Industrial Strength Crazy

photog Current Events, Trump , ,

So, another leftist tried to shoot Trump.  Well, we can stop making believe that the Democrats aren’t murderous sociopaths.  Of course, they all make the same perfunctory “Political violence is totally unacceptable” statement in front of the cameras but what they mean is, “Better luck next time.”

Well, things are going to get uglier from here on in.  So, this clarifies what the whole “No Kings” thing is about.  You see Caesar was assassinated because he was toying with the idea of wearing a crown and the Romans had fought a war against the Etruscans to put an end to the monarchy.  So, Trump is Caesar and that makes it logical that an assassin will step forward to “free” this country from its dictator.

To my mind this confirms the theory that the Left has weaponized their radical fringe.  In addition to the three Trump shooters there is recently the Charlie Kirk assassin and the various transgender school shooters that have plagued us in the last few years.  This will be a very dangerous time for people on the Right and strategies to deal with this environment should be planned.

I think one of the better actions would be to continue eliminating as much federal money from reaching NGOs and other avenues that allow abnormal people to exist at the fringes of society.  Also, the crackdown on Antifa and Antifa-adjacent organizations is absolutely essential.  These organizations are where the most dangerous ideologues are concentrated and provided with support and direction for their malice.

I think the Justice Department should publicize the fact that left-wing radicals are the most dangerous criminals currently operating in the United States and that a concentrated effort will be made to identify the leaders of this movement and hunt down the foot soldiers that have been radicalized based on their social media statements.  That will rile them up and should be a good way to get a few of them to pop their heads up out of the sand.

But as I said, cutting off their funding is key.  This latest psycho was from California.  And California is hemorrhaging money at a phenomenal rate.  The Silicon Valley tech bros are scattering to Texas and Tennessee as fast as they can and the next governor may turn out to be a Republican just because the budget has become unworkable and they need a villain to take the blame when the state union pension plans have to be raided.  So, if the federal funds are effectively shut off the crazies will have no one to pay for their cross-gender hormones and intersectional studies tuition payments.

But there may not be a cure for what’s going on.  The Left has a lot of lunatics and if they try very hard, they will kill some of their enemies.  The question seems to be will American voters punish the Left for allowing its crazies to become assassins.  That is the real question that will be answered in the mid-terms.  If I were Trump, I’d play this thing out in the public square and tar the whole Democrat party with the psycho label.

A Man, a Plan, Camera Girl’s Pond Project

photog Current Events, Life in Dunwich, photog's Corner , , ,

The things a man will do for his wife!  This is going to be a very long week.  Monday and Tuesday will be completely consumed in the service of Dunwich.  By late Tuesday night I will be moaning and groaning and repeating that law of nature “No good deed ever goes unpunished.”  And in Dunwich the punishment is always cruel and extremely unusual.

Be that as it may I had promised Camera Girl that I would build her a goldfish pond and so I have been working at it since it arrived off the third-party delivery truck that Home Depot contracted for the job.  Between Wednesday, Thursday and Friday I got to work with pitch fork, shovel, wrecking bar, rake and wheelbarrow.    I measured off the perimeter, removed the turf and started to dig.  And because this is New England (at least the parts of Dunwich which are tethered to our space-time) the ratio of rock to soil is something like 3/1.  This makes the whole procedure slow and exceedingly painful.  The good news was that the temperature was in the fifties and sixties which made the earth moving tolerable but it was still strenuous enough to prove to me that digging ditches is strictly for prison chain gangs and other equally motivated people.  It brought to mind those scenes in Cool Hand Luke.  When Camera Girl brought me out some refreshments I said in a southern accent, “Taking it off, boss!”  I don’t think she got the reference.

But finally, yesterday as the sun was getting low in the western sky, it looked like the whole hole was deep enough.  So, I lowered the liner into the hole and voila!  In fact, it’s slightly too deep and also it will need a slight adjustment to make it perfectly level.  But the fine tuning will have to wait until Wednesday.  After that I’ll start the back filling that’s needed under the parts of the liner that are raised into steps for the placement of water plants and any goofy ornaments that women feel are needed to amuse the fish and frogs.  That will probably take a day or two.  And then we’ll fill the thing up and buy some water lilies and those other little sea-weedy plants that pond supply stores hand out and then onto the fish store to get goldfish or carp or whatever hardy species are available.  Camera Girl doesn’t want koi which is probably a good idea since they’re expensive and the Great Blue Herons around here like those better.

Truth be told I’m interested in seeing if in addition to the numerous and varied frog and toad species around the yard we manage to attract other cold-blooded critters.  Since I’ve seen them in the yard, I’m guessing garter and water snakes will show up.  And the painted turtles don’t have far to go from the real pond.  But what I’m not sure about is whether any salamanders will migrate over to this new water habitat.  There are several species in the area and I’ve always wanted to attract them to the yard.

Before we moved to Dunwich, I had built a smaller pond for Camera Girl in the yard where we lived.  It always made her happy to sit and watch the various wild animals and insects that gather around water.  I’ll have this up and running before summer and she’ll be able to enjoy it the way she used to.  Ah, the things we do for love.

27APR2026 – Quote of the Day

photog Quote of the Day ,

La Marseillaise (1792)

Arise, children of the Fatherland,

The day of glory has arrived!

Against us, of tyranny

The blood-stained standard is raised,

Do you hear in the countryside,

Those blood-thirsty soldiers ablare?

They’re coming right into your arms

To tear the throats of your sons, your wives!

 

To arms, citizens,

Form up your battalions

March on, march on!

Let blood impure

Water our furrows!

Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler – Some Observations on the Book

photog Book Reviews, Literature, Movie Reviews, OCF Classic Movie Reviews, Reviews , , ,

So, I had so much fun comparing the book and movie for “The Thin Man” that I to read Chandler’s “The Big Sleep” so that I could compare it to its movie too.  And once again I’m reading it from the Library of America edition that I already have.  The book came out in 1939 and the movie in 1946.  The pre-war and post war difference probably is significant.  But we’ll just leave that alone.

And let me state for the record that this review is full of spoilers.

First off, I’ll state for the record that although I’ve always enjoyed the movie immensely, I found the book much more interesting and satisfying as a story.  The biggest difference between the book and movie is the characterization of the Sternwood daughters Vivian and Carmen.  In the movie the role of Vivian is a mostly sympathetic character who becomes the love interest for the Marlowe character.  But in the book, she is almost as reckless as her unbalanced sister Carmen.  And whereas in the movie Carmen is an exhibitionistic spoiled woman-child in the book she is truly psychotic.

And allowing the Sternwood daughters to be pathological individuals they are, simplifies the details of the story that in the movie have to be sanitized in order to fit the Hays Code.  So, we can be told that Geiger’s “book store” lent out pornography to its customers and Carmen was being photographed naked by Geiger at the time when the Sternwood chauffer came in and killed Geiger and stole the exposed film of Carmen.  And so on with other parts of the story that don’t make sense in the movie because the seediness of the plot elements prevented their being openly stated instead of subtly implied.  So, we don’t have an explicit statement that Eddie Mars is not only aware of Geiger’s racket but also uses it to blackmail customers.

But the biggest difference between the two versions of the story is the disappearance of Rusty Regan (called Sean Regan in the film).  At the end of the movie Eddie Mars claims he saw Carmen kill Regan.  But because Mars didn’t even know what Carmen looked like Marlowe seems to reject this version of the facts.  This leads the audience to believe that Mars had Regan killed by Canino out of jealousy over Mars’ wife’s relationship with Regan.  But in the movie Marlowe suspects Carmen of the murder and he tests the theory.  After he had rejected Carmen’s sexual advances one night, the next day he tests her sanity.  He returns her pistol and tells her it’s loaded and she asks for him to teach her how to shoot.  After leading Marlowe to a secluded location, she uses the opportunity and angrily fires all six shots at him.  Of course, he had the gun loaded with blanks and after disarming her she goes into an epileptic fit.  And after bringing Carmen back to the house to receive medical attention Marlowe tells Vivian that he knows that Carmen must have murdered her husband after a similar refusal by Regan to sleep with her.  And Vivian admits to the truth of the killing.

I find this a much more satisfactory ending.  We’ve been shown the Sternwoods as a very sinister and dysfunctional clan and the idea that Vivian is somehow a sympathetic or admirable individual despite all the evidence to the contrary just rings false.  Chandler’s story is a grim tale that lacks the happy ending of the Hollywood movie that pairs Bogart and Bacall as a romantic couple.  But it’s a better ending and in my opinion much more satisfying.