I was listening to the Z-Man’s Friday morning podcast this morning. It’s on the Ancient Greeks and since that is something that I’m more than somewhat steeped in it was quite a lot of fun to listen to. Lots of good comparisons between Ancient Athens and the United States. What was topical was at minute 56 of the podcast he mentions that broadcast that Tucker Carlson did recently. I linked to it a couple of days ago and said it sounded like Tucker was running for President. What the Z-Man said was that it sounded like Carlson was reading aloud some of the dissident right posts that he and the other writers have been putting out for six or more years.
What this reminds me of is Vox Day’s constant refrain that “the Alt-Right is inevitable.” Well, I don’t know if the Alt-Right or the Dissident Right’s agenda is inevitable but what seems to inevitable is that a very good chunk of the American Nation is waking up to the fact that they’ve been putting their faith in men who really couldn’t care less if they lived or died. In fact, it appears they’d prefer it if we just up and died as quickly as possible. Call it the shifting Overton window or the red-pilling of the normies or whatever you like but if a Cloud Dweller like Tucker Carlson is coming around to the nitty gritty of where we’re headed then it won’t be long before even the most brain-dead denizen of Squaresville, USA will be waking up to the realization that Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney do not mean them well.
What I’m curious about is what will be the next big step change. In the same way as Blue States practice civil disobedience such as Sanctuary Cities, will Red States start protecting their citizens against national policies that they object to? For instance, if companies like Master Card and Google continue de-platforming conservatives could state attorneys general begin legal proceedings against these companies to force them to relent? Maybe they’ll prosecute the local universities that indoctrinate kids and strip them of their legal rights.
Honestly, I don’t know what’s next. But it does appear that dissident ideas are getting mainstreamed at least to some extent. Reading about the Baltimore lawyer who is suing the Southern Poverty Law Center and attempting to have their tax-free status revoked for using illegal tactics to get him fired from the Baltimore City government sounds like maybe a first step to addressing the radical de-platforming. Hearing this week that Master Card may be joining forces with the crowd-funding companies to deny access to e-commerce to conservatives sounds like some kind of Maoist or Stalinist internal exile tactic. At lest in the gulag they fed you once in a while. In our cashless society, denial of access to a credit card is tantamount to being an exile from modern life.
And this all points to the paradox of how I feel about the current situation. A few years ago, I didn’t know just how bad it really was but I was almost in depression because I couldn’t understand why we kept losing when we seemed to have the upper hand. Now I realize just how bad it is and that most of our “leaders” aren’t really trying to help us and yet I’m actually strangely optimistic. I feel like knowing the problem makes it possible for me to take some actions and improve how I live my life.
Will the unrest on the right reach critical mass? It’s hard to say but I’m interested to see what Tucker Carlson ends up doing in the next year or two. He’s a popular journalist and could do a lot to persuade people. Stay tuned.
This is fifteen minutes long and a lot of it is familiar but it’s extremely well done. He must be running for President in 2024. This reads like a campaign platform. It makes sense and it will make you hate our so-called leaders even more. He even calls out Romney by name as the face of the uncaring mercenary.
Ken Masugi has a post on resurgent nationalism and uses as a proof that even “reliable liberal E.J. Dionne, … makes apologies on behalf of nationalism.” in an article that Masugi quotes.
Well at least we don’t have to click on Dionne’s post. This tells you that the 2020 Dem candidates will be touting themselves as populists. Hah!
Here’s my retrospective on 2018, completely subjective of course and whenever I can’t make up my mind or I don’t want to leave something out I’ll cheat and provide more than one choice. And that’s one of the wonderful things about being the boss, you get to break the rules and do what you want.
Best Quotes of the Day
Some are political, some philosophical and some just human nature. The order is just chronological of their appearance on the site.
“In the many forms of government which have sprung up there has always been an acknowledgement of justice and proportionate equality, although mankind fail in attaining them, as indeed I have already explained. Democracy, for example, arises out of the notion that those who are equal in any respect are equal in all respects; because men are equally free, they claim to be absolutely equal.”
Aristotle
“No state will be well administered unless the middle class holds sway.”
Aristotle
“When there aren’t any smart decisions, I suppose you just have to pick the stupid decision you like best.”
Orson Scott Card
“No one likes the fellow who is all rogue, but we’ll forgive him almost anything if there is warmth of human sympathy underneath his rogueries. The immortal types of comedy are just such men.”
W. C. Fields
“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats.”
H.L. Mencken
Carpe diem! Seize the day! Rejoice while you are alive; enjoy the day; live life to the fullest; make the most of what you have. It is later than you think.
Horace
“And this is the simple truth – that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order into the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce.”
Soren Kierkegaard
If civilization had been left in female hands we would still be living in grass huts.
Over the course of 2018 I read and reviewed all eight of the volumes in the main series (first volume linked above) and they only got better as the series went along. It was good old mil-sci-fi space opera. I assume I won’t live long enough to see the end of the series but so far that isn’t a problem. I look forward to the next installment soon and am in no way tired of this particular universe. Kudos to Anspach and Cole. Long may they stoke their dumpster fire at the Edge of the Galaxy!
Vega is an acquired taste for me and as I’ve written about him, “It’s for those who like gritty crime dramas with a staccato, post-modern, minimalist writing style.” Even though my tastes are a little more conventional I appreciate that there is an audience for the more unusual so I look around for interesting stuff. As I’ve said before, your call.
Non-Fiction
The two books listed below provide two different takes on the way to interpret the results of ancient DNA analysis.
“The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution” by Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending
“Who We Are and How We Got Here; Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Past” by David Reich
David Reich being an academic embedded in the politically correct culture of the university system treads ever so gently around the edges of how the science of human genetic history should be interpreted. Cochran and Harpending are much more direct and sometimes possibly presumptuous in the conclusions they draw from the evidence. Both books together tell a fascinating story of how much we now know about the complex and diverse origins of the various human populations.
This is a kids’ movie but it far exceeds any of the other “superhero” movies for just plain entertainment value. I won’t say it was as original as the first installment but it mostly kept to the spirit of the original and provided a fun vehicle for parents (or grandparents) to enjoy a movie with their kids.
This is a twofer. For younger folks I’ll only recommend the new version by the Coen Brothers. For people who grew up on the John Wayne movies of old I recommend they view both movies back to back in chronological order. They each have facets to its advantage. Each differs slightly from the source material. But each is a fine movie. And I’ll also recommend the novel that is the source for the movies. It also has facets that aren’t available in either movie.
Music
Country Music
Album of the Year
Colter Wall by Colter Wall
Song of the Year
Pan Bowl by Sturgill Simpson
My music choices are very idiosyncratic so I won’t try to justify them. To paraphrase a recent annoying politician, they just reflect who I am Pan Bowl is an older song from Simpson’s 2014 album.
TV
The only truly notable television I watched in 2018 was the State of the Union address by the president. Everything else was at best just okay.
On – Line Articles
Here are the articles that I thought were informative on our political situation. There were many others that were intersting but these seem to encapsulate the developments in the political thinking this year. Basically it’s the red-pilling of the normies.
American Museum of Natural History, New York City, Sony NEX 5N, Sony 24mm F\1.8 APSC lensmacrophotography with Sony A7 III, Minolta 200mm f\4 macro lens and extension tubes, long horned beetleMonotropa uniflora, Indian pipe, ghost plant, corpse plant, Sony A7 III with Minolta 200mm f\4 Macro lensSony A7 III with the Sigma MC-11 Adapter and the Sigma 180mm f\2.8 APO Macro EX DG HSM OS for Canon
In the Coen Brothers’ version of “True Grit,” there are several conversations between Rooster Cogburn and Texas Ranger LeBoeuf where Rooster made it clear he considered LeBeouf a blowhard. After the incident where LeBoeuf is dragged feet first behind a horse and shot through his shoulder he is recovering in the cabin they have occupied.
(Inside the Cabin)
As Mattie enters. We see LeBoeuf musing before the fire as he cleans his Sharp’s carbine —an awkward operation given the injury to his shoulder, now bandaged. All we see of Rooster, seated further from the fire, is a pair of boots, and legs stretching into darkness. Mattie goes to the pot of food on the fire.
LEBOEUF
“Azh I understand it, Chaney——or Chelmzhford, azh he called himshelf in Texas——shot the shenator’zh dog. When the shenator remonshtrated Chelmzhford shot him azh well. You could argue that the shooting of the dog wazh merely an inshtansh of malum prohibitum, but the shooting of a shenator izh indubitably an inshtansh of malum in shay.”
Rooster is a voice in the darkness:
ROOSTER
“Malla-men what?”
MATTIE
“Malum in se. The distinction is between an act that is wrong in itself, and an act that is wrong only according to our laws and mores. It is Latin.”
We hear the pthoonk of a bottle yielding its cork, followed by the pthwa of the cork’s being spit out.
ROOSTER
“I am struck that LeBoeuf is shot, trampled, and nearly severs his tongue and not only does not cease to talk but spills the banks of English.”
We hear liquid slosh as the bottle is tipped back.
Yesterday, as I mentioned in my review of Aquaman, I had the some of the grandsons over. After we got home from the movies we played some games and had dinner but later on they got bored and not having much in the way of TV that they were interested in we let them use their parents’ Netflix account to stream a show they liked, “The Flash.” Wow. Now, I know that the WB is one of the worst networks for quality and the low budgets they work with mean that things like special effects and scripts and acting skill are brought down to a sad minimum, but I wasn’t prepared for just how bad it would be. In retrospect I’m a little ashamed at how much ranting I did while they were watching the show. As much as they share my love of mockery, I’m sure I must have been annoying to them. But to some extent it was justified.
The plot, such as it was, revolved around the Flash character and his friends and relatives protecting the inhabitants of Central City from the depredations of various random metahumans of which the Flash is one. Apparently, they were formed by some kind of nuclear incident involving a particle accelerator mishap. The particular episode involved an unfortunate individual called King Shark. He has a shark’s head but wears pants. He’s also about twenty feet tall so it’s not apparent where he shops for pants. He’s a really bad guy and sometimes eats people he doesn’t like but does it in such a slow fashion it’s not clear why they can’t just walk away from him. And despite his obvious evil nature, by the end of the show he is captured alive and once again incarcerated in an Olympic sized containment pool apparently being fed chum and awaiting medical treatment to turn his head human again. Most of the interaction with King Shark is the Flash running around him in circles while the shark head heaps verbal abuse on him.
By the above description you have probably identified the limited dramatic value of the action adventure available in the Flash series. However, these limitations pale in comparison to the real problem with the series, namely, the personal problems of the characters. Probably eighty percent of the air time consists of the various actors whining about their emotional problems. One character is sad about some dead spouse, another about the alienation of not being able to reveal his secret identity, another has feelings of inferiority because he has no super powers, another is worried that a character that doesn’t have super powers might develop them and become evil. The cast behaves like a whole high school full of neurotic teenagers which I assume is their target audience. If I’m being objective, the plots are no worse than what passed for story lines in the old Superman tv show from the 1950s that I watched as a kid. But the emotional immaturity and obnoxious insecurity of all the “good guys” in the stories is appalling. It may be a generational problem but to me this isn’t science fiction it’s a soap opera.
Today Camera Girl and I took grandsons Primus and Secundus to the local multiplex and watched a double feature of
Ralph Breaks the Internet
Aquaman
Between tickets and popcorn this went for about a hundred bucks. And it was horrible. Having to twice sit through the interminable coming attractions and other advertising video was pure torture. Ralph Breaks the Internet was mildly amusing but twice as long as it needed to be. Plus, at the end I found out that Sarah Silverman was one of the voice actors. By the time Aquaman began I was bored and queasy from eating greasy popcorn.
It wasn’t bad. There was a little too much girl power being pitched and of course none of it made any sense at all but taken as a whole it wasn’t bad. The plot was ridiculously contrived and the evil half brother motif might as well have had Thor and Loki’s names filed down to protect DC from being sued by Marvel.
The special effects are, of course, spectacular. Due to his human/Atlantean hybrid ancestry the title role is performed as a regular guy who just happens to be a super hero that can breath under water and control the denizens of the deep. The rest of the Atlanteans try to sound like some kind of quasi-medieval nobility, sort of like how the Asgardians in the Thor movies do. It’s a little silly but not terrible.
I’ve never followed the Aquaman character before. I figured he was just the DC version of Submariner who was the lamest of the Marvel superheroes. From the ending sequence and the way these superhero franchises are handled it’s certain that there will be sequels. Not that I think there need to be any.
Bottom line, the movie has plenty of action and drama. The main character is likable and fulfills the function of a superhero by being heroic. And finally, the grandsons thought it was very good. So it fulfills its primary role, it amuses kids.
How can you top “Industrial Rumpswabbery” as a post title? It cannot be done. And the contents are just as enjoyable. The Z-Man analyzes how we got from the horribly biased reporting of thirty years ago to our present state where the journalists are just lunatics who’ve escaped from some Ivy League holding pen.
It really simplifies the chore of deciding which main stream news sources to ignore, all of them.
Professor Gunnar Heinsohn provides a primer on how explosive population growth in moslem middle eastern countries makes employing small groups of American soldiers as peace keepers tantamount to suicide with no possible useful outcome as an offset. Once again Trump is the realistic grown-up in the room.
He compares the economics of monarchical empires to the modern multi-ethnic states like the Soviet Union and present day America. Z-Man says that the monarchical empires valued their vassals because they produced wealth for the emperor but that the USA openly exploits the “social capital” of its society for short term gain. His thesis is that this is a new situation and it is not clear whether this exploitation can be made stable or whether it will completely undermine the state and collapse the whole enterprise.
Pretty depressing reading for the holidays but well thought out.
