Category: Current Events

Another Snippet from My Book

photog Book Reviews, Current Events, Life in Dunwich, Literature, My Fiction, OCF, photog's Corner, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , ,

I’ve been trying to speed up my writing but there’s always something distracting me.  but I thought it would be fun to post a little part of a scene.

“After the meeting, Director Sparks called Chastain and told him to meet him at Sparks’ temporary office in the Pentagon.  When Chastain arrived Sparks briefed him.  “We can’t play around anymore.  I’ve been given unlimited resources to catch this man.  I want you to act as the lead.  There will be three separate teams.  One will investigate the physical evidence at the Hoover building site to figure out what the hell we’re up against.  The second team will pursue the cyber trail of whoever released the video.  That leak must be plugged.  But most important, the third team will find Boghadair.  You will have first priority on all the surveillance infrastructure, public and private.  You can write a blank check for whatever you need but I want that man in custody within the week.  If not, your head is on the block.  And that’s not a joke.  If Boghadair isn’t in shackles in a week from today you’re done.”  Chastain bit back some bitter words and said, “Okay, I’ll need a command center with a room where I can crash; bed, shower, kitchen.  Tell me the cost center numbers I can charge to and give me the contact information for my three team leads.  I’ll find Boghadair for you or you can have my job.  But I wonder what else I’ll find.  Apparently, this thing is a lot bigger than one man.”

Sparks handed him a briefcase.  “All the documents are on a drive.  There’s a folder with all the contact information and the codes you need to access the databases and the systems you’ll need.  I also want a list of government officials that Boghadair might target and conjecture on the order of attack.  I want that list by tomorrow morning.”  Chastain nodded his head.  Sparks growled, “That’s all.”  And Chastain left the office and walked out of the building.  As he was leaving the building he thought, “You’re at the top of that list you fool.”

As Director Sparks left his temporary office that night that very idea occurred to him.  He was headed home to a gated community in one of the most expensive suburbs of Washington.  And he was scared.  He decided to travel back to his home by a different route.  Taking this circuitous route and seeing no cars following him he slowly calmed down and by the time he was within a mile of his home he felt foolish about his fears.  When he was caught at a red light that usually never changed on him he was a little confused.  Then he noticed that the video display on his dashboard shifted from the typical menu view to a video feed.  He could see a man in the driver’s seat of a car.  After a second or two he realized he was looking at an image of himself.  He was for a second stunned and by the time he comprehended his peril the bullet was already entering the side of his head.  When his foot slipped off the brake his car rolled into the intersection and was struck by traffic going through the intersection.  The local police were on the scene rather quickly and alerted the FBI based on the car’s license plate number.  Late that night the report reached George Chastain and his first thought was, “I guess I should let the Attorney General know he’s next on the list.””

Gee, it’s fun killing bad guys.  It just feels right.  Well, on to the Attorney General.

What’s Really Wrong With the Oscars?

photog Current Events, Movie Reviews, Reviews , , , , , ,

I don’t know why I would read an article in Vox magazine entitled “This is the most populist Oscars in a long time.  So why doesn’t it feel like it?“   I guess it’s because sometimes I wonder what Hollywood thinks about its own destruction.  I really should stop wondering.  But anyway.

This article is centered around a recent Saturday Night Live skit about how no one can name any movies in the last five years.

“This is an interesting problem for me, a film critic, to think about. I watch more movies in a year than some people watch in a lifetime, and hear about hundreds more. The situation is different for most ordinary folks. In the SNL sketch, Yang asks Pascal to “name three movies from the past five years.” Stunned by the challenge, Pascal ventures, “Oh, wow. Three? Okay.” He contemplates, and comes up with Top Gun. Then he tries another: “The Hangover?”

“That was 20 years ago,” Yang says.

“The Night … Man,” Pascal says.

“Sounds like you’re just saying words. Come on, all you need is one,” Yang coaxes. “Can’t you just name one more movie?”

“Nope,” Pascal says, resigned.

“That’s right!” Yang crows, jubilantly. “Nope! You won the speed round!””

So, this is supposed to be funny but it’s just reality.  Hollywood can no longer make a good movie.  At this point if one happens it’s an accident.  All we’re left with are sequels and superheroes.  When they stray away from those mainstays we end up with a dreary story about tortured people that have some affliction like transgenderism or Tourette’s syndrome who we’re supposed to cheer on as they bravely struggle to force the world to struggle along with them.  Or maybe it’s a genre film; science fiction or film noir where the protagonists are transgender or have Tourette’s syndrome and the people who aren’t transgender or don’t have Tourette’s syndrome are the evil villains.  Or it’s a story about lesbian or gay love.  Or it’s a documentary about a woman who was being kept down by “the man” but now she’s the head of a multi-national non-profit that makes bean bag furniture for everyday people.  Or it’s a documentary about a mostly peaceful riot during the Summer of George Floyd.  Or best of all, maybe it’ll be another story about slavery in the antebellum South.  What a joy that would be!

But, no!  The authoress then reveals the real problem, it’s just poor marketing!  So, get that.  In a world in which you are bombarded with ads on every device you can possibly own, on every site you enter, giant media companies aren’t able to tell you they have a movie coming out.

“The abundance of options and possibilities tend to strip the context and intentionality away from the viewing experience; you didn’t have to talk to your friends about what movie you wanted to see, buy a ticket, and create an experience out of it. Now it all just flows toward you, content in an endless stream.”

This is gibberish.  I suspect this woman was dropped on her head at some point in the past and never recovered her wits.  Or maybe she thinks we were.  Of course, people heard about movies from friends.  The problem is all the movies are now unwatchable so our friends don’t have anything to tell us.  It’s like what happened to broadcast television.  The profit model changed so they stopped making things that were good and filled up the time with reality shows and police procedurals where the police are all young women who have really nice hair and clothes and only arrest straight white men who are keeping the BIPoCs, LGBTQ and women “down.”

There are no good movies to see.  Even the superhero movies have become infested with woke characters and plots.  And that why Top Gun made a bazillion dollars last year.  It was an old-fashioned movie with a plot and likeable characters and it didn’t show you anything weird that you had to make believe you liked.

“It’s okay if you haven’t seen most of the Oscar nominees, or even heard of them. In 2023, that probably means you live a normal, well-balanced life, one full of going outside to toss around a softball and maybe, I don’t know, reading books and whatever normal people do. But if you find yourself wondering why you can’t name three movies that came out in the past five years, remember, it’s not just the movies’ fault — and it’s a fixable problem, with a little effort.”

It’s not a fixable problem because Hollywood cannot be fixed.  It has been in a death spiral and that’s now approaching impact.  When it splats it will leave a lot of stupid emotional people without jobs.  Good.

It can only be replaced by something willing to provide entertainment that people are willing to pay for and willing to watch.  And that is why no one with half a brain will be watching the Oscars this year or any other year.  Pass the popcorn.

 

 

Bu-bye Beetlejuice

photog Current Events ,

No big surprise but apparently allowing gangbangers to kill everyone that walks down the street is even too much for brain dead Chicago voters to re-elect Lori Lightfoot.  But never fear.  With the blithering idiot they have for state’s attorney the killing will continue unabated.

Update:

Hat Tip to TomD, well done!

Mayor.jpg
Mayor.jpg

February in Dunwich Came in Like a Lamb and Is Going Out Like a Shoggoth

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, OCF, photog's Corner , ,
April Snowstorm

We got about six inches of wet snow last night and we’ll probably get another coupla-three-inches over the course of the day today. So, for the first time this winter I took the snow blower out and ran it around the upper driveway.  It was repaired before the winter and the foot of the housing was adjusted higher.  So now it leaves about a half inch of snow on the ground.  With dry snow this isn’t an issue but the wet stuff we got last night can gum up the works and you end up with snow compacting into slushy ice and the blower riding on top of the ice and before you know it there’s a four-inch frozen layer that you have to remove by shovel.

But honestly, I think it was enjoyable to go out and do some work.  All of this will be gone in less than a week.  All I’ve got to do is make sure I can get the cars in and out of the driveway and the rest of it will melt more or less on its own.  So I spent a couple of hours today with about half the time being shovel work on very heavy wet snow.  And I’m feeling energized because of it.

Winter is rearing its ugly head for sure.  Eight or nine inches of wet show is nothing to scorn but knowing that it won’t be lying around for three months is a big deal.  It’s three weeks to celestial spring.  Sure, we can have three feet of snow on April Fool’s Day.  It’s already been proven.  But winter has run out of time to break our backs or our spirits.

Right now, I’m looking out the balcony door at the snow sifting down through the still winter air.  It’s kind of beautiful.  I can hear the red winged black birds squawking around Camera Girl’s bird feeders.  This week hundreds of them have appeared and swarmed the area.  Maybe it’s their mating season or something.  But all the noise tells me something about the imminence of Spring.  The daffodils that appeared last week are buried in the wet snow.  But they’ve got some kind of anti-freeze in their cells that will keep them from dying.  The mallards have been wading around the pond and their ducklings will be sure to appear soon.

Around Dunwich there’s all kinds of excitement.  The budget is a shambles and we have no money.  The peasants have broken out the torches and pitchforks.  They’ll be marching to First Selectman Cthulhu’s lair soon just in time to be his first Black Sabbath feast.  In my new role as his “Least Lackey” I will be in charge of manning the barbecue sauce pumping station.  It will be my responsibility to hose down the marchers so that His Honor can swallow them quickly and enjoyably.  I hope he notes that I’ve selected the roasted garlic and lemon-flavored sauce this season.  It adds just the right touch of piquance to the flavor of what the First Selectman likes to call “Dunwich sushi.”  Oh, he’s so droll.  Who says Great Old Ones have no sense of humor?  Well, gotta go.  The snow, it calls me.

Elon Musk Makes a Suggestion

photog Current Events , ,

I guess Musk is serious about speaking the truth when it’s not popular or even safe.  But it makes him a more relatable figure.  Now if only he’d get around to that billion dollar funding for OCF.  Then I’d call him a genius.

A Hollywood Actor Whose Not An Idiot

photog Current Events, Fake Science ,

Nick Searcy is that rarest of rare birds.  He’s a gifted actor who’s also a normal intelligent individual.

I thought he was one of the best things about in the series “Justified” and he’s almost the only denizen of Hollywood whose comments I can read on Twitter without reflexively swearing.  Well there’s also Adam Baldwin but after those two I don’t have many possibilities left.

And I love the way he deflates Twitter leftists.  It’s masterful.

So Now a Federal Agency Says Lab Leak Most Likely Cause of COVID. Duh!!!

photog Current Events , ,

So it’s official.  But unless you’re seriously mentally deficient or part of the coverup who is still saying it was just a natural occurrence?  No one.

But those two categories still contain millions of Americans.  And other than those two categories who still doesn’t realize that we paid the Chinese to produce this very thing by “gain of function” manipulation of bat corona viruses?

Our government had COVID  built in a substandard biological containment facility.  It got loose and they lied about its origin for years.  And yet we elected Joe “Mask Up” Biden and let him lock us down for another full year.  It’s a sad state of affairs.

26FEB2023 – OCF Update

photog Current Events, OCF , ,

Well, today is a chore day.  I’ve got to scrape away the inch of snow off the driveways in anticipation of the eight inches due tomorrow night.  It won’t take long but it breaks up the morning and gives me an excuse to skip my exercise.

Princess Sack of Potatoes is staying over this weekend and we’ve had an abbreviated game of Dead Pile already.  But I’ve begun the pivot to reading and writing.  She’s got those workbooks that can be dry erased so we’re working on printing the letters.  Later on we’ll conquer the “at” family again.  And we’ll use that convicted racist Dr. Seuss to hammer home the words.

I read with dismay that Brad Paisley has recorded as song in honor of Zelenskyyyyyyyy.  Oh, well.  I remember he had an Obama song too so apparently trying to toe the line is standard operating procedure for him.  Too bad.  He has some fun songs.

I’ve been following some of the various websites following the Ukraine war.  I think the latest theory is that the Russians intend to use the “glacier” model.  They’re going to pulverize the Ukraine army but at a glacial rate of advance.  Their assault on Bakhmut is proceeding at about one square mile a day.  But depending on sources some number of hundreds of Ukrainian casualties a day are occurring.  At the current rate in about two weeks the city will be completely surrounded and cut off from resupply.  At that point the Ukrainian soldiers inside will be faced with the choice of surrender or extermination.

Apparently the Russians have decided that wearing the Ukrainians down is the correct strategy.  Blitzkriegs are no longer possible in this age of real time remote target identification.  A column of tanks can be spotted and destroyed from five hundred miles away.  The other problem for the Ukrainians is the fact that we’re running out of munitions to give them.  By the summer we’ll have used up our entire stockpile of artillery ammunition and the Ukrainians will have to reduce their artillery firing rate to a small fraction of their enemy’s.

Funny world we live in.  Looking at the tactics and objectives of their rule I’d have to say that the policies of the present United States more closely resembles that of the Soviet Union than the present day Russian Federation does.  Isn’t that a remarkable thing.  Well, if we can manage to avoid setting off a thermonuclear war perhaps a time will come when we can pry the United States foreign policy away from the neocons and find a way to coexist with the Russians and the Chinese that allows each nation to follow its interests without a shooting war breaking out every few months.  I know it’s far-fetched but an old man can hope can’t he?

Well, hopefully later on I’ll think of something reasonable to write about.  Enjoy your Sunday.

Guest Contributor – Nostradumbass – 25FEB2023 – Rant on a Rant

photog Guest Contributors, Reclaiming the Family , , ,

A Rant for February Twenty Fifth

I so wanted this post to be true, but the main ingredient for the actions you state require the “parent” to actually be a parent…

just a start on commenting about this post:

If you have children, teach them what you want them to believe.

There are a good amount of teenage and welfare mothers that are teaching their children exactly what they believe, that being it is someone else’s responsibility to provide a home, food, clothing and health care, and it should not involve any costs or labor on their part. I think this lesson is being taught effectively.

Show them how to achieve the things they want.

The lack of principle, the ease of acquiring the largess of American good will is how the children of these mothers is shown.

The problem is now that the people that raised this version of parents were never actually parents to begin with. I’m not saying that this is true for all the current crop of parents, or even that they are the majority of the current generation, but there are enough that are, that they become “models” for the next generation.

The question becomes “Why should I work and bring home less than what the government will give me for doing nothing?”. That seems to be the current model.

A Rant for February Twenty Fifth

photog Current Events, Reclaiming the Family , , ,

Winter has reappeared here in Dunwich.  The estimate is for up to eight inches of snow on Monday night.  Looks like I’ll finally break out the snowblower this winter after all.  But not yet.  Today I look out the window and a light snow is falling.  A fraction of an inch has accumulated and it gives the environs the correct veneer of New England winter to make the picture fit the calendar.

I read the headlines and what do I find?  All the same boring nonsense.  Inflation continues to impoverish us.  The Ukrainian war continues to impoverish us and kill Ukrainians.  Our incompetent federal government continues to impoverish our descendants unto the fourth generation and our monstrous Deep State continues to spy on and entrap Americans in false flag operations of their own manufacturing.  Really, it’s horror and tedium in almost equal measures.

But none of that is my topic for the day.  What I want to write about is the practical course of action for our people.  And that is to find the actions that you can take locally and do them.  Don’t think about doing them.  Don’t talk about doing them.  DO THEM!!!!

If you have children, teach them what you want them to believe.  Teach them by doing, not talking.  Show them how to achieve the things they want.  Help them in school.  Warn them about the propaganda they will hear in the classroom.  Help them to figure out their abilities and counsel them on figuring out what trade or profession they should get trained in.

And teach them patience and perseverance.  Keep them from picking up bad habits like wasting their time on frivolous on-line activities.  And socialize them.  Make sure they are comfortable interacting with their peers, the opposite sex and with adults.  Force them out of their comfort zone.    AND TEACH THEM TO WORK!!!!

Get involved in your community.  Find out how things get done.  Find out who runs the local government.  Volunteer for something with which you have some expertise.  Or if that’s not possible volunteer for something that anyone can help with.  Towns and local governments are always looking for help.  Pick something that can make your environment better.  There are committees for school, zoning, budget, infrastructure, etc.  Meet the local Republican committee and find out if they’re useful or useless.  And maybe even run for some very minor local office or position.  But at the very least find out who the people are who want to run your town or district.  And for pity’s sake at least make sure you vote for the ones who are least bad. Get to know what the problems are in your local area and decide if these are things that can be fixed and figure out whether they will make your life unbearable.

So this is me saying grab a hold of your life and your world and make it change in ways that make it better for you and yours.  You can’t fire Joe Biden or end affirmative action or lower the federal deficit.  But you can give your kids a shot at flourishing in whatever environment they’re in.  You can find out who really runs your town.  You can find out what kind of people they are.  You absolutely need to find out who is running your kids’ school and you damn well better find out what their teachers are like.

So, there’s my cabin fever rant for today.  Ahhh, I feel better already.