I’d like to introduce a new contributor to the site. The Portly Politico primarily writes on political and historical topics but he’s a huge fan of 70s and 80s hard rock and heavy metal and he’ll also contribute on those topics too.
Month: December 2018
20DEC2018 – Quote of the Day
Another (shudder) Romantic Poet. Well, we have to see both sides sometimes.
The rich have become richer, and the poor have become poorer; and the vessel of the state is driven between the Scylla and Charybdis of anarchy and despotism.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
20DEC2018 – Photo of the Day
Finally Fox News Grows a Pair
Fox News has finally decided not to reflexively fold as soon as the Left bullies some advertisers into dropping a conservative opinion show. Tucker Carlson has of late been outspoken on immigration and other right-wing priorities and consequently has been the focus of all the usual suspects (Moveon.org, Media Matters, Sleeping Giants, etc.) hounding weak-kneed corporations to drop Right-Wing broadcasters.
Fox put out a statement saying they won’t cave. Sounds good. Let’s see if they stay the course or beg for mercy.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/fox-news-defends-tucker-carlson-we-will-not-be-censored-by-intimidation-efforts
Who Can Replace a Man? – by Brian W. Aldiss – An OCF Science Fiction Book Review
Aldiss was a British science fiction author and “Who Can Replace A Man” is the name of a short story collection published in 1965. From my exposure to the English films and theater from that time period they seemed like a thoroughly unhappy bunch. A lot of that shows up in Aldiss’s stories. There’s a dreariness and an almost claustrophobic atmosphere to some of his work which I can’t enjoy. But mixed in with these will be a gem. Out of the fourteen stories in this collection two of them are excellent and highly recommended.
“Old Hundredth” is the story of a megatherium (giant sloth) riding on a baluchitherium (sort of like a prehistoric giant rhinoceros) in search of transubstantiation into a musicolumn. This piece of insane storytelling is remarkably enjoyable and feels like some kind of impressionistic water color of a beautiful landscape rather than a science fiction story. I’ve always greatly enjoyed rereading it.
The story “Who Can Replace a Man?” is more prosaic and recognizably science fiction in its content but it provides a self-consistent and believable vision of what a world of robots would be like after humans disappear. It’s fun even when it’s bleak.
After these two stories recommendations become qualified.
“Poor Little Warrior!” is the story of a time travelling brontosaurus big game hunt. It follows in the footsteps of Ray Bradbury’s “A Sound of Thunder,” but outdoes it in grimness. It has that British mid-century dreariness but has some cheerful horror at the end. To each his own on this one.
“The Impossible Star” is equally grim but does include and interesting imagining of how proximity to a black hole might affect the human animal. I’ll give it a passing grade.
Finally, “The New Father Christmas” is dreary enough but so odd that it gets points for holding my interest. I’ll give it a D+.
The rest of the stories, although they have interesting facets are just too downbeat for me to enjoy or recommend. If you do decide to read the New Father Christmas and enjoy it then maybe you can find value in the rest of the collection. Once again, to each his own.
19DEC2018 – Photo of the Day
19DEC2018 – Quote of the Day
If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts.
Camille Paglia
18DEC2018 – American Greatness Post of the Day – Death of the Weekly Standard Signals Rebirth of the Right
https://amgreatness.com/2018/12/17/death-of-the-weekly-standard-signals-rebirth-of-the-right/
Chris Buskirk runs the American Greatness website. Chris is a civic nationalist who believes in restoring the American project. But in his post, he sounds a lot like the folks in the dissident right:
“But the Bushes killed the Reagan legacy and rather than capitalizing on his victories abroad to achieve his goals at home, they instead embraced the social democratic impulse that replaces core human institutions like the family and the church with the government. This was the point at which institutional conservatism lost its way and slowly became a shadow of the progressive Left—following always just a few paces behind wherever it led.”
That line about “following always just a few paces behind wherever it led,” could have been in a post by Vox Day or the Z-Man. To my mind, the information that has been percolating around the dissident right has finally become completely mainstreamed. That is very good news. I tell some of my friends who get discouraged that knowing the truth about the Fake Right is more important news than anything else. The sucker punches we took from the Fake Right did more damage than the direct attacks from the Left. Uniting the people on the right will make us much stronger whereas having false friends among the rich and powerful is an enormous negative.
Onward and upward.
18DEC2018 – Quote of the Day
A woman simply is, but a man must become.
Camille Paglia
18DEC2018 – Photo of the Day
