UPDATE 5/12/23: Rod Serling’s classic “Twilight Zone” episodes remain some of the best television writing in the medium’s history. His gift was telling huge truths in wonderfully entertaining dramatic nuggets, each usually a half-hour long and still reference points for anyone with eyes open to the whole human story, good and bad.. Even the term “Twilight Zone” has come to mean “unbelievable, weird, shocking….but true.” Like Orwell, he was a great artist who communicated routinely from terrifying depths, and both died young from the exhausting rigors of prophetic creativity. Both laid bare the irrational human behavior that make us rightly fear “things to come.” But great art should also be a pleasure, and Serling’s achievements remain irresistible viewing. Major, enduring kudos to a smalltown American kid with a special knack for telling important stories.
UPDATE 5/9/23: The initial reaction from these quarters hearing the accusations months ago from this Carroll woman about being raped in a Bergdorf’-Goodman changing room by Donald Trump was, and remains, “Oh puleeeeez1”
And what is one to make of the “guilty” verdict of “Liable for rape” and Trump’s reaction (“I have absolutely no idea who this woman is!”)? It brings to mind the Brett Kavanaugh “victim.” As everyone recalls, that woman was a planted, delusional liar put up by Senate Leftists led by Dianne Feinstein to concoct a lurid fantasy of drunken high school sex.
This one is on record saying “It was an episode. It was an action. It was a fight. It was not a crime. It was, I had a struggle with a guy.” She added in the same interview, “I am not — I have not been raped. Something has not been done to me. I fought. That’s the thing.”
Huh?
As we’re being reminded more each day, we now live in an age where, when politically expedient, we’re lectured that all women are to be believed, and all aggressive men are presumed to be rapists. No doubt the ambiguous verdict as announced has been met with cheers from Trump-haters everywhere, BUT what the hell des “Liable for Rape” mean? Apparently, it’s one thing to rape a woman and equally bad to say, “Sorry, you’re not my type.”
All women are to be believed and their assailants punished unless they’re Juanita Broadrick or Tara Reade or Mary Jo Kopechne. Two credible allegations of rape, one verified case of leaving a young girl to die needlessly. No indictments, no full legal investigations of the prominent Democrat men involved. Or even mild outrage from those cheering the Trump/Carroll verdict. 50% Kafka, 50% “Twilight Zone.”
5/9/23: Hungarian PM Viktor Orban states what more than half the American electorate knew when NOT voting for Joe Biden: “If Trump were President, there would be no war in Ukraine.” Nor would a tidal wave of other nightmares have come to pass. Elections have consequences.
Volodymyr once upon a time, fretting that those endless billions in aid he hopes to get might have to be accounted for…and that they would NOT be limitless.
UPDATE 5/5/23: Vivek Ramaswamy is emerging as a potential conservative voice of the future, if we are to have a future. Young, perfectly articulate and, to the dismay of the Left, he is a dark-skinned man with a foreign-sounding name who may turn out to be a more formidable foe to the CRT/DEI/ID Politics/Woke plague than Trump himself. Naturally, dirt is already being dug up; in this case, a Soros fellowship connection. Time will tell.
UPDATE 5/2/23: It’s odd, but this is the second week in a row celebrating the American spirit by paying tribute to a recently late, great artist from the British Commonwealth, not an American. Last week, it was recently departed comic actor Barry Humphries from Australia and now Canadian balladeer Gordon Lightfoot has left us. Both were transcendently great artists who had something uniquely uplifting to offer all humanity. From Humphries, there was the mysterious miracle of deep laughter; and from Lightfoot, folk music in the true sense, telling musical stories of universal, timeless significance.
Lightfoot used his hauntingly beautiful baritone voice backed principally by 12-string acoustic guitar to paint vivid pictures of epic human achievement. His love songs (:Early Morning Rain,” “If You Could Read My Mind”) express the dark night of the lonely male soul, perhaps rivaled only by the meditative classics (“One For The Road,” “In The Wee Small Hours”) of Sinatra in his prime. “Wherefore And Why” is the potential joy of life on the horizon with each new sunrise.
Lightfoot’s “Canadian Railroad Trilogy” recounts the settling of Canada in panoramic detail, really a universal story of all peoples (Americans, Israelis among others) steadfastly carving civilization out of pitiless nature. Those of us who take pride in American history can easily, gratefully relate. Godspeed, Mr. Lightfoot, from an old, teenage fan from the 60s.
UPDATE 5/3/23: Remember when you got sent to the principal’s office for pulling on some girl’s braids? Now it’s for making other kids feel “unsafe” by wearing a T-Shirt stating “There are only two genders.” To his credit and that of his supportive father, a 12 year old boy finds himself on the front lines of the culture wars and disports himself like a hero.
UPDATE 4/23/23: Few entertainers have made the world laugh harder and more than Barry Humphries’ masterpiece creations, Dame Edna and Sir Les. Edna was every inch the international…nay…intergalactic superstar, and now, inexplicably, she is gone along with Barry’s mortal coil, shuffled off just this last week. She was the brilliant embodiment of freedom, ambitiion and true individuality (ergo her place here in “American spirit”) with each graciously delivered insult, every polite crooked crack scowl, the mock-shocked gaze from behind those iridescent cat glasses. Here was a genius actor coiffed and dressed like the world’s most outrageous British Panto star, lovingly riding herd over everyone and everything worthy of ridicule in her path.
Unsurprisingly, this former housewife turned Grande Dame from Melbourne’s boringly provincial Moonee Ponds suburb found her real-life alter ego/creator canceled for poking totally sensible, neat little holes in the whole grim politicized transgender movement with which Barry Humphries adamantly claimed no kinship. (“It’s pretty evil when it’s preached to children by crazy teachers,”)
Alas, comedy is serious business for the supremely talented and just silly drivel in the hands of the easily forgotten stupid. Edna/Les/Barry was an entertainer without equal, not a politician or polemicist, and no performer on the planet generated more laughter or will be more missed.
Myself onstage with the Great Lady, Broadway, 1999. Invited up from the audience to bask in her glow and eat inedible spaghetti and tasteless wine. And laugh.
GOODNIGHT, POSSUMS!!
UPDATE 4/25/23: It’s politics, not beanbag as the old saw goes; but Trump does himself a major disservice attacking De Santis by denigrating Florida, of all places, Trump’s own chosen home state! This is desperation he needn’t have, considering the strong lead he enjoys on the basis of his own positive record, not the claimed deficiencies of his chief rival.
De Santis, by contrast, continues calmly apace, nary a word or step amiss, with his record as governor and now a campaign book and outstanding interview with Hillsdale College’s Larry Arnn.
Conservatives are faced with a dilemma, picking one of two solid spokesmen. “Who will win?” Is the question. The ideal would be a resounding landslide for Trump in 2024, decisively slaying the hydra-headed persecution campaign against him, illuminating the corruption and massive assault on him and the country. Following thru on Making America Great Again-the economy, energy, the border, the military-the path is clear in 2028 for two terms of De Santis.
Anything less guarantees the unthinkable end of America as we’ve known her. At the moment, we resemble nothing so much as Russia or France on the brink of suicidal revolution. God help us.
UPDATE 4/18/23: For those conservatives fearful of another Trump candidacy, Barry Goldwater’s timeless quote on “extremism” and “moderation” should provide focus. With the notable exceptions of Ronald Reagan (1980-1988) and Trump (2016-2020), Republican candidates-two Bushes and losing candidates Dole, McCain and Romney-all studiously pursued moderation to their own detriment and that of the country. We have a proven fighter available and lusting for battle, and that battle requires a warrior’s mentality and constitution. For some, that killer drive to win is a deterrent, but realism dictates that it would be folly to waste him in these worst of times.
UPDATE 4/22/23: Andrew Breitbart accurately pointed out that “Politics is downstream from culture.” Someone else said, (and I paraphrase), “Different generations are to be judged by the music and art they make.” The old movies, the old songs speak glowingly of earlier Americans and their reverence for that thing called “beauty.” The present generation should worry how history will judge them.
UPDATE 4/16/23: MAGA and all it represents has a real future as long as it’s pro-American, not anti-(fill in the blank).
UPDATE 4/16/23: There’s a new face on the scene. He has an Indian name (Vivek Ramaswamy) and a refreshingly all-American point of view. Let’s hear more! (And there’s plenty more on the way.)
.UPDATE 4/21/23: Trump is going for broke, vowing a new GOP, not the conciliatory RINO outfit that has been as desperate to destroy Trump and MAGA as the Dem Party. We are at the same crossroads as that facing us in 2016. Are conservatives willing to take that path once again that Trump proved to be THE way back to free markets, strong borders, American self-interest and a way of life that defines MAGA?
Do we have a choice when it’s become clearer than ever that both Parties are actively bringing on a collectivist society once thought impossible in America but very much Lenin’s idea of paradise.
UPDATE 4/18/23: Plain talk is the best talk
UPDATE 4/15/23: Fox News is clearly no friend of Trump & MAGA when claiming “48% of Americans think Trump should suspend his presidential campaign following the indictment, up 5 points from last week.” Make careful note this is based on an ABC poll of 566 respondents.
UPDATE 4/15/23: The argument currently invoked against Trump, that he cannot be elected in 2024, is weakened if one reasonably assumes that he already won re-election handily in 2020. The problem is not Trump’s popularity; it’s a corrupted election process.
There is also the matter of millions of votes already cast by those fleeing blue states for the liberties of red ones. Given a clean electoral process, those emigrants voting with their feet and the tens of millions enraged by a blatantly stolen election and Trump’s Deep State persecution comprise a real Silent Majority primed to vote him back in.
UPDATE 4/11/23: Arguments abound for junking Trump in order for a “kinder, gentler” Republican to win in 2024. So, the argument seems to go:: run someone every Republican AND independents supposedly can get behind like, for instance, De Santis.The problem is, what happens to MAGA and all its proven, concrete accomplishments? Is De Santis his own man like Trump, more capable of withstanding the murderous wrath of the Deep State that will be unleashed on him if he is the nominee? And what happens to the question of a deeply corrupted electoral process which in the end, is THE ISSUE that must be addressed if the country is to be saved? If, in fact, the electorate actually did vote in the Brandon disaster fairly and legally in 2020 and really wants to do so again in 2024, the fight is already lost. Assuming otherwise, that our elections are now easily, routinely stolen and that MAGA and Trump accurately reflect the true American spirit, it’s “game still on!” Pick your hill to die on. History has given us no choice.
Oh dear. We don’t want to upset anyone, do we?
UPDATE 4/9/23: The most visible and loudest of Deplorables is hitting the links, having fun at the football game, enjoying a tripled lead over De Santis and carrying on like an American enjoying his basic rights. According to some, this is unacceptable, uppity of him and anyone else doing likewise.
A polite way of saying F-U to his detractors.
REPOSTED 4/9/23: FROM EASTER SUNDAY, 2013.
![EasterLilyApr10[1]](https://dittoville.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/EasterLilyApr101.jpg)
A Victorian musical masterpiece as simple, dramatic and moving as its majestic 2100 year old source. This particular performance is all the more touching for the sincere catch in Stanford Olsen’s fine tenor voice as this great Easter hymn approaches its climactic, heart-clutching moment:
“And once again the scene was changed,
New earth there seemed to be.
I saw the Holy City beside the tideless sea.
The light of God was on its streets, the gates were open wide,
And all who would might enter, and no one was denied!
No need of moon or stars by night,
Or sun to shine by day:
It was the new Jerusalem that would not pass away!
It was the new Jerusalem that would not pass away!”
Yet another beautiful rendition of “The Holy City” by the great American tenor Richard Crooks.
Easter morning, 2013, as if on cue, the first daffodils open…
If a larger lesson for all faiths is to be drawn from an observance of Easter, it is contained in these words of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn: “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this [collectivist tyranny] has happened.” Echoes William Penn: “”Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants.”
UPDATE 4/6/23: In San Diego, California still retains a bit of its golden glitter.
UPDATE 4/5/23: The true meaning and significance of Passover-the celebration of liberty and the fight to preserve it-embodies the deep bond between Israel & America.
UPDATE 4/4/23: Trump’s travails and his persecution is an assault on America and of her citizens. This rare, unforgiving character remains the obstacle between his persecutors and us. The level of hatred for him and specifically what he has actively promoted as President, say all one needs to know of his/our enemies and their rejection of those American guideposts, life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The perversion of our founding principles by the opposition Party and the spineless RINO refusal to stand behind them calls for some unifying re-Declaration of American ideals.
Do any of them see or care about the consequences of this wanton wreckage, once only thought possible in tin pot Latin American or other Third World regimes?
We have entered new, dangerous territory. Yes, it is happening here.
The weakness and ridiculous content of the charges are a light at this dark tunnel’s end, but what fearsome damage can be done by a few simple, repetitive lies.
One can be realistically optimistic that this “trumped-up” nonsense will not play while turning the tables on Democrat corruption should be easy if hard evidence of seriously illegal activity still matters in a court of law.
This is the stuff of totalitarian regimes. In Joe’s case, it’s a case of an embarrassing moral midget perversely longing to attain a place beside modern history’s worst mass murderers.
UPDATE 3/31/23: Celebrating and living the American Dream is not a guaranteed feel-good, happy-ending Hollywood movie. It is the privilege of living a free life of one’s own choosing, a brilliant idea unrivaled in human history. Ironically, being grounded in objective reality, fully aware of bad ideas and the bad individuals who promote them is necessary to preserve and enjoy the life, liberty and pursuit of happiness we crave.
UPDATE 3/28/23: We are in trouble when only 38% of Americans think patriotism and love of country matter. That is down from 70% a quarter century ago. Obama’s “transformation” seems to be well underway.
UPDATE 3/31/23: The Deep State has made its move and indicted Trump. Should we be surprised when his very presence on the political scene from the start has drawn out and exposed this long-range war on America declared from within? All the more reason he should be re-elected and slay this dragon he has aroused on behalf of Americans who take life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness seriously. Who better to slow the threat that has always been there and will remain a cancer in our body politic long after he’s gone?
UPDATE 3/28/23: Despite every effort to stop/destroy him, Trump continues to surge past De Santis because the public wants an unowned man of action who’ll stop at nothing short of the positive results he promises.
UPDATE 3/24/23: Now they’ve really got him!
UPDATE 3/19/23: Trump’s enemies have made it clear they’ll stop at nothing to destroy him. This undying hatred of the man and his movement discourages many, but to abandon him is to give up on what American conservatives have always claimed to champion. On the bright side, Elon Musk thinks the threatened indictment could simply grease the works toward a landslide victory in 2024. A cheering thought!
UPDATE 3/18/23: Suggested: a worthwhile series of essays, attractively entitled “The American Spirit vs. The Great Awokening.”
UPDATE 3/18/23: For those still interested in a conservative candidate actively intent on making mere ideas concrete realities, Trump remains the best bet.
UPDATE 3/12/23: One of several video versions first available this morning of a choir of actual J6 prisoners in the DC Gulag, interspersed with DJT reciting The Pledge. The choir of 20 different prisoners was recorded individually by phone. The final visual message is “SUPPORTING CERTAIN PRISONERS DENIED THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS.”
UPDATE 3/9/23: “Comedy is under attack because it is probably the last bastion of truly free speech.” Amen. Chris Rock and his mining of gold from The Slap is a case in point. Too bad no-longer-funny Whoopi Goldberg lacks the talent and intellect to use her own free speech rights and undeserved platform more intelligently when she actually calls for outright censorship on recent news reports she happens to dislike. Doesn’t that beautifully sum up the wasteland that is Leftism? First amendment rights for me, not for thee.
UPDATE 2/27/23: For those of us Americans fortunate enough to be born before 1960 (and then some), there are memories of safe, friendly neighborhoods and schools; books held in hand taking us to all corners of the universe; Main Streets, colorful entertainers and artists; American family, friends and acquaintances and the firsthand, concrete experiences attached to it all that make up a rich tapestry of the free, secure life. Such truly diverse, sensory memories are becoming rarer and lost to the young, now captive exclusively to those desk top/hand-held robots that provide only a two-dimensional version of reality, good and bad, that we lucky oldsters have known through 5 (6!) senses and in 3 dimensions. We live in satisfaction knowing that old things and old friends are the best.
UPDATE 3/2/23: No, living with the lingering pall of lockdowns, mandates, masks, toppled statues, Woke revisions to classic literature, language and history itself, I’m not freer than I was two years ago. Or certainly 50 years ago.
UPDATE 3/4/23: There is an antidote to the deadly victimhood malaise saturating young and old alike today. Remember Reagan and his positive message about all that’s possible in a free America? And, recall just a bit over two years ago, a sitting President governed and led with the attitude that our best days are still ahead? He’s still here and available, and some of us refuse to stop believing him and living accordingly.
UPDATE 2/16/23: What sends a stronger message than visual humor? The satirical caricatures of the amazingly prolific A.F. Branco are daily treasures, each, at a glance, doing the work of a thousand printed editorials. For more of Branco, go to COMICALLYINCORRECT.com.
UPDATE 2/16/23: Whether an observant Christian or Jew, consciously religious or not, each of us is guided by the Judeo-Christian tradition as laid down in both the Old & New Testaments. Historically and in practice, the two books are complementary, and one is incomplete without the other.
Contrary to the cynical claim that religion is the cause of all strife, the basic shared values of Judeo-Christianity laid out in both Bibles still provide the common force that unites and stabilizes a flawed humanity, albeit tenuously at this moment on the historical timeline.
We are currently witnesses to a society that seems determined to abandon those codified values, and increasingly normalized insanity is the result.
UPDATE 2/8/23: We need more Congressional representatives like Brian Mast, R-FLA. He lost both legs in Afghanistan, but obviously he has not lost his fire or soul. Only 42 years old, this is someone to watch.
UPDATE 2/8/23: In response to Joe’s SOTU dribbling drivel, a commonsensical statement grounded in reality and displaying the focused leadership America deserves.
UPDATE 2/7/23: Particularly in these fluctuating times when good can suddenly revert to terribly bad, it is reassuring to re-examine the enduring legacy of one of the all-time good guy class acts of American politics.
UPDATE 2/8/23: Trying to slime De Santis with the teenage girls/beer bottle photo from 20 years back is cheap politics and gives credence to the TDS crowd. Nevertheless, Trump remains the one who says what needs saying best and loudest. His record on the job between 2016-2020 also proves his strong words are backed up by concrete action which only speaks in his favor. It may also be a good sign that De Santis’ record is so promising and even comparable to Trump’s that Don has been driven by purely political desperation to create some distance between himself and Ron. That would mean win/win for conservatives, whichever of these two prevails.
UPDATE 2/1/23: Liberty is showing serious signs of fraying at the edges. When America is considered the 23rd of 160 nations on a freedom index, something is seriously amiss.
UPDATE 1/30/23: Imagine seeing and experiencing things as they are today through the shocked eyes of our country’s founders. To sane liberty-loving folk, this should be a wake-up call, but disturbingly, reality has yet to dawn on a sleepwalking half of adult Americans.
The Founding Fathers share their concerns after dropping in for an eye-opening guided tour of 21st century America. The conversational tone is rather somber.
UPDATE 1/24/23: Recently deceased historian Paul Johnson provided easily readable scholarship informed by a love of liberty. He was always a pleasure to read and now, posthumously, never more so than when praising America: “No other country represents so clearly the current wishes and long-term aspirations of the human race.” To those America-haters outside and especially within, he provided this damning retort: “To hate America is to hate humanity.”
UPDATE 1/18/23: For those of us not seduced by the Left’s candy-flavored poison, life is pretty much about being left alone to pursue life, liberty and happiness where, when and how we individually choose. Stay out of my way, I stay out of yours. Simple enough yet for too many it has become a crime to live by that fundamental directive. Those prone to take their directions from other humans rather than a Higher Power will go to any lengths to freeze free, independent life around them. So it is. And we will continue to live and flourish despite them. Where has one been given a greater opportunity for this approach to life than America?
UPDATE 1/21/23: Hard to believe he has to say it, but Trump is warning the GOP not to cut old-age benefits, particularly when there is a bottomless pit of other waste in government worthy of junking.
UPDATE 1/17/23: As McCarthy has been forced to act like a Republican and not a RINO, it’s become increasingly clear how important that stand-off requiring 15 ballots for Speaker was. And how Dems are kicking themselves for not voting for him on the first ballot to have a spineless RINO to carry on Nancy’s agenda.
UPDATE 1/12/23: Admittedly things in the long run for America are looking rather grim, what with the normalizing of stolen elections and the successful open savaging of serious reform demonstrated by Trump vs. the Deep State. Our republic is faltering, yet we have no choice but to stand steadfastly on what our Founders gave us and trust in the Divine Providence that gave it to them.
UPDATE 1/12/23: The sudden death of Lynnette ‘Diamond’ Hardaway (of Diamond & Silk) is a loss to those of us refreshed by truthful, outspoken Americans in these challenging times. She certainly made her time on earth worthwhile, and we wish her eternal rest and reward for her part in keeping us on the freedom trail. God bless and keep her.
UPDATE 1/12/23: The usual naysayers (plus short-sighted Republicans like Crenshaw, Hannity, and even Trump!) were both appalled (or thrilled) by what seemed to be a totally divided GOP during the McCarthy voting drama. Thank God for such a debate, and special admiration is owed those 20 hold-outs who brilliantly used the leverage available to ensure a much more conservative agenda than the usual accommodating RINO cave-in.
UPDATE 1/5/23: In line with Breitbart’s observation that politics is downstream from culture, one can take heart that daily devotion to beauty and truth in one’s family and professional life is the strongest antidote to the prevailing ugliness of the present. It’s quiet but must be looked upon as being as powerful as the winds, sands and water of eternity that have slowly forged the highest mountains and deepest valleys.
UPDATE 1/6/23: The intra-Party Speaker snafu in the House is nothing compared to 1856’s drama which required 133 votes and took 2 months sorting out 21 different candidates scrambling for the job. 9 votes? 10 votes? 11 votes? Ho-hum. [Update: it took 15 votes and some deals brokered and concessions made. Read them and be cautiously optimistic as with all things in politics. Dare we think of these conceded demands as an anti-RINO vaccine with likely boosters to follow thanks to the new Freedom Caucus spirit in Congress?]
UPDATE 1/4/23: Trump’s (and Elon Musk’s) backing of establishmentarian McCarthy for Speaker is a desperate call for Party unity and an end to self-destructive bickering. However, there are those understandably sick of such compromise as evidenced by this Tweet: “The fact that Trump is still advocating for Kevin McCarthy for Speaker and his base is ignoring him proves two things. 1. His base is not a cult 2. He is very out of touch with his base.” Conservatives are looking for a move toward the policies that made them MAGA supporters, not GOP business-as-usual. Their message is: give us a hardline conservative leader in Congress to continue the movement Trump created.
