the government not infringe on that right. The right predates and supersedes the Constitution, our government, politicians, etc. “[T]he right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed” Jeffrey R. Snyder’s A Nation of Cowards (link to full text, apparently with author’s consent) provides a wonderful primer on these ideas. Below I provide some excerpts. Here is a link to a complete audio reading by one of…Continue reading No cowards here, just promises