Booker T. Washington, Up from Slavery, Chapter XVI: Europe.
No man who continues to add something to the material, intellectual, and moral well-being of the place in which he lives is long left without proper reward.
November 25, 1975, Suriname gained independence from the Netherlands.
On the same month and date 17 years later, the Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia voted to split the country into the Czech Republic and Slovakia (officially disjoined as of January 1, 1993). This split has been called “The Velvet Divorce” (following, in style and method, “The Velvet Revolution”). The Czech Republic is now also known as Czechia.
A group appropriately enough called Maine Girl Dads has been standing up on this issue and constitutes the core of a newly formed ballot question committee, Protect Girls Sports in Maine. On Election Day weeks ago, the committee launched an initiative petition that needs 68,000 registered voter signatures in order to give voters the choice to designate public school sports as male, female or co-ed.
Let every person participate. But stop allowing males to enter and dominate sports set aside for women. Or to lurk in their locker rooms.
It’s no wonder why the issue of permitting 6’4’ men transitioning to identify as women to compete against females has caused a stir — they’ve won competitions by wide margins, setting new records.
And, in several cases, the dangerous physical mismatches created have also resulted in injuries to women.
That’s not sportsmanlike, for there are very real biological differences between men and women and, in virtually every athletic activity, men have significant physical advantages: speed, quickness, strength.
Which is why there has been no issue with women transitioning to identify as men competing in men’s sports. Because they are at a distinct disadvantage and, therefore, not a factor.
Over the weekend, I traveled to Portland to hear NCAA champion swimmer Riley Gaines speak and learned that the Protect Girls Sports effort has surpassed 68,000 signatures and is now working on extra signatures to thwart any possible challenge.
“It’s time we made Maine Girl Sports safe for girls again,” says Alisha Lawson of Moms for Maine Girls, adding that the measure will be: “Common Sense. Voter Enacted.”
I’m all for it.* I’m Paul Jacob.
* To be clear, I’m actively helping this Maine campaign.
Illustrations created with Krea and Firefly
See all recent commentary
(simplified and organized)
See recent popular posts
The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid.
Denis Diderot, “Refutation of Helvétius” (written 1773-76, published 1875).
On November 24, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald, the alleged assassin of President John F. Kennedy, was shot and killed by Jack Ruby while in custody.
The ongoing UFO/UAP disclosure movement, covered periodically in this space, has made some headway in the last year, with a few stories coming out of the congressional hearings led by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna. But the biggest current publicity push for disclosure is the new documentary The Age of Disclosure, directed by Dan Farah and released on November 21, 2025, via Amazon Prime Video following limited theatrical runs in New York and Los Angeles.
It features interviews with over 30 former U.S. government officials (including figures like ex-Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, ex-Pentagon UFO program head Luis Elizondo, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio) alleging an 80-year cover-up of non-human intelligence, reverse-engineered alien craft, and a global “secret war” over such technology.
But all is not sweetness and light shimmering from an upward spiral of increased government transparency. Not a few of the subject’s most interesting figures have upped their skepticism level, uttering dark and disturbing thoughts about the veracity and agendas of the disclosure movement’s current key figures. These dissenters in the UFO/UAP watcher community — ufologists, whistleblower advocates, and disclosure activists — suggest that the current disclosure movement is adding a fresh and disturbing layer of government deception:
These critiques may be gaining traction in real-time X conversations among thousands of followers in the UFO niche. Liszt’s posts, for example, appear to be doing well enough, if not showing cultural domination, with 9K–12K views each in the past week.
Could the government be lying via the documentary itself? That notion is largely absent from mainstream news and review outlets, finally (after decades) allowed to treat the subject as respectable — consecrated, as it seems to be, by the government itself.
Tel est le malheur de notre siècle, les plus étranges
égarements même ne guérissent pas de l’ennui.
This is the curse of our age, even the strangest aberrations are no cure for boredom.
Marie-Henri Beyle, writing as Stendhal, in Le Rouge et le Noir translated as The Red and the Black (1830), Vol. II, ch. XVII.
On November 23, 1644, British poet John Milton published Areopagitica, a pamphlet decrying censorship.
Revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse.
John Milton, Areopagitica; A speech of Mr. John Milton for the Liberty of Unlicenc’d Printing, to the Parlament of England (1644).
The name “Areopagitica” references a speech by Isocrates, the “Areopagitikós” that itself referenced a hill in Athens, Greece, the Areopagus, which had been the site of an important tribunal that the Greek orator had hoped to restore. It may also refer to the defense that St. Paul made before the Areopagus against charges of promulgating alien gods and outré teachings (see Acts 17:18–34).
After a record-tying federal government shutdown, Congress is held in even lower repute than before:
Voters have a less favorable opinion of House and Senate leaders in the aftermath of the 43-day government shutdown, with House Speaker Mike Johnson suffering the worst decline.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 36% of Likely U.S. Voters have a favorable impression of Johnson – down from 45% in May – including 19% with a Very Favorable opinion of the Louisiana Republican. Forty-one percent (41%) now view Johnson unfavorably, including 30% with a Very Unfavorable impression. Twenty-three percent (23%) are not sure.
“After Shutdown, Congressional Leadership Less Popular,” Rasmussen Reports (November 21, 2025).
But do most people focus on President Trump, however, blaming him for the shutdown? Apparently not. While Rasmussen Reports indeed showed Congress’s approval plummeting to historic lows post-shutdown, President Trump’s job approval ratings proved more resilient but still took a hit. Based on daily tracking from Rasmussen — America’s most frequent presidential pollster — Trump’s numbers held steady in the low-to-mid 40s through early October but eroded gradually as the 43-day shutdown dragged on, bottoming out around November 12, the day it ended. Disapproval climbed, driven by independents and even some GOP softening on his handling of the crisis. Post-shutdown, there’s been a modest rebound.
This word ‘fascist’ is one of the great words at the moment that stops everyone from thinking. You have only to say that so-and-so’s a fascist and that’s the end of any reason; you can’t think after that. I wish there could be a ban put on the use of the word. It’s an extraordinary psychological thing that if you say there is a possibility of war, the reaction is to lynch you.
Doris Lessing, in Lesley Hazelton, “Doris Lessing on Feminism, Communism and ‘Space Fiction,’” New York Times (July 25, 1982).