Month: August 2023

Political Theater, Hounds and Late Summer

photog Current Events , ,

So, I watched Tucker’s interview.  I didn’t watch the debate.  This morning I’ve seen a few clips.  My first reaction is that Fox News is essentially MSNBC with slightly less crazy, slightly less homely teleprompter readers.  My second reaction is that Chris Christie and Nikki Haley must be competing to be Joe Biden’s running mate.  Past that I don’t think it matters.

We’re in a lot of trouble.

I guess I already knew that but watching these things drives the point home.  It’s quite disturbing.  I guess the cavalry won’t be coming over the hill with bugles blaring and sabers flashing.  We’re on our own.

Alright, snap out of it!  Nobody wants to read stuff like that.

On the upside we had three sunny warm days in a row.  That brought out some butterflies and other large insects.  Very good for some microphotographic opportunities.  Even with the grandkids here I’ve been able to steal away to get some time with the camera and macro lens.  Next week the kids start school and Camera Girl will be sad.  But she has much to look forward to.  She has relented in her determination to get me to buy her a giant rabbit, specifically a Flemish Giant.  Other than as a source of food, rabbits don’t really seem to serve any purpose, to my mind.  But Camera Girl has been campaigning for one for several months.  After many attempts to dissuade her, I eventually capitulated to this demand.

But once it sunk in that Princess Sack of Potatoes was really starting kindergarten and she wouldn’t have anything to mother, Camera Girl knew a rabbit wouldn’t suffice.  So, she switched gears and demanded a puppy.  And I gave up without a fight.  Because a puppy in the house is infinitely better than a rabbit in the yard when it’s 10 οF outside and the rabbit needs liquid water.  Or a hundred other things that need to be done for the rabbit outside when I’d rather be inside.

So, yeah, sure.  A puppy will be joining the menagerie sometime later this year.  Not that it’s a wholly good thing.  Camera Girl is absolutely the worst dog trainer in the history of man’s association with these canine freeloaders.  Whereas with her children and grandchildren she is a loving but stern disciplinarian, with her dogs she’s useless.  They walk all over her and lack even the rudiments of obedience.  It’s pathetic and annoying.

I’ve toyed with the idea of taking over the dog training job for this new recruit.  After all, as paterfamilias it is my right and responsibility to hand down rough justice to my vassals.  And at this point, vassal-wise, this dog may be the end of the line for me.  So, the logic of it is there.  At the same time, Camera Girl will be working behind the scenes undercutting my authority and spoiling the dog behind my back every chance she gets.  Obviously, the choice is fraught with peril.  I must choose carefully.  Perhaps I will consult Marcus Aurelius or possibly Aristotle.  Homer Simpson or Al Bundy?  We’ll see.

So, this last full week before school is moving along, powered by LEGO blocks, old Disney movies, Camera girl’s short order cooking and my manly grit, determination and panache.  We will persevere and by next Thursday quiet and order will descend on the Compound and a new era of productivity will reign on the site.  Excelsior!

24AUG2023 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

Christmas Bells

I heard the bells on Christmas Day

Their old, familiar carols play,

And wild and sweet

The words repeat

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

And thought how, as the day had come,

The belfries of all Christendom

Had rolled along

The unbroken song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

Till ringing, singing on its way,

The world revolved from night to day,

A voice, a chime,

A chant sublime

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

Then from each black, accursed mouth

The cannon thundered in the South,

And with the sound

The carols drowned

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

It was as if an earthquake rent

The hearth-stones of a continent,

And made forlorn

The households born

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!

 

And in despair I bowed my head;

“There is no peace on earth,” I said;

“For hate is strong,

And mocks the song

Of peace on earth, good-will to men!”

 

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:

“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;

The Wrong shall fail,

The Right prevail,

With peace on earth, good-will to men.”

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Real Change

photog Current Events ,

Looking at the people who run this country is a frightening thing.  Washington DC is a train wreck.  The White House and the Capitol are almost entirely composed of carny trash.  No one exemplifies this better than the Bidens.  Sure, there are a few senators and representatives who are trying to make things better but they’re outnumbered a hundred to one.  The federal agencies, especially the intelligence agencies are populated with leftist true-believer bureaucrats who should be under sedation in mental institutions for the good of everyone.  And then there is the government industrial complex with its throng of corporate vampires feeding off the lifeblood that the IRS diverts to them.  The size of the operation is staggering, and apparently, irresistible.

So, when faced with an entrenched system as powerful and as malignant as ours and as inimical to our interests, you have to wonder what the chances are that it can be reformed.  And then when you look at who is supposedly going to do the reforming and how they are currently “planning” to take back the country, well, words fail me utterly.

To put it politely, they haven’t a clue.  And I’m talking about the ones who aren’t just kidding us like Mitch McConnell and Lindsey Graham.  All of these people; McCarthy, Cruz, Paul, Abbott, DeSantis and even Trump they don’t have the first idea what is needed to save this country.  If they did, they wouldn’t be messing around with the presidential election or any of the absurd federal policies that they involve themselves with.

They would spend all their time coordinating the red states into a practical federation with the intent of reinforcing their individual efforts to neutralize the harmful effects of the government in DC.  But instead, they waste time trying to compete with each other to see who can lose to Biden in 2024.  Absurd.

So, for me I see little reason to hope for any substantial progress for the foreseeable future.  And that brings me to the point of this exercise in typing.  Exactly what will it take to galvanize an effective response from the bulk of this country?  What catastrophe is necessary to force all of these sleepwalkers into doing something that will have practical results?

I’ve been trying to work this out in my head.  It seems to me it won’t be a simple financial crisis.  We’ve had those already and apparently people are too stupid to see that what’s going on is the slow-motion bankruptcy of the country.  I guess until they can’t afford the price of bread they’ll continue on as if all’s right with the world right up until the apocalypse.

What I think will trigger a revolt is violence.  People will put up with a lot of economic and financial trouble simply because they really don’t know how these problems are caused or how they’re solved.  But everybody understands how law and order works and they can see when it’s slipping away.  When you’ve lived your whole life in a safe place and then it becomes unsafe it’s a very big deal.  Your wife and kids can’t walk down the streets or go to school without worrying about being robbed or assaulted.  The value of your home decreases drastically and your peace of mind disappears.

I think that will be the trigger.  The state governments will have to clean up the city gangs that operate with impunity in the Democrat controlled cities.  And these cities will have to be controlled by the state to end all the problems that fester there.  Welfare, crime, illegal immigration, failed schools, drug addiction all will have to be brought under control by the red state governments in order to stem the tide of decay.

Of course, that’s assuming there are still Americans who still have the will to fix things.  Maybe the violence will just go unanswered and things will just get worse and worse.  I think we’ll know in just a very few years.  Because if things aren’t fixed soon the whole thing will come tumbling down.

23AUG2023 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

The Village Blacksmith (1840)

Under a spreading chestnut-tree

⁠The village smithy stands;

The smith, a mighty man is he,

With large and sinewy hands,

And the muscles of his brawny arms

Are strong as iron bands.

 

His hair is crisp, and black, and long;

His face is like the tan;

His brow is wet with honest sweat,

He earns whate’er he can,

And looks the whole world in the face,

For he owes not any man.

 

Week in, week out, from morn till night,

You can hear his bellows blow;

You can hear him swing his heavy sledge,

With measured beat and slow,

Like a sexton ringing the village bell,

When the evening sun is low.

 

And children coming home from school

Look in at the open door;

They love to see the flaming forge,

And hear the bellows roar,

And catch the burning sparks that fly

Like chaff from a threshing-floor.

 

He goes on Sunday to the church,

And sits among his boys;

He hears the parson pray and preach,

He hears his daughter’s voice

Singing in the village choir,

And it makes his heart rejoice.

 

It sounds to him like her mother’s voice

Singing in Paradise!

He needs must think of her once more,

How in the grave she lies;

And with his hard, rough hand he wipes

A tear out of his eyes.

 

Toiling,—rejoicing,—sorrowing,

Onward through life he goes;

Each morning sees some task begin,

Each evening sees it close;

Something attempted, something done,

Has earned a night’s repose.

 

Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,

For the lesson thou hast taught!

Thus at the flaming forge of life

Our fortunes must be wrought;

Thus on its sounding anvil shaped

Each burning deed and thought.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

22AUG2023 – Scenes from a Family Gathering

photog Current Events, OCF, photog's Corner, Reclaiming the Family , ,
Christmas Cooking, Sony A7 III, Sony 90mm f\2.8 macro lens

Driving from a rural area toward a megalopolis is almost always a frustrating experience.  The closer you get to the heart of darkness, the worse the traffic becomes and the more likely it is that you will accidentally cross the event horizon and be sucked in, never to break free of the bumper-to-bumper traffic of the black hole collapse.  Or so it seems to me.

By comparison driving in the reverse direction, away from the beast, feels like a continuously increasing sense of relief as the road and the entrances become less and less congested and the craziest of the homicidal drivers are left behind or at least no longer have the traffic density needed to ensure maximum mayhem.

Now all of that was true yesterday as I arrived and departed from the party that I travelled to.  But despite the tension of defying the human density gradient around the suburbs of Gotham City I was sorry that the party couldn’t have been extended indefinitely.

Everything about the gathering was congenial.  It was almost the entire family.  And that’s no mean feat.  We are many and we are scattered much more than in the past.  And Sunday is a tough day for travelling.  Saturday being the optimal day to allow for recovery before work resumes.

And everyone there was splendidly sociable.  The talk was the usual mixture of family events, politics, current events and reminiscing about crazier things and planning for crazier things.  And I learned things that I had never known about people I know very well.  And I saw what the youngest generation is starting to look like when they socialize.  And despite all the dire warnings and predictions they seemed quite healthy and normal.

Of course, food is always a highly important component of one of these shindigs and the hostess was extremely wise in her choices and provisioning.  There were several completely different themes with respect to the menu and there was never any danger of running out of the favorites which is always comforting.  I will admit that I no longer make the impact on the buffet table that I used to.  And that is necessary.  I wouldn’t have survived my former exploits as a trencherman.  But I still grazed high and low and tried a bit of everything.  Wonderful.

But the highlight is when the old bulls stagger into a corner, collapse into a circle of chairs and start pontificating about what’s wrong with the world and what we should do about it.  And eventually we come to agreement that things are going to go to hell no matter what we say or do and then we come to agreement that at least the world has us in it to make it a world worth living in.  Now this was what I remember when the old bulls were my father’s and my grandfather’s generations laying down the law and telling us what was wrong with my generation.  And now, heaven help me, I’m at my grandfather’s age and making my last speeches before shuffling off the stage permanently.  What a strange thing time is.

And just in time the cake and coffee are served and we lapse into a warm glow of caffeine and pastry ingredients.  And all too soon it’s time to go.  We need to leave before it’s too late to make the drive back.  But of course, there is at least a half hour of goodbyes, to each and every one.  Back slapping and hugs and hand shakes for one and all and then last-minute details remembered and plans for the next gathering.  And then we’re on the road and headed home.  But the glow from the party is still with us.  We talk about what we’ve heard and seen.  We talk about those who couldn’t make it and those who are gone.  But it’s all a happy feeling.  A good feeling.

The country and the world have gone straight to hell.  There’s no denying it.  But good things still exist.  And the best of those things is family, is the humanness of family.  The ties that bind and the hope for a future and the precious, priceless treasure of the young in our midst.

The world is not all ruin and depravity.  There is hope.  And I can see it when we get together.