The desolation of winter;
passing through a small hamlet,
a dog barks.
— Masaoka Shiki
Author Archive: Paul Epps
A caterpillar,
this deep in fall –
still not a butterfly.
— Basho
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Willis Reed
Willis Reed is best remembered for Game 7 of the 1970 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers in Madison Square Garden, not for his performance on the court (he scored only four points), but for limping gamely onto the court during warmups. Reed hadn’t played in Game 6 because of a torn thigh muscle and was considered unlikely to play in Game 7. Even as a Laker fan, I have to admit it was an all-time iconic moment, so much so that no one (except Frazier himself) remembers that Walt Frazier had one of the greatest Game 7 performances in NBA playoff history: 36 points, 7 rebounds, 19 assists and 6 steals. That game is always remembered as “the Willis Reed game.” RIP Willis Reed Read more →
The NRA is a Red Herring
Every time some gun-related tragedy occurs, we get to hear from innumerable people who know nothing about guns other than everything is the NRA’s fault. And everything they think they know about the NRA is wrong. In other words, they think they know one thing but the one thing they know is wrong. The thing they think they know is that the NRA pays off (Republican) politicians to vote against gun control bills. I asked ChatGPT “How much does the NRA donate annually to politicians?” And I got this answer: The National Rifle Association (NRA) is a powerful lobbying organization that has donated millions of dollars to political candidates and causes over the years. However, the organization is not required to disclose its exact political contributions, and the amount it donates can vary widely from year to year and election cycle to election cycle. According to the Center for Responsive… Read more →
Believing Children’s Gender Identities
The woman above is Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan of the state of Minnesota, who said at a press conference, “When our children tell us who they are, it is our job as grown-ups to listen and to believe them. That’s what it means to be a good parent.” If it wasn’t already obvious from the way she’s dressed, this woman needs to be institutionalized. My son, when he was much younger, told me he was Thor, he told me he was a gorilla, he told me he was a dinosaur . . . I didn’t believe him in any of those cases. Am I a bad parent? He never said he was a girl, but at that time he wouldn’t have been continually propagandized on the topic by “grown-ups.” Read more →
If God Coached Basketball
Vermont Christian School Barred from Future Competition for Refusing to Play against Male Athlete — nationalreview.com Mid-Vermont Christian School (MVCS) has been excluded from competing in future tournaments sanctioned by the Vermont Principals’ Association after its girls basketball team forfeited a match against an opposing team that includes a male player who identifies as a girl. It’s a human rights violation! Vermont law permits transgender females to compete in the group corresponding to their gender identity and prohibits so-called discrimination based on sex. Since the school in question is a Christian school, let’s ask ourselves what would Jesus do if Jesus were a basketball coach? Better yet, what would God do? Because God is wrathful and doesn’t put up with nonsense. I will carry out great vengeance on them and punish them in my wrath. Then they will know that I am the LORD, when I take vengeance on them.… Read more →
Ukraine Needs Missiles!
My Boyhood Sports Icons Are Dying: Dick Fosbury
THE FOSBURY FLOP! Read more →
For the things we have to learn before we can do them, we learn by doing them. — Aristotle
Who Is Deserving of Dignity and Respect?
The Independent reports that the White House has called for Mike Pence to apologize for what it called a “homophobic” joke about Pete Buttigieg’s decision to take paternity leave when his twins were born. Pence said Buttigieg, who is the first openly gay Cabinet secretary, took “maternity leave” while airline problems happened in 2021. “Pete is the only person in human history to have a child and everyone else gets postpartum depression,” Pence said at the annual Gridiron Club dinner in Washington on Saturday. That’s a good joke. What a nation of whiny crybabies we have become. White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, “He should apologize to women and LGBTQ people, who are entitled to be treated with dignity and respect.” The White House recently gave a “Women of Courage” award to a man so they have no moral standing to talk about treating women with dignity and respect.… Read more →
Why Must Differences Between Persons Be Justified?
Often writers state a presumption in favor of equality in a form such as the following: “Differences in treatment of persons need to be justified.” . . . But if I go to one movie theater rather than to another adjacent to it, need I justify my different treatment of the two theater owners? Isn’t it enough that I felt like going to one of them? . . . It is not clear why the maxim that differences in treatment must be justified should be thought to have extensive application. Why must differences between persons be justified? Why think that we must change, or remedy, or compensate for any inequality which can be changed, remedied, or compensated for? — Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia Read more →
There Are Only Individual People
Why not . . . hold that some persons have to bear some costs that benefit other persons more, for the sake of the overall social good? But there is no social entity with a good that undergoes some sacrifice for its own good. There are only individual people, different individual people, with their own individual lives. Using one of these people for the benefit of others, uses him and benefits the others. Nothing more. What happens is that something is done to him for the sake of the others. Talk of an overall social good covers this up. (Intentionally?) To use a person in this way does not sufficiently respect and take account of the fact that he is a separate person, that his is the only life he has. He does not get some overbalancing good from his sacrifice, and no one is entitled to force this upon… Read more →
Mirrors and Mirror Holders
Inviting Chaya Raichik, the woman behind #LibsofTikTok, to CPAC is "a gesture of contempt towards every teacher, every medical provider, and every other American who cares about making the world a kinder and safer place,” @AriDrennen told me.https://t.co/4ZzMJXEm8T — David Gilbert (@daithaigilbert) March 1, 2023 Doesn’t LibsOfTikTok just repost other people’s videos? It holds a mirror up to people who don’t like what they see and all they can think of to do is to hate mirrors and the people who hold them. As I post this, the tweet is getting ratioed at more than a 10-1 clip. I’d like to think this means that many people are getting as sick as I am of this “I hate you because you’re not as kind as I am” mental malfunction. Also sick of “People who cannot be expected to parrot opinions I hold myself should not be allowed to speak.” Now… Read more →
Unintended Consequences of DEI
Scott Yenor’s recent report on the rise of the equity regime at Texas A&M (TAMU) provides a glimpse into the gap between DEI’s public claims and its real, material meaning. Formally, Yenor notes, “diversity” is portrayed as the principle that “everyone and every group should be valued” by “embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of difference”; in practice, it represents “an identity-based approach to society,” intended to box out “now-disfavored groups like whites and males through ‘political quotas.’” Formally, “equity” is allegedly aimed at “overcoming challenges and bias to achieve equal opportunity”; in practice, it redounds to “equality of outcomes plus reparations.” Formally, “inclusion” means “bringing the formerly excluded into activities and decision-making so as to share power”; in practice, it’s “enforced segregation of people by race” and “restrictions on speech” for disfavored groups. Yenor substantiates those claims with a startling statistic: As the DEI regime advanced through TAMU —… Read more →
Have You Seen Anyone in the US Flying a Ukrainian Flag?
Profile icons don’t count. I've never seen one, you incoherent mumbling toad. https://t.co/uFeTvy5o1p — Catturd ™ (@catturd2) February 21, 2023 Read more →
That is a Load of Educational Malarkey!
I think every kid, in every zip code, in every state should have access to every education opportunity possible. I guess, for some, that isn’t the consensus view. https://t.co/d1FAeWwKv1 — President Biden (@POTUS) February 17, 2023 That is a load of malarkey! I mean, the bullshit meter just totally pegged. That is not what he thinks and anyone who knows even a little about politics knows that is not what he thinks. What he thinks is that every kid in every zip code should attend the public schools that they’re assigned to based on where they live. And if those schools are hopeless trash fires, the kids should attend those schools anyway. Teachers unions and the Democratic party are co-dependent. The unions, in addition to providing financial support, are the foot soldiers of the party. In exchange, no Democrat will ever — and I mean never ever — support school… Read more →
Don’t Believe Your Eyes, the Economy is Strong!
BREAKING Spokesperson for Hell disputes Biden’s claim that the U.S. economy is “strong as hell” Quote: “Data shows Hell’s economy is currently much stronger than America’s” pic.twitter.com/czwnQAMGCn — News That Matters (@ThatmattersNews) October 17, 2022 According to LinkedIn, here are some of the companies doing layoffs so far in February: Convoy Tackle DocuSign KPMG Wix The RealReal DigitalOcean Bank of America Criteo Sprinklr PICO ServiceTitan Vicarious Surgical Betterment Divvy Homes Neiman Marcus Group Udemy iRobot LinkedIn Terminus Showtime HackerEarth Channel Advisor United Talent Agency Electric Collective Health TripleLift Rigetti Computing Twilio Daily Harvest Dandy Bark Olive AI News Corp Yahoo GitHub GitLab Disney GoDaddy JPMorgan Chase Affirm Medly Gusto Nomad Health Zoom Magic Eden Protocol Labs Bittrex Chainalysis Prime Trust CoinTracker VinFast Gong EBay Secureworks Boeing Dell Technologies Clari Workato Drift Kyruus Desktop Metal Getir Salesforce Highspot Getaround Autodesk Tilting Point Mindstrong Athenahealth Genesys Replica Sendoso Articulate MediaMath Dialpad Wheel… Read more →
I’m Shocked — SHOCKED — to Find That My Letter Was Distorted
Clapper says letter about Russian links to Hunter Biden laptop saga was 'distorted' https://t.co/DFdQGXXS7f — Paul Epps (@paulepps) February 17, 2023 Wow! It took him more than two years to figure that out?! “All we were doing was raising a yellow flag that this could be Russian disinformation. Politico deliberately distorted what we said,” Clapper recently told the Washington Post. “The intent of the letter was that this could be Russian disinformation — emphasis on could,” Clapper told the outlet. “It’s a very important nuance … a distinction that people are always ignoring.” Well, he’s right. If you read the letter carefully, it does say — I’m paraphrasing here — we have no idea if the laptop is Russian disinformation, we have no evidence that it is, but it does have the classic earmarks of Russian spycraft. Why would 50 former high-ranking intel officials get together to write and sign… Read more →
What the State of the Union Didn’t Say
The president entered office with a 1.4% inflation rate and spiked it to 7%. 30-year mortgages of 2.7% soared to 6.5% in less than two years. Eggs are $7 a dozen. A thin steak is $15 a pound. A sheet of plywood is $95. Gas averaged $2.39 a gallon when the president took office and even after draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve it is still $3.50 a gallon. In my state, California, gas has recently been over $5 a gallon. The price of natural gas has tripled in less than a year. In two years over 5 million foreign nationals poured into the United States—all illegally across a nonexistent border. The president said that he “lowered” inflation, energy prices and interest rates after sending them to astronomical levels and then seeing them momentarily taper off a bit. Like Nero bragging about rebuilding Circus Maximus after burning it down. He omitted… Read more →
Go Down, Moses
I read yesterday that Moses Hall became the fifth building at UC Berkeley to lose its name( because of the allegedly racist views of its namesake, Bernard Moses, a prominent faculty member from 1875 to 1911. All of the buildings have been unnamed since 2020. “Disappearing” people is straight out of the Joseph Stalin playbook and I’ve never learned to see Stalin as a role model. According to the Berkeley news article that I read, Niko Kolodny, former chair of the philosophy department, said he became aware via email that Moses’ name “had been deeply disturbing to several people of color.” The University of California established a Bernard Moses Memorial Lecture in 1937, and Moses Hall was named in 1965. The fact that it took more than 80 years since Moses was first recognized for the university to familiarize itself with his views (via an email!) and deem them inappropriate… Read more →