I just noticed an issue of National Review in which I had left several flags to re-review later. The issue is July of 24, and all of the flags landed between pages 14 and 15. I am not going to repeat their writing here, though it is surely better than mine. I just want to react to their words.
The AR-15. I am going to repeat what my son-in-law told me years ago. He drew a picture of a basic 22-caliber rifle, and then attached a long handle to it, and maybe a telescope. But the key to the matter of the weapon being dangerous or misused was this: It is not automatic. One press of the trigger releases one round of ammunition. Holding the trigger down will not fire more rounds. The impression that people have from the news is that the AR-15 is a machine gun, but machine guns are illegal.
NR reviewed a Washington Post compilation of its multi-stage investigation of the AR-15, citing a former colleague Kevin D. Williamson that the WaPo series is “scientifically illiterate, error-ridden, propagandistic, and willfully misleading.” NR notes that WaPo even confused bullet velocity with rate of fire. WaPo, of course, won a Pulitzer for the series, as the AR-15 is a popular target for the left.
Caitlin Clark of the University of Iowa scored more points in basketball than any other player, male of female, in NCAA history. She will be paid $76,535 as the number one pick of the Indiana Fever. The WNBA makes about $200 million in annual revenue, compared to $10 billion for the NBA. NR uses this opportunity to take a shot at unions in general, sports unions in particular. They conclude that Clark’s $28 million shoe deal with Nike along with many other endorsements only goes to show that unions reward mediocrity, while markets reward excellence. Actually, I side with NR on this matter.
MIT will no longer require diversity statements from potential faculty hires. I was not aware of the practice, of course, but find such statements, along with other virtue signals (like public apologies) to be degrading. I think it is perfectly all right for a human being to be prejudiced in some manner, as in believing that blacks are not as smart as whites. It’s such a general belief that cannot be disproven, but eventually as we age and if we pay attention to the world around us, we will find so many exceptions as to force the belief to be abandoned. It’s a complicated world.
The Boy Scouts of America have changed its name to “Scouting America”, this to allow for new policies such as allowing gays to be troop leaders and to welcome girls who identify as boys to belong. I don’t care about any of that. I think that forcing children to wear uniforms is not cool, and robs them of individuality, or at least attempts to do so. But I did once belong to Boy Scouts, for a short while. Two things made me quit: One, a disapproving look from my older brother, whom I idolized, as I put on my BSA uniform one night prior to going to a meeting. The other was a meeting where the scoutmaster said we should conclude the evening by playing games. He asked for suggestions, and I ever the smart ass said “How about ring around the rosie?” Later one of the big shot older scouts took me aside and warned me that “We don’t talk like that around here.” I think I just faded away from scouting, with no encouragement to continue from any quarter, for which I am grateful.
AI dating apps for women: I have never used an app to get a date, mostly because when I last dated before meeting my wife, 29 years ago, there were none. I simply found someone I liked and asked her out. Since almost all relationships eventually fizzle on their own, I would suggest that my success rate was about as high as anyone currently swiping left or right on Tinder. NR’s take is that it used to be common for parents to find a spouse for their children, which, oddly, is mostly not frowned upon and is still practiced in much of the world. I will close with NR’s poignant final words on the subject:
“[We’re now] in an era of online porn and loneliness. If AI can make sense of modern dating, we’ll have to admit it can do something humans can’t.”
Piece of Mindful 
Mag Bitter Truth exposed Caitlin Clark as a man, on You Tube. That photo looks 100% male.
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[Sigh]
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Does anyone else see it? Just curious. He looks like my son in law.
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”Straight across shoulders, tree trunk neck, bony chest…” to quote the Mag.
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I forgot: this subject is taboo. I thought you would add your two cents in with the story. Sorry
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I’d say there’s a decent chance you’re right she’s no natural born woman. And, sorry to say, but sports are a complete waste of time. Competing as well as following. I was a very serious bike racer from the age of 16-26, it was the focus of my life aside from getting through school at the time. Although I would no longer spend so much time training just to be competitive, I don’t regret it, since it gave me time to think, and I learned the sport on my own (there’s quite a bit of strategy to bicycle racing – which only survives at the amateur level, that radios and professional teams completely destroyed), about the same time brain dead cancer faker Armstrong took over the sport. As far as other sports I hated team sports and having to listen a coach and follow their orders.
But now that I’m older I see it all as bread and circuses. To make it worse they push sports gambling as hard as possible. If trans are competing in women’s sports well good luck to them.
The MAG is only decent person left on bitchute, I like listening to him at 1.75X speed, at a normal cadence it’s too slow for me.
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We have a grandson, now 18, who has turned out to be an excellent young man, hard-working, kind, considerate, and an excellent athlete. I suggested to his mom that a large part of his development can be credited to his father-driven lifelong devotion to hockey, a tough sport requiring dedication and discipline. She said maybe so, but don’t overlook his being born with a nice disposition. True enough, and that disposition has worked against him in his success as an athlete. Coaches at one point or another have not given him placement in the upper echelons of Colorado hockey claiming that he is not tough enough. That has worked against him, but he fights on.
John Cleese credits much of his development into a man of character to football, saying that the sport (we call it soccer) taught him the value of hard work and comradery, including respect for opponents. Same with our grandson.
I do not undervalue sports. If you look at Babe [Didrikson Zaharias] you’ll see a woman born with many masculine features, making a great golfer, but not a tranny. I bristle at this notion that trannies are all about. It’s too easy. It could be that Caitlin Clark is just a woman gifted with many male qualities who worked her ass off, not fitting into assigned gender roles and making the most of it. I refuse to buy off on “tranny” here tranny everywhere. It’s not that simple.
Professional sports, Lance Armstrong doping, gambling, rigged outcomes, yeah, all of that is offputting, but amateur sports has great value, and one of the greatest advances in society as we view it today, shaping and molding thousands of young women beyond what they were in the 50s and 60s, goes by the moniker “Title 9.”
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Great discussion! Enjoyed reading both your perspectives. I can see both sides of it, kind of a huge topic that could fill entire books (though not many sports books have been written about its social engineering or societal impact aspects.)
Personally, my fondest memories of playing “sports” were just neighborhood block games. Very elaborate sometimes. Huge fun. Occasionally we played more standard sports, if a kid in that mold pushed for it. And that could even be fun – still off on our own, not organized by adults. But our massive games of bike chase, capture the flag, bottle rocket battles, hide and seek, etc etc.. fairly epic. My life today is a pale shadow by comparison 😂
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Moreover it’s well documented most modern sports were invented, probably by Masons (for sure baseball and golf), in the 17th century by the English to destroy the church. They heavily encouraged sports attendance and drinking on Sundays and persecuted the Puritans. The puritans take a lot of flak, but given a choice between this “civilization” and present state of Western Culture, I’ll live with the Puritans.
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There is a very interesting series on Hulu about many things, including sports, and how the equipment used came about. Among many interesting factoids, baseball was originally played without mitts. Use of mitts was considered effeminate in the beginning. Football was played without equipment. Invention of the forward pass allowed for an easing of injuries as before players had to go head-on into the defense, smash mouth all the way. It was indeed Knute Rockne and Notre Dame that pioneered the passing game.
https://www.hulu.com/series/b2250f82-20a5-4a01-a09e-31e9d6a2a0d6
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Don’t forget kick the can, street hockey, wiffle ball (I loved how each of us had custom rules in our yards as to what was considered a single, double, etc.) One on wiffle ball was the best, we would switch sides of the plate every bat to add to the challenge, I learned to hit lefty that way. And smear the queer, BB gun wars, etc. Come over some afternoon and lets play! I’m into backyard archery now.
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As far as all team sports, I really hated participating in them. Waiting around, traveling, wasting time, listening to stupid coaches (not tough enough – if any coach told me that I’d tell them to meet me outside). But you know the worst part of hockey, football, soccer – sports injuries. I posit it is a very bad idea to sacrifice your body so you can show up to your high school reunion as a high school has-been, with artificial knees from hits they took in high school, or an alcohol problem them developed in college in their sports fraternity, as many of them are infamous drinkers and general idiots. If you really care about your offspring, and subsequent generations, you would not let them near these idiotic contact gladiatorial sports. You’d take them hiking, have them learn to play the piano, read serious literature, and stay away from mindless jock goons. My college, Rensselaer, was the most anti-jock place ever. All our teams sucked. But I’ll be per capita we are the richest graduates in the country, look it up, a boatload of engineers from RPI made it big the past several decades. You think the elite let their kids play contact sports so they can end up with a brain injury? Please.
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Starting Salaries for Rensselaer Graduates Are Among Nation’s Highest | News (rpi.edu)
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FYI I’m not stating this to thump my chest, like some MMs types. My point is athletics were nothing at RPI, a joke, and the graduates do best. Go figure.
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Title 9, girls sports? Why exactly do girls need to play sports? Why can’t they just exercise and stay in shape? Who gives a F about women’s sports they are so boring. College sports that are not club levels should be eliminated, while that eliminate most colleges too.
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By the way I just wanted to apologize Mark I was too heavy handed in some of my remarks – bad habit. I am very glad for your grandson, and the values you espouse that he gained from playing hockey are mostly valuable. I have just known way too many people hurt playing contact sports that always made me question the point of the game. Sports are often violent in the nature of what we ask our bodies, starting and stopping suddenly, no warm up etc., that aren’t necessarily good exercises for longevity.
As a child, the Daryl Stingley hit that paralyzed him really frightened and depressed me, he was one of my favorite Patriots and to have him lose his life (I consider paralysis equivalent to death) for an exhibition game was very tragic.
Darryl Stingley, paralyzed by Tatum hit, dies at 55 – ESPN
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Also Happy Fathers day to Mark and all the Fathers out there.
All this sports talk is bringing back some repressed memories of mine. 100% true story: In 1983, in 8th grade I broke Michael Jacksons nose with a baseball between the eyes. I was playing catcher on our babe ruth team (I always loved playing catcher because of the constant action) when I spied the runner leaning off first base. I jumped up and gunned it (my arm wasn’t that great, but boy this throw was true) to first, covered by the coaches son, whose name was Michael Jackson. Michael was not paying attention and I screamed at him as I threw to get ready. Ball hits him smack center face, knocks him out for second, bloody nose and trip to the ER for him, he recovered of course. I felt so bad, even though I was not guilty of trying to hurt him. Good times, good memories.
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One of the lessons of sports (not all are violent) is controlled aggression. More so as youth than as older adults, we all have anger and need to vent it. Sports are a mostly healthy outlet for that aggression.
Hockey is perhaps the most violent sport of all, even more so than football. Not only are the players checking each other with violence, they are also trash-talking all the way.
So sorry about the Stingley tragedy. He played because he was a talented athlete and football was a good way to make money and, I almost wrote … “he knew the risks”. Had he really known the risks, he would have gone down my path … accounting.
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His grandson, Derek, has done alright playing fooooball.
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Also, it is not that women’s sports are fun (or not) to watch. It is that women are awarded scholarships and can get a higher education based on athletics. They also get all of the other benefits of competitive sports, including comradery, superb physical conditioning, and the thrill of victory and agony of defeat.
Of course, they are losing much of what they have fought for and won as transgender males enter female sports. That’s an absurd tragedy.
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and it’s also less opportunity for the fellas. I have a brother that ran track at a mac school back in the amorphous day. Hoy en dia said school has no mens track thanks to title 9.
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Does anyone else here want to pay higher tuition for college so that some kid who may not be super-bright, but who can run and jump and dunk, can get college for free and then go into the NBA? Go TEAM!
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Universities funding sports makes about as much sense as public funding, aka taxes, being used for “scientific” research in universities. FYI when they discover something at the university, the university and typically a big shot professor, owns the patent, with the public and lab scientists who did the work getting next to nothing. I could write a book talking about the corruption of the universities, and throw in the not-for-profit non-governmental organizations, plus all tax-exempt religions (how exactly does one get one’s religion declared as sufficiently “religious” to qualify for tax exempt status?) College sports frankly are useless vestige of the university/elite indoctrination mechanism of American colleges of the 19th and 20th centuries. I’m not aware of athletics even existing at the original and present-day European universities.
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mens foooball and basketball are earners. They pay for title 9. Most schools charge an activity fee or charge students a discounted game day ticket.
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Eisenhower warned about all of this, in his famous farewell speech where he warned of the military-industrial complex. He also warned of a “scientific-technical elite.
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Machine guns are legal in some States. I know several women that look like men but they are natural females, probably why it’s soo easy to claim tranny, just falls into the media narrative of distractions. The men are pigs, illuminati, trannys, adrenochrome drinkers, black eye club, cloning, fake deaths..etc.. I guess some of those topics have been around for awhile but seemed to amp up around Covid when people were off work and able to discuss it more.
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It gets absorbed into that sideshow of controlled op and distractions, but.. doesn’t everything? True, false, and in-between? I think there’s a little more to it. For starters, androgyny is a big part of esotericism, mystery cults, etc, for ages and ages. Now how deep it really goes, how seriously it’s taken or pervasive at high levels.. that I don’t know. Like we don’t know the truth about most things in those circles. Maybe they’re more ordinary than we’d expect, or maybe much stranger.
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From AI: “Machine guns are legal in the US, but with significant restrictions. To own a machine gun, you must be a licensed collector or dealer, and the gun must have been legally registered before May 19, 1986. State laws may also apply, and some states have more restrictive regulations.”
TIFWIW.
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On the sport question. I’m not sure where I sit with it. I think the physical damage done is much higher in Australia than the USA or Europe.
I had a troubled day yesterday (Sunday) coaching my daughter’s U12 AFL team. Parents have some strange expectations of opposition and umpires.
I do believe sport overall does a great job with social engineering and controlling the population in general.
I also umpire some football with my 11 year old daughter. I do believe that is very valuable for her ($84 per game for her just over $150-200 for me) and 8-14 km running per game plus decision making leadership etc.
I wasted and still waste a lot of time and energy on sport. But the learnings (outside of don’t waste time on bs) were invaluable. What I should have done was umpired instead of playing (after about age 12-18). I could have gotten all the benefits without the draw backs.
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So as far as university sports being “earners”, who exactly is earning the money? Well for one, I know the top paid employees in most states are the football and basketball coaches at State U. I’m glad they make $10 million plus, it’s terribly important my State U beats your state U, and then generates revenue for the (not-for-profit?) university and the not-for-profit NCAA? So that the NCAA can license players likenesses for videogames and partner with ESPN to put on a great March madness, so that everyone can play and everyone can earn, just become a sports gambler!
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Ohio state football “earns” about 60 million a year in ticket sales per annum and the network tv deals basically match that.
I do agree the coaches are horrendously over paid btw.
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