Month: September 2022

Michael Anton Analyzes “The Godfather” through the Lens of Machiavelli

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Michael Anton is a devotee of Leo Strauss who wrote an important paper on Machiavelli.  Naturally Anton will evaluate a movie about power through his understanding of the quintessential champion of immoral power politics Machiavelli.

I thought it was an interesting read.  And I’m not a huge fan of gangster movies in general or the Puzo story in particular.  Your milage may vary.

 

 

 

08SEP2022 – OCF Update – This’N’That

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So, I finally bit the bullet and began post-processing my Yellowstone Trip photos.  I’m surprised at how many nice wildflower shots I got.  I know, I know.  Wapiti and bison and bears, oh my.

But the landscape and flora stuff are good too.  Many of the flowers are very different from the vegetation in the northeast.

And some of the wildflowers are the cousins of perennials that we plant like lupines and monkshood.  It adds another dimension to the trip.  I’ll probably spend the winter looking up the flowers to identify them and then do a post on my favorites.

With the grandkids already back in school Camera Girl is not as insanely busy as usual so I told her we needed to find a new tv series to watch.  I had heard that the “Terminal List” with Chris Pratt was pretty good so we watched the first episode last night.  Well, Camera Girl told me there’s too much killing.    Since Jack Reacher is one of her favorite fictional characters, I found this very surprising.  It turns out that when civilians are the victims, she processes the killings differently.  So, we’re going to watch the second episode tonight.  I suspect she’ll be more comfortable with the violence when it’s just bad guys getting offed.

And at last, it stopped raining.  So, we got out for a walk in the forest.  And the lake has almost reached back up to the spillway height.  The sun was warm but we could feel that the summer heat is waning.  The afternoon shadows are already hiding half the fields from the sun and the butterflies and dragonflies are on their last legs.  But just as a last gasp of summer Camera Girl found a Spicebush Swallowtail Butterfly caterpillar.

I set it up in a net cage with some sassafras leaves and it almost immediately metamorphosed into a chrysalis.

Well, that’s another natural history project for Princess Sack of Potatoes.  I’ve got to hand it to Camera Girl she has sharp eyes.

I was thinking today, it’s almost beyond belief to think that Joe Biden could actually be President of the United States.  I mean he’s a congenital liar, a dimwit and a sexual deviant.  The only answer that makes sense is that we’ve gotten way stupider as a country.  Or possibly we really have reached that tipping point where more than half the country is being bribed by a something for nothing program.  Then again maybe it’s a combination.  Maybe if you add up all the dimwits and all the loafers it’s 51%.

Well, whatever it is, it’s damn discouraging.  I mean he’s such a sleazy crook, that it’s embarrassing to be associated with a constituency that would have him.  I wonder if a good campaign against him in 2022 and 2024 could appeal to people’s sense of shame at allowing such a pathetic loser to be their leader.  What could be the slogan?  How about, “Joe’s a moron.  If you vote for him, you’re a moron too.”  Or maybe, “What grown man showers with his twelve-year-old daughter?  What kind of man raises a son who has sex with his dead brother’s widow?  What kind of man sniffs the hair of women and girls during a White House ceremony?  Is Joe Biden President of the United States or Caligula?  Anyway, it’s a thought.

Well, now that the rain has stopped, I can get some more of the outside projects finished.  Soon we’ll be putting all the yard equipment indoors for the winter.  And Camera Girl has started putting up the Halloween decorations.  I thought it was a little early but she says Princess Sack of Potatoes really likes scary stuff.  I can’t argue with that.  I guess it’s time to bust out the Universal Monster Movies.  Well, there are some consolations to the end of summer.

Tend Your Own Garden

photog Current Events, Reclaiming the Family ,

What is my thesis today?  Well, I’m having trouble encapsulating it in one phrase.  That’s usually thought to be the result of fuzzy thinking.  And fuzzy thinking is what I seem to do best.  The topic is a mixture of ideas about how to most effectively invest time in the current environment.  After all, if we will always be living under Big Brother’s dark shadow then we must know how to avoid his attention but still wring the most joy out of life.

It seems to me that what is most critical is raising up the young to avoid the destructive effects of the culture.  They need to be helped along to find jobs and start families while negotiating all the barriers that the Left throws in their path.

Now this is an enormous challenge.  Schools, and industry hamper the progress of young men trying to start careers.  And all the outlets of the media and other purveyors of the “culture” poison the minds of young women against a normal life as wives and mothers.  Counteracting these things is a herculean task.  But it is the most worthwhile work there is to do.

Part of it might be to move to a state (or country) where the influences are less pernicious and where opportunities for work exist.  But just as important is to keep your ears and eyes open and recognize when the young people are running into problems.  Be ready to provide advice, and more importantly, money and other resources when they’re needed.  Maybe a contact for finding a job or help with watching children might be needed.  Whatever it is don’t shut your eyes to the problems that the younger generation is facing.  Regardless of the financial challenges we faced in our youth it’s a much greater problem that exists today when the whole weight of the government, private industry and the culture is arrayed against young people trying to live a normal life.

But the good news is that concentrating on that aspect of life means you can de-emphasize all the other nonsense.  Men in sundresses, cities being burned down, the breakdown of law and order, a demented young woman shrieking about global warming and old women demanding abortion up until the moment of birth.  All of these things are symptoms of young people being corrupted by the schools and the culture.  Concentrate on preventing that and giving the young a head-start in their lives and you’ll be doing the most you can do to eliminate these other sicknesses.

Plus accomplishing something concrete for real people, people you care about, is much more rewarding than fighting rhetorical battles in cyberspace.  I see this in my own life.  Agonizing over poll numbers and opining on the latest leftist outrage saps your energy and leaves you drained.  Whereas getting involved with some family project or hearing what’s up with the young people is incredibly energizing.  Even when there are problems you find yourself thinking about the problems and looking for ways to help.  Helping people you like in real life is much more fun than battling psychopaths on-line.

So then what is my thesis?  I guess it’s sort of, “Think globally, act locally.”  Gee, that sounds kind of hackneyed.  I better come up with something more clever.  Well whatever I come up with, it’ll be the title when you read this.

Another Lefty Media Company Bought by a Non-Woke Owner?

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Apparently Politico has been purchased by the German publishing company Axel Springer   And its CEO, Mathias Döpfner says he wants to turn it into a real news company.  Back in 2020 Döpfner was quoted as saying to his colleagues, “Do we all want to get together for an hour in the morning on November 3 and pray that Donald Trump will again become President of the United States of America?”

Now this doesn’t prove that he isn’t a typical Lefty.  But it does sound hopeful.  If this is another case of the Left media being reined in we’ll soon have news of the most strident leftist reporters at Politico being bounced out.  And you know how much I love those stories.  Ah, the great goddess Schadenfreude, she is a terrible mistress.  But I am her ardent acolyte.

Summer Vacation Ends

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich ,

So yesterday we came home from the party and the water in the clogged kitchen sink had drained away.  With hope in my eyes, I ran the water taps but unfortunately the sink filled up again.  Still clogged!

But like President Whitmore in Independence Day after his first missile is stopped by the alien shield I said, “Hold on, I want another shot at this.”  So, I plunged it once more.  And miracle of miracles, there was a loud sucking sound and the water rushed down the drain with a satisfying gasp.  I ran the taps for a couple of minutes and nothing happened, completely clear.  A miracle had occurred and the spirits that guard over the septic system had smiled upon us. Camera Girl danced a sprightly caper around me as I stood triumphant holding plunger and monkey wrench like the symbols of my hallowed manly office, Lord of the Drain Pipe.  Last night I enjoyed a well-deserved snack of peanut butter on pumpernickel bagel to celebrate our liberation from piled up dirty dishes and Styrofoam plates.  I watched a terrible movie (Anna Karenina (1948)) and listened with half an ear to the pounding rain on the metal roofs.  Very evocative.

And like a switch being thrown, the hot dry weather ended.  It’s been raining, sometimes torrentially for two straight days.  The daytime temperatures have gone from the eighties to low seventies and sixties.  And this will mark the transition from the no-news summer silly season to the non-stop political drama of election year infomercials.  Joe Biden’s Stalin at the Haunted Castle, Labor Day Weekend Speech, kicked off the season.  But we can expect any number of manufactured crises and emergency speeches to reassure us that the Wizard will protect the Emerald City from flying monkeys with marines in dress uniform, endless student loan forgiveness and even more stimulus checks.

Well, no one in his right mind is surprised by any of this kabuki theater.  It’s all become sort of routine and even boring.  But the regime hasn’t got anything else to use.  I guess if they get really desperate, they can drag the COVID monster back out again for another round.  But I think most of the make believe has been knocked out of that game.  And I think a lot of people have heard that the vaccines are quite dangerous for some people.  And so there might not be much play in it this time around.

Folks on the Dissident Right are saying that the Republicans are actively trying to lose the races where a non-machine Republican candidate is running.  It should be interesting to see how the races in the swing states go.  Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, Wisconsin and Michigan are going to tell us a lot about whether there’s any hope of fixing things.  Election night will be interesting.  One interesting spot is Nevada.  There the Republicans look to swing a Senate seat and a Governor’s mansion.  And supposedly this reflects the swing in the Hispanic vote to the right.  That will be an interesting race to see.

And then there’s the Roe v. Wade narrative.  Will millions of women vote for the right to kill their unborn children rather than to protest against a crumbling economy?  That will be another data point to record.

But really in my mind the whole election is a single binary switch, a fork in the road, a point of no return.  Either we pull back from the cliff or we just tumble over.  Simple as that.

Well, I intend to enjoy to the fullest the 62 days left until that decision.  Why not?  I’ve never been one to rush a bad thing.  If we’re going off the cliff I’ll even try to relax during the freefall.  No need to borrow trouble.

There are all kinds of interesting things going on.  People are trying to cope with terrible economic conditions and the downturn has barely begun.  We can expect the propaganda coming from the mainstream media to be turned up to eleven about how wonderful conditions are in Joe Biden’s America.  And the cognitive dissonance between those two things will further anger the voters.  I think we are in the perfect storm for the Democrats to get dumped.  So, if it doesn’t happen that will be all we’ll need to see that the game is now permanently rigged.  And as I’ve said I won’t be crushed by that news.  I’ll use that as the sign that it’s time to stop beating a dead horse and move on from trying to resurrect our republic and move on to figuring out how best to thrive in the empire.  Bring it on.