All the Secrets of the Universe and Some Really Important Stuff Too!
Hi Photog…
Here is a link to a website for a friend of mine from college…
http://www.ericpbishop.com/about-eric.html
His debut novel, “The Body Man,” will go on sale beginning on November 11, 2021.
You can either post this or not, I just wanted to get you the link since it sort of lines up with the crime dramas you mention.
Jason M
It’s funny. It seems like even the Left is starting to admit that Biden has made a shambles of the country and maybe some of them are starting to sound kind of scared. Still too early to say if it will effect the outcome of the congressional votes on the gazillion dollar reconciliation bill. I assumed that all the skullduggery planned was a done deal. Maybe I’m wrong. We’ll have to see.
But we will be going through some extended bad times as I mentioned in my last post. I’m starting to look at my own finances to see what cutbacks I should make.
I was listening to the ZMan’s Friday podcast. It was on organizing and near the end he was talking about negativity. And that clicked for me. What we do has to be building things and living. Just fighting our enemies isn’t enough. It’s too long a battle to just hold your breath till the end. We need to make our thing about living and enjoying our lives.
I’ve been writing this story about a sniper who is taking revenge against the FBI. I have to admit it’s a lot of fun writing about revenge. But I want the story to be embedded in a larger frame about building something bigger than revenge. I want to have it about building a community that’s hidden within the current United States. So this fictional story corresponds to how I think about the world I’m living in. And that is helpful when thinking about real life. The things I write about are larger than life. We can talk about underground bases and new technologies and secret organizations but even the little things we do on-line can be positive and enrich our lives. We talk to people and we share ideas and maybe we help each other solve some problems. And if nothing else we act as sounding boards for people who don’t have one.
So today I am doing some story plotting and re-writing. It wasn’t strong enough or tight enough. I punched it up and cut it down and I like it a lot better. It’s another beautiful day and I intend to go out and take some photos of the fall. A couple of days ago one of the dogs found a big old Northern Water Snake sunning itself near one of the gardens. I got some good shots of it and I will probably put it up later as a post.
Fridays are usually pretty quiet on the site. I’ll put up a post later. Maybe I’ll review another season three trek episode. I’m getting impatient with them but considering Shatner’s recent trek into almost-space I guess I should do my part.
Camera Girl is an inveterate crime drama reader. She reads about fictional crime fighters like Jack Reacher and Harry Bosch and Jesse Stone. Well, we recently started watching a tv series about Harry Bosch and I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how well it’s made. Not everything is to my taste but it’s a quality series. So at some point I’ll be reviewing it too but I must keep my nose to the Star Trek grindstone. Duty is duty.
I’ve been listening to Larry Correia’s podcasts on fiction writing, “The Writer’s Dojo.” and even though not all of the information is specific to what I do I find the experience of listening to these two writers talking about their mindset when they’re writing to be energizing. For instance, they were talking about villains recently and it occurred to me I was wasting an opportunity by not beefing up the character of one of my villains. After all good villains are sometimes even better than the hero. Look at the Joker in Batman.
And this weekend we’ll have some grandkids coming around and that’s always fun.
So bear with me. I’ll have some good stuff soon.
Antoninus diffused order and tranquility over the greatest part of the earth. His reign is marked by the rare advantage of furnishing very few materials for history; which is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortunes of mankind.
Edward Gibbon
That presumes the universe can be comprehended by us. I suspect that the ultimate reality is buried beneath increasingly bewildering layers far beyond our comprehension.
We made it past Newtonian physics to Einsteinian relativity and are still wandering around in Quantum. Who says it ends there. With the colliders, every time we think we are at the base of things, entirely new classes of “fundamental’ particles are found. They are now looking for the building blocks of quarks. We’ve made it to Planck scale and declared it to be the finish line. Yeah?
I remember the quote but not where it came from. A maybe fictional religion hypothesized that the world was on the back of a turtle. A priestess (I think) was questioned as to what the turtle was standing on. Her reply was something like, “I see where you’re going with this young man but it’s turtles all the way down.”
Now there is talk that we are 3 dimensional shadows on a 5 dimensional brane. (as in membrane, not brain). Or maybe the universe is an infinite computer running a program. Or maybe every point in spacetime exists simultaneously and forever like a slide in an infinite stack illuminated occasionally by consciousness.
I think that not only do we not have a clue but aren’t capable of having a clue. So shut up and have a beer.
My favorite dissident has what I think is a fascinating discussion of what happens when an empire, e.g. the Soviet Union or the Romans starts to die. He discusses the transition from central rule to oligarchs. I think he makes some truly excellent points. We may already be quite a ways along the process. And he shows how differences in circumstances can lead to different outcomes. A good read.
You can’t make this stuff up. Let’s see, Dementia Joe cancelled the oil pipeline, stopped the oil and gas leases, weaponized the EPA and the Energy Department against the oil and gas companies and threatened the car companies to switch over to electric cars. Gee, why wouldn’t they help him by selling gasoline at a loss. I mean it would only be patriotic and Christian to turn the other cheek.
That Joe, he’s so funny. When gasoline gets to $5/gal he’s gonna be awfully popular with everyone and they’re gonna show their appreciation with votes. Joe must be getting awfully popular with those red-state Democrat congressmen. I mean who’s going to fault Joe for doubling the price of ….. everything!
Right now, Dementia Joe has turned the United States into a dumpster fire. Unemployment hasn’t recovered from the pandemic, small businesses have been decimated, prices of everything from gasoline to food has gone through the roof, the supermarket shelves are half empty, pre-school kids are being forced to wear masks over their faces, airlines, hospitals and even schools are being affected by hordes of people who don’t want to acquiesce to a vaccine mandate that they think is either useless or dangerous or both. The southern border is besieged by hordes of third world invaders, the major cities are lawless hellholes where gangs shoot it out without fear of the police, the schools are determined to teach white children that they are evil people because of their skin color and the FBI is calling their parents terrorists for objecting. And it’s only been nine months. Who knows what he has planned for the holiday season?
Lots of Republicans are salivating over what they see as the makings of a wave election in 2022 to give them majorities in the House and Senate. They see this as the reaction they need to begin preparing for taking back the White House in 2024. And maybe they’re right. Maybe that’s what will happen. But what will be left by then?
Joe Biden may throw the Congress to the Republicans in 2022 but he’ll still be doddering around the White House for the next three plus years and the way things are going the damage will be even worse than what his master Barack Obama did in his eight years. With the FBI and the Justice Department running interference for antifa and BLM the riots we saw in 2020 will increase and go after the people outside of the cities. The war that Biden is waging against the petroleum industry will drive inflation into realms we haven’t seen since the 1970’s oil embargo. Everyone except the rich will see their savings and their buying power evaporate and we’ll all be living a lot poorer until Biden is gone. None of this is going to be easy to live through. And on top of everything else, those of us trapped behind enemy lines in the blue states will be dealing with this COVID madness apparently forever. Joe Biden will torture us as long as he can.
So, I’ve painted a bleak picture. Let me now attempt to say something constructive. Now is the time to take stock and decide how to weather the storm. Prioritize on the things that are most important in your life and strip away the waste. Maybe an expensive cable television package is a luxury that you can do without. Maybe you don’t need a new car quite as often. Maybe dining out is a very expensive habit you’ve gotten into. Maybe the clothes budget and the Amazon.com bill has been getting a little out of hand. How about the food budget? Have you been spending a fortune on expensive wines or other non-essential grocery items? Maybe the kids have been getting used to too many expensive video games and toys.
Some of the things I’ve been thinking about is doing some of my own home repairs. And I may be one of the most inept carpenters to ever drive a nail. But when I think of what I’ve paid in the past to repair wood damage I think it’s worth my while to do everything I can do first before calling in professionals. Even a little plumbing and landscaping are well within my meager skills. I was even able to step up and do some small engine repair this year.
But just as important as saving some money is sticking together. You’ll know some people, family and friends that will be even worse off than you. Families with kids are especially affected by an inflationary economy. It takes a lot of groceries to feed a bunch of kids. Helping out however you find to do it will be a godsend to people who are having a hard time making ends meet. Maybe you can tutor someone’s kid who is having a hard time with algebra or babysit someone’s toddler while mom is going to the stores. There are a million and one things that people need and now it will be all that plus bad times. When someone you like needs your help find a way to help. Who knows, it probably will come back to you some other way. Many people remember kindness and return the favor. I know this to be true.
While all this is happening, my greatest hope is that people on the Right will start planning for a way to stop this thing from happening any more. The Red States have to start taking coordinated actions to free themselves from the control of the federal government. They have to put together financial, law enforcement and immigration policies of their own that will prevent the damage that a rogue president like Biden can cause. But in the meantime, we will have to deal with the damage that is coming our way right now.
Life cannot wait until the sciences may have explained the universe scientifically. We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is its coerciveness: it is always urgent, “here and now” without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank. And culture, which is but its interpretation, cannot wait any more than can life itself.
José Ortega y Gasset