Thanksgiving dinner with old friends at their house. We have known each other for thirty years, since Mrs Derbyshire and Mrs Oldfriend both took their toddlers—our daughter, her son—to a local playgroup.

The toddlers are now working adults. All through those decades, excepting a pause in COVID time, we've kept up the custom of Thanksgiving dinner at their house, July 4th or Labor Day barbecue at ours.

Their family is bigger than ours, so there was quite a host around the table. Mr Oldfriend has a son from a previous marriage. The son is himself married now, with two fine young sons of his own. All were present, together with Mrs Oldfriend's sister and her husband.

The dinner was great, especially the stuffing. There seems to be some kind of anti-turkey movement under way on social media: "Turkey tastes awful, why do we eat it? Duck is way better …" etc. etc. As a reactionary traditionalist I am naturally of the other party. Who cares which bird tastes better? It's Thanksgiving.

Oldfriend Jr. teaches in a New York City public school. He has stories. I used to think that cops have the best stories, followed by military men and then doctors. Listening to Junior I find myself reflecting that big-city public-school teachers should be in the list somewhere.

Me, across the dinner-table: "You been getting any of the illegal aliens the city's taken in?"

He: "Oh yeah. One or two in every class."

Me: "How are they? Trouble, or what?"

He: "Not much trouble, but I can't teach them anything. They don't speak English."

Me: "Really? So what do they do in class all day long?"

He: "Just sit there. Play on their phones, the ones that have them."

Urban education in the mid-21st century. Tell me again, if you can, that we're not in steep civilizational decline.

And Junior's school is in a not-bad neighborhood of New York City. (You know what I mean by "not-bad neighborhood," right? Of course you do.) There is much worse elsewhere. Quote from a news story out of Charlottesville, Virginia, quote:

Friday was a breaking point for teachers at CHS. Students roaming the hallways during class. Brawls in the common areas. Intruders let onto school premises. Teachers afraid for their own safety. Administrators unwilling or unable to discipline.

Things are not OK at Charlottesville High School.

On Friday, classes were abruptly canceled when teachers did not show up to work. The decision by so many school employees to call out appears to have been prompted by a series of wild student brawls that occurred the day before.

At least one of those fights included an 18-year-old intruder who does not even attend CHS and who was let into the school by a student for the sole purpose of perpetrating violence. [The kids are not all right: Violence, intruders and chaos at Charlottesville High School by Jason Armesto; The Daily Progress, November 17th 2023.]

See our future: Charlottesville VA high school closed by informal teachers’ strike due to violence. Article mention no races. The district superintendent is a Black Equity Ambassador. The school board is free of white males. 45% of its students are white.https://t.co/cMNNmQTFgQ

— Fabius Maximus (Ed.) (@FabiusMaximus01) November 21, 2023

The Charlottesville High School student body is white-black-Hispanic-mixed-Asian 45-29-14-7-6 percents. Both the Principal and the town Schools Superintendent are black (although the Principal announced his resignation earlier this month.)

A teacher at CHS told us something I figured out for myself:

There's about 30 kids that never go to class and have not gone to class from the first day. They've never intended to go to class and do nothing but walk the halls and avoid adults. If an adult approaches them, they swear at them, keep walking and there are no consequences. Those 30 kids set the tone for the rest of the 1,400 kids in the school.

Just 30 out of 1,400? The solution seems straightforward. Just punish the 30. Make an example of them. Right?

Wrong! This is Wokeland we're in here. Nothing is straightforward. Straightforwardness is old thinking, white thinking, like punctuality, objectivity, hard work, and getting the right answer on a math test.

Further quote from the Charlottesville story:

CHS counselor David Wilkerson wrote on Facebook that "The VDOE would prefer that the data shows that no kids are being punished due to the correlation between punishing kids and a poor graduation rate."

Just roll that around on your tongue for a moment. The Department of Education of the State of Virginia would prefer the data to show that no kids are being punished; that the students in their public schools are flawlessly well-behaved.

That's the preference of Virginia's education bureaucrats as rogue students wander the hallways fighting and screaming obscenities at teachers.

Stock up on canned food, citizens, and big drums of purified water. Get some firearms and training in how to use them. Seek out like-minded citizens and socialize with them: there's strength in numbers.

Civilization? What, you mean that stuff that used to be taught in schools? Fuhgeddaboutit.