Some righteous blows against the left

Posted: July 26, 2022 by chrisharper in entertainment, Sports
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By Christopher Harper

With the left’s stranglehold hold over the past few decades on much of the arts, entertainment, and sporting industries, it’s encouraging to see conservatives gaining ground.

For example, singer John Rich aimed his latest song, Progress, at the left’s agenda—a piece that quickly rose to the top of the charts on most music websites. If you haven’t seen the video, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LMEECbKOH7Q

In the song’s lyrics, Rich outlines a variety of divisive subjects, including his views:

–America’s replacement of religion with government
–Immigration and the death of American soldiers during the evacuation from Afghanistan
–The encroachment on freedoms during the COVID lockdowns
–The impact on Main Street as Wall Street profited from government actions

The message of the chorus is hard to miss:

Stick your progress where the sun don’t shine.
Keep your big mess away from me and mine.
If you leave us alone, we’d all be just fine!

But there’s more. A trio of motion pictures, Top Gun: Maverick, The Gray Man, and The Terminal List, underline individual achievement and patriotism. While the critics may not like these films, audiences love them, highlighting how the elite no longer has much to do with what people like.

In Top Gun, Navy pilots have been tasked with destroying a uranium enrichment plant in a dangerous mission from which few of the fliers are expected to return. Spoiler alert: The pilots complete the difficult mission through individual heroism, military teamwork, and patriotism. 

In The Gray Man and The Terminal List, special forces operators fight corruption in the intelligence and military through a determination to fight evil at all costs. 

The Gray Man, which appears in theaters and on Netflix, comes from a book by Mark Greaney, who helped Tom Clancy with the Jack Ryan series. Jack Carr, a former Navy Seal, wrote The Terminal List, which is a series on Amazon.com. 

All three films are about as red, white, and blue as you can get, emphasizing the importance of moral decisions and individual accomplishment. 

But there’s even more. 

In the heart of leftist academia in Ann Arbor, Michigan, head football coach Jim Harbaugh underlined his pro-life stance. 

Harbaugh told ESPN he encourages his family, players, and staff members that if they could not take care of a baby after an unplanned pregnancy, then he and his wife would take the child and help raise it.

“I encourage them if they have a pregnancy that wasn’t planned, to go through with it, go through with it,” Harbaugh said. “Let that unborn child be born, and if at that time, you don’t feel like you can care for it, you don’t have the means or the wherewithal, then Sarah and I will take that baby.”

In a world where a lot seems headed in the wrong direction, it’s heartening to see conservatives fighting back in arenas long dominated by the left. 

Report from Louisiana: Book your reservation for Fête-Dieu du Teche Now

Posted: July 25, 2022 by Pat Austin in catholic
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By:  Pat Austin

SHREVEPORT – August is upon us and for those in south Louisiana, specifically in Cajun country, that means it is time for the Fête-Dieu du Teche which celebrates the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and also commemorates the arrival of the Acadians in south Louisiana.

On August 15, for the past eight years, Catholics have gathered along Bayou Teche from Leonville (Pop. 2,127) to St. Martiville (Pop. 5,844) to participate in the 38-mile journey down the bayou in a Eucharist procession by boat. The day begins in Leonville with Mass celebrated in French at St. Leo the Great Catholic Church.

Then everyone loads into their boats; the Eucharist is fixed on a altar in the lead boat, under a canopy. Everyone follows by boat down the bayou to Arnaudville (Pop. 1,614) where everyone disembarks. First communicants dressed in white scatter rose petals from baskets and the Eucharist follows, to an altar on the bank at St. Francis Regis Catholic Church. Participants kneel, pray the Rosary and Benediction, and then are back on the boats to the next stop.

By the end of the day, they reach St. Martinville where they process through town to the church, St. Martin de Tours for benediction. Confession is available at each stop.

It is a sight to behold. I’m not Catholic; we are Episcopalians, and my husband likes to say we are “Catholic-lite.” But, we love attending the Fête-Dieu du Teche because face it, what’s not to love about entire communities engaged in prayer?

Last year, as everyone was getting back into their boats at Arnaudville, Steve and I walked over to the bridge so we could see the procession as they passed under us on the way to the next town. Smiling nuns with habits flying behind them waved up at us; the incense perfumed the air and then behind the laity came the families who followed along. All in all it is easy over a hundred boats.

As more people around the world learn about this event, it grows each year. This will be year eight. We already have our lodging reserved and will be there once again to witness the event. I love how this event brings families and communities together; I love how tied to their very Cajun culture this is, too. The journey to St. Martinville commemorates the journey their Acadian ancestors made in fleeing religious persecution all those years ago.

It is a glorious thing to see and I’d encourage anyone to see it if you have the chance. Joseph Pronechen wrote in some detail about the event here and the Facebook page is here. And there is a cool video here. I wrote about it last year on this blog which you can see here.

Answer: $425,308,966 and $180,734,472

Posted: July 25, 2022 by datechguy in entertainment
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Question: What is the difference between a woke movie for kids and a non-woke movie for kids:

That is the difference between the take of the Movie Lightyear and the take of Minons the Rise of Gru

Let me point out that when Lightyear started slow excuses were made about the timing and of COVID etc etc etc, but Minions was released just two weeks later and has managed to out preform lightyear by hundreds of millions with two less weeks to do so.

A more significant fact is this one:

The general rule of thumb is a movie has to earn double its production budget in order to break even. By that metric, Lightyear needs $400 million globally to recoup its costs. Going by Pixar’s history, it should be able to cross that figure without many issues. Prior to Onward’s pandemic-shortened theatrical run, Pixar’s Toy Story 4 and Incredibles 2 both hit $1 billion. The studio’s original film Coco grossed $807 million globally. While Pixar does have some notable duds on their résumé (Cars 3 and The Good Dinosaur), it’s extremely rare for one of their films to perform poorly at the box office. Given Lightyear’s ties to the Toy Story franchise, it should prove to be a hit. Box office projections point to a modest (by Pixar standards) $70-85 million debut, but it could always surpass those expectations a la Top Gun: Maverick. It’s facing minimal competition for its target demographic.

So by these standards Lightyear is 185 million in the red as of 7/23/22

IMDB estimates for Minions on a free site the estimated budget via IMDB is $80 Million. Even if we figure another 80 million in promotion in 14 less days Minions has not only turned a tidy profit but had done so on its domestic take alone. That makes the $342 million overseas take all gravy.

That my dear friends is the difference between making a movie “Woke” and making a movie for Children.

Sooner or later studios will decide losing 180+ a shot is a bad idea.

5 Quick Thoughts Under the Fedora The Liberal City Ten Count, Easy pickings in Kenly NC, Reynolds Jan 6th Prediction, Hume -2 Mil, Avoid Monkeying Around to Avoid Monkey-Pox

Posted: July 24, 2022 by datechguy in under the fedora

Today’s First Reading at Mass was Abraham asking God if he would spare Sodom & Gomorra if he could find at least 50, then 45, then 30 and finally 10 people and God answering

“For the sake of those ten I will not destroy it.”

Genesis 18:32b

With the mass migration of normal people from blue states and areas I have a sinking feeling that cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Baltimore, NYC and DC have a bureaucrat whose job it is to make sure that the population of actual faithful Catholics living in the city limits never falls below ten.

I suspect this job has become more vital over time

A Town in North Carolina police force has resigned en masse over a new city manager citing a “hostile work environment”

The new town manager has a history of employment in liberal cities and I suspect brought a lot of that with her to this town in NC, but I suspect the new woke agenda isn’t playing here:

“It is with a heavy heart that I take this action. I have been with the town since 2004 and fully expected to finish my law enforcement career with the Town of Kenly. Unfortunately, there are decisions being made that jeopardize my safety and make me question what the future will hold for a Kenly Police Officer,” wrote officer G.W. Strong.

There are a lot of liberal cities bleeding police and heading to departments big and small in Red States. I suspect none of those police will be heading to Kenly North Carolina.

If I’m a thief or gang member from Raleigh or Goldsboro I’d be planning on an excursion to Kenly in a couple of weeks as there will likely be easy pickings, but if you want your small town to become more “progressive” you can’t do it without cost.

I noted that Glenn Reynolds in his linkage of a Johnathan Turley piece on the latest from the Jan 6th committee ended with this comment:

Also, if things keep going the way they’re going, the January 6 “insurrectionists” will ultimately be looked back upon as martyrs who tried to prevent a tragedy.

All of what has happened has been due to cowardice. The unwillingness to bluntly state that there were shenanigans in the last election that the establishment left and their allies in the judiciary in the blue states and regions they took place in were unwilling to call out in fear of rocking the boat has had huge consequences for this country and caused incredible pain to hundreds of millions of people.

I shudder to think what the result will be when they try this again in 2024, I suspect the result will not be as peaceful.

I really can’t do better than Stacy McCain in his takedown of Edenborough University over them cancelling David Hume (d 1776) for not being sufficiently woke by 21st century standards:

defaming the dead is easy work. Hume was a man of formidable skill in argumentation, and if anyone at the time had found fault with this footnote in his essay, certainly Hume would have been capable of defending himself. As it was, of course, no one in 18th-century Europe had any reason to question Hume’s judgment on this matter. How many avid believers in racial equality were there in England in 1758? Few, if any, I’m sure, and probably they had more important matters to deal with than accosting a Scottish philosopher about a footnote.

Really, why was this deemed important enough to rename a building at the University of Edinburgh? Is it any wonder that donors are canceling their bequests? What a silly tempest in a teapot — “Ban the dead racist David Hume!” — yet the Eminent Scholars in charge of a university evidently took it seriously.

Well they likely didn’t need those 2 million pounds of bequests cancelled so far anyways did they.

UPDATE soon to be banned:

The media keeps breathlessly going on about Monkey Pox however they have not yet been able to report on what for them would be the holy grail for Monkey Pox. An outbreak among monogamous straight people.

Put simply for all the hysteria concerning Monkeypox if you want to avoid the disease here is the secret:

Monogamous sex with one monogamous partner

I’d like to point out this cunning plan works with both straight and gay couples.

and I’ll leave you with this tweet:

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