Month: March 2018

Trump vs the Hell Storm (Part 2)

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Trump vs the Hell Storm (Part 1)

 

Dramatis Personae:  President Trump – (PT); Vice President Pence – (VPP);

Scene 1: Trump Tower, Executive Suite.  Monday 1pm.  President Trump and Vice President Pence face to face around a small round office table.  The table is littered with coffee cups and crumpled legal paper.

PT – Also no good?  Alright, how about this one?  Ten years ago, Putin knew that I was destined to be President.  So, in order to destroy me he drugged me with Spanish fly and brainwashed me into sleeping with Stormy Daniels.  It makes sense, right?  It’s some form of Russian collusion and in a way my brain which is like a computer was hacked by Putin.

VPP – Stop!  Enough!  I’m sorry Mr. President but that’s enough.  I can’t listen to even one more of these insane lies.  I know you’re desperate but there isn’t one chance in a trillion that anyone, and I mean anyone would believe any of those stories.

PT – But then what can I do?

VPP – I know it’s a little late in the game but have you thought of the truth and an apology?

PT – Mike, that’s a brilliant idea.  Why didn’t I think of that?  Anyway, I’m going home right now and put your brilliant strategy into effect.  Who knows?  If this goes well I might even start telling the truth to Congress.

VPP – Mr. President, please take some time before you speak to her and try to understand her feelings about what you will be telling her.  This will be a devastating conversation and you must be sensitive to her emotions and let her sense your sadness and contrition.

PT- Look Mike you came up with a good idea but don’t get all Dr. Phil on me.  I think I know a thing or two about the ladies if you know what I mean.  I’ll pour on the Trump charm and prove just how large my hands really are if you catch my drift.  See ya Mike.  (exits the room.)

VPP – Great Caesar’s Ghost.  She’s going to murder him.

 

Scene 2 – Tuesday morning 3am outside the Vice Presidential Residence.  Two men supporting a third man between them.  The third man shakily ringing the doorbell.

VPP – (voice speaking over the intercom)  Is that you Mr. President?

PT – Help me Mike.  Please help me.

VPP – I’m buzzing you in. (the lock buzzes open).

 

Scene 3 – The Vice-Presidential Parlor.  President Trump is slumped back on a chaise longue.  He has several small bandages over cuts on his face, a noticeable black eye and a bag of ice sitting on his groin.  The Secret Service agents appear embarrassed and Vice President Pence is standing nervously fiddling with his robe belt looking down on the President.

PT – You set me up Mike.  I went into the lion’s den like some kind of roman martyr.  I told her the truth and told her Stormy was over-rated as far as the sex went and that I’d make it up to her in the sack and that she didn’t look bad at all for her age.

VPP – Oh good grief.

PT – You have no idea.  She went for the family jewels again so I curled up in a fetal position like they tell you to do with bears.  But she was ready for that.  She worked the face and and kidneys.  She must have studied MMA or jiu-jitsu at some point.  It took six Secret Service agents to get me out of there alive and two of them are at Walter Reed.  One of them probably isn’t going to pull through.

VPP – Mr. President, I’m sure you’re exaggerating.

PT – Have you ever known me to exaggerate?

VPP – Never mind.  How would you like me to help you?

PT – Well after that lousy advice I need you to redeem yourself and come up with an idea to fix this mess you’ve gotten me into.

VPP – (some strangled muffled sounds come from the Vice President’s throat and then there is quiet).  Certainly Mr. President.  I’ll attempt to provide you with better advice.  Is there anything else I can do for you this morning?

PT – Yeah Mike.  Can you get Mrs. Pence to make us some more eggs?  This experience has been extremely taxing.

(more strangled sounds come from Pence and he leaves).

PT – He’s a great guy when he’s on his game.  Alright guys help me into the dining room.

The ZMan Counsels the Zombies of the Right

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The ZMan has a very interesting post, “Day Walkers.” He makes an analogy between the Alt-Right and the zombie-vampires in I Am Legion.  He equates right wing speakers going on campus to vampires attacking humans in the daylight, basically a vampire suicide scenario.  I haven’t had a chance to think this whole analogy out completely but I definitely see what he is talking about and it is worth thinking about.

http://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=13324

27MAR2018 – Quote of the Day

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A little bitter but recognizable to all ages.

 

William Shakespeare

As You Like It.  Act 2 Scene 7

JAQUES

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse’s arms.

And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Trump vs the Hell Storm (Part 1)

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Dramatis Personae – President Trump – (PT);  Vice President Pence (VPP);

Scene 1 – Front Entrance to the Vice-Presidential Residence Monday, 3 am.  Three figures standing in the shadows.  The middle figure rings the door-bell.

VPP – (His loud, angry voice coming out of the front door intercom) – Who’s ringing this bell at this hour.  I’ll have the Secret Service down there to arrest you, you crazy fool.

PT – (The middle figure now whispering into the intercom) – Shhhhh Mike!  It’s me and I’m here with the Secret Service.  Now let us in!

Scene 2 – Immediately afterward in the front foyer of the VP Residence.  President Trump and Vice President Pence facing each other with four Secret Service Agent forming a perimeter around them.  Both VPP and PT are in pajamas and robes.

VPP – Mr. President, has there been an attack or a disaster.

PT – Both.  Mrs. Trump watched the Stormy Daniels show on tv and attacked me.  It was a disaster.

VPP – But why are you here at this unnatural hour.

PT – Well I couldn’t stay there.  She keeps taking shots at the family jewels.  That body armor I’m wearing doesn’t do a damn thing for groin shots.

VPP – But what can I do about that?

PT – Mike I need to use your guest bedroom for a while.  And I need you help.  She’s really mad!

VPP – Mr President, it’s just that Mrs. Pence is not one of your bigger fans.  She thinks you’re a bad influence.

PT – Boy, that seems judgmental.  I mean, I never said anything bad about her.  Well I can be the bigger man.  But look Mike, you owe me this.  If it wasn’t for me you wouldn’t be the second most powerful man in the world.  You’d still be the governor of Oklahoma.

VPP – Indiana.  For Pete’s sake I was the governor of Indiana.

PT – Indiana, right, right that’s right.  Sorry, yes.  But come on Mike, you gotta help me out.  I need some time to figure out a plan.  Maybe a present or a vacation.  Something to give her a chance to cool down.

VPP – Alright Mr. President.  Come on in.  The Secret Service will set you up in the guest room.  I’ll see you at breakfast.  Good night.

PT – Thanks Mike.  I’ll never forget you for this.  Good night.

Scene 3 – Vice Presidential Residence Dining Room, 9 am, same personnel.

PT –  Boy, Mike, the eggs are pretty crummy here.

VPP – I don’t know Mr. President, I’ve always thought MY WIFE makes a very nice breakfast!  And by the way, my wife is still talking to me.  If you get my meaning.

PT – That’s what I said.  These eggs are really YUMMY!  That’s right I said yummy.

VPP – That’s what I hoped you said.

PT – And what a lovely woman Mrs. Pence is.  I’ve always thought she was the best.  Yes sir, I did.

VPP – Thank you sir.  Now what is your plan?

PT – Well, I tossed and turned all night and came up with three different plans.  I’ll present them and you tell me which one sounds best.

VPP – Very good sir.

PT – Okay.  So my first idea is amnesia.

VPP – Amnesia?

PT – Amnesia, yeah.

VPP – But how?

PT – Whaddya mean?

VPP – Well how did you get amnesia and how did it end up causing you to have sex with a porn actress?

PT – Well, it could have happened in any number of ways.  Do I have to spell it out for you?

VPP – I don’t think it’s me you’re going to have to spell it out to.  But if you really propose using an amnesia defense I think there better be more than just the word amnesia.

PT – Fine.  Ahhhhhh, so something like this.  I was walking down Park Avenue near Trump Tower when a small child came out of nowhere and ran into traffic.  I hurtled over pedestrians and snatched up the infant out of the street just as a taxi was streaking by.  I leaped back to curb and deposited the newborn in its mother’s arms.  But by a horrible stroke of bad luck a brick broke loose from the building façade and struck me on the head.  My thick vibrant head of hair blunted the death blow but I was rendered amnesiac.  I forgot that I was currently married and just at that moment a passing bus with a Victoria’s Secret ad caught my eye.  And the rest was fate.

VPP – Vibrant?

PT – Too much detail?

To Be Continued

 

Trump vs the Hell Storm (Part 2)

26MAR2018 – Quote of the Day

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So, the Odyssey is a sacred text for me.  Here is the story of a courageous (if devious) man and a loyal wife and mother.  Buffeted by fate, world war and surrounded by enemies they strive against all odds and for half their lives to get back together and restore their domestic peace.  What else do you need in a story.  Well, an amorous witch, a Cyclops and a journey to hell and back couldn’t hurt.  I translated several chapters with the help of a good Homeric dictionary about forty years ago.  Now that my brain is mush I look for a good translation.  I prefer the version by Robert Fitzgerald  but this is an older English version by the poet Samuel Butler that is in the public domain.  Here’s the beginning of the poem and the Greek text of the same for atmosphere.

Tell me, O Muse, of that many-sided hero who traveled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the people with whose customs and thinking he was acquainted; many things he suffered at sea while seeking to save his own life and to achieve the safe homecoming of his companions; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished through their own sheer recklessness in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Helios; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, as you have told those who came before me, about all these things, O daughter of Zeus, starting from whatsoever point you choose.

ἄνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ

πλάγχθη, ἐπεὶ Τροίης ἱερὸν πτολίεθρον ἔπερσεν:

πολλῶν δ᾽ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω,

πολλὰ δ᾽ ὅ γ᾽ ἐν πόντῳ πάθεν ἄλγεα ὃν κατὰ θυμόν,

ἀρνύμενος ἥν τε ψυχὴν καὶ νόστον ἑταίρων.

ἀλλ᾽ οὐδ᾽ ὣς ἑτάρους ἐρρύσατο, ἱέμενός περ:

αὐτῶν γὰρ σφετέρῃσιν ἀτασθαλίῃσιν ὄλοντο,

νήπιοι, οἳ κατὰ βοῦς Ὑπερίονος Ἠελίοιο

ἤσθιον: αὐτὰρ ὁ τοῖσιν ἀφείλετο νόστιμον ἦμαρ.

τῶν ἁμόθεν γε, θεά, θύγατερ Διός, εἰπὲ καὶ ἡμῖν.

25MAR2018 – Quote of the Day

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Robert Heinlein used this poem as the inspiration of a science fiction story and included the poem in the text.

Requiem

Under the wide and starry sky

Dig the grave and let me lie:

Glad did I live and gladly die,

And I laid me down with a will.

 

This be the verse you ‘grave for me:

Here he lies where he long’d to be;

Home is the sailor, home from sea,

And the hunter home from the hill.

(written 1880)

Robert Louis Stevenson. 1850–1894

Peak Civilization

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Hat tip to Vox Day as he links to and quotes a very interesting article about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire by one of its modern descendants, an Italian chemist named Ugo Bardi.  Vox is referencing in his title the science fiction story “A Canticle for Leibowitz” where a future world forms monasteries to preserve knowledge through a new fictional Dark Age as the analogy of us recognizing the coming Dark Ages after ours.  Which also hearkens to Rod Dreher’s book “The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation,” where he compares the present societal decay with the post Roman age that sparked the monastic age.  Bardi in his article goes into the extant texts of Romans from the beginning of the Roman crisis under Marcus Aurelius all the way to end of the Empire in the Fifth Century to argue that the Romans never figured out either what was happening to them or that the Empire could end.

I’ve been fascinated by the spectacle of the Roman Empire since I was a schoolboy hearing about Rome from my Catholic grammar school nuns.  Thinking that we are in an analogous situation is equally fascinating and depressing.  But maybe there is still time to avert such a collapse.  Vox thinks it’s probably too late for the US.  I try to be more optimistic.  If you find the current societal situation at all analogous to that other example of civilizational collapse then you might be interested in looking at both posts.

In Trump We Trust?

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Back in 2015 Vox Day identified Donald Trump as the best candidate for president.  He understood how Trump would handle the republican field and how he would connect with the American people.  Between Vox and Scott Adams I read about how a NYC billionaire was going to win Pennsylvania for the republicans for the first time since 1990s.  And they were right.  And eventually everyone found out they were right.  And the right wing rejoiced.

But believing in Donald Trump seems to be difficult for many people.  They expect a traditional politician and he’s anything but that.  And they doubt his conservative bona fides.  And it’s easy to understand.  If you’re a dyed in the wool Second Amendment advocate then the bump stock sacrifice may seem an unforgivable sin.  Or if you are a fiscal conservative the budget deal probably looks like an abomination.

But what you have to remember is that in a war sometimes tactics allow you to survive to fulfill your strategic goals.  President Trump is adept at dealing with bad optics.  He knows when to deflect and when to distract and he knows when a tactical retreat may be needed.  Basically, he knew that the gun control furor required a gesture.  He provided one.  But it’s a small retreat if it deflects the main assault.  And in the long run the Supreme Court (if appointed by someone like Trump) could find the bump stock provision unconstitutional anyway.

Right now, plenty of people on the right are throwing in the towel and declaring the end of the Trump presidency.  I guess I understand their low morale.  They’ve been conditioned by the entire post-Reagan republican experience to expect failure.  But what they don’t understand is they will never have a better chance of actually reversing some of the damage that thirty years of liberals has already done.

So now Vox is naming names for the record ( http://voxday.blogspot.com/2018/03/woe-is-us.html ) and asking that the record be kept.  And once again, I agree with him.  In Trump We Trust.  He may be defeated by the Deep State and drowned trying to drain the swamp.  But at least he’ll go down swinging.  So good for you Vox Day and long live the God Emperor, Donald Trump.  And here’s hoping the faint of heart may soon recover their hope.  Because Trump is our last best hope.

March 2018 Southwest Trip Photos – Kolob Canyons Road and Surrounding Environs

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The first stop was the area in Zion National Forest were trails near Kolob Canyons Road.  We followed a noisy stream around the area.  The individual photos can be enlarged by clicking on them although only the horizontal photos will look bigger.

Kolob Canyons Road Area
Kolob Canyons Road Area
Kolob Canyons Road Area
Kolob Canyons Road Area
Kolob Canyons Road Area
Kolob Canyons Road Area
Kolob Canyons Road Area
Kolob Canyons Road Area
Kolob Canyons Road Area
Kolob Canyons Road Area
Kolob Canyons Road Area
Kolob Canyons Road Area

 

 

24MAR2018 – Quote of the Day

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Now, Paul Simon is a commie and a friend of Woodie Allen but that commie can really write a good lyric.

 

“And the people bowed and prayed

To the neon god they made

And the sign flashed out its warning

In the words that it was forming

And the sign said, the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls

And tenement halls

And whispered in the sounds of silence”

 

Excerpt from “The Sounds of Silence” by Paul Simon