Month: April 2022

Anxiety as an Indicator of Engagement in Life

photog On-Line Article Reviews, photog's Corner, Reviews ,

A very old friend sent me this link.  My family is almost defined by its perpetual state of angst.  So the relevance of this video to my perspective was immediately apparent to me.  But I think it may be interesting to a large cross-section of people in our modern angst-filled world.  Basically Kierkegaard’s theory was that anxiety was a necessary part of life and the way to ensure that it didn’t destroy one’s ability to function was to focus on pursuits that were passionately important so that this passion would sustain someone to the completion of his objectives.

What Happens After the Mid-Terms?

photog Current Events , ,

Prognostication, predicting the future.  Oh, what a foolish thing to do.  But let’s talk about after the mid-terms.  But what happens afterward depends on how they end up to some extent.  Let’s look at the possibilities and then the follow-up for each case.

Suppose the Democrats somehow get through the elections and maintain their majorities in both Houses.   Based on the current projections this is the most unlikely outcome but let’s say for the sake of argument that SCOTUS overturns Roe and the Media manages to enflame the female half of America to go on the warpath and vote out every Republican they can.  So, let’s say the Democrats gain seats in the Senate and House.  This would have the effect of emboldening Biden and would mean there would be even more radicalization of the actions being taken by the feds and that would also translate at the state and local levels in Democrat locales.  That would make things increasingly worse for us and would also indicate that the Dems would hold the White House in 2024.

But as I said this is an almost absurdly unlikely election outcome.  Voter sentiment is lopsidedly negative on Biden’s performance in office.  And this has translated effectively against the Democrats in Congress and in state and local governments.  So, let’s look at a more likely outcome.

Currently the polls indicate that the Republicans are likely to take back the House of Representatives with a shift of somewhere between thirty and sixty seats.  The Senate is predicted to return to Republican control with a shift of two to five seats.  What happens then?

The Republicans capturing Congress will put an end to Biden appointing anymore Supreme Court justices or any other judges if the Senate is in that mood.  It will also limit the kinds of cabinet changes that Biden will be able to make during his last two years in office. And finally, it will put an end to any laws he is hoping to pass.  And those are all good things.  In addition, the House and Senate can go about investigating and probably impeaching Biden for the multitude of shady deeds that have been leaking out of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal.  There won’t be enough votes to convict him in the Senate but plenty to get the impeachment going in the House.  And the investigations will uncover enough dirt to make the 2024 election a mud-slinging extravaganza.

But all these good things won’t change the fact that Biden will still have two years to continue his destruction of the working and middle classes in this country.  We will have to endure his open borders nightmare and the punishing inflation that his terrible policies have inflicted on us.

Now let’s look at the other unlikely possibility.  Suppose by November that the country crashes spectacularly.  A bad recession strikes but inflation goes on raging.  If this were bad enough the country might get truly desperate and even Democrats might throw out their own senators and representatives.  This would give the Republicans enough votes in the Senate to convict Biden and Harris.  And that would force the Speaker of the House into the presidency.  Now this would have the added benefits over the last options of ending all of Biden’s awful programs.  And it would give the incoming president a clear powerful majority in Congress and a clear mandate for change.

But the chaos inherent in this kind of violent change would require extremely smart handling to prevent it from devolving into chaos.  Think about it.  Kevin McCarthy would be President of the United States.  How exactly is that supposed to work?  Sure, there might be ways of making someone else president but the mind boggles trying to figure out how it doesn’t all go wrong.  And as I said it’s a very unlikely scenario.

So, the short answer to this whole question is that after the mid-terms we will be looking at a weakened but not neutralized Joe Biden.  It’s possible that if he’s serious about running 2024 he may try to triangulate to less unpopular actions and policies but that’s unlikely.  Other people are pulling his strings and they’ll use his last two years to keep the damage coming.  I think they know at this point that 2024 will most likely go to a Republican.

So, that’s my read.  Don’t assume that because Joe Biden has loused up the country that the mid-terms will fix everything.  What it tells me is I need to figure out a way to survive the damage of the next two and a half years and hope and pray that we find someone who can break us out of the death trap we find ourselves in.

The Master of Ballantrae (1953) – A Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, Reviews , , ,

Here’s a later installment in Errol Flynn’s catalog of swashbuckling movie roles.  The story is loosely based on the Robert Louis Stevenson novel of the same name.

(Spoiler Alert – Skip down to last paragraph to avoid spoilers and read recommendation)

The story is a wild tale with Errol Flynn playing the title role as Jamie Durie, a Scottish noble in the 18th century who goes to war to bring Bonnie Prince Charlie to the throne of Britain.  But when the Stuart pretender is defeated, Durie and an Irish comrade have to flee Scotland leaving Durie’s brother to inherit Ballantrae and possibly Jamie’s fiancée.  During his exile he is hijacked by a treacherous sea captain, captured by pirates and then turns pirate himself before returning to Scotland with a fortune to claim his bride from his supposedly duplicitous brother.  But when his brother saves him from an English hangman’s noose they are reconciled and his fiancée escapes with him for a life of adventure.

This was Flynn’s last feature with Warner Bros. but the story moves along very smartly and he can still swashbuckle with the best of them.  The script was good enough.  I especially liked the pirate sequence.  All of the colorful character actors were way over the top but I think they provided just the right atmosphere for a light-hearted romp of an adventure story.  If you’re looking for an old-fashioned adventure story, this is it.  Errol Flynn makes it work one last time.

Hat Tip To the Conservative Treehouse, The Airlines Are Ending the Mask Mandate

photog Current Events ,

Hallelujah, Hallelujah!  Fantastic news.  Enough is enough.  Kudos to that judge for making this happen just as the CDC decided to extend the mandate again.  I can imagine the anger and even rage as the flying Karens are forced to sit next to normal people with naked faces.

I’ll tell you, this is great news for me.  I’m flying in July and wearing a mask would have been an enormous pain in the butt.  Well, let’s hope this is the final nail in the coffin for the COVID-nazis.  And may we get the chance to show them our thanks in November.

Fill Up the Space and There’s No Room for Dysfunction

photog Current Events, Reclaiming the Family , ,

Getting together with the family yesterday was a shot in the arm (no, not a vaccine) for me.  Great food, Easter-chocolate-fueled kids, friendly family, boisterous activity, a few sprinkles of hail and snow, sunshine, a passel of tail-wagging dogs and no television or electronic devices at all.

The time passed so quickly and no one was bored.  I’ve arranged to see the new Batman movie with the two older boys tomorrow.  I opined that this new Batman will be lame because he’s being played by some emo-actor named Robert Pattinson who apparently is best known for playing some lame vampire that girls loved.  The boys agreed that the Dark Knight is still the gold standard for Batman movies but feel we should give this one a try.  I told them we should rent the Michael Keaton Batman from the 1980’s.  Anyway, we’ll buy some greasy popcorn and watch this ridiculous movie and we’ll spend the two hours back and forth talking about everything and nothing.

One of my sons-in-law is starting a small business of his own so we swapped information on LLC’s and sole proprietorships and I told him I’d let him know what I found out from the town hall about paperwork.  And then we discussed his recent foray into welding and metalworking.  I have some projects that would benefit from custom hardware and I told him I’d see if he had any time to cost out some items.  As if he isn’t busy enough running a small factory and large family.  But it was good to have someone who’s trying to build something too, to talk to.

And Camera Girl was in her element with the kids to play with and her daughters to compare notes with on managing homes, kids and dogs.  And there was talk between them about flowers and vegetables and kids’ activities coming up and a summer trip up to Old Orchard Beach, Maine, and on and on and on.

It seemed like everyone there was suffering from allergies.  Kids and adults.  And there was sneezing and runny noses and coughing and no one was wearing any stupid masks or apologizing for sneezing germs on each other.  That nonsense seems to have gone the way of the dinosaurs.

And I had a long discussion on dinosaurs with my youngest grandson.  But yesterday the new fascination was Pokémon.  He inherited a book of the cards from one of his older brothers and he regaled me with detailed information about the names, powers and relative value of this album of meaningless monsters.  But showing my attention to this ritual of pre-adolescent consumer culture gained me all kinds of street cred with this miniature descendant of mine.

All in all, it was a roaring success.  Good feelings reigned supreme and the winter was officially laid to rest and the outdoor season was christened with the kids tracking mud into the kitchen and all over their Easter clothes.  And not a single word was spoken about Biden or inflation or transgender anything.  We talked about the kids’ schools and sports and the plans for the next get togethers.  Life and family and friends fill up the spaces in your life if you take the time and trouble to involve yourself with life.  It’s good reminder for me.