Tag: mailvox

A Castalia House reader writes:

A very good friend of mine is involved with a girl whose gay dad died of AIDS a few months back. This, and the subsequent revelation that the grandparents who raised this girl were involved in a sex cult, prompted me to recommend The Last Closet to my friend. I told him there was almost certainly more to it and that this girl may have hidden trauma.

Fast forward to now and many, many more horrible truths have been uncovered about the family and the girl is in trauma therapy trying to deal with it all. I’m optimistic for her recovery, and it’s in part thanks to you and Ms. Greyland that her recovery is even possible. Thank you both.

I don’t want to share too many details as I don’t explicitly have her permission to do so, but I did want to mention one thing people might find shocking: one of the parties involved is an attorney for the state, and his arrest for child porn possession was not covered by any media as far as my friend has seen. No wonder these stories end up buried and those who see some odd or kinky stuff and suspect there’s a very deep, very dark rabbit hole beneath it are scoffed at.

Thanks for bringing this stuff to light without regard for the jeers of the ignorant.

It’s all too easy for the predators to stalk their prey amidst the ignorance of the unwary. Consider the following picture of Walter Breen, the infamous father of Moira Greyland, on the prowl at Westercon 36 in 1983. Four adults, possibly including the boy’s mother, are right there, and they appear to have no idea what is happening right in front of them.

The Last Closet is not a pleasant read. Not at even remotely. But it is a very important one neverthelesss, particularly for parents, because it will eradicate any illusions you might have about the innocence of those freaks and geeks in science fiction circles and classrooms and church youth groups who “just love children” and are “practically a child themselves.” If you would like to support Moira Greyland, you can also buy her book in print.

And as Q has been repeatedly pointing out, one of the primary hunting grounds for the predators are the non-governmental organizations that are supposedly established to help the most vulnerable children who lack parental protection, but are actually utilized to exploit them.

Joe Davis, chairman of the International Campaign to Stop Rape and Gender Violence in Conflict, has been arrested in New York. He faces charges of enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity, attempted sexual exploitation of a minor, possession of child pornography and receipt and distribution of child pornography.

Davis was also involved with Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, worked with Angelina Jolie, and was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. At the age of nineteen….

I am fully aware that my position on Jordan Peterson has cost me more than a few readers, and apparently, even a few backers. So be it.

Time to lay of Jordan Peterson. I do not understand why you continue to bitch on and on and on about Jordan Peterson. I really didn’t understand why you started in the first place, but it has gotten very stale and very old. This is not a good look for you or the businesses you are working on.

You may think you have unleashed devastating rhetorical attacks on him. But you have not made your case with people who look past the rhetoric for the facts. I’m not the only one who knows this. People who have been supportive of you in the past are disgusted by this sniping. One told me it’s jealousy. My response was, well, Vox claims it isn’t. But he also claims that about Scalzi and Shapiro.

The thing is, I know that you know you have not made the case against Peterson. “Jordan Peterson is a physical coward.” Really? Well, I know a guy who was given a corporate position of high responsibility, and his response was to sabotage the IT department to promote his own ambitions. SJW? Well, he says he isn’t, but you know what they say about SJWs….

This is a bad look for you and the projects you’re working on. Sure, the blog is personal, and CH, Arkhaven and IG are separate. But your blog is the gateway for this stuff. I’ve supported two of your FreeStarter projects, and I’ve bought pretty much everything CH has published. Some of those books I’ll never get to. I already have a backlog of Voxiversity videos.

But this continued trashing of Jordan Peterson is causing me to rethink my support of these things. I can support John Wright and Peter Grant directly. If there’s a book–to be honest, I don’t read any comics other than the Arkhaven ones–I can always buy it if I want it. But there’s no point in supporting a brand that is determined to marginalize itself.

I urge you to let this go. I don’t care how you feel about him personally. But you have published far, far more than the topic ever deserved.

This was my response:

The fact that you think I have not made my case is precisely why I am going to continue making it until you and everyone else who continues to defend him admits the truth about him. You don’t seem to understand that my attacks on him are not rhetorical, they are substantive, they are factual, and they are correct.

I appreciate your previous support, but the fact is that you have a choice to make. And if you’re going to stand by Jordan Peterson, then you really should stop supporting me, Castalia House, and Arkhaven. Because you are not really on the side of the Americans, the Christians, and the nationalists, you are on the side of the atheists, the globalists, and the socialists.

I am not going to abandon the truth because someone won’t give me money. And you can tell all of those people who are disgusted by this sniping, who believe that I am jealous, that they can fuck off. They may have thought they supported me, but they never knew me at all. I don’t want anything to do with them, not now, and not in the future when they come crawling around to admit that I was correct all along. Again.

I didn’t mind it when most of my readers initially thought I was wrong about Peterson. But with the information that is out there about him now, there is absolutely no excuse for defending or standing by the man.

Regards,
Vox

If I didn’t sell out when GT Interactive offered me millions of dollars, if I didn’t take any of the multiple offers that have been made for Castalia House, if I refused to remove the chapters on Republican media whores at the demand of Fox News and Thomas Nelson in the full knowledge that they would cancel the book contract (the latter even tried unsuccessfully to get out of paying what they contractually owed me), what makes anyone think I won’t hesitate to let every single one of our backers and buyers walk away rather than alter my well-informed position on Jordan Peterson one iota?

If I was the sort of man who would pay any attention to these demands, if I was the sort of individual inclined to demonstrate that kind of intellectual flexibility, then absolutely none of you should donate so much as penny to help us make movies, because there is going to be all kinds of intense pressure to compromise, to sell out, to back down, to adulterate, and to shade the truth during the funding and film-making process, to say nothing of when we have some initial success and Disney or Netflix swoops in and offers to simply buy the whole thing out for enough cash to let me live like a king for the rest of my life.

Is that truly what you want from me? Do you really think so little of me, or at least, of my self-respect?

And yes, Jordan Peterson is a physical coward. Anyone who is a physical coward at the age of 12 is almost always still a physical coward as an adult, barring subsequent military service. If you still haven’t grasped that Peterson is a nasty little gamma by nature, consider this excerpt from 12 Rules of Life.

I had a rocky friendship with a Métis kid, Rene Heck, when I was in elementary school. It was rocky because the situation was complex. There was a large cultural divide between Rene and me. His clothes were dirtier. He was rougher in speech and attitude. I had skipped a grade in school, and was, in addition, small for my age. Rene was a big, smart, good-looking kid, and he was tough. We were in grade six together, in a class taught by my father. Rene was caught chewing gum. “Rene,” said my father, “spit that gum out. You look like a cow.” “Ha, ha,” I laughed, under my breath. “Rene the cow.” Rene might have been a cow, but there was nothing wrong with his hearing. “Peterson,” he said, “after school—you’re dead.”

Earlier in the morning, Rene and I had arranged to see a movie that night at the local movie theatre, the Gem. It looked like that was off. In any case, the rest of the day passed, quickly and unpleasantly, as it does when threat and pain lurk. Rene was more than capable of giving me a good pounding. After school, I took off for the bike stands outside the school as fast as I could, but Rene beat me there. We circled around the bikes, him on one side, me on the other. We were characters in a “Keystone Cops” short. As long as I kept circling, he couldn’t catch me, but my strategy couldn’t work forever. I yelled out that I was sorry, but he wasn’t mollified. His pride was hurt, and he wanted me to pay.

I crouched down and hid behind some bikes, keeping an eye on Rene. “Rene,” I yelled, “I’m sorry I called you a cow. Let’s quit fighting.” He started to approach me again. I said, “Rene, I am sorry I said that. Really. And I still want to go to the movie with you.” This wasn’t just a tactic. I meant it. Otherwise what happened next would not have happened. Rene stopped circling. Then he stared at me. Then he broke into tears. Then he ran off. That was Native-white relationships in a nutshell, in our hard little town. We never did go to a movie together.

Peterson is also an intellectual coward. You could see this when he hastily backed down rather than assert the right of free association when called out for his inconsistency on civil rights. Besides, leaving Jordy alone would interfere with Jordanetics Week at the Daily Meme Wars.

Tuberman believes the Psycho-Cannibal Prophet of Gamma is more aware than he pretends to be of the growing criticism of him from the Right. Which is very likely true, since Peterson is the sort of navel-gazer inclined to read everything that anyone writes about him.

I believe JP is aware of your themes Vox, and he’s in the ignore phase. When will the ridicule phase begin? That’s right, his cult members have already taken that up, so phase three, or the attack phase will be in the works. Phase four will be his mental breakdown phase. Time for JP memes! Lots. Of. Them.

Say no more! If you’re on social media, spread this around. Next week is going to be a fun one for the Daily Meme Wars!

A commenter has succinctly described and condemned Jordan Peterson by the simple device of quoting the Bible.

No man can enter into a strong man’s house, and spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man; and then he will spoil his house.
– Mark 3:27

Jordan Peterson’s primary objective is to bind the nationalists in order to permit the despoiling of their collective houses, because he wrongly believes this will somehow prevent World War III. He is a wicked and delusional man who has somehow managed to conceal from his misguided followers that he is actively attempting to neuter them in the service of globalist evil.

A pair of readers were wondering about Gammas and whether it is worth putting up with them:

You’ve worked with a lot of people. Gammas can be bright in tech, for example, but they’re so toxic and annoying. Are they ever worth keeping on or like SJWs, keep them away?

The problem is that Gammas often make themselves subject matter experts, or at least succeed in presenting themselves as such. They can be utilized successfully so long as you are VERY careful to keep them focused on their areas of actual expertise as opposed to the areas where they only have delusions of expertise. The challenge is that Gammas are very good at doing intense research in a short period of time, but they will only do so in order to support their preconceived position, and they absolutely refuse to recognize any genuine authority on matters where they erroneously believe they have educated themselves sufficiently.

It is not at all beyond Gamma capabilities for an overweight, unathletic man who has never played football to loftily explain to an NFL quarterback how he should be throwing the ball.  That’s a fictitious example, but I have personally witnessed situations every bit as ridiculous. Even worse, it is entirely possible that if his advice is rejected out of hand, the Gamma will feel betrayed and furiously devote himself to sabotaging the individual or the organization he was previously seeking to help.

As a general rule, then, it is best to bring in Gammas as short-term consultants when necessary, if their particular skills happen to be required. But they should never be given authority over others or any control over mission-critical materials or decisions. Gammas consider the threat of blackmail and the withholding of necessary information and material to be perfectly legitimate negotiating tactics.

Another reader was genuinely bothered by the way in which I dealt with a Gamma:

This thread bothered me immensely. You give the most amazing impression of being a man with limitless energy, mental and physical. I’m only  a few years older than you, and I know that’s fucking not true. (That said,  I have no idea what chemical adjuncts you may or may not employ; my guess is none but if it’s otherwise, please share.)

Straight to the point:  you should not waste precious time or energy on these dickheads because what you’re doing is too important. Seriously. I very much think you should limit comments to trusted commenters, because that will reduce the energy given to moderation.

By all means, start broad and then whittle the list. My preference (for what it’s worth) is to not see you ever waste time or energy on dissecting a posturing idiot like this again.

My energy is far from limitless, but since I tend to feed on negativity and opposition, I find the constant attempts to belittle, discredit, and discount me to be motivating. This may or may not be psychologically healthy in the long term, but it certainly helps one achieve one’s objectives.

Granted, it does get tedious dealing with the same sort of posturing nonsense over and over again, but I think our new moderating system with seven VFM handling the resonsibilities instead of me has the situation well under control.

People around me do say that I work all the time, but the fact is that I enjoy my work more than I enjoy most things that people consider recreational. I literally can’t work out or play soccer any more than I do – my occasional injuries almost inevitably reflect overtraining – and I tend to enjoy designing games more than playing them now.

That being said, if I could get away with it, I would happily burn every loose piece of paper in my office and in my files and never even think of doing any paperwork again. Forget immigration and women’s liberation, if they really wanted to take the chains off the economy and return to the glory days of strong economic growth, the politicians should focus like lasers on developing systems that eliminate reports, records, and regulatory compliance on the part of all small businesses.

AR observes some unnecessary updates to one of the dogs of the Total War series.

I decided to try replaying Total War: Rome 2 recently. After a mandatory update from Steam, I noticed a bunch of… peculiar updates. Nothing has changed except the following:

• They added female Generals / Leaders. This includes voices and skins (graphics) for female characters both on the strategic map and the battlefield.
• They added feminist propaganda in the loading screens. This goes for graphics and copy.

Zenobia is perhaps the only female whose superior genius broke through the servile indolence imposed on her sex by the climate and manners of Asia.
– Edward Gibbon, English historian (1734-1794)

Why would they put all this work into a 5-year-old video game that flopped upon release? Do you think a blue-haired androgyne fatty take over that project?

It sounds to me as if an SJW was named a first-time producer on a minor project and decided that the game could be updated by bringing its politics up to date.

A swordsman comments on the convergence in the historical fencing community in Europe.

I practice historical European swordsmanship as a hobby. Recently, two of the most gifted and well-regarded fencers/teachers in our small community have been under attack, including calls to boycott merchandise bearing their names, because they are “Nazis”.  IOW, they publicly object to the ongoing invasion of their native Sweden. Also, in general the community is being “converged” and made unwelcoming to anyone right of Lenin, following your descriptions of the phenomenon to the letter.

Formerly politics was not a viciously divisive matter in our community. Heck, when I first started 15 years ago libertarianism was probably the most represented political persuasion.  It has gotten so bad that the vocal SJWism is likely keeping some Christians and conservatives from joining the community. The irony of SJWs trying to drive Christians and nationalists away from the study of an art which was originally practiced by Medieval knights cannot be overstated.

Enough men in the community recognize this as nonsense that there is something of a counter-movement coalescing, although it is still in the very early and informal stages. As the leading researcher on SJW convergence, is there any particular advice you could offer?  In any case, these events are yet more confirmation of theory.

There are two options. Either drive out all the SJWs by banning all reference to politics and attempts to thought-police the community or leave en masse, form a new organization, and be damned sure to keep all the SJWs out. Either make it an explicitly Christian or nationalist organization, and be sure that whoever is in charge is not overly eager to pursue female membership; those are the men who are primarily responsible for convergence happening in the first place because they will excuse literally anything so long as it gives them an opportunity to have some women around.

The most important thing is to lead by example. Don’t argue, don’t warn, and don’t negotiate. If I were in this fencer’s position, I would start a new organization with the two leading guys and refuse to have anything to do with any of the known SJWs while welcoming those willing to leave the old organization for the new one.

A reader asks about a distinction:

I have recently been reading Aristotle to get my head around many of the arguments you make against Jordan Peterson. As such, I am curious about what you see being the difference between acting righteously and virtuously, or are they one and the same to you.

Acting righteously: acting in accordance with God’s Will. Only God can determine this, Man can only make the attempt without full knowledge of whether he is doing so successfully or not.

Acting virtuously: acting in accordance with a specified virtue. These are mostly defined and determined by Man, so one can behave virtuously and know that one is doing so, except in the cases where virtue and righteousness happen to overlap. But one can act in a virtuous manner that is unrighteous; not all Satanists are cowardly and even a murderous thief can be charitable with his ill-gotten gains.

Aristotelian moral virtue falls somewhere in between virtue and righteousness. It is more akin to what I would describe as eucivicism, or civic virtue. Due to his philosophy being pre-Christian, I tend to be more influenced by Aristotle’s thinking on intellectual virtue than on moral virtue, although eucivicism is definitely desirable from both worldly and philosophical perspectives.

Despite the protestations of his defenders, I have yet to hear a single example of anyone becoming a genuine Bible-believing fundamentalist Christian as a result of Jordan Peterson’s non-proselytizing non-Christian witness. I have, however, heard the opposite:

I forget the exact quote and am unable to find it now, but I believe you once said that Jordan Peterson’s philosophy may be helpful to a few really messed up young men but is overall more damaging and detrimental to young men who are well-adjusted and psychologically healthy. When I read that (or heard it, you may have said it in a Darkstream), I agreed not for any theoretical or philosophical reason, but from experience. Jordan Peterson’s influence is in part to blame for my life taking a turn for the worse.

I grew up Christian, was heavily involved in my church as a young man. Personal events in my early college career disillusioned me somewhat regarding my church and my involvement deteriorated. However, I still fully believed in Christian teachings. I graduated college, got married, joined the military, avoided debt, worked hard. I had always been more or less straight-laced.

Enter Jordan Peterson.

I have no idea who it was who first introduced me to Jordan Peterson, sometime during my wife’s pregnancy. I saw him pop up now and then on different blogs. He said some interesting things, and things which I agreed with, such as ideas on gender and biological sex. I watched some of his lectures, and noticed that he always looked and sounded as if he was thinking out loud to himself, but I didn’t attach any significance to it. I just assumed it was his style of speaking.

In listening to his lectures, I began to get a general sense that he believed that God was not an entity but a powerful force stemming from our choices, choices that to Peterson had natural consequences, good or evil. To him, as far as I understood it, these consequences were ultimately unavoidable. If you chose badly, they would catch up to you, and if you chose well, they would reward you and allow you to live a good life. Basically, “Chaos and Order.” God was the force behind chaos and order, not a god, per se, and the line between chaos and order was the real place to be.

This idea sunk in. I had never thought about it in those terms, and it shook my faith. I began to doubt His existence. Maybe God was just an inexorable natural force and not the real deal. And, too, the marital problems and selfish, sinful decisions I had made incentivized me to look for an escape from God’s judgment. Sin always looks to justify itself, and sinners are no different. I wanted to justify my sin, justify myself, and avoid the consequences. All of it together brewed into a perfect storm, which subsequently broke. I told my wife I didn’t know if God existed, that I doubted, and that I hated Him for imposing restrictions on my life. It was hardly coherent. She was understandably shocked and appalled.

But I want to be absolutely clear in order to leave no doubt in your mind or the mind of those you may show this email to—I never doubted God’s existence prior to Jordan Peterson. Peterson’s philosophy shook my belief and deepened my despair and destructive spiral.

Jordan Peterson is a sower of Chaos in the guise of a prophet of Order. It should not be surprising that those who accept his guidance and follow his teachings soon find themselves wandering away from both truth and Truth alike.

Jordan Peterson is NOT a man of the Right, he is NOT on our side, and he is NOT helping anyone come to the the truth. He is like a Menshevik opposing the Bolsheviks who have gone too far in order to fix Communism.

Let’s figure out how I can dispense with my white privilege and so that you can tell me when the Left is going too far, since they clearly can, and that’s what this debate is about, about political correctness. It’s about the Left going too far, and I think it’s gone too far in many ways. and I’d like to
figure out exactly how and when so the reasonable Left could make its ascendance again and we could quit all this nonsense.
– Jordan Peterson, Debate with Michael Dyson, Michelle Goldberg, and Stephen Fry.

A Man of the West shares how his attempt to introduce immigration heresy into a proud hyphenated-American family went:

I’ve been a reader of your blog and viewer of your videos for some time now, but I’ll cut to the chase rather than linger in my own backstory. An hour ago I was on the phone with my parents that live on the opposite side of the country (dad is a boomer, mom is early gen-x) and the conversation quickly turned to politics and history as it always does.They are Reagan-era right-wing conservatives. I  wouldn’t consider them neocons, but tomato tomAHto at this point. Gradually the topic transformed into immigration being more detrimental to a nation than warfare. As with any historical discussion with a boomer, the subject quickly returned to exclusively America. So I introduced to him the idea that even the Ellis Island immigrants, legal as they may have been, were a net negative to the American nation and culture.

Now, in an Italian/Irish immigrant family, to say something like this is sacrilege. But that’s when I could tell I was getting somewhere, because my dad started spewing post-modernist, globalist, pro-Babel propaganda like the Littlest Chickenhawk on a week-long soy bender. He even tried to drag out some JBP quotes until I dropped the “he authored a 2015 UN Development Panel report” on him. Then came the stuff I had heard him slip into past conversations, like “culture is always changing” and “no culture remains the same. History shows a constant fluctuation of cultures”. These always seemed like wishy-washy public-education level slogans parroted to give the illusion of sounding like you are well-versed in a wide scope of history. But this time I wasn’t tolerating it.

I’m not going to waste your time with a play-by-play review of the whole argument, but in the end I calmly told him “You are so focused on the microcosm that you cannot see the macrocosmic implications of the Tower-of-Babel agenda that you are supporting, and you are attempting to excuse your fear of the duty and suffering required to fight for Christianity, Western Civilization, Aristotelian rationality, and Truth by capitulating to this idiotic idea that ‘cultures will always change’. It is a lie to cover up a fear, and it is rationalizing surrender.”

Any advice on teaching an old dog new tricks?

Just keep standing calmly, confidently, and respectfully by the truth. Don’t meet anger with anger, just keep calling out the falsehoods and deceptions as they are presented to you. As the reader has already observed, he’s over the target and his father is already in a state of cognitive dissonance. The trick is to avoid making the correct path out of that dissonance more unpleasant than a) it has to be and b) than the alternative of full delusion.

A Reagan conservative is halfway there. But it’s not unknown for them to retreat into liberalism, even SJWism, simply because the pain of the truth is too great for their soft Boomer sensibilities. So, it’s not wise to punch them in the mouth no matter how much nonsense they spew in their intellectual flailing about.

You will know they have been convicted of the truth, even if they haven’t accepted it yet, when they desperately try to change the subject to you, your motivations, and your shortcomings. Don’t take the bait, just calmly ask, “What does that have to do with 20th century immigration and its consequences?” and steer them back to the subject they are now trying to avoid addressing.

Kudos and all, but the frightening thing about this email is the fact that this women genuinely and legitimately believed, for decades, that she was physically capable of going toe-to-toe with men. Thanks, Hollywood!

The day I figured it out

Not a natural athlete, but I did devote 7 years to martial arts back in my 30s.  3 to 4 times a week, excellent conditioning, but to be frank, I was horrible at sparring.  Think Barney Fife, vibrating and completely ineffective.  I hung in there, spurred on by too many martial arts movies and the media myth that a 120 lb. trained woman could take on a man in a fight.  And it was light touch sparring because of Insurance Risk.

So, there was one last special class to make that dark-colored belt; Punching/Kicking Class.  An all-day seminar where you were paired off with someone your size, they would hold a 6-inch-thick pad and you full contact punched and kicked them …then you would hold the pad and they would punch and kick.  Heady stuff, my Gi was snapping, there was a satisfying “thwack” sound, I was quite proud and kinda hoping for some bloody knuckles and a need to “tape up”.  Then it came time for me to hold the bag.  Now mind you, I was paired off with a small man, a short skinny ex-navy grunt, just my size.  He pulled off one full force punch and I was on my butt and there were tears on my face.  I got back up, took a deeper stance, and once again was back on the floor.  I kept trying but it was obvious to me I wasn’t helping this guy practice his punching and kicking at all.  So, I asked the instructor if I could just do the punching kicking practice but not hold the bag.  He took me for a walk outside the studio.  I have since learned that is a Bad Sign.  He explained to me the point of the class was being able to take the punching and kicking, the point was to be able to hold the bag, to be able to take the punch.  And I suddenly understood, it was basic physics really.  In my head, it was a scene out of a Beautiful Mind, with Vectors, Force Lines, and Angles appearing in red.  But it was just me with my mouth open going, “Huh”

Men are stronger than women.  Go figure.  It is basic physics; the bones are denser and the muscles are heavier.  And I realized this whole time, I had been a minnow swimming with sharks.  That most men could take out most women with a punch or two.  Heck, most men can take out another man with a sucker punch, but I am talking a face front fight; guy wins most every time.  And especially bigger men.  The fact I was so shocked told me a bunch about how naive I was and how much the media lied about this.  I suddenly had this whole new respect for most men; most of them were walking around with the ability to take down smaller folks; and they don’t.  They just plain don’t.  They hold doors open and walk on the dangerous side of the sidewalk and go out to check night time noises.  Basically IMHO most of guys in America are heroes.

I firmly believe that everyone, male and female, would benefit greatly from being physically beaten down at least once in their lives before their 18th birthday. It is a salutary experience.

Back in my fighting days, a girl I was dating joined our dojo for a while. After doing a drill that involved getting kicked repeatedly in the stomach, she was a bit wide-eyed and excited, and exclaimed, “I’ve never been hit in the stomach before!”

“Have you ever been hit in the face?” I asked her.

“No,” she said. So, I hit her in the chin with a backfist hard enough to snap her head back, but not hard enough to knock her down.

“What did you do that for!” she demanded about 15 seconds later, once she stopped staggering around and got over the usual shock.

“Did you feel that disorientation, the way you couldn’t quite believe that someone actually hit you in the face?”

“Well, yeah!” A mere two syllables, but spoken with deep passion and accompanied by an intense and narrow-eyed glare.

“See, that’s normal. Everyone feels like that the first time they take a good shot to the head. Now you know what it feels like. Next time you get hit, you’ll be ready for it, and you can fight your way through it.”

She wasn’t quite as appreciative of the lesson as I expected. It was strange, but the way she used to tell the story made me sound kind of like a psycho.