My father flunked the 6^th grade twice. He was probably dyslexic, among other things, back in the days when dyslexia was called “stupidity.”

He wasn’t a high school dropout, because he never made it to high school. He dropped out of the 8^th grade to support his widowed mother in the Great Depression. He ultimately died early of liver cirrhosis.

He sometimes predicted that I would wind up in prison if I didn’t first get sent to the state mental hospital.

But he was always around and had a good job. He helped raise four children who earned a total of nine college degrees including a Ph.D. in Physics and a J.D. in Law. His presence was the main reason that I defied his prediction, despite my worst efforts.

The illegitimacy rate among blacks in America is 77%. Continue reading →

Once upon a time, there was a shining castle on a hill. It was conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that under the law all men are created equal.

Texts from the founders of the castle promised the people they could speak their mind, practice their religion and defend themselves and their belongings. The founders were revered for their wisdom, and in the castle were many monuments and statues to honor them.

The good people thrived, and more good people came. Like all people, they were flawed. But they were always striving for a more perfect union for themselves and their castle.

To fulfill their promise of equality under the law, over half a million castle dwellers died in a great civil war among themselves. Twice they sailed across the seas to save the world – once from fascists and once from socialists. They put men on the moon.

This castle was revered everywhere.

But the world descended into darkness, lies, confusion and evil. Fascists calling themselves anti-fascists looted and burned. Continue reading →

Karl Marx was a shallow-thinking loser who understood economics poorly and human nature worse.

But give the left credit. Some of Marx’s pragmatic successors such as Lenin, Stalin and Mao were amazingly successful for a while. They and their henchmen succeeded in killing 100 million people and fought a Cold War for the future of humanity that they almost won. Almost.

By the way, imagine the conundrum at the New York Times and such places. They’re tempted to blame Ronald Reagan for defeating communism, but they’re afraid that their few un-woke readers (they probably still have a few that are un-woke) would construe that as a compliment to Reagan.

In point of fact, Reagan deserves lots of credit but the person deserving nearly as much is Pope John Paul II. The former cardinal in Soviet-occupied Poland stood for the Judeo-Christian proposition that truth exists. That truth, he preached, would set you free. Continue reading →

The virus apparently produces insanity, even in people who don’t catch it.

Here in Aspen, iron-fisted totalitarians that we used to call “petty government bureaucrats” sometimes but not always post signs commanding us to keep six feet apart when hiking through the forest.

On the other hand, patrons in Aspen restaurants are now permitted to eat without masks, even when seated together, which is good because it’s been hard to squeeze food through those little pores in the mask. On the other, other hand, a restaurant was cited for permitting patrons to walk to their table without a mask.

There are other arbitrary exceptions to the mask rules. Consider a trustafarian Aspen city council boy named Skippy (yes, that’s his real name). For a guy who’s never had a real job, Skippy is very busy. He’s organizing the protest thing in Aspen. Continue reading →

Urban trekking around Denver the other day, I happened across a protest march of maybe a thousand people. Here’s what I observed.

The marchers were almost all white. I saw fewer than a dozen black people and no Hispanics.

Most were young women looking vaguely guilt-ridden. They were well-dressed, well-groomed and well-fed. I’m not passing judgment, mind you, but just reporting the facts.

Some were in small groups of similar young women. Some were with boyfriends, who were neither well-groomed nor well-fed. They were scrawny and scruffy, if you ask me, with thin beards.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a guy with a body and beard that are thin and a girlfriend who’s not. Again, I’m just reporting the facts.

Most wore COVID masks. In virtue signaling, their march and their masks made the day a twofer.

Many carried signs displaying slogans like “Black Lives Matter” and “Justice for George.”

I agreed with those signs, at least the literal words of them. George deserves justice just as everyone does, and black lives matter just as all lives do.

The marchers surely aren’t worried that we onlookers reading those innocuous signs will don our MAGA hats, pull our 9 mm and shout: “No! Black lives do not matter! And no justice for George!”

So why were the marchers there? Continue reading →

We all know the story. In the first chapter, they transformed the laugh line “I demand a recount” into actual demands for recounts. But the recounts didn’t materially change the vote totals.

Then they asked the Electoral College to defy the will of the people they represented. That, too, didn’t work.

The next chapter was the smear that Trump had colluded with the Russians. But the only collusion they could find in their two-year investigation was the Dems’ own payment of millions of dollars for a fake Russian “dossier” fantasizing that the president – a noted germophobe – engaged in pee-pee sex.

Meanwhile, the outgoing Dem administration used this dossier they knew was fake to get warrants to spy on the incoming Republican administration.

Trump’s approval ratings held steady.

Then there was Ukraine. Continue reading →

Was she a mask Nazi, or a masked Nazi? She was both. Here’s the story.

I was hiking alone in the Colorado Rockies. I encountered a woman rounding a bend in the trail who muttered something to me as we passed one another. I said, “Excuse me?”

She unloaded on me with a tirade of unprintable curses and uncompromising demands that I wear a mask, like hers. So worked up was she that the microdroplets expectorated straight through her mask at approximately 3,400 mph.

Colorado still does not require masks for solitary activities like showering (I sincerely hope not to encounter her there) and hiking alone in the woods. Apparently, she personally has a different rule and she insists that everyone else follow it. Continue reading →

The odds of a young healthy American catching and dying of the COVID virus are roughly 1 in 70,000 and going down. Their odds of dying of sunstroke are ten times greater. Their odds of dying in a car wreck or by suicide are a thousand times greater.

So why are many young healthy people afraid of dying of the virus? I have a theory.

It’s because fear is pleasurable. Bear with me.

Our modern lives are plushily furnished with everything we need and most of what we desire, except the stimulation for which we evolved. We no longer engage in the difficult, risky and exciting hunting, gathering, war-making, animal-fighting and harem-building for which we evolved.

Instead, we sit in cubicles, sit in rush hour traffic, sit watching sports and sit in front of predictable LED screens that display exactly what we want, no more and no less.

People are shaped like pears these days because they act like pears. Continue reading →

Martha Stewart and Michael Flynn have something in common. Both were nearly ruined for lying to the cops.

In Stewart’s case, she was accused of insider trading for accepting the recommendation of her broker to sell some stock. In doing so, she avoided a loss that was paltry by her standards, less than $50,000.

She was acquitted on the charge that her stock sale was illegal, but was convicted on charges that she had lied to federal investigators about the circumstances of it.

For that, she served time in a federal prison and her media empire was nearly destroyed. She rebuilt her companies, and today she’s once again the crème de la crème of homes and gardens.

Stewart’s decorating style is not my style, mind you, but readers who’ve seen my homes will know that’s a compliment to her. Continue reading →

A Marxist is credited with saying “by any means necessary” in a 1960 speech entitled “Why we use violence.” In other words, the reason Marxists use violence is that violence is necessary to accomplish their goals.

Later the slogan was commandeered by communist sympathizer Jean-Paul Sartre. He stated, “It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lies: it is by eradicating class by any means necessary.”

French philosophers always complicate things. This one thought the way to abolish lies was by eradicating class, violently if necessary. Wouldn’t it be better to just tell the truth?

Malcolm X later declared he intended “to bring into existence” a new day “by any means necessary.” Continue reading →