Category: Current Events

Killing Time

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Sitting around at home trying to wait out the quarantine reminded me of an old story from Herodotus about a people trying to wait out a bad situation.  A famine isn’t the same as a plague but something about the story seemed appropriate for our present predicament.

The customs of the Lydians are like those of the Greeks, except that they make prostitutes of their female children. They were the first men whom we know who coined and used gold and silver currency; and they were the first to sell by retail. And, according to what they themselves say, the games now in use among them and the Greeks were invented by the Lydians: these, they say, were invented among them at the time when they colonized Tyrrhenia. This is their story: In the reign of Atys son of Manes there was great scarcity of food in all Lydia. For a while the Lydians bore this with what patience they could; presently, when the famine did not abate, they looked for remedies, and different plans were devised by different men. Then it was that they invented the games of dice and knuckle-bones and ball and all other forms of game except dice, which the Lydians do not claim to have discovered. Then, using their discovery to lighten the famine, every other day they would play for the whole day, so that they would not have to look for food, and the next day they quit their play and ate. This was their way of life for eighteen years. But the famine did not cease to trouble them, and instead afflicted them even more. At last their king divided the people into two groups, and made them draw lots, so that the one group should remain and the other leave the country; he himself was to be the head of those who drew the lot to remain there, and his son, whose name was Tyrrhenus, of those who departed. Then the one group, having drawn the lot, left the country and came down to Smyrna and built ships, in which they loaded all their goods that could be transported aboard ship, and sailed away to seek a livelihood and a country; until at last, after sojourning with one people after another, they came to the Ombrici,1 where they founded cities and have lived ever since. They no longer called themselves Lydians, but Tyrrhenians, after the name of the king’s son who had led them there.

Luckily OCF won’t allow me to get bored.

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A Thoughtful Article Over at the American Mind – Our Calamitous Century by Forfare Davis

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This was a fun and interesting read.  It also quotes a movie that I might want to watch.  Our society has prioritized cost above all else and now we may find out what happens when all your stuff comes from people who don’t like you in a place that is quarantined under the plague.

Our Calamitous Century

 

 

 

Turning Over a New Leaf

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You would think that living in the world we do; nothing would faze us anymore.  We saw 9/11, we lived through the endless wars in the Middle East.  We dealt with the 2008 crash.  We even dealt with Obama and all his attendant madnesses; gay marriage, BLM, white privilege and of course transgender everything.

After all that, what would faze us?  And yet, this petty plague is truly tiresome.  All the little annoyances and work arounds.

But enough!  I’m banishing the plague along with the Democrat primary from my list of topics.  They’re just too damn boring.  Talking about them makes me boring.  And that’s the beauty of having Donald Trump as president.  He’ll take care of it.  And that’s what I’ll assume, he’ll take care of it.  If he can’t then we’ll start the revolution.

If something exciting breaks out, like the dead start rising from their graves (other than Joe Biden) and attacking the living then I’ll opine on this miserable pandemic.  And if I run across any good coping mechanisms that I think are especially valuable I’ll pass them along.  But otherwise, enough is enough.  Let’s talk of happier things.  St Patrick’s Day!

Now a reason why St Patrick’s Day has significance here at the compound is the fact that it’s Camera Girl’s birthday.  And because of that we have the traditional corned beef and cabbage which is associated with her heritage.  Begorra, she is Southern Irish with her people coming from the counties of Bari and Messina.  But in the New York City of my youth, everybody was Irish on St Patrick’s Day because he was the patron saint of the city and the parade was an occasion of civic pride and religious celebration and an excuse for drinking that everyone enjoyed.  Of course, today, I can only imagine the outrages that must be celebrated in the name of tolerance.  I’m sure if the actual St Patrick could see it, he’d disown the whole thing.

And a strange St. Patrick’s Day it is in New England.  No parades and the pubs shut down.  But even more shocking, today, Patriot Nation (which I guess is also Red Sox Nation) is officially in mourning over the end of Tom Brady.  Tommy boy has flown the coup.  He’s packed up his underinflated footballs and his overinflated wife Gisele Bündchen and said goodbye to New England.  The amazing thing is that what inevitably will happen will be that the most rabid Brady fans will turn on a dime and trash poor old Tom and claim that losing him is the best thing that can possibly happen to the Patriots.  Within hours the talk will be how it was always Bill Belichick that made Tom look good and without Belichick, Brady will be just an old stumblebum staggering down skid row toward oblivion.  This same script has played out every time a Red Sox hero has gone onto greener pastures.

The Supreme Court has suspended hearings because of the plague.  This will be an interesting situation.  Many schools have already called off the rest of the school year.  Might the Supreme Court do same thing?  It seems to me with the magic of video conferencing the Court could equally just handle everything remotely from the safety of their individual bunkers.  But we’ll have to see how this all plays out.  And the plague will also slow down progress on everything else that was slowly wending its way through the government and the courts like the various investigations that Bill Barr has going.

For all those reasons I expect it to be a slow news cycle for the next few weeks at least.  And for that reason, I’ll attend to things on the cultural side in order to provide some interesting topics to distract us as the Angel of Death stoops down and decides which of us he’ll drag away.

Two Nations Under One Flag

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Yesterday I said that my co-worker hated President Trump so much that he was ecstatic at the idea that the economy would be tanked by the COVID-19 outbreak because it would throw the election to Biden.  Think about that.  He would rather see his beloved 401K devalued than let a conservative run the country.  That seems to me to be a marker.

We’re not just philosophically different.  We are two enemies trapped in the same cell.  We don’t just dislike each other we can’t tolerate each other’s presence.  And yet we have to interact with them every day and everywhere.  But it’s a very lop-sided arrangement.  They know we exist by virtue of the resistance we give to laws they make to afflict us.  But we are surrounded by their institutions.  We are submerged in their culture.  We are drowning in it.  We have to hear their propaganda 24/7 on every television channel, every social media site, every newspaper, every pop song, every movie screen.  They propagandize our children and run the human resources department of every company in the country.  They’ve even taken over almost every pulpit in every church.  We need our own space.  But how do we keep it when any attempt to go our own way is protested, harassed and criminalized?

What will need to be done is form an underground.  And the best way to do that is in plain sight.  My personal favorite idea is to form our own church.  How exactly that is done is the detail that needs to be worked out.  Should it be an existing denomination that has a very hands-off attitude toward parishes or should it be a new sect?  I tend to think a new sect is the better way.  That way no one enters it thinking it is something than what it turns out to be.

Theologically, it would be traditionalist.  It would stress scripture.  It would adhere to the traditional church teachings on marriage, family and personal behavior.  It would reinforce the traditional roles for men and women in the family and the community.  And church business would be governed by a group of elders which consisted exclusively of married men who have children.

Once a church was up and running all the other programs that a church sponsors could reflect the community this church represents.  Youth sports programs, community charitable programs, outreach to the poor and elderly, community entertainment like theater and music programs.  We’ll have to replace the scouts with our own version of that once useful organization.  And, most difficult, but a truly worthy goal would be a school.  But a school would be very difficult because keeping the progressives out would be a constant war.  And the government would make it its highest priority to force it into compliance with the progressive norms they so dearly love.

So, to start with, religious instruction would be an important program.  It would be something that prepared children to recognize the errors in the surrounding culture and provide them with coping mechanisms to allow them to exist in that outer world without letting it poison their minds.

Another aspect of the church would be community networking.  It would encourage members of the church to practice solidarity and support each other in business relationships and social groups.  It could produce a list of preferred service providers and craftsmen for the various trades that a community needs and, in that way, help make the community more self-supporting.

And finally, church social functions like dances and clubs could be an opportunity for young people to look for love.  What better place to find a mate than among families that already see eye to eye on values?

I am very interested in getting all kinds of feedback on the practical problems in starting such a community.  If anyone has information or links to similar endeavors I’d be obliged.  And if you have any different but equally useful ideas on building something for our side feel free to comment or send me an e-mail.

Vox Day Has an Interesting Link to a Theory on the Cyclical Nature of Social Change

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I’m not much of a sociologist but the outline sounds plausible.  The cycle runs for 80 – 90 years and supposedly would describe the last two hundred and fifty years of American history if the author is to be believed.  Just throwing it out there if you like that sort of thing.

https://voxday.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-fourth-turning.html

https://app.hedgeye.com/insights/58414-the-fourth-turning-why-american-crisis-may-last-until-2030

 

 

Sanity Check on the Doom and Gloomers

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I live and work in New England.  Except for the crazies in the Northwest this is the home base of woke insanity for the country.  Even the moderates in New England have drunk deeply of the Kool-Aid.  Even the Republicans think like moon bats.  Remember Mitt Romney was Governor of Massachusetts.

So, the “normal” people hate Donald Trump with a passion.  Mostly they hate him because if they didn’t hate him their neighbors would call them racists, sexists and homophobes.  And there is nothing scarier to a New Englander than being called bad names.

For that reason, I shouldn’t have been surprised when a coworker came over to me last week and smirkingly told me that the coronavirus was going to tank the economy and thereby throw the election to Biden.  This guy isn’t a flaming liberal.  He’s what I’d call an aspiring elitist.  He comes from a middle-class background but would like to make the move up a couple of rungs to the outer periphery of the elect.  And in order to fit in he has learned the party line and made their platform his.

I wasn’t expecting this from him.  After all, hoping the economy crashes doesn’t scream patriotism and in the past he had never seemed unpatriotic.  But you live and you learn.  My only answer to him was, in a more or less bored manner, to inform him that my money is on Trump and if he wanted a wager, I was always looking to pick up some extra cash.

After the impeachment vote by the House I announced that I no longer considered any other possible outcome from November’s election than President Trump’s re-election.  And I continued in that belief up until this week.  But my co-worker’s taunt got me thinking.  Could the coronavirus pandemic change the outcome of the presidential election?  As a theoretical question, the answer is obviously yes.  If millions of people died and if millions more were unemployed that could definitely affect the minds of the voters.  So, I figured it was a good thing to consider what the reality of the pandemic meant for the election.

Looking at what happened in China and what is happening in Italy it is plain to see that even with draconian measures being taken to limit its spread, globally, tens of thousands of people will die.  The impact of those deaths is the political question that needs to be answered.  And the answer is that as long as the government is seen to be actively using the best scientific information available to keep the public safe and wasn’t negligent in allowing the introduction of the virus to the country, then there won’t tend to be public anger at a relatively small number of deaths such as several thousand, as long as they do not overwhelm the emergency healthcare system.

With respect to our present situation, there are something less than three thousand cases and about fifty deaths in the United States.  These numbers will continue to increase for at least a couple of weeks.  But, if at that point, they level off then public opinion on the pandemic won’t cause excessive political trouble for the President.

But what about the economic impact.  Multiple industries are being severely impacted by the measures being used to prevent transmission of the disease.  Airlines and other means of mass transportation are severely impacted.  All forms of mass entertainment from sports games to movies to music concerts are being postponed or cancelled.  It’s certain that all restaurants will be at a virtual standstill.  Daycare for pre-school age children will be a big problem.

All of these disruptions are going to have a large affect on the economy and employment rates.  And in addition, many companies are concerned that the virus may incapacitate or even kill key individuals in their workforce.  For this reason, they are instituting fever screening, telecommuting and teleconferencing to limit exposure to the virus among employees.  All of these control measures will have a negative effect on the economy.  Without any intervention, layoffs and loss of revenue will cause a contraction in the economy that could be quite severe.  And that could very easily have an effect on the election.

So, is my co-worker right, will the pandemic necessarily throw the election to Biden?  No.  What needs to be done is for the President to provide incentives for business owners to hold onto their employees during the business interruptions and some kind of stimulus to offset the losses they are experiencing.  And that is exactly what President Trump is attempting.  Eliminating the payroll tax for employers and employees until the end of the year would be an enormous stimulus to the economy.  Trying to get it through the House will be very difficult.  But just trying to get it passed may be enough to shift the blame to the Democrats.  And within a state of emergency possibly an executive action could accomplish what the Congress won’t.  And there are other measures that he can institute to target help to the particular industries hardest hit.  The one that immediately comes to mind is the airline industry.  With bans on travel to both Europe and Asia in place it isn’t hard to imagine that the always vulnerable airlines could head into bankruptcy almost overnight.

To sum it up, it will be necessary for President Trump to carefully oversee the federal and local disease control measures in place to ensure that health impact from COVID-19 is limited.  And he will have to act decisively and effectively to limit the economic impact of the pandemic on the US economy.  If he performs these two assignments competently, and based on his track record I anticipate he will, then he should be able to win re-election against the visibly decrepit and clearly demented Creepy Uncle Joe Biden.

Spring Fever 2020

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To the superstitious, pardon my use of the f-word in the title of this article.  I intend no pun.  I’m just anxious for spring to sweep away a very odd winter.  This has been an extremely warm and snowless one and now with the pandemic altering how we work and live I’m impatient for good weather to get me out of the house and make the world more interesting.

I’m tired of tv and the internet and want some real things to see and do.  I read that the Vernal Equinox will be March 19th.  This is the earliest it’s been in 124 years.  I guess that has something to do with this being a leap year.  So, this is the last week of winter.  In honor of that I’ll go out today and get a few photos of leaves budding and flowers sprouting and anything else that says spring.

Meanwhile I think I’ll look for some cheerful topics to write on.  I’m pretty bored with doom and gloom.  I’ll search for some activities that I haven’t been able to do since last year.  And that will put me in a better mood for writing.  So, excuse me for a while.  I’ll be back later this morning to see what new catastrophe has descended upon us.  But until then you all have my permission to go have some latest winter fun.

12MAR2020 – OCF Update

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As COVID-19 slowly annoys us all to death, I’m sitting here at the Compound telecommuting and contemplating the state of this goofy world we inhabit.

I’m in a little bit of a lull right now.  I need to do some planning for the weeks ahead.  But I’m somewhat distracted by panic around me.  I just find it uninspiring to write about people hoarding toilet paper.

The photo side of things needs some work but the outside world is extremely blah at the moment.  I’ll have some spring stuff soon but nothing has interested me yet. I’ll probably try a focus stack outside on a new sprouting hyacinth that I noticed breaking out of the dirt today.

And I’m always looking to expand the scope of the site so if anyone out there is looking to share a post on something of general (or even specialized) interest write me at orionscoldfire(at)charter.net and we can discuss it.

I should have a chance this weekend to break out of my malaise.  So hang in there, I’ll come around soon.

 

How We Don’t Get Fooled Again

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In my last post, I gave my opinion that Donald Trump is the best option for building a lasting movement against the progressive cancer that is undermining our way of life.  And that is what I believe.  But it’s not as if that’s enough.  There is a role for each of us to play in turning this nightmare around.  I am reminded of what a friend of mine said during the 2016 election.  He was advocating to vote for Marco Rubio because, “even though his stance on immigration is weak we need the Hispanic vote.”  This is similar to the argument I’ve been hearing lately that Trump should make Nikki Haley his running mate because, we need the women’s vote.”  All these rationalizations for why we need to fall in line behind people who don’t believe what we do is the same thing that got us where we are today.  Reagan picks George Bush Sr. because we need the establishment’s backing.  And Bush makes some noises like a conservative but as soon as he’s in charge he puts the knife in our backs.

What I’m trying to describe is how we let our enemies take away our country.  We did it through ignorance and laziness.  We didn’t educate ourselves about what our enemies were doing.  We heard of social ills but we thought because the man in the White House had an “R” after his name that things would get fixed.  Maybe we bothered to vote for President every four years.  But did we even bother to know who was our Congressman and Senators?  Did we vote in the off-year elections?  Did we vote for our mayor and selectmen?  Did we vote to see who was running the school district that we sent our kids to?  Did we vote for police chief or sheriff?

The answer to all of these is no.  And even these are relatively superficial.  If you want to really get involved you get involved in the campaigns.  You follow the issues.  Who knows, maybe you even run for office.

And there are even more important things you have to do that are even harder.  You’re going to have to be honest with your family.  Talk to your kids about the lies they hear at school every day.  Tell them what the progressives are trying to do.  Tell them what you believe and tell them how this impacts how you have to live your life.  Let them know what kind of social pressures are brought to bear against people who believe in traditional values.  Tell them the reality of how the government discriminates against some groups for the sake of favoring other groups.  And the reality is you’ll have to do it before they are too old.  Because once they’re teenagers they’ve been indoctrinated for years by their teachers and their friends.

Going forward, we will succeed or fail in changing the culture we live in by putting in the effort to make that change happen.  Find like minded people around you and form a group that can make a difference.  Make it a social group so that it won’t be drudgery.  Do things that you all like.  Go to a ball game.  Have a poker game.  Put together barbecues in the summer.  But also get together and discuss and research the local elected officials.  Find out who is good and throw support to that choice.  Try to build up a community of people who believe what you believe and maybe if none of the choices are good, one of those people will decide to run for office.

My whole point is that things didn’t get this bad by accident or even because our enemies are super geniuses.  It happened because we assumed that a democracy automatically will give us leaders that are on our side.  We were fools and now we have to get smart.

Building on Trump’s Revolt

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Donald Trump recognized an explosion waiting for a spark.  He vocalized the outrage and despair that had built up under generations of “leaders” of both mainstream parties who disregarded the will of their constituencies and deprived them of their constitutional freedoms in the name of making a better world.  And now that we have seen what happens when the President is someone who means to work for us and not against us, I think we should be planning to arrange for the same kind of leadership in the next president and in other government positions.

As I’ve said several times before, I think President Trump needs to explicitly name his successor.  Whether he uses the office of the vice presidency as an indicator I think it is vitally important that before he finishes his second term he needs to name a successor.  Whether that will be Mike Pence or someone else, President Trump is the only man to answer that question.

But what about beyond this?  How do we expand this revolt to roll back all the harm done by the anti-constitutional assault we’ve been living under for fifty years?  It’s going to take an organization.  But how does it get built?

When the Tea Party attempted a grass roots movement it devolved into nothing but hucksterism and all that surfaced from that was Mitt Romney.  But without a grass roots movement we end up with the GOP Establishment which once again is Mitt Romney or at best Ted Cruz.  We need someone to build us a new party, something like the Tea Party but with clout and without the grifters.

Once again I hate to say it but we need Donald Trump to build us a foundation that we can flock to.  Replacing the Republican Party probably would do more damage than letting it remain.  But we need an organization that we can build that won’t be easily stolen away by the enemy.  We need someone who doesn’t need money so we can feel like our donations to it will be used for the right cause, to push our agenda among the spineless Republicans and to promote less-spineless Republicans.

I say I hate to say it because it makes me think that we have no hope without a savior with vaults full of money.  But I say it because I think it’s true.  It will take Donald Trump and any other of his class who love this country the way it was to lay a foundation for rebuilding its institutions from the ground up.  It will take lobbyists and PAC money and think tanks and community organizers to start organizing the people who have given up and direct the ones who are looking for effective actions that they can take.

We don’t want e-mails and letters hounding us for donations.  We want leadership and organizational skills and clever lawyers to fight for our rights and defend us from our enemies.  We want someone to attack our enemies using the courts and the Justice Department to stop them from harming us.  Stop Google and Twitter and Paypal and Patreon and Facebook from de-platforming us and stop Antifa from assaulting us in the streets.

So as strange as it is to say, Donald Trump can’t just retire after his terms are over and enjoy his life.  We need him to build the MAGA Foundation and turn it into the weapon we need to keep his revolt alive.  We can support it with our money and other forms of contributions but he’ll have to bring it to life.