Month: December 2022

Enough of Gloom and Doom for the Last Week of the Year

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So that post I had up for yesterday was certainly depressing.  Well, I had an antidote for that today.  After getting home from an errand this afternoon, I had all four grandsons over for a viewing of the extended version of the “Return of the King.”  This includes my personal favorite scene from the motion picture series, “The Ride of the Rohirrim.”

There’s nothing like hanging out with my young descendants to cheer me up.  This was the first viewing of this decisive completion to the trilogy for the two younger fellows.  And there was much excitement over the visually impressive Battle of Minas Tirth.  We cheered on the good guys and laughed when the various orcs and trolls were splatted by projectiles hurled from the battlements.

Camera Girl, always the gracious hostess, provided grilled cheeses sandwiches, mac and cheese and desserts.  There were several pies, various flavors of ice cream, cheesecake and cookies available.  And this being a vacation week we all ate way too much.

After the movie ended, we debated many important points of Tolkeiniana.  I expressed my opinion that regardless of the violence done to the plot Sam should have been allowed to liquidate Gollum.  In all honesty, in the movie version, I despise both Gollum and Frodo almost equally.  Frodo is such a hopeless basket case that it defies imagination that Sam was able to finally carry him over the finish line to Mount Doom at all.  If they had taken along a ten-year-old girl instead it couldn’t have been any more pathetic.  I think if Elrond had given the ring to Sam, he would have chucked it in Mount Doom a couple of months early and been back in the Shire in time for potato planting.

My younger relatives seemed to enjoy most the scenes where Gimli and Legolas compete to kill the most orcs.  I have to confess the liberties that the movie makers took with the dialog around Gimli borders on the farcical but I will admit that sometimes the lightheartedness is a welcome addition.  Although I do draw the line at the dwarf tossing and elf snowboarding scenes in “The Two Towers.”

Eventually some of the discussions spilled over into arguments about the actual text in Tolkien’s books.  I had to bring out my copy of the trilogy in order to provide authoritative answers to questions like which were older, the Oathbreakers on the Paths of the Dead or the dead soldiers in the Dead Marshes?  As it turned out they were both from the same time period, the Last Alliance of Men and Elves against Sauron at the end of the Second Age.

And so, we ended the get together and I brought them home in time to finish their chores and prepare for the next day of their Christmas vacation.  But if life in this confused world still includes time with such admirable characters as my grandsons, then it can’t be all bad.  We’ll have many good things to do in the days and weeks ahead.  And I’ll get to see them grow up to be fine young men.  As for problems, well, helping family with their problems is what family is all about.

We’ve Got a Ways to Go

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New Year’s is the time to prognosticate.  Everyone and his brother know the future.  It’s the favorite pastime of pundits.  Well, relax.  I have no clue what to expect in 2023.  All I know is that the bad guys won and the good guys are out of power in Washington.  In a few places like Florida, state government is in the hands of normal people.  That’s about all I know.

But what I tell myself is that we can expect more of the same and worse for the foreseeable future.  Biden and his handlers have been emboldened by the mid-terms and they will continue to loot the country by executive order and through the Congressional appropriations grift that both parties have perfected since the Obama administration abolished the budget process.

The famous statement that there is a lot of ruin in a nation is being demonstrated on a titanic scale with all the multi-trillion-dollar boondoggles being rammed through Congress right up to the last day of this Congress.  The pain that is being felt by the working and middle classes will continue and intensify as the policies this regime favors continue to distort the energy markets and discourage the generation of jobs in manufacturing.  The wreckage of the cities by runaway criminality will continue and accelerate as the police forces in these cities evaporate.  These are not predictions.  These are the conditions already in place playing out in real time.

So let me extrapolate what’s going on and describe what that is.  The Left will continue with their program of de-industrializing the United States, eliminating affordable energy sources and importing poor people to destroy the opportunities of the native population to make a decent living.  And this will go on for a good long time before it completely destabilizes the socio-economic foundations of this country.

Now it may be that some local leaders decide to pre-empt this intentional destruction of the United States.  And they may even succeed in saving areas of the country from this program.  And I’ve speculated in the past on how a state policy of nullification of unconstitutional federal laws that threaten the welfare of a state’s citizens might be a way to achieve this.  But that’s strictly speculation.  It implies that local leaders would be willing to risk their careers and maybe their lives by defying the United States government.  But speculation is all that is.  No one has defied the feds since the Civil War.  It ranges into fantasy imagining how it would happen

So, what that leaves is a landscape where the Left steadily and without any effective opposition “fundamentally transforms” this country into a police state under the control of a partnership of the intelligence agencies of the federal government and cooperative woke corporations.

Saying this is extremely depressing for me but at the same time pretending anything else is even worse.  Continuing to wait for a rescue by a “silent majority” that doesn’t exist is even more painful.  My plan is to do my best to insulate myself and my family from the damage caused by this regime.  Strategies for doing that will be my focus going forward.  And of course, that will only ever be partially successful.  But I think that’s a realistic approach.

And I will keep my eyes open to see if a miracle occurs.

What would a miracle look like?  Two things come to mind.  One would be for the regime to succeed in their demolition plan too thoroughly and cause a critical failure of the economy.  Something on the order of the Great Depression but worse.  That might galvanize the population to renounce the Left and demand a return to sanity.

Another miracle would be one of those state governments actually succeeding in a nullification program.  If it happened it would have a tremendous effect on the other states and would change the whole power dynamic between the federal government and the states.  And it would be like an emancipation proclamation for the normal people.

But these are indeed miracles and we haven’t seen any miracles in a very long time.  So, most of my time will be devoted to looking for ways to cope with a government that hates me and wants me to disappear.  So, there is my look forward into 2023.  Not very inspiring but realistic, I think.

December 26th 2022

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And just like that it’s over.  All of Camera Girl’s hard work has been expended and all the splendiferous foods have been eaten and all the children have gotten their gifts.  And we wake up on Monday morning and groan from the food we consumed and begin to straighten up the kitchen and the house and cart away the imperial ton of wrapping paper and boxes and put away the good china (of which one plate didn’t survive the exercise, requiescat in pace) and shake out the table cloths for the birds before they go in the washing machine (the tablecloths not the birds).

And we talk about all the moments we had with the kids and the grandkids.  And they are remarkable things these moments.  And we agree that it doesn’t get any better than this.  Spending time with the people you love and being relaxed and happy doing it is the pinnacle of life.  All of the hard work that went into the meal was repaid with interest by seeing the guests enjoy it.  Watching the young children playing together and sitting with the older children and talking about their lives and interests is the culmination of decades of work and is enormously gratifying to a parent and grandparent.

I was having a conversation with one of my sons-in-law.  We were talking about the uncertainty of conditions in the world for regular people and he said some things that told me he understands what’s important.  He said the only certain thing in the economy is that if you have a skill that people need, you’ll be able to survive.  And I said that’s true and I added, “No one is looking out for us anymore.  We have to depend on ourselves and each other.”  And he agreed.

And afterwards I thought about what I had said off-hand.  It’s true.  The government has abandoned us.  We’re looking out for each other or no one is.  If something happens to one of your family you may be the only thing between him and homelessness and death.  The government can’t be bothered.  The Canadian government, always ahead of us on the edge of progressivism, now uses the idea of assisted suicide for any situation where people feel abandoned by society.  If you can’t get help with a health problem, they’ll suggest, “Why not end it all with our convenient and economical assisted suicide kit.”  It comes with a YouTube video and on-line instructions to make sure everything goes smoothly.

I’m sure soon they’ll add it to all government FAQ pages as an option to all life’s difficulties.  Can’t get that rental house this summer?  Then end it all.  Can’t find that bargain on eBay you wanted?  Why not off yourself?  It’s fun and practical.  You won’t need to skimp on anything.  Just have a big weekend at a resort, run up an enormous hotel tab and then finish it off with an overdose of fentanyl.  Quick, painless and easy.

Well, excuse me if I don’t run for the exits.  Life is extremely precious.  Our overlords are working overtime to encourage people to give up.  Don’t get married, don’t have children, don’t buy a house, don’t work hard, just drop dead.

Well, too bad.  I won’t take the hint.  They’ve stopped pretending they’re our fellow countrymen.  The globalists say we’re all just one big world.  And it’s a world that has too many people in it.  Fine then.  We’re nothing to them and they’re nothing to us.  Less than nothing.  They’re our avowed enemies.

Let’s remember that and act accordingly.  We only have each other.  But the help of people that actually care about you is more valuable than anything else that you’ll find in this fake world of woke propaganda.  Recalibrate what you can and can’t depend on and decide what is worthwhile to do and what is a waste of precious time.  And you’ll be surprised how much less bleak things will appear.  Just find people you like and work together to make a little world around you that includes the things in life that actually matter.  That’s my thought on this day after Christmas.