Steve Oslica

Just turned 30. Libertarian-leaning conservative (not a populist). Dog sidekick. St. Louis native. Hockey fan, football coach, PR professional, grammar nerd.

[steveoslica]

Every person is the same in the eyes of God and under the law. If you can’t come to peace with that in 2017, and you’re so insecure with yourself that you need to deny the human dignity of entire races or religions or ways of life in order to build yourself up, then you should be in a psychiatrist’s office, not at a “rally.”

[steveoslica]

Allez Montréal

Over MLK Day weekend, I flew to Montreal and met my friend John for a quick vacation. My sister was supposed to join us also, but an ice storm here in St. Louis grounded her here.

I’d always wanted to visit Quebec, and this was my first real bucket list check-off since I entered the adult world. “Canada, in January?” was a common reaction to this venture, but we wanted to go to a Canadiens game while we were there, and that limited our options to a few long weekends.

I arrived at Trudeau Airport late Friday morning, and was pleasantly surprised to find a near-empty arrivals hall with no lines for customs. John didn’t arrive for another few hours, so I made my way to the arrivals area Tim Hortons for my first authentic Canadian double-double (we have Tim Hortons in St. Louis too, now, but still…). I killed some more time in an airport bar that had TVs tuned to both hockey highlights and a curling tournament.

After John arrived, we boarded a bus to downtown, then took the Metro to our AirBnB. The apartment we’d rented for the weekend was nice, and in a good neighborhood – only a few blocks from the Metro and another Tim Hortons. We dropped our stuff off and ventured out to a restaurant called Poutineville for dinner – again, when in Canada. We walked around for a while after dinner, exploring the neighborhoods near Park La Fontaine, UQAM, and the Molson brewery. After a long day of travel and a lot of walking, we headed back to the apartment to rest up for the next day.

We started our Saturday at the Olympic Park, then caught an Uber to the Mont Royal Lodge with its panoramic overlook of the city. It was cold, and the temperature was dropping all day, but it was more tolerable than I was expecting (maybe I packed well?). Another Uber ride took us to Old Montreal and the Notre Dame Basilica. I’d read a lot about how impressive the church was, and it didn’t disappoint. We had a really great tour guide who explained the history and architecture of the church with a lot of interesting sidenotes and humor.

After lunch at the famed Schwartz’s Deli, we returned to Old Montreal and walked around a little more, passing through the Place Jacques Cartier and by the City Hall, then spending some time at the Chateau Ramezay museum. We stepped into a bar for a much needed break before walking back through Downtown to the Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral (a scaled replica of St. Peter’s in Rome) and on to the Centre Bell for the Canadiens-Rangers game.

The game alone was worth the trip. The atmosphere was fantastic, and it was fascinating to be in a bilingual environment for an event like that. When we left the arena, it had started to snow, so that added to the Canadian-ness of the day.

Another long day ended back at the AirBnB, and on Sunday we had decided to rent a car and drive to Ottawa for a quick daytrip. It was a little more than two hours away, but the scenic drive along the Ottawa River was nice, and we got to see a little more of Canada than we’d originally planned.

Ottawa was beautiful, with lots of interesting architecture and a picturesque setting overlooking the river and the Rideau Canal. We weren’t able to tour the Centre Block of Parliament because of some electrical repairs that were going on, but we did manage to walk around and explore quite a bit, hitting up the Beaver Tails stand and the Canadian War Museum. The Museum had a lot of interesting exhibits, particularly about the American Revolution and and War of 1812 from the Canadian perspective. Even though we didn’t get to stay long, it was a highlight of the visit.

Overall, the trip was awesome, even though it was short. We ate great food, saw some really cool sights, encountered lots of friendly people, and came home with some fun Canadian souvenirs. That said, I’d like to go back to Quebec sometime to see more of Montreal and visit Quebec City. Next time in the summer, though?

[steveoslica]

americans: at least 2016 couldn't get any weirder

god: send in the clowns

[ranciddream]

I Am Not Voting For Donald J. Trump

Reblog if you refuse to vote for him too.

[realitytvgifs]

[realitytvgifs]

me @ our country

[somosshippers]

“He´s my King from this day until his last day” 

(Eternal love to Lyanna Mormont <3)

[lupanthropy]

“My cousin Helen, who is in her 90s now, was in the Warsaw ghetto during World War II. She and a bunch of the girls in the ghetto had to do sewing each day. And if you were found with a book, it was an automatic death penalty. She had gotten hold of a copy of ‘Gone With the Wind’, and she would take three or four hours out of her sleeping time each night to read. And then, during the hour or so when they were sewing the next day, she would tell them all the story. These girls were risking certain death for a story. And when she told me that story herself, it actually made what I do feel more important. Because giving people stories is not a luxury. It’s actually one of the things that you live and die for.”

 Neil Gaiman (via thatgirlgwen)

[philosophicalconservatism]

By improving yourself the world is made better.

Benjamin Franklin ( 1706-1790) U.S. statesman, scientist and founding father (via philosophicalconservatism)

[theweeklystandard-blog]

Donald Trump is manifestly unfit to be president of the United States. His campaign has already driven our politics down to new levels of vulgarity. His appeals to racial and ethnic fears and prejudice are offensive to any genuinely Catholic sensibility. He promised to order U.S. military personnel to torture terrorist suspects and to kill terrorists’ families — actions condemned by the Church and policies that would bring shame upon our country. And there is nothing in his campaign or his previous record that gives us grounds for confidence that he genuinely shares our commitments to the right to life, to religious freedom and the rights of conscience, to rebuilding the marriage culture, or to subsidiarity and the principle of limited constitutional government. We understand that many good people, including Catholics, have been attracted to the Trump campaign because the candidate speaks to issues of legitimate and genuine concern: wage stagnation, grossly incompetent governance, profligate governmental spending, the breakdown of immigration law, inept foreign policy, stifling “political correctness” — for starters. There are indeed many reasons to be concerned about the future of our country, and to be angry at political leaders and other elites. We urge our fellow Catholics and all our fellow citizens to consider, however, that there are candidates for the Republican nomination who are far more likely than Mr. Trump to address these concerns, and who do not exhibit his vulgarity, oafishness, shocking ignorance, and — we do not hesitate to use the word — demagoguery. Mr. Trump’s record and his campaign show us no promise of greatness; they promise only the further degradation of our politics and our culture. We urge our fellow Catholics and all our fellow citizens to reject his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination by supporting a genuinely reformist candidate.

Catholic scholars write a letter against Donald Trump (via theweeklystandard)

[philosophicalconservatism]

Despotism often presents itself as the repairer of all the ills suffered, the support of just rights…

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805-1859) French political author and aristocrat  (via philosophicalconservatism)

[ghostsandgoblins]

[philosophicalconservatism]

The past shows unvaryingly that when a people’s freedom disappears, it goes not with a bang, but in silence amid the comfort of being cared for. That is the dire peril in the present trend toward statism. If freedom is not found accompanied by a willingness to resist, and to reject favors, rather than to give up what is intangible but precarious, it will not long be found at all.

Richard Weaver (1910 – 1963) American Conservative Author (via   (via philosophicalconservatism)

[philosophicalconservatism]

It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones,

Calvin Coolidge (1872-1933)    U.S. President (via philosophicalconservatism)

[realitytvgifs]

[surisburnbook-deactivated202412]

Here’s Mason Disick and Justin Bieber hanging out together, in case you wanted to throw up today.

KOURTNEY WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR CHILD.

[whatsdifferentincanada]

[daily-dose-of-pickup-blog]

http://daily-dose-of-pickup.tumblr.com/