Chateau Lloyd

Amazon Prime's desecration of J.R.R. Tolkien's work continues with the release of the second season of The Rings of Power.

A stunning (but at the same time predictable) development is the decision to "humanize" the orcs.  Tolkien's villains were cruel, cowardly, cannibalistic monsters who lived a debased existence.  They were a twisted mockery of elves created by Morgoth to serve as the foot soldiers for his war against the Valar.

These creatures immediately struck a nerve in the popular culture and were part of the original elements of Dungeons and Dragons and are now a staple of fantasy environments.

Alas, in our decadence, people have decided that what was once obviously evil must now be seen as good, so just as sodomy is the highest form of sex, so orcs are just misunderstood and must be rehabilitated into yet another People of Color oppressed by white bigoted imperialists.

I've dealt with the whole question of whether they are supposed to be an allegory for actual people, and the short version is "yes and no."  Yes, they represent human vices and were written with bloodthirsty and battle-crazed soldiers of World War I in mind.  No, they are not a racial caricature of anyone.

As the old saying goes: if you hear a "dog whistle," you're the dog.  Anyone who looks at misshapen, homicidal, cannibals who delight in cruelty and says:  "You know who this reminds me of..." is the bigot, not the guy who made them up.

It is yet another milestone on our civilization's downward path, and their utter rejection gives me comfort and hope for the future.

In Michigan, August of weather is something of a paradox.  It is often the hottest time of the year, when temperatures test the 100 degree mark and humidity becomes next to unbearable.

Yet it is also the time when evening temperatures touch in to the mid-50s, a hint of the change of the seasons to come.

Such shifts can be deceiving.  I recall heat waves in late September that overwhelmed our air conditioner and running the a/c into October.

At the same time, there have been years where September is remarkably moderate and October sees the first snowfall.

Such are the joy of living in the Great Lakes State.

Tomorrow night college football will open its season in my leafy university town.  I frankly dislike this business of Friday night season openers, preferring the warm afternoons of the late summer.  For one thing, the climate isn't very favorable to it.  I can recall more than one Friday night game delayed by lightning or marred by Biblical deluges.  Definitely not my thing, and it's a choice forced on the sport by the soulless demands of television marketing.

That being said, I am looking forward to football starting up again, with its silly traditions and semi-corrupt economics.  I've booked my slot in the Alumni Band and am making halting efforts to practice the songs and steps I learned three decades ago.  Indeed, one of the most powerful aspects of the experience is slipping back through time.

The most resilient aspects of the human experience are those that resonate, and I think this is why the college football game day continues to have such a strong hold on us.  It is a thoroughly modern tradition, one that hearkens back to earlier rituals and while it has a secular gloss, there is unquestionably a spiritual component to it.

Modernity has emphasized youth over maturity, recoils from the mere mention of mortality, and yet is there anything more representative of momento mori than gathering with the most aged members of one's fellow graduates to look back on what has been?

Margaret Thatcher once said that everyone is conservative about what he knows best.  There's some truth to it, but I think a more accurate take is that we tend to assume what we grew up as the "true" thing.  It doesn't matter if it was just introduced, as we grow older, that becomes the "old-fashioned" thing we know and love.

Vatican II went down before I was born, and I converted to Catholicism in part because I found the Mass more mystical, meaningful and rooted in history than Protestant practices.  However, the current movement within the Church to roll back the excesses of Vatican II has brought about renewed interest in older forms of worship.

One of the most visible ones is the treatment of the Eucharist.  Like everyone else of my era, I got used to receiving it on the hand, but there's a strong push to receive the Host on the tongue, either standing or kneeling.  

For me, this was a bit awkward because the hand-delivery method is what I know.  However, this past week I decided to try it the other way.

I will say this: it is much more efficient.  Indeed, I'm told that the Communion rail (where the faithful knelt along a barrier that ran the length of the altar) was far faster than the current system.  No long lines stretching to the back of the sanctuary, just a continuous replacement along the rail, with the priest moving back and forth.

For those unfamiliar with the practice, receiving the Host in the hand requires you to take it into one palm, draw it forth from the other hand, and then place it in your mouth.  Only then can you move (either to resume your seat or to receive the Precious Blood).

With the older method, one simply sticks one's tongue out and the Host is deftly deposited by the minister.  It goes much quicker.

I've yet to try a Traditional Latin Mass, but I'd like to when I have a more flexible schedule.

In the meantime, I've now inched a bit closer to the TradCath lifestyle.

It being an election year, the usual debate is going on within the Christian (and especially Catholic) community about which candidate is least odious and therefore deserving of the observant religious vote.

For a long time, these decisions were made during the primary election season and the general rule was that of Nixon - run to the extreme during the primary and the center during the general.

The Right to Life movement in particular has been something of a cheap date for my entire adulthood.  Roe v. Wade was established law, so it was easy for an aspiring GOP contender to swear their Pro-life allegiance and then do nothing because "their hands were tied."

When Roe fell, the battlefield opened up, and I think the Right-to-Lifers got a bit high on their own supply, figuring that the old bans would revert and their work was done.

They have been proven disastrously wrong in a string of campaigns that left them flat-footed and badly outspent.  Put simply: these people are terrible at electoral politics.

While the Jesuits have taken things a bit far, there is something to be said from studying one's opponents and learning from their tactics.

Incrementalism works.

Too many orthodox religious voters want moral absolutes, and short of that, see little point in engaging.  The opposite is true - spiritual warfare is an attritional conflict, not to be won by the passage of a law or even an amendment.   It must be attended to daily, both within and without.  Incremental victories can become strategic ones, and this requires both prudence and an understanding of the theological principles of subsidiarity properly applied.

Thus: people who suggest tanking the least worst candidate in favor of the worst in order to "teach the party a lesson" are effectively saying that more abortion now, more souls lost now can somehow be made up for less in some hypothetical future where their emboldened enemies don't manage to lock in their gains.

I disagree with that.  I think offering stout resistance in every way and on every front - both within and without one's party - is the only option.  And at the end of the day, half a win is better than no win at all, especially when there is zero guarantee that our increasingly secular society won't blame the loss on disloyal or alienating "religious nuts."

When people behold disastrous results from their counsel, "My hands are clean" is scant comfort to the others who are suffering.  We must remember that God will judge us by our fruit, not our intentions.

Yesterday I got the news that Donald Sutherland had died and while I've never thought of him as a favorite actor, I own a lot of films with him in them.

The most striking thing about him was his remarkable range and the way he could manipulate his features to fit his role.  He covered the whole spectrum from goofball to intense serial killer.

He was quite the hot property during the 1970s, from M*A*S*H to The Dirty Dozen, Kelly's Heroes, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Eye of the Needle, to name just a few.

That's a bunch of iconic roles, and my daughter treasures him as Oddball, the eccentric tank commander from Kelly's Heroes.

I'm at an age where the actors who were in their prime during my youth are starting to pass away.  What makes it doubly sad is that there is no one coming up to replace them.  It's impossible to make a star-studded film like Kelly's Heroes today because there isn't a cast capable of supporting it.  Disney's flagship new show, The Acolyte, has hardly anyone of note, with its top-line actress being killed off in the first episode.  The next most famous person is a Korean actor who was in a foreign-language streaming series that most people never saw.

I can't think of anyone under 40 who is in any way comparable to Sutherland, which is a shame.

I generally avoid the news, but while looking for an update on a local power outage, I saw an article asserting that according to a "trans advocacy group," people who are addressed with the wrong pronouns are 50% more likely to kill themselves than people who aren't.  The message was explicit: pronouns can kill, so you better do what we say.

This dovetails with my earlier post about how modern society has completely abandoned any and all forms of rationality.  One cannot rationally argue that the best treatment for mental illness is for the entire world to adopt the delusion.

I have never been mistake for a woman, but two of my daughters went through tomboy phases and had to be corrected.  It was a little awkward, but also not unexpected.   Eventually, they got tired of it, grew their hair out and dressed in a more feminine manner.

I have had my name screwed up all over the place because apparently L-L-O-Y-D is beyond the comprehension of most people.  It is annoying, but not to the point of taking my own life.  (Seriously, Lloyd Bridges, Andrew Lloyd Webber, David Lloyd George, Lloyds of London, even the worst SecDef ever, Lloyd Austin - it's not exactly unique.)

Hitherto, the goal of mental health services was to make people more resilient, better able to survive and thrive.  Now the goal is to "meet them where they are," feed the weakness, validate delusions and ignore obvious co-morbidities.

The answer to this riddle is that the left is all about power, and one of their sources of power is sympathy.  They have made huge gains by taking on the attitude of fragility, weaponizing Christian compassion.  I've talked about this before, but the current messaging is the epitome of the approach.

"Say the words or fragile people will die!  SAY THEM!"  That's straight-up bullying, what psychologists used to call "emotional blackmail."  Indeed, one of the interesting elements of the last few years is watching actual, serious therapists and doctors dance around these issues, striving to protect their careers while doing their jobs.  I've noticed that they are become less covert in their opposition, which is encouraging.

Perhaps more encouraging is the increasingly strident rejection of moral perversion.  It's now clear that "tolerance" was just a waypoint on the way to "dominance," and people have figured it out.  The muting of "Pride Month" and the casual disparagement of rainbow murals and such demonstrate that change is underway.

Nowhere is the demonic influence on secular society more clear than in the attempt to abolish or pervert all traditional relationships.  The radical trans movement seeks to annihilate motherhood as well as fatherhood as we have known them, and replaced them with arbitrary, pseudo-technical terms that obscure more than they describe.

Yet despite all this, the hard-wiring in our brains remains, and we still default to the norms of human history.

This came to mind while watching The Acolyte reviews.  During the third episode, there was a dispute between the "two mommies" and while they are supposed to be this superior, radically feminist relationship, it was basically a same-sex simulcrum of husband and wife.  The taller, more powerful woman loomed over the shorter one, using her presence to coerce compliance.  When the smaller woman asserted that she ought to take presence because "she carried them" (the children), the other retorted "I created them."  

That's a pretty masculine way of putting things, no?  It's also very strange to have motherhood - which lies at the very heart of the female experience - be denigrated in favor of an ersatz paternity.   Because the big chick held the Force turkey-baster, this made her the superior to the woman who spent nine months carrying twins, went through the painful process of birth, and trials of post-partum depression, and of course nursing them at her breast - which is no mean feat with twins.

The Youtuber Disparu (whose excellent videos I have been following), noted that this seems to be a reference to surrogate pregnancy, and how gays think nothing of the birth mothers because they've done their thing and got paid for it.

Indeed, one of the interesting developments has been a growing awareness that "surrogate mothers" are actually a form of human trafficking.  Women are paid to be impregnated, expected to carry the baby to term (perhaps gender-selected via IVF), and the child is taken from her at birth and bestowed on the purchasers.  I've seen triumphant videos posted on social media, which go viral among religious folks in particular.

It's fascinating how we have this massive health care industrial complex built around teaching best practices in pregnancy and child-rearing and yet none of that applies to preferred groups like homosexuals.

Consider how many red flags are involved in this process.  

First, we have the inherent immorality of the contract.  A woman is being paid to give birth and hand over a human being.  How this is not "involuntary servitude" I do not know.  The entire transaction is fraught with moral problems. Why is this woman doing this?  Is she compelled by circumstance?  Is she a lawful resident?  One can easily imagine trafficked women being forced into this role.

Now consider her mental state.  Instead of treasuring the movements of her growing child, she is instead painfully aware that she will not enjoy the tender moments after birth, holding, feeding, nurturing the child of her flesh.

Post-partum depression is practically guaranteed.  How can it not happen?  She has no solace of holding the child, just money.

Meanwhile the child will not form a proper maternal bond.  A key part of development (and comfort for both mother and child) is the closeness after birth.  The beating of the mother's heart is uniquely relaxing.  That is now gone.

Volumes of research show that breast-feeding is best for both mother and child, yet here it is categorically off the table.

I could go on.

In a consistent, rational world, the people who style themselves "women's advocates" would be up in arms over this, but of course they're celebrating the commodification of babies, just as the celebrate killing them in the womb.

As I said, it's demonic.

The truth is that fathers and mothers are complimentary, each bringing different gifts and fulfilling different needs.  A huge part of the societal strife and breakdown we are seeing comes from the unwillingness of elites to sustain these vital institutions.

On the plus side, the market failure of The Acolyte is encouraging.  Perhaps the tide is starting to turn.

Humans are not rational creatures, they are spiritual ones.  We do have a capacity for reason, but it is impaired by sin, particularly the sin of pride.

For example, there is a common assumption that if a person reacts to a certain stimulus one way, they will always react to it the same way.  This is manifestly untrue.  If I step on your toe once, you may not take any immediate action because you assume it was a mistake or even that you incautiously put your toe in the path of my stride.  However, when it keeps happening, you will eventually try to end it, either by moving away, warning me from doing it again, or physically assaulting me.

A clear example of this is the way that "Nice Christianity" has all but disappeared.  At the time, it seemed compassionate to welcome people suffering from moral shortcomings into the faith, perhaps hoping to heal them by refraining from criticism.  But - as is the case with all demonic behaviors - the afflicted were not content to sin in private, or even confine their acts to willing audiences, but instead felt the need to impose their degeneracy on all of us, particularly those most opposed to it.

"Live and let live" was immediately replaced with "bake the cake, bigot."

Right now, we are seeing a full-spectrum push against this, as all normal people - believers and non-believers alike - tire of being hectored and lectured by moral degenerates who demand endorsement for their degeneracy.

A year ago Bud Light was entering this month with its brand in freefall, and Target's bold decision to promote perverse, sexualized clothing to children generated an immediate and severe backlash.  Both companies have repented of their actions after severe financial damage, and many others wonder how to navigate the new terrain.  To ignore Pride Month is to court the wrath of radical activists who have access to immense wealth and power, but that is not enough to cover the economic costs of a broadly-based boycott by everyone else.

There is also a new assertiveness on the part of Christians, particularly the Catholic Church.  Eucharistic processions are taking place around the world in honor of the Solemnity of Body and Blood of Jesus Christ (Corpus Christi).  These are public demonstrations of faith, a direct challenge to the secular and demonic forces who currently control the culture.

A big part of why the "Woke" are so terrified by even the slightest dissent is that they know how fragile their position is.  Decadence is always a passing thing, sustained by a combination of apathy, affluence and moral complacency.  Economic turmoil, societal upheaval and a reassertion of traditional morals pose an existential threat to our current cultural environment.  "Gay marriage" has only been on the books for less than a decade and already public opinion is turning against it.  The crime of "surrogate pregnancy," wherein the rich and powerful buy the children of the poor and weak is also creating rising outrage at the very moment when desperate leftists are trying to lock into law.

A moment that founds itself on sin will reap the wages of sin.

Last week the trailer for a new installment of the Assassins Creed franchise came out.  I'm familiar with the game, though I've never played it.  Anyhow, my understanding is that it uses the Knight Templars as some sort of ancient conspiracy against their arch-enemies and assassins are good, Templars bad, or whatever.   I'm quite the fan of Umberto Eco's Templar conspiracy tour-de-force, Focault's Pendulum, which I'm sure was at least some of the inspiration for the franchise.

Anyway, the new release is set in Japan, a first for the series, and people were naturally looking forward to actual samurai and ninjas duking it out.  Instead, the titular character is an African samurai, which has a lot of people scratching their heads.

Apparently, there is a mention of an African man reaching Japan during the tumultuous 16th Century.  The actual person was the servant of a Jesuit missionary and a Japanese warlord took an interest in him, taking him into his service as a page or manservant.

To put it another way, he wasn't an actual samurai.  

But facts mean nothing to modern social justice motivated scholars, and so the game publishers are digging in on the "authenticity" of their game.  Some are citing African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan as the authoritative source.  The book has hugely positive ratings, but that's meaningless in terms of whether or not it is actual history.

Long-time friends of this blog will know that when I dug into the Spanish Civil War, I found plenty of "respected" sources that spouted provable lies.  Antony Beevor is - for some strange reason - considered a respectable historian despite his blatant bigotry and complete disregard of the facts.

That tissue of lies has a very positive rating despite being filled with hot garbage, and I noticed that critical reviews of that Yasuke book echo my own audit of Beevor.

To put it another way, there is zero proof that this Yasuke was a samurai, but bigoted Western authors have decided that he was one, and that's that.

At the start of this dispute, both Encyclopedia Britannic and Wikipedia were skeptical of the samurai claims, but once the signal was given both sources rewrote their entries to conform to the new narrative.  They both went full George Orwell.  Never go full George Orwell.

The core problem with this transparent re-writing of history is that it convinces no one.  Skeptics will become more skeptical while fence-sitters will be turned off by the sudden about-face.  The true believers will parrot whatever is given them, which further strengthens the skeptical arguments.

Put simply, it is self-defeating, destroying the authority of once-respected institutions in return for ephemeral short-term gains.  This seems to be the hallmark of our age.

What makes this all so pathetic is that all this revisionism is being done in the service of a video game, one that has already generated overwhelmingly negative responses.  The various authorities that whored themselves out for this endeavor will see zero return on their investment.  Their best-case scenario is for some tech mogul to get a little bit more wealthy for a little while.

Meanwhile, the prestige of Western scholarship will suffer irreparable damage.  

At this point, I'm good with that.  Modern academics are nothing more than credentialed imbeciles.  Indeed, when challenged, they always resort to asserting their authority rather than providing actual evidence.  The faster this corruption is exposed and destroyed, the better for everyone.

Hollywood is apparently not done with strip-mining J.R.R. Tolkien's literary legacy.  A new film is supposedly in the works based on the life of...Gollum.

Which we already know.  I mean, it's in Lord of the Rings, book the book and both the movies.

This is the state of modern filmmaking: tell the same story again and again.  

Presumably audiences will keep coming back to watch something vaguely familiar, thus assuring a reasonable return on investment.

This is largely enabled by the consolidation that has taken place among studios, which are probably more in lockstep than they ever were in the days of the moguls.  Indeed, the signature feature of the Studio System was its innovation - all of the moguls were self-made men who were creating an industry from scratch.  The current executives are third- or fourth-generation legacy hires.

The good news is that this creates an unprecedented opportunity for independent artists to make some huge scores, and we saw this with Godzilla Minus One.

The bad news is that all media has been consolidated, and there is a concerted (and blatant) effort to restrict access to new content precisely because of the danger it poses.

I'm not sure how this will play out, but as with so many other institutions, my sense is that Hollywood will ultimately fall.  Like a vast ship incapable of course correction, it will inevitably crash.  Nothing is too big to fail.