Month: June 2021

Naturalist’s Notes and Observations – 08JUN2021 – Monarch Butterflies

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Today I had a good chance to see what monarch butterfly egg laying looks like.  Apparently it’s pretty inconspicuous.  I saw the first monarch flying around the yard today and since we’ve had a bumper crop of milkweed it made a bee-line for the plants.  What I observed was the butterfly scraping the back of its abdomen over the leaf.  After just a few seconds it moved on to another plant and then another.  Apparently it’s a very casual activity and there’s no long drawn out procedure.  And I expected see many eggs but what I observed was just one or two on the leaves I observed.  I’ll make further observations and I hope to see more of this activity to determine if what I observed is representative of this activity in the life cycle of the monarch butterfly.

 

As an aside today I observed a fairly large swallowtail caterpillar feeding in the garden on Queen Anne’s Lace.  And the fact that we already have moved to the caterpillar stage with swallowtails matches up to the much earlier sighting of the swallowtail butterflies in the yard almost a month ago.

Minolta 200mm f\4 Macro lens on Sony A7 III

Joys of the Patriarchy – Rituals of the Summer Season – The Basement

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As the days reach their maximum length and when the mercury passes 90°F in what my old engineering boss would jokingly refer to as “white man’s units,” the dominant male, of the Italic strain at least, would shift his base of operations to the basement level.  Here he would gain a two-fold advantage.  The obvious one is a 15°F – 30°F reduction in ambient temperature as compared to the upper floors but equally as important is the freedom from female annoyance.  The lower level is the male domain.  It contains a pool table, a floor that needn’t be kept swept clean of minute amounts of honest dirt and vast storage space crammed full of valuable possessions that do not pass muster from Camera Girl for inclusion in the various bric-a-brac that she favors for décor.  Hundreds of old books, trophies of past campaigns, tools, and hobby, exercise and sports equipment of all sorts.  A veritable treasure house.

I learned this paradigm from Camera Girl’s father, the Old Fisherman of the Sea himself.  He would inhabit the basement in the summer almost exclusively and it was there that he was happiest.  He had his wine making operation, which encouraged at various times of the year quite a healthy throng of fruit flies, his fishing lure manufacturing space, his tool workshop, his own bath and shower and his favorite old padded chair.  He even had his own freezer and refrigerator to store the endless blue fish and striped bass that were the usual prizes from his frequent fishing trips.  Here he would retreat from the cares of work and family and reign unchallenged by female frippery and the demands for ever higher standards of particle free existence.  And in this environment, he lived to be ninety-five.  And if he hadn’t taken it upon himself to increase his gout medicine dosage to unheard of levels to compensate for his love of wine and beef, he probably would be alive today and well over a hundred years old.  God rest his soul.

Well, anyway in my version of the basement kingdom the lower level has direct access to the swimming pool and since the floor there is tiled there is no need to dry off after swimming.  Drip dry in flip-flops is acceptable.  If someone is exceedingly fastidious there is a bathroom and shower available here along with towels and changing area.  Also, the spare refrigerator from which hidden food items can be stored and retrieved without any note.  And the overstuffed recliner is available for periods of quiet reflection and deep thoughts.  And finally, the lower porch is equipped with a propane grill to handle any meat related cooking that may become necessary.  After all Camera Girl’s kitchen can be monstrously hot at this time of year.  It’s only decent that I pitch in and save her the discomfort of summer cooking as much as I am able.

There used to be a television on the wall but we removed it almost ten years ago.  There is so little worth watching that it never got used.  The only thing it lacks is a full kitchen sink and stove.  I say this with shame.  Because every good Italian American basement had a kitchen built in.  It was a point of pride and a practical feature.  This allowed the holidays with the extended family to be cooked and served in the basement which is always the largest room in the house.  Well, someday I’ll make the time and put the money aside to build this in.  For now, it is my secret shame.

Now the point of this essay is not to regale you with the lies about my basement.  The point is that in the hot weather (and to a lesser extent during all the other seasons of the year) a man can find peace and enjoyment hidden away from his loved ones in the dark and gritty comforts of the basement.  Here he can retreat from his wife and the demands of our hectic world.  Leave your phone and your computer off.  Get your hands dirty and drink a beer or whatever you like to drink and forget your troubles for an hour or even longer if they won’t come digging you out.  It is an amazing thing how they’ll leave you alone down there.  Possibly the castle that a man is king of is really only the dungeon.  But I’ll settle.

Morning Shmoe vs. The Deplorables

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Dramatis Personae: Morning Shmoe Browfurrowed (MS), Lycra Spandexy (LS)

 

MS – It’s 18 minutes and 17.023 seconds past the quarter hour here on the Morning Shmoe Show.  I’m here with my lovely bride Lycra Spandexy-Browfurrowed and we’re talking about the mouth breathing lowlifes out there on the Right who dare to claim that the 2020 election was rigged.

LS – That’s right Shmoe, you tell’em.  Let’em have it.

MS – I will dear, if you just let me finish!

LS – Sure, dear.  You go ahead I was just trying to cheer you on a little.  Okay?

MS – Okay.

LS – Okay.

MS – Woahh!.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, recently I took a call on this show from some neanderthal with the IQ of an angle worm who was trying to claim that Donald Trump won the 2020 election.  And when something like this happens, I become enraged.  This is the greatest country on the face of the earth with the greatest ballot counting people that have ever been.  Joe Burden was the greatest vice president under that greatest of all presidents Hatrack Barabbas back in the great days of this great republic.  And now he’s the greatest president of this great time.  His ability to wear a mask and tell other people to wear masks has made him a legend.  And when some ignoramus tries to claim that such a great man would be involved in anything as underhanded and unheard of as election fraud, well I can’t even describe how angry I become.

LS – Try Shmoe, try!  Tell us how mad you are.  Describe your righteous anger.

MS – Dear! …  Please, please, stop interrupting me.

LS – But I was just trying …

MS – I know what you were just trying to do.  But what you actually did was interrupt my train of thought.

LS – So I derailed your train of thought!  You’ve gone off track and want to get back on track.

MS  – STOP!!!   STOP!!!   STOP!!!

LS – erp.

MS – If you don’t stop interrupting me, I’m gonna walk off this set and find a younger, prettier, quieter co-host who can do what I say.  And remember what happened to the last woman I had a problem with.

LS – erp.

MS – ……    Okay, so, when these mental midgets try to make these crazy claims like COVID-19 came from a Chinese lab or that 800% ballot overcounts aren’t just obviously the typical rounding errors you expect in any election I want to tell these people to just get out.  That’s right, I want them out of my country.  Because this is my country.  Shmoe Browfurrowed is the decider here.  I’ve sacrificed everything for this country.  I’ve sunk thousands in dental implants and an indetectable hair process that allows me to speak to the good people of this country the way they should be talked to, from a position of authority and credibility.  I’ve sacrificed my original family members because, honestly, they just weren’t good enough for my future.  I owed it to this country to evolve beyond them.  And if Lycra starts babbling again, I’ll probably be evolving beyond her too.

LS – erp!

MS – But mostly I’ve sacrificed my outmoded sense of values.  I no longer trouble myself over seeming inconsistencies like “documentary evidence” or “math” or even “eye witness accounts.”   Because if any of those things contradict the truth that I receive from the network briefing that morning then I know it is either Russian propaganda or lies spread by Donald Trump.  Even if it was in yesterday’s briefing.  Make that, especially, if it was in yesterday’s briefing.  Because the rock bottom truth is that truth is always evolving.  Trying to sort it out yourself is madness.  The briefing has been prepared by experts in their fields and is always right until tomorrow’s briefing.

So, you can see, I’ve got this under control and we don’t need any phony baloney deplorables “thinking” or looking into things.  If you don’t trust the integrity of a great man like Joe Burden then you don’t belong here anymore.  Get out!  Get out!

Well, I’m glad I got that off my chest.  What do you think about that Lycra?

LS – erp.  Am I allowed to talk now?

MS – Certainly dear.  I just wanted to finish my thought without being interrupted.  That’s all.

LS – I agree with every word of it.  How brave you were standing up to those “truth” bullies with their facts and their logical consistency.  How unbrave they are.

MS – And on that note it’s four minutes and 13.0234 seconds past a quarter to the hour.  And it’s time for a commercial from Twerker, the social network that keeps things shaking.  Have you twerked yet today?

LS – So brave Shmoe, so brave,

MS – Shut up Lycra.  Even I can’t make believe you make sense.  Just smile and hide your wrinkles.

LS – erp.

ZMan Claims Collapse of Social Trust Will Mean Societal Collapse Soon

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ZMan walks us through the institutions that have burned through their social trust and then finishes by saying that the American Empire will soon have its collapse like the Soviet Union.

I think he makes a lot of good points.  But it’s not clear to me that any systemic collapse is likely to happen anytime soon.  And the reason for that is a collapse doesn’t occur until some external event intrudes.  So, when will that happen?  Well, it could happen tomorrow or it could be a decade.  Now, I don’t think it will be a decade, in fact I could see something happening within three or four years but I wouldn’t even think of saying it’s going to happen on such and such a day.  I think a good trick would be to try to guess what the external triggering event is likely to be.  An easy guess is a financial collapse.  The result of some kind of stagflation or very high unemployment might be enough to destabilize the political situation.  But if we are talking about a societal collapse like the Soviet collapse it would be important to know what the US military would do in the case of essentially an insurrection.  And that will completely depend on who is in the military at the time.

It’s fun to imagine a scenario that will end the Left’s hold on power.  But trying to predict its occurrence against a calendar is maybe too difficult to try at this time.

 

 

Dersu Uzala (1975) – A Movie Review

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Akira Kurosawa is probably best known in the West for his films that are set in Japan’s Sengoku period like “Seven Samurai” (1954), Kagemusha (1980) and Ran (1985).  But one picture of his that I recently watched is set in turn of the century (19th to 20th century) tsarist Russia and is based on the memoir of a Russian explorer, Vladimir Arsenyev, concerning his travels in the Ussuri basin in the Russian Far East. Dersu Uzala was a Nanai hunter.  The Nanai are a tribal people who live in the area.  Dersu guided Arsenyev’s surveying crew from 1902 to 1907.  His knowledge of the climatic and topographic dangers of this wild area several times saved Arsenyev and his men from death.

The story very simply and directly demonstrates the friendship and respect that Arsenyev and Dersu develop and when the elderly Dersu is no longer able to survive as a hunter Arsenyev takes the old Nanai home with him to Khabarovsk.  But although Arsenyev’s wife and son adopt the strange tribesman as family, we see the stifling restrictions of the town wither the old man’s spirit and he declares that he must go back to the forest.  His death and the cause of it completes this story about simplicity and modernity colliding and the humanity that exists on both sides of that intersection.

One of the interesting things about Dersu’s world view is his animism.  He sees “people” in almost everything; the sun, the moon, water, fire, the wind, the forest.  And he feels that the forest spirit watches him and punishes actions that are forbidden such as his killing of a Siberian tiger that threatened the expedition at one point.  And we see his empathy for his fellow man in the practices that he follows.  For instance, Dersu leaves salt, matches and firewood at the shelters that he leaves in the woods for the next stranger who will come along.

The movie was filmed in the Russian Far East.  The Arctic ice flows and limitless taiga forest is an impressive if forbidding back drop for the story.  Mainly it is a story of men on an adventure in the wild.  Although the film is in Russian with subtitles, it’s a pretty good story.  I recommend it.

Silly Season – 2021

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Definition of “Silly Season”

1: a period (such as late summer) when the mass media often focus on trivial or frivolous matters for lack of major news stories

2: a period marked by frivolous, outlandish, or illogical activity or behavior

 

It’s not late summer yet but when the mercury climbs above 90°F even the Burn-Loot-Murder crowd gets easily overheated and things slow down.  Sure, the professional gang-bangers are making their living and shooting each other off porches and through windshields but that kind of news isn’t very interesting anymore.

With school out for summer the Antifa kids might want to burn down the local police precinct but it’s Pride Month and they have to get the police to protect their freak parade so they’ll take off their black bloc paraphernalia long enough to go down to the local precinct and fill out the paperwork to allow them to float some giant-sized sex toy down main street while dressed as a wombat or whatever other fetish symbol they’ve adopted this week.

What’s a blogger to do?  How will I manufacture sufficient outrage to keep the public interested if all I have is Joe Burden surfacing every few days with another listless mumble about vaccinations or the Fourth of July or white supremacists threatening to tip over the continent or sabotage the summer’s ice cream supply.

I guess I have no choice but to actually think about what I want to write about.  “A thoughtful essay?” you may question.  “Does he do those?”  Well, not normally.  But during the silly season I have three choices.  Either go 100% to non-news topics (entertainment and general knowledge), fly completely off the handle and just rave like a lunatic or spend a little time digging into political and social subjects a little more thoughtfully and try to provide something insightful.

But the truth is insightful is hard.  And it’s hard to pump that kind of stuff out.  In fact, you can’t.  When you try to pump it out it pretty much equals the ravings of a lunatic.  So, during lulls in meaningful political news, I expect to be doing more cultural/entertainment stuff and fewer political items.  But my hope is that the political articles I do publish will be worth reading.

And don’t get too worried that my output will go down much.  There are bound to be a few outrages coming up shortly.  After all, these people are certifiably insane.  Even if they weren’t chock full of anti-psychotics there hasn’t been a moment in decades that they weren’t so removed from reality that they wouldn’t know the difference between a Fourth of July fireworks concert and the burning of the Reichstag.

With respect to meaningful political meditation, of late I’ve been thinking about how I would recognize “the real deal.”  To be more precise, how can I recognize who is truly working towards the re-establishment of the Old Republic and who is just running a grift?  After the exposure of the Bushes and the rest of the RINOs you’d think that we could point to their talking points and know who is the real deal.  After all the people who still whine about “illegal immigration is love” like Jeb Bush are obviously the controlled opposition.  But I think the grifters have gotten cagey.  Even Liz Cheney was smart enough to vote along with President Trump when it looked like he was going to be running things.  It was only after the election was handed to Biden that she showed her true colors.  So, it’s not a foregone conclusion that we know what’s lurking in the minds of men.  And that’s a separate question about how much brains and guts a fellow has.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been thinking about today.  When I work it up into something interesting, I’ll put it out there.  In the meantime, I’ll be watching that H.P. Lovecraft/Nick Cage collaboration.  The things I do for my readers!