Week in Review
Peterson Road Neighborhood Meeting, June 25
Over 50 citizens from the Peterson Road area (east of Baw Beese Lake, near Sandy Beach) and the “Rolling Meadows” neighborhood met Sunday to discuss the dozens of recent:
trespassings,
burglaries,
casings (looking into windows in a flashlight, specifically),
and arrests
that have taken place since a homeless/meth village was formed near Peterson Road, just outside of town. A local sheriff attended, instructing residents to prepare to defend themselves. He also made note of a recent arrest, wherein it was discovered that a man hid a meth-stashed backpack and a sawed-off shotgun on somebody’s property.1 Apparently the county police have no available night patrol, and the state police are preoccupied with pulling people over for not using their blinkers when pulling into their driveways.
Operations & Governance Committee Meeting, June 26
The Operations & Governance committee met on Monday to consider the question of residency requirements for the BPU board. Mayor Stockford’s inherited appointment policy—which may or may not be in precise accord with the City Charter as governed by Michigan statute, and which Stockford nevertheless repudiated during the meeting’s first public comment period—has led to a situation in which all five members of the board do not reside in the City. The unanimous consensus of the Committee was that a 3:5 ratio in favor of residents, adopted as the Mayor and Council’s “informal policy” and grandfathered in through yearly appointments, is the best solution.
During the Committee’s discussion of the question, Councilman Morrissey delivered what seemed to be a clarifying statement on (1) the relationship between the Charter and state statute, and (2) the “ill-defined” nature of representation at issue in disputes of this kind. While we flatter ourselves that we understood his discourse, we are in agreement with Councilman Paladino, who spoke in opposition to the proposed solution during final public comments, that “we should keep representation within the people who pay taxes,” especially in light of the fact that the City of Hillsdale is the “origin and ultimate source of the BPU.” Paladino added that an informal policy of the kind contemplated by the Committee could result in a situation in which residents of the City of Hillsdale have no representation—whether strictly or loosely construed—on the BPU board.
We note in passing that Miss Penny Swan encouraged the Committee to look into the Machiavellian motives that lurk in the background of this quest for clarity regarding the membership of the BPU board. Why this board? Why now? What is the connection between the machinations against the BPU board and those against the library board? Swan was coy, however, about whether the secretive enemy involved is the MAGA cult, the College cult, or—the horror!—both.
County Board of Commissioners Meeting, June 27
The County Board of Commissioners meeting was refreshingly free from the screeching that all-too-often plagues Hillsdale city council meetings. When there were debates, both sides made good points, and if any feelings were hurt, we did not hear about it.
Highlights from the meeting:
There are two new businesses coming to Litchfield. The first is GCT (Gas Cylinder Technologies) America. The business is fleeing from Canada and saw America as a much better country in which to headquarter their business. We would not want to live in a country led by the son of Fidel Castro either.
The second business promises 112 jobs in the first year with starting wages of $24/hr after training. It should be up and running by the 1st quarter of 2024 at the latest. Although we do appreciate the promised job opportunities for local residents, the nature of the business is concerning. Governess Gretchen “Fight Like Hell” Whitmer will make a special announcement in late July about this project, but for now it is being kept confidential. Apparently it will involve a product to reduce energy consumption and global carbon emissions.
Rebecca Burns gave an annual report from the Community Health Agency. One important task was the distribution of free masks and Covid vaccinations to county residents. Beginning in June 2022, Covid vaccinations were offered to children as young as 6 months. Thankfully, Burns did not spread the misinformation that numerous European countries have halted the certain brands of the COVID vaccine for those under 30 years of age.
Brad Benzing proposed repealing the County Planning Commission, arguing that the commission was ineffective and that control over planning and zoning should remain as local as possible—with the townships. Planning Expert Harmony Fierke-Gmazel, MURP, AICP, reminded the board that cutting the planning commission could endanger grant or foundation money. Doug Ingles and Steve Lanius wanted to give the new board a chance to get trained and demonstrate that they could be effective, but they seemed open to Benzing’s proposition if nothing changes. Commissioner Brent Lieninger supported the experts. The proposal failed 4-1.
Renaissance, the construction company restoring the county courthouse updated the commission on their progress. Due to the worse-than-expected condition of the stones, the project may take up to a year longer than expected and cost between 500k and 1 million more than projected. Real architecture takes time and sacrifice.
Doug Ingles attended the Peterson Rd. community meeting on the 26th about the homeless problem. Residents reported observing criminal activity regarding drugs and weapons. Ingles pointed out that due to the unsanitary conditions (no sewage system) of the homeless encampment, the health department would have the authority to shut down the tent city, which the representative from the health department confirmed.
A subscription for the County to Michigan Townships Association was approved again, 3-2, despite an increase in cost from $500 to $2500. However board members agreed that the cost for Hillsdale County ought not to be the same as for Wayne County or Kent County, and would try to negotiate for a future price that took into account population.
Upcoming Events
Sunday, July 3, 6:00 PM: Fourth of July Parade, downtown Hillsdale.
Wednesday, July 5, 5:30 PM: Homeless Task Force Meeting.
External Links
“The bill will lead to the prosecution of conservatives, pastors, and parents attending a school board meeting for simply expressing their opposition to the liberal agenda.” Attorney David Kallman of the Great Lakes Justice Center spoke to The Epoch Times regarding House Bill 4474, which expands the definition of “hate crime” in Michigan to include, among other things, the intimidation of an individual based “in part” on any number of “actual or perceived characteristics.”
“The Elections Clause does not vest exclusive and independent authority in state legislatures to set the rules regarding federal elections.” Chief Justice Roberts, writing for a 6-3 majority in Moore v. Harper.
“I love these guys who say the Second Amendment is — you know, the tree of liberty is water with the blood of patriots. Well, if want to do that, you want to work against the government, you need an F-16. You need something else than just an AR-15. Anyway.” President Biden returned to one of his favorite jokes during a campaign reception last week. Anyway!
“Do you know anything about slaves? Were any of your ancestors slaves? How tone deaf can you be?” Jordan Adams’ Vermilion is up against it in Pennsylvania.
“Librarians are under pressure and they’re feeling frustrated, discouraged.” And, one might add, powerless. The American Library Association met in Chicago to inspire librarians to die on the Gender Queer2 hill.
“A lot of older leaders have been more influenced by boarding schools and forced colonization, that whole generation where it was Christian-based. I think these days people are resorting back to more traditional ways being more two-spirited, more open-minded, and I think that is what’s spearheading all this, switching the shift to where we are getting back to our roots.” Consider the plight of Tomahawk Martini, Navajo drag queen.
“When people have a false ideology, they need a way to separate themselves from nonbelievers and to express their faith to other believers. And if these rituals are not derived from a cultural heritage with a moral tradition, they become susceptible to unbound human depravity.” An anonymous physician describes the link between transgender ideology and Covid, and also the effect that puberty blockers3 have on the “divine spark” that he would locate in the hypothalamus.
“I represent an influential group of well-established figures in the American Muslim community who stand at the ready to help start dialogue between our two sides.” Writing in The American Mind, a certain “Dragoman” can’t quite get through an appeal to the American Right without referring to large swathes of his audience as “chauvinists.” It’s all fun and games until “Islam is the ruling faith.”4
“The real slippery slope hasn’t been the gay rights movement, as right-wing pundits often say. ‘When I see some of them going after Pride, they appear to blame gay people for the nonsense peddled in the name of Pride today — when in truth gay people are the victims of it.’” In The Spectator, Bridget Phetasy argues that “L,” “G,” and “B” should “decouple” from “T” and “Q,” opting out of an ideology whose focus on children has caused a “full blown moral panic.”5
“The ‘coming for your children’ chant has been used for years at Pride events, according to longtime march attendees and gay rights activists, who said it’s one of many provocative expressions used to regain control of slurs against LGBTQ people.” Via NBC.
“So, friends, as this Pride month reaches its peak, I will repeat what I have said for decades: Pride is patriotism.” Vice President Kamala Harris reminded Americans of the pivotal role she played in the same-sex “marriage” movement.
“We strenuously say no to the sale of children. Surrogate maternity is the most extreme form of commercialization of the body.” Italian legislators are contemplating a bill that would make it a crime to engage in the production of children via international surrogacy.
“Again and again, reactionary feminism offers a useful corrective and then goes to the edge of overkill. For example, its proponents argue for the revival of men’s single-sex spaces: sports clubs, bars, voluntary associations. This sounds unobjectionable, but could bring back the Mad Men days, when deals were sealed at the golf club or the strip club.” At The Atlantic, Helen Lewis struggles with the fact that her “reactionary feminist” interlocutors are far more interesting and persuasive than she can be.
“A failure to remove its ideological blinders and comprehend political and economic conditions as they objectively exist will spell disaster for the Western bloc.” Dominick Sansone, writing in The American Conservative.
“Deneen could have been a contender. Instead, he pulled his punches, probably deathly afraid of being cast as too right-wing. After all, the Left’s chief command to the catamite Right is to always police its rightward boundary, and Deneen’s reaction to criticism of his book from the Right has, sadly, confirmed his drift towards that camp.” Charles Haywood’s review of Regime Change is what you would expect.
“Competing views of the Founding seek to trace an evolution of liberal thought to show a kind of genetic connection between Founding liberalism and progressivism. Pestritto, to his great credit, has established that this is untrue—progressivism is not a species of liberalism.” The late Ted McAllister reviewed RJ Pestritto’s America Transformed.
“The use of mind-expanding substances have always been ritualized, and therefore traditional, domains of transcendental experiences. The failure to keep them as such is one factor in why things have gotten so broken in the West. It is the conservative duty to re-ritualize these experiences, both for the sake of our heritage and the sake of our future.” The LSD Right has arrived in the pages of IM—1776, just in time for our long-awaited treatment of Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.6 If they’re looking for a name, we recommend the Knights of Cydonia.
“Porn is not a pleasant vice, but a physio-psychological disease akin to bulimia.” H. A. Hazony, writing at First Things.
“Since the evanescence of the pro-life Democrat, there exists no liberal Catholic politics in the United States with any real distance from the secular-progressive kind.” Ross Douthat explains why he is not a liberal Catholic.
“Americans have been less likely to attend religious services over the past three years, and at this point, it does not appear that church attendance will revert to pre-pandemic levels.” Gallup.
“After passing through a ghostly Southern underworld, where Faulkner was his Virgil, McCarthy settles into his own voice. Everything after his first four novels is clean and crisp, like a canyon wind that sears your throat.” Lafayette Lee’s literary obituary is the best yet.
“During this three-week course in Steubenville, OH, students will learn the basics of timber framing, follow the instructor in crafting a new build, and attend lectures on the theology of work.” A project of The Workship, which must have something to do with New Polity.
Farewell
This is the last “Week in Review” that will be published on Thursday morning. The next issue will be published on Saturday, July 8th, and every Saturday thereafter.
We recall here adult men during the “no camping ban” public comment session waxing about how they don’t feel unsafe when they stroll through the streets in broad daylight. Enforcing laws, our courageous fellows tell us, cuts against Christian charity.
The ALA repeatedly honored this pornographic graphic novel in 2020.
Ireland’s Health Service Executive is now reviewing the prescription of such “medicines” to children.
Joel Kotkin situates the rise of the anti-woke Muslims within a “rising tide of liberal apostasy.” Something of an apostate himself, Kotkin cannot resist smugly insisting that the Right ought to hand power to those who were never really on their side:
As was the case during the Reformation, the apostate’s course is still not an easy one. But their critique remains critical to undermining the current progressive theology — a far more effective weapon than the reactionary antics of DeSantis, which are focused primarily on Right-leaning GOP voters. In contrast, the apostates speak the same language and share many of the values that once constituted progressive ideals. They are, in other words, both the key to restoring rationality — and to keeping liberalism alive for future generations.
In our last issue, we linked to a Twitter thread in which Spencer Klavan made a similar argument. We would say five things in response: (1) as Douglas Murray indicates in the article linked above, “not enough gays try to do the decoupling”; (2) “Pride” was always a horror show; (3) the pursuit of same-sex “marriage” was from the beginning an assault on both reason (“irrational animus”) and nature, and continued to be so after the movement’s tactical shift to the language of “equal dignity” and “respect”; (4) children were already involved via divorce, adoption, and surrogacy; (5) via Mickey Kaus, “It’s one thing to lose a legislative battle; it’s another to be told by Justice Kennedy you’re unconstitutional.”
Echoes of Cthulu and the Merry Pranksters in one article. No thanks.