Month: April 2018

Interacting in the Brave New World – Part 3

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In this third part of the essay I think I’ll consider how to talk to those in the middle.  We all have friends and relatives who act as if they think there aren’t any important issues separating the Left and Right.  In fact, they say they don’t see the sense in resisting the dictates of the Left because the freedom they would gain is nothing as compared to the benefits they lose if they cross the Left.  They get to be part of the intelligentsia and reap the benefits of living on Mt. Olympus.  All they have to do is say two plus two is five or three or whatever it equals today.

Well, I have seen a shift in these people.  Mostly it seems to happen when they have children.  Then they realize exactly what it entails to have to tell your children that two plus two equals five, or rather they have to deal with having their kids come home from school and tell it to them.  But they are still conflicted.  Typically, they challenge you to prove that what they themselves have a hard time believing can be challenged.  But really, they’re almost begging you to show them it’s possible to say no.

So, what you do is tell them what you know about the Left and where we are heading and tell them what you intend to do and how you’ll do it.  But most importantly do not stay silent when someone spouts one of the leftist platitudes.  I tell them what I really think and why I think it.  I don’t get excited or angry.  I say it all in a matter of fact way and I tell them that a lot of people feel exactly the same and that the people pushing this leftist nonsense aren’t our friends.

Of course, you have to know your audience.  You will find that a certain portion of your friends and family actually are hopelessly entangled through work or marriage with the Left.  I recommend bypassing them.  You won’t win and you’ll only cause needless strife.  Instead choose other more promising targets.  You’ll pretty easily tell where those willing to hear the truth are.  They’re probably already halfway there already.  The Trump Presidency and the madness associated with the Resistance have been pretty powerful catalysts for waking people up.

But one thing I will caution you about.  Proselytizing at work is very risky.  I recommend talking to work friends off-site and during a social occasion rather than a work function.  Many corporations are riddled with highly converged individuals that will take offense and possibly cause you trouble if your political leanings become known.

So that’s it.  Pick your targets and give them the straight stuff.  There are plenty of people who are waiting to join our side.  Just do it rationally and confidently.

Longmire – A TV Review – Part 1

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Last year I watched Justified on Netflix discs. I thought it was great.  I liked it so much I bought the blue-rays and watched it again.  It was still great.    But I didn’t want to burn the show out.  So I asked around to see if there was anything else out there that was worth watching.  One of my relatives suggested Longmire.  He said it was a modern day western, a show about a sheriff in modern day Montana.  It sounded odd but I figured why not.

So me and Camera Girl have watched the first two discs. She thinks it’s great.  My reaction is slightly different.  I like the main character.  My problem is with the female characters.  Sheriff Longmire has a daughter who is some kind of lawyer.  She always seems to be whining about something.  Either her father isn’t doing something he should be or he is doing something he shouldn’t be.  It’s very annoying.  Then there’s the female deputy from New Jersey.  I thought we were done with the female cop who complains about being treated different than the guys.  Apparently she hasn’t gotten the memo.  In one scene she starts gyrating on the stripper poll at a club to get the patrons to give her information and in the next scene she’s threatening some cowboy for checking out her butt while she’s walking in front of him.  I mean, come on.  Do we have to have this nonsense in a cop show?  And there some other things.  There’s a believability thing sometimes.  In one episode Longmire threatens to release a grizzly bear on a suspect unless he confesses to using a grizzly bear to murder his enemy.  I’m not 100%  sure about this but I’m guessing that might be considered a coerced confession.

 

So there are some fantasy aspects to the plot lines in the show and the personal stories of the characters are a little shaky. The daughter I find especially annoying.  I’m hoping he gets that grizzly bear back and lets it eat her for real.  But I actually do kinda like it so far.  Camera Girl has adopted the show and I do like to keep her happy because she feeds me so I’m going to keep watching it.  If it goes completely off the deep end I will have to invoke male television primacy and call an end to it.  But I confess it’ll have to be really bad for that to happen.  It’s like Mueller.  Trump can only pull the plug on him if the damage he is doing is worse than the fallout from the firing.  Definitely a delicate judgement call.

 

So, so far, one thumb up. To be continued.  The jury is still out.

Help Me Out Here

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Over the course of the last year, the whole Mueller thing has been such a mystery to me that I confess (much to my shame as a pundit) that I have no clue how this whole thing ends.  I would appreciate anyone’s honest opinion on this crucial topic.  Pick as many as seem appropriate and if I’ve left out your favorite feel free to write it in.  The voice of the people is the voice of God.  Have your say.

 

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12APR2018 – Quote of the Day

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Always mystify, mislead, and surprise the enemy, if possible; and when you strike and overcome him, never let up the pursuit so long as your men have strength to follow; for an army routed, if hotly pursued, becomes panic-stricken, and can then be destroyed by half their number.  The other rule is, never fight against heavy odds, if by any possible maneuvering you can hurl your own force on only a part, and that the weakest part of your enemy and crush it.  Such tactics will win every time, and a small army may thus destroy a large one in detail, and repeated victory will make it invincible.

Stonewall Jackson

 

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11APR2018 – OCF Update

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Welcome to the new readers from Captain Capitalism and other pages.

I put up a pretty random mix of stuff.  I link and comment on some of the opinion sites when I see something interesting or well written.  I review mostly science fiction books and movies but often add in other stuff I like.  Lately I’ve been putting up quotes and short sections of fiction that I think are interesting.  I have a bunch of photos from Zion and the Grand Canyon that I’ll post over the next few weeks in the photo section.  And I like to do satirical Trump fiction (very goofy stuff).  I like to think of the President as a cartoon character.  And it’s actually a friendly gesture.  I honestly think he is the last hope this country has.

I let folks have their say on the comments and the forums.  But try to keep it reasonable.  I’m right of center but I don’t need an echo chamber so feel free to speak your mind.  I am beginning a list of right-wing friendly businesses and organizations.  If you know of one and want to add it and give it a good word, go ahead and add it to the forum page.

 

photog

 

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11APR2018 – Quote of the Day

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“It’s a Gift” and “The Man on the Flying Trapeze” are two of my favorite movies.  I often tell Camera Girl that she reminds me of the wife in those movies.  And she often throws things at me afterwards.  Fields was a sort of genius in my opinion.

 

“No doubt exists that all women are crazy; it’s only a question of degree.”

W. C. Fields

 

 

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Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis – A Book Review

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Zorba the Greek is a picaresque novel by Nikos Kazantzakis that supposedly is based on a real man that Kazantzakis knew.  Zorba is an old Greek working man who insinuates himself into the journey of a young well-to-do intellectual Greek fellow who is travelling to Crete to take up ownership of a coal mine there.  Their business venture and various adventures together are the story line of the book.  But the story is the apprenticeship of the bookish young man under the tutelage of Zorba.  And the craft he is learning is how to be a free man.

Kazantzakis was fascinated by philosophy and the spiritual life of the modern world.  Being an atheist, he was always searching for meaning and truth.  I’ve read a number of his books.  None of them speak to me except Zorba.  And the character in Zorba the Greek that represents Kazantzakis, the young intellectual, I do not find interesting.  Zorba is the whole story.  When he leaves the scene, I lose interest.

Zorba is a larger than life character that within the confines of his workingman’s world has lived many of the most intense experiences.  He has been a guerilla warrior in the Greek wars against the Turks and the Bulgarians.  He has been a musician, a craftsman, a laborer, a business man and an engineer.  And he has had a life-long career as a Casanova.  But at the basis of Zorba’s personality is his conviction that the only real wealth a man has is his free will.  And that is what he tries to teach the young intellectual.  A man is never free until he can throw away everything he has to follow a whim.  If he can’t do that, then he is a slave to whatever things hold him back.  And he includes wealth, family, patriotism and fear in that category.

Whether Zorba’s beliefs are consistent or even logical I’ll put aside.  The book has many moments that are comical, moving, thought provoking or some combination of the above.  The details of Cretan peasant life are picturesque but if accurate point to a primitive existence that verges on the barbaric.  But this primal landscape provides scope for the larger than life exploits of Zorba.

And no matter how things turn out, no matter how fate conspires against Zorba, he is completely undaunted.  He moves forward and latches onto the next day and the people and things around him and puts together some new mad plan to conquer the world, or at least his world.  And that is the greatest charm of the book.  To meet a man who has an unquenchable appetite for life.  To meet someone who loves life at the visceral level.  Who sees everything as if for the first time.  Sees, hears, smells, tastes and touches things as if he were the first man in the world to do so.  That is the charm if you can imagine it.  That’s what makes it a perfect summer book for me.  At least the parts with Zorba in center stage.

So how does the apprenticeship go?  Well the young man will never be Zorba and at the end of the book he fails the test that Zorba gives him.  But without a doubt his life has been enriched and his outlook has been broadened by knowing and surviving this catastrophic character.

 

 

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Interacting in the Brave New World – Part 2

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At the end of the first installment of this series I said “Next time we’ll talk about how you talk to a prospective wife.”  Well, I think I’ll leave that one for a later date, mostly because my dating advice is more than forty years out of date.  Instead I think I’ll talk about how to interact with the “right-wing.”  I put that in scare quotes because even mapping that territory is so fraught with contention that I’m liable to set off a turf war just trying to alphabetize the list.  So, I will speak in generalities and I will err on the side of caution.

My handy-dandy guidelines for interacting within the right-wing:

  • Don’t get involved in intra-mural wars. If two right-wing factions are at odds let them settle it themselves.  The last thing anyone needs is you playing marriage counselor to the Alt-Right.
  • Don’t ever discuss family squabbles with the enemy. That includes “neutral” parties who claim to be “conservatives.”  Look at the helpful NeverTrumpers at the National Review and the Weekly Standard.  They’re just full of good advice for us poor rubes in Trump Land.
  • You don’t have to agree with anything that you consider morally wrong just to “fit in.” Of course, that doesn’t mean you have to declare jihad against those who disagree with you.  Just walk away.  Find a camp where you are comfortable.  It’s a very big world.
  • Going along with the last point don’t attack to your right. Even if you disagree with someone you consider too extreme, don’t take it upon yourself to police the right.  Let the lefties fight their own battles.  Don’t do it for them.
  • Whenever it is at all possible, support right wing groups financially, politically, socially and with morale boosting. And especially do it at the expense of the left-wing.  And do it even if it has a penalty in terms of quality, cost or status.  Think of it as part of the war effort.  Eventually it should pay dividends.
  • Be slow to take offense. There are many folks out there who let zeal get the better of their manners.  I try to add an extra dollop of courtesy when corresponding on-line with someone I don’t know well.  Many people have a very excitable writing style when discussing highly inflammatory subject matter, which includes just about everything likely to come up in one of these political discussions.  Tread lightly.  Sometimes it’s best to agree to disagree and even let the other guy get the last word and just walk away.  Winning the internet is a lonely assignment.
  • And finally, have fun. There are a lot of good people out there who are looking for the chance to share their thoughts and experiences in the trenches.  Even some of the lefties can be decent folks.  Just don’t let them borrow any money.  They won’t pay you back.  They’re communists you know.

 

 

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10APR2018 – Quote of the Day

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Sometime soon I’ll have to write a book review of Zorba the Greek.  I have a love/hate relationship with the book but every few years I have to reread it.  I think I read it not because the book is flawless (far from it) but because Zorba represents the essential component of the male soul, force of will.

Zorba the Greek by Nikos Kazantzakis

Chapter 19

…    ‘Let’s get back to our subject! What about Zeus?’

‘Ah! the poor chap!’ sighed Zorba. ‘I’m the only one to know what he suffered. He

loved women, of course, but not the way you think, you pen-pushers! Not at all! He

was sorry for them! He understood what they all suffered and he sacrificed himself for

their sakes! When, in some god-forsaken country hole, he saw an old maid wasting

away with desire and regret, or a pretty young wife – or even if she wasn’t at all pretty,

even if she was a monster – and her husband away and she couldn’t get to sleep, he

used to cross himself, this good fellow, changed his clothes, take on whatever shape

the woman had in mind and go to her room.

‘He never bothered about women who just wanted petting. No! Often enough even he

was dead-beat: you can understand that. How could anybody satisfy all those she-

goats? Ah! Zeus! the poor old goat, More than once he couldn’t be bothered, he didn’t

feel too good. Have you never seen a billy after he’s covered several she-goats? He

slobbers at the mouth, his eyes are all misty and rheumy, he coughs a bit and can

hardly stand on his feet. Well, poor old Zeus must have been in that sad state quite

often.

‘At dawn he’d come home, saying: “Ah! my God! whenever shall I be able to have a

good night’s rest? I’m dropping!” And he’d keep wiping the saliva from his mouth.

‘But suddenly he’d hear a sigh: down there on earth some woman had thrown off her

bedclothes, gone out onto the balcony, almost stark naked, and was sighing enough

to turn the sails of a mill! And my old Zeus would be quite over-come.

“Oh, hell! I’ll have to go down again!” he’d groan.

“There’s a woman bemoaning  her lot! I’ll have to go and console her!”

‘And it went on like that to such an extent that the women emptied him completely. He

couldn’t move his back, he started vomiting, became paralysed and died. That’s when

his heir, Christ, arrived. He saw the wretched state the old man was in: “Beware of

women!” he cried.’

 

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