Category: Current Events

11APR2023 – OCF Update – This’N’That

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Sunday was a great Easter family get together so this week is about catching up on stuff I neglected.

Today is going to be a mixed bag.  I have some photos and quotes to do and I am behind on everything; writing, chores, you name it.  But I want to have some fun too.

I grabbed this old Minolta zoom lens (35-105, f\3.5-4.5, macro) that has been hiding on a shelf in a closet for years and I want to play around with it as a walk-around lens for a while.  It’s a goofy lens and of course it’s on the LA-EA5 adapter so most of the autofocus stuff doesn’t work with it.  And the “macro” capability is this ridiculous switch that only allows for manual focus.  And the lens is very old so the coatings are very old technology so there’s all kinds of chromatic aberration.  But it has already been fun to walk around and use the  zoom to frame shots and to have wide angle and telephoto perspectives available.

Who knows whether the results will be terrible or even just meh but I’m having a little fun so far and maybe change is good for once.  I enjoyed my little foray into riffing on those Alice in Wonderland quotes.  It’s funny how closely the experience of finding oneself in a nightmare dreamscape resembles the actual world we find ourselves in.  Makes you wonder if the powers that be read the Wonderland books and liked what they saw.

 

Those damn bluebirds are back again and making believe they will take up residence in that same damn bluebird house.  I don’t believe it for a second but just as a diversion I’ve been taking some photos waiting for them to get kicked out by the swallows.  I daily harp on their shortcomings to Camera Girl.  I mock them constantly and call them pathetic losers and compare them to the various Republican losers that adorn our political make-believe world.  I think she’s getting tired of my obsession with them.

Cthulhu

Dunwich’s descent into political madness continues apace.  Confusion and anger are on full display and the path forward has been so muddied by the conflicting suggestions that the whole town government is paralyzed.  But we have to hope for the best.  I’m caught up in all this up to my chin so there’s nothing to do but move forward.  Onward and upward.  Or inward and downward.  Whichever works.

Well, it’s a warm, sunny day and we should all get some air today if we can.  But stay tuned and I’m sure to have something to say later.  I am an excitable kinda guy.

10APR2023 – Through the Looking Glass

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“Curiouser and curiouser!”  (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

In the late 1970s I thought America had lost its way.  We had elected a terrible president in Carter and everything was coming apart at the seams.  But then we elected Reagan and it seemed like the ship had been righted and America was back to what it should be.

In the nineties we got George Bush 1 and that got us Bill Clinton and once again were going down the wrong path.  In 2000 we tried to fix things with Bush 2 and then everything went to hell.  We got 9/11, endless wars, bankruptcy for the country and that led to Obama.  That was horrible and I could see the country fraying at the seams.  When Trump came along it was like a last lifeline thrown to us.  There was some honest talk and the hope that maybe we could undo the damage that had been done over the last several decades.  But then came the George Floyd riots, COVID and the 2020 election fraud.  And now after the 2022 midterms it’s official.  We were being kidded along.  The powers that be control the country and we were never going to be allowed to run this country.  We were just chumps who fight the wars for them.  There’s no way back to what we thought was normal anymore.

 

 

“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.

“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the Cat: “we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad.”

“How do you know I’m mad?” said Alice.

“You must be,” said the Cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”  (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

Now it’s apparent that what’s happened is more than just the Deep State usurping the political process and stealing elections.  Really what’s going on is that the majority of the population has bought into the new America.  Minorities, white women and the youth have drunk the cool-aid and love Big Brother.  They believe in global warming, saving Gaia, transgender surgeries for ten-year-olds, the desirability of a childless life and owning nothing and liking it.  Joe Biden’s America is what they aspire to.  They believe in this madness and we aren’t going to talk them out of it.

 

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”

“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the Cat.

“I don’t much care where–” said Alice.

“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” said the Cat.

“–so long as I get SOMEWHERE,” Alice added as an explanation.

“Oh, you’re sure to do that,” said the Cat, “if you only walk long enough.”  (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

So that leaves the rest of us in a quandary, where do we go from here?  That’s the one no one can answer.  All the smart people on the Right who fulminate against the managerial state and the hive and the deep state and the oligarchy don’t have an answer to what we do or where we go or how to get to a better place.  Frankly I don’t think they know.

And I can’t blame them.  I don’t know either.  But it seems we must try to do something.  Just going along with the others is giving in to madness.  And the only hopeful thing is that we’ve seen so much of the grift being used against us that we have at least gained a little wisdom.  There’s the hope that we can at least tell the difference between something real and the fakes and the crazies.  At least we can hope that’s the case.  So, we have to keep trying.

 

‘I could tell you my adventures–beginning from this morning,’ said Alice a little timidly: ‘but it’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.’

“Who are YOU?” said the Caterpillar.

This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I–I hardly know, sir, just at present– at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”  (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

And after all that has happened and all we’ve learned about the lies we were told about our country, who exactly are we.  What part of the country doesn’t want this “brave new world” of wokeness?  And what unites us?  Is it just cultural traditionalists?  Or does it include civic nationalists who believe in the wisdom of the United States Constitution as a basis for a civil society.  Can we put together a coalition that is willing to risk everything we have to free ourselves from the tyranny of the Left?  And will it have any permanence?  Who will be our leaders?  Certainly not the likes of Lindsey Grahams and Mitch McConnell.  They have shown their stupidity and baseness.  Where will we find leaders to unite us and help us achieve our freedom?

 

Alice laughed. “There’s no use trying,” she said: “one can’t believe impossible things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”  (Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland)

And even if we figure out who we are and what we want is escaping from this mad world possible?  The brainwashed masses who believe in the dictates of the Hive are totally madmen.  But the cynical people who control the country and own most everything there is to own are quite capable of using the apparatus of the federal government to destroy their enemies most efficiently.  They have trillions of dollars of equipment and millions of pawns under their power and no scruples at all about using them against anyone who won’t knuckle under.

How exactly are we to move them out of our ways?

Worst Movies of the 21st Century List

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The Hollywood Reporter is a rag that’s been around forever and purports to know something about film.  They’ve put out a list of what they claim are the “best” films of the 21st Century.  If you go through this list from start to finish you’ll most say, “Huh?”  Which is a good thing.  Most of this dreck explores the neuroses of sexual deviants trying to figure out why they are desperately unhappy and at odds with normal human experience.  Good luck with enjoying that with a tub of popcorn.  There are one or two movies that were entertaining or meaningful but as a list to choose entertainment it’s a joke, a bad joke.

One of these days I need to publish some best movie lists by categories and put these professional critics to well deserved shame.

The Tempo is Picking Up

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The Left is right out in the open now.  Antifa and the sexual deviants that make up a good chunk of it are openly assaulting anyone who disagrees with them.  Some of them have jumped right off the deep end and are murdering children to bring attention to their hatred of normalcy.

We’re nowhere near any climax to this thing but they’ve definitely ratcheted up the action.  Things in Tennessee and in California speak to this.  Now, California is a joke and anyone who attempts to speak out there is just looking to be martyred.  But Tennessee might be a flashpoint where the Right might make a stand and accomplish something.  So are Texas and Florida.  Governor Abbott in Texas would be sending a powerful message if he pardoned Daniel Perry, the soldier who was convicted of murder in Austin for defending himself during a BLM riot.  If he doesn’t pardon Perry, I think it will diminish him greatly.

In each of these states a Republican majority needs to find ways to establish control over the blue cities and the street thugs that infest them.  Doing this effectively and finding a template to spread this to other states is the priority.  The legislatures need to make it easy to impeach any public official, whether a mayor, DA or judge, who is committing crimes against their constituents.  And this is especially important when there are places like Austin where the majority advocates for these crimes.  The fact that Daniel Perry was convicted shows there are areas where the law has been perverted due to the infestation of leftists.  Extreme measures will need to be enacted that allow the state to wrest criminal justice out of the hands of jurisdictions that consistently pervert justice.  And impeachment is probably the best mechanism for that.

The joker in all this is always the federal government.  They will swoop in and attack red state officials who attempt to prevent the Antifa goons and BLM rioters from having their way.  And now we’ve added in the trans-psychos as an open front in the war.  Maybe we are close to a confrontation between a red state and the feds.  That will be the acid test.  When a governor finally sticks his neck out and refuses to back down to the Justice Department will decide whether there will ever be any real progress against the Left.  That’s the Rubicon moment.

DeSantis in Florida, Abbott in Texas and Lee in Tennessee will eventually be pushed into a corner where they will either stand up to the feds or capitulate.  That’s the reality we are in.  When that will happen is not clear but it seems that things are moving faster now.  Maybe it has to do with the economy sputtering; inflation, recession and bank failures all at once are forcing Biden and his handlers to look to distract people with the street theater that is Antifa and the trans-madness.  All this may be completely contrived to panic the voters.  If so then it is an opportunity to take a stand and take control in those states where the Left isn’t dominant.

But that will require courage.  And courage is one of the scarcest of commodities.  As we’ve seen, the Left is completely without scruple or mercy.  They will destroy, literally destroy anyone who stands in their way.  It will take enormous courage and intelligence to beat them.  They’ve gotten their tentacles into every facet of our society and prying them loose is a herculean task.

And it will require coordination.  So far, we haven’t seen outward signs of red states coordinating their tactics and policies.  When we see that happening it will be a very good sign that intelligence is starting to appear on the Right.

So, will 2023 be the year of the confrontation?  Hard to say.  It really depends on whether there is a man with a plan out there to tackle the leftist goliath and strike a blow for our side.  I’d like to say it will happen soon but that’s just a hope.  What I will say is the Left is definitely getting crazier.  Maybe they will generate a little crazy on the right too.  Then maybe a spark might catch fire.

Will Gov. Greg Abbott Pardon Daniel Perry?

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Sgt. Daniel Perry was convicted of murder by an Austin jury under a Soros DA’s direction.  Perry killed a BLM rioter that brandished an AR-15 at him during a BLM riot back in 2020.  Now Governor Abbott is trying to get his Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend Perry for a pardon.  We’ll see if the governor can make it happen.  It would strike a blow for justice and fairness in a big red state with a deep blue capitol city.  Stay tuned.

Goodbye Kaylee

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Our dogs aren’t our kids.  Maybe if you’ve never had kids they can act as replacements for that relationship.  But it’s still a mistaken idea.  Our dogs are not our children.  They’re our dogs.  But that is not a trivial relationship.

Dogs are intelligent, empathetic and loyal creatures that mistake us for family.  And so, we have lived with them for possibly hundreds of thousands of years until it’s become true.  We’ve formed a symbiotic relationship that is full of satisfactions and frustrations, misunderstandings and camaraderie.  In short, they become a part of our families and our lives.

But they don’t live long enough.  About every ten years, give or take, we have to say goodbye.  And that is truly terrible.  Three times before I’ve had to bring one of our dogs to the vet to be put down and three times, I’ve had to dig a grave.  I won’t say those days were the saddest of my life because losing a parent or a sibling or a child is incomparably worse.  It’s worse but it’s akin to the same feeling.  It’s terribly sad.  It takes the heart right out of you and leaves an empty feeling that hurts.

Next week it will happen again.  Camera Girl walks around the house crying and I feel pretty rotten too.  She’s planning what treats; ice cream and cake; to give her.  I’m picking a spot for the grave and figuring out how to arrange everything.  We’ve been talking about all the funny memories we have of Kaylee over the years.  It’s unanimous that she is the most lovable and loyal of all the dogs we’ve owned.  She will be missed.

Maybe having animals that don’t live as long as we do provides a foreshadowing of what we all must eventually experience; death and loss.  Maybe there’s some good that comes from it.  But it still feels pretty awful when it’s happening.  It feels like cruelty and betrayal and that you’re at fault.  It seems like they should live longer, maybe twenty years.  But I guess it would come to the same thing; maybe worse.

So, this post is a part of the grieving process.  Keeping dogs is a fraught experience.  We put a lot in, we get a lot out.  But the ending is an emptying of our hearts that makes you wonder if you should bring another dog into your house and life.  We still have a younger dog.  For the last twenty plus years we’ve kept two dogs.  But now we think about whether we should get a puppy.  Right now, we’ve said no, we won’t.  But I wonder.  Camera Girl is a hopeless dog lover and I know she’s always thinking about a puppy.  We’ll have to let time pass before we think about those things but I won’t be surprised if she changes her mind.  Old habits.

I can’t imagine what it is like losing a child.  When I hear about children dying, I’m horrified.  I was lucky in that my children were robustly healthy and never experienced any terrible accidents.  So, I have an enormous amount to be thankful for.

But having to bury a dog is a loss in the family and a thing to note in sadness.  Goodbye Kaylee.

07APR2023 – Quote – Good Friday

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Matthew 27:33-60 KJV

33  And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull,

34  They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink.

35  And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots.

36  And sitting down they watched him there;

37  And set up over his head his accusation written, THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

38  Then were there two thieves crucified with him, one on the right hand, and another on the left.

39  And they that passed by reviled him, wagging their heads,

40  And saying, Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself. If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.

41  Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said,

42  He saved others; himself he cannot save. If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him.

43  He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him: for he said, I am the Son of God.

44  The thieves also, which were crucified with him, cast the same in his teeth.

45  Now from the sixth hour there was darkness over all the land unto the ninth hour.

46  And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani? that is to say, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?

47  Some of them that stood there, when they heard that, said, This man calleth for Elias.

48  And straightway one of them ran, and took a spunge, and filled it with vinegar, and put it on a reed, and gave him to drink.

49  The rest said, Let be, let us see whether Elias will come to save him.

50  Jesus, when he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost.

51  And, behold, the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom; and the earth did quake, and the rocks rent;

52  And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,

53  And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.

54  Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

55  And many women were there beholding afar off, which followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering unto him:

56  Among which was Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s children.

57  When the even was come, there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ disciple:

58  He went to Pilate, and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be delivered.

59  And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,

60  And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre, and departed.

LGBTQIA Is a Waste of Time

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Depending on whether you add in all the minor weirdos to the mix, the LGBTQIA***** organized crime group takes up an inordinate amount of my time every time I have to say or write their name.  Sure, it doesn’t look like all that much but it’s at least seven syllables and saying and writing that gobbledygook doesn’t exactly coming trippingly to the tongue or thumb.

It can be debated as to whether they have made up this goofy acronym just to be annoying or not.  After all these aren’t the most rational individuals.  It’s highly likely that their actions are almost random and the chances of anything they do not being annoying is probably very low.  So, I won’t go down that road.  But intentional or accidental I’m just tired of having to go through all the work of writing out that nonsense.

So, what to call them?  I could call them the weirdos but that isn’t specific enough.  I could call them the sexual weirdos.  But that sounds a little too benign to describe a group that has caused so much mayhem and misery.  I guess I could use the term sexual defectives.  That signifies that the problem is inherent and isn’t their fault.  They’re just broken from the start.  That was their claim a decade or two ago.  If I want to be less specific, I can call them sexual deviants.  That leaves the question of their choice out of it.

Are six syllables still too much?  How about just deviants?  Most of the time that would be enough.  What other deviants are there that they could be mixed up with?  We don’t call drug addicts deviants typically.  Plain old criminals aren’t typically called deviants.  Psychopaths and sociopaths have their own specific definitions.  Unless I’m missing something, it looks like the term is available.

So that seems like a good fit.  I’ll call them sexual deviants maybe once in an article and drop back to just plain deviants in the rest of the references.  Who knows how many man-hours I may save by this new designation?  I predict I’ll add years to my life by this little innovation.  Maybe I should patent it or copyright it or something.  I could come to be known as the man who eliminated the LGBTQIA.  How cool would that be?

So let me try this out for a while and see how it fits.  It doesn’t differentiate the differences between the various fetishes that make up the deviant confederation.  It doesn’t speak to the particular delusion that would drive someone to declare himself gender fluid.  But maybe that’s the beauty of it.  I’m not exactly interested in understanding the various quirks and kinks that define and explain all of these people.  I just need a term that accurately designates them as a whole.  I’ll leave it to lawyers and doctors to understand them or define their relationship to the rest of the world.  All I need is a way to stop worrying about memorizing another letter they’ve added to their alphabet soup every time they think of a new way to torture their bodies and souls.