The state of Oregon has suspended the reading, writing and math proficiency requirements for high school graduation. You can be completely illiterate and innumerate and still get a high school diploma in Oregon.

This is yet another way in which the nation-state is eroded out of existence, taking its perks to the grave. If you look at all these little things in isolation, they look crazy. But taken together, they are completely logical and part of a coherent, effective, albeit bad, system. Look at all the posts I have written today, including the one on bad literature. Everything I’m discussing is leading us in the same direction: creating a tiny elite that speaks its own language and pushes everyone else out into a uniform mass of struggling, deprived un-people.

Within the same week, for instance, we have vaccine mandates for airplane flights AND legislation mandating taxes on every mile driven coupled with aggressive tracking of everybody’s driving. The result? The same as with the Oregon schools. Everybody but a small elite is deprived of something they used to take for granted. Reading, arithmetic, toad trips, vacations – all gone.

If only we could abandon the sad braying of, “but don’t they understand that they’ll end up with a significant percentage of society illiterate, like in the 19th century?” Yes, they do understand. You are the one who doesn’t. This is exactly what the plan is.

“But don’t they understand that vaccine passports in NYC mean segregation and exclusion of black people?” Yeah, I’m sure they will be heartbroken. Now do that funny bit about how Democrats are the real racists. That one always works so well.

This kind of sniveling, pathetic mentality is why literature in English is dying:

This Sunny Singh is a college professor and an obscure writer of fiction. I came across the list because I saw a group of aspiring writers online share it eagerly like some important piece of wisdom. Of course, they are only motivated to follow these precepts by the fear of cancellation by a bunch of envious, angry Sunnys. It won’t work because subservience never mollifies rabid mobs. But the result is mountains of boring, terrified, indigestible writing.

Cuomo orchestrated the insane COVID mortality in New York which led to widespread panic and justified, in the eyes of many, the adoption of authoritarian measures. Now that he’s served his purpose, he’s been thrown out of his post. Serves him right but we are now stuck with the results of his corrupt, evil actions.

Quebec is announcing vaccine passports. This is a province with extremely humiliating, unreasonable, authoritarian language laws. It’s not surprising that it moved in the direction of further authoritarianism as the residents of the province cheer on their own oppression.

For years, I’ve been telling people that these language laws were a slippery slope. I wish I hadn’t been proven right so clearly and so soon.

Anybody who wants to argue that “this is not a big deal” is kindly asked to start their comment with pointing out what their hard limit is, as discussed in a previous post. Let’s say you are commanded to amputate your left arm for public good. Would that be a bridge too far? How about your child’s arm? How about your neighbor’s? What if the neighbor is a very annoying person? Would you support public beatings of people you don’t approve? Ritual humiliation? Flogging? How about morbidly obese people who are a drain on healthcare? Do you approve forced dieting for them? Is it just vaccine passports? How about general health passports? Free of addiction passports? Ideological compliance passports? What should people be barred from? Just restaurants? How about owning property? Procreating?

Now is the time to think about these things.

The private Christian school my kid will be attending for kindergarten doubled its enrollment this year. Doubled. The local Catholic school is doing even better. All within a year.

There’s an exodus from public schools even though they have reopened in full back in spring. There’s absolutely nothing that could entice me to bring my child into the public school system. Everything that is connected to it disgusts me. It so happened that I became a director of a teaching education program a year ago, and things I have seen make me want to vomit. It’s all about abusing children with disgusting, Soviet-style propaganda.

At half past midnight, I discovered that Andrés Trapiello recently released a 500-page book about Madrid. I became so overcome with emotion that I accidentally poked myself in the eye. Now it is very sore, making me fear that I won’t be able to read the book when it arrives on Thursday.

This is very typical of my life.