Surprising few, Donald Trump chose JD Vance as his running mate; surprising many, almost instantaneously, word went out across the Democrats’ elite that the hit on Vance would be that he was “weird.” Soon thereafter, the intended smear was spread to Trump himself. The commentariat weighed in, the public square pulsed with reactions, and the blowback began. Many found it weird that Vance, who’d previously been more susceptible to hostile classification by the lefty meme ironically begging for “the confidence of an average white man,” was now being attacked as an oddball — often by people who, to put it charitably, presented with an eccentricity so extreme that just 10 years ago, it was all but absent from public life. How the normies of today can be attacked as weird by today’s freakazoids ... But there was another kind of pushback in defense of Vance: Not only was he weird, his weirdness went far beyond his critics’ imagination — and that was a good thing. Perfect case in point — the Atlantic’s attempt to portray Vance as weird depicted him in a political cartoon as a wizard out of Tolkien toking richly on a most mystical pipe. Seemingly unpredictably, accounts on X started half-joking that Vance was, indeed, wyrd, a figure of destiny straight out of the 1400s, when, as the etymology dictionaries will tell you, that word first appeared. This kind of leap may strike many normal Americans as the “real” weird, one that didn’t really influence public life before the internet and now seems to be everywhere, as ever more obscure and bizarre identities double and triple down on what’s least accessible about them to outsiders. And it’s not that hard to see how the force of this identitarian logic points, as Marshall McLuhan observed decades ago, in the reifying and deifying direction “from cliche to archetype.” All over the internet and our digitally influenced society, we now see affinity and identity groups elevating representative people to what the gamers call “god-tier” — a symbolically superhuman status meant to capture and express the “eternal” about the identity in question. But thanks to my years of obscure McLuhanverse studies, nothing about these uncanny trends was weird or surprising to me. I learned in the late 2010s that the rise of digital technology “retrieved,” in McLuhanite speak, “the medieval.” The immense power of digital machines to record and recollect was refounding our interior and exterior experience in a way that privileged memory over the master faculty of modernity, imagination. That topsy-turvy transformation returned us to a collective cast of mind last shared in premodern times. It was a change massively intensified by the fact that our machines’ dominance over us in recollective power returned us to fundamental questions that our prior worship of imagination only temporarily muted — questions like who we as humans really are and why. These questions, ultimately theological, demanded theological answers ... and the last time society so tightly revolved around the question of the human and the divine was the Middle Ages. And so it could come to pass that I logged on in spring of 2021 to post that the rise of digital tech heralded weird's fall and wyrd’s rise: Of course, big happenings like these are not toggle switches. It’s a much messier transition. That’s how it can be that yesterday’s weirdos (hippies, freaks) are now today’s establishment ... How today’s ex-weird establishment can be struggling with the rise of a still-weirder youth cadre of psychosexual mutants beyond the old hippies’ imagination ... How the normies of today can be attacked as weird by today’s freakazoids ... And how the whole mess can produce such a fractured pantheon of pseudo-demigod figures whose titanic, cosmic conflict reveals identity politics to be a grand manifestation of the technological and theological character of experience in our strangely neo-medieval age. Who’s in control of your fate?

The 2024 Olympics initially sparked outrage for its ceremonial attack on Christianity but has attracted additional criticism over the perception that it is now facilitating attacks on women. The controversy follows two fighters in particular: Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting and Algeria's hulking Imane Khelif — both of whom Blaze News previously reported were disqualified last year from the 2023 Women's Boxing World Championships by the International Boxing Association for allegedly having XY chromosomes. Despite their apparent male sex chromosomes, the International Olympic Committee Paris 2024 Boxing Unit cleared Khelif and Yu-ting to fight women. On Thursday, Khelif — who some have suggested is actually a hermaphrodite — hammered Italy's Angela Carini hard enough to prompt the 25-year-old Italian to abandon the fight after 46 seconds, break into tears, and fall to her knees. Among the critics convinced this week they were once again witnessing male transvestites exploit their biological advantage at the expense of female athletes' safety was a young woman who was herself severely injured by a transvestite. 'This is morally wrong and evil.' Payton McNabb was a member of Hiwassee Dam High School's girls' volleyball team in Cherokee County, North Carolina, until a transvestite player playing for Highlands High School cut her dreams down in September 2022. During the fateful matchup, the male Highlands player, who towered over the girls at 5 feet, 11 inches tall, spiked the ball, smashing McNabb in the face and leaving the then-17-year-old unconscious on the court for 30 seconds with a concussion, a brain bleed, and whiplash. According to the Daily Mail, McNabb, now 19, was left with brain damage, vision issues, and paralysis on her right side, preventing her from pursuing her dream of securing a volleyball college scholarship. 'It used to be illegal for men to beat up women.' After parents, student athletes, school board members, and the athletic director at McNabb's school expressed concerns about safety and fairness, the Cherokee County Board of Education forfeited all remaining games in the season against the Highlands team. School board member Arnold Mathews told WLOS-TV at the time the decision was based on "safety concerns." McNabb told the Daily Mail that it is "disgusting" that two boxers who failed gender tests are allowed to thrash women at the Paris Olympics. "There is a biological difference between the two [trans women and women], there is a difference in sports because of this in the first place," said McNabb. "It's dangerous to have the two [sexes] competing together and just not OK. I am disgusted by this, personally. This is morally wrong and evil." "These women have worked so hard and trained tirelessly to get all the way to the Olympics, all so they can get punched in the face by a dude," continued McNabb. "It used to be illegal for men to beat up women, and now people are putting it on TV and watching it. It's such a weird reality we are living in now." McNabb, now a spokeswoman for the Independent Women's Forum, routinely blasts Democrats and other radicals, particularly those like Rep. Pramila Jayapal (Wash.) who claim that the inclusion of transvestic athletes is harmless. Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Biden's Reaction to the Killing of Hamas Leader Is Unbelievable

Friday Morning Minute

In 1935, an archaeological expedition led by the Metropolitan Museum of New York unearthed a fascinating and eerie find in the tombs of Deir Elbahari near Luxor, Egypt. Beneath the tomb of Senmut, a prominent architect and possible lover of Queen Hatshepsut, archaeologists discovered a separate burial chamber containing the mummified remains of an elderly woman. Her mouth was agape, frozen in what appeared to be a scream, earning her the nickname the "Screaming Woman." For decades, this mummy has captivated researchers, and recent studies using advanced scientific techniques have provided new insights into her life, death, and the mysterious expression she carried to the grave. The findings have just been published in the science journal Frontiers in Medicine. The Mystery of the Screaming Man Mummy Where the West Actually Meets the East—The Tarim Mummies Prof Sahar Saleem with the Screaming Woman mummy. (Sahar Saleem/Frontiers in Medicine) Read moreSection: NewsHistory & ArchaeologyHistoryAncient TraditionsRead Later 

The Carthaginian military, renowned for its strategic ingenuity and formidable prowess, played a pivotal role in shaping the trajectory of ancient Mediterranean history. Central to this historical narrative are the Punic Wars, a series of three protracted and destructive conflicts between Carthage and Rome that ultimately determined the fate of both empires. These wars, spanning over a century from 264 BC to 146 BC, were characterized by fierce battles, legendary military commanders, and significant geopolitical shifts. Understanding the Carthaginian military's structure, strategies, and the broader implications of the Punic Wars provides invaluable insights into the ancient world’s military and political dynamics. The Carthaginian Military Structure The Carthaginian military was a complex and diverse force, heavily reliant on mercenary troops and naval supremacy. Unlike the Roman legions, which were composed primarily of citizen-soldiers, the Carthaginian army included a myriad of ethnic groups and nationalities. This eclectic composition was both a strength and a vulnerability, as it provided a vast pool of specialized skills while also posing challenges in terms of loyalty and cohesion. Read moreSection: Ancient TechnologyNewsHistory & ArchaeologyHistoryFamous PeoplePremiumPreviewRead Later 

The United States and Russia completed their biggest prisoner swap in post-Soviet history on Thursday, with Moscow releasing journalist Evan Gershkovich and fellow American Paul Whelan, along with dissidents including Vladimir Kara-Murza, in a multinational deal that set...

The NFL scored a victory worth up to $14.1 billion in court on Thursday when a federal district court judge threw out a jury's verdict in an antitrust lawsuit that targeted the league's "Sunday Ticket" online viewing package.

Britain's financial watchdog said on Friday it has widened the range of "dormant" assets, or money in financial firms' accounts to tap a potentially extra 880 million pounds ($1.12 billion) to fund social and environmental projects in a cash-strapped economy. The dormant...

The mummy was well preserved with an expensive embalming material. Her organs were still intact, showing an unusual mummification technique, a CT scan revealed.