Month: November 2021

The Dispossessed Taking Stock

photog Current Events, Reclaiming the Family ,

If something that always seemed substantial and even indestructible unravels then those that have always depended on its existence for making decisions in their lives suddenly find themselves adrift in uncharted territory.  And that’s where a lot of us are right now.  The United States of America was this behemoth of stability and an engine of prosperity.  It was also a place where people truly were free to say and do what they pleased as long as it didn’t involve robbing someone else.

Now with all of those things shattered what do we do?  How do we make a living?  How and where do we raise a family?  How will our children get an education?  How will they make a living?  Who will we have to swear allegiance to in order to avoid persecution?  Who must we be afraid to offend to avoid being a victim?  Essentially, all bets are off.

When a stable system receives a shock there are several possible outcomes.  If the system is elastic enough and the shock isn’t too large then things can return to a stability that might even be pretty close to the initial condition.  If the shock is a little stronger then perhaps a large chunk of the system will be ejected leaving a remainder that can then produce a diminished but stable system.  And finally, if the shock is cataclysmic the whole system is pulverized and scattered, never to coalesce into a whole again.

I think it’s too soon to tell how great a disruption there has been to America.  It feels like we’ve been irreparably fractured into several fragments that can’t be put back together again.  But maybe our enemies will be able to overcome all resistance and establish a new country in the image they have in mind for it.  Maybe we’ll win and fix the place back to close to what it was.  Or maybe we’ll split it in two.  All these questions aren’t going to be answered in a day or even a year.  Maybe a decade will decide things.

But none of us can wait ten years to answer that list of questions I asked above.  Our lives are ticking by right now.  Our kids and grandkids are growing and need direction.  So, we have no choice but to make decisions based on what we see happening around us and what we know about the policies being pushed by the federal and state governments.

And there are plenty of hints for anyone who is paying attention.  Living in California is being at the epicenter of all things woke.  It’s so dysfunctional and constrained that even the woke can’t stand it and are leaving in droves.  Places like New York and Washington and Oregon are pretty close to the California model.  In any of those deep blue states you’ll find problems trying to raise a family or even to just live your life the way you want to.  But even in purple states like Wisconsin or Colorado the Left is in charge and they will tell you what you can and can’t do.  And if you happen to be white, they’ll let you know that your turn is done and you better get used to humiliation and deprivation.

And even among red states not all of them are equal.  And not all areas in red states are equal.  Utah is considered a deep red state but Salt Lake City is a stronghold of California transplants that vote Left and control lots of the levers of power.  So, where you live is one of the ways you can control how free you will be.

With respect to employment there are decisions that will have to be made there too.  For instance, if you want to work in an industry that is heavily regulated by the federal government then you will find that the management of the companies working in that industry are aligned with the values that the federal government espouses.  So, for instance, the banking industry adheres to the equity, diversity and inclusion mantra pushed on them by the bank regulators.  In the same way the pharma companies follow these same precepts based on the FDA’s guidance.  None of this nonsense has any real bearing on sound banking principles or safe drug production but it’s how the system is rigged.  And even companies that aren’t themselves regulated by Washington may find that in order to get contracts with companies that are regulated they will have to parrot these same noises.  Hopefully, if they are small enough companies most of the noise is just that and nothing else.  But you can see how this starts to reduce your options.

And with respect to schools and colleges it’s even worse.  The percentage of colleges that aren’t woke is tiny.  It’s barely a handful.  And they won’t have all the programs you children may be looking for.  If your kids want to go to a woke college just prepare them for what it will be like and keep your fingers crossed that they can avoid being absorbed by the Borg.

And that brings us to the last part of our lives, the personal life.  We need to find enough people like ourselves to ensure that we have a rich personal life.  We have family but we need friends.  Our children need friends.  We need people who believe in the same things we do.  In the past you would have found these people in your church and in the school committee and among the parents of the kids on your kids’ sports teams.  And depending where you live you still might.  But you’ll definitely have to do some homework to find out if your neighbors are free Americans or part of the woke collective.  So don’t think that everybody is normal.  It’s easier to be careful at first and avoid the woke.  It’s much more painful to get rid of them once they’ve gotten close.  You owe it to your kids to protect them from bad influences and you owe it to your own sanity.

So, unless you live in the deepest red area of the country and work in a trade that has no connection to the government regulators and send your kids to Hillsdale College you will have to sort through these realities for the foreseeable future.  Either that or join the pod people.  I mean how bad could it be?

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

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“A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” tells the story of the Nolan family.  Johnny and Katie and their two school age children Francie and Neeley are a poor family living in Williamsburg Brooklyn and the story takes place close to the turn of the previous century (circa 1900).  Johnny is a singing waiter who lives for the day when his ship comes in but mostly, he drinks.  Katie makes the money that keeps the family alive by working as a cleaning woman in the tenement building they live in.  In several of the scenes we find her on her knees scrubbing the floors and staircases of the building.  Francie is a very smart and sensitive girl who wants to read every book in the library and grow up to be a writer.  She has a close relationship with her father who favors her love of learning and idealism.  This puts her in constant conflict with her level-headed mother who is determined to make her children successful by avoiding the “dreamy ideas” of her husband and teach them to work hard in life.  Neeley is a down to earth child of his environment and doesn’t suffer any angst over his downscale existence.  He has his mother’s temperament and rolls with the punches.

The movie tracks the downward trajectory of Johnny as he despairs of supporting his family.  But the one good thing he does for Francie is fake a move to another neighborhood that allows Francie to attend a much better public school than the one in her own neighborhood.  This opens her up to influences that teach her that in addition to enthusiasm a person has to “see the world as it really is.”

When Katie becomes pregnant, she tells Johnny that Francie will have to leave school to work to make up for Katie’s absence while she nurses the infant.  Johnny decides to do whatever it takes to save Francie from dropping out of school.  On Christmas Eve night he hears his daughter talk about the teacher who said that she must “see the world as it really is.”  And that resonates with his situation.  He must see himself as he really is.  He kisses her good night and walks out into the snow in his threadbare jacket and pants and goes looking for work as a sandhog for the burgeoning subway systems that were tunneling all over New York at that time.

Shortly after New Year Day the local police officer Mr. McShane comes to tell Katie that her husband is in a hospital in Manhattan having collapsed with pneumonia.  Shortly after she reaches him, he dies.  The funeral opens up Katie’s eyes as hundreds of Johnny’s friends pay their respects.  Her astonishment convinces Francie that her mother never understood her father and is a callous person.

Johnny’s friend, the local saloon owner Mr. Garrity, offers to let the two children work after school at his business setting up food for the free lunch.  Katie lets slip that she had decided that Francie would have had to quit school.  Hearing this Francie becomes truly embittered against her mother and fixes on the fact that letting her finish school had come once again through her father’s influence.  She accuses Katie of never having loved Johnny in life.

But the birth of the child at home forces Katie and Francie to bond and allows mother and daughter to see each other’s side of things.  With the help from the after-school jobs Francie and Neeley graduate grammar school and Katie predicts that the children will finish out high school too and go on to better than lives than their parents had.

And the movie has several other memorable characters.  Sissie who is Katie’s flirtatious sister and the scandal of the neighborhood is on her third husband.   Katie loves her but feels she is a bad influence on her children.  In each of Sissy’s earlier marriages her pregnancies ended in stillborn babies.  But a comment from Francie about the advantages of hospitals as a maternity setting, convinces Sissy to have her child in a hospital.  And the hospital uses oxygen to rouse the unresponsive new born.  And this probably saves Sissie’s present marriage.

Katie’s mother is a wise old woman who warns Katie against hardening her heart against the good things in life just because they don’t lead to monetary success.  And Officer McShane is a friend to Johnny, Katie and the children.  In several scenes he provides help to the family.  After Johnny’s death, he lets his intentions be known that he would like to court Katie.  Katie agrees and at that point even Francie is open to the idea.  So, the movie ends with Katie’s family finally able to cope with life in the modern world.

The cast does a phenomenal job.  Dorothy McGuire is Katie, Joan Blondell is Sissy, James Dunn is Johnny and Lloyd Nolan is Officer McShane.  And even some of the bit parts are memorable and splendidly acted.  The sets are evocative of Old Brooklyn and even mention of some of the place names still brings a smile to my face when I hear them in the movie.    Elia Kazan directed.

This is Camera Girl’s favorite movie of all time.  It speaks to her of families and it exhibits many of the qualities of life in Brooklyn that we still experienced two generations after the Nolan’s time.  I also think she identifies herself and me in the Nolans.  She as the hard-headed and hard-working woman and me as the ne’er do well but idealistic (and handsome and charming) husband.  But the one difference between myself and this Nolan guy is I was born lucky and he was born to fail.  But we watch this movie once or twice every year and we always end up feeling good.  Highly recommended for hard-working wives and lazy husbands.

Biden Colonoscopy – Mission Accomplished

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Joe Biden’s colon was successfully scoped today.  Due to some fears about military doctors getting back at the Commander in Chief for the Afghan debacle the procedure was shifted away from Walter Reed Medical Center and to the local Duane Reade Pharmacy where Mr. Biden shops for his adult diaper supplies.

This colonoscopy wasn’t a regularly scheduled procedure but was strenuously requested by the State Department at the behest of the Vatican and British Monarchy.  Both organizations had lodged protests against the US Government claiming treaty breaches on the biological warfare front.  The voice message form the Papacy said, “Eeffa you letta that sumavabeetch back here again you betta make a sure he’s a not a gotta the blacka death a hidin’ a up there.  Get a camera up a there you dopey bastardos.

Although the medical privacy acts protect release of the details of the procedure certain information was gleaned by interviewing some of the ancillary members of the surgical team.  Team member Lloyd Bender who performs clean up in aisle four revealed that the scope discovered a large bolus of mummified gorgonzola cheese lodged in the presidential colon.  Dislodging it proved difficult.  Lloyd attested, “We tried pulling it out but it was the size of a bowling ball so you can guess that was a problem.  By a stroke of luck, we had the Roto-Rooter guy in house working on a sewage line that was blocked.  So, we asked him if he would do something for us if we kicked in another forty bucks and he was very obliging.  So, he got the thing done.  But he did say he’d have to get a new rig because the gorgonzola did a job on his setup.  And not for nothing but we had to close shop because the stench was awful.  But it’s done.  And I never want to get involved in anything like that again.”

Mr. Biden seemed subdued after his ordeal and he was walking kind of funny but his press secretary Jen Psaki said that all rumors about foreign cheeses and commercial sewage line clearance equipment were greatly exaggerated.  Later on today Mr. Biden felt himself sufficiently back to normal to make this short statement to the press, “My butt’s been wiped and is squeaky clean.”

What Have We Learned from Kyle Rittenhouse?

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The verdict just came in for this 18-year-old kid and like most everyone on our side I am greatly relieved that at least for now, this kid’s life has been given back to him.  It’s still possible that Merrick Garland and the rest of the vampires in the Biden Justice Department may still decide to persecute him under some bogus civil rights charade but maybe their plate is full right now persecuting the poor bastards from Jan. 6th and the school parents in Virginia.  But if he is free and clear what is the takeaway we have from this incident?

Well, for me the takeaway is that the Antifa/BLM organization is a paramilitary group that has weapons and tactics that can only be resisted by individuals armed and trained to do so.  Which tells me that the only way to avoid being subject to their attacks and harassment is to live in a jurisdiction where the police will arrest them if they riot.  That was Kyle Rittenhouse’s mistake.  He assumed that because he was heavily armed and fairly proficient with his weapon that he would be immune from harassment by the protestors.  That mistake could have cost him his life either at the scene or later in a court of law.  He was only saved by luck,  the copious video evidence of his actions being self-defense, the skill of his attorney to portray this evidence clearly and convincingly and the fact that he had an honest judge.

As far as I know, Florida is the only state that has passed laws to protect its citizens against municipal governments that decide to empower BLM rioters by handcuffing the police.  But that is the only way to prevent places like Atlanta, St. Louis, Houston and all the other blue cities in red states from harming red state citizens.  So, short of moving to Florida the strategy is living far enough from a blue city in a red state to avoid a barbarian invasion.

And honestly that’s the only lesson.  Anyone who attempts to do what Rittenhouse did will end up no better than he did and most probably a whole lot worse.  This problem can only be addressed by the united front of a whole community.  And that doesn’t exist in places like Wisconsin or Virginia and certainly not in New York or California.  In places like that BLM is the legitimate militia.  They are recognized to have the right to burn, loot and kill people who happen to be in the path of their swarm.  Maybe someday a counterforce will emerge on its own and challenge BLM and its protectors but that is far in the future.  That won’t happen until the people being attacked have nothing to lose and just rise up against their tormentors.  Maybe that’ll be in California.  Probably it’ll be the Hispanic people living in areas adjacent to the inner-city no-go zones.  When no one else will help them, they’ll pay protection money to the gangs and the gangs will handle the swarm by fighting fire with fire.

But that won’t be of any help to us.  Our lives are wrapped up in the fabric of civilized society and so we will have to live where that society still exists.  So that’s my takeaway from the Rittenhouse story.  Live where the majority of people will support the police protecting citizens from barbarians.  It’s a cautionary tale and an object lesson about where not to live.

19NOV2021 – Another Autumn Poem

photog Literature, Poetry , ,

Sonnet 73

That time of year thou mayst in me behold
When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou see’st the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west;
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death’s second self, that seals up all in rest.
In me thou see’st the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourish’d by.
This thou perceiv’st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

William Shakespeare