Category: Feed Your Head

Hoe_Math And Why Levels Of Thought Caused This Mess

“If the rule you followed brought you to this, of what use was the rule?” – No Country for Old Men

But, hey, they all have the same tote bag.  (all memes as-found)

There is a YouTube® creator named hoe_math that I watch regularly.  I’d guess that he and I have fairly similar worldviews in many cases, and I recommend his channel (LINK).  One of the trademark issues Mr. _math has discussed is the breakdown between men and women in our modern, technological age and how government has made it worse.

One thing he’s brought up several times in his videos is the concept of “levels of thinking” which I’ll just call “Levels” from here on out.  It’s a variation of Maslow’s Hierarchy, but it’s been refined by Ken Wilber, to walk back the sources.  But let’s stick to hoe_math.

hoe_math’s main success has been as a guy who draws stick figures with colored pencils to explain why your relationships suck and society is unraveling.  Rather than Levels being a new age mystical tool, Mr. _math uses Levels as a tool, and as a powerful one.  Keep in mind, it’s not reality, it’s just another way to model it.  In this case, however, it explains a lot of what would otherwise be mystical behavior and magical thinking of people who really should know better.

The version of Levels that hoe_math has been distilled down to nine stages of thinking, each building on the last like a Jenga™ tower of the soul.  Today, though, I want to stick to the first seven levels. Why? Because Level 6 is the root of so much GloboLeft® insanity, and Level 7 shows, maybe, a way out.

Let’s climb the Levels ladder, one sticky rung at a time.

 

Level 1:  Survival And Desire

Picture this:  a toddler covered in spaghetti sauce.  Life isn’t about stocks or status.  It’s a confusing set of seemingly unrelated events.  Life is about not dying and emotional control doesn’t yet exist..

Hunger gnaws, cold bites, and that pain from having fingernails cut?  That’s the worst pain the baby has ever felt.  Thinking at Level 1 is pure reflex:  see food, eat. See threat, run or smash.  No plans, just sensory overload driving you to grab what feels good and dodge what hurts.

Every human starts at this level, but most outgrow it.  Except in pathology:  think severe autism or that guy at the grocery store yelling about expired coupons.

And toxic masculinity? Level 1 is the primal protector that men become when times become grim: the father who stays up all night by the fire with a shotgun when the wolves are howling outside.  It’s raw, unapologetic drive when there’s a positive motivation.

In the negative, it’s the low-I.Q. murderer who kills someone for $5.  These people stuck at this level cannot survive by themselves.

 

Level 2: Connect

Now the world gets a little less lonely.  I’ve got senses, sure, but suddenly, so does everyone else.  Thinking now shifts: life is bonding and not being alone.  Emotions now project outward because at this level, people now understand that others have needs, too.  And, when others are happy, I get what I want.  I clean my room, I get cookies.

hoe_math notes that this is where tribes form – but for people stuck at this level, there is nearly zero trust for outsiders.  Probably the largest useful structure that this level produces is the family.

 

Level 3: Control

If the first level had no bonds, the second level had bonds between one person and another, this level is third person:  the realization that other people have connections to each other.  And that’s a great tool to use to get control of them.

If Level 3 was a decade, it would be The Me Decade, the 1970s.  Since all of humanity can live at Level 1 or Level 2, fully 92% of humanity can make it to Level 3 every day, according to hoe_math, who you should trust because “math” is in his name.

At this stage, the strong exploit the week, and morality is an afterthought.  If India was a level, it would be Level 3.  It’s a war of all against all with a billion caste systems.

 

Level 4:  Conform

This is all about the rules.  Only 40% of humanity gets here every day.  That should scare you.

Yeouch!  That tells you that my India comment on Level 3 is probably spot on.  This is the level that gives us useful structures like functional civilizations and businesses and religion.  It is here that ethics and the study of rules start.  This is where morality takes over in judgements.

People compete for power here, yet compete using rules that are agreed on.  Chaos unchecked? No thanks.  Now the flip side of the lower levels becomes apparent:  selfishness breeds anarchy, so rules it is.  It’s Good vs. Evil, us vs. them.  Life demands order.

Level 4 birthed all higher-level civilizations.

 

Level 5: Achieve

Now we’re into the land of libertarians, big L and little l versions.  About 28% of people reach this level on a daily basis.

Rules are for rubes.  Freedom über alles.  Good and bad?  That’s subjective.  Life is about results.  Set goals, crunch the numbers, win big, add sawdust to the raisin bran if nobody notices.

Why bow to a boss or a Bible?

The Level 5 achiever is the builder, the provider, the man who turns dirt into dynasties.  It’s the dad working doubles so the kids eat steak, not ramen.  I think the majority of the success of the United States has been entirely due to Level 5 behavior, so therefore it is called toxic masculinity.

 

Level 6:  Understand

Here’s where the wheels start wobbling off the cart, and also where higher-level thinking is observably worse than lower-level thinking.

In Level 6, uniqueness reigns; old rules are chains.  Life celebrates diversity!  Every truth is a perspective, every culture is valid, except (in the Western version) that mean old Christian patriarchy.  Reject hierarchies, listen to the oppressed, seek consensus, live, laugh, love.  Subjectivity rules; impose nothing.

Sounds noble, right?  Until you try validating all cultures and beliefs and fetishes.

That’s the rot.  I mean, it’s well-meaning, but it rests upon a fundamental denial of reality.

Seek “understanding” without boundaries, and boom:  moslims torch the gay bar that the Level 6 people thought would be just fine right next to the mosque as hoe_math described it.

Because why?

Because no matter how much Level 6 thinkers want 82 I.Q. people from Somalia to be accepting, tolerant, and embrace the gay lifestyle, they are Level 3 thinkers that want to chuck the gays off cliffs just to see what sound the make when they hit bottom.

This leads to the GloboLeftElite® importing clash after clash into the nation, then cries “tolerance!” while cities burn.

Truth dies on the altar of feelings.

Pathologies?  Narcissistic echo chambers and spineless relativism.  It’s why campuses are safe spaces for screams of GloboLeftist rage but not debate and England will tolerate rape and murder as a moslem/hindu team sport but not tolerate people noticing it.

 

Level 7: Harmonize

Finally, wisdom dawns.

Despite being only 5% of the population, I would bet that most of my regular readers get here or hang out at Level 5.  On either side of this, we’ve seen the mess that Level 6 is.  The problem with Level 6 is that it’s based on lies.  Pretty lies, but lies nonetheless.

The rules we made up at Level 4?

Some of them make fundamental sense in a way that, if you ignore them, birthrates of smart people plummet and the birth of idiots is reinforced.  Or crime rate increases.  Or we decide that creating fiat currencies is a good thing, just like they did in Weimar Germany.

But reality exists.  Those Level 4 rules aren’t random!  It is folly of the highest order to ignore them.  Complex systems demand rules and judgement in order to work, and mixing cultures sometimes ends up with the result that border walls are way better than immigration.

This is toxic masculinity, yet again:  the harmonizer is the statesman, the elder who balances freedom with fences, innovation with inheritance.  It’s the patriarch reading the room—protecting the tribe by pruning threats, not hugging them.

The dangers here are existential drift that leads to nihilism or half-baked gurus with books to sell.

As I said, only 5% get here regularly.

Why?

It takes I.Q. to juggle viewpoints, model systems empirically, and see patterns in the interactions. Low I.Q. folks stall at Level 4 conformity and Level 6 is a trap for people who want to see a beautiful world that could never exist.

So, why fixate on these?  Because Level 6 thinking led, at least partially, to the trouble we’re in now.  Endless “understanding” ignores that not all cultures play nice and that our people need jobs, too.  Validate it all, and you get Paris no-go zones or Rotherham horrors. Level 6 whispers “coexist,” but Level 7 shouts “think about this.”

The same level of thinking that got us into this mess isn’t going to get us out of it, and, sadly we’re going to have to continue to go after and eliminate Level 6 thinking where we see it.

And we will, because the result of losing?

It’s Level 3.  And the world already has way too much India.

Live Life Without Fear, The Dune Way

“An animal caught in a trap will gnaw off its own leg to escape.  What will you do?” – Dune

I read the first four novels, but I found them a bit dry.  (All memes as found)

I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.  Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.  I will face my fear.  I will permit it to pass over me and through me.  And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.  Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.  Only I will remain.

– Frank Herbert, Dune

In 2025, fear is not just a personal demon.  Fear is now a cultural plague, especially for the kids.

We have raised a generation terrified of their own shadows, and it shows in every therapy session, pill bottle, riot, and Antifa® meeting.

The number of kids in therapy or pumped full of psychoactive drugs by the quacks who call themselves psychologists seems to be 8 or 9 out of 10.  In perspective, this is the era of civilization that has the greatest level of material wealth in history, and the lowest hunger rate in the world.

World hunger?

It’s a solved problem outside of war and intentional starvation for political reasons.

The drugs and therapy are not making the kids better.  At all.  The way society is treating kids is like prescribing a hammer to the knees for a headache.  The good news is the pain from the hammer will distract you from the headache, but eventually you’ll only be able to walk in circles.

The Mrs. asked me to have a talk with our kids on drugs.  I said, “Sure, but I don’t think I’ll make much sense when I’m high.”

And no, these drugs are not good for you like whiskey, whisky, wine or beer. That’s a joke, but if therapy worked as well as a couple of brews after a long day, Antifa® wouldn’t exist.

Kids today are not allowed to figure anything out on their own.  Failure?  That is a dirty word, banished like fiscal responsibility is banished from Congress.  As a proud Gen X kid, my family left me alone for the entire weekend when I was in third grade.  No note, no nanny, no neighbor looking in on me from time to time.  Nope.  Just a key and a fridge full of questionable leftovers.  I survived on frozen pizzas and three channels (no one counted PBS®), but I learned to entertain myself without burning the house down.

Barely.

When Paul wanted the last glass of water, he called Muad’Dibs on it.

By eighth grade, Ma and Pa Wilder upped the ante.  They drove off to Florida.

For a month, leaving me to fend for myself.  I even dealt with a thumb wound that probably should have had stitches from when I was using very poor form to whittle.

Did I call for help?  No.

I fixed it with duct tape, determination, and a healthy glop of Neosporin™.

That is what you do when the stakes are low and the lessons are free.

High school?  That is when freedom hit near-adult levels.  I had my own apartment over an hour from Wilder Mountain (long story).  I managed my own schedule, and got home whenever I damn well pleased since Pa Wilder visited only three nights a week (Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday) and he left all the fun nights for me.

Some people call me the space cowboy.  I wish they would stop.  My name is John.

Sometimes I was home just after practice.  Sometimes, I was home at 3am after doing, well, other things.  No curfew, no check-ins, just me against the world.

Was I unusual in having my (mostly) own place?  Sure.

But the freedom?  That was standard issue for Gen X.  Even before I could drive, I would bolt out the door at sunrise and not return until the streetlights flickered on.  No helicopter parents hovering like drones, tracking every move with an app or scheduling athletic events.  Nope.

Contrast that with the childhood scripted for kids today.

It is structured from dawn to dusk, every moment scheduled like a corporate meeting.  Playdates?  Organized by committee.  Sports?  Leagues with participation trophies for showing up.  Even recess is micromanaged, with rubberized playgrounds that cushion every tumble.  And do not get me started on the deprivation of schoolyard fights and bullying, which back in the day were ritualized tests of mettle to place yourself in the hierarchy.

Places to test yourself.  Like the Olympics®.

Freshman initiation in high school was a rite of passage, not a crime.  Upperclassmen would haze the newbies with pranks:  carrying books, silly chants, maybe a wedgie or two.  No gross abuse, just enough strain to test character to see how you’d take it.

If you performed well under pressure?

Instant respect.

Fold like a cheap suit?  Okay, it was tougher.  They had to learn resilience the hard way.  And fights?

They happened.

Teachers often let them play out just as long as they had to go as long as no real damage was being done.  A bloody nose or a black eye, then it was over.  Often, the combatants were friends afterwards, hierarchy established, testosterone balanced, respect earned:  male bonding at its rawest.

Paul wrote a book on walking to avoid sandworms.  It was a step-by-step guide.

These rituals, in moderation, built toughness.  They taught that pain passes, conflicts resolve, and life demands honor.  Bruises faded, but the lessons stuck.  Parents?  They never heard about it.  A fistfight?  So what?  Boys will be boys.

Today?  Heaven forbid a scuffle breaks out in a school (at least a middle-class white majority school).  It is not a learning moment; it is a federal case.  Suspension, counseling, parental conferences, maybe even charges.  Zero tolerance turns into zero growth, however, since kids are shielded from every scrape, every failure, every real consequence.

The world they inherit is virtual, endless screens feeding dopamine hits without risk.  Social media wars replace playground brawls, but the scars are deeper: anxiety, isolation, fear of the unknown.  Many of these kids have never cold approached a woman and asked for a date.

Part of the point is learning to fail when the stakes are low.  A lost fight in fifth grade?  Big deal, you dust off and try again.  A botched initiation?  You toughen up for next time.  She said, “No, you’re not my type, I prefer men with two eyebrows?”  Fine.  There are more girls.

I mean, if Soros can get a date . . .

These situations, however, build the muscle to handle adult life without crumbling.  Fear becomes a tool, not a tyrant. But cloister kids too long, and they enter the world paralyzed. The Mrs. nailed it when we were talking yesterday:  ” . . . if they (kids) cannot handle solving teenage problems, they will commit atrocities as adults.”

I liked that line so much I made her text it to me.

He also needs some smokes and a pepperoni.  I know at least one person found this hilarious.

Unresolved fears fester into rage, leading kids to lash out at a world they never learned to navigate.

Look around at the twisted landscape of 2025:

  • Riots over nothing,
  • Entitlement epidemics,
  • Adults throwing tantrums like toddlers.

Weakness is a result raising children in bubbles.  No free-range exploration, no unsupervised adventures, no low-stakes failures to forge resilience and enough scar tissue to toughen the kid up.  Instead, society offers them therapy and pills paper over the cracks and pay for the therapist’s BMW® payment.

The solution is simple.

Face the fear, let it pass, emerge stronger.  Let kids roam, fight, fail, and fix their own messes.  Strip away the structure, the screens, the safety nets.  Teach them that bruises heal, but cowardice cripples.  Otherwise, we breed a nation of mind-killed adults, obliterated by the little-deaths of unchecked terror who will do anything because they have faith in absolutely nothing.

One way or another, courage will return, if not because we shatter the bubble, it will because it collapses under the weight of fear.  And then?

We’ll have to face our fears.

How Strippers Explain Life On Mars

“I’m telling you, don’t do it. I’ve got nothing against strip clubs, but I do have something against them at noon on a Monday. The day shift at a strip club? You can’t unsee that.” – The Office

I go to a quantum mechanic – he fixes and doesn’t fix my car at the same time, and I can’t ever be certain about what it will cost. (meme above and top meme as found)

Last week, NASA had a press conference on what they’re calling “the strongest evidence yet” for life on Mars. According to their announcement, the Perseverance rover had taken pictures of a rock sample dubbed “Sapphire Canyon”.

This is a coincidence, since that was the name of the stripper at my bachelor party.  The rock was from a site called Jezero Crater, which I assume (based on her face) was the stripper’s real name.  As I recall her face was a temporal anomaly:  it could stop a clock.  The only explanation for this was my best man was on a budget of something like $4.98.

The rock did not work for tips, however, but like the stripper it shows potential biosignatures dating back about 3.5 billion years.  These biosignatures include organic materials, chemical reactions that mimic microbial activity, a g-string, and what the scientists called “leopard spots”, which I really hope can be cured by antibiotics.

The people who write press releases for NASA Scientists are cautious, of course; they emphasize that non-biological processes could explain it, like geochemical reactions under specific conditions.  But after a year of peer review in Nature®, Acting NASA Administrator Sean Duffy went so far as to say, “We can’t find another explanation, so this very well could be the clearest sign of life that we’ve ever found on Mars, which is incredibly exciting.”

Unlike Sapphire Canyon.

I hear that most electricians need to strip to make ends meet. (meme as found)

This isn’t the first time NASA has twerked and gyrated with the idea of Martian microbes.  Let’s rewind to 1976, when the Viking landers touched down and ran their own biology experiments to hunt for life.

The Labeled Release experiment, led by Gilbert Levin, injected Martian soil with nutrients and watched for gas emissions that meant “metabolism!”  These are, in layman’s terms, signs of life chowing down on the snot that NASA sprayed into the dirt.

Positive results popped up on both Viking 1 and 2, but NASA dismissed them.  Why?  Well, it appears that NASA wanted to not find life, and hunted for explanations high and low until they came up with:

  • perchlorates in the soil oxidizing everything to
  • it was Tuesday and we don’t do our best work on Tuesday, to
  • it was the Bicentennial and we were distracted by the shiny new quarters or
  • we won the war, go back to sleep.

The scientist in charge still insists to this day that it was life, but NASA just said, “Well, we don’t know what we were thinking with doing an experiment like that.  How did you sneak it on the Viking?  The experiment never could have found anything.  Have you seen Smokey and the Bandit®?”

Fast-forward to the 1990s, and I recall the unveiling of Martian meteorite ALH84001.  This fragment of rock, ejected from Mars about the time your mother was born 17 million years ago and crash-landing on Earth the time that stripper was born about 13,000 years back, contained carbonate globules with what looked like fossilized bacteria complete with hydrocarbons.

The scientists noted that these were possible microbial remnants from a wetter Mars.  But skeptics piled on:  “The fossils were too small because I can’t fit in one, the hydrocarbons could be from space dust or an Exxon® station, and we won the war so everyone should go back to sleep and have you seen The Usual Suspects?”

Do bacteria communicate by cell phone?

Now, we’ve made it to 2025. right on the dot with the rover findings pushing the timeline for life on Mars back to the Solar System’s dawn, around 3.5 to 3.8 billion years ago.

I’ve predicted that we’d find evidence of life on other worlds before (I think but am too lazy to check) 2030, and intelligent life before 2040.  Mars counts as “other worlds,” right?

I’m calling this as a win.  We’ve ticked the box on “life elsewhere.”  Dust off the telescopes, crack open the hot tub and light up a cigar.

Now comes the deeper question:  Where did life come from?

Life on Earth is improbable enough.  The current theory is that a cosmic vegetable drawer in the Frigidaire™ Galaxy sits for long enough where atoms randomly congeal just the right molecules to morph into RNA, then DNA, slap on some cell walls, and voila, you’re evolving from slime to Shakespeare in just a weekend.

The odds of that?

Astronomically against.  Take protein folding:  some proteins are so convoluted that the random chance of them assembling correctly exceeds the age of the universe by factors of 10 FOLLOWED BY 77 ZEROES or more.  That’s not something that I’m making up.  Actual biochemists have crunched the numbers, showing that even simple enzymes require precise sequences that blind luck couldn’t hit in billions of years.

It’s like expecting a tornado in a junkyard to assemble a functional air fryer, but with extra steps involving quantum hiccups, existential dread and daytime-quality strippers named Destiny.  So, if life popped up on Mars around the same time as it did on Earth, both in that narrow window post-Solar System formation, random chance starts looking like a lousy bet.

I donated $100 to a charity for blind children, but I doubt they’ll ever see it. (meme as found)

Enter panspermia: the idea that life (or its building blocks) hitchhikes through space on comets, asteroids, or meteorites, seeding planets like dandelion fluff from the movie Alien.

I did a thought experiment and came to this conclusion:  it’s the lazy way to colonize the galaxy.  There is no need for warp drives and spaceships when biology, gravity, and time does all the work.  Spew out spores into the void, wait for them to land on a Goldilocks world, and boom: mold on bread, except the bread is a planet.

Oh, wait:  bread doesn’t mold anymore thanks to all those preservatives and microplastics.  My bad.

Anyway, biological life is the universe’s perfect replicator, even better than A.I.  It’s self-sustaining, adaptive, and cheap.  Forget A.I. overlords; this is nature’s von Neumann probe, probing without permission, replicating, and repeating.

I sent it by itself and now its favorite cheese is probe-alone.

But here’s the rub: something had to kickstart the whole shebang.

Panspermia just kicks the can backwards in time:  where did the original life come from?  And don’t forget the timeline.  Life as we know it, Jim, needs heavy elements heavier than the primordial hydrogen:  carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, the stuff that makes water, proteins, and yes, even PEZ®.

Those only form in supernovae, and it takes time to make enough of them so we’ve got the iron and phosphorus that we need to make steaks on a nice rocky world.  The Solar System itself is just a punk at 4.6 billion years old, so early life on Mars or Earth had to brew from second- or third-hand atoms.

No heavy atoms, no guitars so no heavy metal.

What’s the simplest conclusion?

Hmmmm.

Yup.

Intelligent design.  Life’s complexity indicates purpose, not at all an accident and the math shows that.  To think otherwise is like finding an air conditioning unit in the desert and thinking, “Must be erosion.”

I did give up cleaning my dryer filter for Lent.

The canyon between life and not-life is so vast and the math is so brutal that Occam’s Razor slices away the nonsense, leaving design.

Your mileage may vary.  But for now, Mars whispers, just like Saphire Canyon, “You’re not alone.”  Whether that’s comforting or terrifying depends on your worldview.

But for me, in a universe this designed, even the stripper jokes write themselves.  Life is the easy way to conquer the galaxy, so we have to ask ourselves, are we twerking hard, or hardly twerking?

Things Are Not Alright

“Hey, business is business.  You use a gun.  I use a fountain pen.  What’s the difference?  Let’s put it in my terms:  you’re in a hostile takeover, you snatch us up for some green mail, but you’re not expecting some poison pill to be running around the building, am I right?  Hans, bubby, I’m your white knight.” – Die Hard

When the S&P 500 and the moslems merge, you really won’t be able to talk badly about the profit. (all memes as-found)

A recent study shows that young people, those under 40, are souring on capitalism.

According to the poll from Rasmussen released just last week, a whopping 62% of voters aged 18 to 39 think the economy is unfair to their generation.  In a massive change from the Cold War generations, 55% are open to radical redistribution of wealth.

The kids are not alright with the system that built the iPhone® and the Tesla™

I don’t blame them.

I remember when I was a kid, capitalism was the golden ticket and was counterbalanced by soulless, heartless communism.  And capitalism seemed like a good bet.  Work hard, play by the rules, and you could climb the ladder, get the house, get a couple of cars and a few kids, and put your mark on the world.

Now?

The entry-level jobs that used to teach kids responsibility, grit, and how to deal with a bad boss are vanishing faster than my hairline.  Back when I was a kid, we had jobs that ended up building character.  McDonald’s®?  That was for teenagers flipping burgers and learning that the customer is not always right, but the manager is always yelling.

Today?

McDonald’s© is for the 65-year-old retiree who needs a discount on his Big Mac™ to supplement Social Security.  Sure, they might hire a kid, but only if the kid is over 20 and speaks three languages.

What about delivering papers?

Ah, this was the classic bike-riding gig where you dodged dogs and learned about early mornings.  That job went the way of the dinosaurs when people started asking themselves why they were paying for someone to deliver them a small part of the Internet each day.  Now, the desperate 45-year-old single dad with a rusty van delivers what is left, because kids on bikes?  They don’t have cars and some might even still live with their parents.

And do not get me started on mowing lawns for local businesses.  Try that today, and you will run smack into child labor laws, OSHA regulations, and corporate insurance policies that make hiring a kid riskier than skydiving without a parachute.  One slip on a wet lawn, and the business owner is sued into oblivion.

The kid jobs, the training wheels of the workforce, are all snapped up by oldsters or, failing that, illegals.  Want to pick apples on a farm?  Sorry, buddy, the illegals have that covered, and they do it cheaper than a robot, unless you’re talking about the Juan Deere™ 4000®.

Or how about construction?

Same story.  Hammers and nails are handled by folks who crossed the border with the same speed as a Black Friday shopper looking for buy one get ten free corn dogs and if tu no habla español, you’re not getting the job because that’s all the crew speaks.

And trades?  Welding, plumbing, even semi-truck driving?  Recent reports show illegals are flooding those fields too.  Remember that scandal last month where trucking companies were busted hiring undocumented drivers en masse?

Who let this happen?

The CEOs, of course.  They lobbied for loose borders so Paco could make tacos and Sikhs with mustaches could create semi crashes.  It’s like inviting wolves to guard the sheep, but the wolves are telling the sheep how great the quarterly profits are going to be.

Fine, let’s skip the blue-collar path.  Go to college.  When I was a kid, that was the advice everyone gave, and it worked.  Michael Lewis, the author who wrote Liar’s Poker, Moneyball, and The Big Short, graduated from Princeton®.

With a degree in art history.

Yes, art history, not finance or engineering.  Before you could say “Van Gogh’s other ear,” Lewis was trading bonds at Salomon Brothers, raking in millions.  Me?  I had multiple job offers right out of school, and this was during a downturn when the economy was flatter than Sunday morning’s beer.  College was a great idea.

But what has happened since?  College has morphed into a debt trap sold as enlightenment and a four-year climbing wall party.  Tuition costs have skyrocketed since the 1970s.  According to data from the College Board® the average tuition and fees at public four-year institutions have increased by over 1,200% since 1980 when adjusted for general inflation.

That is not a typo.

In 1970-71, the average cost for in-state public college tuition was about $358 in current dollars.  Today?  Tuition is over $10,000 annually, and that doesn’t include room, board, booze, or broads.

Private schools?

Forget it:  they have jumped from around $1,700 to nearly $38,000.   A year, which is like paying Ferrari® prices for a Yugo® diploma.  Universities are pricing education like it is bottled water in the Sahara and packing that money up and giving it to GloboLeft professors that hate you.

And student loans?  These are not your grandpa’s loans; they can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, making them worse than indentured servitude.  We hand these toxic deals to our stupidest (young) people, and watch them drown in debt averaging $30,000 per borrower.

Oh, and the job market?

CEOs love importing infinity H-1B Indians to snatch tech jobs at slave wages, cratering salaries for Americans.  Want to code?

Good luck competing with a workforce willing to live in vans down by the river.  And if you are white?  Navigate the DEI gauntlet first, where Indians hire their own and call you racist if you notice.

The CEOs?  They love this, or it wouldn’t be this way.  Period.

Capitalism is not a suicide pact.  This version, devoid of morality and family focus, is exactly that: a thin veil over quarterly profits at the expense of everything else.  Even small changes make a huge difference.  Kentucky’s new shared custody law has already slashed divorces by 25 percent, just by making shared custody of kids the presumption. Imagine if we removed alimony, child support mandates that incentivize divorce, and welfare traps that break families?

That would be a real family-friendly policy, not this nonsense where the state plays dad and mom can divorce for fun and prizes.

And the CEOs?

If they knowingly hire illegals, ship them to jail.  Let them flip burgers for real when they get out.  If they push H-1Bs, force them to relocate to Calcutta, since that is what they are turning America into: a third-world call center with first-world prices.

So, why are kids turned off capitalism?

Because it has been hijacked by the very people who should be its stewards.

The Rasmussen poll nails it:  36 percent of young voters are struggling financially, and 76 percent want government to nationalize major industries if it means fairness.  This is a warning shot that is leading to failing governments across the world right now, from Nepal to France to Argentina.

We can fix this.

Deport the illegals flooding jobs, kill the H-1B program, make college affordable again allowing student loans to be discharged in bankruptcy so silly degrees won’t be financed, and prioritize families with rule changes that discourage splitting up.

Restore the dream where a kid can mow lawns, go to college without debt slavery, buy a house, and raise a family without the system screwing them at every turn.

Politicians ignore this at their own peril.  The managers (the people) are yelling.

Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: Mass Deportation Is The Moderate Position

“There may be no criminal charges, but I’ll see these files reach Calcutta with the advice you be deported as political undesirables.” – The Man Who Would Be King

A Russian acrobat was deported, and now our human pyramid doesn’t have Oleg to stand on.

  1. Those who have an opposing ideology are considered evil.
  2. People actively avoid being near those of opposing ideology.  Might move from communities or states just because of ideology.
  3. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  4. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  5. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  6. Open War.

Volume VII, Issue 4

Most memes except for the clock and graphs are “as found”.  I have kept the Clock O’Doom to 8., given the open support of criminality in Blue cities becoming clearer by the day with their own words.  They feel the violence in Chicago and Baltimore and New York and Los Angeles is justified.  Beware: the number can climb quickly.  Right now (as of publishing) we are dropping below Level Rittenhouse and it looks like we avoided Level Rooftop Korean.  For now.

My advice remains.  Avoid crowds.  Get out of cities.  Now.  A year too soon is better than one day too late.

In this issue:  Front Matter – Mass Deportation Is Now The Moderate Position – Violence and Censorship Update – Misery Index – Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – The Imperial Presidency – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report.  These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month.  I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues.  Also, subscribe because you’ll join nearly 850 other people and get every single Wilder post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at or before 7:30AM Eastern, free of charge.

Mass Deportation Is Now The Moderate Position

Finally, and after years of absolutely no one voting for the mass immigration, legal and illegal, native peoples appear to have had enough:

  • enough of the violence and rape directed at them,
  • enough of the migrant murderers,
  • enough of having to work to pay taxes for freeloaders,
  • enough of the being told they are racist for complaining about having to conform to customs and behaviors that range from bizarre to barely civilized,
  • enough for having to support the children of other nations and being unable to afford their own,
  • enough propaganda about how they should seek to be childfree and kill themselves,
  • enough telling them that they should be happy to be replaced (even though that’s totally not happening and they should still be happy about if it was),
  • enough government censorship,
  • enough loss of free speech rights,
  • enough of being told that their flag is racist,
  • enough of being told that their economy can’t survive without cheap imported labor, and
  • enough of having to become strangers in a country they were born in.

If this weren’t Western Europe being invaded by endless hordes of third-worlders, I’d imagine the GloboLeft would scream for arming the invaded, look at Ukraine.  They’d be hounding Trump to air-drop in small arms and ammunition and declaring a no-fly zone, giving aid and intelligence to the partisan freedom fighters that were being displaced in their own country.

China, no friend to the West, is amused.  Their projections are that the West will cease to exist in any shape of consequence by the year 2050 due to multiculturalism.  And, they’re right.  Balkanization will lead to a squabbling group of states and atrocities that make the current state of Gaza seem tame by comparison, but no one will be photographing it, because no one will care.

The imported cultures coming into the West are fundamentally incompatible with the West.  A group of 320 Africans killed 70 people on their boated headed towards Spain last month.  Why?  Witchcraft.  Sure, I’m all for burning witches, but what chance is there that these sub-Saharan Africans or their descendants will ever enhance Spain?  How long will the Spanish take this?  The English?  The Scots?  The Irish?  The Danes?  Right now, the Poles are having none of it, and are outperforming the rest of the West.  The GloboLeft Germans are frightened – having killed 6 or 7 candidates for AfD in the last two weeks, right before their election.

Based on what is obviously coming, the obvious conclusion is this:

Mass deportation is now the moderate position.

Violence and Censorship Update

Violence takes the center stage this month, as Germans on the “right” (they’d be center-left in the US) have been dying – specifically seven candidates right before the election.

Staying in Europe – a young Scottish girl defended herself against some (now arrested) alien invaders.  Why is the mainstream media ignoring this story?

In the States, it appears that if you’re beaten up badly, the local politicians will say you had it coming.

And in other cities, the law is only a suggestion.

And, lawmakers themselves are avoiding their elected responsibilities:

Moving to censorship, Great Britain is trying to fight 4Chan.

A 4Chan anon notes that this is all part of the plan:

And games sellers are folding to financial blackmail to censor games from banks threatening to cut them off from banking:

Wikipedia® is a biased source, but some want it to be a controlled source:

Regardless:

Misery Index

The new Trump administration is shown in red.  Results continue to be much better than Biden’s misery numbers as Trump’s policies apparently have been stunning at reversing the tide.  We’ll see, as the long term trend is not good.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real time.  They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings.  As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that combine to become the index.  On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures.

Violence:

Violence indicators are down slightly this month, again.  Has Trump broken them?

Political Instability:

Down is more stable, and it went slightly up this month even though Democrats have never been more unhappy.

Economic:

The economy is up a bit this month, again.  But the H-1B program still exists.

Illegal Aliens:

Still the lowest level since the Weather Report started.  Remember, they care nothing for our country, nothing for our history, and only want money and political power.

The Imperial Presidency

I wonder how chapped Obama’s butt is every morning when he gets up and looks to see what Trump has done.  Really, Obama started it, with his, “I don’t have the Constitutional authority to do it, but I’m doing it anyway” “stroke of the pen, law of the land, kinda cool” executive orders.

Those were bad.  I’ve never liked executive orders, since they seem to take the Legislative work and turn it over to the Executive.  But the Executive writes all the regulations and Congress never reads them, because, I think, they don’t have enough time because they need to spend the evening eating bacon-wrapped shrimp at the lobbyist parties.  So, the Executive has become more and more powerful.

Trump has decided, I think, that “I’m nearly 80, I’m not going to live all that long, I’m not going to be re-elected, they’re going to hate me anyway, so let’s put the pedal to the metal and see how fast this baby will go.”  It’s probably never a great idea to put someone who is deep into IDGAF territory and who also has a really short time horizon in charge, but here we are.

It’s amusing, at least for now.  Trump has greatly expanded the powers of the Executive, and no one outside of some foreign judges (who claim to be American) has tried to stop him, including the Supreme Court.  I could go back in time and blame everyone from Teddy R. to Wilson on up, but, whatever.

It is what it is – the federal government has grown to massive proportions, and Donald Trump has become the Imperial President.  It won’t be him, mind you, but the next guy, or the guy after that that will cross the Rubicon and become the “president” for a lot longer.  The sort of power that is being unleashed is just the same as before Augustus seized final power in Rome, after Caesar (Trump) set the stage.

Buckle up, because it will be messy getting there.

LINKS

BAD GUYS

https://x.com/i/status/1952491475666878745
https://x.com/TheKevinDalton/status/1954189984594092107
https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/1956137380995588439
https://x.com/i/status/1951772080359473416

GOOD GUYS

https://x.com/TheImmortal007/status/1955711189293654316
https://x.com/i/status/1955639211685765450
https://x.com/billysandytodd/status/1957566944753701169

ONE GUY

https://realclearwire.com/articles/2025/08/01/another_armed_civilian_saves_the_day_153123.html

BODY COUNT

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/aug/20/trans-people-us-data
https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/trans-adults-united-states/
https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2025/08/21/u-s-unauthorized-immigrant-population-reached-a-record-14-million-in-2023/
https://cis.org/Report/Overall-ForeignBorn-Population-Down-22-Million-January-July
https://www.dhs.gov/news/2025/08/12/ice-receives-100000-applications-patriotic-americans-who-want-help-remove-murderers
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/Trumps-Federal-Layoffs_03-web.jpg?itok=r8mse-D1
https://cms.zerohedge.com/s3/files/inline-images/The-American-Workforce-in-2002-v.jpg?itok=HdYKJcPT
https://classsolidarity.org/billionaires/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fewer-young-adults-reaching-adulthood-milestones-census-report/
https://www.newsweek.com/less-religion-less-babies-declining-birth-rate-2110254

VOTE COUNT

https://x.com/CitizenFreePres/status/1960686967273738382
https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1956450577593848041
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/20/us/politics/democratic-party-voter-registration-crisis.html?unlocked_article_code=1.fk8.l6c4.j2Uq_wX_yelU&smid=url-share
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2025/08/22/mail-in_ballots_need_to_go_153204.html

CIVIL WAR

https://modernity.news/2025/08/16/british-army-colonel-civil-war-is-coming/
https://off-guardian.org/2025/08/10/stirrings-of-rebellion-in-unhappy-britain/
https://amgreatness.com/2025/08/14/who-has-been-busy-destroying-democracy/
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/new-device-data-reveals-exactly-who-showed-white-house-protests
https://forwardobserver.com/color-revolution-a-strategic-assessment-2025-2028/
https://archive.is/VYDs2
https://archive.is/MKs8n
https://www.foxnews.com/media/new-york-times-essay-hoping-military-would-stand-up-trump-draws-fire-social-media
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2025/08/18/what-is-the-democrats-endgame-n2661929#google_vignette
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/pentagon-plan-would-create-military-reaction-force-for-civil-unrest/ar-AA1KmDsZ
https://www.newsweek.com/campus-guardian-angel-school-shooting-drone-2106792

Living In The Past: The World War II Hangover

“This watch I got here was first purchased by your great-grandfather during the First World War.  It was bought in a little general store in Knoxville, Tennessee.” – Pulp Fiction

Iran is stuck between Iraq and a hard place.

Every group has a story that defines them:  the myth, the memory, the moment that crystallizes who they are and what they value.  For Christians, it’s the Crucifixion and Resurrection, the ultimate sacrifice and triumph of life.  For the Chinese, it’s the Century of Humiliation, a wound that fuels their drive for global dominance.  For Three Stooges® fans, it’s the seismic shift when Shemp replaced Curly, forever splitting the purists from the heretics, and don’t even get me started on the anti-Curly, Joe Besser.

But for too many groups the Second World War is the foundational story, a crucible that forged their modern identities. And for most, it’s a scar that still festers, shaping their worldview in ways that are often more curse than blessing like the time I found a genie but didn’t get a wish because I rubbed him the wrong way.

Let’s start with the United States.

For the United States, WWII cemented the idea that big government is the ultimate and best problem-solver and has our best interests at heart.  The war effort, which would have cost $4.1 trillion in today’s dollars, mobilized industry, science, and bureaucracy like never before, birthing the military-industrial complex that Ike warned us about.  I hear JFK was going to work on that, but they changed his mind.

Biden’s final executive order:  “Purple crayons will now taste like grapes.”

The lesson of the war was simple:  if you throw enough tax dollars and central planning at a problem, you can save the world.  Never mind that the failed New Deal had already disproved this; WWII made it gospel.  Blacks can’t read?  Throw money and central planning at it.  Poor people keep doing the things that made them poor?  Throw money and central planning at it.  Women complaining about . . . whatever?  Throw money and central planning at it.  The result of all this was the United States giving DEI grants for difficult tasks, like breathing.

The war also taught Americans that war is noble when the British say so.  Pearl Harbor was the trigger for the entry of the United States, but Britain’s pleas for aid via Lend-Lease pulled us into Europe’s mess for the second time in a generation.  Post-1945, the U.S. embraced its role as the world’s foremost military power and world policeman, from Korea to Kabul, with a budget to match, spending trillions to give democracy to those that don’t care about it.

Another lingering ghost: the myth of the “Greatest Generation,” implying every war since is just as righteous, no matter the cost in blood or treasure.  This is the same generation that voted in all of Johnson’s Great Society crap, and the generation you can thank for the Hart-Cellar Immigration Act of 1965.  Our victory in World War II blinds us to overreach, ballooning debt, and the erosion of liberty at home as the state grows ever fatter.

My friend’s grandfather killed six Germans on the beach at Normandy.  It’s not as heroic as it sounds:  he did it last week.

Moving across the sea to Bongland, where they have a big tower that goes “Bong” every hour, Britain’s WWII story is one of defiance.  The “stiff upper lip” against Hitler’s bombs during the Blitz, with Churchill’s speeches rallying a nation under siege.  But the war’s cost, $120 billion in debt, 450,000 dead, cities like London and Coventry in jumbled rubble all askew like Yorkshireman’s teeth, broke the back of the Empire.

The foundational lesson twisted: instead of pride in survival, Britain internalized a twisted guilt, spinning off colonies that weren’t quite ready to govern themselves like India and Nigeria faster than you can say “Commonwealth.”

Worse, the “we’re all in this together” myth morphed into a masochistic anti-colonialism, where importing millions of non-British migrants became a moral crusade to atone for empire, starting with the H.M.S. Windrush bringing hundreds of non-British to Great Britain to keep wages down.  The result? A cultural identity crisis, where “Britishness” is now a dirty word, and cities like London are less British than Bombay was in 1850.  The war taught Britain to survive, but it lost its soul.  But, hey, think of all the great food!

Stop spreading the lie that moslem women have to wear the hijabs.  It’s their choice – they can also be stoned to death.

Germany got it the worst, or wurst:  their national policy became self-hatred.  Germany’s WWII story is Hitler and defeat, a double blow that turned national pride into a mortal sin and Hitler into a replacement for Satan.  The war toll of German death and destruction:  5.3 million military deaths, 2 million civilian, cities like Cologne and Dresden reduced to rubble or ash was compounded by the framing of Germany as the sole reason for war.

The foundational lesson?  Germans can’t be trusted with power or tanks or a sense of humor.  Post-war, this bred an anti-nationalism so intense it’s practically policy.  Germany’s “Vergangenheitsbewältigung” (reckoning with the past) demands eternal penance as if this was a racial punishment where current Germans who in no way were responsible for World War II have to take the blame.

Foot fetishes are on the rise in Germany, probably because of the smell of defeat.

The result?  Immigration surged, with 20% of Germany’s population now foreign-born, often seen as a way to dilute the “German” identity that led to 1939.  The war’s shadow stifles dissent:  question migration or EU mandates, and you’re a Nazi and your entire political party might be banned.  This self-hatred paralyzes Germany’s ability to act decisively, even as its economy stagnates and its culture frays.

For Russia and/or the Soviets, World War II was the triumph of the iron fist.  For the Soviets, the Great Patriotic War was proof the Soviet system worked.  Despite 27 million deaths (8.7 million military, 19 million civilian), the Red Army’s push to Berlin showed that the sheer scale of production of hundreds of thousands of crappy tanks and endless conscripted bodies could crush any foe.  Stalin famously removed seat padding from the T-34 after finding the average lifespan of a T-34 in combat was only a few minutes.

The foundational lesson they learned?  Central control, especially when done with brutality, gets results.  Stalin’s paternalism became Putin’s playbook:  the state over individual, quantity over quality.  Post-war, the USSR’s occupation of Eastern Europe and refusal of Marshall Plan aid cemented this mindset.  Even today, Russia’s drones are glorified T-34s—cheap, mass-produced, barely competitive, but there are thousands of them.  The war’s myth of invincibility fuels Moscow’s paranoia and aggression, from Ukraine to cyberwars, while its economy limps along on vodka, oil, duct tape, and nostalgia.

I guess those are all tank tops?

World War II was a cataclysm.  70-85 million dead and borders were changed as if they were drawn by a hyperactive kid with an Etch-a-Sketch™.  For the U.S., it birthed a bloated state and a messianic complex.  For Britain, it turned pride into shame.  Germany traded nationalism for self-loathing.  Russia doubled down on authoritarianism.  And, although we didn’t go into it, World War II is the singular foundational event for modern Jewish people, which is why they treat it with religious reverence and questioning any aspect of their narrative is treated as heresy.

The U.S. got off the lightest:  our homeland unscathed, our economy booming post-war, but we’re chained to the idea that we must police the globe for some reason.  For the others, the scars are deeper, twisting their cultures into knots of guilt, paranoia, or apology.  These foundational stories aren’t just history, they’re shackles.

Maybe it’s time to write new stories, before the old ones drag us all into another war, or the anti-Curly returns?

The Birds, The Bees, The Money, The Movies

“That’s good, because she’s a predator posing as a house pet. Stay away from that one.” – Fight Club

While the other Roombas™ cleaned, my Roomba™ studied the blade.

It’s Friday night, 1985.

Me, back before the hair migrated from scalp to back, picked up my date. She’s spent two hours teasing her hair to defy gravity using enough hairspray to singlehandedly destroy the ozone layer over Peru.

It was before streaming, so we headed to the movie theater because that’s what you did. I chose the movie. I always chose the movie. I actually never asked my date what she would like to see, because I was paying for it. Choices? Well, Back to the Future or, hey, Predator!

Yeah. Predator. Hell yeah.

She’s along for the ride, giggling.

When IKEA® furniture is stolen, it activates a shelf-destruct sequence.

As we’ve already discussed, this was the golden age of cinema, when movies were made for the people who actually showed up: young guys trying to score, uh, points. Yeah, score points with their dates.

Now it’s 2025, and Hollywood is finally remembering who buttered its popcorn.

Feminism, in its quest to “fix” everything (men, the patriarchy, colonialism, pumpkin spice) has turned every movie into a lecture hall. The box office results show that the audience has been sneaking out the back. Why?

Movies over the last decade bore men, annoy women, and leave studio execs wondering why their company returns are flatter than Harvey Weinstein’s prison mattress. I’m sure Harv has the lower bunk, right?

Historically, movie decisions were simple. Young men, wallets stuffed with ambition and minimum-wage cash, picked the films to woo their dates.

Sure, exceptions existed. I once got dragged to Dangerous Liaisons, surrounded by women swooning over 18th century French literature. I guess the consolation prize for me was prime Uma Thurman, but she was stuck in a plot denser than a dutchman’s fruitcake. (I have no idea if the Dutch eat or make fruitcake, but the phrase “dutchman’s fruitcake” should exist. You’re welcome.)

I hear the Dutch are tall because all the short ones died in floods.

My point is, men drove the box office because they were the ones buying the tickets. And what do men want?

Let’s not kid ourselves: great quests, attractive women, preferably ones who don’t lecture them on how to be better feminists, and explosions.

What do men want out of their women?

Men want an attractive woman. They also want loyalty, and a woman who’s, well, womanly nurturing, supportive, maybe even a future mom who doesn’t bench press more than they do as I was taught was the norm in Eastern Europe.

In Soviet Russia, you not wait for tooth fairy, tooth fairy wait for you.

But Hollywood’s 2015 memo?

Men’s preferences are problematic. Instead, they gave us girlbosses who could arm-wrestle Thor and win, despite never having arm-wrestled. These characters aren’t meant to only break the glass ceiling; they shatter the laws of storytelling itself.

Women, on the other hand, have their own cinematic cravings, and they’re not what the feminist scriptwriters think. Women don’t want to see perfect, flawless heroines who never break a nail. They want the fantasy of a powerful, ruthless man, think Ted Bundy with cash, who could crush them but don’t, and who’s inexplicably obsessed with them despite their quirks or, let’s be honest, their past.

It’s why Pretty Woman still gets women, um, misty. We’ll go with misty. A billionaire Richard Gere, falling for a hooker, is peak fairy tale. It’s why The Handmaid’s Tale keeps spawning sequels despite all the women claiming it’s a dystopia. Women say they don’t want to be handmaids, but they keep coming back for more, uh, stimulation.

And do they imagine being held down?

Hollywood’s current slate of heroines are not women: they’re poorly written men with better haircuts played by actresses who average a 6 out of 10. They’re written as invincible, quip-dropping machines who never fail, never learn, and never need no man—unless he’s there to clap like a trained seal.

This isn’t the Hero’s Journey; it’s the Hero’s Freeway, a straight shot to victory with no pitstops for growth. The Hero’s Journey, for those who skipped English class, is the classic epic story arc: a flawed character faces trials, fails, learns, changes, and triumphs. Think The Odessey. Think Beowulf. Yes. It’s that old. Luke Skywalker®, and Rocky Balboa™ are cut from the same cloth, because that story is the story of humanity.

Failure is the crucible that forges heroes.

But Hollywood’s girlbosses? They start perfect, stay perfect, and win without breaking a sweat. It’s like playing a video game on invincible mode—boring as hell.

Men aren’t signing up for lectures disguised as blockbusters. They want women who are worth rooting for—gorgeous, loyal, maybe even a little vulnerable, not someone who can out-punch them, out-smart them, and out-sarcasm them while looking like they just rolled out of a CrossFit® gym.

She solidly would have fit better in episode 3 out of 10.

Hollywood’s response? Write male characters, slap on some lipstick, hire mid-looking women to play them, and call it empowerment. No wonder they’re all-in on the trans movement, it’s just their casting philosophy taken to its logical extreme.

Women aren’t really thrilled either. Women want strong, dangerous men who choose not to break them, men who are powerful but prioritize them (while not too much, because that’s clingy). It’s why war brides lined up with open arms and open legs for conquerors from Genghis Khan to G.I.s in post-WWII Europe.

It’s why women, despite demanding equal pay, still want a man who earns more than they do. Equal pay? Sure. But he better out-earn her. But she also wants equal pay. But also he better out earn her . . . you get it. It’s a merry-go-round of contradictions that only stops when the popcorn runs out.

So why are movies so bad? Because ideology hijacked the projector. Somewhere along the line, a cabal of GloboLeftists, yes, studio execs and “scientists” and journalists and professors, all with pronouns in their bios, decided men and women are exactly the same. This is the root of the trans nonsense, the girlboss epidemic, all of it. They pushed a narrative that ignores biology, psychology, and basic human nature.

Men and women aren’t interchangeable cogs; they’re different, and that’s not a bug, it’s a feature. And it’s not just in the crotch. But Hollywood, drunk on GloboLeftist dogma, decided to churn out films that lecture instead of entertain because that was the narrative.

The result? Box office receipts that now look like a clearance sale on Betamax™ tapes at Blockbuster Video®. Audiences aren’t stupid: they know when they’re being preached to.

I’m so old I rewind Netflix™ movies before logging out.

Men don’t want to watch a Captain Marvel™ who is flawless in every way, punch harder than any other character because she’s 100% girlboss. Women don’t want to see another flawless heroine who makes them feel inadequate and don’t care about those movies anyway. And studios? They’re bleeding cash faster than Taylor Swift crying over her impending divorce after her impending marriage. But, hey, think of the album sales!

If Hollywood wants to save itself, it’s simple: make movies for humans, not manifestos. Give men the eye candy and heroism and explosions they crave along with a boy who fails, and in that failure, becomes a man. Give women the powerful, complex men they dream of, not cardboard cutouts spouting feminist taglines that result in, um, uncomfortable dryness.

Let characters fail, grow, and earn their wins. Stop pretending men and women are the same, because the only thing that’s equal is how much everyone hates these preachy flops.

Until then, I’ll be at home, rewatching Predator. Because nothing says “date night” like Dutch bleeding, swearing, and chomping a cigar while saving the day and the dame.

Now that?

That’s a movie.

You Can’t Touch This: The Importance Of The Battle Of Tours

“The one rule we had on Charles in Charge is Charles must always be in charge.” – The Simpsons

Islamic suicide bombers aren’t so bad, but the Buddhist ones?  They keep coming back until they get it right.

Europe in the early 700s was a patchwork of squabbling kingdoms still picking up the pieces from Rome’s grand collapse.  When the Empire fell and the Legions retired and moved to Florida, Europe was a hammered mess.  Barbarians had even turned Rome into a tourist trap for Vandals and Goths where you could get great bargains:  half off togas, and all the gold you could eat.

A new wave of chaos crashed in from the south:  The Umayyad (U-Mad) Caliphate was fresh off conquering Spain during a short decade of conquest.  After that, they began eyeing the rest of the continent like Whoopi Goldberg eyes a dozen chocolate éclairs after a hard day of being wrong.

It occurred to the U-Mads:  why stop with Spain when they could go on to France (then Francia for some reason) for cigarettes and baguettes and brunettes and marmosets and intangible assets?

Enter Charles, the Frankish warlord who was the illegitimate son of that hobbit®, Pepin.  Being a bastard (like me Charles was born one, and didn’t have to work at it like most people) Charles wasn’t in the line of succession for all that Frankish Hobbit® power.  Scared of him, Pepin’s wife had Charles tossed in the clink so Charles wouldn’t become the boss when Pepin died.

“Hand. Hand. River. Dirt. Gollum. Hobbits. Pockets. Pockets. Finger. Envelope. Fire. Hand. Neck. Neck. Finger. Hobbits. Neck. Neck. Neck. Pocket. Finger. Lava!  The Lord of the Rings, from the perspective of the Ring.

Well, prisons were made for breaking out of, and Charles did exactly that.  A lot of others decided they were king instead when Pepin died, so Charles had to defeat the humorously named Chilperic II, Raganfrid, and Radbod.  Okay, Radbod would probably be a good professional wrestling name, so Radbod get a pass but the rest of them are just bad D&D® names from a drunk DM.

The Funny Name Gang fought with Charles at Cologne, and Charles lost.

Charles didn’t give up, and instead regrouped and trained in a movie montage in the hills, and then attacked his silly-named foes at Malmedy, and they scurried like schoolchildren and Charles got all their stuff, plus the reputation of a guy who could win battles against people who were utterly unprepared for it, them being asleep on siesta and all.

One battle doesn’t win a kingdom, though.

Charles waited a year and trained his army in yet another movie montage for the sequel, Charles II, complete with 1980s theme music, something telling him he was the best or something.  Regardless, Charles invaded Chilperic’s place in Northern France, and won.

How do squid go into battle?  Well armed.

And he kept winning.  Charles essentially spent the next fifteen years fighting battles and winning ever single one of them in his bid to secure power.  After that, he selected the title he wanted.  It was mayor.  So, after all of that, it was time for peace, right?

No.  Charles had just beaten the other French.  But as I mentioned, he was being invaded from the south.

That brings us to 732 AD and the town of Tours.

Let’s frame it this way:  Charles’ victory at the Battle of Tours in 732 AD stands as one of those rare moments where the West dodged a civilization-ending bullet.  Think Thermopylae, where a handful of Spartans bought time against Persian hordes; the Battle of Vienna in 1683, halting the Ottoman tide at Europe’s gates; or the sack of Carthage in 146 BC, when Rome finally crushed its African rival and secured Mediterranean dominance, or John Wilder’s Divorce of 1995.

Tours fits right in – a pivotal civilizational clash that crushed a major threat to the struggling West like it was a telemarketer.

Salt makes everything taste better.  Sodi-yummmm!  (meme as-found)

Let us set the scene properly, because context is king (or mayor as in Charles’ case).

By the 8th century, Islam had exploded out of Arabia, swallowing Persia, North Africa, and Spain in under a century. The U-mads crossed the Pyrenees in 720, gobbling up Septimania (southern France) and launching raids deeper into the Frankish lands.

Their leader, Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi, governor of Al-Andalus (moslim Spain), was no slouch.  He had spent years in active command of an army taking over Spain.  His army, perhaps 20,000 to 80,000 strong (historians bicker like barroom philosophers on numbers), consisted mostly of Berber and Arab cavalry, light and fast, perfect for hit-and-run plunder.

They had sacked Bordeaux and were loaded with loot, but this was no mere smash-and-grab; the Arabs smelled yet more conquest, and were testing the waters for a full push into Frankish heartlands.  They outnumbered the Frankish armies.

On the other side? Charles, the Mayor of the Palace the real boss of the Franks.

Why Charles?  No one else stood ready to protect Europe; the Byzantines were busy fending off Arabs in the east, the Lombards in Italy were too fragmented and hadn’t even invented spaghetti yet, and the Anglo-Saxons across the Channel were still figuring out the magic secret of bathing that disappeared when the Romans left. If Charles failed, the road to Paris, and beyond to the Rhine, lay open.

Stakes? Imagine a Europe where minarets dot the Seine instead of cathedrals.

Oh, wait . . . .

Why are the French depressed?  Because the light at the end of the tunnel is England.  (meme as-found)

Now, the battle itself:

October 10, 732, near Tours.  Charles, with about 15,000 to 30,000 infantry-heavy Franks, chose high ground in a wooded area, forming a tight phalanx of armored foot soldiers, a tactic used successfully by everyone from Sumerians to Greeks to Romans to Vikings.

This was a human wall of axes and swords and shields and pikes, disciplined like Roman legions but with beards that could hide small animals.  They set up on top of a lightly-forested hill, and waited.  And waited.  Abdul Rahman wanted Charles to attack.  Charles wanted Abdul to attack.

As the Arabs didn’t have warm clothes suitable for the winter, they finally blinked, and attacked.

Abdul Rahman’s cavalry charged uphill at this mass of men, lumber and steel, repeatedly, expecting to shatter the line like they had against the Visigoths they had defeated in Spain.

But Charles’ men held, their heavy infantry absorbing the impacts like Rockey Balboa in, well, like every Rockey movie.  And with good reason:  Charles had seen this battle coming and had the largest standing army, well trained and ready to go, fierce and with faith in their nearly undefeated leader.

I think shields are a concept I can really get behind.

As the day wore on, the Muslims tired.  Their horses foaming, their riders frustrated.  It was now hammer time.  Charles’ scouts raided the enemy camp, sparking rumors that Abdul Rahman was dead and the loot vulnerable.

Panic spread among the U-mads.

The governor himself charged into the fray to rally his troops and got cut down, probably by a Frankish axe to the skull, because why not go out dramatically?  Night fell, and the invaders melted away, leaving tents, treasure, and thousands of dead.

Casualties?  Franks lost maybe a thousand; Muslims, up to 12,000, including their leader.

It was not pretty, with bodies piled like cordwood, blood soaking the fields and Charles standing tall.  Charles got his nickname at this point.  In old Frankish, it’s “Martel” but it translates to “The Hammer”.

Aftermath hit like a hangover after a wild raid.

The U-mads retreated south of the Pyrenees, their momentum broken.  Internal revolts soon toppled their dynasty, replaced by the Abbasids who shifted focus eastward.

In Spain, Christian kingdoms in the north took heart.  This sparked the Reconquista, a 700-year grind where indigenous Iberians overthrew their colonial moslim overlords.

My friend has an intricate tattoo and I was surprised when he told me he got it in Iberia.  I guess no one expects Spanish ink precision.

No “noble savage” myth here; it was gritty reprisal, castle by castle, until 1492 when Ferdinand and Isabella booted the last emir from Granada and started Spain’s golden age.  Tours proved resistance worked, and turned the tide from defense to offense.

Yet Charles Martel remains poorly remembered today, a footnote in textbooks while his grandson, Charlemagne, gets the statues.

Why?  Charles never crowned himself king, deeming the title too puny for a man who ruled de facto over Franks, Aquitainians, and more.  “Mayor of the Palace” suited him.  It was understated power, like a mob boss who wears sweats instead of Armani®.  Martel laid the foundations for post-Roman Europe: professional armies funded by land grants, essentially the birth of the feudal system.  Martel also left a unified Frankish state, and was the salvation of Christianity.

After the victory at Tours, Charles granted large portions of Church land to his followers, on the condition they help him militarily.  The Church wasn’t happy, but the Pope later begged Charles’ aid against Lombards, dubbing him a “defender of the faith.”

Irony?  Delicious, especially with fava beans and a nice Chianti.

Most crucially, Martel set the stage for his grandson, Charlemagne.  Martel’s son, Pepin the Short, finally ditched the Merovingians and became king with papal blessing.

Charlemagne then forged the Carolingian Empire, crowning himself Holy Roman Emperor in 800 A.D., defining medieval Europe with laws, learning, and conquests from Saxony to Italy.

Never challenge Death to a pillow fight unless you’re prepared for the Reaper cushions. (meme as-found)

Without the Hammer’s stand at Tours, there is no Charlemagne and perhaps no unified West to change the world.

Martel reminds us that history turns on hammers, not hashtags. He was no saint.  He was ruthless, pragmatic, a bit of a land-thief, but he saved the West from a fate it might not have survived. Next time you think that we can’t win, tip your hat to the Hammer, who showed us the way because he was too illegit to quit.

Making The Invisible Hand Visible: Psyops and the War for Our Minds

So, if you watch The Matrix backwards, it’s just the story of a guy who quits drugs and gets a job.  (most memes as-found today)

Back in 1995, I think, I saw an editorial cartoon.  One was a picture of an American G.I. holding a dead child in 1945.  Next to it was an American G.I. holding a dead child in 1995.  The message was simple:  Americans needed to go and fight in a place that Americans couldn’t find on a map.  Bosnia?  Why was this a picture in a newspaper, trying to get me, John Wilder, to be on board attacking Serbians?

Why Serbians?  I mean, it sounded like an alien race of creatures that spent their lives curb surfing.

Something felt off – I think the only thing of value in the whole country was the last thirty Yugo™ transmissions.

And, I wasn’t wrong.  This was propaganda.  I (and the rest of America) was caught in a psychological operation, or psyops, a calculated effort to hijack my thoughts and bend my will.  About . . . Serbia.

Did you hear about the group in the Balkans who think the world started 6,000 years ago?  Croatianists.

Psyops, per the Army’s FM 3-05.301 (LINK), are “planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to . . . audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals.”

What’s that in language that is less like The Terminator® is talking?  It is the art of making me think what someone else wants, without me ever spotting the strings of the puppetmaster.

The story doesn’t start with Edward Bernays, but he’s a pretty convenient on-ramp for discussion.  Bernays gets that distinction because he, more than anyone else, is why the world feels like a scripted reality show.

I guess the bridge had a Twitter account, but it’s now suspended.

Born in 1891, this nephew of Sigmund Freud took his uncle’s insights into the human psyche and turned them into a weapon. In his 1928 book Propaganda, Bernays didn’t mince words: “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.”

Translation?

The GloboLeftElites think Americans are too dumb to think for ourselves, so they’ll do it for you. Bernays called this “the engineering of consent,” and he was as good at it as a tick is at finding blood or as Zuck is at mining your soul with InstaFace™.  Take his 1929 “Torches of Freedom” stunt. To sell more cigarettes, Bernays paid fashionable women to light up during New York’s Easter parade, framing smoking as a feminist rebellion against stuffy norms.  The result?

The media ate it up, women started puffing, and tobacco companies doubled their market.  Women?  They traded motherhood and bras for Camels™ and lung cancer.

Bernays didn’t stop at commerce.

I sometimes wear a tinfoil hat.  I’m not nuts, it just makes it more interesting when I stick my head in the microwave.

In the 1950s, he worked with the CIA to paint Guatemala’s elected government as a communist menace (true, they president was buds with Castro later), justifying putting pressure on the president to resign.  He did, and United Fruit Company (a story for another time) got Guatemala back into their orbit.  Bernays proved that by tapping into the primal emotions of fear, desire, and identity, anything could be sold, be it a product, a war, or a worldview.

Bernays’ playbook became the blueprint for government and corporate psyops and I could spend a book describing them, but ain’t nobody got that kind of time this morning.  But one thing is clear:  psyops are cheap and effective.  Thankfully, we abandoned the use of such technology.

Whoops.  Guess not.

Here 2025, and psyops have gone high-tech and are used more than ever.  The core, though, remains Bernays’ emotional manipulation.  Here’s how they work now:

  • Framing and Narrative Control:  Words shape reality.  Calling illegal aliens “undocumented workers” or “asylum seekers” turns lawbreakers into victims.  Meanwhile, people who just want to live in their own country without unending streams of infinity third-worlders are smeared as “racists.”  Whoops.  Guess that word doesn’t have the power it did even two years ago.  This is also why control of every platform is important to them.  Just one kid saying that the emperor is nekkid is enough to bring the whole charade down.

I sometimes can’t tell which psyop is more fun to watch.

  • Emotional Manipulation:  Fear and identity are big guns.  During COVID, “flatten the curve” and “trust the science” were hammered into us day after day, justifying lockdowns and mandates and a not-vaccine while dissenters were silenced and fired.  On race, media amplifies the “man bites dog” rarity of white-on-black violence to stoke division, ignoring the reality that the violence is almost all one-way.  Emotional manipulation was also that editorial making me feel sad for dead kids in a place I’ve never heard of.
  • Social Media Amplification:  Algorithms on all social media are designed to boost outrage because clicks mean cash for Zuck.  Bots and influencers push phrases like Black Lives Matter, making manufactured narratives feel organic.
  • Astroturfing: Fake grassroots movements, like funded protests or viral campaigns, create the illusion of public consensus.  Remember the 2020 “defund the police” push?  It looked spontaneous but was backed by big money, just like the “no kings” protest against Trump.  There really isn’t a group supporting it, it’s a cause in search of supporters.
  • Gaslighting: The ultimate mind-screw, telling us what we see isn’t real.  Worried about illegal immigration’s strain on schools or hospitals?  We’re “xenophobic.”  Notice crime spikes in certain areas or that moslems are pretty rape-y?  We’re “bigoted.”  The goal? Make us doubt our own eyes, believe that no one else thinks the same way that we do.

Psyops in Action:  Race and Immigration

The American public is a prime target, especially on race and illegal immigration, where psyops fuel division and push GloboLeftElite agendas.  After George Floyd’s overdose in 2020, the media ran a relentless campaign framing police as systematically racist.  Every white-cop-on-black-suspect incident became proof of a grand conspiracy, while DOJ reports (like the 2014 Ferguson findings clearing Officer Darren Wilson) were buried.

The result?

I get the creeps because it seems like Sting is still watching every breath I take. (my meme)

Riots, “defund the police” mania, and corporations tripping over themselves to push DEI policies that pit races against each other. It’s Bernays 101: amplify emotion, ignore facts, and, in this case, watch society fracture because it’s always easier to destroy than to build.

Illegal immigration is another psyops goldmine.

Since the 2021 border surge, outlets like CNN and MSNBC have framed illegal immigrants as “migrants” fleeing persecution, spotlighting tear-jerking stories of families while ignoring the stunningly high costs that these people bring to our country.

Crime stats, like DHS reports showing 66% of released detainees reoffend, are swept under the rug.  Ignore that diseases that were eradicated are again showing up in our country.

The narrative?  Open borders are humane, and anyone who disagrees hates brown people.  This isn’t an accident.  This is a deliberate push to erode national sovereignty, weaken cultural cohesion, and make Americans feel guilty for wanting secure borders.

COVID was a masterclass in psyops too, as was the January 6 “Insurrection” and a thousand other public lies meant to manipulate you.  But never forget those who are in full service of the Lie:  The Court Jesters of the GloboLeftElite.

The Capitol was in less danger on January 6 than it was during the revolution scenes from the D.C. production of Lés Misérables.

Jon Stewart and John Oliver, among many others, are the smirking faces of psyops disguised as comedy. Stewart, helming The Daily Show from 1999 to 2015, and Oliver, with Last Week Tonight since 2014, aren’t just entertainers (and it’s arguable that they’re even entertaining).  Nope.

They’re narrative enforcers peddling DEI with a laugh track.  Their weapon?  Humor that makes their audience feel smart and superior while feeding them a script of what the Narrative wants them to believe.

Their techniques are pure Bernays:

  • Selective Framing: Stewart’s 2010 Tea Party takedowns painted fiscal conservatives as racist rubes, ignoring their legitimate gripes about government bloat.  Oliver’s 2020 border segments framed ICE as heartless, glossing over data like the millions of illegals flooding over the border.
  • Ridicule as Persuasion:  Mockery is their hammer. Stewart’s smirks and Oliver’s exasperated sighs make conservative ideas:  border walls, voter ID, traditional values seem absurd to their hand-picked audiences. Laughter shuts down critical thinking:  nobody argues with a punchline.
  • Moral Superiority: Both position themselves as the voice of reason. Oliver’s 2021 “critical race theory” bit dismissed critics as clueless, never engaging their actual concerns about divisive curriculums.  Stewart’s post-Ferguson rants leaned on emotion over evidence, amplifying the “systemic racism” narrative while ignoring the exoneration of the cop that shot the “gentle giant” that had just roughed up a convenience store clerk.

Their impact is insidious.  By blending humor with half-truths, they make progressive dogma feel like common sense.  Their audiences are urban, educated, and often young, who walk away feeling informed, not manipulated.  But it’s psyops all the same:  control the frame, mock the dissenters, and let laughter do the rest.  The GloboLeft couldn’t ask for better foot soldiers.

Seeing this is half the battle.  The other half is reflection.  Psyops work best when they’re fast and jump out at you unexpectedly, like that editorial cartoon did decades ago.  I remember it because it was effective at emotional manipulation, but when I realized that I had no idea what a Serb ate for lunch or if Bosnians wore special hats while they ate PEZ® I came to the conclusion that my opinion on the subject was the product.  I was meant to be mad at one side or the other, but, thankfully, I had no idea which side I was supposed to be mad at.

Does throwing the discus make you want to hurl? (my meme)

What I try to do now is to ask myself:  what are they trying to make me feel?  Why?  Why should I care about Ukraine?  I thought about it and did some research, and, made the conscious decision that I don’t care about Ukraine unless someone is asking me to pay for it or unless it’s the source huge corruption.

It is?  Well let’s stop paying for it and let’s arrest and try those who were paid off.  Simple.

The GloboLeftElite’s goals are at least partially clear:  they want a borderless, divided America, where the people are too scared, guilty, or distracted to fight back.

We don’t have to play along.  Question everything.  Dig for primary sources.

Be careful what you feed your head.

And if something connects in a particularly emotional way, ask yourself:  why should I care?

Then make your own choice, and if you’re lucky, you might get your hands on some cherry Yugo® transmissions.  I mean, if you have goats to trade because I’m not sure they use money.

It Came From . . . 1995

“Man, there’s not a year that goes by, not a year, that I don’t read about some escalator accident involving some bastard kid that could’ve easily been avoided had some parent, I don’t care which one, but some parent conditioned him to fear and respect the escalator.” – Mallrats

Is that Neandergibson? Joe Piscopo?

While the 1980s allowed for gonzo productions of very uneven quality to become classics (Better Off Dead, for instance) the 1990s box office was much more crowded and the studios began to spend even more on the films. I’d say that a random movie from 1995 was more professionally made than a random movie from any year in the 1980s, but had a lot less heart.

As to the continuation of the series, I’m not sure if we’ll do 1996 or end it here. I think I’m done with the 1970s, though I have another idea that amuses me that we’ll try in late August. As always, I’m also willing to consider lists of genre flicks, but pretty soon that ends up with movies no one ever saw.

As usual, sequels are excluded on the list. I don’t consider Mallrats a sequel. Thankfully, I make the rules. You may appeal. It will be denied.

As an aside, I don’t think you can overestimate the propaganda impact of films. Just like listening to music puts your brain into a state of suggestable hypnosis (which is why I like to listen to kick-ass music rather than sad stuff most days) so does film. Film takes the next dimension above music by adding visual stimulus, making the hypnosis even more effective. What I take in does impact me, so I consider that more and more as I grow older and as it’s thrown in our faces with the last decade’s worth of propaganda films. I understand now why some don’t like horror films for just that reason. I do like them, still, but I’ve become much more selective as to what I let in the transom.

Speaking of which . . . .

That poster gives me tentacles. I mean tingles. And it looks like Ralph Macchio.

In the Mouth of Madness – I love good Lovecraftian horror. Cosmic horror is at its best when it sketches a universe of limitless expanse where we’re just nubs sitting in the darkness while titanic forces beyond our understanding play out around us. It’s like whistling through the graveyard, if you will. When I first saw In the Mouth of Madness I hated it, because I didn’t get it. Now? My opinion is that it’s great cosmic horror, and shows off Sam Neill as he unwittingly brings about the end of the world. With popcorn. Like most of Carpenter’s work, it has a large following, but was box office poison. But he gets the last laugh in this one.

I have a particular set of skills. Murder and guitar solos.

Rob Roy – Scots fighting to be fiercely independent, while being swindled and taken advantage of by rape-y foreigners? If only they would do that in 2025. Tim Roth steals the show in a perfectly creepy performance with hair appropriate for Isaac Newton if he played guitar for Queen®. It did okay at the box office.

If you’ve seen the movie, this makes a little bit of sense.

Crimson Tide – Another submarine movie because, well, why not? In this one, though, Tony Scott (same guy who cooked a Goose in Top Gun) gets the most out of Denzel Washington and the late Gene Hackman. To be clear, Hackman was still alive during the movie. The two are officers on a nuclear missile submarine that have to decide if they’re going to shoot off nuclear missiles after losing communications with Starfleet®. Me? I would have launched the missiles because that’s one way to get in the history books.

Should this one be called “Bravefelt”?

Braveheart – Tons of historical inaccuracy? Check. Mel Gibson with more hair than an 80’s glam band? Check. Ludicrously long runtime of nearly three hours? Also check. In spite of these things, this was a huge hit. Swords. Women. Bravery. Sophie Marceau at her peak Marceau-ness. What’s not to love?

I still remember when he outran Kevin Spacey to maintain his virginity in the climax.

Apollo 13 – This movie follows the life of a young transgender long-distance runner (Tom Hanks) who needs an older mentor (Kevin Bacon) to buy him shoes because he grew up in a third-world country that couldn’t afford to have a Nike® store or electricity or food.

I need to post this on Rob’s X® feed.

Judge Dredd – Some comic book purists don’t like this version because in the comic books Dredd never takes off his helmet, but Stallone wanted to show off his hair. The (much darker) 2012 reboot Dredd features a Dredd™ that always covers his hedd. I didn’t care, really, since I found this movie both stupid and hilarious and one of Rob Schneider’s best roles. Huge flop. I wouldn’t recommend it, but yet I enjoyed it. Does that mean I hate myself? Anyway, the 2012 version is a much better movie.

Wait, what if every suspect was Rob Schneider? That would be wacky!

The Usual Suspects – Cost $6 million, made nearly $70 million. This one gets the most out of fairly talented cast in a crime mystery, and I will admit that the ending did surprise me when I watched it on a rental VHS tape from Blockbuster™, because I did not know that late fees could get that high. I still don’t know how the tape ended up behind the couch. Maybe it was Keyser Söze?

Wow, those guys are more swole than I recalled. The 90s rocked!

Mallrats – A $6 million dollar budget. $2 million in ticket sales. I think the budget skips all the advertisement for this thing – you couldn’t go anywhere young adults were in 1995 without seeing ads for this movie months before it came out. This movie is a very stupid comedy that brings us Jason Lee (My Name is Earl) as a guy on a quest to get his girlfriend back. I think. It’s funny in a juvenile way, but was also the product of its time. Watched it with my boys, they thought it was hilarious, but were also fascinated, like anthropologists studying a world that existed a thousand years ago.

I hope it’s as good as the sequel to Hamlet.

Leaving Las Vegas – Darkest movie on this list. Watched it once, not sure I have it in me to watch it again. The guy who wrote the semi-autographical novel it was based on killed himself when he found out it was going to be a movie. Guess he really, really, really, really didn’t like Nic Cage.

Heat – I was debating if I was going to do “It Came From . . . . 1995” at all, but the meme above (as found) convinced me that I should. Big hit that I somehow missed and watched a few years ago after Aesop mentioned it. No weapons were injured during the filming of this movie, but not for lack of ammo. Thank heavens Sig® hadn’t introduced the P320™ yet or else half of the ammo fired wouldn’t have needed an actor fanning the trigger. Related news: I hear Alec Baldwin is going to be Sig©’s spokesman.

Four Rooms or Fur Rooms?

Four Rooms – An anthology film that I saw in an arthouse theater (the only time I’ve ever been to one) with a buddy. I guess being in an arthouse theater is with another dude is the gayest thing I’ve ever done in my life, besides that one time I had a wine cooler. Regardless, I enjoyed it, since each one of the four films was essentially a joke tied together by Tim Roth’s best comedic performance. The first film is by far the weakest, but, I can’t call it awful because, boobs.

“Waiter, there’s a rubber chicken in my soup.”
“No there isn’t.”
“Yes, there is. What is it doing there.”
“The backstroke, I believe.”
Now for something completely different.

12 Monkeys – Is he crazy, or is it time travel? Why not both? Terry Gilliam was generally the weakest member of Monty Python®, but he’s done much better as a director. Regardless, this movie brings together Bruce Willis and Brad Pitt in roles very much against the stuff they normally did, with Pitt even getting nominated for an Oscar™.

Not included? Seven. Species. Strange Days. Sense and Sensibility. Really, any movie starting with ‘S’ from 1995. I kid. Things to do in Denver When You’re Dead also nearly made the list.

What did I miss?