Whenever I hear the term “progressive” being used as a synonym for “liberal,” I recall a conversation on whose periphery I had the great misfortune of being a few years ago, surrounded as I was by enlightened lefties.

During the conversation, someone said that Christians should be rounded up and put on trains, the implication being that an Auschwitz or Belsen was at the end of the line. Spoken with no tongue in cheek, no knowing wink of satire.

I pretended not to hear. First, I wasn’t about to crawl into the gutter and fling feces with the rest of them; second, what’s the point in arguing with people who suggest Christian genocide? (How vitriolic, I wonder, was their outrage to waterboarding?)

Do I think all liberals believe this? No, but everyone’s heart does beat with intolerance, some certainly with more venom than others. It’s good to know who are my enemies.

So, yeah, whenever I hear the term “progressive” being bandied about, I can’t help but laugh. Regressive’s more like it.

Sorry, dude, but you’re absolutely wrong:

We cannot, we must not, and we will not let our auto industry simply vanish. This industry is, like no other, an emblem of the American spirit; a once and future symbol of America’s success.

Would I ever buy a yanqui car again? No. Everyone else does it better (and in many cases, cheaper).

How deluded is your secular messiah if he thinks the auto industry is “a once and future symbol of America’s success”? Like British Leyland, the yanqui auto industry is merely another example of “once upon a time.”

The LA Times revisits Patrick White’s brilliant Voss:

“Voss” is a historical novel, set in the 19th century, and its eponymous hero is based on a doomed German explorer who vanished into Australia’s dead heart, the brutal and ancient desert that occupies much of the continent, then roamed only by aboriginal tribesmen. Voss’ fatal flaw, and, oddly, his immense appeal as a character, is his pigheaded megalomania. Asked if he has studied the map of where he intends to go, Voss replies: “The map? I will first make it.”

As mentioned in these pages before, Voss is a staggering work of imagination and Patrick White thoroughly deserves a new audience.

Given the world’s financial mess, there’s no better time to spend your money wisely. Thirteen dollars for a novel costs far less than a night out at the movies; and a novel like Voss will actually make you more intelligent, unlike the rancid pablum that issues forth from Hollywood’s decaying bowels.

In Prospect, novelist Hanif Kureishi, claims:

Nobody would have the balls today to write The Satanic Verses, let alone publish it. Writing is now timid because writers are now terrified.  

Sorry, Hanif, but not all writers are terrified. I’m terrified of no man, and certainly not Islam. My pen is as sharp as any sword brandished by jihadists.

Unfortunately, too many among us, especially in The West, are terrified, these cowards bowing to gods they don’t believe in for the sake of not causing offence. I can think of few things more offensive, or corrosive.

You’re entitled to your beliefs or unbeliefs (one of the few things you are entitled to), just don’t force them on anyone else. I honestly don’t care what you do or don’t believe in; I’d appreciate it if you cared the same for me.

I don’t have the power to change your mind, and you certainly don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of changing mine.

I can’t praise Rancho Gordo beans enough; I always have at least two pounds on hand (I’m especially fond of the Eye of the Goat). I’ve never tasted beans with so much flavour, that don’t fall apart into mush, and that have textures ranging from creamy to meaty.

The NY Times discovers what many of us have known for some time:

“Ingredients are the new chefs on some level,” Steve Sando, the founder of Rancho Gordo, summarized with a naughty chuckle as he bounced around Napa in his messy pickup truck recently. He has reason to be happy: thanks to him, long-lost legumes with names like Good Mother Stallard, Eye of the Goat and Yellow Indian Woman appear on menus at the French Laundry, Manresa, Ubuntu Restaurant and Blue Hill at Stone Barns, and are selling out through his Web site and his farmers’-market stand to the tune of 250,000 pounds a year.

I typically use the beans for soup, a bowl of which satisfies in the most heart-warming way. Pure comfort food.

One of my favourite recipes: soak two pounds of beans for six hours; sear two well-seasoned lamb shanks (grass-fed, please) until they’re nice and brown in a large stockpot and then reserve; sauté two medium chopped yellow onions, four chopped ribs of celery, and as much garlic as you like in the same stockpot; pour in the beans and their soaking liquid, add shanks, bay leaf, chopped collard greens, salt and pepper and additional water to cover ingredients by one inch; bring to a boil, then lower flame to simmer; cook partially lidded till the beans are tender (about two hours) and then turn off flame. Remove shanks and pull off meat into bite-size chunks and return to pot. Check soup for seasoning (a little acid helps add some brightness) and add chopped fresh rosemary and thyme. You’ll end up with eight-to-10 dinner-size portions.

Variations are endless and equally delicious.

Want to fix this mess, my yanqui friends?

Reopen the Japanese internment camps from the Second World War and relocate every last scabship in politics nationwide into any one of your beautiful segregation and isolation centres.

Their scabships are encouraged, nay required, to govern themselves. How long do you think it’ll be before they’re tearing at each other’s throats? Their families, of course, will foot the entire bill through their taxes.

Class warfare? Yeah, that should put a quick end to the political class.

One thing I’ve learned after five years of full-time fiction writing: perseverance wins out.

No one’s going to pop into your office and write the next sentence. That is your responsibility.

Today started off horribly and went downhill from there. I took an hour break to read and then went back downstairs and willed myself to accomplish something. Two hours later, over 500 words.

Sometimes the words flow and I watch with amazement the blank screen steadily fill as if I’m simply the muse’s instrument. Most times, however, it’s a struggle and all I can do is will the words.

Today proved again that no small amount of perseverance works.