By Selwyn Duke
When thinking about poor Austin Metcalf, I sometimes wonder about his reactions during those last fatal moments on April 2 of last year. When murderer Karmelo Anthony drew that knife, could he not, being young and athletic, have avoided at least a deadly strike? Perhaps Anthony was just too quick. But then I realize something:
The two boys were from vastly different worlds.
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By Selwyn Duke
“Is it better to be loved or feared?” the main mobster character, Sonny, was asked in the film A Bronx Tale (1993). His answer was that he’d like to enjoy both. But if he had to choose one, it would be fear, he stated, because “[f]ear lasts longer than love.”
Of course, these are the sentiments of a criminal. Yet as such they’re most relevant to a recently asked question:
“Should cops be feared or respected?”
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By Selwyn Duke
“There is no one as illiberal as a liberal with power,” goes the apocryphal saying. And a warning about this very phenomenon has come from a perhaps unexpected source: fitness icon Jillian Michaels. The Left “comes for everyone,” is how Michaels has put it while discussing her “conversion” from leftism. What a conversion it was, too, as the fitness trainer has said that she “felt like Neo in the Matrix.”
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By Selwyn Duke
He’s got his jeans and flannel shirt. He’s got the beard. He’s got the gravelly voice. He’s got the oyster farm.
And he’s got the radical beliefs — communism included.
Oh, Graham Platner, Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate from Maine, also has that Nazi tattoo. It gets all the attention, but there’s an unasked question:
Is the man actually worse than his tattoo?
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By Selwyn Duke
If you want to know why there will be more Karmelo Anthonys — angry black youth all too willing to kill whites — look no further than diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training offered by the Illinois government. It portrays white people and police as mosquitoes inflicting “microaggression” bites that maddeningly accumulate over time. Don’t worry, though, there is a remedy.
The training also shows a black woman using a flamethrower to incinerate the whites and cops mosquitoes.
(Such propaganda may help explain why so many believe Anthony was justified in killing white teen Austin Metcalf.)
You can, however, avoid this fiery fate by refraining from making certain comments. “When I look at you, I don’t see color” and “My best friend is Black” are forbidden. “Your English is so good” is, too. For these are all microaggressions — and who knows what else could be fancied so? So you just have to walk on eggshells with ballerina-like grace.
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By Selwyn Duke
“Sometimes smart people have a hard time believing stuff that everybody else knows.” So said the condemned (and possessed) convict in the “religious” film Nefarious (2023) to his self-assured atheist psychiatrist. Charles Murray, the famed political scientist and successful author, can certainly relate to this. Quoting his wife on religion, he stated last year, “We learned that smart people don’t believe that stuff anymore.”
While this was never actually true, the perception that it is may finally be changing. It certainly has for Murray. Late last year he published his new book, Taking Religion Seriously, in which he discusses his journey toward theism. He says, too, that modern science may be pointing man back toward God.
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By Selwyn Duke
“Sex is not messed up because it was put in the closet,” goes a paraphrase of philosopher C.S. Lewis. “It was put in the closet because it was messed up.” Some Americans may be rediscovering this truth, too, if the latest Gallup poll is any guide. It finds that Republican support for faux (i.e., same-sex) marriage has fallen almost 20 points since 2021-’22. Even more strikingly perhaps, the percentage of Republicans who consider homosexual relations morally acceptable has declined 21 points.
And it’s hard chalking this up to now-infamous polling incompetence. After all, 20 points is well beyond what any margin of error or sampling-bias phenomenon would explain.
It isn’t just Republicans who’ve shifted on sexual devolutionary (“LGBTQ+”) matters, either. Registered Independents also exhibit declining support, though to a lesser degree. Democrats remain unchanged on these issues, though, which reflects the growing ideological chasm between the American Left and Right.
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By Selwyn Duke
Got a rat problem on your property? Don’t worry, under Oregon’s new animal-rights act, you’d still be able to deal with it. You’d just have to eliminate the 20, 30, or 40 rats in your yard using live-catch traps. You can then deliver the rodents to, well, whoever’s itching to have dozens of pet wild rats.
Alternatively, you could use birth-control bait and wait up to two years for the rodents to pass away from old age.
No, this isn’t satire, but what is dictated by Oregon’s Initiative 28 (I-28), also known as the “Peace Act.” (I.e., People for Elimination of Animal Cruelty Exemptions.) It would, writes its main sponsor, “extend the same legal protections our companion animals currently have to…other animals.” And, yes, this would disallow hunting and fishing — and more. As Ballotpedia relates:
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By Selwyn Duke
James Talarico, Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from Texas, is a new man. Gone, in fact, is the James Talarico of only three weeks ago.
Just consider his 2021 claim that there are “six” “biological sexes.” He now says, “I know there are two sexes, men and women.” My, someone tell Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
He also has an explanation for asserting that “God is nonbinary.” He was just being “intentionally provocative,” he says. Well, pro tip: Provocations can outlive primaries.
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By Selwyn Duke
There has been much talk in recent years about “misinformation” on social media. There’s relatively little focus, however, on the misinformation pumped directly into the most damaging place of all: young people’s minds. Moreover, this misinformation — or “brainwashing,” as a critic puts it — has supplanted real learning to the point where youths now lack basic skills. A major reason why, too, is that while some proclaim “wokeness’” death, it’s alive and well. And this is because, says that critic, independent journalist Emil Hasle, wokeness-mind-virus carriers pervade American education.
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