Notes on the Way
Today in history, more transinsanity, a Hoosier hero, AOC update, things to come
Seventy-eight years ago today, on Thursday, 20 July 1944, a bomb exploded at the Führer Headquarters in Rastenburg, East Prussia. It had been planted in the building where Hitler’s daily military conference was taking place by Colonel Klaus Graf von Staffenberg, the Chief of Staff of the Ersatzheer (Replacement Army), who had been summoned to Rastenburg to give a report on the emergency mobilization of the new Volksgrenadier divisions. He placed his briefcase, containing the bomb, under the map table around which Hitler and his senior military advisers were gathered and slipped out. Shortly thereafter it exploded and Staffenberg, convinced that the Führer had been killed, departed for Berlin. But in fact Hitler survived the blast with minor injuries, and related plans for an anti-Nazi coup misfired. That night in Berlin Staffenberg and other coup plotters were summarily executed by firing squad; subsequently many more members of the anti-Nazi resistance were arrested, viciously tortured and barbarically executed. The war would rage on for another nine months, taking hundreds of thousands of lives before the Third Reich finally collapsed.
The transgender mob seems never to tire of inflicting gross and gratuitious humiliations on actual women: Former University of Pennsylvania swimmer Lia Thomas has been nominated for the NCAA Woman of the Year Award. Thomas, you may recall, is the trans woman, i.e. biological male, whose leveraged that genetic advantage to steal national titles from the young women against whom she (really he) was allowed to compete. There’s an element of comedy here, to be sure, a Victor/Victoria vibe. But this ongoing campaign to destroy women’s sports in the name of “tolerance” and “inclusion” is no laughing matter. Neither is the silence of today’s feminists, who for the most part have embraced the zany ideology of gender, thereby blowing up feminism itself.
Gun control zealots reacted as one would expect to the mass shooting at a mall in Greenwood, Indiana last Sunday. The shooter, armed with an AR-15, managed to kill three people and wound two others before he was taken down by an armed citizen who happened to be on the scene, 22-year-old Elisjsha Dicken. Indiana recently abolished its permitting process for concealed carry, provided only that the weapon is legally acquired. Dicken was carrying a 9mm Glock pistol, with which he engaged and killed the shooter within seconds. Without question, his timely and heroic intervention saved many lives. But the anti-gun Brady Campaign had no word of praise to spare for Elisjsha Dicken. Instead it released a statement implying that the new Indiana concealed-carry law had somehow enabled the mass shooter: “A gunman shot and killed 3 people and injured 2 others at a mall in Greenwood, Indiana. This tragedy comes after Indiana repealed its requirement for a permit to carry a handgun in public, which went into effect July 1.” It takes hard work to miss so obvious a point…
Comrade Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez may not be much of a legislator, but she’s got the celebrity politician thing down cold. What’s better than being arrested on camera for protesting against the (suddenly) undemocratic and reactionary United States Supreme Court? Why, to pretend that you’re being brutalized by fascist law enforcement. So as AOC was being led away, she tucked her arms behind her back as if they were handcuffed—which they weren’t. True, the effect was was somewhat spoiled by the smirk on her face and her closed-fist Bolshevik salute to onlookers. The whole thing was carried off with a wink and a nod, which betrays a general lack of seriousness, a certain levity, a consciousness that she’s cosplaying. And perhaps that reflects the frivolity of postmodern progressivism in the large: For all the earnest, furrowed-brow, pursed-lips posturing, there’s something unserious about it, isn’t there?
Yes, I survived my expedition to Dollywood—which actually has left me with a thing or two to think about. For now let’s just say that America, this transcontinental carnival of diversity (the real thing, not the phony Woke version) is endlessly fascinating and fully of surprises. More to come on that. Also this week, I’ll be publishing another one of my short stories here, with the mercenary and commercial objective of peddling my two story collections (available on Amazon!) to Substack readers. I think you’ll enjoy “Gangs of Suburbia.” I certainly had a blast writing it…