David Dubrow

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      • The Blessed Man and the Witch
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Stewards of the Earth: My Post at Romans One

April 20, 2020 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

My first piece at the Bible-centered site Romans One focuses on one of my favorite subjects: food!

If we’re to rule over the fish and birds and livestock, it’s up to us to determine the character and nature of that rule, aided by the Bible. The earth and all that live upon it belong to God. We’re rulers, we’re governors, we’re stewards, but as God says in Leviticus 25:23, “The land is mine.” So we’re to take good care of the earth because it doesn’t belong to us. This care includes stewardship of both land and beast.

An old joke goes something like this: “There’s plenty of room for all God’s creatures…right next to the mashed potatoes.” We were no longer enjoined to live as vegetarians since the day Noah landed on Mount Ararat. Which is good, because animals from chickens to pigs to cows are really quite tasty, and they provide us with nutrients that can be otherwise difficult to acquire.

Currently, the way we produce the majority of livestock is through CAFO farms. CAFO stands for Controlled Animal Feeding Operation, and it’s as awful as it sounds. In a CAFO, animals are confined to tiny cages for much of their short, miserable lives and fed substances to artificially increase desirable qualities that have nothing to do with nutrition. They’re pumped full of antibiotics to keep them from dying of illnesses contracted through standing all day in their own waste and mutilated to prevent them from injuring themselves. Chickens, for example, will occasionally tear out their own feathers when under stress, so the CAFO solution is to de-beak them.

Read the entire piece! You’ll dig it, I swear.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: food, romans one

Deeper Glimpses into the Corona Universe

April 10, 2020 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

The Coronavirus death toll has risen of late, but the number of Corona cases has dropped. Because we’ve been relying on models that have been wrong from the very beginning, and nobody seems to have a decent grasp on the data, it’s difficult to determine how much of this is an improvement. The talking heads in our news media, those who don’t have an interest in maintaining a sense of panic, have suggested that we’re turning the corner or flattening the curve: choose the cliché that best comforts.

If the improvement is to be believed, then we should consider next steps: examining our reaction to the crisis and doing what’s necessary to ensure that it doesn’t happen again. Many of us are already demanding accountability, whether that comes from impeaching the Bad Orange Man again, demanding reparations from Xi Jinpooh, or some combination of that. We don’t live in a world of accountability anymore, if we ever did. People fail up, not down. Not only that, but demands for accountability are, for the most part, misplaced in their targets. I know who I’d want to hold accountable, and it’s most likely not who you’d want to pay for the loss of lives and livelihood. The people hollering for accountability also generally tend to demand closure in personal relationships, which is a virtual impossibility. Closure, the way it’s wished for, is a gift as rare as the Hope Diamond. It never happens the way you want it. The only people who can offer closure are fiction writers, and that’s their job: to give you the make-believe justice you don’t get in the real world. A world that offers closure is a world that doesn’t need stories. No accountability, no closure. Deal with it.

So the best we can do is hunker down, protect our own, and prepare for the next dose of abject stupidity from our political, cultural, and intellectual leaders.

What’s odd about this situation is how convenient it is, from a broader political/cultural standpoint. We’re told that the best thing we could do during this major worldwide crisis is literally stay at home. Don’t interact with others outside of the gigantic poisonous cauldron that is social media. Don’t go to church or synagogue. Just sit there and suckle the glass teat until you’re told it’s safe to go out again. It’s the Slacktivist Cataclysm, where social media and television-addicted shut-ins are saving the world by doing what they do every day: holing up and ordering delivery. Previous generations went without sugar and meat, they planted victory gardens for food to support the war effort. Today, we hoard toilet paper and glue our eyes to Netflix to support the War on COVID-19. And if you question the wisdom of shutting down the world economy to combat Coronavirus, you find yourself trapped in Manichean stupidity: Don’t die for Wall Street. Stay inside or you’re killing grandpa. Don’t you care?

I’ve noticed a creeping escalation in my locale, where requiring social distance through force of law is no longer good enough. First they told us not to gather in large groups. Then they shut down non-essential businesses (I’d argue that if your business remaining open means the difference between personal ruin and personal survival, it’s pretty damned essential). Now they’re shutting down entire public areas to make sure you diseased proles stay socially distanced.

—

CLOSED. No swings for you. People could die, you know. And it’d be your fault.

Also CLOSED. For your own good. 

Not only is this playground CLOSED, but the powers that be took the extraordinary step of removing the basketball hoops and backboards from the posts because HORSE kills. 

This is the world we live in: misery and isolation, with neighborhood oligarchs hoarding toilet paper. CHOOSE SOMETHING DIFFERENT.

Next week I might have something different, something non-COVID-related, but who knows? It’s the only story anywhere. The information we get is different every day, the massaged data is sketchy at best, and virus mitigation techniques have already devolved into stupid TSA-style security theater. Just keep your mouth shut and stay inside.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: coronavirus, covid-19, me me me

What the Future’s Going to Look Like

April 3, 2020 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

A few days ago President Trump extended the Coronavirus social distancing guidelines to include the entire month of April, which was unwelcome news for everyone save our political/media class of Twitter-addicted shut-ins. A major concern is not just when things will return to normal, but what normal will look like on the other side of this crisis. “We can’t return to business as usual,” the talking heads tell us.

Okay, but what does that mean? I’d like to think that we’ll make significant changes to our geopolitics, but there’s no guarantee that our leaders will do that. No doubt it will be impossible to get a consensus on what those changes should look like, no matter how many people die from COVID-19. Like so much, what happens next is going to be a waiting game while we importune the people we voted for to do what we voted them to do.

For my part, I’m still writing the science fiction adventure series I started last year. (Well, I’m trying to write it with everyone at home.) A theme in this new series is, somewhat unfortunately, a kind of contagion. I’m some time from finishing it, but in light of recent events, I don’t know how the story will be received. I know that there are likely many writers right now developing Coronavirus fiction of all kinds. We’ll see how that works out for them.

Disease was also a theme in my Armageddon trilogy. In the first book, The Blessed Man and the Witch, I introduced the secret war of Heaven versus Hell, with innocent people used as proxies to fight for the holy artifacts that would make a difference in the last battle. The second book, The Nephilim and the False Prophet, showed the characters attempting to stop Hell from gaining an insurmountable advantage, and how a third faction planned to change the nature of the conflict. Finally, in The Holy Warrior and the Last Angel, demons swarm across an Earth in which the angels are terribly outnumbered.

Hell’s victory plan involved the corruption of souls with horror and self-loathing; one way they did that was by releasing a virulent, incurable strain of leprosy. The American government’s response was to set up temporary hospitals (leper colonies) to quarantine the infected. Several characters wound up contracting the disease, which, while not immediately fatal, was nevertheless debilitating and disfiguring. Many sufferers attempted to conceal the symptoms by wearing gloves and/or surgical masks. In the following excerpt from The Holy Warrior and the Last Angel, Ozzie has recently joined up with Aidan, a teenage leprosy patient who fled a burning hospital in a stolen ambulance with Mrs. Cai; Lem, a bar owner now driving the ambulance; and Patty, a regular at Lem’s bar.

—

Ozzie glanced over his shoulder and found himself eyeball-fucking the weird, mute Mrs. Cai, who stared back and said nothing. Patty hadn’t moved. Aidan happened to look in his direction, and seeing him said, “Ozzie? Can I ask you something?”

Mierda. The kid hadn’t shut up for more than five minutes since they started this trip, and now Ozzie had broken the welcome silence by looking at him.

“What,” Ozzie said.

Aidan swallowed. “Uh…we’re all gonna have to fight, right? Fight the…the demons. Once we find the five angels.”

Ozzie didn’t reply.

“It’s just that…it’s not that I’m too scared to. You know, to fight. I mean, I am scared, but…well…I can’t see real well. I was gonna get cataract surgery next week, but…” Aidan lifted his gauze-wrapped hands. “And…the nerves in my fingers are shot. The ones I got left. I can’t feel anything.”

Leaning back, Lem glanced sidelong at Ozzie.

“We ain’t gonna leave you on the side of the road just ‘cause you’re sick, manito,” Ozzie said. “Just do what you can and stay out the way.”

“Can the angels cure us? You know, me and Mrs. Cai. People got cured in the Bible all the time.”

Ozzie shook his head. “No lo sé. Maybe.” He turned back around.

Squeezing the steering wheel hard enough to make his yellow rubber gloves squeak, Lem murmured, “I got it, too. The leprosy.”

“Sí. I know.”

Lem didn’t look at him. “I ain’t took these gloves off in five days. Afraid to see what my hands look like now.”

“Sí. Deal. We all got problems.”

Scowling, Lem shook his head and said, “We need gas.”

“Can we make it? We’re almost at the Lincoln Tunnel.”

“This thing drinks more gas than a Caddy. You want it to shit the bed in the Tunnel? What if we got to chase the angels around like we did in Philly?”

—

Take care, and stay healthy.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: armageddon, coronavirus, covid-19, leprosy, the holy warrior and the last angel

Coronavirus-Inspired Bits and Pieces 3-19-2020

March 19, 2020 by David Dubrow 4 Comments

The world is gripped with concern about COVID-19. From mandatory quarantines to overcrowded hospitals to rising death tolls, the news is grim. What makes it worse is the drip-drip-drip of information every day: we’re not in control of this, and it shows. The federal government, local governments, and you and I are feeling our respective ways through it all, with varying degrees of success. We know intellectually that this will be over one day, and that we’ll come back from it, stronger than ever. Of course we will. But until that special, magical day comes when our normal lives reassert themselves, we have to get through the now. And the now isn’t a feature film-style montage of families playing Jenga, fighting and making up, eating meals together, and having video chats with Meemaw and Papaw. The now is filled with days, and those days are filled with hours, and those hours are filled with minutes, and you have to live every one of them. When those minutes are tinged with worry, it’s difficult.

Staying occupied helps. Nothing makes time fly faster than staying occupied. You know this. Binge-watching television shows isn’t the same as being occupied, but you do what you have to if it gets you through the now. I love TV as much as anyone; a casual search through this site proves that. But these days I’m watching less television in the effort to do things that don’t involve just sitting around.

Praying is also good. Pray for your family, your country, and the people in your country. Businesses have closed because of this. Some of them permanently. Decent people who work hard every day to build something they’ve always wanted to create are going to lose it all, if they haven’t already. I wish it wasn’t the case. I wish a nice, fat check from the federal government would make everyone better. It won’t. Help who you can where you can how you can. The uncertainty is dreadful, yes. But worse is the certainty of personal financial ruin.

I’m writing this not because I have information that you haven’t already installed into your personal hard drive, but so I can read this a year from now to remember what it was like when we lived in the now of Coronavirus. My son’s school is closing for a month, if not longer. My wife’s working from home for at least that long. We’ve stocked up on food and essentials in the hope that we won’t need them; our Hurricane Kit already has vital stuff, so we simply topped it up. I’m praying that in May or June or even sooner we’ll all of us be standing in a sea of canned soup, beef stew, and tuna, exchanging cooking tips to punch up the flavor of Progresso Chickarina for a light summer appetizer before the neighborhood barbecue.

—

You want to support your local restaurants because they’re taking it in the shorts during this isolating time, but maybe you like to cook at home, too. So here’s a recipe for brisket that’s so good it should be illegal. I can’t believe it hasn’t been banned yet: Nach Waxman’s brisket recipe.

What’s amazing about this recipe is not just that it makes the best brisket you’ve ever had, but it requires no extra liquid: the onions and brisket do all the work. Tremendous beefy flavor, and the slices are fork-tender without disintegrating into little bits. You don’t even need to make it with brisket. We’ve tried it with chuck roast and it comes out just as good. Any tough slab of beef will do. To make it even better, you can add more carrots and whole cloves of garlic: they give it a little sweetness that really works. If you try this out, you won’t go back to the slow cooker version with onion soup mix and beef broth again. You won’t have to. Don’t wait until Hanukkah to make the tastiest brisket available: do this now.

—

For a Zen approach to cooking and baking, take a look at Apron’s YouTube channel. Minimal music, no talking: just a recipe performed with clear competence. All in close-up so it’s a Mr. Hands approach to instructional video, but it works. You don’t need to know who Apron is. You don’t want to. Don’t ruin the magic. Just watch. The yeasted banana bread is my favorite. There’s something to it that draws you in: the faint kitchen noises, the imperfect English subtitles, the little pat of her whisk against the egg yolks to break them before she mixes. You can’t look away. You want to make the same recipes that she does, but her simple perfection, the lack of any wasted motion, is entirely daunting. This is how an angel would make doughnuts, or french toast, or sandwich rolls in the kitchens of Heaven. To even think about eating her creations is to commit sacrilege.

Or maybe I’m just going stir-crazy.

—

As we work out the details of everyone being at home at once all day long, I try to find the time, concentration, and quiet needed to write anything but blog posts about food. I’ll get it sorted. My problems are insignificant compared to what’s actually going on.

My friend A.J. Powers showed me this brief passage from C.S. Lewis. I think you’ll appreciate it.

Take care, and God bless you and your family. I’ll talk to you next week.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: apron, brisket, cooking, coronavirus, covid-19, me me me

COVID-19 vs. a Zombie Apocalypse

March 11, 2020 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

A disease pandemic like Coronavirus and an end-of-the-world scenario like a Zombie Apocalypse have a lot more in common than you might think. If you prepare for a zombie-caused civilizational collapse, you’ll also be in good shape to deal with COVID-19-afflicted neighbors coughing on your doorstep.

The good news is that the Coronavirus pandemic is, by all accounts, a temporary state of affairs. The elderly and people with preexisting respiratory ailments bear the majority of the risk from COVID-19. So while this pandemic bad for you if you’re old and/or having trouble breathing, the rest of us are more likely to survive infection if our attempts to prevent it fail. So take good care of Meemaw and Papaw, but remember: civilization will survive. This will burn itself out.

This is not the case with a viral Zombie Apocalypse, where the mortality rate is typically 100% for anyone exposed to the disease. In my book The Ultimate Guide to Surviving a Zombie Apocalypse I describe the three types of zombies: viral zombies, supernatural zombies, and voodoo zombies, and how one can not only defeat such creatures individually, but also handle an apocalypse scenario based on each type. For the purposes of this piece, we’ll compare the COVID-19 pandemic to a viral zombie attack, as the parallels are much closer.

If your intent is to cocoon, that is, to stay at home and ride the Coronavirus pandemic out, you have to prepare your home for an extended stay. That includes not just having enough food and water to last you at least a few weeks, but also stockpiling medical supplies like pain relievers/fever reducers, first aid products, and any prescription medications you might need. You’ll also want to bank a supply of hygiene products, including toilet paper, baby wipes (many uses for these other than wiping infant butts), and soap. If you’re concerned about looking like a wild-eyed prepper, don’t buy all your supplies at one place: spread out your purchases across several stores to draw less attention to yourself. One guy buying ten packs of Charmin and five cases of Dinty Moore beef stew at the local Safeway may seem suspicious, but the same guy buying a case here, a case there at a number of different stores doesn’t raise an eyebrow. It’s not alarmist to stockpile food at any time, for any reason. Just be smart about it.

Putting plastic sheeting and duct tape over doors, windows, and vents isn’t a bad idea, necessarily, but it may be overkill for COVID-19, which is spread through coughing, sneezing, or touching something an infected person touched, then touching your face. So it’s not an airborne contagion outside of six feet. Unless your home is literally surrounded by coughing, snot-blowing Coronavirus carriers, you can leave the drop cloths and duct tape in the garage. For now.

However, you should always deny visual access to the interior of your home as a basic security measure, just like in a Zombie Apocalypse. So if you’re cocooning, keep your doors and windows covered.

Societally speaking, the worst-case scenario with Coronavirus is an illness-caused breakdown of basic services: electricity, water, or even emergency services like police and fire departments. Have extra water on hand: at least two weeks’ worth. If you’ve got a gas grill, buy an extra propane tank so you can cook outdoors before everything goes bad in the fridge. If you’ve got a generator, buy fuel for it today. Charge your electronic devices and acquire a solar or crank-powered radio so you can monitor the airwaves when you get bored of playing Monopoly, waiting for the internet to come back. Buy extra batteries for everything, too. Invest in a chemical toilet before the water goes out and the commodes stop flushing. Don’t pour buckets of precious drinking water down the toilet, trying to get rid of the morning’s gluey beef stew-and-Saltine shits.

This is all basic survival prep stuff, and don’t let your betters in the media tell you that it’s alarmist to prepare for disaster, or even just inconvenience. COVID-19 isn’t likely to make people start looting neighborhoods under the cover of darkness, but wouldn’t it be nice to prepare your home and family in case something like that does happen? Have you taken your God-given right to defense of your person and family seriously enough to arm yourself? If not, why not?

Nobody ever said that they wished they hadn’t prepared so well. For anything. Even a Zombie Apocalypse. It’s not too late to prep, even now. You’ll feel better after you do.

Oh, and wash your hands. A lot. And tell the people you love that you love them more often. Can’t hurt.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: coronavirus, covid-19, preparedness, survival, ultimate guide to surviving a zombie apocalypse

Soulbound Issue 2

March 5, 2020 by David Dubrow Leave a Comment

In April of 2019 I wrote about writer/illustrator Paula Richey’s successful Kickstarter campaign for her original comic Soulbound: Issue 1. A brief foray into magic and terror, it showcased great art and sharp writing.

Now it’s time for Issue 2.

Paula says:

This is issue two, Escape, in which we get to know the second hero of our story, Torrin. Captured by an insane sorceress who intends to transform him into a monstrous slave, his only hope is to escape before she can complete her spells. But when Becca lands in his prison, he must find a way to save them both.

Paula was kind enough to give me a preview of Issue 2, and it’s already a lot of fun. Things get a lot more dangerous in just a few pages for Becca and Torrin, and the sneak peek has only whetted my appetite for more.

The future of publishing is indie, and what’s both welcome and refreshing about Paula Richey’s work is that her only agenda is to entertain, which is why we read things like comics about magical realms. Even at my age.

Check out the Kickstarter page for Soulbound Issue 2, and kick in some money for a fun comic.

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: comic books, paula richey, soulbound, soulbound 2

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"It began to drizzle rain and he turned on the windshield wipers; they made a great clatter like two idiots clapping in church." --Flannery O'Connor, Wise Blood

"Squop chicken? I never get enough to eat when I eat squop chicken. I told you that when we sat down. You gotta give me that. I told you when we sat down, I said frankly I said this is not my idea of a meal, squop chicken. I'm a big eater." --John O'Hara, BUtterfield 8

I saw the 1977 cartoon The Hobbit as a little boy, and it kindled a love of heroic fantasy that has never left me. Orson Bean's passing is terrible news. Rest in peace.

Obviously, these young people have been poorly served by their parents, but the honest search for practical information should be lauded, not contemned.

You shouldn't look at or use Twitter, and this story is another perfect example. There's so much that's wrong here that it would take a battalion of clergy, philosophers, and psychologists to fully map it out, let alone treat the issue.

This is the advertising copy for Ilana Glazer's stand-up comedy special The Planet Is Burning: "Ilana Glazer‘s debut standup special is trés lol, and turns out - she one funny b. Check out Ilana’s thoughts on partnership, being a successful stoner adult, Nazis, Diva Cups, and more. Hold on to your nuts cuz this hour proves how useless the patriarchy is. For Christ’s sake, The Planet Is Burning, and it’s time a short, queer, hairy New York Jew screams it in your face!" This is written to make you want to watch it.

In the midst of reading books about modern farming, the 6,000 year history of bread, and ancient grains, I found this just-published piece by farmer and scholar Victor Davis Hanson: Remembering the Farming Way.

"I then confront the decreasing power of the movement in order to demonstrate the need for increased theorizations of the reflexive capacities of institutionalized power structures to sustain oppositional education social movements." Yes. Of course.

You should definitely check out Atomickristin's sci-fi story Women in Fridges.

As it turns out, there may yet be some kind of personal cost for attempting to incite a social media mob into violence against a teenage boy you don't know, but decided to hate anyway because reasons.

One of the biggest problems with internet content is that the vast majority of sites don't pay their writers, and it shows in the lack of quality writing. It's hard to find decent writers, and harder to scrape up the cash to pay them. This piece is a shining example of the problem of free content: it's worth what you pay for.

If you're interested in understanding our current cultural insanity, the best primer available is Douglas Murray's The Madness of Crowds. Thoughtful, entertaining, and incisive.

More laws are dumb. More law enforcement is dumb. The only proper response to violence is overwhelming violence. End the assault. There's a rising anti-semitism problem in New York because Jews who act like victims are being victimized by predators. None of these attacks are random. Carry a weapon and practice deploying it under duress. Be alert and aware. I don't understand why the women Tiffany Harris attacked didn't flatten her face into the pavement, but once word gets around that the consequences of violence are grave, the violence will lessen.

When are you assholes going to understand that this stupidity doesn't work any longer? Nobody gives much of a damn if you think we're sexist because we don't want to see a movie you think we should see. It only makes us dislike you that much more, and you started out being an unlikable asshole. Find a new way to shame normal people.

The movie Terms of Endearment still holds up more than 35 years later, and if you're looking for a tearjerker, this is your jam. One element that didn't get a lot of mention is, at the end, when Flap, with a shrug, decides that his mother-in-law will become the mother of his children once Emma dies. He abandons them, and nothing is made of it. This always troubled me.

You need to read this story the next time you feel the urge to complain. And if you need a shot of admiration for another family's courage, check this out.

Progressive political activist and children's author J.K. Rowling finds herself on the wrong side of a mob she helped to create. The Woke Sandwich she's been trying to force-feed others since she earned enough f-you money doesn't taste as good as it looks when she's obliged to take a bite.

I need you to check out The Kohen Chronicles and pray for this family. Their 5-year-old son has cancer.

Currently, the movie Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker stands at 55% at Rotten Tomatoes. Don't forget that these are the same reviewers who not only adored the absolutely execrable The Last Jedi, but insisted that you were a MAGA hat-wearing incel white supremacist manbaby for not loving The Last Jedi. So either The Rise of Skywalker is an objectively bad film, or it simply wasn't woke enough to earn plaudits from our movie-reviewing moral and intellectual betters.

It's easy to hate the older pop bands like Genesis for their popularity, but they were capable of genius, and it shows in No Son of Mine.

If you want to know which identity group has more clout, read this story of the Zola ads on the Hallmark Channel.

Rest in peace, René Auberjonois. I remember you from Benson as a kid. As an adult, I remember you as Janos Audron in the Legacy of Kain video game series. You made every role you were in a classic.

Elf on a Shelf Follies, Part 2:
8-year-old: I wrote the elf a note! I hope he writes back.
Me: What did you write?
8yo: I asked if he has any friends.
Me: What if he says it's none of your business?
8yo: *eyes grow dark and glittering* Then I'll...touch him.
Me: Ah. Mutually assured destruction, then.

Elf on a Shelf Follies, Part 1: My 8-year-old got an Elf on the Shelf the other day. The book it came with tells a story in doggerel about this elf's purpose, which is to spy on the kid and report his doings to Santa Claus, who would then determine if the kid is worthy for Christmas presents this year. The book also said for the kid not to touch him, or the magic would fade, and for the family to give the elf a name. I wanted to name him Stasi. I was outvoted.

Actor Billy Dee Williams calls himself a man or a woman, depending on whim; his character Lando Calrissian is "pansexual," and his writer implies that he'd become intimate with anyone or anything, including, one presumes, a dog, a toaster, or a baby. J.J. Abrams is very concerned about LGBTQ representation in the Star Wars universe. This is Hollywood. This is Star Wars. This is what's important to the people in charge of your cinematic entertainment. Are you not entertained?

The funniest thing on the internet today is the number of people angry over an exercise bike commercial. Public outrage is always funny. Always.

One of the biggest mistakes the United States has ever made since WWII was recruiting for clandestine and federal law enforcement organizations at Ivy League schools. The best talent pools were/are available from local law enforcement and military veterans, with their maturity and, most importantly, field experience. We've been reaping the costs of these terrible decisions for decades, culminating in a hopelessly politicized, sub-competent FBI and CIA.

Watching Fauda seasons 1 and 2 again in preparation for season 3 to be broadcast, one hopes, in early 2020. Here's my back-of-the-matchbook review of season 2.

Every day I try to be grateful for what I have, even in the face of the petty frustrations and troubles that pockmark a day spent outside of one's living room, binge-watching Netflix. We live lives of ease in 21st century America, making it enormously difficult to do anything but take one's countless blessings for granted. Holidays like the just-passed Thanksgiving are helpful reminders. There's a reason why people call the attitude of a thankful heart practicing gratitude, not just feeling grateful. You have to practice it. You have to remind yourself of what you have. It's the work of a lifetime.

Held Back: A Recent Conversation.
8-year-old: Oh, and Jamie was there, too. He was in my first grade class two years ago.
Me: Wasn't he held back a year?
8yo: Yeah. It's because he kept going to the bathroom with the door open.
Me: No way!
8yo: And girls saw.
Me: That's not right. They're not going to hold a kid back a whole year over that.
8yo: Well, that's what he told me.
Me: Sounds fishy.
8yo: I believe him.
~fin~

It's right and good to push a raft of politically correct social justice policies on everything else under the sun, but when social justice invades Hollywood, that's just a bridge too far, says Terry Gilliam. Sorry, Terry: you helped make this sandwich. EAT IT.

Rob Henderson's piece on luxury beliefs will have you nodding your head over and over again...unless you subscribe to these luxury beliefs, in which case you'll get mad.

I've made the Saturday bread from Flour Water Salt Yeast so often that I've memorized the recipe. It never disappoints. Never. The same recipe works well for pizza, too.

Liberty doesn't mean the freedom to do anything you want. The true definition of liberty is the ability to choose the good. Anything less is libertinism.

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