The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (No. 10)

May 30, 2021

There’s been more good than bad and ugly news (relatively speaking) this week, although I am intentionally excluding from this week’s roundup any mention of the recent revelations concerning the origins and spread of Covid-19. If these reports prove to be true, a lot of people will have a whole lot of answering to do.

The Good

Wait for it. . . . until the fourth leg of this 4 x 200 relay. Watch one of the greatest comebacks ever in track and field, . . . and from a nine-year-old! This is pure speed.

Respect!!! Phil Mickelson wins the PGA at age 50!

I will say, though, the fact that a 50-year-old man can win a major tournament in this “sport” just might suggest that my ranking of golf as a “recreational activity” was correct. Still, respect!

Well done, young lady, well done! This high school softball player makes an incredible catch on what otherwise would have been a home run.  Open the link and watch the video in the article. (See here.)

I’m not a religious man and I can’t call this beautiful, but I sure do like it. Since I was a boy growing up in Canada, I have been fascinated with all things “Americana” and this video could be said to fall in the “Only in America” category. Here’s the Georgia Mass Choir singing “Come on in the Room”:

Ouch! This first sentence is brutal.

There are only a few places on earth where radicals and their children ritualistically burn the American flag and chant “Death to America”: Tehran, Baghdad, Beirut, Kabul, Ramallah—and Portland, Oregon. . . .

Famously the “whitest city in America,” Portland has become the unlikely headquarters of race radicalism in the United States. The city has elevated white guilt into a civic religion; its citizens have developed rituals, devotions, and self-criticisms to fight “systemic racism” and “white supremacy.” The culminating expression of this orthodoxy is violence: street militias, calling themselves “antiracists” and “antifascists,” smash windows and torch the property of anyone transgressing the new moral law.

Portland is the new Berkeley, or, maybe more appropriately, the new Tehran. Christopher F. Rufo hits the ball out of the park, once again. (For the full article, see here.)

Portland is not Oregon, and it turns out that much of Oregon is quite sensible. In fact, some Oregonians are so fed up with Portland that they now want their respective counties to break away from The Beaver State and join Idaho!  Hope springs eternal. “More Oregon counties vote to consider joining Idaho, part of rural effort to ‘gain political refuge from blue states’.”

All’s well that ends well. This story is biblical in nature. It’s a heartbreakingly sad story that has, I hope, something of a happy ending.  “14-Year-Old Hands Newborn to Random Diner in NJ Restaurant and Flees.”

Here’s some very good news.  The City of Oklahoma City is getting rid of 85% of its occupational license requirements. Imagine if we did this across the fruited plain. (See here.)

Gym teacher speaks truth to power (see here). . . . And then power tries to retaliate against said gym teacher but is getting its comeuppance from truth.

The Bad

Pandemic news: The “work from home” revolution benefitted the overclass and screwed the underclass. According Glenn Reynolds (otherwise known as Instapundit):

Lockdowns — where the laptop class stays home while working-class people bring them stuff — were enacted in many states. States that had them did no better, and often worse, than states that did not. This became obvious early but resulted in no change of policy.

According to the American Institute for Economic Research, lockdowns did more harm than good on multiple levels. Businesses died, mental-health problems abounded, people missed important “elective” procedures such as cancer screenings with long-term consequences, and many kids effectively missed out on a year of education.

But no politicians or government employees missed a paycheck. Consequences are for the little people.

So is it fair to call the overclass response to the pandemic a failure? Well, certainly not for the overclass, whose members are richer, more powerful and more secure in their positions than a year ago. For America? Well, that’s another story.

Havin’ a laugh, are ya? Sometime you just can’t make up this stuff. I know for a fact that my imagination is not this good. “Universities are Right-Wing Institutions, Warns UMass Professor in Teen Vogue.”

The U.S. Navy is drowning in wokeness. “U.S. Navy Announces It Will Implement Racist Critical Race Theory Througout Fleet.”

The U.S. Army disarms. “Army Disables Comments on New Recruiting Ads Criticized as ‘Woke’.”

Hey, America’s kids can’t read, write, calculate, or do science, but the overlord class is making sure they know all they need to know about pornography. “Parents are Furious Over Elite New York Prep Schools Outrageous Pornography Training.”

The United States is fast becoming an Orwellian tragi-comedy. “Angry ‘Woke’ Parents and Teachers Are Trying to Silence Critics of Critical Race Theory.”

I’m not a Christian, but I support the right of College of the Ozarks and other Christian colleges to segregate their dorms on the basis of sex. “Judge Rules Against Christian College in Lawsuit in Claiming Biden Rule Would ‘Place Males in girls’ dorms’.”

“We’re All Nihilists, Now!” That just might be the title of an essay that I will someday write. Here’s a marginally interesting essay on two philosophers who found meaning in the meaninglessness of nihilism. “Good news for nihilists? Life is meaningless after all, say philosophers.” (H/T Colin Pearce.)

The Ugly

Reject reason and burn the Constitution. So say the supporters of Critical Race Theory. (See here.)

Reason #739 to homeschool. “California Public School Gives Third Graders Assignment About ‘Place on Gender Spectrum’.” The father in this story said the following about the gender spectrum assignment at his son’s school: “After his 9-year-old brought home a school assignment referring to ‘experimenting with gender presentation’ and the ‘gender spectrum,’ Matthew Simmons is concerned that his son is being harmed by what he is taught.” I’m not going to judge Mr. Simmons, but I know this much: if I thought any of my children were being “harmed” in any way at a government school, I would pull them out in a heartbeat and homeschool them or send them to a good private school.

Frank Gehry is surely the world’s greatest living architect of ugliness. Ironically, the pictured building here is Gehry’s design for The Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas.

. . . and the Beautiful

Contrast Gehry’s ugliness with Bryan Larsen’s vision of architectural beauty. Larsen is one of my favorite contemporary painters. Here is his 2008 painting “Breaking Through,” which shows an architect comparing his drawings for a cliffside house with the finished produce. I’ll take Larsen’s vision over Gehry’s any day.

You can see more of Larsen’s work at the Quent Cordair Fine Art gallery, or at Mr. Larsen’s website.

Don’t forget to submit your aesthetic recommendations to: redneckaesthetic@gmail.com.

Please always use as your subject line: “The Beautiful.”

Have great week!