Another very long day. Nothing left in the tank. Here’s a Colter Wall tune.
Category: Reviews
Reviews of books, movies, tv shows and other items
A Fake Post from the Far North
It’s the middle of the night here in an outpost of the brotherhood.
In honor of Brian Wilson I’ll attach this version of Sloop John B and call it a night. Tomorrow I’ll do better.
Update:
Ed Brault
I enjoy the Kingston Trio’s rendition.
The ZMan has Died
Probably the most eloquent and witty voice on the Dissident Right is no more. Reports on X by authoritative sources say that the ZMan passed away last night of “natural causes.”
Of course, his most skeptical fans will wonder if the cause was completely natural. But I will certainly miss his writing and podcasts. He had one of the greatest speaking voices on the conservative side of the aisle (or “great divide” as he called it). And his knowledge of political and sociological affairs was impressive.
Although I differed from him on some of the conclusions he drew from his facts I had to admit he was well versed on the mechanisms that had created the dysfunction that he reported on in his posts.
He has a legion of devoted readers who commented religiously on his site and who will be hard pressed to find a new home to replace his haven.
Rest in peace ZMan.
Update:
Comment by ArthurinCali:
Sad news, especially how sudden it was. Zman was one of the inspirations to me to try my hand at writing. His analysis and podcast will be greatly missed by many of us.
Dunwich Slips Into Permanent Dumb
Dunwich is a strange place. Although most humans here appear to be sentient, they’re not. Many of them continue to breath and move and even talk without even the tiniest shred of gray matter.
First Selectman Cthulhu called a town meeting last night and tried to explain why they should finally vote to accept the 2025/2026 budget during this third referendum. But regardless of how many citizens he ate, they would not agree to a budget. Finally after he was developing acid reflux, he asked them why they would not agree. Their spokeswoman was a vapid forty-something who stood her ground and said, “Why do we need a budget?”
Cthulhu was so flabbergasted by this lack of understanding that he dropped the six Whatleys he was about to swallow and just broke down and wept. Finally he composed himself and just walked off right through the south wall of town hall and hasn’t been seen since.
In his absence I took it upon myself to explain to this rube just how government worked. I explained that a budget allowed us a framework for stealing the public’s money and also provide a basis for increasing this theft on a yearly basis. This actually worked and she thanked me for the clarity of my explanation.
Seriously, this question was actually raised at a town meeting, “Why do we need a budget?” I think the millennials have reached that point where maintaining a viable civilization is very doubtful
Reverse Engineering an Ending
I’ve been trying to figure out how to end my book. Today I’ve been reading the last third of the book to see if I can force an exit strategy into the story. The good news is I’m enjoying the narrative. It’s almost as if someone else wrote it. So that’s good. The bad news it’s taking a while to figure out a satisfying ending that leaves all the major characters with a satisfying “landing.”
But I’m glad I’ve re-engaged with the writing on a more robust schedule. I think the story is well written so it gives me motivation to get the darned thing out there. Onward and upward.
So, has Trump really ended the Iran/Israeli War? Well, here’s hoping.
21JUN2025 – An Interesting Day
A recent post called “Where Will We Be in 2,500 AD” reminded Ed of an old song from 1969 called “In the Year 2525.”
“Remember this one?
In the year 2525, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find
In the year 3535
… (very long series of verses) …
Now it’s been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what, he never knew, now man’s reign is through
But through eternal night, the twinkling of starlight
So very far away, maybe it’s only yesterday
In the year 2525, if man is still alive
If woman can survive, they may find”
And that produced this comment by me:
“I remember it well. I was in the family station wagon heading for Long Beach Island on the Jersey shore for the summer vacation when it came on the radio for the first time. I was reading a science fiction anthology edited by Robert Heinlein called “Tomorrow, the Stars.” Life was simpler then.”
Well, of course that got me thinking. As I remembered that was a pretty good anthology. But unfortunately, it was a trade paperback from 1969 so it fell apart about fifty years ago or so. Curses!
But Amazon.com has some redeeming value. I found a hard back copy (seventeen years older than the paperback I owned but in much, much better shape) and purchased it for a very reasonable sum.
And, as remembered, there are several very good stories inside; C. M. Kornbluth’s “The Silly Season,” Kurt Vonnegut’s “The Report on the Barnhouse Effect” (I forgot he was the author), Isaac Asimov’s “Misbegotten Missionary,” William Morrison’s “The Sack,” Fritz Leiber’s “Poor Superman” and several others that I still like.
So now that will allow me to enjoy some excellent short science fiction from the golden age (or was it the silver age?).
And I’ll need it. I was reading Heinlein’s posthumously published alternate novel to his “Number of the Beast” alternate universe story; “The Pursuit of the Pankera.“ But I just couldn’t read it straight through. Just like in the “Number of the Beast” the four main characters just talk way, way too much. It was like an endless struggle session to see who could out-Heinlein who. I also developed a strong antipathy for his character Hildy. I wanted a monster to squash her when she started hectoring them.
I will admit it was better than “Number of the Beast” but I couldn’t finish that one either. Maybe it’s me but after his illness in the ‘70’s I don’t think his writing ever recovered the vitality it had before “I Will Fear No Evil.” Or maybe something changed in me.
But anyway, Heinlein’s picks in the anthology I’ll be rereading show good taste at least in conventional science fiction from the 1950s. Thank goodness he didn’t have access to his continua craft in his old age and could go back and change his story selections for that anthology. I’m not sure I’d enjoy them.
Today I also received my handy-dandy manual chain saw doo-hickey (in the same box as the book).
It’s the chain for a chain saw with carabiners on the ends to allow it to be used using human power. I went back to my downed tree and took a three-foot length from the trunk and it only took about twenty minutes of sawing. Of course, I took another twenty minutes of breaks to restore strength to my tired old arms but still this is a factor of ten faster than it took me to cut the last chunk using the bow saw. My next gambit is to see if I can attach the ends of a chain to the frame of my bow saw. That would make it more convenient to use. Alternatively, I could imagine attaching the chain to the rear wheel of a stationary bicycle and really improving my efficiency. I guess I’m anticipating a future without gasoline or batteries. But I do think strangely.
Well, it was an interesting day.
The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves
Today is the first day of the new OCF editorial regime. I’ve noticed over the last year that the quality of my posts has been inconsistent. And I believe the reason for this problem is that sometimes I’m covering old ground again. I’ve said about all there is to say about some of the political issues of the day and I’m just banging the drum, so to speak.
And this is not a good thing to be doing. In addition, I really need to finish my book and get it published and see if fiction writing is something I want to do. So these two separate situations point me to a change in the way I run my website. I’ll continue to post the photo and quote of the day, same as always. As far as a daily post, I’ll put something up but if I don’t have a topic that’s truly crying out to be covered then I’ll put something else up. Maybe some photos that I like or a link to a song or a video that caught my attention. This will free up more of my time for fiction writing and it will prevent me repeating myself and boring the readers.
I think this is a good idea and I expect it to improve the site significantly. Anyway, I’ll give it a try and see how it goes.
Minnesota Madness
The same people who gave us the George Floyd Summer of Thugs have returned with the Vance Boelter False Flag Insurrection. There is something seriously wrong with the people living in Minnesota. This guy Boelter previously served on Minnesota’s Governor’s Workforce Development Board, appointed by Governor Mark Dayton in 2016 and reappointed by Tim Walz in 2019. There are even claims that Boelter’s wife, Jennifer Boelter, worked as an intern for Tim Walz in 2010 when he was a Congressman.
Either this guy Boelter is trying to start a civil war or the people in Minnesota are just so randomly crazy that anyone is just as likely to be an advisor to the governor or a homicidal maniac or both. By tomorrow we’ll probably find out that Boelter has come out in favor of Palestine and the people of Minnesota have made him governor by acclamation.
So, somehow this guy gets access to a look-alike unmarked police cruiser, a police uniform and equipment (gun, taser, body armor) and goes on a killing spree; whacking high-ranking legislators and their families on a whim? I’m sorry. Minnesotans are just too crazy and stupid to be allowed to walk around loose. The whole state should be turned into a low-temperature nut house where Somalis and Scandinavians can torture each other in adjoining padded rooms between bouts of shock therapy and whole-body ice water immersion.
But none of this is a surprise. Tim Walz is a weird creepy man who should never have been elected dog catcher never mind the governor of a state. Every time he talks in front of an audience every other sentence is a misstatement or gibberish. The fact that Kamala Harris chose him as her vice-presidential running mate is proof that he’s a drooling idiot. She didn’t dare pick anyone with even normal intelligence for fear of making herself appear even stupider.
It remains to be seen just how close the relationship is between Walz and Boelter. If it turns out there’s a close connection then God help Walz. He’ll be fed to the wolves by his own party. They’ll probably impeach him and boot him out of the governor’s mansion.
And you know what? It couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. After how he fanned the fires of the Geroge Floyd riots and caused untold damage to the people caught up in the violence and all the damage done afterward by the coddling of criminals, it would be poetic justice if he was kicked to the curb by his own people.
And even if he survives, the dysfunctional politics of Minnesota will continue to plague the people who vote for the race baiters and hypocrites there and lead to the psychopaths like Boelter who go slowly crazy in the cold and then erupt into madness and wipe out the very people they depend on for political favors and perks. Well, bad things come in threes. First LA erupts into chaos. Now Minnesota unleashes a mass murderer. What’s next? New York City sinks into the ocean? Stay tuned.
The Wise of Heart: A Modern-Day Re-Imagining of the Scopes Monkey Trial by Hans G. Schantz – A Book Review
“Inherit the Wind” was a famous fictionalized account of the Scope’s Monkey Trial of the early twentieth century. It centered on a young school teacher who was arrested and put on trial for teaching the theory of evolution in the Bible Belt where laws had been passed to forbid it.
Dr. Schantz has managed to swap out transgender orthodoxy for fundamentalist creationism in his story and crafted a courtroom drama that captures all of the nuances of our present-day retreat from reality that calls sexually mutilating adolescents, “gender-affirming therapy” and allows grade school teachers to conspire with social workers to perform these procedures on minors despite parents’ horrified resistance. A high school biology teacher is accused of teaching the biological facts of human sexuality and this throws him in conflict with a state law that forbids a teacher from challenging a student’s “selected gender identity.”
For those familiar with the movie version of “Inherit the Wind,” some of the plot twists will reappear in a new analog. But this isn’t a rehash of the old story. This is a very in-depth look at the illogic and fallacies of the transgender narrative and the way different parts of the government, the medical profession, media and academia pander to the delusions of confused children and frighten their parents into allowing terrible things to be done to their children.
The story is inhabited by a cast of characters that interlock at multiple points. Small town politics and society mesh with national political figures who have their own agendas but seize upon the trial as the perfect battlefield to win a victory for their side. Both sides are portrayed believably. The woke activists aren’t just straw men but sound quite close to what their real counterparts sound like in news clips. The details of the trial sound extremely close to what the transcript of a trial would consist of.
So, what did I think of the story? I think the story takes a while to get going. There is a set-up needed to get all the pieces in position for the trial. During this period the reader will have to be patient. Once the trial gets going the story finds its stride and becomes a courtroom drama. And I found the ending satisfying without being overdone. As with its predecessor it doesn’t attempt to write a conclusion to the clash going on in the story but rather capture the flavor of the two opposing sides and show how each side attempts to paint itself and its opponents using the weapons that each prefers. The Left fixates on emotions and idealism while the Right points to logic and reality.
Who is this book for? Well, first off, people of the woke persuasion will not be amused. Despite being reasonably accurate in his portrayal of the woke side they don’t come off as sympathetic characters. So, this leaves moderates and people on the Right. Also, this book is a courtroom drama and folks who read these are its intended audience. Personally, I liked the book. I liked the defense attorney and I despised the prosecutor. This made the courtroom battle satisfying for me. But you’ll have to make up your mind based on what I’ve described whether this is your kind of story.
Yellowstone Summer – Part 2
Patricia (Pat) Tollens’ first week in Boghadair had begun less than smoothly. Her first encounter with her new supervisor could best be described as a train wreck. Tanner Carrero had encountered her when she attempted to hike in the mountains. But instead, he had to rescue her from a marauding grizzly bear that she had incited by leaving her bear transponder in her car. Things had started poorly. And then they got worse.
From her point of view Tanner was a hopeless throwback to the stone-age patriarchy that no longer existed in her world. Back at UC Berkeley if he had yelled at her the way he did on that trail, she would have had him brought up on charges; verbal assault, hate speech, and any number of micro-aggressions. In fact, he pretended that she was the one at fault.
And now she had to work for this caveman. She called up her advisor at Berkeley and requested that a grievance be opened up against Carrero by the school. But she was advised that Typhon Industries didn’t work that way. In fact, they didn’t even have an HR department. They had something called “Personnel” and basically, they handled payroll and insurance paperwork and handed complaints over to local management. If she wanted to lodge a protest, she’d have to talk to Carrero’s manager. When she attempted this, she found an even older, more sexist man than Carrero who told her to stop making trouble or she’d be sent back to California by the next plane. And just to make things completely transparent she was cc’d on an e-mail from his boss to Carrero telling him what she had done and recommending he straighten her out right away or send her packing. Pretty bad.
So, on her first day of work she showed up at the small frame building that housed the survey team. There was an office list and she found Tanner’s name and walked down the corridor to that room and saw him setting at one of the desks and approached with the bleakest expression that her face could produce short of actually being caught by a grizzly bear.
Tanner was sitting working on a spreadsheet but caught sight of Pat as she approached his cubicle. His expression turned to a mixture of anxiety and embarrassment. He had never liked “supervising” people. He was an “individual contributor” down to his boots. There was nothing he hated more than “onboarding” employees. And now he had a problem that threatened to drag him into a world of paperwork. Terminating an intern sounded like a nightmare of paperwork and he would avoid it by almost any means possible.
Tanner had booked a conference room for her first day to allow her to come up quickly to speed on the project by working one-on-one with him. He asked her to follow him to the conference room and they sat down opposite each other at a small conference table.
Tanner coughed nervously and started, “Ms. Tollens, we’ve started off badly but we can move past the problems we’ve had if we concentrate on the work at hand. My boss is sort of upset. He’s probably more upset with me than with you but we have to show him that we can work together efficiently and hit our deliverables on the schedule. If you think we can work together then I’m going to meet you in the middle. But if you feel that I’m as bad a person as you indicated in your grievance then we should end this today and not waste any more of your time or this company’s.”
He stopped talking and waited for her reply. Pat had listened with interest to his words. Apparently, he wasn’t the monster she had assumed. He sounded almost reasonable; confused but almost reasonable. She thought, “Maybe this won’t be horrible.” She wanted badly to get Typhon Industries on her resume. Everyone in the mining industry knew they were light-years ahead of the competition. She had heard they weren’t a progressive company but this Carrero guy might be honestly trying to work with her. She decided to give it a try. She said, “I think we can work together.”
Tanner let out a sigh and managed a half smile, “Good. I’d like to have you go over our field work manual today and we can break that up by having you begin to attend the project meetings so you can meet the team and become familiar with the way we work. In the afternoon I’ll meet back here with you to go over a field study I have planned for tomorrow. I’ll provide you with the itinerary and also the gear you’ll need. We’ll take three other interns along to get them trained too. They’ll be at the meeting today so you can get to know them too. The four of you may find some benefit to spending some time together to help acclimate yourselves to a new locale together.” Pat nodded her head and said, “That sounds good. Is there a laptop I’ll be using? I’d like to take notes on the manual and figure out your e-mail system and other onboarding tasks.” He said, “Sure, it’s the one on that side of the table. There’s a folder with the onboarding information, including initial passwords and other IS gobbledygook.” She looked a little anxious when he used the term gobbledygook but she didn’t say anything.
And so, they began. Maybe not a ball of fire, not “Astaire and Rogers” but no one had been brought up on charges and neither of them had raised their voices a decibel over cubicle normal. A new beginning!