Time for a Dad piece! It's been a while. I get distracted. I get lazy. Today, waiting for a plumbing problem to be resolved (yet again) after just about a month, I had to wait around so an opportunity to read and write and post arose. I have still so much of Dad's writing that has not yet been posted. He alternated in his writing between little stories about his life, about philosophy, personal and otherwise, and political commentary that reflected his increasing distress and anger about the incapacity of our leaders, the domination of the Left over our culture, and the insanity of the destruction of Western Civilization to be replaced by an association of identities obsessed by all permutations of sexuality we are all expected not merely to tolerate (and that is hard enough) but to embrace and celebrate.
This commentary/observational piece was written in about 2007, based on the references in it. That is 16 years ago. He thought it was bad, then. Even he, a keen observer of the cultural wars, could have no idea how bad it would get. I have softened some of his language. It is one of the paradoxes in the behavior of our censors that unvarnished expression is allowed for approved groups and individuals, but not for the unapproved or their opinions. Nothing my father wrote in an unvarnished way would be forbidden in say an Oscar show or movie script or streamed television show, or a Sam Smith performance, or on a whole bunch of other blogs, but since it critiques the direction of the society, it is suspect, and impermissible. WE shall see.
DISCORDANT SIGHTS AND SOUNDS OF A DECLINING CULTURE
Pee Wee Herman is back. I noticed his name on a list of programs scheduled for last night. I was pleased. He has come out from under the clouds of social opprobrium heaped on him for daring to engage in a particular activity in a theatre of bawdy exposure. The children who loved his "family" comedic gyrations are now sufficiently indoctrinated to be compassionate about inconsequential matters of prurience. The National Education Association, and the socially correct elementary school teachers, have imbued them with the correctness of sexual mores, of gender preferences, of absentee fatherhood, multiple parents and test tube fertilization. It is the millennium.
Youth can now aspire to greatness without fear of some pernicious accusation of wrongdoing, even unto that ultimate seat within the sacrosanct corridors of the Washington Dome, even within the Oval Office. There is nothing "wrong" in our thesaurus of heroic behavior to preclude this dream of youth. And advanced concept of "playing doctor" is nothing more that youthful exuberance in the new rites of passage.
"Let the word go forth," to borrow a maxim from the sainted Arthurian heir to Camelot.
"Let he who is without sin cast the first stone," posited an ancient kill-joy.
The United Nations invites an ambassador of the "new truth". It is an actress who has achieved film immortality merely by crossing and uncrossing her legs under the careful scrutiny of an affectionate camera. To be fair, she is reputed to have other qualifications. They say she is a member of MENSA. She was chosen for the international dissemination of the secular "Word" of the today generation. I admit, I doubt the high I.Q. was the precipitating reason for the invitation.
The caring parent of maturating children should keep a supply of condoms, she says, not just a few secreted for private parental use, but several hundred for application to family purposes.
This cautionary measure is the apogee of an expression of parental love.
"Let's just say it," is the ubiquitous cry. If the kids are going to have a casual encounter, leave a supply near the exit.
If I am allowed a suggestions, why not include some in lunch boxes or back-packs.
It is good that the multi-colored condom is recommended as a decorative and practical addition to gifts from Santa.
All this is not in vain. Our educators, our public moralists are dedicated to the ancient Platonic good.
An elementary school child asked to write an essay on forgiveness wrote the story of one brother who forgave the other for wrongs done to him. The teacher refused to allow him to read the story to the class. HE made the egregious error of calling the brothers, Esau and Jacob. His parents might have warned him that these names appear in the Bible, a grievous association, and given him a daily supply of condoms for protection from a less perilous chasm.
A very young child separated for the first time from her mother on her first day of school cried. She returned home tearfully that night to the comforting embrace of her mother who asked, "Why are you so sad?"
"I asked the teacher for a hug," she sobbed, "and she said, 'I can't do that'. I was bad. I must have been bad. I did something wrong. All the kids laughed."
