Thrive

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The old saying is that the best revenge is to live well.  Now that’s not really true.  The best revenge is luring your enemy into a convenient catacomb, shackle him to the wall and brick him into an alcove where he’ll die of hunger and thirst.

But living well means enjoying the things that make life full and rich.  And the secret to overcoming the toxic effects of the death cult that attacks our lives from all directions is not to spend all our time fighting it.  Sure, we must expend a certain amount of our time in fighting it.  There are political battles and cultural battles and personal battles.  But if we let this fighting take up all our time then we lose.  Because we never have a chance to bring the good things into our lives that make us happy.  Our lives are robbed of beauty and joy.  We survive but we can’t thrive.

So, what we need to do is look at the things that give joy to us and make sure that we make time for them.  And we need to pass these things along to the young people.  Because the Left is attacking many of these things and trying to eliminate them from the world.  They have declared all of western civilization, racist.  Western music, western art, western literature, all of it is suspect.  So, Shakespeare is evil unless all the good characters are portrayed by transgender actors or something.  And Mozart is evil unless there is a female rapper twerking to it somehow.  And worst of all is Christianity.  The Bible is evil unless there is a lesbian minister declaring that Jesus was gay.

Now you can spend all your time battling the woke scolds who declare all these fatwahs against our culture.  But instead it is better to spend time enjoying these forbidden things.  Go to a Shakespeare play or any play.  Or if you can’t find a non-woke production then buy the DVDs of the old productions.  Go to a concert.  It doesn’t have to be classical music.  I also like country music.  Maybe you like jazz.  Find a concert and go listen to something that makes you feel alive.  Have a few beers (not Bud Light) and a burger and go with people who enjoy that music too.

Find a local theater that has revivals of old movies and find the movies that you like there.  And read the classics.  And by classics I don’t mean ancient.  Anything from more than seventy years ago is safe from the taint of our modern disease.  And even today there are authors who aren’t infected.  Look up reviews by people who aren’t woke, like me.

And if your tastes run to action-adventure movies or punk rock or metal then let these things be what you search out.  After all, these are just as forbidden as Shakespeare and Mozart.  They aren’t woke enough for our current rulers.  They still have too much freedom in their DNA.

And make sure you bring along the kids when you do these things.  They aren’t exposed to anything normal in their outside lives.  Everything in the social media world that they live in is steeped in the TikTok, YouTube orthodoxy that reinforces all the lies and prejudices against the good and beautiful things that existed in the past.  They are proselytized to think all the strange and weird things being pushed are normal and healthy.  So, make sure they are exposed to as many of the healthy and normal influences as you possibly can.

So that’s a simple message.  Make sure that you leave plenty of space in your life for the enjoyable and exciting things that the present culture is trying to eliminate.  Fighting the culture war will take care of itself.  And by enjoying your life and sharing it with the young you help to squeeze out the influence of the Left from your life.  And that is priceless.

Matt Walsh Asks, “Can We Give Target the Bud Light Treatment?”

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Walsh admits that it will take a little more effort to boycott Target but they deserve it even more and he makes the case that it could be done.  Something to think about.

20MAY2023 – It’s Official

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Possibly this will be a result that may hasten the end of this war.  But we’ll have to see.  The West is now talking about a stalemate because they don’t see a victory for Ukraine.  They predict a standoff like in Korea.  It’s not clear to me that the Russians feel the same way about their chances of winning.

20MAY2023 – Quote of the Day

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GUNGA DIN

 

You may talk o’ gin and beer

When you’re quartered safe out ’ere,

An’ you’re sent to penny-fights an’ Aldershot it;

But when it comes to slaughter

You will do your work on water,

An’ you’ll lick the bloomin’ boots of ’im that’s got it,

Now in Injia’s sunny clime,

Where I used to spend my time

A-servin’ of ’Er Majesty the Queen,

Of all them blackfaced crew

The finest man I knew

Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din.

He was ‘Din! Din! Din!

You limping lump o’ brick-dust, Gunga Din!

Hi! slippery hitherao!

Water, get it! Panee lao!

You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din.’

 

The uniform ’e wore

Was nothin’ much before,

An’ rather less than ’arf o’ that be’ind,

For a piece o’ twisty rag

An’ a goatskin water-bag

Was all the field-equipment ’e could find.

When the sweatin’ troop-train lay

In a sidin’ through the day,

Where the ’eat would make your bloomin’ eyebrows crawl,

We shouted ‘Harry By!’

Till our throats were bricky-dry,

Then we wopped ’im ’cause ’e couldn’t serve us all.

It was ‘Din! Din! Din!

You ’eathen, where the mischief ’ave you been?

You put some juldee in it

Or I’ll marrow you this minute

If you don’t fill up my helmet, Gunga Din!

 

’E would dot an’ carry one

Till the longest day was done;

An’ ’e didn’t seem to know the use o’ fear.

If we charged or broke or cut,

You could bet your bloomin’ nut,

’E’d be waitin’ fifty paces right flank rear.

With ’is mussick on ’is back,

’E would skip with our attack,

An’ watch us till the bugles made ‘Retire,’

An’ for all ’is dirty ’ide

’E was white, clear white, inside

When ’e went to tend the wounded under fire!

It was ‘Din! Din! Din!’

With the bullets kickin’ dust-spots on the green.

When the cartridges ran out,

You could hear the front-files shout,

‘Hi! ammunition-mules an’ Gunga Din!’

 

I sha’n’t forgit the night;

When I dropped be’ind the fight

With a bullet where my belt-plate should ’a’ been.

I was chokin’ mad with thirst,

An’ the man that spied me first

Was our good old grinnin’, gruntin’ Gunga Din.

’E lifted up my ’ead,

An’ he plugged me where I bled,

An’ ’e guv me ’arf-a-pint o’ water-green:

It was crawlin’ and it stunk,

But of all the drinks I’ve drunk,

I’m gratefullest to one from Gunga Din.

It was ‘Din! Din! Din!’

’Ere’s a beggar with a bullet through ’is spleen;

’E’s chawin’ up the ground,

An’ ’e’s kickin’ all around:

For Gawd’s sake git the water, Gunga Din!

 

’E carried me away

To where a dooli lay,

An’ a bullet come an’ drilled the beggar clean.

’E put me safe inside,

An’ just before ’e died:

‘I ’ope you liked your drink,’ sez Gunga Din.

So I’ll meet ’im later on

At the place where ’e is gone—

Where it’s always double drill and no canteen;

’E’ll be squattin’ on the coals,

Givin’ drink to poor damned souls,

An’ I’ll get a swig in hell from Gunga Din!

Yes, Din! Din! Din!

You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!

Though I’ve belted you and flayed you,

By the living Gawd that made you,

You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din!

 

Rudyard Kipling

Podcast Musings on a Friday Morning

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So, I started my Friday as I usually do, listening to the mellifluous tones of the ZMan Power Hour podcast while I exercise.  And as luck would have it, today’s show was made up of several segments about things in the news.  I like this kind of show because he puts his slant on these topics and it gives him a chance to be amusing at the expense of the clowns involved.

For instance, he commented on the recent Banking Sub-Committee meeting that featured Senator John Fetterman.  After a few clips of Fetterman attempting to articulate complete sentences about the recent bank failures ZMan opined that the real takeaway was that the Democrats want Fetterman there because having a brain damaged hobo in the Senate further disrupts the norms of our society.  After all, if the most powerful deliberative body in the world can include a man who can no longer master the use of the definite article, “the” in his sentences then why shouldn’t the country go for decades without negotiating a budget for the federal government.

And I get his point.  But the reward for me is listening to someone who can interlard his speech with a description like “brain-damaged hobo.”  There’s an eloquence, a style there.  We have to enjoy our lives and having someone as witty as that provides the opportunity.  And he has a number of these witticisms.  Some he borrows from impeccable sources.  He has taken Oscar Wilde’s phrase, “It would take a heart of stone not to laugh at …” and used it to very good effect on a number of occasions.  He invented that excellent trope “Xirl Science” where he reads from the published papers of mostly female practitioners of usually social sciences like “gender studies.”  The contents are sometimes hilarious in their use of pseudoscientific jargon and obvious lack of rigor or even coherence.  But my all-time favorite ZMan-ism was when he called David French an obsequious rumpswab.  It doesn’t get better than that.

I don’t always agree with all of the ZMan’s conclusions.  But his analysis of what’s going on is usually very insightful.  And his podcast is extremely well done.  The audio quality is good.  His thought process is clear and well enunciated and there is enough humor with the often-distressing message about our times to keep us from gagging on the medicine.

So, he did a segment on Tucker Carlson’s banishment from Fox News and their replacing him.  And while discussing this he made the point that eliminating Tucker Carlson may have also been a business decision based on the reality of cable news economics.  Not enough people are getting their news from cable channels to make it a lucrative business.  The highest rated news channels get one or two million viewers.  There are YouTube channels that get ten times that.  If Fox News pays Tucker Carlson millions of dollars a year, then there isn’t that much left for their bottom line.  And they would prefer to pay chump change to some kid to read off the teleprompter instead.  And I think he’s right.  They’ll be “retiring” all the high salary pundits and hiring kids who just want a job.

And that makes sense.  If a place like Twitter will give a megaphone to independent contractors like Tucker Carlson it may not be long before cable news is a thing of the past.  And that’s good.  The news channels have been shown to be a racket with their sham objectivity and their willingness to lie for the powers that be.  In a sense what I do is no different from what the pundits perform.  The only difference is the economics.  And honestly, that seems to be shifting too.

The ZMan provides a quality product.  The value proposition he provides is very equitable.  He provides entertainment and valuable information.  That’s much more than you get from many cable news shows.  So, it was a good lesson I took away.

Now to figure out a way to make it pay!

Very Funny Deep Fake

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This is not a real video made by Tom Cruise.  It’s a computer simulation.  But it’s funny.  I think it captures the essence of Tom Cruise’s over the top desire for authenticity.  Hopefully he’d get a kick out of this gentle mockery.  If not then he’s just another Hollywood loser.