Math is Racist

όταν  ό δαίμων άνδρΐ πορσύνῃ κακά, τον νουν εβλαφε πρώτον ώ βουλεύεται 

Did you know mathematics is racist because it "inherently carries human bias"? At least that's what the Mathematical Association of America thinks. Reflect on this homely, perhaps familiar scene.

There you are at the local pick 'n steal where you've been charged the outrageous sum of $8.60 for a pack of Marlboro Lights, and a coffee refill in your indestructible Yeti 20 Oz Tumbler. You hand over a $10.00 bill. 

So far so good, but thanks to your inherent racism you expect a sturdy Fascist $1.40 back in change. Whoa, El Jefe, Generalissimo! But you can't help it, it's the way you've been raised by white supremacy. So when you're given $1.00 back in change you'd better suck it up, you unrelenting, literal Nazi.

And why? Because according to rainbow logic people of color can't do math. If you think that's somehow racist you'd be right, which brings us back to the old axiom, Viz. Everything the Left attempts to effect produces the exact opposite of its intended result.

When a demon (δαίμων) plans harm (κακά, let the reader understand) against a man, he first damages the mind of the person he plots against. Or in military and concise Latin, quos deus vult perdere prius dementat, those whom god wishes to destroy he first makes mad.

Listen, if you can, to the beating wings of the Harpies before they dive into silence.

Your Classical Buddy,

LSP

Aftermath

Friday dawned dark as Llandrindod Wells in June, with thunderheads glowering above. Then it started to rain like a Weston Super Mare Bank Holiday and that continued until we got on the road for Dallas. Such is the apocalyptic nightmare of climate change.

Weston Super Mare

By the time we got to Dallas we were half a million strong, thanks a lot, I35, but the air was crisp and clean and the sky clear and blue. Sorry, Chicago, I know it's not fair but that's just the way it is, you need to pay a steeper weather tax.

A Typical Etonian

We set up for Ma LSP's birthday party, which went famously and didn't stop until the next evening; good work, team, stay at it. And you may not know this, but champagne with a little orange juice is a traditional Cinco de Mayo drink. Some find it goes well with beer, others don't, there's no rule.

Party over, we headed back to the rural elysium of the Compound and got ready to worship on Sunday.

As I type this dispatch from the Southern Front of the War on Weather, Pedro and Maria are powering out Mexican music in the back yard, peacocks shriek, roosters crow, something Mexican's on the grill and God is in His heaven.

Fishing's most definitely on the schedule tomorrow, maybe a shoot too. Can you have too much of a good thing?

MAGA,

LSP

Inspiration!

Here's some Lepanto, to inspire:

White founts falling in the courts of the sun,
And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;
There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,
It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard,
It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips,
For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.
They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,
They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,
And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,
And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross,
The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;
The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;
From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,
And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.

Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,
Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,
Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,
The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,
The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,
That once went singing southward when all the world was young,
In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,
Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.
Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,
Don John of Austria is going to the war,
Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold
In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,
Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,
Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.
Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,
Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,
Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.
Love-light of Spain—hurrah!
Death-light of Africa!
Don John of Austria
Is riding to the sea.

Thank God, and I mean that, for Don John. Returning the Prophet's battle flag was a mistake. 

LSP

Budget

One of the team sent this in and I hope you find it useful.

LSP

Get A New Roof, Go Fishing

It's building season here at the Missions, and part of that means new roofs on churches. So I tore myself away from the cut and thrust of US Presidential Race 2016 to see how the work was getting on. It was getting on just fine, in fact the crew were finishing up.

"Good work!" I told the Boss of the roofers and he told me it was all done bar the clean-up. We talked about the job for a little while and the helpful weather. Far better to be roofing in the mild springlike Texan winters than in, say, August. No fun to be up on a roof in 100++ degree temperatures. 

Someone's photo of Calgary from Scotchman's Hill

"Oh, we'd be here in August too," he assured me, and I'm sure they would. I told him about the Calgary roofers I know, up on the tall buildings in sub, subzero temperatures. "Cold!" the reverse of Texas but maybe harder. I respect that job.

Then we shook hands and he thanked me for the business and I headed for home, detouring by the lake for a bit of bank fishing. I cast away with a white shad crankbait and didn't catch anything, but it was fun trying. 

It was also fun to look at the limestone banks of the lake, with its fossilized wood, shells and vegetation frozen in stone, as though they'd been churned together in a great cataclysm. I reflected on that and the several "extinction events" that have overtaken life on earth. How was it possible, in the face of global die-offs, for life to reassert itself so abundantly? 

Metaphors for civilization and US democracy notwithstanding, I headed for home and meetings with yet more roofers, house painters and "tree service."

Mind how you go,

LSP

Megyn Kelly Wins Iowa Caucus!

In a shocking head-to-head breakneck race, TV superstar body celebrity, Megyn Kelly, has won the Iowa caucus by a few slim percentage points.

Kelly won 28% of the vote as opposed to also-ran, Trump, who got a losing 25%. Trump told the world that he's "honored" to come in as the Loser, in second place to Megyn.

America waits with bated breath as the GOP candidates psych up for New Hampshire. Will Megyn "The Body" Kelly win, or will someone else? 

Let the ballots decide!

LSP

I'm Headin' to Calgary

It's that time of year when I go North, to Calgary, and the land of the ice and snow. Unfortunately that means having to endure the nightmare of modern air travel, which is like taking a bus from Gloucester to Tunbridge Wells in the '80s.

But whoever said life would be easy? I remember no such promise, but I do remember that our elite rulers told us we're in a War on Weather.

There were tornadoes in Dallas yesterday. I guess that means we're losing that particular war; well done, team.

God bless,

LSP