Make It Stop!

photog Current Events

(Apologies to the estates of Alfred Lord Tennyson and Simonides)

Half a league, half a league,

Half a league onward,

Into the valley of boredom, I crawl.

O stranger, tell the readers of OCF that

I lie here, obedient to their reading preferences.

This summer and fall will be well-nigh unbearable.  How many thousands of stupid posts by moronic pundits and half-witted lefty hacks will I have to read.  And how many polls of the “swing states” will we see announcing that the electorate is finally waking up to this or that inane platitude about the race?

How many more times will some hysterical Democrat-water-carrier wring his hands and beg Joe Biden to stand aside and let Gordon Gecko look-alike Gavin Newsom jump into the race?  And at the same time how many more progressive lickspittles will wax rhapsodic about Joe Biden’s towering intellect and astounding oratorical skill?

Of course, I will be rewarded by the weekly comedy of Biden fumbling over one syllable words or his feet.  And every once in a while, we’ll have the Benny Hill-like hilarity of Joe being dragged away to the nearest bathroom before his pants explode.  Sure, this stuff is great.  We all need a good laugh.

But all in all, we’re all just marking time until we find out whether the Democrats are going to fake the November election results or let Trump win as he obviously would under an honest election.

Some of you might say I’m whining.

Well, I am!

You see, I’ve been trying to come up with an alternate strategy for getting through the five months before the election.  I keep thinking I can replace political news with book and movie reviews and photography and science articles.  And maybe I could but I find that I’m spending too much time reading the political news to also keep up with these other areas and so it’s a vicious cycle of dependence.  Alas, alack.

Well, maybe I’ll learn and straighten up and fly right.  After all the universe is full of interesting things.  Like:

  • Colliding neutron stars giving rise to stellar sized ejection clouds of pure gold.
  • Rising tides of “far right” parties in Western Europe.
  • Government warnings about the deadly “bird flu” and the miraculous appearance of an amazing vaccine!
  • Nigel Farage running on the Reform UK Party ticket and predicting Reform will replace the Tories.

So, I’ll stop whining now and start looking for things to write about that don’t include the words Biden, Trump, Washington or boring.

So, let’s start with Farage.  A recent article lays out his read on how the Tories abused the gift he gave them in the Brexit issue and instead governed as leftists.  And now that they’ve burned away their whole voter base, he wants to replace them with the Reform UK party.  Of course, in the upcoming election this year Labor will be the primary recipient of the Tories’ implosion.  Labor will be the majority party.  But if Reform can get a decent handful of seats, they can begin the long process of replacing the Tories and giving the English people a party that actually represents the opinions of the people.  Interestingly, the election this year is on July 4th.  Maybe if Reform gets off to a good start on the Fourth of July some of that magic might infect our politics too this November.

At the very least the founding of the Reform party should be a lesson for our country.  The Republicans have been fake conservatives for long enough.  Someone should either dramatically reform it or start a legitimate conservative third party to drive it out of business.

09JUN2024 – OCF Update – It’s a Rainy Morning Sunday, That’s Got Me Without Knowing What to Write

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A rainy Sunday at the Compound.  I’m stuck in the house and getting on Camera Girl’s nerves, I can tell.  Next week will be very busy.  Tuesday will be a marathon of work until the wee hours.  I will be with the people, in all their gritty and idiosyncratic splendor.  So, I must get some things done today.  I’ve got photos and quotes to get uploaded and scheduled.  And I’ve got some scheduling things to figure out for my writing.  I’ve been so busy lately with work that I haven’t been able to do any fiction writing at all.  And that bothers me a lot.  As you get older the number of creatively productive hours in a day or a week decreases.  So, I need to make some time budgeting decisions to maximize my results.

But life rolls on.  And the now incredible increases to the cost of living are biting ever harder at my meager resources.  I was looking at some repairs on the swimming pool and wondered if outright replacing the lining might make some sense.  But when I heard the estimate, I was gob-smacked.  Yikes!  So, I’ll pay the piratical repair costs for patching for this year and decide about replacement next year when I get rich.

But just to assert our rights as Americans to waste money we went to the Chinese restaurant for dinner.  Sure, the cost was up about 50% from what I remember it to be.  But it made Camera Girl happy and it spared her having to cook last night.  And they have really fresh and delicious food at this place so it was a treat.

I was reading how McDonald’s might be pulling out of California all together.  And on one of the talk shows the socialist pundit was putting a brave face on it and saying that this would open up opportunities for Mom and Pop shops.  I was thinking, “Sure mom and pop get a really good deal on food prices compared to a behemoth like McDonald’s and they’ll definitely be able to outcompete McDonald’s on rental costs, utility costs and paper and plastic consumables.  Oh yeah!  It’s gonna be a paradise for small businesses in California.

Something that TomD commented about my Here and Now post.  He stressed that our present ruling class is not just more of the same.  He stressed that they’re really working to destroy us, “The progressives want us disarmed, private vehicles gone (except elite), and everyone on the dole and living in huge Soviet style arkologies. Males castrated.”

And I agree with that characterization.  They differ from the past in what they are attempting to accomplish.  Our former elites wanted us as factory wage slaves.  The new elites just want us gone.  And they think they can get the job done quietly and efficiently by eliminating our means of livelihood.  They impoverish us and then weaken us with drugs, illicit and prescription, that they flood the environment with and stupefy our children with a digital narcotic.  We’re being eradicated with poison like roaches.

Well, it won’t be easy but we have to learn how to avoid the traps and organize to assist each other in surviving.  Alright, enough of that.  Finish with something good.

 

I was watching the Coen Brothers version of True Grit the other day.  They’re a couple of nihilistic film makers but they did a remarkable job with this film.

 

Guest Contributor – TomD – 09JUN2024 – Not Your Grandpa’s Elites

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Tom | Flickr

TomD

I don’t know.

I do agree that crooks, incompetents and charlatans have been in American politics forever but I suspect that they had no real interest in destroying the society in which they lived.

The progressive Dims? Not incompetents, that’s for sure. But I do believe that they largely hate the US and wish to tear it down to replace with a socialist authoritarian utopia. Utopia for the elite. For you and me, not so much.

The progressives want us disarmed, private vehicles gone (except elite), and everyone on the dole and living in huge Soviet style arkologies. Males castrated

Guest Contributor – War Pig – 09JUN2024 – When the CO’s In a Skirt

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war pig

 

They poisoned the well and they also shot themselves in the foot. The US DEPENDS on mostly White, hetero teenagers to fill our military. That’s the majority demographic in the US. Sponsoring combat video games and financing and supporting Top Gun movies can only go so far. The gender agenda is indeed poison. I can imagine the reaction if any of my commanding male officers had shown up at formation in a female officers skirt.

Those who do still join rapidly become disillusioned and leave after their first enlistment. Fewer and fewer make it a career. Reenlistment bonuses are high but that’s not enough. Most of them cannot stand their current C-in-C. They saw running from Afghanistan with our tails between our legs as betrayal. Making the Taliban the best equipped military in the region with our abandoned weapons was close to treason. All Biden taught Russia, China, North Korea and Iran is that if you string it out long enough, America will quit. Even if America wins all the battles, the enemy can outlast our cowardly and self serving politicians.

The Safety Dance – Part 1

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The man stood alone on the subway platform at ten thirty in the morning and considered where his life was going.  He had just been laid off at the office and now was trying to work out how he was going to break the news to his wife.  She was home with their three small children and the dog and had been hoping that the Christmas bonus he had been expecting today would pay for them to move to an apartment in a nicer town where the schools were decent.

Now all of that was in the wind and he’d have to start looking for a job in a not-so-great economy with a not-so-great resume to sell.  Suddenly getting home seemed like a really bad idea.  He looked behind him at the cardboard box sitting on the bench.  There were some books, a coffee mug, some desk toys and a few papers that his boss had watched him take and which were considered “non-proprietary.”  No company secrets sneaking out the door, not even a Swingline stapler.  Suddenly looking at this pathetic flotsam representing five years of his life, he picked up the box and dumped it in the nearest trash barrel.  The coffee mug made a satisfying tinkling sound as it smashed against the metal barrel.

And just like that he felt considerably better.  He opened up his brief case and started lightening the load.  He got rid of anything he didn’t think would ever be of any use in the afterlife of corporate separation.  Most satisfying, he ripped apart his safety lanyard with its annoying multi-colored slogan about reducing risk to zero.  That seemed the most pathetic part of the corporate culture that he had had to endure at work.  How exactly had the never-ending safety dance protected him from the danger of losing his job.  He had to admit that the culture had saved him from earthquakes, lightning and tornadoes but it had been useless against unemployment.  He stopped for a second when he found the free roast beef card from the company cafeteria.  He had nine out of the ten spots stamped.  He was a week away from the free sandwich.  He had to admit that one burned.  But he chucked it away too.  There was nothing left in the brief case so for good measure he chucked that too.  Now he felt giddy.

He walked up out of the subway station into the cold, bright light of a December morning in Manhattan and thought, “Okay, Odysseus, now what?  Instinctively, he started walking uptown.  By noon he realized he wanted a cup of coffee and a snack so he stopped at a coffee shop and bought a very overpriced coffee and doughnut and sat near the front window and looked out at the city.  He was in the middle of a block that was mostly expensive five story walk-ups.  Remarkably there weren’t any homeless tents on the sidewalk so the illusion of pre-COVID, pre-George Floyd New York was almost perfect.  As he drank his coffee and ate his doughnut a feeling of happiness washed over him.  But when the snack was finished, he realized that it was time to decide how this day would end on a better note.  He needed a path forward.

He took out his phone and looking in his contacts he saw the name of a guy he worked with at the job before this one.  They had been friendly but the somewhat odd personality of this guy had always kept things a little off.  But he had been pretty well connected.  They both were inside-sales guys for large industrial equipment manufacturers and he had heard the guy was doing alright.  So, he called him up and heard, “Jim!  Wow, I haven’t thought about you in a million years.  What’s up?”

“Dave, my boss gave me the boot today.  I’m looking for any leads for something right away.”  The speaker went silent for a few seconds and then, “You know, it’s a damn funny thing.  I know you’re a local boy and never set foot outside the northeast but there’s a very nice opening I just heard of in Missouri that is probably right up your alley.”

Now it was Jim’s turn to go quiet.  Missouri, how the hell was he supposed to move there?  He didn’t know anything about living outside of New York and he didn’t want to try.  But he decided not to shoot it down right away, “Well, I guess I’d like to hear a little more about it.”

Now Dave’s voice sounded a little annoyed, “You know this is a pretty sweet deal.  I wouldn’t wait too long before coming in.  Can you meet for lunch tomorrow?  I’ll bring along the hiring manager and you can impress him with your sparkling wit.”  Deciding quickly, Jim said, “I’ll be there.  Where should we meet?”

…………