Devolution

photog Current Events ,

The world I live in has been changing at a rapid rate for the last four years.  The COVID and George Floyd strategies combined with the Biden administration’s green revolution, Ukraine war, the opening of the border to all illegal aliens and finally the intelligence agencies use of extreme surveillance and control over the social media platforms have truly changed the way of life in the United States in a fundamental way.  I guess this is what Barack Obama meant when he talked about fundamental change.  He meant destroying the middle class and eliminating law and order.

But we’re still here.  Where could we go?  Europe has been similarly wrecked.  There is no other place.

So, I often wonder how life will adapt under these new conditions.  What was the saying back when everyone thought overpopulation would be our downfall?  “We’ll all be a little hungrier by and by.”  Well, that sounds likely.  Both here and in Europe the powers that be are eliminating farmland, making farming more expensive and making things like fuel and fertilizer much more expensive.  So, let’s assume the hungrier idea is likely.  Of course, many would note that currently obesity is running rampant so how could we be going hungry?  On the contrary, obesity and malnutrition can certainly coexist.  Junk food can be pretty cheap.  But it means shorter life and ill health.  So healthy food will be scarce, unless you count crickets.

We already know that energy in all its uses will be very expensive.  This means homes will be less comfortable, travel will be less frequent, work will be closer to home and all goods that have to be shipped will be more expensive.

Jobs will be harder to find and professional work will be scarce.  Learning trades will once again be a very important avenue for employment.  Colleges will fail on a grand scale.

And the existence of law and order will be on a case-by-case basis depending on who is in power in the local area.

Put all those things together and what kind of a place will we be living in.  First off, I don’t it will be one place.  We’re already seeing different areas of the country diverging from each other.  California and other areas that encourage the importation of large numbers of illegal aliens are already becoming very third world with large homeless encampments, very high crime, high taxes and businesses fleeing to safer areas.  Whereas places like Florida that discourage crime, illegal aliens and high taxes are booming and attracting new businesses.

What this means is that there will continue to be a polarization between the red and blue states and this will cause issues where the blue states will use their control of the federal government to try to outlaw the red state practices that give them advantages over their blue “neighbors.”  How this resolves itself over time is an open question.  If the red states successfully defend their sane policies eventually the blue states will become moribund and they will even lose their control of the Congress and White House due to population loss.

But if the federal government uses force to compel the red states to comply with the blue state practices, then we will be headed for the Brazilification of the United States.  And at that point it truly will not matter where you live.  At that point.  We might as well be in Mexico City, Entebbe or Soweto.  Our lives will be nasty, brutish and short.  And probably better so.

Well, a lot is riding on this upcoming election.  Here we go again.

31AUG2024 – And Then, Quite Suddenly, Summer Was Over

photog Book Reviews, Current Events, Quote of the Day, Reviews, Science Fiction / Fantasy, SF&F Book Reviews , , , ,

Bradbury understood summer to a boy.

 

“And then, quite suddenly, summer was over.
He knew it first when walking downtown. Tom grabbed his arm and pointed gasping, at the dimestore window. They stood there unable to move because of the things from another world displayed so neatly, so innocently, so frighteningly, there.
“Pencils, Doug, ten thousand pencils!”
“Oh, my gosh!”
“Nickel tablets, dime tablets, notebooks, erasers, water colors, rulers, compasses, a hundred thousand of them!”
“Don’t look. Maybe it’s just a mirage.”
“No,” moaned Tom in despair. “School. School straight on ahead! Why, why do dime stores show things like that in windows before summer’s even over! Ruin half the vacation!”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

 

“June dawns, July noons, August evenings over, finished, done, and gone forever with only the sense of it all left here in his head. Now, a whole autumn, a white winter, a cool and greening spring to figure sums and totals of summer past. And if he should forget, the dandelion wine stood in the cellar, numbered huge for each and every day. He would go there often, stare straight into the sun until he could stare no more, then close his eyes and consider the burned spots, the fleeting scars left dancing on his warm eyelids; arranging, rearranging each fire and reflection until the pattern was clear…
So thinking, he slept.
And, sleeping, put an end to Summer, 1928.”
― Ray Bradbury, Dandelion Wine

 

The yearly ritual continues.

 

This is a Free Country You Know!

photog Current Events, Movie Reviews, Reviews , , ,

I was looking for something to watch on tv tonight and I noticed that I had recorded “A Man for All Seasons” recently.  But when I started it, I saw that I had missed the beginning and it started in the middle of Henry VIII’s visit to Thomas’s home.  I was disappointed but then realized that even watching part of this movie was more enticing than watching any one of a hundred movies that I had ready in their entirety.  Now why I haven’t already added this movie to my collection is a mystery for which I should be rebuked.  It is indeed an inspirational film.

But what struck me while I was watching it was a line that two of the characters used in the story.  At two separate points someone says, “This isn’t Spain you know, it’s England!”  And this is meant to mean that England is a free country and not full of religious zealots that would burn you at the stake for superstitious nonsense.  But of course, one of them is Cromwell who arranges perjury to have Thomas More beheaded for refusing to sign an oath confirming Henry’s legitimacy as head of the Church in England.  Even more amusing, the Cardinal who assisted Cromwell in this witch hunt was literally burned at the stake a few years later.

And now the reason I’m writing this essay.  That little phrase that the characters recited reminded me of what we used to repeat, “It’s a free country, I can say what I please.”  It was a trite saying.  But it was true.  You could say or believe whatever you wanted to.

But is that still a true statement?  No, it is not.  There are many things you may not say.  The COVID episode proved that.  The government proved that.  They ordered the social media platforms to censor anything they didn’t like about COVID.  And they did it.  And they hid the fact that they did it.  So, most people never knew there were other sides to the story.  They did it so successfully that most people still don’t know just how many lies the government told about COVID.  And they did the same sort of thing about Hunter’s Laptop and a host of other stories that were embarrassing to the Biden administration.

And it’s gone well beyond political issues.  They censor stories about pediatric transgender drug therapies and surgeries, illegal immigration criminality, price increases on food and housing, unemployment figures; basically, anything that makes the Biden administration look bad.  And of course, the biggest coverup was the fact that Joe Biden was suffering from dementia.

So, is this really still a free country?  I would have to say that since the “Patriot Act” was signed into law we have ceased to be free.  The government knows everything we say and the government now censures anything we say that they don’t like.

Well, that’s where we are.  It’s a discouraging thought.  But watching More’s story helped.  Here was a man surrounded by jackals and yet he lived his life in service to the good.  He exemplified intelligence, honesty and humanity.  His enemies ultimately destroyed him and yet history has recognized his excellence while branding his persecutors as pernicious, dishonest and cowardly.

I hardly see myself as martyr material.  I enjoy annoying Camera Girl too much to want to end up on the chopping block either figuratively or literally.  But I do think we should all be willing to pay some price to oppose the forces that have gained a stranglehold on America.  We’re all guilty of laziness in some sense or other and it behooves us to step up and try to make a difference in our families and local communities.  This isn’t Spain you know!

31AUG2024 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

The world is dying of machinery; that is the great disease, that is the plague that will sweep away and destroy civilization; man will have to rise against it sooner or later.

George Moore

Update:

From Master Diver:

Well, we did celebrate the 7th Anniversary of the Day Skynet Awakened on August 29th.

Skynet2
Skynet2

photog replied:

We may live to think that Skynet’s actions were the better bargain compared to what seems to be ahead for us.

Trustworthy

photog Current Events, Trump ,

Bash:  Hi, I’m Dana Bash and I’m here with Vice President Kamala Harris and Governor Walz and this is the first CNN interview for her presidential campaign.

Walz:  That’s right Dana.  It’s the first!

Bash:  That’s right Governor.  That’s right.  Madame Vice President, how would you describe the direction that your campaign is taking now that the convention is over?

Harris:  I would describe it as joyful Dana.

Walz:  That’s right Dana, joyful.  Full of joy.

Bash:  Okay.  Full of joy.  That’s good.  But is there any more, uh, concrete policy statement or theme to the campaign.

Harris:  Yes Dana.  Without a doubt.  My administration will use all of the resources of the federal government to find, prosecute and imprison that guy that made the compilation of me saying, “unburdened by what was.”  Anyone who would belittle and mock a woman of color who is also Vice President of the United States is obviously a racist and a misogynist.

Walz:  Uh, wait a minute.

Harris:  Hey, I’m talking here Tim!

Walz:  Yes, Madame Vice President.  But…

Harris:  But nothing!  And not only will we convict and possibly execute this monster…

Walz:  Execute?  Wait a minute.

Harris:  Shut up Walz!  I’m going to find everyone who shared this video and arrest them.  And then I’ll find anyone who watched it and arrest them too.  They must all pay.

Bash:  Madame Vice President, maybe you remember how President Biden’s debate performance had a very deleterious effect on his re-election campaign.  Basically, not being able to answer simple policy questions or even speak in complete sentences caused the American people to doubt his competency to continue as president for another term.  What the American people want to know is how they can trust you to tell them the truth about all the important events and policy questions that presidents handle if you withheld the important fact that Joe Biden was a dementia patient for most or all of his term?  How can they find you trustworthy?

Harris:  Trustworthy.  When we say that someone is trustworthy, we are saying that that person is worthy of trust.  And a person who is worthy of trust is trustworthy.  And that is what I am.  I am a trustworthy person who is worthy of trust.  That’s what I am.  And the American people can see a future of me being trustworthy unencumbered by a past where I didn’t tell them that Joe Biden was a little bit demented.

Walz:  Okay, that’s enough.  I can’t do this anymore.  I’m willing to do that tour in Iraq now.  Anything rather than listen to any more of this.  I thought I could just ignore the idiocy.  After all I made believe that BLM was a legitimate cause and that letting them burn down Minneapolis and St. Paul was a reasonable thing for a governor to do.    But listening to Kamala Harris for four years would land me in an asylum.  (STALKS OFF STAGE).

Bash:  In light of current events should we maybe postpone this interview until a later date?

Harris:  I can imagine 2028 unencumbered by memory of this interview.  Maybe 2032?

30AUG2024 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

“A Visit from St. Nicholas”

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,

In hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there;

 

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,

While visions of sugar-plums danced in their heads;

And mamma in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,

Had just settled down for a long winter’s nap,

 

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,

I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.

Away to the window I flew like a flash,

Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.

 

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow

Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,

When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,

But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,

 

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,

I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.

More rapid than eagles his coursers they came,

And he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name;

 

“Now, DASHER! now, DANCER! now, PRANCER and VIXEN!

On, COMET! on CUPID! on, DONNER and BLITZEN!

To the top of the porch! to the top of the wall!

Now dash away! dash away! dash away all!”

 

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,

When they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky,

So up to the house-top the coursers they flew,

With the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.

 

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof

The prancing and pawing of each little hoof.

As I drew in my head, and was turning around,

Down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

 

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,

And his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot;

A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,

And he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

 

His eyes — how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!

His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,

And the beard of his chin was as white as the snow;

 

The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,

And the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath;

He had a broad face and a little round belly,

That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.

 

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,

And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

A wink of his eye and a twist of his head,

Soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread;

 

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,

And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

And laying his finger aside of his nose,

And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;

 

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,

And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.

But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

HAPPY CHRISTMAS TO ALL, AND TO ALL A GOOD-NIGHT!

Clement C. Moore