Transformed

Day three of this blog's Apocalypse Now mediation. Remember, Kurtz is the American who figures out how to win the war. His transformative moment comes during first tour when the VC lop off the arms of all the children his unit just inoculated. 'The will,' Kurtz later tells Captain Willard. Kurtz comes back to America, writes a report which is later classified, and then goes to airborne school. He joins the Rangers and later the Green Berets. Later Kurtz returns to Vietnam and becomes a brilliant and feared commander. But the price of victory is madness. Kurtz is America transformed by war. Again, the salient line, 'The will...' 

Will takes the Black Pill. The GOP and the right are congratulating themselves on their anti-grooming and anti-CRT efforts. These have  lead to multiple legislative successes. One can tell the right has the momentum because here in New Jersey, Governor Phil Murphy wants to address parental concerns about grooming. Murphy is a smart man who knows how to read the room. Okay. But 20 years ago, 30 states had laws banning gay marriage. How did that turn out?

So 20 years ago today we began the final week of our Batchelor's degree program at American Public University. It was a Saturday. We'd been busting our hump the previous week and knew we had a fuck-tonne of stuff to do the next week, so we took that Saturday off. We were living in a rustic 18th century farmhouse in bucolic Peapack, New Jersey. Mrs. Stroock was away on business. So this was a time of deep solitude. We watched the Yankees play the Red Sox (here's the game) and got Wendy's, [Wow, look at you, living it up-Ed]. 

Actually, we had just one thing to do that week, write a term paper on The Duke of Marlborough. That paper was 5,000 words. We wrote the paper on Monday and Tuesday and edited it Wednesday. It was a grind. We have no idea how we did it. Four years later that Marlborough term paper became a lead article in Strategy & Tactics Magazine. Transformative....