Commuter beware: 68 bridges across US at risk of collapse!



March 26, 2024. It's a pitch black, wintry night in Baltimore. Frigid winds batter the maintenance workers patching potholes on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, a 1.6-mile lifeline high above the icy Patapsco River.

Then: disaster.

Since the Panama Canal expansion in 2016, vessels like the Dali haul up to 24,000 TEUs — making them massive floating cities older bridges weren’t built to endure.

The Dali, a 984-foot ship out of Singapore loaded with 4,700 containers, loses power leaving the Port of Baltimore.

No propulsion, no steering — just a 95,000-ton steel giant drifting. Minutes after a desperate mayday call at 1:27 a.m., it crashes into a pier at 6.5 knots.

The bridge collapses instantly. Built in 1977, it simply wasn’t designed to withstand impact from a ship that size.

Eight workers fall into the icy river; only two survive. Fifty thousand tons of debris now block Baltimore's port, eventually causing the regional economy a $1 billion loss.

RELATED: Wife of Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse victim remembers father of three as always 'fighting for us'

Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

One year later, reconstruction of the bridge is still underway and not expected to be completed until 2028 — at a price of $2 billion.

Is the Golden Gate next?

Now imagine the same thing happening to any one of dozens of other bridges across the country. According to a recent investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board, the danger is all too real.

The NTSB report calls for 68 bridges across 19 states to undergo urgent “vulnerability assessments” to determine if they can withstand a ship strike.

These bridges — including California’s Golden Gate Bridge, New York’s Brooklyn Bridge, and Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay Bridge — have two things in common: They all span major shipping lanes and were all built before 1991, predating the modern safety standards meant to address growing ship sizes.

The NTSB has given the bridge owners — an assortment of 30 different state departments of transportation, port authorities, and other entities — 30 days to provide updated evaluations of these structures.

Big ships, big problems

A bridge’s vulnerability stems from its age, design, and exposure to ship traffic. The Key Bridge, completed in 1977, handled smaller vessels in the 1980s — like one that grazed it in 1980 with minimal damage.

Today’s ships, however, are far larger. In the 1970s, they carried 800 containers. Since the Panama Canal expansion in 2016, vessels like the Dali haul up to 24,000 TEUs — making them massive floating cities older bridges weren’t built to endure. The NTSB found the Maryland Transportation Authority never adjusted its risk calculations for these modern giants.

The American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials has required updated assessments since 1991, following the NTSB's investigation of the 1980 collapse of Florida’s Sunshine Skyway, which killed 35. Maryland helped craft those rules but didn’t apply them to Key Bridge.

A vulnerability assessment uses a mathematical model, factoring in ship size, speed, traffic patterns, and bridge strength to produce a risk score. If it exceeds AASHTO’s limit, solutions like pier reinforcements or tugboat escorts can lower the danger.

New bridges have followed this federal mandate since 1994, but many older ones remain untested — until now.

Not urgent ... until it is

The NTSB doesn’t claim these 68 will fail tomorrow. The Golden Gate’s owners hired consultants in 2025, and New York’s Department of Transportation notes the East River rarely sees Dali-sized ships.

Still, the risk persists. Since 2021, over 300 ships lost propulsion in U.S. waters, often near bridges. The Key Bridge collapse serves as a stark warning, with six lives lost and massive economic and societal disruption that persists to this day.

Retrofitting bridges with pier reinforcements or tugboat escorts could cost millions per structure. The new Key Bridge carries a price tag of $1.7 to $1.9 billion, largely federally funded, with completion set for 2028. If several of the 68 bridges fail, losses could climb into the billions, disrupting ports like Long Beach or Miami and hammering national trade.

RELATED: Why Johnny can't build

nojustice/Getty Images

Maryland’s MDTA argues the Dali’s owners bear responsibility, citing negligence. It settled with the Justice Department for $102 million in October 2024 after evidence of poor maintenance — faulty transformers and disabled backups.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy countered Maryland’s stance, noting that the state had decades to realize how vulnerable the bridge was to a ship strike.

"Not only did MDTA fail to conduct the vulnerability assessment on the Key Bridge, they did not provide, nor were they able to provide, NTSB the data needed to conduct the assessment," Homendy said. "We asked for that data, they didn't have it. We had to develop that data ourselves."

For commuters, crossing one of these 68 — like the Verrazzano-Narrows or Sunshine Skyway — means staying alert. Near-term changes might include stricter tugboat requirements or adjusted shipping lanes.

No more 'Green New Scam'

One promising sign is U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy's recent announcement of nearly $4.9 billion in available funding from the Federal Highway Administration for major bridge projects (the Bridge Investment Program) and up to $500 million for repairing or replacing bridges in rural areas (the Competitive Highway Bridge Program).

According to Duffy, the removal of Biden-era environmental restrictions will make such spending far more effective than in the past:

The previous administration handcuffed critical infrastructure funding requirements to woke DEI and Green New Scam initiatives that diverted resources from the Department’s core mission. Under the Trump administration, America is building again.

Like all man-made structures, bridges testify both to our ingenuity — and to our all-too-human frailty. The NTSB's findings are a sobering reminder that we must never ignore the latter.

Slop and spam, bots and scams: Can personalized algorithms fix the internet?



From the super-spam Google search results loaded with videos instead of web pages to the “paid for by” advertisements heavy in social media feeds these days, it’s hard not to notice the internet morphing into … well, some call it slop (others use another four-letter word). Whatever your taste, or lack thereof, AI is sure to play a major, transformative role. Offsetting the massive and justified concerns are several palliative possibilities for the preservation of our humanity online — one of them in consideration is the so-called individual or customized algorithm.

This is, in essence, a filter on the internet or in parts of it, such as particular websites, whereby you, an AI bot, or another entity (perhaps the operator of certain sites and apps) uses the overlay to curate your feed.

As an example, you’re scrolling the X.com timeline and decide you actually do value, say, the political takes of your ideological enemy but have no interest at all in connecting with or understanding various factions within your own presumed ideology. In terms relative to the “discourse,” it’s sort of a nuanced position. An algorithm tailored to enhance your predilections may be an option. Doesn’t exactly sound like the “town hall of the internet,” much less the “global public square,” but it might keep users engaged, and it might be useful for certain types of searches, engagements, and analysis.

Even as the Trump administration works day and night to unravel decades of graft, fraud, and frankly traitorous activity at society’s many levels, what exactly do we want and need out of the internet so we can thrive?

Continuing with the X.com hypothetical, perhaps the programmers under Elon could, and this is the thrust of the issue, decide to allow for the application of various user-determined control parameters onto your feed, such that it weeds out what you want to ignore and gathers more of what you have determined you value. Seems straightforward, right? Why not roll it out and offer it as a subscriber add-on? Even if it’s not entirely customized, it’s getting close.

There are cost barriers and security considerations. Aren’t there always such barriers, though? Programming, maintaining, and monitoring such tailored algorithms and similar individualization is heavy on the compute. Compute requires energy, which requires money. The relative homogeneity of websites allows for economic, efficient computation — but doesn’t it also work to homogenize us, our desires, and perspectives?

RELATED: Liberal comedian lashes out at Netflix over Dave Chappelle special: 'F*** you and your amoral algorithm cult!'

This seems to be the battleground we find on ourselves on now.

The other major obstacle from the point of view of the internet proprietor relates to the opportunity for scams that might arise if users are granted these tools of curation. The argument is that if individuals are granted or otherwise obtain (perhaps via AI) the technological tools to curate their own feeds more deeply than they do now, those same tools will open opportunities for scams of various sorts.

One such argument points to the use of AI-assisted algorithms deployed into a context like X.com with the objective of gathering intelligence, data, and so forth — to be leveraged later in some separate context? This happens already, as we all know, but evidently supercharging these efforts opens yet more vulnerability online. Or so the argument goes. So it’s hard to say with any certainty how effective or useful or desirable the option for individualized algorithms will be in the absolute aggregate. Does it matter? Well, at a spiritual level, maybe not. However, at immediate survival, social, and viably employable levels of concern, yes, the internet absolutely still matters a great deal. For most people, just walking away isn’t an option.

And so the question many people are asking, even as the Trump administration works day and night to unravel decades of graft, fraud, and frankly traitorous activity at society’s many levels, is what exactly do we want and need out of the internet so we can thrive? It’s going to be more than pure market logic. How can we wrangle this thing to serve everyday Americans, or even mankind, while we’re at it?

Let me offer two basic predictions. One, the internet will continue with the logic of homogenization, of monoculture, which appears to describe and define most of corporate culture, and as a result, the internet may likely stratify more than splinter. Individual algorithms will pass away as just another stab in the dark of cyberspace exploration. Two, the homogenization will nevertheless finally become unprofitable — at least to the point where, beyond pure market operations, some of the more enjoyable and human operations will open up. Perhaps individualized algorithms wind up functioning as an effective stopgap, a Band-Aid, until we can get bigger medicine — wisdom — involved.

Not without my fur baby! Our bizarre new dog-worshipping religion



Dogs. They're everywhere.

Stores, cars, restaurants, coffee shops, bakeries, airports, and airplanes. Our world has been taken over by the K9s.

Banning dogs from certain places is now seen as 'exclusionary.' According pets human status — behavior once limited to the eccentric rich — is now everybody's prerogative.

Places previously reserved only for those who walk on two feet and upright are now open to all species. No beast is barred from the dairy aisle, no hound is left out in the cold.

I know it’s hard to believe, but it wasn’t like this until very recently.

Planet of the fur babies

Dog culture as we know it today was virtually unheard of when I was a kid. Traditionally, the only people who exemplified any kind of behavior resembling the “fur baby parent” of today were old, frail ladies who developed inordinately strong attachments to those little rat dogs with curly hair and an annoying yapping bark.

That archetype was goofy. That’s the other thing to remember. The old dog lady archetype was viewed as kind of silly. She wasn’t valorized, she was kind of made fun of, she was seen as odd.

Up until just a few years ago, dogs were never in stores. You didn’t see them inside the market, gas station, department store, or Home Depot. It simply didn’t exist.

RELATED: It’s way past time to ban pit bulls

Photo by Xavier ROSSI/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images

Blind item

The only exception was a seeing eye dog accompanying a blind person, but even that was so rare that when it did happen, it was kind of cool.

I remember sort of standing back and watching, stupefied, feeling like I shouldn’t make any noises so as not to distract the dog. It was serious business. The dog was there for a purpose, and its purpose was to serve its master. That was, of course, the traditional purpose of dogs.

Dogs in restaurants were also, obviously, not a thing. Go back to the year 2000 and tell someone that in 25 years they will be sitting down to lunch in a cafe, eating a Caesar salad with a labradoodle to their left and a golden retriever to their right. Tell them that people will increasingly bring their dogs on airplanes, claiming they “need” them for “emotional support.”

This sweet, naive soul from Y2K might develop serious questions about the future and what went wrong.

Dog years

It’s important to remember what things were like. If we can’t remember what things were like, we are unable to accurately understand what it is that we are living in now. If we retcon the past, wiping our memories so we can live in a state or pure present where nothing ever gets better or worse, we are unable to grasp any broader trajectories of life, society, or culture.

But people don't like to be reminded of the fact that things were not always this way. They will resist admitting it. They will lash out if you remind them of it. They will find absurd edge-case exceptions to the truth in an attempt to convince themselves that things have always been this way.

It’s a fascinating phenomenon and a root cause of the inability to understand our culture and society. If you are convinced everything has always been this way, then any critique of the current reality feels like a critique of all reality, and instead of being anything insightful worthy of consideration, any critique can simply be dismissed as being overly negative.

Survival of the dimmest

Part of the reason people don’t want to be reminded of the fact that things were not always this way is because if they do realize things have changed, and are able to accurately judge the development of culture, they are more likely to correctly assess the negative developments and more likely to end up depressed about the current situation.

RELATED: Female arrested after her dementia-stricken mother, 76, was mauled to death in home with 54 dogs

Image source: Pueblo County (Colorado) Sheriff's Office

Are they somehow anticipating this without realizing they are doing it? Is there some kind of purpose to not being able to remember the past? Is there some preternatural in-born resistance? Maybe most can’t handle the possibility that things are getting worse so there is something in us that basically tells us not to think about it too much. Maybe it is some strange ignorance, a bliss survival instinct.

In dog we trust?

Perhaps, it’s because dog culture is part of the new religion of our time, and the thing about religions is they are supposed to be eternally true, so if we can remember a time when none of this dog stuff was a thing, it casts some kind of doubt on the validity of this new secular religion.

Or even worse, if people can remember a time when they specifically weren’t into the dog stuff, or maybe even made fun of the dog stuff, they will do everything in their power to forget all about it and pretend they and everyone else were always the way they are right now.

People may also just be ashamed of the fact that our society has morphed into a society of frail, old, kooky dog ladies. If they have any sense of shame, they might just be embarrassed about this fact, and they might just try to forget how bad it is. Deflect, ignore, deny.

Whatever the reason may be, many people do not like to be reminded of the fact that things were not always this way.

An unhealthy trajectory

Is dog culture the worst thing in the world? No. But it isn’t a sign of a healthy trajectory. It’s a sign that something is off.

Banning dogs from certain places is now seen as “exclusionary." According pets human status — behavior once limited to the eccentric rich — is now everybody's prerogative.

That’s the new religion.

Our society no longer believes in the old hierarchy of man and animals. The beasts are now elevated to the place of man. That’s actually what’s happening beneath the surface, and it’s disordered. Somewhere, deep inside, people feel that, and they don’t want to be reminded of it because they know it’s wrong. At the very bottom, that’s why people don’t like to remember it wasn't always like this.

Trail Life USA takes up the mission abandoned by Boy Scouts



On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.

To generations of American men, the Boy Scout Oath is as familiar as the Lord's Prayer. Those 40 words encapsulate a legacy over 100 years in the making.

'In Trail Life, fathers can find a community of like-minded men who also want to make sure their sons grow up to be great Christian men.'

It look little more than a decade to destroy it.

The beginning of the end was May 23, 2013. This was the day the Boy Scouts of America voted to allow the admittance of openly gay members.

The move met with pushback from parents and religious organizations, who saw this supposed concession to the times as a betrayal of the BSA’s founding principles and predicted that it was the first step in a radical reinvention of the storied institution.

RELATED: Destruction of male-only spaces needs to stop — if we want masculinity to survive

Photo by Stan Badz/PGA Tour

Boy Scouts in decline

Their fears turned out to be warranted. A scant two years later, the BSA lifted the ban on openly homosexual adult leaders. Three years after that, in 2018, the organization was opened to women and girls.

Last February, just in time for the 115th anniversary of the BSA, the group rebranded under the “more sort of gender-neutral name” (per president and CEO Roger Krone) Scouting America.

It took only 12 years for the Boy Scouts to go from an organization where young men could learn to embody Christian values and American patriotism to a coed organization intent on indoctrinating its members with the ideals of the contemporary American left.

These changes have left the BSA's traditional adherents at a loss. Fathers who grew up and thrived in the Boy Scouts could no longer trust the organization to teach sound values to their sons. Churches that partnered with the organization have had to cut ties or risk compromising on their own moral teachings.

Be Prepared

Fortunately, some of them noticed the early signs of decline and — in the spirit of the motto "Be Prepared" — began building an alternative: Trail Life USA.

Founded in 2013 as a traditional, Christian version of the Boy Scouts, the organization grew quickly.

According to CEO Mark Hancock, over 1,200 people from 44 states attended the inaugural convention in the fall of 2013. “Three months later, we launched with over 5,000 members.” Trail Life USA currently has over 65,000 members and 150,000 alumni.

The fact that Trail Life was “forged in the fires of this cultural battle” is largely responsible for the continued growth of the organization, says Hancock.

Christian values

The BSA was founded in a society whose common Christianity could be taken for granted. Having seen what happened to the BSA when that faith dropped away, Trail Life USA's founders were careful to incorporate explicitly Christian values into every aspect of the organization.

The most prominent of Trail Life USA's "core values" is a commitment to being a "Christ-centered" organization. To this end, individual churches sponsor each troop, which takes as its aim the formation of "godly young men."

In Hancock's view, Trail Life's call to inspire "the increased demonstration of Christlike character and courage by both adult and youth members" is a way of promoting real action against American cultural degradation.

Or as Hancock puts it, the organization seeks nothing less than to develop “a generation that not only manages the rising tide of cultural change but turns back the tide itself.”

Boys to men

Peter Ohotnicky, a former BSA member whose family has been involved with Trail Life since 2013, agrees. He points to the organization’s reliance on charter organizations and financial policies as assurance of continued fidelity to its principles. “It means that Trail Life is much more likely to stay aligned with our values.”

RELATED: Boy Scouts of America to begin paying $2.4 billion to over 82,000 sexual abuse victims

Photo by Aimee Dilger/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

Ohotnicky says Trail Life’s explicitly Christian focus has made hiking and camping with his sons far more impactful than during their time with the BSA. “These activities have been pivotal in preparing my adult sons for manhood and continue to be how I help my teenage sons to grow into the men God expects them to be.”

Besides its explicitly Christian identity, another element that sets Trail Life apart is its emphasis on the involvement of fathers. Ohotnicky says this aspect has made his family’s involvement even more meaningful. “Boys and men form bonds by doing challenging things together.”

Trail Life has not only helped him to raise his sons, but to bring that experience to others. “In Trail Life, fathers can find a community of like-minded men who also want to make sure their sons grow up to be great Christian men.”

A real demand

Although Trail Life bears many cosmetic resemblances to BSA, such as uniforms, badges, and outdoor activities, Hancock says the organization’s “specific development of boys within a context that embraces biblical principles” allows it to offer “a distinctive and independent experience.”

Offering this experience has worked well for Trail Life so far. The organization currently has over 1,360 troops across all 50 states, showing a real demand among American Christians for organizations that can be trusted with the formation of their children.

As mainstream culture continues to decline, groups like Trail Life will find themselves even more in demand. Their active and unapologetic focus on a much-maligned demographic has been central to Trail Life’s ability to meet that demand. As Hancock puts it, “the emphasis on Christ-centered and boy-focused distinctives cannot be overstated.”

For more information about Trail Life USA — including a directory of troops in your area — visit its website here.

Cool under pressure: Why sports are better than exercise



I was swimming at my athletic club the other day when I saw a woman on the second floor running on a treadmill and watching CNN. I always think that’s a weird thing to do. Like, would that make you less stressed or more stressed?

I mean, what fun is running on a treadmill? All that pounding on your knee joints. And for what? And then you’re watching TV? That can’t be good for your mental health.

Plus, it’s good mental health to be on a team. Doing something that involves skill, coordination, and strategy ... doing it with your team, against another team.

But you always see that in gyms. Thirty-something women running on the treadmill. Guys too. Guys who don’t like sports but know they’re supposed to “stay active.”

So they run on the treadmill. Their wife does it. Their co-workers do it. People on TV do it. So they do it.

I’ve been in that upstairs area. There’s a weight room too. That also seems weird to me. Lifting weights. Dudes sitting in front of a mirror, admiring themselves doing arm curls.

Not that swimming laps is much better. But I’m in my 60s. I’ve reached that age where I have to go easy. And at least it’s quiet and peaceful in the pool. It’s meditative. And no CNN.

The shape I'm in

Growing up in Oregon, I never saw a real gym. Not like you see in movies, with the grime and the sweat and the old guy with the broken nose.

In the suburbs of Portland, we had weight rooms in our high school gyms. I guess that counts. I remember bench-pressing 150 lbs once, during football season. That was considered good at the time, for someone of my small size and weight.

At college, in Connecticut, I played in alternative rock bands. Music and sports didn’t really mix in the 1980s. So if you were in a band, you wanted to avoid any overt “jock” behavior.

Still, at one point, I joined the local YMCA so I could “stay in shape.” I don’t remember why I did that. I was 20 years old. How “out of shape” could I get?

That was my first urban gym experience. I went there and swam and shot baskets, by myself mostly. Then I ventured into the mysterious steam room.

During the day, most of the patrons of the local Y were older black men. So it would be me and a bunch of white-haired black guys, sitting there in the dense steam fog, sweating into our towels.

Coffee and cigarettes

After that, I enrolled at NYU, where I began my career as a writer. This began a long period when I didn’t think about my health or my physical fitness at all.

I became a coffee and cigarettes person, which kept me slim and trim. I worked in nightclubs for a couple of years. I got pasty. I got pale. But that was good. I was the right age for that look.

It wasn’t until I’d sold my first novel at 32 and moved to Los Angeles that I once again signed up for some physical exercise. I joined the Hollywood YMCA.

Playing with 'the big kids'

There, I planned on swimming laps, maybe shooting some baskets, but within a week, I was playing in pickup basketball with out-of-work actors and recently fired movie producers. There were also some very talented ex-high school and college players in these games. So the competition was sometimes intense.

But that’s what I needed. Competition. I didn’t have the discipline to swim laps in my 30s. I needed something to get my blood flowing.

Those pickup games became the highlight of my week. Since I wasn’t a great basketball player, every time I was on the court, I had to hustle to make myself useful. It was like being a little kid again. Playing with the big kids.

Some of those guys could really play. In many cases, if I could do anything positive in a game, it was an accomplishment. And then I’d walk home along Hollywood Boulevard, glowing with excitement and satisfaction.

Swimming in it

Eventually, at age 37, I ended up back in New York, living in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. Whenever physical fitness came up, people would talk about the Williamsburg pool.

So I signed up and started going there. It was a public pool and not the cleanest. At times, it would get super crowded. The good news was that Williamsburg was the coolest neighborhood in the world at that time (late 1990s).

So even at the public pool, there were interesting people around. Hipsters, weirdos, indie-rock stars, trust fund bohemians — a true cast of characters!

A young man's game

And then I learned to surf in my 40s, and that changed everything. I would never have to join another YMCA or a gym or a pool again. Or so I thought. Surfing took care of all your physical fitness needs. If you surfed regularly, you were in the best shape of your life, all the time.

Unfortunately, surfing is a young man’s game. It can become genuinely life-threatening in the big, brutal surf of the Oregon coast where I live now. I’ve had to cut way back and limit myself to only the mildest surf days.

Team player

So now I’m playing in a senior softball league, which has been great fun. Competitive sports, to me, are always preferable to just working out.

Basketball, softball, volleyball, whatever. Competition creates adrenaline. Adrenaline cleans out your body and clears your head. And generates testosterone, if you’re worried about that.

Plus, it’s good mental health to be on a team. Doing something that involves skill, coordination, and strategy ... doing it with your team, against another team ... what could be more fun than that? And better for you. Much healthier than staring at your biceps in a mirror.

Of course, being older, I can’t go super hard. That’s why senior softball is a good fit. But even senior softball involves speed, skill, split-second decisions, and physical dexterity under pressure.

That might be the most important thing of all: a chance to be cool under pressure. There’s nothing that elevates your confidence and self-esteem like calmly making a key play in a crucial situation. And you can’t do that at a spin cycle class.

In my opinion, exercise with no goal, no sense of victory or defeat, no risk, no danger, no moment of truth where you either make the play or you don’t ... to me that’s just moving your body around. It doesn’t enrich your life.

Old joy

But yeah, I’m in my 60s now. So I’m back in the pool, back in the hot tub, trying to soothe my joints and ease my stiff muscles between softball games. I sweat in the steam room. Now, I’m the old white-haired guy.

But I have to say, I never feel frustrated with my aging body or the physical limitations that seem to come faster and quicker as you age.

The main thing I think about is how lucky I have been. And all the joy I’ve experienced from sports and exercise and the thrill of competition.

Confessions of a preteen 'Church Lady'



Get in hosers, we’re going back to 1986 — when you could “just do things,” as the kids say.

If you’re middle-aged, you remember when you could just do things without filming them for TikTok. Without rearranging your bedroom to have the right look for “the ‘gram.” You could do things without waiting for an audience of thousands or millions staring at their phones.

Swishy 12-year-old boys in grandma drag talking about 'bulbous bits' were thin on the ground in rustbelt New York State, and I gave the people what they didn’t know they needed.

But more than that, you could just do things in the real world without a phone, a tablet, a smart watch, or any other digital tether.

Weird kid, normal childhood

Generation X was the last cohort to have a normal childhood of riding bikes until it was dusk (suppertime), playing with old cars in the junkyard, and making lean-tos in the woods. No adults expected their kids to be under their gaze all day, and we only had to fish out a quarter for a call home on a pay phone if something happened and we needed a ride.

I was a weird kid with weird friends. You develop unusual interests when you grow up with no father and a mother who is a cross between Nurse Ratched, Mommie Dearest, and Piper Laurie's religious fanatic mother in the movie “Carrie.” While normal boys were playing T-ball, I was playing "funeral home" and "cemetery."

As a kid in Southern California, my friend Julie and I used to ride our banana seat bikes down to the school parking lot and outdoor paved cafeteria on weekends. The metal clasp hanging on a rope on the flag pole used to clank against the pole in the wind, making a “bong!” sound like a church bell.

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AllNikArt/Silver Screen Collection/Getty Images

Julie and I knew this was because Topaz Elementary School had been built on an “ancient graveyard.” The bells were ringing to let the dead know that it was OK to come out of their graves under the pavement because those pesky living kids were all gone for two days.

Mummy dearest

Fast forward five years, and back in upstate New York, I found a kid named Tom who was just as odd.

Tom had a kind of modern-day, white-trash Pippi Longstocking lifestyle. Unlike Pippi’s dad, Tom’s father wasn’t a captain at sea, but he might as well have been. Mr. E spent spent every day completely schnockered. He mowed the lawn in a frayed jockstrap and nothing else. We had the run of the three-story house because Mr. E ignored everything but Schlitz and that brown corduroy recliner.

Tom built a stone kiln in his backyard to fire clay pots. This is where we made miniature sarcophagi for the dead birds and shrews that we mummified. Yes, we did place them in salt (we called it “natron”), then wrapped them in cotton bandages before respectfully encasing them in pottery coffins. I still have one (the sarcophagus, not the mummy).

Audience by ambush

Like many of today’s kids, I was a performer who wanted an audience. But in the pre-internet, pre-smartphone days, your audience was limited to the people you could persuade to stand in front of you in the actual three-dimensional world.

Or you could get an audience by stealth ambush, my preferred method.

Vinyl LPs were still the dominant way people heard music in my youth, and my mother had a collection of comedy show records; they were in vogue in the 1970s.

Pranks for the memories

I wore out Lily Tomlin’s “This Is a Recording,” her stand-up show featuring Ernestine, the telephone operator. I practiced saying things like, “One ringy-dingy. Two ringy-dingies,” for hours in front of the mirror until I got the voice just right.

Then, I opened up the phone book and picked “old people” names at random and dialed (remember, this was before caller ID).

Me: One ringy-dingy. Two ring-ooh! Snort! Good afternoon; have I reached the party to whom I am speaking?

Her: Yes, this is Mrs. Fletcher.

Me: Mrs. Fletcher, I have an annoying problem that only you, as a New York Telephone customer, can solve. According to our files, you owe a balance of 15 dollars and 78 cents for the use of your instrument, which, I remind you, is wired into your wall courtesy of our burly repairmen [fiddle with décolletage] at the telephone company. When may we expect payment?

I shudder to think how many unnecessary checks the elderly ladies of Cortland made out to New York Telephone.

Junior shock jock

But that was just one person. What about an audience of thousands?

I started calling into WOKO 100.1, OK-100!, “Central New York’s Home for Top 40 Hits.” It was always having contests where caller number seven got a free pizza from Pudgies or a copy of Madonna’s new album. I figured out a timing system, accounting for the travel time the phone’s dial took to complete each number, and managed to be “caller seven” suspiciously often.

When the DJ answered the phone, I was in go-mode as the “Church Lady,” the prudish fundamentalist grandma character played by Dana Carvey on "Saturday Night Live."

OK100: Caller seven, you’ve got it! Tell us who you are.

Me: Most people just call me the Church Lady, which you should well know, as Satan has obviously been whispering sweet-and-sour nothings into your ear or you wouldn’t be playing music from harlots like that bleached-blonde tart named after our holy mother.

You cannot imagine the joy of being 12 years old and making a fully grown man, an on-air DJ, crack up laughing so hard he could barely put the next record on. They started asking me to call in on purpose to do impressions.

But it wasn’t enough.

Hooked

The year before, I played Captain Hook in the Cortland Junior High production of "Peter Pan."

As I was speaking one of my lines, the painted wooden cutout of a pirate ship collapsed on the stage. So I ad-libbed: “Don’t just stand there, pick it up, you lazy swabbies — we’ve got a play to finish!”

It brought down the house.

I wanted another taste of entertaining a live crowd, so I decided to perform on the roof of the wraparound porch on the old, beat-up Victorian we rented from Mr. and Mrs. Maniacci two doors down.

Isn't that special?

My gorgon mother had gone to California for a week’s vacation and hired Lori the babysitter to stay with us kids. Oh, boy!

Stuffing my paper route money into my satchel, I walked to the Salvation Army store and came home with a curly grandma wig, a seafoam-green polyester shift, opaque “nude” pantyhose, and sensible orthopedic shoes.

My sister helped me crawl out the window of her bedroom onto the roof of the porch and handed me a broom so I had something with which to menace passersby. It wasn’t long before a young couple came walking up the street.

“It’s always nice to see a young couple," I called out.

Having secured their attention, I continued, "... except the kind that doesn’t wear a wedding ring and thinks co-habitation is just fine and dandy. How long have you been living in sin, pressing your engorged naughty parts against the devil’s finger? Does it tingle?”

The first reaction was shocked silence. The second was uproarious laughter. Swishy 12-year-old boys in grandma drag talking about “bulbous bits” were thin on the ground in rustbelt New York State, and I gave the people what they didn’t know they needed.

For the rest of the afternoon I preached fire and brimstone, insulting everyone who walked by as a rake and a floozy. A few people came back with friends so they, too, could experience the cleansing power of righteous testimony.

Canceled!

At the end of the week, my mother returned. While I was taking a bath, I heard a rap on the front door. “Bonnie! Bonnie! I need to talk to you.” Oh, shoot — it was Mrs. Maniacci, the landlady!

Scurrying out of the tub to press my ear to the door, I mostly heard my mother’s side of the conversation. “Uh-huh. Really? He did what? I see. Thank you Mrs. Maniacci, I’ll take care of it.”

“JOSHUA LAWRENCE SLOCUM GET OUT HERE RIGHT NOW!”

The punishment was worth it. I’d do it again and again and then again.

Do your kids know how to just do fun things?

Why used cars are getting so expensive — and what you can do about it



The dream of driving off in an affordable used car is slipping away fast.

If you’ve been browsing used car lots or checking online listings, you’ve likely noticed prices are climbing rapidly. According to Cox Automotive’s Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index, wholesale used car prices in April 2025 hit their highest level since October 2023, with the index surging 4.9% year over year to 208.2.

Even older cars are commanding higher prices, as buyers focus on value over low mileage.

That’s a 2.7% jump from March alone, far exceeding the typical 0.2% monthly increase.

Surge ahead

What’s driving this price surge? A combination of new auto tariffs, shrinking supply, and changing consumer behavior is shaking up the used car market.

The main trigger is a 25% tariff on new imported vehicles and parts, introduced in April 2025, which is impacting the entire auto industry.

While these tariffs don’t directly affect used cars, they’re pushing new car prices — averaging $48,000 — out of reach for many buyers. As a result, more Americans are turning to the used market, where prices average around $25,000.

Cox projects retail used car sales will reach 20.1 million in 2025, a 1.2% increase from 2024, partly due to consumers shifting to used vehicles. April’s retail sales were up 13% year over year, despite a 1.7% dip from March, showing strong demand for used cars.

This increased demand has dealers competing fiercely at wholesale auctions to stock their lots. As Cox Automotive’s Jeremy Robb, senior director of economic and industry insights, explains, “The ‘spring bounce’ usually ends by mid-April, but this year, wholesale appreciation trends continued for the entire month and were much stronger than we typically observe.”

The result is clear: Wholesale prices are soaring, and retail prices are following, with used car listings up 2% in just four weeks.

Price hikes

Let’s look at what this means for your budget. According to iSeeCars.com, the average used car now costs $31,400, a $317 increase from last month.

Their analysts calculated the potential impact of further price hikes on popular models: A 10% increase could add $1,700 to a Kia Forte or $5,000 to a Chevy Tahoe.

That’s a significant burden for families already dealing with inflation and high interest rates. ISeeCars.com compares this to the pandemic, when used car prices rose 8.95% in eight months due to supply chain issues.

Supply shortages are worsening the situation. A key issue is the decline in off-lease vehicles returning to the market. Many lessees are buying out their leases instead of returning their cars, leaving dealers with fewer vehicles to sell.

Higher mileage

Cox reports that wholesale inventory in April was at 41 days’ supply, down from 46 days a year ago. To fill the gap, dealers are selling higher-mileage vehicles — cars with over 90,000 miles are now common, as modern engineering allows vehicles to last up to 250,000 miles.

This means even older cars are commanding higher prices, as buyers focus on value over low mileage. Tariffs are cutting into new car margins, so dealers are raising prices across the board — used cars included. The data confirm this, creating a tough environment for bargain hunters.

Electric slide

One segment is avoiding this price surge: electric vehicles, or EVs.

While gas-powered used cars see steady price increases, used EV prices dropped by $3,865 year over year.

One reason for this exception is that used car buyers tend to prioritize cost-efficiency over environmental goals, reducing demand for EVs despite their increased presence on dealer lots. EVs made up 3.4% of Manheim’s auction sales in April. For EV enthusiasts, this could be an opportunity to find a deal, but for most buyers, the used car market is increasingly expensive.

Looking ahead, the future is uncertain. Cox economists predict a volatile summer, with high prices and interest rates possibly slowing sales. However, slower sales could lead to dealer incentives, which might boost demand again.

ISeeCars.com analysts are cautious, noting that even auto industry leaders like Elon Musk are avoiding firm predictions in this unpredictable market. One thing is certain: With limited supply and strong demand, used car prices are unlikely to drop soon. Cox expects less depreciation than usual in the second quarter, so buyers should prepare for higher costs.

Plan ahead

For those shopping for a used car, strategic planning is essential.

Consider less popular models or EVs to avoid the steepest price increases. Timing can also help — waiting for potential dealer incentives later this year might save money.

However, the low prices of a few years ago are unlikely to return. The Conference Board Consumer Confidence Index fell 8.4% in April, reaching its lowest level since 2009, as concerns about inflation and rising costs grow.

With gas prices down 13% year over year but still fluctuating, and inflation expectations rising to 6.7%, buyers are rushing to secure deals before prices climb further. This urgency is driving the price surge, with tariffs adding to the pressure.

The used car market in 2025 is a challenging landscape, shaped by tariffs, supply shortages, and shifting consumer priorities. Whether you’re looking for a reliable sedan or a rugged SUV, expect to pay more — and plan carefully. By staying informed and choosing wisely, you can still find value amid all the rising prices.

When did America's public libraries become homeless encampments?



What happened to libraries?

No, I’m not talking about school libraries being turned into propaganda factories, shelving what amounts to textual pornography for middle school students, all justified under the guise of “inclusivity.” That’s a discussion for another time.

One December, as my wife left the library, a homeless man spit across the stairs onto the back of her dress. She turned around to find him quite satisfied with himself.

I am talking about the fact that across the United States, a tragic number of public libraries have turned into daytime homeless shelters and temporary asylums for the mentally ill, the insane, and generally disturbed.

Furious George

Go to any public library in any big city, and you will see a security guard slowly patrolling the quiet floor. Every once in a while he wakes up a bum up who’s sleeping on a bench behind the periodicals.

“No sleeping,” he mumbles as he nudges the drowsy man. Unkempt and disturbed homeless men in their 50s hunch over the computers while mothers pull their 3-year-olds close, hurrying past on their way to the children’s section.

Hanging around, right inside the lobby in the winter, the insane argue as a fight is about to break out. You walk by, head lowered, hoping to get inside without attracting any attention.

Great expectorations

Years ago my wife and I lived in Milwaukee. The library there was like any city’s library. A big, beautiful building right downtown full of books — and vagrants. So many of these old city libraries are so structurally stunning, and there is something darkly poetic in this. These grand buildings, built at a different time, a higher time, now lower than ever.

The bricks are the same, but their purpose has been degraded. One December, as my wife was leaving, a homeless man spit across the stairs onto the back of her dress. She turned around to find him quite satisfied with himself. This is the current state of these once-great testaments to literacy.

There may be no greater metaphor for our collapsing society than the demise of the library. Before everyone had money to buy the books they want, the library was a lifeline. Before the internet and before everyone had a telephone in their homes, the library was an oasis of knowledge. In the desert of the new world, the library was a miraculous thing. It was a symbol of civilization itself.

Goodnight, literacy

Today, however, people don’t read. They can, I think. But they don’t, that’s for sure.

They watch TikTok and rot their brains consuming gutter slop content. The majority of the population no longer desire the library like they once did. They, of course, still need the library, but they don’t want the library. This is another part of the story that is the demise of the library. The people are degenerating.

Of course, some people still read. I read, you read, we all read here. What are you doing right now, after all? But many of us buy our books. Personally, I end up buying books so I can support the author and own the book myself.

Often the books that I end up buying are a little off the beaten path, so they won’t be found in the library. Though I do use the library for a host of more general research purposes. Nevertheless, I know I am not the norm and neither are you. People don’t read.

Do people refrain from reading because of the homeless in the library? Probably not. People don’t read because people are getting dumber and their attention spans are fried.

Crime and... crime

But there is a certain percentage of people who visit the library less because of the general anarcho-tyranny of the situation inside. My wife stopped visiting the library after she got spit on. I stopped after being worn down by the generally depressing scene of disheveled men sleeping next to the nonfiction.

The homeless invasion of the library is a tragic example of a society that no longer has the will to keep order as it ought to be kept. The reason vagrants populate the library is the same reason cities tolerate shoplifting and general disorder. The institutions responsible for keeping order and maintaining a decent public space are too cowardly to do so. They sacrifice the rights of the upstanding citizen for the sake of the dysfunctional and disturbed.

You might think that this all sounds too harsh. One might protest, “Homeless people have a right to be at the library too!” Well, to a degree, they do. But vagrancy is a thing, and we all know what it is.

A farewell to harms

There was a time when our public spaces were kept more orderly. When those disturbing the peace were told to move along and if they didn’t go on their own, they were made to go. The homeless have rights, but so does everyone else. Public spaces deserve to be orderly, and if our government and institutions can’t ensure that, then they are failing.

There is a bigger question running like a thread through all this. Is it humane to turn the insane loose on the streets? For a while people were institutionalized; that was our solution. But then we stopped, and for the past few decades or so we’ve thought the best option was letting people go free, even if they end up harming themselves or others.

Which way is the right way? That’s a big question. I don’t know what the exact answer is. I’m not sure there’s a solution that makes us all feel good. But what I do know is that the scene of mentally ill homeless people disturbing everyone else and turning the public library into a homeless shelter is an acute example of societal dysfunction and degeneration.

There is something dark, depressing, and poignant about the scene of the city library today. This place where people used to learn before they fried their brains is now a homeless shelter.

Revving up America: Trump’s Nippon Steel deal puts the pedal to the metal



While Barack Obama and his liberal cronies were busy eulogizing American manufacturing back in 2012, President Donald J. Trump was plotting the return of the automotive industry in America.

Last week, Trump delivered a masterstroke by greenlighting Nippon Steel’s $28 billion acquisition of U.S. Steel.

Nippon’s investment ensures a steady supply of high-quality steel, critical for carmakers who have been battered by supply chain chaos under Biden.

The terms of the deal, which Trump referred to as a "partnership," guarantee a U.S. CEO and a U.S.-majority board, according to Republican Senator David McCormick of Pennsylvania, home to U.S. Steel's main office.

This isn’t just a win for steelworkers — it’s a turbocharged boost for the auto industry, taxpayers, and the forgotten men and women of the Rust Belt.

Results, not dogma

Let’s get one thing straight: This deal was dead on arrival under Joe Biden, who caved to union bosses whining about “foreign takeovers” while ignoring the rank-and-file steelworkers who support Nippon’s plan.

Trump voiced skepticism during the campaign, but Nippon sweetened the pot with an $8 billion investment hike since November — a move that screams confidence in America’s future.

Trump flipped his stance because he’s focused on results, not dogma — and no wonder. The deal brings a massive cash infusion for U.S. Steel, new plants, upgraded facilities, and a training center that’ll keep American steel competitive for decades.

RELATED: EV mandate killed in 'biggest day of deregulation in American history'

Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

Lifeline for carmakers

This deal is also a lifeline for the auto industry, which I’ve spent my career championing. First, Nippon’s investment ensures a steady supply of high-quality steel, critical for carmakers who have been battered by supply chain chaos under Biden. No more waiting on overpriced imports or subpar alternatives.

Second, it stabilizes jobs in steel-heavy states like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — key auto manufacturing hubs and political swing states — keeping assembly lines humming.

Third, Nippon’s tech upgrades mean stronger, lighter steel alloys, perfect for building safer, more fuel-efficient vehicles without the “green” nonsense that jacks up costs for consumers. As the Detroit News noted, automakers are cheering this deal because it secures their supply chain and keeps production domestic.

Political grand slam

This deal is also a political grand slam. Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania — swing states that handed Trump his mandate — stand to gain thousands of jobs. One Pennsylvania official estimated 11,000 jobs saved and 14,000 created, from construction to permanent steel gigs.

Goodbye, green grifters

U.S. Steel’s stock has spiked over 20% since the announcement, signaling market confidence in Trump’s vision. He’s already planning a rally to tout this win, showing America’s open for business and not beholden to union bosses or green grifters.

RELATED: Meet the dealership owner turned senator out to save the auto industry

Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

The left will cry about “selling out” to Japan, but let’s be real: Nippon is not some shadowy conglomerate. It’s a world-class steelmaker investing in America’s future, not stripping it for parts. This isn’t the steel industry of the mid-20th century. It’s high tech, high wage, and high impact. Trump’s deal ensures our steel and auto industries aren’t just surviving but thriving, free from the clutches of “green” pipe dreams that produce nothing but red ink.

As a car enthusiast, I’m thrilled to see President Trump steer us back to greatness. This deal means more jobs, better cars, and a stronger America. The art of the deal is alive and well, and the Nippon Steel partnership proves it. So to the naysayers still clutching their pearls: Buckle up. Trump’s just getting started, and the Rust Belt is riding shotgun.

How a rustic retreat below the Bighorn Mountains became the 'West's last resort'



The Wagon Box is a rustic retreat nestled amid ponderosa pines and aspen groves below the Bighorn Mountains in Story, Wyoming. Besides the fishing pond and the odd bison, the 20-acre property boasts a bunkhouse, log cabins, and a main building that has long hosted locals and travelers from afar, feasting them at its steakhouse-style restaurant and keeping them cool at its frontier-style bar.

The Wagon Box went up for sale a few years ago and was acquired in late 2022 by Tom Bombadil LLC. The entity is named after the forest-dwelling J.R.R. Tolkien character immune to the ring of power.

The resort has since undergone a transformation that left it magnetized, attracting positive attention from "homesteaders, literati, rebel coders, ascetics, founders, political skeptics, freedom lovers, doomer optimists, wilderness foragers and such," according to the resort's website. This, in turn, has led to negative attention from elements of the liberal media, including a former contributor to an "open-source intelligence" outfit that has received funding from Open Society Foundations and the National Endowment for Democracy.

The structures on-site remain intact, as do the retreat's charming rough edges, its names-carved bar rail, and its many blurred borders with nature, which appears — at least in photographs — to be everywhere encroaching.

What's changed under the new leadership of Paul McNiel, the combat veteran and outdoorsman behind Tom Bombadil, besides the addition of a few camperized school buses, teepees, instruments on the wall, and an ever-growing library?

For starters, it's no longer just a place or a venue.

The Wagon Box

It's now a "project," a "parallel network node," and the "West's last resort"; according the Wagon Box website, a convergence of "the best of Web3 with the concrete" that serves "as a catalyst and clearinghouse for ideas, and a launching point and headquarters for experiments in new models of human organization."

Although now effectively a picturesque incubator for big American ideas, largely of the kind rooted in hope and an essentially Christian worldview, the Wagon Box accomplishes something far more basic yet increasingly rare: It successfully facilitates the nourishment of those panged by the pandemic-exacerbated hunger of our times — the hunger for deep and meaningful personal connection.

McNiel recently spoke to Blaze News about how this transformation came about and detailed the project's greater significance — a significance recognized by others, including American novelist Walter Kirn, who characterized the Wagon Box as a "refuge for thoughtful spirits," and environmental sociologist Ashley Fitzgerald, the co-founder of the "Doomer Optimism" podcast, who noted it is "a realistic place in the greatest sense of the word."

Inception

McNiel, a real estate investor who grew up off-grid in remote Quebec and served in Afghanistan after college, told Blaze News that he hosted numerous events in Montana, "from little gatherings in my living room, to open mics, to movie nights, to all sorts of get-togethers," during the pandemic.

These gatherings quickly became the go-to for "various factions" that shared in common, at the very least, a healthy skepticism of the mainstream narratives surrounding COVID-19.

"I find myself often as sort of the middleman between various — you could say — extremes or just different sides of certain things," said McNiel.

Paul McNiel. The Wagon Box

While McNiel appreciates the appeal and popularity of group chats, online forums, and other meetings in virtual realms — despite never really dialing in himself — the pandemic drove home the realization that they were no replacement for in-person meetings, which he suggested better foster the good faith and trust "necessary to restore America's culture and to restore some kind of fabric of understanding."

As the pandemic began to wind down, the Wagon Box resort went up for sale.

RELATED: No One Is Coming to Save You

Gabriel Gigliotti

Although McNiel was still living in Montana at the time, Wyoming, with its favorable crypto legislation and "live and let live" ethos, looked like an ideal place to "build on and expand the kind of gatherings that [he had] been doing and, more than that, try to start building it as a node, a cultural node, for people to meet, to exchange ideas, and to connect in this post-COVID landscape where people are realizing how important that is."

'Real people come there with their full families and their full selves.'

He acquired the property in 2022 and "started small" with writers' retreats and other events. But as people began to connect on site and the Wagon Box started hosting other people's larger events as well as its own, it started to gain a reputation as something of a cultural hub.

The Wagon Box has hosted multiple events in recent years featuring relatively big names, and more are scheduled.

The Wagon Box

For instance, a recent event on futurism featured Notre Dame political science professor Patrick Deneen and Matthew Azrieli, founder of the Post Millennial.

Fitzgerald and James Pogue, a contributing editor at Harper's magazine, have a doomer optimism event scheduled next month, where they'll speak along with English author and Dark Mountain Project co-founder Paul Kingsnorth, Symbolic AI co-founder Jon Stokes, and others on the topic of "how the Machine shapes families, the environment, personal autonomy, and class politics while highlighting inspiring acts of creative resistance."

A previous doomer optimist event is what first landed Fitzgerald at the Wagon Box.

Hardware

Fitzgerald told Blaze News that she and an associate sought to bring together a number of people from across their shared networks — "disaffected environmentalist" and MAHA types — and McNiel invited them to have it at the Wagon Box.

"It's not really that easy to get to, so it's kind of like a retreat," said Fitzgerald. "People have to go out of their way to get there. It's sort of isolated in a small town. There's not really much outside the complex."

Fitzgerald indicated that the resort's remoteness, its layout — a TV-free bar, library, and restaurant all attached — and the absence of external distractions helped bring her and her online friends together in what some suggested felt like a "family reunion."

The Wagon Box

She indicated it was also culturally conducive to "fun and convivial" conversations.

"It's not this stuffy, air-conditioned conference room or hotel lobby," continued Fitzgerald. "It feels like a real place where real things are happening."

"Real people come there with their full families and their full selves, and their messiness," added Fitzgerald.

McNiel observed that there are "all these projects out there that I think of as software because they're mostly ideas and networks, but they don't have a campus."

He wants the Wagon Box to become hardware that different "software programs" can run on simultaneously.

'This is a Christian project, but you don't have to be a Christian to be part of it.'

When asked about the Wagon Box's operating system and what all the guests share in common, McNiel said the "operating system is very much personal. It's not a particular defined doctrinal statement or even a mission statement. It's a personal sort of central nervous system of core people."

While there are other proponents and members, McNiel told Blaze News that he is "the center of the hub," operating as a moderator, as a "filtering mechanism," and a connector.

Coding in common

Past guests and speakers at the Wagon Box appear to be all over the traditional political spectrum; however, McNiel, numerous key guests, and champions online appear to share Christianity in common.

RELATED: Between the Land and the Sky

Eric Granado

McNiel told Blaze News that "this is a Christian project, but you don't have to be a Christian to be part of it. And, I think, that probably could have been said about America 200 years ago."

Nihilists and materialists may, however, struggle to fit in, as the Wagon Box, on the other hand, "is for people who believe in God and have hope for the future; that God cares about this world; and that it is our responsibility to do our best to honor him with our little corner of it and to bring forth some kind of a brighter, more heavenly future."

Besides Christian faith, the coding that much of the "software" share in common appears to be an estranged or a hostile relationship with the postwar liberal consensus and its guardians.

The resort's website indicates that those drawn to the Wagon Box largely are those who:

want to get away from the Cathedral hall monitors, obsolete arguments mired in [global American empire] party politics, vacuous hack corporate journalism, identity political games and want to get in on the discussions that matter: possible future relationship between human nature and machines, ancient avenues to truth and beauty, postliberal governance models, fourth-world solutions, corporate surrealism, parallel economic systems, new models of property ownership and investment collaboration, re-wilding and re-civilizing.

Fitzgerald's doomer optimism, for instance, is a reaction "against the machine — the machine being the sort of techno, global neoliberal, taking the souls away from everything good and beautiful" state of play.

"We realized there was a lot of overlap between the sphere of people we wanted to bring together and then the Wagon Box people, so we kind of just became friends," said Fitzgerald.

"I would say a lot of the people drawn to doomer optimism, at least at first, are sort of like fringe lefty environmentalists — Battle of Seattle-type environmentalists who now feel like the environmental movement has morphed into something weird and corporate," said Fitzgerald.

"We aren't exactly the same," continued Fitzgerald. "We have a lot of the same critiques with the same things and a lot of the same solutions, so they're almost like mirror images."

James Pogue noted in a 2023 Vanity Fair piece that "McNiel is extraordinarily well read and friendly with a number of literary types. He is a bit of a prepper, and while he is deeply Christian, he doesn't consider himself right-wing."

The Wagon Box

McNiel told Pogue at the time that the right-left political binary was kaput; that it's now "us against the machine."

Suzy Weiss, a reporter with the Free Press who attended the second annual "The Machine and (Human) Nature" retreat at the Wagon Box last year, noted, "There are many tensions in the nascent ideology brewing at The Wagon Box."

"The retreat was billed as an opportunity to disagree about the specifics," continued Weiss. "A labor organizer told me that his politics differ from most of the people here, but that 'this happened to be the place where people are open-minded.'"

Pigeonholing

A pair of reporters who have written about real and imagined extremism for the New York Times and other liberal publications recently hinted at a desire to paint the Wagon Box as a hive of right-wing radicalism.

Ali Winston noted in a letter, subsequently posted by McNiel to X, that he and Jason Wilson, a Portland-based smear merchant who writes for the Guardian and previously contributed to Bellingcat, were writing an article about events hosted at the Wagon Box.

'They seem to be just really bitter folks who are really trying to exorcise some ... boogeyman from American culture.'

"Does your organization have an open political affiliation with a movement that seeks to replace democratic governance with corporate governance?" asked Winston. "Are you hosting any events other than far right political and cultural conferences?"

Winston alluded in the letter to the "Malheur occupation," hinting that the duo are interested in making hay out of an old link between McNiel and Ryan Payne, an individual sentenced to 37 months in federal prison for his involvement in the Ammon Bundy-led 2016 occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Harney County, Oregon.

The Sheridan Daily previously reported that McNiel and Payne recorded a video together in 2021, and McNiel suggested communications were few and far between after the fact.

Winston's writing partner has sought to do more damage with even less of a link in the past, smearing prominent right-leaning personalities and lumping them in with actual identitarians and bigots.

For instance, when working for the Southern Poverty Law Center's so-called Hatewatch in 2022, Wilson identified Chaya Raichik of Libs of TikTok fame, BlazeTV host Alex Stein, Catholic YouTuber Taylor Marshall, parental rights advocate Alvin Lui, Trump State Department official Darren Beattie, and others as "extremists."

Quillette noted in 2019 that "Wilson is not simply a pro-Antifa activist who also happens to write for the Guardian: He actively leverages his role as a regular Guardian writer to promote Antifa, whitewash its violence, and signal-boost its leaders (whom he presents as 'experts') — often under the guise of neutral news reporting."

McNiel, who dismissed the insinuations from the duo in a full-throated response highlighting the diversity of views represented at the doomer optimism events, told Blaze News, "They seem to be just really bitter folks who are really trying to exorcise some ... boogeyman from American culture. I'm not sure what their problem is. They've doxxed a lot of people, and they're digging around and trying to mix connections."

The Wagon Box

McNiel suggested further that the reflexive liberal hostility toward the Wagon Box appears to be born of a Calvinist-style outlook in which "you're either elect or damned."

"They're trying to decide whether or not I'm a horrible person and need to be cut out like a tumor and the Wagon Box needs to be cut like a tumor out of the American landscape," added the founder.

On the rails

McNiel has made clear from the outset that the Wagon Box is not lawless.

"I love localism, but there is definitely a point where it can turn into blood and soil," McNiel told Pogue around the time he was getting the resort ready to open to the public. "I feel like my role is to argue for a localism that doesn't go off the rails into exclusion."

Like localism, he is protective generally of the culture at the retreat.

McNiel stressed to Blaze News that the Wagon Box "is a cozy, wholesome, and based place where there's plenty of room to disagree, plenty of room to be honest and share where you're coming from — but it's not a free-for-all."

He reckons the Wagon Box has so far struck a good balance, telling Blaze News that at every gathering, the conversations feel like they are the most important taking place in America right now, and this sense is enhanced by the intimacy of "sitting around a campfire or smoking a pipe on the deck, having a glass of wine inside, you know, or just wandering, going on a walk. ... There's just something that, really, I haven't found anywhere else, and we're trying to build on that."

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