Lem's Levity

Tuesday, November 11, 2025

On Life Support & Insertion

Monday, November 10, 2025

Theyt've been promising a civil war,

but it's getting awfully uncivil on the Left.

The big showdown on the shutdown is a disaster for the Demos and, if the real purpose was to deliver last Tuesday for their machines, they may find it wasn't worth it.

What we have is a brewing all-out war between the crazies and the old Commies. If the Demos aren't careful, we may see Congressional (and judicial) term limits.

The showdown was a disaster for the Demos. Anytime Donald Trump offers a carrot to the other side, the other side better watch out. This time was no exception. Chuckie had a chance to give in, but didn't take, assuming, as always, the Rs would fold. They didn't and the Demos got zip, absolutely nothing for a month of Sturm und Drang. Moreover, many Demos tried a little CYA by admitting that, yeah, the whole "starving babies" gag was all they had and the "natives" (fake but accurate) were getting restless as the hardcore screamed about a cave, which, let's face it, is what it was.

Now you have Kathy Hochul refusing to fund Madmani's little Animal Farm, along with Donald Trump. And the illegals are still on their way out the door.

I can only hope all the people who did those TikTok videos where they're crying over the starving people and broken families got paid well. Some of them were quite credibile.

Until you noticed there were no tears, no wet faces, no sniffling, no quivering lower lips.

And there will be tons of ads next year showing people like the Dick from IL denouncing the whole thing for what it was, holding people hostage for their eating money. If this doesn't convince a lot of Demo voters the the memorable advice of the Silhouettes

yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip
Mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum, get a job

I'm afraid there's little hope.

On Show & Response

Sunday, November 9, 2025

On Escapes & Rent Free Living

On Turnarounds & Exceptions

Friday, November 7, 2025

On Show & Pay

Wednesday, November 5, 2025

On Brand & Optics, Performance & Story

From today's article in PJ Media, on "The Missing Hero's Journey: Why Our Culture Can’t Grow Up" by Jamie K. Wilson:

"Jonathan Gottschall, in The Storytelling Animal, argues that humans are wired for story. Narrative isn’t a cultural ornament; it’s how the brain organizes reality. We turn chaos into sequence, conflict into purpose. Our minds insist on meaning and structure in a chaotic world. We need the Hero’s Journey because it mirrors the way consciousness matures.

This is why the postmodern dismissal of truth as illusion is so destructive. The mind cannot live without a through-line. When we deny objective meaning, the need doesn’t disappear; it mutates. Instead of seeking truth, people construct identities. They perform coherence. Story becomes branding, not belief.

Gottschall’s insight explains why even in a cynical age, the same mythic pattern keeps resurfacing in pop culture. We hunger for it. The Hero’s Journey is how the psyche metabolizes experience: departure, ordeal, and return. Strip away the ordeal, and the story — and the self — collapse into fragments.

Our young are not just starved for struggle; they are starved for truth. Illusion can flatter the ego, but it cannot forge the soul. A culture that replaces pilgrimage with performance leaves its children with only one possible quest: to be seen, not to become.

When truth is replaced by illusion, the journey becomes theater. The old pilgrimage, a test of endurance and faith, has become a performance for an audience. The self is no longer tempered; it is curated....

We have spent a generation trying to skip the middle, though the impulse began half a century ago when comfort and theory first conspired to make struggle seem unnecessary. It hasn’t worked. The result is visible everywhere: anxiety, fragility, disillusionment, and a desperate search for authenticity."