Month: August 2021

Joey Biden Has a Tough Day

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I watched Biden’s speech and a little bit of the press conference just because of the gravity of the situation and wondering what he would say.  He started out by saying it was a tough day.  I don’t think anyone will contradict him on that.  But then he went right back into his “withdrawal is hard” schtick.  He wants us to believe that this was the only way that a withdrawal could have been done.  The fact that this is a ludicrous statement doesn’t seem to matter to Biden.  The media doesn’t know how to make all this Donald Trump’s fault so they’re kind of stunned.  It was like one of those George H. W. Bush press conferences where he just kept repeating, “stay the course,” like it was some kind of mantra.  I think at this point there will be some Americans taken hostage by ISIS and the horror of that can only be imagined.

Until to day I wasn’t convinced this would be a downfall event for Biden.  Now I think it will be.  I think the bleeding from this will go on and on.  Something like a thousand al Qaeda fighters have been released from prison and it doesn’t take much imagination to guess how much mayhem and damage they will do.  This operation was botched in a way that almost seems deliberate.  I’m starting to think this was the Deep State’s revenge for pulling the plug on Afghanistan.  How do you not at least make sure that all the civilians who need to get out aren’t already gone when you draw down the troops for the exit maneuver and how do you announce that it will be happening in the middle of the Taliban’s fighting season?  Were these generals that stupid?  Is it even possible?

I’ve agreed for the last five years that we needed to put an end to the Afghan occupation. Once it was clear that we were trying to make the Afghans into something they don’t want to be it was obvious that the only thing propping up their government was our army.   Once the Taliban had the upper hand in Pakistan it was only a matter of time before they did the same in Afghanistan.  But to retreat as we did it is like some kind of disaster movie plot.  It’s as if a junior officer with no practical experience in war was put in charge of a battle against a hardened enemy.  Actions are taking place out of order and opportunities are lost and chaos ensues.  At this point I wouldn’t be surprised if something really horrible happens as the last troops fly out.  It’s just too much like amateur hour.

To be honest it’s too grim to take any pleasure in Biden’s misfortune because it’s the military that’s doing the bleeding.  But I think if any good comes out of this fiasco it’s that no Congress is going to sign off on this President sending troops anywhere.  And I guess the other silver lining is that the CIA and NSA may decide that instead of pursuing red state Americans as domestic terrorists maybe they should shift their attention to keeping ISIS out of the US at the borders.  After all, if those guys walk in the way everybody else does, they might take it into their heads to come to Washington DC and then Joey boy and the Capitol Police might find out what terrorists really look like.

Of Dinosaurs and Decline

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I have a young grandson who is fascinated by dinosaurs.  I told him that if the rioting in New York City subsides I’d like to bring him to the American Museum of Natural History and let him see their dinosaur collection.  And that got me thinking.

As I’ve mentioned previously a culture needs its myths.  In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the center of the American Myth was New York City.  The rich and powerful built a modern-day Rome.  Monumental buildings and cultural centers were built and artefacts and art works were collected from around the world.  Even an enormous garden called Central Park was built in the center of the island, the most expensive real estate in the world, to provide an oasis from the concrete jungle that was built to house the business hub of a modern empire.

And from my point of view, the crown jewel was the American Museum of Natural History.  The Museum was essentially free to residents of New York City.  You were allowed to pay any amount you wanted for admission even a penny.  Out in front was a larger-than-life sculpture of Teddy Roosevelt on a horse with African and Indian bearers escorting him on one of his expeditions.  And inside was assembled a spectacular collection of natural history specimens that would fuel the imagination of anyone with a speck of imagination or curiosity.

There were magnificent dinosaur skeletons.  Specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex, Allosaurus, Brontosaurus (now renamed Apatosaurus to satisfy the boring needs of pedagogy), Triceratops, Stegosaurus and Duck-billed dinosaurs called Edmontosaurus annectens are on display in spacious halls that allow the spectators to walk around these marvels.  In addition to the dinosaurs there are skeletons of wooly mammoths, mastodons, wooly rhinoceros, giant ground sloths and other prehistoric mammals.  There are also halls filled with the preserved bodies of mammals and birds from Africa, Asia and the Americas displayed in dioramas that used painted backgrounds and other materials like native vegetation to simulate the animals in their native habitat.  Scenes of lions, rhinos, tigers and elephants provide remarkable vistas.  Other halls include collections of gemstones, artefacts of aboriginal peoples from six continents and even a life size model of a blue whale are on display.

The museum with its heroic statue of Roosevelt is itself an artefact of a civilization at its peak of wealth, strength and confidence.  Everything fits into the myth of American, and by extension, Western civilization expanding and illuminating the world.  We gathered these specimens from the four corners of the Earth and we had studied and determined their meaning.  We were the masters of the planet and we were confidently stepping into the future.  There was even a planetarium that would teach our children of their place in the universe and our eventual explorations beyond Earth.

So, in 2021 the statue of Teddy Roosevelt was removed from the entrance of the museum.  Soon I’m sure that roving bands of BLM rioters will loot the museum and sell the dinosaur bones to crack cocaine dealers as trophy crack pipes.  Our myth about Teddy Roosevelt as the great white hunter is no different than Rome’s Julius Caesar and the Huns’ Atilla.  Not everything in the myth is true but the myth fits the needs of a people.  When you give up your myths it means you’ve given up on your reason to live as a people.  That’s what we’re seeing.

Maybe I should bring my grandson to see the Beijing Museum of Natural History’s dinosaur collection.  It would probably be safer and less depressing.

It’s Official. The Afghan Withdrawal Will be a “Full-On Horror Show”

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Last week I said, “I think it’s still too early to decide whether the Afghanistan withdrawal will be an embarrassing disgrace or a full-on horror show.”  Well that ship  has sailed.  ISIS has begun the suicide bombings and I have to assume that Biden will initiate a panicked rout of the remaining forces at the airport and then we’ll see the drumbeat of hostages and beheadings and whatever new horrors await us.

I guess there is the chance that this will be the Jimmy Carter scenario repeated for the 21st century.  Well, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy than Dementia Joe but of course the rest of us will have to go through the horror show too.

Update:  12 servicemen dead.  Dozens of Afghanis dead and the prospect for more.  I knew that Joe was a a dope.  Now we know that his Defense Department is is led by imbeciles too.  What a terrible waste of American lives.  What part of summer Taliban fighting season escaped these morons?

 

 

Camera Girl’s Super Power

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I believe in making marriage into a sit-com.  Camera Girl has said on any number of occasions that I need to write new material because she’s bored with the old stuff.  And she’s right.  But what I have in abundance is mockery.  I mock everything around me because that is how I think.  It’s a family trait that is probably our defining one.  That is how we analyze the world around us.  And because of her proximity Camera Girl is my favorite target.  I mock her choice in books, tv shows, talk shows, her frugality, her ideas about pets, her family, her friends, her rudimentary political ideas, her lack of knowledge about science, history, religion, philosophy and technology.  I make it such a regular practice to call her a poor ignorant peasant girl that she has started saying it about herself to save me the time.

What I never mock are her domestic skills.  Her ability to organize, schedule and maintain a home is remarkable.  Her cooking has kept me fat for decades and her ability to raise and entertain children is well-nigh magical.  And it’s this child-herding skill I want to write about.

This week we are entertaining the two younger grandsons and the granddaughter.  The boys are ten and seven and the girl is almost three.  Someone who doesn’t know kids might not know how hard it is to keep this combination of ages and sexes busy and happy at the same time.  Suffice it to say it’s like juggling chainsaws.  But she does it effortlessly.  She’s even able to integrate me into the trick when she thinks I can be trusted.  For instance, at one point, the next event was ninety minutes in the swimming pool.  But right before the time, the two boys got involved in a race to see who would grab hold of a toy they both wanted, some kind of remote-controlled car.  The little guy ran a little too fast and fell, skinning both his knees badly on the driveway.  After first aid and bandaging was performed Camera Girl informed me that out of necessity I would be drafted into service.  Since the little guy couldn’t go in the pool in his wounded condition, he would be watching a movie about tyrannosaurs (his favorite subject) and I would keep him company.  And she had made the right call.  Whereas I could have taken the other two kids to the pool, what she realized was that if I provided my nerd-like knowledge of prehistoric creatures as a way to occupy him, then my grandson wouldn’t feel so bad about missing the swimming pool which was a sore disappointment to a little boy.  We sat there and talked about the latest research on the most probable speed that a T. rex could run.  We discussed whether the T. rex was really the apex predator of all time and really the greatest creature to ever walk the face of planet Earth.  And even though I might have some theories on T. rex that differed from this dinosaur enthusiast’s I listened very respectfully and tried to enrich the discussion with some other scientific and general interest items.  And when his brother and cousin returned from the pool there wasn’t a single sad face or harsh word from him.  I had performed adequately and hadn’t dropped a chainsaw.

And later on, when the two younger ones were going to play some board game (I think Candyland) I was entrusted with taking the older guy outside for a baseball catch.  It was pretty hot out there but the hour went by like a flash as we tossed around the ball and talked about whatever was on his mind.  And once again I completed my task without incident and tossed the chain saw back to the master juggler.

And so it goes.  Minding a toddler and keeping her safe, soothing a little boy with sore knees and keeping a ten-year-old from getting bored all while cooking breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner, cleaning the dishes, doing the shopping, washing the clothes and dealing with all my complaints without dropping a stitch.  Then bathing the baby and putting her to bed and before collapsing into bed herself she tries to read a few pages out of one of her books.  I honestly don’t know where her energy and work ethic come from.

But rather than think Camera Girl is a goddess, which she is, I think all women should be like her.  Raising kids is the greatest responsibility any human can undertake.  Sharing their lives and teaching them how to be people like Camera Girl does is mothering.  Plugging them into the television or the computer is what you expect from a zoo attendant or prison guard.  If the human race doesn’t get back to the old standard for mothers we’re doomed.

So, here’s to Camera Girl.  Long may her super power thrive.  I hope to see her someday plying her trade with her great grandchildren.  But I do wish she would do a better job training her dogs.  They’re all spoiled.  And she knows it.