Category: Current Events

Where Will the Next Renaissance Occur?

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Human history has a cyclical structure to it.  Civilizations are born, grow, weaken and die.  Each one is unique but they have similarities that cause their histories to resemble older ones.  We are at the end of the European Renaissance Civilization and it’s been a humdinger.  From its origins in the rise of a merchant class in 14th century Florence, Italy it has spawned the growth of human learning and the taming of the forces of nature to such an extant that the world we live in today would be completely unrecognizable to those scholars and even the forward-thinking politicians of the early days.

But without a doubt, the impulse that animated the birth and growth of that mighty endeavor is completely spent.  The United States and the European Union are the main political centers that represent the descendants of the Renaissance civilization.  These two entities are moribund.  Senescence defines everything they do.  Vigor and youthful enthusiasm are completely lacking.  And the whole of their failing energy is directed toward protecting the status quo positions of the wealthy elites.  And even in that sadly myopic endeavor they are losing ground rapidly to a more confident culture, the Chinese.

But very often the birth of the next civilization appears among the ashes of the previous one.  And that brings me to the point of this essay.  Where will the next Florence be found?  Some might say that Silicon Valley is our Florence.  Here the brightest minds are assembled building the trillion-dollar industry that increasingly runs every aspect of modern life.  It sells us our clothes and tools and entertainment and provides our leaders with the information they need to control us.

But I think an organization like Silicon Valley that seeks to subordinate human happiness to an algorithm and openly espouses a worldview that disparages faith and family is hardly a new Florence.  Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg is hardly the next Lorenzo de’ Medici.  You could say that at least Elon Musk might have a chance at claiming to be a new Edison perhaps.  And Peter Thiel does talk about the lack of innovation but that’s not the same as playing patron to Michelangelo or Galileo.

No, I think the next big explosion of heroic human creation will happen elsewhere.  Where?  No one can tell.  Maybe it’ll be in Texas or Hungary or Russia.  Maybe it’ll be in Japan.  Or maybe it’ll be in some third world backwater.  Somewhere people will figure out how to switch things up and get to keep the fruits of their labor without having to pay the Pope and the Emperor.  Somewhere (probably a small place) will break away from the global hive and think and live for themselves.  Will it take a thousand years as it did with post-Rome?  For my grandchildren’s sake, I hope not.  Could it happen today?  I tend to doubt it.  We haven’t successfully revolted against the king in 250 years and we’ve grown weak and fearful.

My guess is it’ll happen elsewhere.  But that’s no excuse for not trying to make it happen here.  As weak and fearful as we are, that doesn’t mean our opponents are brave or strong.  They’re just positioned on the high ground and they’ve done a good job of gaslighting our kids.  If we do a better job of organizing, we may be able to get them off our backs for good.  But that’s a big if.

27JUL2021 – OCF Update – The Sunflower Photo Session

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Today Camera Girl and I will bring our granddaughter, Princess Sack-of-Potatoes, to see a vast field of sunflowers.

I will take the opportunity to practice my landscape technique.  I’ll use my Voigtlander 10mm lens for widest shots, the Sony 35mm f\1.4 for medium wide shots and the Sony 90mm f\2.8 macro for the close-up and bug pictures.  I think the little girl will be impressed with the height and color of the flowers but most especially with the soft serve ice cream they also sell there.

SONY DSC

In consequence of this trip, posting will be spotty today.

 

 

 

What Happens When Your Identity is Declared Evil?

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Whiteness, White Privilege, Unconscious Bias, Systemic Racism, Critical Race Theory.  What they say it all means is that just by being myself I am doing wrong.  What they want me to do is spend all my time somehow atoning for being me.  I need to give up my culture, heritage and history and pretend that I believe the lies about those things they say and grovel and pay reparations forever for being me.  Sounds wonderful.

I am aware that there are white people who will do this.  Maybe there are a lot of them.  But at the same time there are a lot who won’t.  And if the powers that be and the cultural trend setters declare this to be the cultural norm of our society then these people who won’t submit will become a separate culture.  We will celebrate different holidays; worship develop different customs and eventually use a different language.  And already we see this happening.  What hasn’t happened yet is the result of this.  Some of the results will be separate religions, separate schools and specialty businesses to cater to the needs of this separate identity.  The schools and religions will need books and videos and other instructional materials to teach the beliefs that are forbidden in the outside culture.  In the case of the present Woke Culture it means that foods will be differentiated too.  Our people will eat meat while the Woke will be eating bugs or at best tofu.  Even our cars and homes will be different.  We’ll be driving gasoline powered vehicles and they will be charging up their battery cars and mostly driving bicycles.  We will be living in homes heated by gas or oil and they will be living in underground dugouts buried under a sod roof full of cockroaches and warming themselves by a solar and wind powered space heater.

In fact, we will need parallel companies to provide us with much of what we need.  We’ll even need our own companies to employ us.  After all we’ll be untouchables.  No self-respecting woke corporation will employ a white man who doesn’t submit to a weekly struggle session where he confesses some new atrocity to his BIPOC coworkers.

All this seems excessive.  After all, why not just work for Google and buy your crap from Amazon?  Many will, maybe most.  But there will be a good-sized minority who just won’t do it.  And for them being a shunned minority may just be the best option available.  There are advantages to being separate.  Once you unplug from the dominant culture you can avoid the irritants that exist in the outside.  Once your children attend their own schools and churches you will be automatically selecting for the kind of friends and eventually mates they will have.  And outside communities tend to work together closely on political and community initiatives that impact them.

But most of all you will be avoiding the impact of the toxic narrative that woke culture aims at your children.  Telling young people that their parents and ancestors are evil is about the worst thing you can do to someone’s community.  And we’ve been putting up with this to a higher and higher degree for the last seventy-five years.  It is time to admit that trying to reform the whole culture is an impossibility.  The Elites have the reins of power and all the means of education and communication at their disposal against us.  All that’s left to us are our families and our minds.  We need to consciously define ourselves as separate and embrace our old culture and break away from the woke culture in every way we can.  And we’ll be all the better because of it.

If the Vaccines Don’t Prevent COVID Shouldn’t the Medical Establishment Start Dusting Off Anti-Virals?

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I worked in the pharmaceutical industry for thirty years on the engineering side.  That means I don’t know anything about medicine.  But I do remember the last incurable deadly viral disease that rolled around, AIDS.  And rather than demand that homosexuals stop buggering each other we invented an anti-retroviral cocktail that essentially stalled out the course of the disease indefinitely.

Based on the reports of the efficacy of ivermectin why exactly isn’t the medical community working feverishly to validate or refute the efficacy reports and look for further regimens that will make COVID a non-life-threatening illness?  Supposedly this is all to allow the vaccine manufacturers to run the scam they have going indefinitely.  But is that really true?  Are we that stupid?  Couldn’t one of the states, say Florida, empower their state board of health to recruit some of the research hospitals to get going on a definitive study to come up with a safe and effective treatment for this disease?

I begin to doubt that our modern civilization has much chance of lasting through the present decade.  We have devolved into a hyper-partisan grudge match that seems endlessly stalemated.  At this point it might be more fun to live in a lawless wasteland where at least I’d have the pleasure of shooting at anyone who ticked me off.  All I’d need is a hockey mask, some barbells, a covey of demented henchmen and a taste for sadistic revenge.

But I digress.  Come on red state governors, wake up.  We’ve been played by Fauci for a year and a half.  It’s obvious he will never let this end.  Declare an end yourselves.  Get the actual doctors to do some clinical work and publish a protocol and let the world get back to living.  If you let Fauci and that drooling idiot in the White House have their way we’ll never be free to live our lives.  Wake up.

Normalcy Restored

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That lying sack of crap, Anthony Fauci M.D., stole a year from us.  And more than a year.  He smashed millions of small businesses that took lifetimes to build up.  He drained away the life savings of a generation of hard-working people.  He interrupted and marred the education of tens of millions of children.  He imprisoned a nation of 330 million and delayed marriages, births and every hope and dream of a nation.  And the most horrible thing is that it was for no benefit whatsoever.  The same people who would have died from COVID did die and are dying despite all of the useless torture that was inflicted on the healthy population of our country.  He is a tin-pot Pol Pot.  May he roast in Hell.

But yesterday was a renewal.  Almost all the descendants of my parents were gathered together in one place and time and enjoyed a party that included all the familiar and life-affirming rituals of a summer get together.  And even the weather blessed us with perfection.  Eighty-two degrees, bright sun with just a few wispy clouds, bone dry air and a refreshing breeze.  Just warm enough for some people to go in the pool and just cool enough to let the young at heart toss around a baseball or play a few lawn games with their kids and grandkids and even let one person watch her great-grand-children play.

Camera Girl in her culinary wisdom decided that instead of a barbecue she would cook the traditional Southern Italian peasant feast.  Ziti baked with cheese, eggplant parmigiana, meatballs, sausage and to start with, our version of an antipasto.  Huge portions were devoured with zeal and fueled loud and animated shouting about amusing and nonsensical things.  And in my earshot, there was not a moment of political discussion or anger.  Spirits were higher than high.  The highlight of the day for me was a four-way catch with two of my grandsons and a nephew.  I haven’t really had a good long baseball catch since forever.  Even the afternoon sun that was directly in my eyes I found enjoyable.  I actually felt young again.  Maybe today my shoulder is a little sore but it felt fine while we were out in that golden sun.

When my younger daughter showed up with her little 2 ½ year old girl the baby was terrified by all of the old fat strange-looking men shouting to be heard over each other in the meal hall I set up with folding tables and chairs.  After all, she has spent her entire conscious life in lockdown and hardly saw anyone but her parents and grandparents.  A cacophony of sound and strange faces truly frightened her.  But her mother was smart.  She took the baby outside on the deck and then into the swimming pool that she loves and there she was able to meet and play with the other children and slowly by degrees bring her back to the crowded areas where even the loudest old men were, at this point, too gorged with food to make much noise or even move.  So even that residue of the Fauci curse was lifted.  From two to ninety-two everyone was partaking in an old-fashioned family get together.

And I will be honest when I say that the relief to finally all get together made this the most enjoyable, least stressful gathering I can ever remember.  By the time the pie and ice cream and coffee were finished and sun was long below the horizon everyone was satisfied and ready to gather their children and say their goodbyes and head back on the road to home.  But promises were made to get together at the other homes for other occasions and other holidays.  Labor Day and Thanksgiving and Christmas lie ahead.  And we have broken the ice and hopefully we won’t allow that creepy little man to steal anymore of our lives away again.  It’s over and normal life has returned.

How Much Longer Will Joe be Allowed to Stay on Stage?

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I’ve been kidding lately about Disney’s animatronic Biden exhibit being stolen by the White House to stand-in for Dementia Joe.  Now it doesn’t look so far-fetched.

Watching that Town Hall meeting with Joe Biden and Don Lemon was a revelation.  Here’s an event as scripted as anything can possibly be and he couldn’t stumble through it without sounding like a lobotomized mental patient.  I suppose that it’s just possible that Joe is faking his imbecility but I can’t make myself believe it.  No, I think he really is slipping into advanced senility.

Admittedly, it’s not the easiest thing in the world to depose the President of the United States and it would be an enormous blow to the legitimacy of the Democratic regime but if they keep this guy in there much longer it will be impossible to pretend that he’s qualified to run the most powerful country on the planet.

Some people have theorized that the delay in bringing in Harris is to maximize the number of years she can serve as Biden’s successor.  Other people have said that she is so unlikable that anything will be done to avoid putting her in the White House.  I think that for better or worse Joe won’t be able to pretend to be mentally competent for more than another six months or so.  Maybe they can keep him locked in the basement and send out written transcripts or have him read his speeches off a teleprompter but off the cuff answers to the press look like a thing of the past at this point.

So, the question is how do we use this to our advantage?  The only thing that occurs to me is that the Republicans should use those video clips from the town hall to persuade the American people that they’ve been deceived.  And they can add that people willing to make a dementia case president cannot be trusted to look after the welfare of the American people.  I think that would be a worthwhile use of advertising money.  That video shows a very disturbing truth.  And only a fanatic or a liar could deny it.  If the Republicans are too stupid to use this then Joe’s not the only dementia case.

23JUL2021 – OCF Update – The Prisoner Speaks

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I’ve been washing venetian blinds all morning and am still only half done!  I’ve calculated that there are 450 individual slats to clean by hand one at a time.  Camera Girl is a harsh mistress.  Pardon my absence.  I will catch up as soon as I am released from bondage.

As a quick note I listened to ZMan’s Friday podcast and it was on “The Book of Five Rings.”  The book’s author was a 17th century Japanese swordsman named Miyamoto Musashi.  The book is ostensibly on the strategy of sword fighting but is actually a meditation on the philosophy of living in the real world.  I thought his podcast was extremely interesting and I’ll have to read book soon.  I wish the podcast was much longer it took my mind off the drudgery I am enduring.

Stay tuned.

 

 

 

Sky News host Alan Jones says Joe Biden is a Stuttering Senile Old Simpleton

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And he shows cuts from Biden’s recent CNN Town Hall as evidence.  Wait for the clips of Biden.  They’re pretty convincing evidence that Dementia Joe is an accurate nickname.  If Kamala is looking for proof to allow her to use the 25th Amendment to yank Biden out of the White House this should do nicely.

I say bring on Animatronic Biden.  He’s clean and articulate.

This guy Jones is hilarious when he is ripping into Biden’s incomprehensible search for a sentence.  Come on Joe, give us a noun, give us a verb.