Month: November 2023

Honest Debate

photog Current Events, Humor, Trump , ,

photog – Good evening, ladies and gentlemen in the studio audience and you folks watching at home.  Welcome to the fourth scheduled Republican Presidential Candidates’ Debate here at the beautiful Mar-a-Lago estate in sunny Florida, home of the front runner in the race, former President Donald J. Trump.  As you all probably know, the former President has agreed to join the debate under the condition that it be held at his estate and under the rules that he has laid out for the debate.

I’m your host Pho Tog of the OCF Broadcast Network and I will provide commentary as needed, but mostly I want to bear witness to this surely fascinating meeting.  The moderator will be Tucker Carlson and he will control the questioning.  In addition to the former President, the debate will be between Governor Ron DeSantis, former Governor Nikki Haley, businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, Senator Tim Scott and former Governor Chris Christy.

The other candidates have taken their places at their lecterns but President Trump has not yet made his appearance.  They all seem very annoyed by this turn of events.  The outdoor locale for the debate next to the lagoon while very scenic has made most of the debaters doubtful that the event will provide the gravitas that such an important occasion deserves.  With their backs to the water the candidates face a stage where Mr. Carlson stands at a lectern with his notes, a microphone and a keypad.

And now to add to the unorthodox nature of the event I can see and hear the surface of the lagoon behind the candidates roiling.  And now breaking the surface is the cephalopodic visage of the Great Old One Cthulhu.  He has walked ashore and has brought with him his own custom lectern, probably three hundred and fifty feet tall, but no notes that I can see.  There is considerable consternation among the human debate participants.  And Cthulhu is addressing them.  Let’s listen in.

CTHULHU – Moderator Carlson, I come with a message from President Donald J. Trump.

Tucker – What is your message O, Great Old One?

CTHULHU – He says and I quote, “I agreed to be represented in this debate but I did not mean personally.  I have sent my emissary the Great Old One Cthulhu, and really, he’s the greatest and oldest one, to represent me amongst this field of pygmies.  He is great just as I am great.  He will provide really great answers to all of Tucker’s questions which will also be great.  Enjoy the buffet.”

Christie – This is an outrage.  Donald Trump has shown his true colors by chickening out of his commitment.  I won’t stand for this cowardice.

Tucker – Do you intend to leave?

Christie – No, I will use this event to prove to America that I am the man who can get the job done.  I’m not a slacker like Trump.

Tucker – Alright, let’s move forward with the debate.  The first question is for Donald Trump which will be answered by his surrogate, the Great Old One Cthulhu.  If you are elected president, how do you intend to prevent the FBI from sabotaging your administration by spying on your cabinet, arresting your officials and generally disrupting your agenda as they did in your previous term.

CTHULHU – All great leaders achieve their results by attacking their enemies head on.  On the first day in office, I intend to go to FBI headquarters and personally question each and every manager to see if they will carry out my mandate without question.  Any that hesitate on these terms will be terminated on the spot.

Christie – That’s ridiculous.  You can’t fire those federal civil servants.  It’s against the law.

CTHULHU – I don’t intend to fire them.  I intend to eat them.  I don’t remember hearing about any federal statute specifically forbidding that.

Christie – But that’s monstrous!

CTHULHU – Well technically I am a monster.

Christie – But Trump isn’t.  He can’t eat people.

CTHULHU – Well, fine.  Then he can have me appointed as provisional Attorney General and I can eat them then.

Christie – I think I’ve listened to just about enough of this nonsense.  This is just more of Trump’s MAGA tough talk.  He couldn’t get it done last time and he won’t get it done this time.  And he was too afraid to face me on this stage like a man so he sent this squid-headed freak to spout his lies.  He won’t fix the government because no one is eating anyone!

photog – Ladies and gentlemen, the video feed has been stopped.  After Christie’s comment Cthulhu reached down with his massive claw, scooped up the morbidly obese politician and popped him in his mouth.  After a few muffled screams, the crunching of bones and a loud gulp Cthulhu was heard to remark, “Needed a little salt.”

After that the other candidates scattered toward the foliage and Tucker Carlson attempted to explain to Cthulhu that this might be the end of the proceedings.

Well folks this has been an interesting night.  I think we’re all grateful to Governor Christie for speaking his mind.  He certainly said what he thought.  And now we know that direct action will be a cornerstone of the next Trump administration, at least if Cthulhu is included in the Cabinet.  So good night from Mar-a-Lago and I’ll see you at the next Republican debate.  Oh, who am I kidding.  That was the last one.  Bring on Joe Biden and some ranch dressing.

Cthulhu

The Fountainhead (1949) – An OCF Classic Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews , , , , , , ,

The Fountainhead is a novel by Ayn Rand about an architect named Howard Roark who embodies Rand’s ideal of the individualist.  It was made into a movie with Rand providing the screen play.

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

Gary Cooper is Howard Roark, a young man who wants to build buildings where the form corresponds to the function of the building and the materials it is made from.  But the architectural profession demands that only the established patterns, like classical columns and facades be used.  Unwilling to compromise on these points he is scorned by his profession and denied any commissions by the corporate establishment and is forced to get work wherever he can find; a gas station here, a factory there.  But slowly he gains a reputation as an innovator who can build modern buildings that are structurally sound and gracefully beautiful.

During these years he meets friends and enemies that help or hinder his career and he meets his soul mate; Dominique Francon (played by Patricia Neal) who is the daughter of a prominent architect and is the first to recognize Roark’s great talent and integrity.  But because she sees that the world will try to destroy him, she leaves him to spare herself the agony of watching it happen.  He meets Gail Wynand (played by Raymond Massey) the owner of the New York Banner, a tabloid newspaper that profits from yellow journalism.  He is also Dominique Francon’s new husband.  Wynand recognizes Roark’s talent and hires him to build a mansion for him in the country where he will live with his wife.  Neither Dominique nor Roark keep their former relationship from Wynand and in fact Roark and Wynand become close friends.

Working for Wynand at the Banner is Ellsworth M. Toohey, the newspaper’s architectural critic (if you can imagine such a thing).  He is also Ayn Rand’s mouthpiece for the collectivist ideology.  He believes that individualists like Roark are criminals for defying the will of the majority and should be treated as such.

Eventually we reach a crisis when Roark agrees to design a low-income housing project on the condition that his design would be adhered to completely.  When the powers that be betray him and change his designs, he dynamites the buildings before they are completed and is put on trial.  Wynand attempts to defend Roark in the Banner but Toohey organizes a boycott of the paper and Wynand is defeated and must recant his defense of Roark.

In the climax of the picture Roark gives a summation speech to the jury defending every man’s right to the fruits of his labor, in his case the design of his buildings and the agreement that they would not be altered.  And of course, he is found not guilty.  Wynand sells the Banner and uses the funds to commission Roark to build the tallest building in the world and then shoots himself.  The movie ends with Dominique Roark taking a construction elevator to the top of the million story Wynand Building tower with Howard Roark standing there with his hands on his hips while the wind whips his shirt.

O good grief.  Where to start?  Ayn Rand was a novelist and social critic who proposed a theory of human values that she called “objectivism.”  It seems to be a justification for a libertarian view of human interaction.  It espouses individualism and the right of everyone to live life according to the individual’s free will without constraint as long as no one else’s existence is constrained by this behavior.  For Rand, the antithesis of objectivism and the epitome of evil is communism.  Since Rand had grown up under the Soviet regime, she knew something about how communism worked.  She was also a novelist and her books reflected her philosophy.  And Howard Roark was one of the exemplars of her philosophy.  And the book is a very interesting read in some respects.  But subtlety was not one of her attributes.  There are no shades of gray.  Howard Roark and Dominque Francon are demigods of individualist virtue and Ellsworth M. Toohey is a communist slug dripping slime wherever he goes.  But even this would be a starting point for a movie.  What is missing though is anything like actual human behavior.  The characters are there more or less only to mouth talking points and diatribes for their particular points of view.  Even the romantic entanglements are presented as examples of how these mythical objectivist supermen and women would behave.  At no point can you find yourself suspending disbelief and becoming immersed in the characters.  It’s more like one of those public service film documentaries from the fifties where you are told about how the air raid shelter will allow us to survive World War III and get on with our lives in the glorious future that awaits us.  I enjoy watching the movie as a lark.  But except as a philosophical treatise on Ayn Rand and objectivism I don’t think it can be recommended for entertainment value.

Guest Contributor – Chemist – 09NOV2023 – Woke Hierarchy

photog Chemist, Guest Contributors ,

photog – 

That dopey girl was as pale as milk. Where exactly is she indigenous to? I think that cop showed admirable restraint. I doubt I could have done as well. Bottom line, if you drive drunk, regardless whether you’re non-binary or a scarlet-bottomed baboon you have to be pulled off the road.

 

In reply to photog –

Well, yes. She is pasty white. She’s also obese, unattractive and not too bright. So how does she get ahead? By claiming to be part of an oppressed minority.
To quote Bari Weiss:
“People were to be given authority in this new order not in recognition of their gifts, hard work, accomplishments, or contributions to society, but in inverse proportion to the disadvantages their group had suffered, as defined by radical ideologues. According to them, as James Kirchick concisely put it: ‘Muslim > gay, black > female, and everybody > the Jews.’”
She is never going to be successful based on looks or intellect so the only thing left is race pandering. What’s a pasty white girl to do when she is not a minority?
Just claim to be one!
Hey! It worked for a Elizabeth Warren. She is a pasty white female of below average intelligence who turned her claim of Native American lineage (Verified by her high cheek bones!) into a Harvard professorship and a seat in the senate.

“I Have Very Bad Social Anxieties”

photog Current Events ,

Hilarious.

H/T to Larry Correia’s X feed for this clip.  Here’s a cop giving a sobriety test to someone who was driving on a highway in the wrong direction.  Her list of reasons was she was new to the area (two months), indigenous, non-binary, mental and had very bad social anxieties.

She also couldn’t walk a straight line so even though the cop was “being a white man” he still cuffed her and we assume dragged her off to jail.

My favorite moment is when he calls her ma’am for the second time and she tells him how triggering that is for her.

@p0lice_clips

Smh man#arrest #policeofficer #fyp #bodycam #policeclips #bodycamfootage

♬ original sound – PoliceClips

 

 

09NOV2023 – OCF Update – Our Long National Nightmare is Over

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“photog Unbound,” my favorite lost play of Aeschylus, ends with Zeus freeing me from Tartarus where all the food, even things like vanilla ice cream, is served with tartar sauce already added into it, a fate worse than death itself.

But now I’m free.  And in my absence, as usual, all hell has broken loose.  Elections have been bungled and pundits have drawn absurd conclusions from them and even more ridiculous people have been running around in circles declaring that the sky is falling.

In other words everything is quite normal for our world of the present day.  But it’s good to be back and I’ll try to collect my thoughts and put down in somewhat coherent quasi-English what I think about all this stuff.

So, yes, yes.  I’m back with my nose to the grindstone and my shoulder to the wheel (which combination, by the way, sounds quite uncomfortable).  And I’m bound to come up with something that I predict will include the letters a, s, d and f just because of carpal tunnel syndrome or some other repetitive motion injury of the hand syndrome that I am unaware of.

Good morning.

09NOV2023 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

I think the reason children get tired of their toys so soon is just that it is against human nature to be really interested in what is of no use. If you say that a beautiful thing is always interesting, I answer, that a beautiful thing is of the highest use. Is not the diamond that flashes all its colours into the heart of a poet as useful as the diamond with which the glazier divides the sheets of glass into panes for our windows?

George MacDonald