Oh, Woe is Me

My life is already getting hectic again.  I’m working on getting my book cover drawn and I think I’ve found the artist.  He’s a fellow in France and his drawings are very skillful and artistic.  Much better than I need but I think it makes sense to have a talented person handling something that I’m completely unqualified to do.  My concept is a black and white sketch of a sniper on a rooftop aiming down at an antifa riot where one rioter in black bloc is getting ready to knife a business owner trying to protect his storefront from the rioters.  It’s basically a scene from the book.

Of course, not being someone who can draw I don’t have a feel for the sense of perspective and how that would affect the relative sizes of the several figures in the scene.  That probably will dictate where the vantage point of the viewer should be.  But that’s why I want someone skilled working out those kinds of questions.

And suddenly there are all kinds of details I’m thinking about.  Is launching a book before, during or after the Christmas shopping season the best time for an independent author?  Should I explicitly sub-title the book as a series?  And what about my nom de plume?  I’ve come up with a few names and they seem to break into two groups; rugged or literary.  As an example, compare Jack Fader versus Julian Lesage.  So many details, so little attention span.

So I’m busy with all of this stuff but the day job is being super annoying just when I thought it would be giving me a break.  Oh, the pain, the pain.  And simultaneously, the family holidays are coming up so I have to help Camera Girl prepare for the festivities.  So, this week I’ve been cleaning up the yard and putting stuff away and winterproofing the vulnerable areas of the Compound.  And every year that list grows.  I noticed today that a small back gate to one of the fences was blown right off its hinges by a windstorm this week.  I knew it was weakened but I thought it would last a little while longer.  But now I’ve got to do something permanent about it.

And this morning I’m sitting with Camera Girl in the dining room and looking out on a screened in porch I see some kind of medium sized bird fluttering around in the porch.  The wind blew open the magnetized doorway of the curtain just long enough for the bird to find its way in but not long enough for it to escape so I had to go to its rescue.  I arranged for its escape but did I get even a thank you from the ungrateful avian?  Nope.  Not even a friendly chirp.  But going out there brought to my attention just how much dust and dirt had built up on the deck.  There are whole areas of this place that I don’t set foot in for seasons at a time.  I do live in a very strange and inefficient place.

Well, now that I’ve complained about the problems I’m surrounded by and shared them with you, I feel a little better.

COVID Investigation

We may be getting close to proving that the CIA and the US Health agencies were an important part of the COVID pandemic.

Ralph Baric, the world’s top coronavirus researcher, discussed “human adaptation” of coronaviruses with the CIA before Covid began

Years before Sars-COV-2 emerged from China, Dr. Ralph Baric — a North Carolina virologist who worked closely with the Chinese lab that is the likely source of the virus — met with American spies to discuss the “human adaptation” of coronaviruses.

Emails released by Kentucky senator Rand Paul reveal the meetings, which again raise the question of whether American spies are protecting Baric and covering up their own possible role in risky Chinese lab work that likely caused Covid.

Now Paul is pushing the agencies for more documents that may finally offer an answer — nearly six years after Covid began.”

You might say, “Does it matter anymore?”  I think the answer is yes.

Now, let me be clear.  I doubt that anyone will go to prison.  I’m sure the spooks and their Democratic partners have scrubbed all the really damning documents and all that’s left is a trail of crumbs leading to Anthony Fauci.  But I still think that a Congressional Investigation report followed by a DOJ report naming as many names as possible would go a long way to vindicating all the suspicions we felt during the COVID scam.

The article stated, “Although Baric has publicly dodged making definitive statements on his view of Covid’s origins, the emails that Paul released show that Baric worried from the first that a lab leak might have been responsible.

In late January, he warned a secret American intelligence group of the risk of “accidental release,” noting that the Wuhan lab had worked on highly infectious coronaviruses in “BSL2 [Biosafety Level 2] conditions” — laboratories not designed to handle such transmissible viruses.

Reading this article it’s utterly clear that Fauci was completely aware of the lab leak origin of COVID and that the Biden administration did everything in their power to suppress the truth about COVID’s origin and the culpability of American government agents (including the CIA) with the Wuhan disaster.

I hope that Rand Paul does his utmost to keep this investigation from being squelched.  Being a medical doctor he’s familiar with the scientific and medical facts about virology and the kinds of research that is normally performed as a part of vaccine production and can differentiate it from the malpractice that we saw with the “gain-of-function” modification of bat corona viruses.

I’m convinced that what was going on was the production of a bio-weapon by either the CIA or some other entity involved in Wuhan.  Luckily the weapon was a dud.  Probably the RNA vaccine that was created to counter it was more dangerous than the original COVID virus but what’s really important is that such research is going on in places like Wuhan and at the behest of the US federal government.  Whether you are comfortable with the idea of the CIA building bioweapons, it can’t be good policy for it to be going on in a third-rate laboratory under the control of the Chinese Communist party.

I don’t have high hopes for this investigation but in a better world, those responsible for this fiasco would be exposed to the light of day and then sent to prison for decades for what they’ve done.

15NOV2025 – Quote of the Day

And rather than make the book unwieldy I have eschewed notes—reluctantly when some obscure passage or allusion seemed to ask for a timely word; with more equanimity when the temptation was to criticize or ‘appreciate.’ For the function of the anthologist includes criticizing in silence.

I am mistaken if a single epigram included fails to preserve at least some faint thrill of the emotion through which it had to pass before the Muse’s lips let it fall, with however exquisite deliberation.

The best is the best, though a hundred judges have declared it so; nor had it been any feat to search out and insert the second-rate merely because it happened to be recondite.

Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

Lost World

The “Age of Mamdani” is upon New York City.  And anyone who frequently reads this site knows that I expect the bottom to drop out of the city in a way that will make the previous Democrat mayors’ terms look positively idyllic by comparison.

But as much as I indulge in seeming schadenfreude, it’s gallows humor.  New York City used to be a world-class city.  Even in its ruins there still exist some absolutely astonishing resources hidden among the squalor.

I’ll say something.  When I lived in New York my favorite indoor space was the American Museum of Natural History.  Ever since I was a kid barely old enough to walk I would wander around mesmerized by the dinosaurs and all the other creatures to be found in that magical place.

American Museum of Natural History, New York City, Sony NEX 5N, Sony 24mm F\1.8 APSC lens
American Museum of Natural History, New York City, Sony NEX 5N, Sony 24mm F\1.8 APSC lens
American Museum of Natural History, New York City, Sony NEX 5N, Sony 24mm F\1.8 APSC lens
American Museum of Natural History, New York City, Sony NEX 5N, Sony 24mm F\1.8 APSC lens

And almost as fascinating was the Hall of African Mammals.  With the huge exhibit of a small herd of African Elephants and the other monumental creatures like the rhinoceroses a small boy could be transported to another world.

American Museum of Natural History, New York City, Sony NEX 5N, Sony 24mm F\1.8 APSC lens
American Museum of Natural History, New York City, Sony NEX 5N, Sony 24mm F\1.8 APSC lens

But now this incomparable citadel of knowledge and wonder will be held hostage by people who hate the culture that produced it and made it into a legacy for all New Yorkers.  Already they removed the statue of Teddy Roosevelt that had stood for a century in front of the entrance.  Its motif with the “great white hunter” on horseback walking with the third world natives in their primitive costumes enraged the George Floyd crowd.  So it had to go.

Next thing you know some exhibit of primitive aborigines will outrage some woke group and that exhibit will be banned.

American Museum of Natural History, New York City, Sony NEX 5N, Sony 24mm F\1.8 APSC lens

And after that someone will decide that there just aren’t enough Palestinian exhibits or somewhere on a sign there is some vestigial reference to Christianity.  Probably someone will be triggered by a date still using B.C. or A.D. and more scrubbing will be needed or some other facet of third world life will need to be reinforced for the good of the public.

I guess I don’t anticipate dinosaurs becoming controversial but I guarantee something in the African exhibits will offend someone in the New York African American community and the wholesale purge will begin.

And when push comes to shove, I think I will feel worse about the loss of the American Museum of Natural History than about the whole rest of the city and its inhabitants put together.  I know that’s an awful thing to say.  But it’s true.  I guess murdering magic is a terrible thing to the little kid that’s still inside of me.