Month: May 2019
Thriving in the Post Normal World – Part 1
This post is a variation on the theme of how do we get on with our lives as the progressives dismantle all the institutions that used to anchor people to the things that make life meaningful. So, if the Boy Scouts is turned into some kind of transgender pride indoctrination camp then take your sons and grandsons camping with other normal people. If the schools rewrite history to make villains out of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson then buy some old books and teach a class on American History. If your office is giving a lunchtime seminar in Unconscious Bias then choose to eat out at Chic-Fil-A with other like minded employees. In other words be proactive. Choose to create alternatives to the narrative approved default. Instead of going to Drudge, go to WhatFinger News. Instead of CBS go to Fox or Real Clear Politics. Instead of Google use DuckDuckGo or Brave. Instead of Facebook go to blogs that you like (hint, hint). And make sure you have some fun doing these things.
None of these alternatives are perfect. All of them are work-arounds. But they work. And we need to build bigger and better things. Losing the Boy Scouts and the schools isn’t a good thing. Having your church try to indoctrinate you into LGBTQ gibberish isn’t acceptable. We’re going to need new organizations and new churches. That’s a tall order. But it’s going to have to be done. Maybe some of these things can be reformed. But that will be very difficult and life is short so starting anew may be the better choice.
And we’re going to have to learn how to separate from the outside world. You will have some friends and family that are so bought into the narrative and the progressive mind set that you will have to exclude them from many of your more important activities. But you’ll also make new friends. Embrace those who believe what you do. Some of these people will be very different from you in background but don’t be surprised if you get along well. Having common beliefs often goes hand in hand with social compatibility.
If your state is just too blue for you to breath, then move. Find a state and a community where your values are shared by the majority and you don’t have to feel like you’re living in occupied territory.
And share information. For instance, if your church has been overrun by the progressives and you need to look for alternatives a good source of information is a book by a guy named Rod Dreher called “The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation.” Not everything in it will be applicable to you and some of it you may disagree with but there is a lot in it that will make you think about how to improve your situation.
I’ve spoken lightheartedly about starting a fraternal organization but it’s more than half serious. Men need a place to go to enjoy each other’s company and also talk about things that are serious. Every venue has been compromised either to allow women to feel important or to forestall normal men from having a voice. I seriously think it’s time to start new clubs that appeal to men. You can start it as a gun club or a fishing club or a religious society or even a softball team. Just make sure the members you invite are not on the progressive team. And in addition to political talk and projects make sure there is a good deal of fun. Without fun the club will last about a month. And whatever you do don’t allow women to be members. As has been shown to be axiomatic by now, women will destroy any organization that they control and they will control any organization that they are not excluded from. Look at any church that allows women priests. But they can make sandwiches so they won’t be completely left out.
If any of you have any examples or links that you think will be helpful to the audience put it in the comments. In the second part of this I’ll try to include some more resources that might be helpful.
13MAY2019 – OCF Update
Greetings Folks. Busy work and family stuff has been a challenge lately but I finally got some spring pictures going (well mostly spring, there are some Early March winter scenes). Afraid there are a lot of moss photos in there but it is a very wet place I live in. In fact it’s been raining almost continually for the last month or so and it’s starting to affect my usually sunny disposition.
The news for our side has been almost entirely positive for the last month or so but I feel like I’m still waiting for some piece of good news to drop. Maybe I’m just getting greedy but I think there is something big coming soon. My guess is something from the Barr investigations.
I’m curious to see if Nigel Farage is able to harness the British anger over the Tories’ betrayal of the Brexit movement in order to replace them in Parliament. Third parties are always a disaster in US presidential politics but under a parliamentary system being a spoiler sometimes means holding the keys to the kingdom. Time will tell but I’m impatient to know how this one turns out.
I had fun doing the Twilight Zone/ Democrat spoof ( Trump vs It’s a Good Life (Part 1) ) and I wanted to do some more but I’m waiting till I have the right match up. In the mean time I’m plowing along with my Twilight Zone reviews. It’s funny, even some of the episodes that I remember annoying me on a second viewing can grow on you.
And War Pig, I finally finished watching EEGAH! You are right. This is weapons grade schlock. But you can tell that the creator put his whole heart into it. The mummified cave men with EEGAH talking to them was a wonderfully goofy idea. This Arch Hall guy must have been a character. Turning his son into a Ricky Nelson/Fabian surfer boy for the movie shows a monumental lack of parenting scruples.
Well, just wanted to catch up. Here’s hoping for some yuuuge news soon.
The Twilight Zone – Complete Series Review – Season 3 Episode 27 – Person or Persons Unknown
Richard Long plays David Gurney a married man waking up with a hangover after a very late night out with his wife Wilma. As he staggers around his bedroom trying to shake off his hangover he berates his sleeping wife for not even removing his shoes before letting him fall asleep the night before. Getting ready for work, he is sore at his wife because she can sleep late so he slaps her on the butt to wake her up. She wakes up but then becomes noticeably upset claiming Gurney is a stranger to her and threatening to call the police if he doesn’t leave her bedroom immediately. David decides it’s some sort of joke cooked up between his wife and one of his friends at work. After a few sarcastic words with Wilma he heads out of the house and drives to his job at the bank in his car.
When he gets to work nobody greets him and everyone acts as if they don’t know him. When he sees someone sitting at his desk he gets angry and tells the occupant to leave. The bank guard comes over and Gurney gets into an altercation with him. The guard pulls his gun out and forces David out onto the sidewalk. There waiting for them are a few policemen and Wilma. David attempts to convince them that he is who he claims to be but they arrest him and take him in the patrol car.
In the next scene David is in the office of a psychiatrist who tries to convince him that he has built up an imaginary persona under the influence of a mental illness. To convince David of this the psychiatrist calls up the telephone numbers of the friends and family who David says will know him. All of them, including his mother deny the very existence of David Gurney. Desperate to prove his existence David dives through the office window and escapes in a stolen truck. Going to his favorite bar he tries to get his friend the bartender to recognize him but with no success. Finally, he goes to a photographer’s store and asks for the photos that he had taken with Wilma. Looking in the envelope he sees a photograph of himself with his arm around Wilma. Just as he’s leaving the store, the police and the psychiatrist intercept him. David triumphantly tells the psychiatrist that he’s found proof of his own existence but when the psychiatrist looks in the envelope the picture only contains David. Now David breaks down and starts wailing that he does exist.
The scene shifts to David back in his bedroom crying out in his sleep. Wilma wakes up and tries to reassure him that he’s only having a bad dream. David is overjoyed to wake from the bad dream to find that his wife knows him. He wants to kiss her but she tells him to wait until she takes off her cold cream and her hair turban. But when she returns from the bathroom Wilma is now a blonde instead of a brunette and even though she knows David he is seeing a woman different from the wife he married. Dant, dant, Dahhhh!
To start off I’d like to express the opinion that Wilma #2 is significantly better looking than Wilma #1 so all things considered this hardly seems like a nightmare ending he’s left in. Secondly this episode is a “man screaming at his surroundings” episode which I have often condemned on aesthetic grounds. But I must confess that a number of details in the episode amused me. First off, I found his hectoring of his sleeping wife and then slapping her on the butt very naturalistic. I always enjoy the portrayal of the war between the sexes as long as the playing field isn’t tilted against the husband as it so often is. Secondly Richard Long is a decent actor and he made the character personable and sympathetic. And finally, the psychiatrist was not as ingratiating and condescending as so many characters in that persona typically are portrayed. Let’s give it a B-.
14MAY2019 – Photo of the Day
If You Need Something to Cheer You Up Today
Roger Kimball of the Spectator opines that AG Barr is not a man to trifle with.
https://spectator.us/doggedness-william-barr/
“The man is part terrier (and another part Sphinx). He will get to the bottom of this whole rotten story and (as he explained in that earlier confirmation hearing) he will neither pursue anyone groundlessly because he has influential enemies, nor will he forbear to indict someone who has broken the law because he is politically powerful. I believe this is true. Like Koko in The Mikado, I have a little list on which are the names of several prominent Democrats who I believe have broken the law. William Barr surely has a similar list, though his is probably longer.”
Brexit Party Strength in EU Elections Signals a Fight Coming Up
Farange and his Brexit party are attracting voters from both Tory and Labor voters. The new party is out-polling both of these parties in the upcoming British EU elections and it is plain that in the future the Brexit Party will attempt to force the Brexit by winning seats from both the Tories and Labor in an upcoming general election at some time in the future.
Can Farange save the exit from the EU? Well, that’s a question mark at this point, but whatever else happens the Tories look to be out as the majority party once the next election finishes. And a self-inflicted death blow is the only way to describe it. This is what we’d expect from the likes of John McCain or Mitt Romney. Arrogant tone-deafness is the description I’d attach to this level of imbecility.
13MAY2019 – Photo of the Day
The French Connection – A Movie Review
When the “The French Connection” came out in 1971 I was a high school freshman. My home room teacher was trying to come up with a class trip that would be less boring than the usual trip to a museum. So, he took the class to a Manhattan theater to see this film. I would say that was the only successful school trip during my four years there.
The movie is shot in the gritty and sometimes annoying cinema verité style that was popular at the time and the soundtrack is full of weird and fairly arbitrary sounds and music meant to add a disorienting sensation to the movie. And the New York City streets and low life environs that make up a good chunk of the geography of the film are an ugly and depressing scene. But the movie succeeds on its own terms. It is the story of Popeye Doyle (played by Gene Hackman) a New York City Police detective who works undercover with his partner Buddy Russo (played by Roy Scheider) to try to stem the flow of heroin into the city. Popeye is a cowboy who will use violence and intimidation to find out where the low-level drug dealers are getting their heroin from. And his recklessness in capturing the bad guys has led to the death of a fellow cop at some time in the past.
Based on the info of an informant Popeye learns that a huge shipment of heroin is coming into the country from France. The mastermind behind the deal is a Frenchman named Alain Charnier who is accompanied by his hitman Pierre Nicoli. They are arranging to sell the drugs to a small time Brooklyn gangster named Sal Boca who along with his young wife Angie run a sandwich shop and drug dealership. In the movie Popeye and Buddy discover Sal’s part in the drug deal completely at random. They were in the Copacabana after work for a drink when Popeye notices a number of mob-connected drug dealers socializing with a young couple that neither of the detectives recognize. On a hunch they follow the couple and see them change cars and appearance before assuming the part of small business owners in Brooklyn. After checking their police records and observing Sal enter the building of a known drug financier named Joel Weinstock, Popeye becomes convinced that Sal is part of the heroin deal and asks his boss to request wire taps for Sal’s home and business.
The two Frenchmen reach New York and Popeye and Buddy, assisted by some federal agents, follow Sal and identify his contacts. But Charnier is aware of the surveillance and plays a game of cat and mouse with Popeye, in one case outwitting him in a game of follow the leader on a subway car. But the lack of results frustrates the police hierarchy and the assignment is cancelled with Popeye and Buddy sent back to the street work they usually do. But Charnier’s hitman Pierre Nicoli is unhappy with Popeye knowing so much about the plan and he tells his boss that he will take care of the detective.
In the next scene Popeye is walking home to his apartment in the Marlborough Housing Project off 86th Street in south Brooklyn when a rifle shot strikes a nearby woman wheeling a baby carriage. After Popeye avoids another half-dozen rounds, he goes up to the roof to find the sniper. He finds the rifle but Nicoli has fled and looking down Popeye sees the man fleeing the area. He chases Nicoli to the elevated subway station of the B train and sees the killer escape on a train. Popeye flags down a motorist and commandeers his car. What follows is one of the greatest car chase scenes in movie history. The elevated train line Straddles and constricts 86th Street running beneath it. And this narrowness and the congestion of the traffic along this busy road makes the high-speed chase that Popeye attempts essentially suicidal. He’s chasing an overhead train on a crowded road by weaving in and out of the oncoming lane while traveling at what’s supposed to be sixty miles an hour. Suffice it to say the unlucky motorist wouldn’t be getting much of his car back at the end of Popeye’s race.
Meanwhile Nicoli is commandeering the train and preventing it from stopping at the local stations. In the commission of this plan he shoots an NYPD officer and the train conductor and gives the subway motorman a heart attack which leads to the train crashing into the back of another train on the same track. Staggering out of the wreck Nicoli tries to leave the elevated station but Popeye has managed to reach the station ahead of him and when Nicoli tries to run Popeye shoots him in the back and guards his body until the police arrive.
After the killings committed by Nicoli, the investigation is relaunched and Popeye and Buddy are in charge again. They discover the drugs hidden in a car planted for the exchange and once the deal takes place, they spring their trap. A small army of police surround the deserted building on Ward Island where the drug dealers are holed up. Sal is killed in the gun battle but the rest of the New York gang and the drugs are captured by the police. Now Popeye and Buddy go after Charnier. Popeye tells Buddy that Charnier is in the far end of the building. Popeye walks straight toward the room but when a figure appears in the doorway Popeye cuts him down with five shots from his revolver. But when Buddy goes over to the body it’s the federal agent that Popeye disliked the most. Popeye ignores the gravity of what he’s just done and says he knows Charnier is in the room and charges in. We hear a shot ring out and the scene ends.
Text on the screen tells us that only a couple of criminals served time and even that wasn’t for more than a few years. Doyle and Russo were transferred out of the narcotics division and reassigned. Charnier was never caught and was believed to be back in France.
As noted above this movie suffers from being a product of early nineteen seventies film-making. New York City at that time period was a pretty gritty place. At best, Popeye Doyle is a flawed hero but more accurately he is an anti-hero. But his cowboy approach to police work is fast-paced and riveting. Hackman and Scheider have a good chemistry as cop buddies. And without a doubt, the chase scene is a must-see experience. On a personal note I grew up in the area where Popeye Doyle lived and where the chase scene took place. I can attest that only a heavily armed individual with a death wish could live in the Marlboro Projects back in the 1970s with no fear for life or limb. And if someone tried to drive down 86th Street in the way represented by the movie’s chase scene the body count would have been truly noteworthy.
I recommend the movie to all fans of action movies and crime dramas.
12MAY2019 – Photo of the Day
