By now you've all probably heard about the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and formed your own opinions about the root cause.  

It's too early to tell whether malice or incompetence was to blame. Regardless of which it is, the lesson I'm choosing to take from this is the same:

This is a harbinger.

We all know that empires collapse slowly, then all at once.  We all know that whether it happens in our lifetime or later, the current unsustainable paradigm will come crashing down. DIE has been allowed to metastasize into applied sciences and the trades; the rot has spread too far for us to get out of this without casualties.  

Indeed, there have already been casualties.  There have been fatalities; remember the Florida International pedestrian bridge in Miami?  Or, more specifically, its collapse in March 2018?  

Probably not.  A lot has happened since then, after all.  

I had to look up the date.  I didn't remember that; what I remember about that bridge collapse wasn't the video, or the date, or the names of the dead.  What I remember about that disaster was watching the DIE pandering of every single entity involved disappear in real time.  If I remember correctly, it was a predominantly, if not entirely, female engineering team that led that project.  An Inclusive and Diverse team of females, if memory serves.

Every single entity involved, from the contractor to the university itself, was immensely proud of that... until they failed.  

Regardless of whether the Francis Scott Key Bridge was destroyed through the same flavor of incompetence as the FIU bridge, there will be more bridges that fail.  Bridges, dams, railways, airplanes, you name it.  There will be more failures, more injuries, more deaths.  It is inevitable.  

Leaving aside arguments about bread and circuses, masses and their opiates, religion and its place in schools and/ or society... setting aside all argument about the root causes, we are now at a point in which Western society consists of a victim hierarchy lorded over by the rich and powerful (a disproportionate number of whom seem to have the same taste in hats, one might notice).  In a society grown so decadent that competence is viewed with suspicion at best and those at the top are willing to burn it all down just to steal anything and everything they can get their hands on, to not acknowledge the incipient failure of the complex systems that enable and sustain the current comfortable First World existence is the height of willful ignorance.

And yet, the suburbs are full of these people.  There are hundreds of them in towns, millions of them in cities and states.  The normie earned its name by being just that: normal. Mundane. The reason we were transitioned from a republic to a democracy is because most people are easily manipulated apes, and they refuse to realize or admit it.  

This makes them all the more dangerous.

They have been bred and trained to be vacuous, perpetually comfortable, convinced of their own intelligence by dint of their ability to parrot back propaganda long enough to regurgitate it onto a test, and taught to constantly reject the concept of duty.  

The normie is the deciding factor in when all this comes to a head.  The normie is the tipping point.  Until a critical mass of normies decides they've had enough, until so many of them become so uncomfortable they can't bear it, realize that their position is completely untenable, and are able to admit that the world they thought they lived in was only ever an illusion- until then, the rest of us are just in a holding pattern.  

I've said it before and I'll say it again: we're all just waiting on the normies to wake up.

Whether they wake up, realize what's been stolen from them, and decide to take it all back; or whether they wake up, become terrified, retreat into the lies of our rulers, and resign themselves to the perpetual slavery of themselves and their progeny, remains to be seen.  But in order to take advantage of the opportunity that will present itself in that moment, friends, we have work to do.

We are the ones who build.

Even if you would not risk opposing the regime outright, every single step you take toward independence, health, and wholesome tradition is a blow to them.  Making memes, posting stickers, writing anonymous articles and/ or pamplets, and questioning narratives aloud is all well and good; but other action is needed as well, and it doesn't yet carry the same risk as does outright dissent.  

Accepting and embracing duty to your family and your community.  Refusing to cede your home to those who come to claim it.  Learning to garden, to cook, to compost, to can food.  Learning to work with your environment, rather than attempting at great effort and expense to terraform your surroundings into insipid postwar suburbia.  Learning to repair, to insulate, to repurpose, to reduce consumption.  Constantly refining skills you have and learning new ones.  Networking with people who have skills and talents you don't, and forming mutually beneficial relationships. Prioritizing genuine kindness and true compassion over vapid niceness.  Learning how and when to keep your mouth shut, whether in real life or on the Internet.  Learning how to stop an emotional reaction in its tracks and recognize when you're being manipulated.

All of these are actions that will directly benefit you and enhance your quality of life.  They are also, therefore, all acts of rebellion against the regime- because your rulers want you to lead an empty life of despair and to exploit you until you are dead.  

Reject that.  Start building.  Start preparing.  Things are going to get worse before they get better, and we may not live to see the day when the opportunity to reclaim our birthright comes.  

That doesn't matter.

What matters is that there is foundation to be laid, children to be taught, dissident libraries to be cultivated, heirloom seeds to be planted, traditions to be preserved, and homes to be built.  Families to be built. Communities to be built.  There is so much to build, brethren, so much to do.  

The world seems to be falling down around our ears.  We'll just rebuild it.  Are we not blessed, to have the opportunity to prove ourselves worthy of our heritage?- regardless of who your ancestors were, among them were warriors, settlers, and farmers.  We have advantages of which they never could have conceived.  

It's time to capitalize on that.  It's time to prove ourselves.  It's time for the hard times to make strong men.  It's time to build.

Let's get started.

It's that time of year again.

Time for cold weather and cozy blankets.  Time for sparkly lights and Christmas (or "seasonal") music on the radio. And at the store, you may very well hear the incessant clamor of a bell at the door. Even if you avoid that particular beggar, the register itself will probably ask you if you'd like to donate to this or that "charitable" cause.  

These "charitable partners" of the retailer are almost inevitably corporate "nonprofits," which can be very profitable indeed for those in their upper management.  How much profit do outfits like Susan G. Komen or March of Dimes or Goodwill make compared to the rest of us encumbered by taxes?  I don't have a number to put to it, but I'd bet my pittance of a wage that it's a lot.

In the spirit of the season, I will spare you my perpetual rant about taxes, and the Fed, and how unwise it is to trust the government with anything - but especially with money.  

Instead, I would like to focus on giving (and to take every single opportunity to belittle the smug suburban NIMBY-ist, because they are among the most loathsome creatures currently infesting our society).  

These are the people who say "Oh, absolutely!" when asked to donate at the register.  The ones who give you the judgmental side-eye when you don't.  The ones who will slip the drunkard begging at the street corner $20 while waiting for the light, and then congratulate themselves the rest of the day for being such a good and generous person.  

The ones who would react with incredulous dismay to any suggestion that instead of giving money, they might've done more good to spend that $20 treating the drunk to a meal (and to be fair, there's much worse company than a street corner drunk who knows how to tell a good story.  Like, say, a suburban NIMBY-ist NPR donor who is So Very Proud of their hybrid car and monoculture lawn, which is of course kept up by a service almost inevitably staffed with a bunch of illegals who wound up in the United States thanks to the ideology and voting patterns of the aforementioned suburban NIMBY-ists).  

Most of these people have never experienced the real world.  They're from the upper or upper middle classes and grew up in nice gated communities, went to college and earned some degree qualifying them for a white collar job.  They then slept around (and called it dating), got married, bought a house in a suburb for an inordinate amount of money, had some kids that they don't make their priority by sacrificing their lives (in the mundane, day to day sense) to raise them. (Mothers who choose to work - I'm looking at you). They get divorced because they "fell out of love" with their partner, and feel hollow inside but can't figure out why because they lack any capacity for true introspection. They take a bunch of SSRIs and devote themselves to "self care" and call it a day because they're Good People.  

You know these people.  I know these people.  We all know these people because the money shielding them from the rest of us rabble in the real world is running out, and so they're beginning to be forced into dealing with the rest of us. They are beginning to learn what it's like to be hungry, to have to look at price tags and to worry about money.  They are beginning to have to learn how to live like the rest of us - those of us who grew up lower-middle or working class. If they hadn't exhausted every last iota of patience and forbearance I had for them long ago I would feel sorry for the poor wretches. It's not like they have the perspective to know what they are.  

But they did exhaust my forbearance for them, and any goodwill I otherwise might have had for them has vanished in my perpetual struggle to get along in this world they have created through enabling.

And that word - enabling - brings me neatly along to the notion of "charitable giving."  The concept is basically outsourcing.

"Here," says a Very Respectable middleman, smiling unctuously at the harried Working Mother as she's checking out at the grocery store.  "I know you're far too busy as it is, and especially with The Holidays you simply don't have the time to do Charity yourself.  Just donate to me, and I'll take care of it for you."  

This is how everything else in her life works - pay someone else to take care of it for you. That's probably what her own soul-crushing salaried job is. And so she smiles, and donates, and thinks of herself as a good person for it.  

​​​​​​​Is she, though?  Or is this paid charity just a cop-out?

When she gives the money she's giving nothing of herself.  It's not that much of a sacrifice for her, because she's used to spending money; it's the most expendable thing she has, really. She's not spending any time on it, she's put little to no thought into it, and she has no personal connection to anyone who will be helped by that money.  Looked at in a certain way, it's not dissimilar to medieval abuse of Catholic indulgences - the "charitable giver" is buying their way out of a duty, in this case the seasonal reminder of your duty to your fellow man and more particularly Your People, however you define what makes other people your own.  

Mrs. Smith pointed this out more succinctly in a Gab post, but the point is too good for me not to restate it here. Charity is supposed to be personal, most especially when undertaken as a Christian duty. Smith also astutely observed that contemporary "charity" - that is, donating money to nonprofits - ignores or circumvents the concept of the "deserving poor," and erases important distinctions between those who are in unfortunate circumstances and those who created their own misfortune.

But no matter your belief system, there's a better way than doing the corporate cop- out.

Take care of those around you!  Look after your own.

Pay attention.  Is someone around you having a hard time?  They might not be obvious about it - maybe they're quieter than usual, or you've caught them zoning out looking worried.  Sometimes all it takes is a concerned word.

Do you know how they take their coffee?  What kind of snacks they like?  Even if all you do is leave a little treat on their desk, that can be the kind of pick-me-up, the little bit of thoughtfulness, that they needed.  And honestly, isn't it better and easier for God to work through you with one small act that'll take you a minute or less, probably, than for you to just throw money at some corporate drone and call it good?  

If you think something complimentary about someone, say it.  If you have the opportunity to do something thoughtful, take it.  That's all you need to do!  You benefit as well - the joy of having done something good for someone who needed it is usually reward enough, but you're also creating a positive association with that person and establishing yourself as someone kind and trustworthy.  There have been numerous times that I was credited with doing something nice that I didn't actually do, just because I made a habit of kindness and established that reputation for myself early on.  This has benefited me immensely, and that's just in ways I can see- there are probably many more ways, subtle ways, of which I am unaware.  

But as with so many other issues, the best way to address it is by taking direct action yourself.  So, friends, go forth into the world and do good.  Be good by doing good. Do this, and regardless of where or in what circumstances you find yourself, it will almost certainly be a Merry Christmas.  ​

I was working the other day, driving, and a military jet flew overhead.  

Not unusual; there are a couple of military bases in the area.  What was unusual was my reaction.

For the first time in my life, there was no joy or awe or pride. For the first time in my life, my emotional reaction was wariness; my subconscious interpreted the jet as a potential threat.  The first thought that sprang to mind was wondering about the pilot: Was it one of the military's diversity hires up there?  

Something similar happened on July 4th this year. This year, Independence Day felt farcical, felt mocking, in a way it never has before.  I felt no fellowship with the people who were celebrating with heartfelt, genuine patriotism; I looked around and saw nothing of which I could be proud.  I looked around and saw Southerners flying the Federal flag, I heard them playing hackneyed songs from hypocritical singers who sold out long ago to moneyed interests who subvert any authenticity in the art, and I realized that there is nothing in this hollowed out corpse of a once- great nation to justify pride except history out of living memory; the legacy our rulers are so eager (and desperate) to denigrate, that they want to stamp out entirely - and us with it.  

It felt so strange. I would love to be proud of my state and my nation... but I cannot, because there is nothing except dead history of which I can be proud.  My state and my nation have done nothing in my lifetime, my parents' lifetime, and arguably my grandparents' lifetime, worthy of pride.  They have only ceded ground to enemies and allowed themselves to be denigrated and used.  

​​​​​​​I suppose this sense of alienation is the price of truth.

And perhaps this is a Southern rite of passage. My parents were subjected in their own day to sneers and jeers about Southerners being losers, and the Confederate flag a symbol of disgrace that those who fly it and take pride in it are too stupid to recognize as such.  

As though these same people don't honor the American Indian or actual Indians or the Zulu or any other number of peoples on the losing side of a conflict for their valor in the struggle.  

No, it's their forced countrymen that they take such mean-spirited entertainment in denigrating.  

This has never hurt my feelings; I have no respect someone for their mocking or ill opinion to hurt, and I do not and never have particularly respected insects.  No, instead such mockery only underscores how right my ancestors were.  

Are these really my countrymen, these people who wish me ill?  These people who mock my honored dead, who sneer at my heritage, who laugh at my accent, who expect me to kneel before them and lick boot? I'm expected to feel some sort of kinship with them, kinship under the Federal flag that my ancestors died fighting? (Or rather, my ancestors' fathers and brothers- few enough of ours made it home that I'm not sure I even have any Confederate veterans in my immediate ancestry.)  

No.  No, I do not feel any particular kinship with the Yankee and his nasal accent, the Midwesterner and his odd gelatinous food, much less the West Coast hippie. The South is my home, Southerners my people, and I don't much care for anything or anyone else.

When the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993 made the news as I was eating my breakfast, my reaction was a calm, "Who cares, it's just a bunch of Yankees?" It horrified my mother, but this is how humanity is wired.   Attempting to care about the entire world will drive you mad.  We are made to care about our own- expand that circle out too far, and you will exhaust yourself.  Compassion fatigue is not limited to first responders.  

We were never meant to care about the great mass of humanity, and convincing people that they were is one of the greatest disservices, one of the greatest "crimes against humanity," that has ever been perpetuated.

Yankees are not my people.  Midwesterners are not my people.  West Coasters are not my people.  The Federal flag is not my flag.  I may adopt those immigrants who themselves adopt the South, love her, and assimilate into my circle; I may choose to call worthy Yankees or Midwesterners my brothers; but at the end of the day the South is my home, and Southerners my people.  Names on tombstones in the local graveyards mean more to me now than the creatures dwelling in DC or rioting in Portland or [finally formally and openly] usurping the First Amendment in Maine.  
The older I get the more things I realize my grandparents were right about.  And so the Federal government can go hang. I will honor my ancestors by living well, and doing my best to prove worthy of the name and heritage to which I was born.

No matter where I live, I will have a garden (no matter how small or ragged), as my parents and grandparents and great grandparents did.  I will cook real food, as my mother and grandmother and great grandmothers did.  I will strive to be thrifty, as they were; now that I have finally found my style, I will dress as well as my grandmothers did; I will keep a robust sense of humor like my great grandfather, and I will be as bullheaded and irascible as any of them when I see fit, and without their alcoholism to grease those gears.  

I'm done calling myself an American.  I'm a Southerner, and dammit, I'm gonna live like one.   

"I don't want to be a lady!" I shrieked in my father's face, and at the time I meant it.

My idea of a "lady" looked mostly like my grandmothers, and none more than Grandmama.

Grandmama, with her iron self control. Grandmama, the one adult whom I never, ever dared try. Grandmama, from whom I never heard the words, "I love you," to me or anyone else, even as a response when someone else said it first.  Grandmama, who I can't remember ever laughing, though I know she must have.

I still don't want to be a lady like that.  

But what I failed to realize as an angry teenager was that there is not just one way to be a lady. Grandmama's borderline inhuman self control and impeccable manners are inarguably ladylike - so long as the ones arguing can agree on terms rooted in reality - but Grandmama was not the be- all and end- all of what a lady is.

After all, I had other grandmothers; and as much as Grandmama was a Grand Dame of the South, so too were Granny and Mimi.  

And weren't Granny's gentleness and faith ladylike? Weren't Mimi's beauty and charm ladylike?

I came to realize that the key was to gracefully accept and emulate the best of my grandmothers, and to improve upon and surpass their flaws - just like any other part of my heritage.  

To use beauty and charm as valuable tools, as my Mimi did - but without relying on them as a crutch.  To know how to be gentle, and to pray in times of trouble as Granny did - but without the years of abuse it took her to get there.  To know the value of manners as Grandmama did- but to know when to put their shield aside and be vulnerable, as I never, ever saw her do.  That's the kind of lady I try to be.  

And it's paid off.  

Though I work in a male-dominated field, I've never seen the rampant misogyny about which the feminists love to shriek.  And while I have encountered misogyny, it was never from the men from whom I was told to expect it. The most workplace misogyny I ever saw or experienced was from a gay man working in a grocery store bakery.  

In almost two decades of retail and blue collar working experience, and in a lifetime of interacting with others, I have found that nothing earns a woman more respect and goodwill than when she acts like a lady.

So what do I mean by that?

Not sleeping around, for one. (At first I thought it was just the place where I was working, but now I think it's that people are Just That Way, at least post 1960s "sexual revolution").  I've had a few friends and acquaintances who are undeniably sluts, no matter whether you consider that a pejorative or not - women who either engaged in casual sex or bedded men not married to them. I don't know that any of them fully realize how much respect they lost from others by their conduct.  

Is it really so difficult to keep your legs closed?

And then there are women - too many of whom are handed a microphone - who deny biological reality - women who insist that they are the same as men, women who venerate the word "equality" and pervert its meaning at every opportunity. It is prudent to avoid these women as the threats they are, but it's horrifically amazing to see the sheer hubris of a woman who can fail physical ability tests again and again, then insist that standards be lowered, and then to refuse to admit that she wants the standards lowered because she wants a title she hasn't earned!

But then, why wouldn't she, when she's been told all her life that Girls Rule, that she's Special, that she can do and be whatever she wants?  What chance do biology and reality stand against a lifetime of ideological coaching and the looming shadow of every single societal institution?

She may find it reassuring that she can steal the title, but it won't earn her the respect of the men with whom she works.  If she ever gains the least scintilla of humility and wants to earn their respect, the only way for her to do so is through admitting her fault, years of hard work, staying quiet unless and until she has something of actual value to contribute, and helping others without any expectation or demand of recompense.

In other words, the opposite of what got her there in the first place.

Seeing how many of them there are and the lofty heights to which they can climb in any organization they infest (largely in administrative roles, you'll note), it's easy to get discouraged. An ambitious woman who happens to have integrity and self respect might be forgiven for considering adopting their methods and rationalizing using those tactics by telling herself that she's just playing the game to win.

My dear, it's not worth it.

The women who sleep their way to the top, or those who get there by backstabbing, stealing credit, lying, or plying whatever diversity cards they hold - unless they're psychopaths - they're miserable.  These are the ones who make up those statistics about SSRI use and depression, and who make up the stereotype about Millennial spinsters or divorcees and their cats and box wine.  

They're hollowed-out husks of people, with shallow, screaming eyes when you look closely (and you won't be able to look closely for long; there's something uncanny about them).  They're pathetic creatures, and there's somewhere between little and nothing in them worth emulating.  

But when a woman carries herself with self respect; when she's polite, hardworking, and sincere; when she honestly acknowledges both her strengths and her faults, and takes them into account; when she thanks those who offer her help in the same spirit in which it was offered, even when she didn't need it; when she refrains from gossip, especially malicious gossip; when she does her best to take care of those around her even when she doesn't particularly like them; all of these things are ladylike, and every single one of them earns respect.

And while it may be difficult, every single one of them is achievable even in toxic work environments.  Sometimes it means keeping your head down and your mouth shut; sometimes it means using knowledge strategically; most often it means knowing when to leave. (The time to leave, by the by, is always before you're trapped or tricked into doing something unethical or illegal- because if you let them maneuver you into that, you're seating yourself under a sword of Damocles.)

Wisdom and good judgment are also ladylike.

A woman is an adult human female; being a woman is not an accomplishment, since all it takes is being born that way.  But to be a lady is to choose to be a good woman, to be the best woman that you can.  Continually making that choice is worthy of respect.

​​​​​​​Turns out I'd rather be a lady after all.