Archive for the ‘culture’ Category

Under the Fedora: Jonah Goldberg and the New Rules, Pride Month Savings on Sports, The annual Business ritual, More Utilitarian Candidates, What Bread of Life Discourses?

Posted: June 3, 2024 by datechguy in Blame Trump, business, catholic, culture, election 2024, elections, politics, Sports, under the fedora
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This weekend Jonah Goldberg noted that a lot of people on the right were comparing Trump to Christ and weren’t taking into account the idea that he cheated on his wife with a porn star.

Well there are two things I’d like to say to that. While Jonah is of course free do disagree on the merits of either verdict the fact is we compare Trump to Christ because Trump we believe both were found guilty unjustly, not of sleeping around but of a completely made up bookkeeping felony, so like Christ he was unjustly found guilty. Nobody (with the possible exception of Laura Loomer) on the right compares Trump to Christ’s divinity.

Second while I do in fact find it plausible that a really rich guy decided to bang a porn star and tried to keep it quiet (frankly I’d hate to have my performance in bed judged by a professional) folks like me who under the old rules thought such things should be disqualifying were massively outvoted on said rules so until the left decides to go back to said rules we aren’t either.

We’re in the middle of a baseball season where the Redsox have a great crop of young players and at the end of a basketball season where the Celtics are in the finals with a solid shot of winning and least we forget the Pats have a new 1st round QB and an old Brady era vet to mentor him. All these things are strong temptations to have me pony up for one of various sports packages from NESN to MLB to NBA etc etc etc…

…and then June roles around and all the professional teams go out of their way to remind me that they are not on my side in the culture wars and suddenly radio and hitting a local bar/restaurant to watch a game rather then giving these guys my money becomes an attractive alternative.

My thanks to various leagues for helping me appreciate the joy of free sports.

Oh and the annual ritual of business shoving gay pride down our throats in the west while making it a point to avoid the same in the middle east continues as always, with BMW actually admitting what we all know that it’s all about the risk and reward of the mob.

Of course in a new years the Ghastly Tom Hagan math will catch up with the west and when it does the west will drop their pride campaigns faster than the Democrats dropped Israel

Speaking of a lack of principles there are quite a few GOP candidates who had been pushing their pro-life credentials in the past who suddenly find themselves willing to compromise on life to gain higher office.

Now there are no shortage of Democrats who run as republicans in red states or republican who run as dems in blue states to get power nor is there a shortage in either party of people whose primary principle is to advance their political power. And the reality is that given the number of honest men & women in politics you likely can’t get a majority without these sorts.

So when there is no other choice by all means elect them but keep such folks away from the true levers of party power because people willing to sell out their principles or their God will have little trouble selling you.

Finally episode one of the Chosen is available free and those who expected to see the aftermath of the feeding of the 5000 and the calming of the waters which closed last season might have been shocked to see they went back to Luke Chapter 1 to the Visitation as their lead.

Granted they decided to knock off John the Baptist in episode one but if there is one thing you could always be sure of in any protestant movie about Christ skips the 6th chapter of John once it reaches verse 26 the beginning of the bread to life discourses. The only exception being word for word adaptions of Gospel.

Given that The Chosen is a TV series rather than a movie there would have been more than enough time to include them but as Catholic as Jonathan Roumie is, he does not have creative control so the bread of life discourses had to go.

Don’t get me wrong, it was a good episode and I liked the juxtaposition of the Canticle of Zachariah (the Morning Prayer of the Catholic Church) with the scenes of John’s end and the reaction to it but some things never change, and if you were expecting to see The Chosen break that mold you will be mistaken.

Oh and I’d watch it via the youtube live stream because the loading time of the app seems to be very slow likely due to the sheer number of people trying to watch it there.

These are the type of Numbers that Might Trigger the Worst Case Scenario

Posted: June 1, 2024 by datechguy in culture
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Saw a poll result that made my jaw drop:

Logically none of this makes sense, not the reaction mind you, but the over the top efforts to destroy Trump since day one. In the normal order of things the left would take a loss, regroup, wait for a mistake and try to win at the polls.

The degree of all this stuff suggest they consider Trump a extremital threat beyond a mere election and know that they have crossed the legal and moral line to such a degree that if a Trump, uncompromised by the swamp, investigates and reveals it their destruction of their prerogatives is assured.

So if we’re not reached a point where Trump has NY state in play we’re talking Nixon 1972 numbers which are beyond the capacity to steal, the “To Big to Rig” scenario that President Trump has advanced.

Given what we’ve seen and the sheer panic I suspect this will generate the worst case scenario.

  1. The left panics as the Trump train, driven by the unjust verdict, becomes unstoppable
  2. Thanks to the situation in Ohio Biden can’t be replaced at the convention
  3. Left arranges assassination of Biden (and possibly Harris as well) to get him off ticket, blames right
  4. Left uses this as grounds for massive repression of the right leading to an actual shooting civil war

To say this would be a disaster for the country is the understatement of the century, yet given what I’ve seen over the last seven years I can’t imagine that stopping our friends on the left who seem to have gone utterly mad.

I’m old enough to remember when I would have mocked such a possibility as lunacy.

I’m Glad Christ is God & King and not Me…

Posted: May 27, 2024 by datechguy in culture
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…because I’d have a hard time finding these folks worth dying to save their souls for.

And the thought that men died to give them this freedom sickens me. They are the true successors to Mike Wallace and Peter Jennings from this panel

In the end we have to pray for them and remembering three things:

  1. When John Says “God so loves the world that he gave his only begotten son” There was no “fine print” excluding sinners we disapprove of.
  2. When Christ died for the sins of man again there was no list of excluded sins or sinners.
  3. The Lord’s Prayer explicitly asks God to forgive our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.

These are simple rules of Christianity, which is why sometimes they are very hard.

USA Today Accidently Conforms the Nellie Bowles Story

Posted: May 26, 2024 by datechguy in business, culture
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Detective Gregory: Is there any other point to which you would wish to draw my attention?

Sherlock Holmes: To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.

Detective Gregory: The dog did nothing in the night-time.

Sherlock Holmes: That was the curious incident.

Arthur Conan Doyle: The Adventure of Silverblaze 1896

At Instapundit there is a link to a pair of stories about the Nellie Bowles book about how the New York times decided to ignore reality in their reporting. This part really jumped out at me:

First, it was blunting my reporting. It was saying you can’t report on the most interesting stories of the day, which was really frustrating and crazy-making a little bit because it was like, “What do you mean we’re not supposed to cover the riots? What do you mean we’re not supposed to talk about” … you name it, hot-button issue of the day. And basically there was a media blackout for a while.

I call it now time wandering, which is all of the most interesting issues. You’re allowed to talk about it in the world of all the Substacks, the conservative media covers it, and the liberal media waits about two or three years and then they’re allowed to touch it.

On the same day that Glenn Reynolds posted this I saw a link in Don Surber’s Highlights of the News to this story at USA today:

Cracker Barrel’s stock has taken a beating since the restaurant chain held an investor call in which its new CEO admitted the Southern country restaurant chain isn’t as “relevant” as it once was.

Julie Felss Masino, who became Cracker Barrel’s CEO nine months ago, told investors during the May 16 call that the 54-year-old eatery “was not delivering the financial results that shareholders deserve.”

“Cracker Barrel is a great concept and a great company,” Masino said. “… But to ignite growth, we must revitalize the brand.”

Before Masino and Cracker Barrel’s leadership held the meeting, the company’s stock hovered around $60 per share, but a day after the call, it dropped almost 20%, to about $48 per share, according to NASDAQ.

The stock closed Thursday at $45.75 per share.

Now why would a CEO saying the chain isn’t “relevant” cause the stock to drop 20%?

Well, maybe it’s because it means the CEO is not addressing the reason why the stock had dropped TO $60 a share from the $102 it was at a year ago. To find the answer to that question you have to ignore the USA story and search instead at Ace of Spades HQ:

In June of 2023 Cracker Barrel went woke, deciding that it could bring in new customers and investors by sexualizing the front porch with rainbow-striped rocking chairs. As it turned out, that was not a good marketing strategy, and it had the effect of repulsing existing customers who don’t want country cooking to be sexualized, be it gay, straight, or otherwise.

Image via Ace of Spades HQ

The fallout was immediate, with consumers announcing boycotts and the stock price taking an initial hit. Despite a lack of headlines or buzz since then, the boycott has continued and has been devastating to Cracker Barrel. The restaurant chain permanently ran off a great many loyal customers, and the persistently “unexpected” decline in traffic is taking a serious financial toll on the company.

It was just announced this week that Cracker barrel is slashing its dividend by 81%. Cracker Barrel stock has fallen from $102 per share at the start of “Pride Month” 2023 to $49 per share now, a 52% decline.

Now one might think that this would be an important part of the story of the drop in Cracker Barrel’s share price. Particularly when there were stories as far back as September that this was a “marketing” issue:

In a rare downbeat financial accounting, Cracker Barrel Old Country Stores acknowledged that its marketing and media efforts likely worsened a traffic drop-off during the quarter ended July 28.

We had expected the traffic would improve in June and July with the onset of the summer travel season,” said [CEO] Cochran. “Unfortunately, this didn’t materialize, and our restaurants and retail sales performance came in below our expectations.

Note that a “downbeat financial accounting” was “rare” for Cracker Barrel until they went work, but even in that story they pointed to “marketing” rather then going all in on the gay agenda. Of course Don Surber didn’t shy from the actual cause of the Cracker Barrel crack-up

ITEM 27: A year ago, Bao Ong of the Houston Chronicle reported, “Cracker Barrel faces calls for boycott after announcing support for Pride month.”

Oh those nutty social conservatives.

On Friday, USA Today reported, “Cracker Barrel stock plummets after CEO says chain isn’t as relevant, must revitalize.”

It turns out, the rainbow people don’t like rocking chairs. Maybe Cracker Barrel can become relative by offering Bud Light and holding Drag Queen Sleepovers for children.

Of course the rainbow folks don’t like Cracker Barrell, in fact back in the days when Pintastic NE was in Sturbridge my son and I would go for breakfast at Cracker Barrell at least once during the event we would play a game which I called the “woke offense game” where pretended to be woke leftists and too turns pointed to items on the wall and explained why we were offended by them. The last person who couldn’t find something to be offended by lost. Usually we could not reach that point by the time breakfast was over.

This is all a question of people not knowing who their customer base is. Buck Throckmorton has a solution:

the first thing Cracker Barrel needs to do is apologize for insulting its loyal customers by sexualizing the restaurant and for effectively smearing its loyal customers as being “unwelcoming” people.

If it doesn’t, Cracker Barrel might as well go full woke. Perhaps it could hire Dylan Mulvaney away from Bud Light and have him cross-dress in Daisy Dukes while drinking an old-time pop from a rainbow-colored rocking chair. Alissa Heinersheid has experience using for Mr. Mulvaney for such promotions, and I believe she is available. Or maybe Cracker Barrel could run a Gillette-style ad accusing its legacy customers of being loathsome bigots and sexual predators.

June is only a week away and we will find out if Cracker Barrell’s new CEO is interested in serving the shareholders or serving the agenda. She can

  • Take Buck’s advice, apologize for last year and promise customers their only agenda will be good food served in a country motif. (Plan A)
  • Say nothing but make it a point not to go near the June “pride” agenda and hope the offended customers notice they decided to give it a miss this year (Plan B)
  • Decide to go all in on the rainbow agenda let the gay flag & rockers fly and damn the stock price! (Plan C)

Whatever the choice and result is we can be sure that the MSM in general and USA Today in particular will not report on the actually cause of the initial fall of Cracker Barrel, after all, it might discourage others from falling into line.

Update: CBS did a story on Cracker Barrel and they didn’t find the boycott relevant either.

Unexpectedly of course

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