Category: Current Events

Fifty Years in the Blink of an Eye

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Fifty years ago today J.R.R. Tolkien died.  Here’s a link to the article that doesn’t have a paywall around it (to hell with the Murdochs).

A very old friend of mine sent this to me.  Tolkien’s creation of Middle Earth has turned out to be a reflection of the story of western civilization.  Because at its root it directs us to observe the choice between the sacredness of normal human life; existence under the biblical precepts; under God, as one choice.  And the other choice is nihilism and the lust for power and control; the collectivist model; life under the god-emperor.

Of course in our real world we’re not doing as well as Frodo and company.  Saruman and the orcs are firmly in control of what’s left of western civilization.  I suppose you could say it’s not over yet but to analogize our situation in tolkienian terms, Sauron’s wearing the one ring, Minas Tirith, Rivendell, Lothlorien and Edoras have been burned to the ground, the heads of all nine members of the fellowship of the ring are displayed on spikes over the gate of the Barad-dûr and the last hope for the West depends on the work ethic and attention to detail of Tom Bombadil.

In the essay the author seizes on the religious basis of Tolkien’s creation.  And that is something that many people today miss or ignore.  Middle Earth is a reflection of the Christian medieval model of the universe with Sauron and his minions as the fallen angels and Gandalf as an archangel sent to stave off the end of the world.  But consciously or not, Tolkien was reflecting the crisis of faith in the West.  He had fought in the trenches of the Great War and he saw that his civilization was committing suicide.  And he longed for a time before the machines had overpowered us.  Things of course have only gotten worse since his time.  And the analogies have only become more apt in our time.

But Tolkien has provided a beautiful tale that can inspire and cheer our hearts when we have the time to read it (or now watch it on the screen).  Fifty years!  Where did the time go?

Meet the Breeder

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I am a profoundly lazy man.  Disrupting my routine for onerous activities is highly disagreeable to me.  But Camera Girl possesses super powers that no one else in the world has.  At the utterance of a word, I will move heaven and Earth to keep her happy.  So as promised today I crossed beyond the reasonable boundaries of time and space so that she could meet with the breeder of her new puppy.  And there was much joy and rejoicing for Camera Girl and for me, the wailing and gnashing of teeth, because I know what lies before me.  But as a veteran husband in good standing, I know that a happy wife makes for a happy life.  Well, at least if the wife is a good one.

But I fully realize that this new addition to the household will wreak havoc with my peace of mind.  It’s bound to do many things that will irk me.  It will chew and destroy many of my possessions.  It will inevitably decide that my feet are the chew toys that it will choose to embed its pin sharp baby teeth in.  And without a doubt it will pee on anything I leave around within its sphere of control.  This will not be easy.  But it must be done.  So off we went to the breeder’s.

Now all dog breeders are crazy people.  This is indisputable fact.  But the level and type of insanity varies greatly within the group.  And the breeder we met with today was a very benign case and also a very nice woman to boot.  She had kids and grandkids and even sounded like a conservative based on her statements about crime and punishment that came out incidentally while we conversed.  I guess whenever I speak to someone some of my preferred topics bleed into the conversation unintentionally.  But hearing it did make the conversation more pleasant.

And when we met the little whelp, it would have taken a heart of stone not to smile at the sight of this floppy eared furball cradled on Camera Girl’s lap while she petted and crooned at the diminutive canine.  She smiled and carried on with the breeder about all their opinions about this type of dog and all the qualities real and imaginary that they imbued them with.  She was ecstatic.

Now this is directly linked to our granddaughter’s entry into kindergarten yesterday.  Camera Girl has been in a period of mourning over the loss of her time with this little girl.  Her maternal instinct was crying out for something to mother.  Well, in my book a puppy isn’t a child.  But it is a surrogate for one.  It is small, helpless and needs mothering so if this creature can transition her through the maturing of her grandchildren from babies to school children, then so be it.  I’m on board.

And it’s definitely better than the Belgian Giant rabbit that she was earlier proposing.  That would have seen me trundling all winter out in the snow to feed, clean and water said rabbit.  And when all is said and done a dog is a hundred times better than a rabbit.  And a Belgian one at that!

So, I spent all of today travelling back and forth to wilds of northern New England on this quest and a return journey will be necessary in the next week or so to pick up the little refugee not to mention the thousands of dollars needed to purchase, medicate, vaccinate and equip it for life at the Compound.

But it’s short money.  The good will I’ve already purchased is priceless.  Suddenly I’m the conquering hero.  I’ve made all her dreams come true.  Of course, it won’t last forever but for at least the next year she’s got a project that will energize and satisfy her feminine instincts.

And I won’t have to deal with some stupid Belgian rabbit.  Take that Brussels!

31AUG2023 – And Then, Quite Suddenly, Summer Was Over

photog Book Reviews, Current Events, Quote of the Day, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , ,

Bradbury understood summer to a boy.

 

“And then, quite suddenly, summer was over.
He knew it first when walking downtown. Tom grabbed his arm and pointed gasping, at the dimestore window. They stood there unable to move because of the things from another world displayed so neatly, so innocently, so frighteningly, there.
“Pencils, Doug, ten thousand pencils!”
“Oh, my gosh!”
“Nickel tablets, dime tablets, notebooks, erasers, water colors, rulers, compasses, a hundred thousand of them!”
“Don’t look. Maybe it’s just a mirage.”
“No,” moaned Tom in despair. “School. School straight on ahead! Why, why do dime stores show things like that in windows before summer’s even over! Ruin half the vacation!”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

 

“June dawns, July noons, August evenings over, finished, done, and gone forever with only the sense of it all left here in his head. Now, a whole autumn, a white winter, a cool and greening spring to figure sums and totals of summer past. And if he should forget, the dandelion wine stood in the cellar, numbered huge for each and every day. He would go there often, stare straight into the sun until he could stare no more, then close his eyes and consider the burned spots, the fleeting scars left dancing on his warm eyelids; arranging, rearranging each fire and reflection until the pattern was clear…
So thinking, he slept.
And, sleeping, put an end to Summer, 1928.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

 

The yearly ritual continues.

 

Recording Poetic Justice for Laughs

photog Biden Humor, Current Events, Humor

So what to write about when I’ve foresworn speculating about the coming revolution?  Well, the only thing to talk about then is what it’s like at ground zero.  We’re all witnesses to a seminal moment in American and world history.  We get to watch a myth die.  The Democrats and the Deep State are cooperating in the murder of the America we grew up in.  And they’re doing a thorough job.  I’d say that fully 35% of Americans are as disillusioned with this country as it’s possible to be.  Probably another 30% are confused and a little scared about the way things seem to be going.  And the other 35% are a combination of idiots, wokesters and crooks.  And every day is another experiment to see what Madhouse America will teach us.

A continuing theme has been the prevalence of geriatric crooks running our government.  Biden and Feinstein have of late been joined by Mush-brain Mitch McConnell.  And he’s giving Dementia Joe a run for his money.  But whereas Joe just spouts nonsense, Mitch suddenly seizes up like the Tin-Man from the “Wizard of Oz.”  When he stands there staring into space I expect him to mumble “oil can” through frozen jaws.

But old crooks are hardly our biggest problem.  Truly everywhere we look we can see madness and dysfunction.  The litany is endless.  But this week I had an epiphany.  Laughter is an answer.  What I look for is poetic justice.  Whether it’s Sanctuary Cities squawking at the cost of housing illegal aliens.  Or tribal police manhandling environmental protestors blocking the roads to Burning Man.  Or transgendered NGO workers discovering that African and Middle Eastern governments really do want to do very bad things to them if they fly the rainbow flag.  Or woke baristas discovering that having their customers robbed and assaulted by homeless crackheads every single day is going to make a coffee shop quite a bit less profitable.

Each of these events has something in common with the others.  First off, each provides a healthy dose of schadenfreude.  That alone makes them valuable because laughing at our enemy’s misfortunes is priceless.  But they also provide a morsel of hope.  Because each one showcases some weakness of our enemies based on their adopting some tenet of their philosophy that flies in the face of reality.  And it’s this refusal to face reality that contains the seeds of their downfall.

Now whether that downfall is imminent or centuries in the future is the problem.  For all I know, illegal aliens may continue flooding the country for several more generations before collapse takes down the USA.  In that case my mockery of the complaining city fathers of NYC or Chicago is pretty weak tea.  But what certainly is true is the joy I experience when I mock these people.  So, whether or not the big picture is changed by my enjoyment I’m positively impacted.

And I think I’ve discovered that readers like these stories too.  I think a lot of people are like me.  They hate the enemy and take joy in their discomfiture.  Some people might say this is petty or even wrong.  I disagree.  Celebrating their defeats even minor ones is an objective good that should be developed.

So that is why you can expect to see more current events posts that mock our adversaries’ misfortunes.  From my point of view this is a useful output for my site.  So, let the flames begin.

Animatronic Mitch McConnell’s Battery Runs Down Again During a Press Conference

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Hilariously the answer he couldn’t get out was whether he would be running for re-election in 2026.  The question should have been “Will it cost less to refurbish you or just scrap you for a replacement robot?”  Come on, isn’t there some slightly less decrepit crook who could sell us out in the senate?  Please don’t let it be Mitt.

“We’re Environmental Protestors, Please!”

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Here’s my public service for the day.  I’ve been watching this clip for a few days and it never gets old.  A heartfelt belly laugh at the stupid and self-important.  The Gaia Worshippers.

Stupid hippies are blocking the road to Burning Man to protest, I guess, the other stupid hippies.  Then the tribal police bust up the blockade and arrest the stupid hippies.  When the cop pulls out his gun and starts manhandling one of the fat stupid hippies, another fat stupid hippie starts screeching that they are non-violent and environmental protestors and, I guess, in her mind therefore, sacrosanct.

But the cop puts his knee in the hippie’s fatty liver and cuffs her.  Comedy gold.  If only it could be Greta Thunberg!

 

Guest Contributor – TomD – 29AUG2023 – Panhandle Pandemonium

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Tom | Flickr

TomD

I’m way out of the way this time on the Panhandle. But we get our share.

Ivan in 2004 was a class 5 as it was approaching but hit as a 4. Damn near destroyed the area. A 20 something foot storm surge, It destroyed the multi-mile long I-10 bridge over Pensacola Bay and around 70% of the remaining buildings had blue tarp roofs for years.

I had a fishing boat that I kept on base at NAS Pensacola. I was over a month later before anyone could get on base. Going over the bridge to the base, we saw 100’s of boats just everywhere, beached, capsized, holed, sunken, I was pretty sure it insurance time. Got to the marina, which was also an RV storage yard, all junked at this point. I found my boat in the RV area still sorta attached to the trailer. It hadn’t drifted off to join the boat graveyard in the bay because the lower unit on one of the motors had jammed through and wedged in the wall of a big RV that had somehow stayed in place.

Another big one hit the following year but there was nothing other than the odd tropical storm until 2020 when one came through and destroyed a good portion of the Pensacola to Gulf Breeze bay bridge. Believe me, that was a BIG deal cutting the metro area in half for 1-1/2 years until they got a couple of lanes. Every one had to do a almost 40 mile detour.

Down here, it doesn’t have to be a hurricane or tropical storm. Spring 2014, we had 25 inches of rain in an 8 hour period. It was the freaking apocalypse. Damage was still being repaired in 2020.

 

QTPOC and Coffee; A Heady Brew

photog Current Events

Here’s a first sample of a post that I find worth posting under my new mandate for relevance.  This guy Max Meyer is a midwesterner and there is a local coffee house trying to make a go of it in a small Iowan town.  He contrasts these sane normal entrepreneurs with the folks in Philadelphia, Seattle, San Francisco and Portland who see selling coffee as part of a revolutionary struggle in which employees, hopefully people of color and queer folk, confront the customer about white supremacy and the need to uproot and annihilate it.  And when this business plan is embraced, self-immolation and hilarity ensue.  Here are some highlights:

“One alleged instance of anti-blackness was that when a group of black teenagers stole the Mina’s World tip jar and customers ran after them to retrieve it, the owners didn’t defend… the thieves. Without a hint of irony, the employees also accused the owners of “wage theft.”

The radical accountability process came to an end in June 2022, when Egghart and Parikh agreed to the employee demands, including to turn Mina’s World into a co-operative that the employees would own as reparation. 

There was just one problem: Egghart’s mother, a Korean immigrant and successful accountant, and the owner of the building. She was having none of it and refused to subject herself to the struggle session. She put the building up for sale.”

And this one has so much karma to it:

“In Portland, Oregon — at the heart of the indy coffee movement — Coava Coffee Roasters shut down in May, citing criminal violence against employees. 

“The team members at this cafe have been on the front line enduring extreme violence and criminal activity on an almost daily basis for the last few years– crime and violence that is only increasing in frequency and severity,” wrote the owners.”

And of course no discussion of coffee in America can avoid the 800 lb gorilla, Starbucks:

“But what Starbucks actually did was begin punishing white employees. A white regional manager in New Jersey was ordered by company brass to fire a white district manager who had nothing to do with the arrests — on false pretenses.

Those pretenses: pay discrepancies between white and black employees. The regional manager, Shannon Phillips, knew these charges against the district manager to be false. She cried foul and accused the company of using the white district manager as a scapegoat. A month later, she was fired herself.

Phillips sued Starbucks, claiming that she was fired for being white. In June, she won over $25 million in punitive damages against Starbucks. A federal jury in New Jersey agreed with her claim that in response to the 2018 incident, Starbucks began discriminating against white employees to appease angry protesters.”

It’s a beautiful story of getting what you asked for.  Inspiring.