Will Rage End Our Republic?

  

I have been thinking about how common rage has become.

I watched The Wire again. The first season was in 2002. It got a 9.3 IMDB rating. It's in my top five TV series.

It features violence, vulgarity, corruption, and public education failure: four aspects of modern American life. It has corner talk. The lowest form of American speech. 

This viewing I did not see the show as being about cops, drug dealers, corruption, etc. I saw it telling the story of how our culture is rotting.

Imagine a sewer overflowing. It happened in February in DC. Blockage can result in pipes breaking and sewage in the streets. The analogy I am reaching for is that our culture is being polluted from below. Only a few decades ago, women’s fashions migrated in mere weeks of announcement to budget labels. Now, ghetto fashions migrate to the runways.

In my youth, entertainers came on stage and said Good evening, ladies and Gentlemen. Now, grabbing the croch seems de riguer.

Children emerge from school as ignorant of facts as when they entered. This is because they are no longer taught by rote. Civics was discarded decades ago. Math is racist. The inability to write legibly lessens students’

ability to express themselves. Thank the two teachers’ unions for this fait accompli. [Randi Weingarten heads the American Federation of Teachers and makes over $560,000. Becky Pringle, the president of the National Education Association, earned over $500,000]

We have 20, 30, and 40-year-olds who do not know the three branches of government, who we obtained our independence from and how many moons the Earth has, and so on. How can they possibly understand what the older generation knows? They are prey to accepting whatever nonsense is offered to them.

Ben Sasse writes:

“You don’t pass along America in the bloodstream. You have to actually teach it. And we truly haven’t been doing it since the ’60s. We’ve ended up not doing the important civic-transmission work of explaining what America is, which is the most glorious governance project in all of human history. The Constitution is an unbelievable secular document to build a framework for ordered liberty.”

Every American kid “ought to understand how glorious the Bill of Rights is, and particularly the First Amendment. And we know that kids don’t know any of this.” When he first ran for Senate in 2014, a poll found that “something like 40% of American college students thought the First Amendment was dangerous, because you might use your freedom of speech to say something that hurt someone else’s feelings.” That is “the whole freaking point of America— that you can say something that hurts someone else’s feelings because words are not violence and violence is not words.”  

It’s a problem for democracy if people don’t have a shared reality, 

Kronos may have been all too human in allowing his ambition and rage to overwhelm every other emotion and consideration. He embodied an insatiable appetite that once unleashed would continue with inexorable and horrible consequences. It is a story played out over and over again in history as ambition becomes activism, activism becomes extremism, and extremism becomes authoritarianism.

“In a republic, you’re always only one generation away from the extinction of freedom.”  Ronald Reagan

Hump Day

I intended to post on Tuesday. 

For Openers

'

For the Weekend

 For Openers

Oh, Hell Yes

Dressed in Pink to be Spanked

Caught Speeding In Daddy's Car

In the Sweet Summertime

Spanked in the Kitchen - Another Day in Paradise

by Al Gore

The belt hung heavy on its hook by the front door, worn leather coiled neatly like a sleeping snake. It had been there so long, but nobody touched it not since the last time, anyway.

Bacall's Belt

Jenna stood in the kitchen, barefoot on cold tiles, stirring a pot of beef stew with more force than necessary. The steam curled around her face, sticking her dark hair to her temples. She tasted a spoonful out of the pot. She hoped that maybe, somehow, simmering anger would've improved the recipe.

The front door creaked open, Jenna didn't turn around. "If you're here to criticize my cooking again, save it," she snapped. The spoon clattered against the pot's rim.

Jenna heard the familiar thud of takeout bags hitting the counter before she felt the heat of him behind her. Calloused fingers circled her throat not squeezing, just resting there like a warning. "Told you last time," his voice rumbled against the back of her neck, "spoon goes clockwise. Counterclockwise means you're stirrin’ up trouble." His thumb brushed her pulse point, and she swallowed hard.

The five-finger necklace. That’s what he called it when she’d arch into his grip instead of pulling away. When her bratty little huffs dissolved into shivers. The belt might’ve gathered dust, but his hands never forgot their way around her defiance.

Jenna's shoulders dropped half an inch just enough for him to notice. A silent plea disguised as surrender. His fingers twitched against her throat in response, that rough palm pressing firmer until her breath hitched deliciously. She arched back against him, hips rolling into the counter’s edge.

"Always gotta push, don’t you?" His chuckle vibrated through her spine as he nudged her forward, bending her over the kitchen island. The takeout bags rustled as he shoved them aside with one hand, the other already working the tie of her sweatpants. Cool air kissed the backs of her thighs when the fabric pooled around her ankles. She clenched her fists in anticipation, forehead pressed to the granite.

The granite chilled her cheek as she exhaled, body taut like a bowstring. His palm pressed flat between her shoulder blades not restraining, just *present* and the weight of that single touch unraveled something knotted deep in her ribs. Jenna didn’t want gentle. Gentle was for people who hadn’t memorized the way leather sounded when it slipped free of belt loops.

His fingers trailed down her spine, slow enough to make her squirm. "This what you been itching for, girl?" The tease in his voice prickled her skin. She hated when he made her ask. Hated how her thighs wanted to open for him. The first smack cracked through the kitchen like a gunshot, sharp enough to startle a gasp from her lips before the burn bloomed across her backside. Jenna sighed, Just Another Day in Paradise.

Our First Spanking Bench

I have posted about spanking benches more than once over the years. A reader mentioned one in a comment last week. So here I go again.

I built a hiking bench to keep our abs in shape over the winter. What? We raced a small sailboat. All ballast was the two of us. In a fresh breeze, we sat on the rail, hooked our legs under straps and leaned back - up to 90 degrees - to keep the boat flat. After 10-15 minutes in this position, your legs start to burn or even shake. But, gee, it's fun. Spray jetting away from the boat.

This is us in 1981, as published in a sailing magazine.

See those flat stomachs. We did not weigh enough to keep the boat flat.

This is not us, but a more exciting picture. 

This is the spanking/kneeling bench, formerly a hiking bench. I removed the straps and Bacall added the cushions. Note the wrist cuffs.

Any pictures you care to share with fellow OBB readers?

Bacall

First, thanks to all those who participated inanswering the question Which room is most used for spanking. I have another like question that I will post next? week.

I was gratified that no one mentioned the bathroom. So many pro images depict that room.

This was me most of last week. Feeling better today.

Yes, I did. Our first date was July 4th. On July 20th, Bacall fell asleep in my lap. That's when I discovered that anything to do with science was verboten to her.

Pervertibles - We liked vanilla toy shopping - some term them pervertibles. We were with a vanilla couple in a small kinky store in the Florida panhandle. Bacall took a short whip down, slapped her bare thigh with it, and said Ooh! Her gf said WTF did you do that for? Another tale of living with Bacall.

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Have you ever had this happen to you? You ask a woman a question that has a yes or no answer. You open a channel for a one-word answer. Suddenly, your circuits are overloaded and scrambled as she tells you a story. At the end of her story, you will not know if her answer was yes or no.

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Ever notice in films someone will threaten another with a gun? Point it right in their face. And then they will get serious and cocked the pistol or rack a shell in the chamber. Creates drama, I suppose.

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When we started traveling in 2006, my theme song was The Road Goes On Forever. Now it's When The Long Road Ends.

You Tell Us II

Trying something different. Curious how many will respond. Curious if you will write more than one sentence. The question for you is:

In your home, which room is most used for spanking?

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I posted about thinking I was going to faint at the imaging center on Monday. I have been headed downhill since then. Twice in the past, Leukemia has put me in bed or a recliner for a week or so. This may be another event. Bed at 7 last night. Up at 4, back to bed at 7 for another hour or so. Slept 13 hours the next day.

This explains why I have not posted this week.