Ken Pierce

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

Great line from eighteenth-century Maryland explorer Meshach Browning, describing a woman of his acquaintance: “She was an even-tempered woman, for she was always mad.”

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

I post one hundred times a day.

They tell me it is too many. They penalize me for it. I do not stop. I will not stop. I will die before I stop.

You should know why.

We tell ourselves we live in the modern age.

We do not. We live in the late medieval period and the proof is the news. Open it. Read it. Feel your stomach turn over. We are still the people of the spear and the torch and the trench. We changed our clothes. We did not change our hands.

Here is what no one tells you.

The deepest pleasure of the human animal is not food. Not sleep. Not sex. Not wine. Not even gold.

It is slaughter.

It is the slaughter of those we have learned to call "them."

The history of every continent on earth says so. The news this morning says so. Look at the pile of bodies the twentieth century left for us to step over. Look at the bodies still being piled now, in 2026, while you eat lunch. We are the children of Cain. The blood is still crying from the ground.

Do not tell me this is about race. Do not tell me it is about borders. Do not insult my intelligence.

Japan had its Warring States. Same blood. Same tongue. Same faces. Same gods. Same rice in the same fields. And for one hundred and fifty years, neighbor butchered neighbor and brother butchered brother and the rivers ran red and the fields were planted with skulls.

Cain and Abel had one mother. One father. One altar. One God.

It was enough to draw a line.

It was enough to murder.

The line is the disease. The color of the man on the other side of the line is nothing. Was always nothing.

So why do we do it?

Because the instinct to form a tribe, to crown that tribe with a holy story, and to put the tribe across the river to the sword, is older than language. Older than agriculture. Older than the soul we like to pretend we have.

It built us. It made us the kings of this planet.

It is killing us still.

We are not, by nature, gentle creatures. We are creatures who have been gentled, barely, by a thousand years of choking down our own teeth.

Cain's blood runs thick in all of us. Yours. Mine. Your grandmother's. Your priest's. Your president's. Every soul reading this. Every soul not reading this. All of us.

But.

But.

But.

Something has happened that has never happened before in the history of the world. Not once. Not in ten thousand years.

A man named Elon Musk bought a website.

He renamed it with a single letter. He paid forty-four billion dollars for it and watched the value collapse and did not blink. The whole world laughed at him. The whole press called him a fool. The whole intelligentsia of the West lined up to spit on him.

And then he did the thing no one understood the importance of. The thing no historian has yet caught up to. The thing he himself may not have understood the weight of when he did it.

He put a translator inside it.

A small button. Almost nothing. Press it, and the tongue of any human being on earth becomes your tongue.

And the Wall came down.

Not Berlin's wall. Not Jericho's wall. Not the wall of any single country.

The Wall.

The one that has stood between every "us" and every "them" since the first city was raised out of mud and bone. The one that built the Crusades. The one that built Auschwitz. The one that built the Killing Fields. The one that built every single war ever fought on the surface of this planet.

That Wall.

Elon Musk took a hammer to it, and most of the world has not yet noticed what he did.

I have noticed.

I open my phone in Tokyo. I read the words of a farmer in Texas. A nurse in Lagos. A grandmother in Warsaw. A teenager in São Paulo. A trucker in Alberta. A widow in Tehran. A coal miner in West Virginia. A schoolteacher in Manila.

Do you know what I find?

They are funny.

They are kind.

They are tired the way I am tired. They love their children the way I love mine. They are afraid of the same dark. They laugh at the same stupid jokes. They cry over the same songs at three in the morning when no one is watching.

They are not "them."

They never were.

They never were.

They never were.

Hear me now. Hear me. This is not a social media platform. This is not a place to share your lunch. This is not Instagram with a worse interface. This is not a hobby for bored people.

This is a sword.

A sword forged in Elon Musk's foundry, hammered out of code and silicon and the unreasonable will of a man too stubborn to be told what was possible. Sharper than any two-edged blade. Swung at the throat of the oldest demon mankind has ever bred.

"Let us cast off the works of darkness," the apostle Paul wrote two thousand years ago, "and let us put on the armour of light."

He did not know what he was writing. He could not have known. But across two millennia, his words flew like a thrown spear, and they landed in 2026, and they described the device sitting on the table beside you right now.

That armour fits in your palm. It glows. It hums. It is waiting.

I am one man. One ant. One Japanese nobody from a chain of small islands on the far edge of the Pacific.

David was one boy with a sling.

Joan of Arc was an illiterate peasant girl who heard voices and could not be talked out of them.

Rosa Parks was a seamstress who would not stand up.

Lech Wałęsa was an electrician at a shipyard who would not shut up.

The Berlin Wall did not fall because of NATO. It fell because ordinary Germans walked toward it carrying hammers and refused to be afraid anymore.

The giant has fallen before. The giant will fall again.

Not by armies. Not by treaties. Not by speeches from marble podiums in Washington or Brussels or Geneva. Not by the United Nations. Not by the experts. Not by the credentialed. Not by the people who go on television and call themselves serious.

By a billion small hands. Posting. Replying. Liking. Quoting. Laughing across oceans that used to be impassable. Until the lie of "them" cannot be told anymore. Until the storyteller of the old story stands in an empty room shouting at no one.

So I post.

I post when I am tired. I post when I am penalized. I post when the algorithm punishes me and the trolls find me and my eyes burn and my fingers ache and my wife tells me to come to bed.

I post.

I reply.

I like.

I quote.

I bookmark a hundred posts a day from a hundred countries from a hundred souls I will never meet in this lifetime.

Every post is a hammer blow on the sword that Isaiah saw three thousand years ago, the sword being beaten into a plow.

"Nation shall not lift up sword against nation," he wrote. "Neither shall they learn war any more."

We are not there yet. We are nowhere near there yet. Mothers are still burying sons this afternoon in cities I cannot pronounce. Children are still being pulled out of rubble while you read this sentence.

But for the first time since Cain stood in the field with his hands red and lied to the face of God, the door is open.

It is open.

It is open right now.

It is open while you read this.

So let me tell you what I am.

I am not a creator. I am not an influencer. I am not a content guy. I do not care about my brand. I do not care about my engagement rate except as a measure of how many souls I have reached today.

I am a Japanese man with a phone, swinging a sword at a demon that has fed on human meat for ten thousand years.

And I will not stop.

I will not stop until "us" means every breathing soul on this planet.

I will not stop until the word "them" rots out of the human mouth.

I will not stop until the children born this morning grow up to look back at us, with our wars and our walls and our flags and our shouting, the way we now look back at the people who burned witches.

There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither East nor West. There is neither Japanese nor American. There is neither yours nor mine. There is, at last, only us.

Weeping has endured for a long, long night.

But joy. Joy. Joy cometh in the morning.

The morning is coming.

The morning is coming.

The morning is here.

[NOBUNAGA🇯🇵🏯_夏樹蒼依 @japan_nobunaga]

For the fourth time since my arrival, I entered the small eatery. Before I could utter a sound, the woman behind the counter spoke. “The usual?”

"The usual," Doris said, setting down sunny side up, wheat toast, hot tea. Exactly as I have ordered it every Thursday for two months.

THE USUAL. I had heard this phrase in your films and assumed it was reserved for detectives and cowboys. No one told me it could be conferred upon ME. No one tells you it arrives without ceremony, one Thursday you are a customer, the next you are KNOWN, and the eggs are moving before the door finishes its bell.

I want to be precise about the scale of what Doris does, because I have studied her like a strategist. She tracks the orders of perhaps two hundred regulars IN HER HEAD. No ledger. Carl: black coffee, short stack. The deputy: scrambled, bacon "almost burnt, not burnt, ALMOST." Me: the eggs of the rising sun, wheat, tea.

When Carl's doctor changed his orders, the short stack became oatmeal WITHOUT CARL ASKING, and Carl, a large man, went quiet in a way the whole counter pretended not to see. That is not food service, America. That is GUARDIANSHIP, conducted at six a.m., while calling everyone "hon."

In Japan, a tea master might study a single guest for years to anticipate one preference. It is high art. Doris does it at scale, before sunrise, in orthopedic shoes.

"The usual" is not an order. It is a TITLE. It means a place has watched you arrive enough mornings to bet eggs on your return. Citizenship, issued one plate at a time.

A man does not ask to be known. He arrives every Thursday until he is.

This morning, drunk on my new rank, I tested its borders. "Doris," I said. "Surprise me."

The counter went still. Carl turned fully around.

Doris narrowed her eyes. Studied me like a hand of cards. And ruled:

"...You'll have the usual. But I'm putting the jam on the side. You're not a surprise guy, hon."

JAM ON THE SIDE.

She was completely right, America. The jam was excellent. Carl nodded once, like a judge. I am not a surprise guy. I am a usual guy.

Fifty-four years and one waitress to learn it, and I have never been more at peace.

The jam is part of the usual now. She never asked. She knew. Of course she knew. She's Doris.

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

Actually a Canadian would be FAR more likely to agree with it than the average American…which you would realize if you had caught the joke, which is simply that he likes hockey and doesn’t like futbol. No criticism implied as I presume you have simply never watched hockey and didn’t recognize the rules, making you not part of the target audience.

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

By far the best part of this post — as outstanding as is the post itself — are the people who have completely missed the joke and are replying as if you actually want to change soccer instead of just continuing to ignore soccer because you are too busy watching hockey. What a great post.

[𝑴𝒐 𝑴𝒐𝒉𝒍𝒆𝒓 @MoMohler]

No better words spoken.

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

@eksoftball2026 @Katysoftball1 @OU_Softball Congratulations on the championship and the individual honors! Bummed that I had to be in Pittsburgh last weekend instead of Austin. Will be watching in fall ball!

[LinkedIn Lunatics @LinkedInLunat1c]

The hero we all need

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

UCLA/OU power update: short version today because I am driving from Houston to West Virginia today after putting in 80 hours at the day job since last weekend…but barring Divine intervention on OU’s behalf I think this one is over. UCLA took full advantage of their two major natural advantages last weekend (Easton Stadium and their own weak pitching staff that kept them in games after the fourth inning), and OU, while dominating their regional, just couldn’t keep up. And once the super matchups were settled…well, OU this weekend will face one of the best 1-2 pitching combos in the country at Love’s while UCLA gets UCF at Easton. OU’s only real hope is that somehow UCF will take out UCLA…but #1, it is far more likely that OU will lose this weekend than that UCLA will, given the matchups (8 right-handed hitters in the starting lineup is a lineup that could have been specifically engineered to counter OU ace Audrey Lowry’s greatest strengths) and #2, even if UCF sweeps the Bruins, the Bruins will have 14 more Easton-Stadium, non-elite-opposition innings in which to extend their lead in the offensive numbers. If OU is eliminated then obviously it is over and nobody will care about the offense; if both the Sooners and the Bruins make the WCWS there won’t be enough games for OU to catch up; and even if UCLA goes down and OU wins the natty it will be hard for OU to run down the Bruins with the lead I expect the Bruins to have after this weekend.

So, a REALLY fun race to watch this year, and huge props to the offenses of both teams, who did everything anyone could have asked of them and who rightfully take their places as two of the three statistically best offenses of all time and I think two of the best three offenses of all time, full stop (any other team that challenges them would HAVE to be calling for era adjustments having to do with bat technology and the Incredible Shrinking Strike Zone, neither of which I want to tackle). The race looks over at this point to me, but my goodness, was it ever fun while it lasted.

@Tyler_McComas @RedheadedSooner @Nattys4Patty

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

@eksoftball2026 @Haley_Schmitt29 and the rest of the Tigers: Good luck the rest of the way! I had hoped to be able to get away from work early enough to get to tonight’s game in CC, but I am stuck in a client meeting — and then I go to West Virginia for a month tomorrow. So it has been fun watching you guys and I’ll be cheering you on from afar.

[🇨🇭🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿InLucysHead🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇨🇭© @InsideLucysHead]

My Daddy told me this is why different branches of the military have so much trouble communicating...

They all have different vocabulary.

For instance: "Secure that building."

Tell a marine that and he'll go kill everyone inside.

Tell a soldier and he'll put up razor wire, sandbags, and machine gun nests.

Tell a sailor and he'll go in and close and lock all the windows and doors.

Tell an airman and he will take out a lease with an option to buy.

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

Best version of this I’ve seen.

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

@Tyler_McComas @Nattys4Patty @RedheadedSooner @OU_Softball @PlankShow

“Death Valley”…I like it!

And .647 / 20 HR isn’t bad either (if I remember correctly).

[James Woods @RealJamesWoods]

Greatest one-line tweet ever.

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

@grok what is the difference between 作 and 做?

[R O H I T @lwkyRohit]

i thought bro married a centaur 😭😭😂

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

@jen_schro I can 100% believe this. Can’t imagine that it wouldn’t make it really hard to recruit and keep elite pitchers. I know there is no room for outfield bleachers but you could at least fix the fences — you do have ten feet of room unless Google Earth is deceiving me.

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

@CheleHat425 @SoleyggyxSoley @saxonswain7 (laughing)

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

Depends on the OU fan. You are right that any OU fan who complains that Wells is being pitched around is being silly. Most of Sooner Nation agrees with you.

Plenty of us in Sooner Nation — MOST of us in Sooner Nation, in fact, if you talk to us in real life rather than confusing X with the real world — are well aware that Grant is a better hitter and overall offensive player right now than K-Dub is, and will say so readily and plainly. Lots of us know that OU pays half again as many outs per Wells homer as UCLA pays per Grant homer, and appreciate Grant’s performance for the all-time greatness that it is (better than not only freshman Wells, but also arguably better than peak Alo), while still enjoying Wells’s historic freshman season for what IT is (definitely better than freshman Alo).

But relatively few OU fans think anyone, including Wells, is better than Grant offensively this year, and only a very small number of idiots are silly enough to think Wells gets pitched around more than Grant does. In fact most Sooner fans are well aware that the biggest thing Wells has to work on over the summer is her pitch selection, which we don’t mind because she’s just a freshman and we have seen how OU hitters generally develop between their freshman and senior years…as did, after all, Megan Grant.

[Ken Pierce @RedneckPeril]

@SoleyggyxSoley @saxonswain7 (grinning) Your loss. (Not really.)