Author: photog

Agenda of the Possible

photog Current Events

I have found that accepting my status as an outsider in the American system is a fairly liberating experience.  I’ve reconciled myself to being a pariah and it’s done me a world of good.  No longer needing to fix the socio-political framework of the United States is an enormous relief and clears my mind for tackling problems that I can address and that directly benefit me.

Instead of worrying whether the Democrats will rig the Pennsylvania vote in November, I’m spending my time looking for ways to improve the website and increase my visibility with the people who interest me.  Instead of worrying about what will happen to Donald Trump I will worry about what’s going to happen to Camera Girl and her kids and grandkids.  Instead of worrying about the southern border I’ll worry about my relations with the neighbors here in Dunwich.  All of these are things I can influence and that better my situation.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I’d be ecstatic if Donald Trump beats Dementia Joe in November and then somehow dismantles the Deep State.  I’d be doing cartwheels for months if that happened.  But what if it doesn’t happen?  Do I wait around for another four years hoping that we’ll get another chance the next time?  No thanks.  Been there, done that, don’t have the time to wait.  So, the time to start getting on with my life is right now.

After all, when the Roman empire fell in 476 AD the local Roman stone mason didn’t say, “Well that’s that.  Without the emperor handing out contractors’ licenses I’m out of business and I’ll just have to wait until Charlemagne get things going in 800 AD.  No, he just cut a deal with the Visigoths or the Ostrogoths or whatever Goths he could find to pay them his contactor’s license and just stopped chiseling SPQR onto the work he installed.  Instead, he just wrote, “Hurrah for Alaric” or something.  Now maybe in his heart of hearts he hated Alaric’s guts.  And probably he had hated his local Roman tax collector too.  But reality has its own logic.  If the Left has permanently outmaneuvered the Right, then I need to concentrate on outmaneuvering the local bureaucrats and stop waiting for a savior to set me free.

If the people of this country are stupid enough to believe in global warming and pediatric trans-affirming surgery then they deserve everything they get.  For me it means I have to figure out a way to survive stupid.  And now that I’m fully aware of just how dysfunctional and hopelessly broken our political system is I will make it my business to negotiate this minefield of social rot to the very best of my ability.

So, there it is.  My gospel of the red-pilled normie.  I’m going to stop following all the pollsters and Washington watchers.  I’ll leave that to the people who are still trying to arouse the silent or the sleeping or the just plain stupid majority.  I’m looking for those who are already getting things done and for those who have an agenda of the possible.

Andrew Klavan Inteviews Mamet

photog Current Events, Movie Reviews, Reviews , ,

David Mamet famously declared he had ceased to be a “brain dead liberal” back around the time of the 9/11 attacks.  And the Left has been attacking him ever since.  And since he is a playwright and a movie script writer that has had an enormous impact on his career and life.

Here Andrew Klavan talks to him about what that’s been like and why it’s okay.  I find it interesting to hear how those on the inside of the matrix describe the process of being attacked by the antibodies of the collective.  It’s like an autoimmune disease or more closely it’s as if these people have become cancer cells and have now been detected by the immune system.

Toward the end Mamet speaks very enthusiastically about what will be happening while Hollywood is dying.  “You don’t need a lot of money to make a movie.  You need a phone and a good idea.”  I find that very hopeful.

 

The Great Debate of July 2024

photog Biden Humor, Current Events, Humor, Trump , ,

“Hello my name is Anderson Cooper and you are tuned into the first presidential debate between our beloved President Joe Biden and “convicted felon” and cartoon super-villain Donald Trump.  Jake Tapper and Dana Bash will be presiding over this incredible spectacle.

CNN has gone to great lengths to be both totally impartial but also relentlessly opposed to misinformation.  To that end Mr. Trump’s microphone is programmed to shut off whenever the moderators decide he is guilty of misinformation.  There was a debate about also attaching electrodes to Mr. Trump that would apply a punishing electric current in the event of multiple attempts at misinformation but it was decided that wouldn’t be legal, so you know.

I’ll come back after the debate with reactions from a test audience but right now let’s go to the debate as it begins.”

Dana: Good evening gentlemen, and you too Mr. Trump.  Our first question is for President Joe Biden.  Mr. President, out of all the amazing successes that you’ve had as president; conquering COVID, restoring the economy to incredible vibrance, fixing climate change, destroying racism and transphobia and curing cancer, what do you think is your greatest accomplishment?

Biden:  That’s a great question Dana.  I remember that time I was at Potsdam with Churchill, Truman and Stalin.  I had just beaten Stalin in an arm-wrestling contest and he had agreed to dismantle the Soviet Union in 1991 and I was feeling kind of good.  But I think all of that pales in comparison to that time I taught my son Hunter how to run a Ukrainian energy conglomerate.  He had been having some slight troubles with crack cocaine and I knew that learning the ropes of drilling and extracting oil and gas in Easten Europe would clear his head.  It’s like my Uncle Bosie always used to say, before he was eaten by New Guinean cannibals, “Always tell the truth and don’t take any guff from dog-faced pony soldiers.

Dana: Inspiring words to live by Mr. President.  Well, Donald Trump, you don’t have any accomplishments to name so instead let’s hear what you have to say about your high crimes and misdemeanors.  Are you most ashamed of your hush money conviction, your January 6th insurrection or your attempts to steal classified documents?

Trump: I’m most ashamed of having agreed to this charade.  You nitwits are going to try to sell the American people on the fantasy of Joe Biden being in his right mind.  That’s not going to work.  He’s delusional and barely able to speak coherent English for more than two minutes at a time.

Biden: Now hold on you dog-faced pony oldier, I’ll ake you hind the arn and ock some sense int ou and moulbi woudle foad mobe saiden ray.  Come on man!  You know.  The thing!

Trump: You see?  What the hell is a moulbi woudle?  The man is one step away from the memory ward at Happy Acres.

Jake: Listen Trump, we all recognize the incredible courage of President Biden for being America’s first zombie president.  Many of the recently deceased suffer from the prejudices and misinformation that unenlightened individuals such as yourself spread about them.

We’re here to make sure he gets an even playing field.  With the correct translation programs and subtitling “moulbi woudle” becomes, “set the record straight.”

Trump: Alright that’s enough.  You can do the rest of this without me.

Jake: That’s right and we will.  Our AI video program will provide us with an accurate version of what you would have said if you had stayed.

Trump: Deep fake?

Jake:  Potato, puhtata.

Trump: That’s about right.  Joe is some kind of vegetable anyway.  Well, I wouldn’t have lasted the whole ninety minutes anyway.  That smell is more than I can stand.

Putting Up a Fight

photog Book Reviews, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , ,

I am a Tolkien fan and have been one since I was probably eleven.  The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, The Silmarillion, his lesser works, even his biography.  And I greatly respect the world-building he did in creating Middle Earth; the history, geography, the various non-human races and the tribes of men, even the religious underpinnings of his world.  I love his characters and their interplay with each other and the plot.

But I must be honest.  I find Frodo thoroughly annoying.  Sure, sure.  He carried the One Ring for the better part of a year and didn’t fail until at the very edge of the abyss.  And this after being poisoned by Shelob and frog-marched by orcs across the plains of Mordor.  Maybe that effort was heroic to an extent that we are supposed to revere it as an herculean effort for making it 99.9% of the way.  Maybe.

But that hobbit annoys the hell out of me.  Surely, I’m not the only one who has wondered, what if Frodo had been left behind and the ring had been given to Samwise Gamgee?  Maybe the whole thing could have been done in half the time.  Maybe on Sam’s less refined but sturdier shoulders there wouldn’t have been as much angst about the burden of the ring.  And one thing’s for sure.  Gollum would have been toast.  Sam would have put Sting through that homicidal proto-hobbit without further ado.  And that alone would have made the story shorter and less annoying.  Now you might say that without Gollum they wouldn’t have found their way in.  Well, in that case they hadn’t provided Frodo with enough information to get in.  So, put Aragorn and Sam together as the team.  Or Legolas and Sam together as the team.  Basically, anyone but Frodo.  I’ve heard that the dream team is Gandalf and an eagle but if we’re afraid that Gandalf would be too tempted by the Ring then just go with Sam and an eagle.

And if Sam had succeeded in destroying the ring he wouldn’t have needed to go across the sea to heal.  He would’ve gone right back to work clipping hedges at Bag End.  No fuss, no muss.  Sure, if Frodo had been left behind, Sam wouldn’t be inheriting Bag End because Frodo wouldn’t have to go to the Grey Havens.  Sam and Rosie would need to buy a starter-hole somewhere on Bagshot Row.  But the Gaffer surely had something socked away for Sam and the Cotton clan look like they take care of their own.

Now of course Tolkien had in mind that Frodo was the suffering servant of the Lord and Sam was sort of the batman or orderly for the more aristocratic Frodo.  This sort of synchs with Tolkien’s service in the First World War where an upper-class officer had a commoner for a batman.  And all of that is fine but I just wish Frodo had displayed a lot more pluck and grit than he did.

Would it have killed him to take down Shelob?  At least go down swinging.  Okay rant over.