Tagged: life
I Can’t Shake My Joe Rogan Fantasy
Douglas Murray lost the “debate”. Or he came away looking weaker than Rogan and Smith. It all boiled down to Murray’s ill-advised, “Have you bean there?”
As a reminder, faithful readers, classical rhetoric delineates three areas of persuasion, Logos (logic), Ethos (expertise), and Pathos (emotion). The generally accepted breakdown of how to employ these during debate is 60-80% Logos, and the remaining 20-40% evenly divided between Ethos and Pathos. Murray obviously employed Ethos in more than its rule-of-thumb 20% maximum when he uttered his “bean” line.
But even without that type of thinking, I *feel* like we all knew (consequently Murray should’ve known too) both that Kamala was destroyed by her “been there” interview moment and that, with Harris’ failure in mind, JD triumphed with Zelensky, in his own “been there” moment in the Oval Office. The Vance answer was all the more compelling because he brought Logos right into the moment by clearly pausing—which seemed to betray that he was aware of the rhetorical trap—before answering the question.
Oh well. Nobody is perfect.
ICYMI Murray was recently chatting with Gad Saad and in the discussion plainly decried the problem that I’ve instinctively had with the JRE podcast along—despite my inability to put a name on it. Murray pointed out that the JRE podcast is irresponsible.
Douglas Murray, who I find myself nearly entirely aligned without actually giving me unrealistic hope that anyone else is listening, is part of ARC (Alliance for Responsible Citizenship). So it is only logical that his criticism of the men who beat him is that they are irresponsible. But the fact is Murray is correct. That studio in Austin with its 30 million Trump interview views and 0 (zero) Harris interview views is irresponsible.
My fantasy, then, is for Joe Rogan to prove Murray wrong.
Then again, I am not sure that would accomplish much. Imagine it. Rogan converts to responsibility; severe and instant backlash occur. Then Rogan joins the myriads of smaller podcasts. Fizzle. Whoopdeedoo.
I certainly don’t wish Joe Rogan any ill will. So maybe my fantasy is some horrible and embarrassing revelation of my envy of Rogan (which always manifests in sabotage) since it would surely result in negatives for him on every front.
But I can’t shake the fantasy.
The Good Fallout From The Space Bimbos’ Expensive Selfie
Before they had their fun, would you have been aware that there is a formal program called, “Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program”? I hadn’t given it much thought, as on this topic I am generally awestruck immobile by yet another instance of uncanny synchronization of unrelated technology jumps. Can someone please explain how virtually every human being is able to view, in stunning HD, videos of the now weekly commercial rocket launches? Using Resurrection Sunday as a backdrop, we might say that it seems like physicists care more about letting others watch their work than religious zealots ever did.
I digress.
Regarding “astronaut” more broadly, it was always obvious to me what this meant, because as a former USAF pilot, I went to training with a guy that had a career goal to become an astronaut. Given my then (and still) adoration of AF pilots, his goal didn’t seem out of reach—indeed he seemed to be completing the exact right steps at the exact right time. If anything, I learned that I would never be an astronaut because I hadn’t even believed I was in the running until, after meeting him, I considered that if I was in the same training as him, surely I was at least had better chances than everyone else not in USAF pilot training.
So the definition for Commercial Space Astronaut Wings Program is: “Crewmembers who travel into space must have ‘demonstrated activities during flight that were essential to public safety or contributed to human space flight safety.’”
And that is still pretty weak as definitions go, imho. (And the bimbos would, under the most generous definition of “human space flight safety”, need to say, “I earned my Commercial Space Astronaut Wings!” Under no circumstance does the English language allow for them to be called Astronauts.)
But now we know. And that is a good thing.
Round-About Way of Exposing the Inner-Most Thoughts of My Immigrant (And All Immigrants) Wife
My now-citizen, but through the notorious near-decade long legal process, wife (to be clear, nothing to do with yours truly or marriage) reported to me that her co-workers (immigrants themselves) are all ate-up with the incessant deportation news.
Picture with me a fancy hotel setting. You see everywhere all the BIPOC (some Europeans too) immigrant staff hustling and bustling to help management create the most amazing experience ever for guests, all the while you can overhear a discussion of politics is taking place when they believe they are out of earshot of anyone who would report it.
“Wait!” you say. “It sounds to me like they’re talking instead of working.”
I agree. But when I gave my wife the line, “I would start with, ‘First, right now we should be working…’ she insisted that they were working.”
So recall the picture. Talking AND working.
My wife reported to me that she was responding to the others’ fears and what I would call suckerdom with, “I have family back home, so if they sent me back, I would be fine.” And also, “But they won’t send me back because I am a citizen.”
According to her, the co-workers are under the belief that any immigrant—even those with permanent resident cards, which are green, and US citizens—are eligible for deportation. How stupid. But it is what it is.
How would I handle the discussion if I was her? Glad you asked.
“Firstly, we should be working right now. Working and talking is impossible, especially at the low wages we earn. My husband says he is paid to think, not to work. He talks at work. I don’t understand it, but I do understand his pay is far above ours.
“Secondly, do not answer any of these questions I am about to ask. I do not want to know the answers. Moreover, my goal is to give you confidence that you have nothing to fear. But if you answer the questions in a certain way, you may feel more fear. So please don’t answer them.
“Okay. Can you show me your green card? What is that word on the top? Permanent. That means that you never have to leave. Sure, there is paperwork to renew it every ten years, but that is just paperwork. No one leaves when they have a green card. Again, it’s in the name right on the card.
“If you don’t have a green card, surely you have some kind of visa. If that is you, you have made the choice to accept the risks involved with temporarily working here—to include having the visa revoked if you break your part of the agreement. So don’t break your part of the agreement. If I understand things at all, that pretty much means don’t lie. Like you, I don’t fully understand ‘telling the truth,’ but I believe it covers ‘show up to work as you said you would do and don’t commit crimes.’
“Now, if you have already committed crimes or are in work of a different nature than approved or whatever, I would be nervous. And I would suggest changing jobs back to a job that you got your visa to do.
“Lastly, I can tell you that these people are confusing to me. None of us will ever understand them. But they have cash.”
One Last Thought Before The Week’s Proper End
Smokin’ hot blondie Megyn Kelly read a killer’s journals into the podcast-o-sphere earlier this week. But that’s not the reason to care about such an odd pairing.
The reason to care is now that the Nashville shooter of 2023’s journals are public, any one of us can legitimately respond to a Woke, Leftie, Alphabet Mafia-type with, “You sound just like that mass shooter in Nashville. Get away from me.” With this you can cut through all the politics and get straight to the heart of the issue.
You can take it from me, or you can track down Mrs. Kelly’s podcast yourself. I suppose you can also read the journals quietly to yourself. But rest assured, the chick (yes, the shooter was a girl) wrote the playbook for the Left in her journal(s) of reasons. It’s messed up.
Reading Log 4.9.2025
Same for Vol 2 as I said about Vol 1, “Grant’s memoir was amazing and astounding on nearly every level. What a time to have been alive.”
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Re: Pilgrim’s Progress: I will share the text I sent to a friend.
“On another subject, I finally started John Bunyan’s famous ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’.
Four chapters in and I would say this book may be more valuable to Christianity than the Bible itself. One more entry in the matter of ‘what a shame that folks have dropped it out of vogue’.
If you want a copy, I can send one to you. It is part of our homeschool set.”
(Obviously I would need a GoFundMe account to accomplish this for the world’s population. But if you are serious that all you need is a copy to get you reading, my offer stands. Comment below or email me. We’ll get you one.)
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I have read tons of Mark Twain. Or it feels like it. But I had no idea about Mr. Wilson and the twins. Twain is ridiculous. I always thought he was hilarious, as evidenced here again, but these open the “ridiculous” description too. And watch out! The “n” word is on full display as he calls into question everything you have ever thought about life on earth.
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The reason you read Pascal is to see for yourself that these “greats” are impossible to justly or sufficiently summarize. The infamous “wager” is far more involved than how it typically is presented.
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The math essays don’t teach you particular skills, but they are interesting and do contain such marvelous sentiments, found curiously nowhere else, as, (paraphrasing) “We don’t need to think more. We need to think less. We need to accomplish as much as possible with as little thinking. That is true advancement.”
Oh, and if you want a single essay as an icebreaker, to test the waters, it’s Euler’s hands down. “The Seven Bridges of Königsberg.” See here.
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I like writing these updates. But I wonder if anyone will ever use them as intended. Time will tell.
I Have A BIPOC Teenage Step-Son, Therefore You Should Listen To MY Take
For starters, “The Captain had turned on the Fasten Your Seatbelt Sign.” So buckle up.
I need to draw your attention right away to certain facts that I believe should be obvious, but due to everyone’s performative heightened sensitivities these days, aren’t.
1. This is a WordPress blog called Captain’s Log. I am a pilot. I was a pilot in the Air Force. You don’t need to know anything beyond this combination of demographics (male, writes blogs, flys aircraft professionally, did so in the USAF) to be certain that I am white.
2. This teenage step-son I have referred to is a step-son. Step. That means I am not some happy-go-lucky Academy Grad who adopts African orphans to keep up with the Joneses. In order to have a BIPOC (African—not African-American/Black) step-son, I must be married to a BIPOC wife.
3. This is one level deeper, but given that he is my step-son, I think it is fair for anyone to assume that in his mom’s eyes, he is an angel and can do no wrong. In other words, there is absolute and comprehensive discord when it comes to raising him.
Let’s move on to certain facts that are not available to even faithful followers.
A. He currently is testing the waters of HS Track and Field.
B. His haircut is near identical to the alleged murderer’s.
C. I have seen him taunt his opponents (in basketball) in similar language to “Touch me and see what happens.”
D. He and I haven’t spoken many words for over a year now. This silence went into effect basically since a time when circumstances led to me checking his phone and finding atrocious garbage, to include a selfie of him flipping off the camera (which also exists for the alleged murderer). In ol’ fashioned American Dad style, I subsequently took a hacksaw to his phone. He hasn’t had one since. And he lies so much that I have decided to back off rather than “fight, fight, fight.” (Which would be with BOTH him and his mom/my wife.) Additionally, I agree with the general philosophy, “There is no point in communication if there is no truth.”
Got the picture?
Backing up, regarding the dead twin, I find great consolation in Mark Twain’s humor. Perhaps you will too. He wrote
In other words, in the fullest sense, between the black kid and the white kid, the black kid got the shaft—what a stupid thing to do.
When I tell whites about the demographic decisions of my life, they reward me with such reactions as, “That is sooooo interesting,” and, “That’s what I love about you, Pete!” It feels good. It feels amazing. They are right. And “interest” is at least half the reason I live how I live. Who wants a boring life?
But the truth is that I also love America and believe in my heart of hearts that I have an excellently formed and accurate appreciation for what exactly America is. And I want America to do what stands before it as possible—even if it still feels unlikely. I mean, I want America to be a post-racial country. Let’s mix it up like no one has and enjoy the unpredictable result. What is the saying? “Variety is the spice of life.”
But no. No one else wants that. Nope. Instead, my dreams have resulted in having a step-son who models himself after thugs and a wife who indulges him at every step.
As I have read the interweb’s reactions and trolls, I have come across this tit-for-tat notion where the Black responds, “Sure, when you first hear there is a murder and one person is White and one Black, you are right to guess that the murderer is Black.” Then they add the kicker, “But when we hear that a school shooting has occurred, everyone knows it is a White kid.”
I also grant this assessment.
The enormous difference, and one which affects me directly, is every White purposely dresses different than school shooters! And in the cases where there is some similarity, it is honest-to-goodness poverty or ignorance that has led to it. No White kids (except the seemingly unending supply of actual copycat killers) are imitating the school shooters’ appearance.
School Shooters are LOSERS! It is why they do it. They are losers with no imagination, no creativity, no hope, and access to guns. Losers. They are people who I purposely avoid and counsel everyone to avoid. They are losers who I want nothing to do with. They are terribly easy to spot. And they are pitiful. Leave them alone and report them anytime they do something that can keep them from shooting up schools!
With this Black kid, the same cannot be said. How he looks and how he acts is exactly the way my immigrant step-son has determined is how “cool” looks and acts. Take any run-of-the-mill Black celebrity-filled room, and this kid would have fit right in—same for my step-son. But the school shooter losers? They got beat up for showing up. That’s why they are convinced they are losers and see no way out but violence.
My first instinct when I saw the Black kid’s picture(s)? I wanted to tell my wife to take my step-son to get a proper haircut. Do I seriously believe that something as seemingly trivial as a hairstyle can change a life? Absolutely. How do I know? Because it ain’t about the hairstyle. It is about the fact that some parenting is happening. Some adjustments. Some common sense. Some reality.
What have I actually done after this tragedy? Nothing. Why not? Let me reference a not-so-famous quote from a beloved crime saga.
Neil McCauley (appearance completely like the cop sitting across from him) says to Vincent Hannah (I have a movie poster over my beloved piano of the very coffee table scene):
“You see me doin’ thrill-seeker liquor store holdups with a ‘Born to Lose’ tattoo on my chest?”
In other words, my time with my wife and my step-son has persuaded me of that which even believably portrayed criminals know to be the truth: Some folks are born to lose.
There are days when I avoid considering how much damage this “interesting” kid can do to my life and family (future legal troubles that my wife insist I pay to help as one example). But they are not the majority.
A Plain-Spoken Piece of Wisdom, I Think
There is no reward or award for having lived a consistent life.
Irritants of the Past Few Days
My daughter got a singing Moana doll as a gift. The doll says absolutely stupid things. To start, Moana suggests that her people have been ocean explorers (“We must sail to the far seas”). Yeah, exploring oceans in a canoe which never left sight of land. Then she has a line which says, “The stars lead us to where we want to go.” Again, the Moana’s of the world have never navigated their tiny islands or narrow coastlines via the stars. Gimme a break. Finally, she says something about “We’re all part of the land and sea. It’s who we are; it’s who we’re meant to be.” I’d already passed boiling point, but with this the folks at Disney seem to lose all distinction between bringing classic European fairy tales to life, a la Cinderella, Snow White, and Beauty and the Beast among many others (Pinocchio), and inventing fairy tales whole cloth for tribes who never wrote any down—and likely didn’t have any to begin with. In other words, folks, if you think all the peoples of Planet Earth are composing compelling music, telling remarkable stories, and relentlessly exploring the planet, then you are a fool.
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People do not “forget” the truth they were once taught. I have this hardbound collection of early Berenstain Bears stories and one of them is, “He Bear She Bear.” It is remarkable in its simple and inoffensive presentation of the facts of life. No alphabet mafia folk had been read this book as a child and then concluded at a later date, “No. No, that’s not right.” Instead, Berenstain Bears became tired, lost their en vogue status, and then went the way of the dodo. This is the way all truth is “forgotten”—boredom and displaced proportionality.
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You cannot grasp the “bully” nature of illiterate people until you live with them. They bully because they have no other recourse. It’s sad, but true.
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My mother shared with me that my immediate family members and likely their spouses are tired of me portending to be the only one with ideas. I share with you that my immediate family members and their spouses never read books. I believe it was Booker Washington who pointed out that those who can’t read and those who don’t read are one and the same. My brother and his wife tour the world to see the historical locations of everyone whose ideas I read about and would love to chat about. These two come back and report what tour guides told them. In my opinion, it’s worse than tribes who lived only with oral tradition because they think they are living it up. All they are really doing is anarchy.
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Books, for me, are a map, no different than a VFR Sectional or Low IFR Chart. I can’t tell you where you are on the map, indeed that is not my job (or anyone else’s). But given that I have a map and you do not, I can discern quite simply that you’re lost. It is your job as a literate person to determine where you are.
If Only The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg Owned Slaves, Then He Might Have Acted Civilly.
Even slave owners of old knew of things like this rule of civility.
Read no Letters, Books, or Papers in Company but when there is a Necessity for the doing of it you must ask leave. Come not near the Books or Writings of Another so as to read them, unless desired, or give your opinion of them unask’d; also look not nigh when another is writing a Letter.
In sum: it is always possible to read things you shouldn’t. The error is the reader’s, not the writer’s.
On The Immigrant
In the past, freely pursued immigration seems to have occurred for the singular purpose of “a better life.” Part of this purpose is discerned because of the sacrifices made and risks assumed for the travel from one location of Earth to another. As an American, I cannot shake the terribly, if not necessarily regular, dangerous ocean crossing from my conception of my ancestors and their desire for “a better life.” (Other parts of the world have similar barriers.) Seamen live risky lives for cash. Immigrants did not.
The immigrant of today, however, does not come to America (or Europe) for “a better life”. Rather, it must be assumed that the immigrants of today must prove in short order that they have made the move for “a better life.” If they don’t prove it, then we know they are here for destruction.
Why? What’s the difference? Put simply, the near risk-less and sacrifice-less transportation technology has, unfortunately, weakened the immigrant.
You get on a plane. You arrive. If you don’t like it, you get back on the plane, and you are home. No risk. No sacrifice. No bravery. No display of uncommon character qualities. Worse, the immigrant presents a full display of ignorance, a full display of greed, a full display of unwillingness to adapt to foreign cultures. Why do they come? Hollywood, fantasy, grass is greener, cash, exceedingly limited notions of cultural disparities that they don’t wish upon their children. I could list others. My claim is this, mind you: no reasons on the list would fall into “help America” or “help Americans” type categories, the likes of which “a better life” would necessarily entail.
The immigrant came because it was easy for them. Whether they want a better life remains to be determined.
Why does this updated assessment matter? Because the truth matters.
Why should you believe the ol’ Captain? Because you don’t have an immigrant in your life and I have one in my house.
Captain’s Log 