24FEB2019 – Photo of the Day
Month: February 2019
24FEB2019 – Quote of the Day
“Each generation has to stand up for democracy. It can’t take anything for granted and may have to fight fundamental battles anew.”
Margaret Thatcher
The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 5 – The Howling Man
David Ellington narrates his unbelievable past. After WW I he was hiking through Central Europe when a sudden thunderstorm disoriented him and he sought shelter in a hermitage. The brothers were unwilling to give David shelter but he passes out and when he wakes up, he hears a wolf howling. He follows the sound back to a man imprisoned in a cell who begs him to release him. Before he does, he is brought to Brother Jerome’s office. Brother Jerome, the head of the hermitage, informs David that the man in the cell is actually the Devil. David seems so skeptical that Jerome explains that since he had imprisoned him the Devil had no longer been able to wreak havoc on the world. And he warns David that if he escapes again, he’ll devastate the earth. But David couldn’t believe the story so he removes the “Staff of Truth” that was barring the cell and the Devil escapes.
It’s many years later and we see that David is telling this story to his maid. He tells her that after many years he has recaptured the devil in a room in the apartment and tells the maid not to remove the “Staff of Truth” from the door. When David leaves to arrange transportation back to Brother Jerome’s the maid removes the staff and the Devil is loosed on the world again.
The set is reminiscent of some Universal Classic Horror movie and Brother Jerome is played by John Carradine who looks sufficiently gothic with his big beard and haunted eyes. I’m a sucker for classic horror ambience. B.
23FEB2019 – Quote of the Day
“Do you know that one of the great problems of our age is that we are governed by people who care more about feelings than they do about thoughts and ideas.”
Margaret Thatcher
22FEB2019 – Quote of the Day
“What is success? I think it is a mixture of having a flair for the thing that you are doing; knowing that it is not enough, that you have got to have hard work and a certain sense of purpose.”
Margaret Thatcher
23FEB2019 – Photo of the Day
22FEB2019 – Photo of the Day
The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 2 Episode 4 – A Thing About Machines
Bartlett Finchley is a food critic who detests people almost as much as he does machines. When we first meet him he is castigating his tv repairman for cheating him and failing to sympathize with his battle against his household machines. The repairman states that Finchley has thrown his transistor radio down the stairs and kicked his foot through the picture tube of his television. He considers Finchley a crank.
But once Finchley is alone in his house we see the inexplicable behavior of the machines. A clock starts ringing endlessly even after it’s been broken in fragments. His electric razor came alive on his own and struck at him as if it were a cobra. His automobile escapes his control and crashes into his house and later on releases the emergency brake and rolls into the street barely missing a child. Later on a typewriter and his tv set both start telling him to leave the house.
When his typist shows up and he insults her she quits. But before she can leave Finchley begs her to stay because as much as he dislikes her, he fears his machines more. Before she leaves, she mocks him and tells him he’s paranoid. After the horrors of his day Finchley gets soused and passes out. When he wakes up all the appliances attack at once. All of the speaking devices tell him to get out and the razor slithers down the stairs in pursuit.
As he runs out the door his car chases him around the property until it pushes him in the swimming pool. The next day the cop and ambulance driver discuss how he could have ended up that way.
Alright, the fussiness of Benchley and some of his diatribes are a little amusing but this is really thin. C+.
Trump Should Get to Pick the Next Trump
Listening to the Powerline interview of Michael Anton. The interviewer asked a very salient question. Who comes after Trump? Anton said maybe Senator Cotton might be the closest to Trump in policy position, but that nobody else had the loyalty of the Deplorables the way President Trump does. And that is true. And also Trump is the one with the instincts to know who is real and who is “fake.” I’ve said this before but it bears repeating as we progress through President Trump’s term in office. He needs to be the one to anoint his successor.
I think it will be very interesting to see if Mike Pence will be his running mate in 2020. I think Pence probably will be but I wouldn’t be shocked if he weren’t. President Trump has a great responsibility to try to extend the time during which changes to the troubled status-quo can occur. Sixteen or even twenty four years is only a part of the time that is needed to repair the damage that has already been done to the Republic. We need to think of even eight years of reform as just the start of what must be done if we expect normalcy to ever recover. We need a string of Trump like presidents just to get back to zero.
Sounds impossible. But stranger things have happened. Meanwhile hopefully Trump is already thinking about who his successor will be in five years.
Michael Anton is Interviewed on Powerline
Michael Anton wrote the Flight 93 election back in 2016 and he is one of the people who recognized how important it was to beat Hillary Clinton. He has served in the Trump White House and he is a Claremont guy. I think he is one of the smarter guys out there and he’s on our side. I found this podcast very interesting.