Month: August 2024

Friday, And Now for Something Completely Different

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I’ve reached the halfway point in my marathon of horror and boredom.  And honestly, boredom is the deadlier poison.  That must be why prison is so horrible.  It’s the boredom.  Being forced to do nothing for years on end doesn’t sound like the worst thing that can be done to you.  And it’s not, but it’s bad enough.

There is magic in being at the half-way point.  From then on, it’s downhill.  Unfortunately, the last day is like a double portion, so counting hours it’s really not halfway, but the calendar is a more powerful measuring stick.  By early Wednesday morning the horror will be over.  And so, heading home tonight I had a jaunty smile on my lips and a song in my heart.

When I got home, I looked at the news and it was the same old, same old.  Kamala, Tim, Russia, Ukraine, Trump, Vance, Coke and Pepsi.  ¡Ay, Chihuahua!  Honestly, we’ve got to give this stuff a break.  Let the hacks working for the campaigns flood the airwaves with whatever memes they can generate.  After all they’re getting paid for it.  We need something better.

So, let’s have some entertainment.

 

Colter Wall has a few very entertaining songs that always cheer me up when I hear them.

 

 

This version of the speech I think is the best I’ve seen.

I don’t think I’ve ever found the version of Macbeth’s “Tomorrow” speech I completely enjoy.  But this one is the best of what I’ve found.

Thursday’s Surcease of Sorrow

photog Current Events ,

I had today off.  Ah, the glory.  But I still had to get up early because we had visitors and as pontifex maximus I have prescribed duties that include invocations and vague mumblings that render me canonically relevant but still slightly insane.

But it was good to be free for the day.  I spent time with the grandchildren and Camera Girl as she presided over mass quantities of juvenile comfort food (macaroni with cheese and grilled cheese sandwiches) and really bad kids’ movies (the 2021 “Tom and Jerry” movie and that monstrosity, “Ants” that Woody Allen, of all people, was in).  They taught me a game called, “Swim, fishy, swim” which is basically a version of tag or red light, green light.  Then we broke out the card games but other than war I didn’t know these other games.  They used non-standard decks of cards and weird rules.

While playing war I discovered that their reaction time is a lot faster than mine is now.  It is humbling to be in the presence of neurons that fire perfectly.  Old age is not for sissies.  But at least I was able to correct them in their use of the subjunctive mood.  Of course, I don’t think the subjunctive is still acknowledged anymore in grammar school.  In fact, I don’t think they teach grammar in grammar school anymore.  But I digress.  It was good to be among the young and away from Dunwichian responsibilities.  I still have five or six days of horror beginning tomorrow but a day off was great.

Of the various things going on I thought the most interesting development was the background on Gov. Tim Walz’s military service.  From what I read Walz retired out of his National Guard unit after he was notified that his unit was being deployed to Iraq in 2005.  And at the time he was the ranking non-commissioned officer in the unit.  I listened to a video where Megyn Kelly interviewed Tom Behrends, another non-commissioned officer from Walz’s National Guard unit, and he basically called Walz a coward for refusing to lead his unit into combat.  Never having served myself I’d be very interested in getting the opinions of those on this site who have served as to whether what Behrends says is reasonable.  What is the moral responsibility of a National Guard leader when his unit is called up for war?  How prevalent would this kind of reaction to deployment be?

Now I dislike Walz because he was the governor during the George Floyd riots in Minneapolis and he never ordered the National Guard to halt the rioting, arson and plain murder that went on during those riots.  I think he should be prosecuted for that.  But apparently in Minnesota they’re alright with that sort of thing.  So, they should get as much of that as is humanly possible.  In that sense it’s like California or New York.  But if Walz is running for Veep then his actions as governor should be fair game.  So, reviewing what he did during the Floyd riots makes perfect sense.

As for his refusal to be deployed to Iraq, I’m interested in what knowledgeable have to say about it.

Well, I better get some sleep.  More fun and games tomorrow.

CNN Parent Company’s Accounting Shows Negative Value for the Cable Channel

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Warner Brothers/Discovery took a $9.1 billion write-down basically to write off the abysmal loss of value in their cable channels for which CNN is the poster child.

“Warner Bros. has eliminated more than 2,000 positions over the past year and slashed 100 jobs at CNN last month.”

I think they should cut a little deeper. Look at the names of some of the people they haven’t fired yet:

  • Jim Acosta
  • David Axelrod
  • Christiane Amanpour
  • Dana Bash
  • Wolf Blitzer
  • John Berman
  • Anderson Cooper
  • Chris Wallace
  • Jake Tapper
  • John King
  • Van Jones

Some of these people are making eight figure salaries.  But what value do you get from Anderson Cooper, David Axelrod or Van Jones?  And why would anyone pay Jim Acosta anything?  And who knew that Wolf Blitzer was even still alive?

They should probably keep the guy who sprays the roaches and cleans the toilets but that’s about it.  No one else is providing value.

Wednesday’s Child Is Full of Woe

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The horror continues unabated.  Thursday will be a respite, and I will use that day to try to reestablish my sanity (whatever that might be).  We have corroded away the first inch of the First Selectman’s outer scale layer.  This will allow the boiling sulfuric acid to percolate through and diffuse into his circulatory system and act as a revivifying tonic.  This is an especially dangerous part of the procedure.  The effect of the tonic is to pique his appetite.  In years past we have lost several members of the de-lousing team at this point in the procedure.

Of course, he’s always very sorry afterward and apologizes profusely to the surviving members of the crew and speaks very appreciatively of the dearly departed and of all their good qualities; their diligence, their team spirit, their crunchiness and full-bodied flavor.  He never stints on praise.

Because of this unfortunate tendency during this part of the procedure I find myself unconsciously moving toward the First Selectman’s left side.  It’s a little-known fact that he’s blind in that eye and so less likely to reflexively snap his jaws and swallow someone standing near that side of his head.

In the big, beautiful world outside of Dunwich all sorts of unimportant things are going on.  The Olympics grinds on with no detectable interest by most of the population.  Kamala and her new running mate are making the rounds of the friendly news shows and touting their wonderfulness.  But I don’t know.  This guy seems to have a bunch of skeletons rattling around in his closet.  Did he refuse to serve in Iraq?  Did he normalize pedophilia.  This guy may be a disaster waiting to happen.  Well it couldn’t happen to a nicer gal than Kamala!

The Ukrainians have opened up a new front in their war by invading Russia on the northern front to the west of the Kharkiv area.  And some of their new F-16s have been spotted flying in the western Ukrainian skies.  There looks to be a major event in Ukraine very soon.

During a particularly slow point in the work, I was talking to a co-worker and he was talking about raising a family in the early 1980s.  A lot of what he said rang true for me too.  There were major financial problems like the very high mortgage rates but people went ahead with their lives taking risks and betting on their luck.  That’s how I remember it too.  The first time I got laid off with a mortgage to cover it was pretty scary.  But if you looked around, something would turn up even if it was only contract work.  The difference between then and now is there is a culture that discourages optimism.  Nothing can be done and nothing is anyone’s fault.  The default assumption is that it’s society’s fault and it’s not worth trying.

This attitude is a death sentence.  The world is the same as it ever was.  Effort and extending your reach beyond the minimum are rewarded.  Regardless of recessions and inflation, striving for what you want isn’t an extraordinary idea.  It’s the normal circumstance for Americans.  This has always been the land of opportunity because it’s the land of hard work that rewards the achiever.  So let the young ones you talk to know this.  Struggle and survive is the order of the day.  And they come from ancestors that did just that.

Now back to the vat.  By the pricking of my thumbs, something wicked this way comes.  Oh well.

08AUG2024 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

“Of all kind of authors there are none I despise more than compilers, who search everywhere for shreds of other men’s works, which they join to their own, like so many pieces of green turf in a garden: they are not at all superior to compositors in a printing house, who range the types, which, collected together, make a book, towards which they contribute nothing but the labours of the hand. I would have original writers respected, and it seems to me a kind of profanation to take those pieces from the sanctuary in which they reside, and to expose them to a contempt they do not deserve. When a man hath nothing new to say, why does not he hold his tongue? What business have we with this double employment?”

Charles de Montesquieu

Editor’s note: Sacre bleu, he means me!

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