Category: Current Events

Of Dinosaurs and Decline

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I have a young grandson who is fascinated by dinosaurs.  I told him that if the rioting in New York City subsides I’d like to bring him to the American Museum of Natural History and let him see their dinosaur collection.  And that got me thinking.

As I’ve mentioned previously a culture needs its myths.  In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries the center of the American Myth was New York City.  The rich and powerful built a modern-day Rome.  Monumental buildings and cultural centers were built and artefacts and art works were collected from around the world.  Even an enormous garden called Central Park was built in the center of the island, the most expensive real estate in the world, to provide an oasis from the concrete jungle that was built to house the business hub of a modern empire.

And from my point of view, the crown jewel was the American Museum of Natural History.  The Museum was essentially free to residents of New York City.  You were allowed to pay any amount you wanted for admission even a penny.  Out in front was a larger-than-life sculpture of Teddy Roosevelt on a horse with African and Indian bearers escorting him on one of his expeditions.  And inside was assembled a spectacular collection of natural history specimens that would fuel the imagination of anyone with a speck of imagination or curiosity.

There were magnificent dinosaur skeletons.  Specimens of Tyrannosaurus rex, Allosaurus, Brontosaurus (now renamed Apatosaurus to satisfy the boring needs of pedagogy), Triceratops, Stegosaurus and Duck-billed dinosaurs called Edmontosaurus annectens are on display in spacious halls that allow the spectators to walk around these marvels.  In addition to the dinosaurs there are skeletons of wooly mammoths, mastodons, wooly rhinoceros, giant ground sloths and other prehistoric mammals.  There are also halls filled with the preserved bodies of mammals and birds from Africa, Asia and the Americas displayed in dioramas that used painted backgrounds and other materials like native vegetation to simulate the animals in their native habitat.  Scenes of lions, rhinos, tigers and elephants provide remarkable vistas.  Other halls include collections of gemstones, artefacts of aboriginal peoples from six continents and even a life size model of a blue whale are on display.

The museum with its heroic statue of Roosevelt is itself an artefact of a civilization at its peak of wealth, strength and confidence.  Everything fits into the myth of American, and by extension, Western civilization expanding and illuminating the world.  We gathered these specimens from the four corners of the Earth and we had studied and determined their meaning.  We were the masters of the planet and we were confidently stepping into the future.  There was even a planetarium that would teach our children of their place in the universe and our eventual explorations beyond Earth.

So, in 2021 the statue of Teddy Roosevelt was removed from the entrance of the museum.  Soon I’m sure that roving bands of BLM rioters will loot the museum and sell the dinosaur bones to crack cocaine dealers as trophy crack pipes.  Our myth about Teddy Roosevelt as the great white hunter is no different than Rome’s Julius Caesar and the Huns’ Atilla.  Not everything in the myth is true but the myth fits the needs of a people.  When you give up your myths it means you’ve given up on your reason to live as a people.  That’s what we’re seeing.

Maybe I should bring my grandson to see the Beijing Museum of Natural History’s dinosaur collection.  It would probably be safer and less depressing.

It’s Official. The Afghan Withdrawal Will be a “Full-On Horror Show”

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Last week I said, “I think it’s still too early to decide whether the Afghanistan withdrawal will be an embarrassing disgrace or a full-on horror show.”  Well that ship  has sailed.  ISIS has begun the suicide bombings and I have to assume that Biden will initiate a panicked rout of the remaining forces at the airport and then we’ll see the drumbeat of hostages and beheadings and whatever new horrors await us.

I guess there is the chance that this will be the Jimmy Carter scenario repeated for the 21st century.  Well, it couldn’t happen to a nicer guy than Dementia Joe but of course the rest of us will have to go through the horror show too.

Update:  12 servicemen dead.  Dozens of Afghanis dead and the prospect for more.  I knew that Joe was a a dope.  Now we know that his Defense Department is is led by imbeciles too.  What a terrible waste of American lives.  What part of summer Taliban fighting season escaped these morons?

 

 

Camera Girl’s Super Power

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I believe in making marriage into a sit-com.  Camera Girl has said on any number of occasions that I need to write new material because she’s bored with the old stuff.  And she’s right.  But what I have in abundance is mockery.  I mock everything around me because that is how I think.  It’s a family trait that is probably our defining one.  That is how we analyze the world around us.  And because of her proximity Camera Girl is my favorite target.  I mock her choice in books, tv shows, talk shows, her frugality, her ideas about pets, her family, her friends, her rudimentary political ideas, her lack of knowledge about science, history, religion, philosophy and technology.  I make it such a regular practice to call her a poor ignorant peasant girl that she has started saying it about herself to save me the time.

What I never mock are her domestic skills.  Her ability to organize, schedule and maintain a home is remarkable.  Her cooking has kept me fat for decades and her ability to raise and entertain children is well-nigh magical.  And it’s this child-herding skill I want to write about.

This week we are entertaining the two younger grandsons and the granddaughter.  The boys are ten and seven and the girl is almost three.  Someone who doesn’t know kids might not know how hard it is to keep this combination of ages and sexes busy and happy at the same time.  Suffice it to say it’s like juggling chainsaws.  But she does it effortlessly.  She’s even able to integrate me into the trick when she thinks I can be trusted.  For instance, at one point, the next event was ninety minutes in the swimming pool.  But right before the time, the two boys got involved in a race to see who would grab hold of a toy they both wanted, some kind of remote-controlled car.  The little guy ran a little too fast and fell, skinning both his knees badly on the driveway.  After first aid and bandaging was performed Camera Girl informed me that out of necessity I would be drafted into service.  Since the little guy couldn’t go in the pool in his wounded condition, he would be watching a movie about tyrannosaurs (his favorite subject) and I would keep him company.  And she had made the right call.  Whereas I could have taken the other two kids to the pool, what she realized was that if I provided my nerd-like knowledge of prehistoric creatures as a way to occupy him, then my grandson wouldn’t feel so bad about missing the swimming pool which was a sore disappointment to a little boy.  We sat there and talked about the latest research on the most probable speed that a T. rex could run.  We discussed whether the T. rex was really the apex predator of all time and really the greatest creature to ever walk the face of planet Earth.  And even though I might have some theories on T. rex that differed from this dinosaur enthusiast’s I listened very respectfully and tried to enrich the discussion with some other scientific and general interest items.  And when his brother and cousin returned from the pool there wasn’t a single sad face or harsh word from him.  I had performed adequately and hadn’t dropped a chainsaw.

And later on, when the two younger ones were going to play some board game (I think Candyland) I was entrusted with taking the older guy outside for a baseball catch.  It was pretty hot out there but the hour went by like a flash as we tossed around the ball and talked about whatever was on his mind.  And once again I completed my task without incident and tossed the chain saw back to the master juggler.

And so it goes.  Minding a toddler and keeping her safe, soothing a little boy with sore knees and keeping a ten-year-old from getting bored all while cooking breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner, cleaning the dishes, doing the shopping, washing the clothes and dealing with all my complaints without dropping a stitch.  Then bathing the baby and putting her to bed and before collapsing into bed herself she tries to read a few pages out of one of her books.  I honestly don’t know where her energy and work ethic come from.

But rather than think Camera Girl is a goddess, which she is, I think all women should be like her.  Raising kids is the greatest responsibility any human can undertake.  Sharing their lives and teaching them how to be people like Camera Girl does is mothering.  Plugging them into the television or the computer is what you expect from a zoo attendant or prison guard.  If the human race doesn’t get back to the old standard for mothers we’re doomed.

So, here’s to Camera Girl.  Long may her super power thrive.  I hope to see her someday plying her trade with her great grandchildren.  But I do wish she would do a better job training her dogs.  They’re all spoiled.  And she knows it.

What’s A Blogger to Do?

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OCF is my personal reaction to the reality that the Left owns the internet.  And when I bumped into that fact it was a lot less true than it is now.  I was revolting against the enforced leftist narrative that I found in every photography website and science fiction review blog.  I just couldn’t stand the atmosphere of delusional superiority and even worse the selective enforcement of website rules.  So, I built my own kingdom where my own version of delusional superiority and selective enforcement of website rules would be the rule.  But who’s to say what’s delusional?

Anyway, Over the years, the site has focused more and more on the political situation until now I’d say that politics is something like 99% of the content if it’s based on text.  Obviously, the photo of the day has very little text and the quote of the day is a sentence or so.  And that’s fine.  During the Trump presidency there was an enormous amount of political action to comment on.  And in this time of social and political turmoil there continues to be a raft of topics that need to be discussed, and in most cases, lamented.  I intend to continue doing just that.  After all, having my say is why I’m here.

But the reality is that there isn’t something to say about the political situation every day.  Well, there is but it’s not novel and interesting enough to seem worthwhile.  After all, how many times can I call Joe Biden a vegetable or a pervert before I start to seem like a vegetable myself?  And in the absence of any kind of actual progress on the Red State revolt front how often can I bang that drum before I start to drive my readers back into the arms of the Blue State matriarchy?

I just thought it would be a good idea if I start to introduce more features that don’t depend on the news cycle and the initiative of politicians.  From a practical perspective this will involve more culture topics; book, movie and tv reviews, essays on historical events and opinion pieces on cultural events and groups.

And another thing I’d like to get back to is fiction writing.  I’ve been working sporadically (very sporadically) on writing a science fiction novel.  Actually, it’s more like three different novels that haven’t really gelled the way I want them to.  I’m thinking of putting up installments of one of them as an ongoing feature of the site.  It’ll give the readers a taste of my writing style and eventually I’ll use it as a sample when I publish and start to market my work.

Now the thing about writing reviews and essays and fiction is that they take a lot more time to produce than my typical hit piece on Joe Biden.  Writing five hundred or a thousand words about how stupid cretins are isn’t that hard.  But writing a review means taking the time to read or watch something and then thinking carefully about saying something interesting about it.  And writing fiction is on a “ho nudda lebbel.”

What I’m saying is that the long-time readers might notice a change in the output here.  There may not be so many quick rant posts.  There may be fewer posts.  And the post lengths will probably increase significantly.  Maybe you could say that quality will replace quantity to some extent.  Hopefully that will suit most readers.  I suspect it will be an improvement.

Now I don’t want anyone to panic.  I’ll still keep a watchful eye out for worthwhile events that need my unique blend of political savvy and rapier sharp wit.  But I just don’t see a reason to say the same thing over and over again.  So, this is just an explanatory note so that the readers don’t think I’ve been taken hostage and replaced by a ringer from Antifa.  OCF continues.  OCF grows.  photog tries to improve his product.

A Series of articles on Red State Autonomy by Dave Reaboi

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Substack is full of writers from our side Dave Reaboi has a site called Late Republic Nonsense.  He’s a friend of Michael Anton and he seems to know a bunch of interesting people.  He even sponsors some idiosyncratic content like haute cuisine cooking lessons from Michael Anton.  How’s that for unexpected.

Anyway I’ve been talking for a while about Red State Autonomy.  Reaboi calls it Red America autonomy.  Putaituh, putatuh, whatever.

Anyway here are the links.  So far it seems sort of introductory.  But I’ll bookmark his links and follow along to see what he comes up with.  After all he seems to know some movers and shakers.  And he has some interesting stuff on his site.

https://davereaboi.substack.com/p/autonomy-for-red-america-part-1

https://davereaboi.substack.com/p/autonomy-for-red-america-part-2

I’ll have to pass the Michael Anton cooking links onto Camera Girl.  This could be my way of bringing her over to the Right.  She’s not very political but her instincts are good.

 

 

 

 

The Supreme Court Gets Something Right. Reinstitute “Remain in Mexico” Policy

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Hat tip tip to the Conservative Tree House for this headline.  I can’t believe SCOTUS did anything this good.  In the words of Vizzini, “Inconceivable!”

Well however it happened a small shot of very good news for us and another thumb in the eye for Dementia Joe.  This week just keeps getting better and better.  The latest approval poll on Joe has him under water 41% to 55%.  Pretty sweet.

Codevilla on Afghanistan

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Unsurprisingly, Anthony Codevilla has a very long history in the US involvement in Afghanistan.  In this essay he walks through its beginning in 1979 and through the Russian War and bin Laden’s appearance as an amateur warrior and the aftermath of 9-11 and the tragicomedies of Iraq and Afghanistan occupations.  He identifies the mindset that shapes the terms of these occupations and the utterly useless outcomes they produce.

 

 

 

24AUG2021 – What to Write About Today?

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Writing a blog means creating content.  But you can’t make something out of nothing.  Let’s look at current events.

Probably enough has been said about Afghanistan.  At this point the damage is done to Dementia Joe’s credibility not only as a US President but even as a cognitively competent human being.  The fallout from the train wreck that is Kabul has yet to sort itself out.  Once that happens, we’ll know if the damage to this administration is serious or fatal.

The COVID nightmare isn’t going to be allowed to end anytime soon.  The people running the blue states are trapped in their own faulty reasoning and it will take reality a while before even their sheep-like constituents are ready to stop pretending the plague is out there.  The Delta Variant August spike in Florida has already petered out.  Yesterday there was one COVID death there.  Once the people in the lockdown states see the folks in the open states living their lives normally, they’re probably going to start wondering why they aren’t allowed to do the same.  But as I said, that will take a while.  So, let’s let that sit for now.

Gavin Newsom’s recall vote happens in mid-September.  Until then it will be the same old, same old, “it’s too close to call” blah, blah, blah.  So I’m status quo on that.

Let’s not even bother talking about the infrastructure and reconciliation bills.  They will tease us for some more months about Senators Sinema and Manchin resisting the leadership because they want to do “the right thing” for their constituencies.  I would say that the chance that a raft of anti-constitutional measures like mandated voter fraud and illegal alien amnesty isn’t part of the reconciliation bill is one chance in a million.  So, I won’t waste any breath on that.

What is interesting to me is that Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott still look like they are willing to resist the COVID vaccine mandates and other coercive behavior that the feds are pushing.  The mid-terms and their own re-elections are coming up and then the 2024 presidential election is surely front and center in their minds.  Possibly we might see some moves by either or both of these men to raise their national profiles and even get something substantive done to resist the Biden administration’s efforts to suppress freedom everywhere in this country.  But right now, there’s not much new to talk about them either.

As far as the eye can see, current events are a boring mess.  So, what to talk about?

How about something fun?

Here’s an article describing only two of the many problems with Joe Biden’s immense fleet of electric cars.  Not only would the load on neighborhood power transformers require a trillion-dollar upgrade to the power grid but the available stockpile of nickel and rare earth metals doesn’t come anywhere near the total needed to produce that number of auto-batteries.  And since electric grids at night when cars charge don’t get any solar energy the power being used to charge car batteries would be fossil fuel generated.   But because the efficiency of transmitted electricity is something around 60% the electric cars produce more CO2 per mile than gasoline powered cars.  Isn’t that special?

This Guy Thinks the Afghan Rout Will Be the Deep State’s Undoing

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Interesting read.  Will it really spell the doom of our Cloud Elite?  It would be nice but I’m not sure I see it that way.  It’s definitely a blow to Joe Biden’s credibility.  It’s an object lesson to Iran, China, North Korea and Russia that the people in charge have grown feckless.  Maybe it’s a sign to us that our enemies are a lot stupider than we thought they were.

What Afghanistan told me was that we can’t trust any of the suits in Washington.  Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have our interests at heart.  They’re globalists and they believe in things that we abhor.  My take away is we need new leaders.  And we’d better be real careful choosing them.  We can’t afford to make these mistakes again.  They’ve already almost bled us dry.

23AUG2021 – OCF Update – Henri’s Revenge

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I mocked Henri.  I called him lame.

And he stabbed me in the back.

Power and data went out yesterday afternoon and only came back a little while ago.  Actually it was very relaxing to be off the grid.  No one could call or e-mail or anything.  For all I knew the Trump Restoration might have happened while I sat unaware.  Or maybe Dementia Joe had an epiphany and realized that Americans think he’s a pathetic loser and had himself committed to an expensive looney bin with attendants that have very fragrant hair.

But apparently neither of those things happened so I’ve missed nothing important and had a very relaxing break from the weird world.

But here I am back again and I’ll catch up with the latest insanity and mock it soon enough.