Cult of Personality

Crowd raising hands in worship

These days we all know what a cult of personality is, and we all believe that we can identify them, and we all believe we’d never become part of one. Khrushchev first used the term when speaking about Stalin and admonishing the Communist Party that they must not allow such a thing to happen again. In the West we scramble backwards at the mention of the word “cult.” After all, a cult is a group that brainwashes its members into believing absolutely fantastical claims and performing strange rituals deifying the leaders. And nobody with an ounce of sense would fall for a cult of personality, right? Right?

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Friday Thoughts: Propaganda

Before we get to the propaganda bits, let me just say: it’s been a good week, Tater! I’m writing… lots. This outlining process I’ve borrowed is working very well for me and I’m feeling good about finishing theAcademic Magic series. I’ve got Books 4, 5, and 6 planned out and am moving at good speed through Book #4 – it’s above 10k words right now. And, once I finish this post and get moving on it today, I’m hoping to get beyond 20k.

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Friday Thoughts: New Adventures

We bought a house! First time for everything, and yes, we are late bloomers. For the longest time, two PhD diplomas were the stand-ins for a house. But now we bought a house! I’m super excited to get into it and start making it a home. I feel like we’re putting down roots and becoming real Texans. Until we finalized everything, I hadn’t realized how transient I felt, even though we lived in the same place for almost twenty years in Philadelphia (and I mean the same apartment, not just the same city). The house is very nice and the former owners made a number of small, but thoughtful additions and changes – there are misters in the pergola for example. Hell, there’s a pergola!

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“Banning” Books… Again

Twice in 2022 I wrote about banning books (here and here), but the recent hysteria over books that are being pushed by the LGBTQ community, and others, along with an FB post by a friend of mine brought the matter back to mind. As with so many issues these days, the left has taken a word and twisted it until they find a definition and use that suits their needs. Just as the government and its cronies created Newspeak in Orwell’s 1984, so the progressive left is creating their own version of newspeak. My friend walked into a Barnes and Noble to be faced with the display shown below. Now, yes, the signs under the books say “Challenged” which is indeed accurate. But notice the display sign – that says “Banned Books.” Whether this is a marketing ploy (likely), or not, someone at B&N is engaged in some serious misdirection and propagandizing.

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I Am Woman, Hear Me Roar

Women are being erased, deliberately, from the main stage of culture and society. Again. Just the other day, after facing strong backlash, Johns Hopkins University removed their online glossary of LGBTQ terms in which they defined “lesbian” as a “non-man attracted to non-men.” See what they did there? Johns Hopkins defined “lesbian”, a woman sexually attracted to other women, around men rather than around women. They erased women from the definition of lesbian. Everything which involves women is once again revolving around men. Even more telling is that a small segment of women are upset that JHU deleted its definitions. I have to assume that the world in which these individuals live has a purple sky with pink polka dots. Because it definitely isn’t the world the rest of us inhabit.

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Friday Thoughts: A Random Collection

I’m starting this post not quite knowing where it’s going. I have a number of random thoughts roaming through my brain right now. I’m on my third cup of coffee, this one iced, and normally, that would help with the brain organization. But for whatever reason, it’s not. What is helping is that I made a sort of generic calendar/to-do list for each day of the week (Mondays is for prompt responses, Tuesdays for blog post, like that). Today’s generic to-do list said “Blog post, Friday Thoughts.” So, here you have it. My thoughts on this Friday, July 21, 2023.

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Stop Sitting Down

We were out driving the other day when “Stand” by Sly and the Family Stone came on the radio (okay, on the Sirius channel we were listening to). As I bounced in my seat and sang along, the lyrics suddenly struck me. I mean, I know the lyrics, but their application to today’s cultural and political madness struck me. After we got home, I looked up the song. It was written in 1969 by Sly Stone, was the title track on the album “Stand”, and performed at Woodstock.

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