Tomorrow is the flight. In fact, I’m heading out the door in eight and half hours. So, the era of radio silence is upon me. I’ll try to monitor the news in case Creepy Uncle Joe morphs into a giant cockroach or centipede or something. Or if Joe and Kamala resign and Nancy Pelosi takes up residence in the White House. If that happens, I’ll have a lot to say. But short of that I’ll probably be incommunicado for most of the trip. I’ll post pictures as well as I’m able and I may put up some posts with my impressions of the mountain west. The daily photo and quote are already loaded and scheduled for the whole trip.
I hope everybody’s summer is progressing as planned. Unless I’m eaten alive by a grizzly bear, I expect to re-emerge on July 21st revitalized and rededicated to insulting leftists whenever they say stupid things, which is always. I’ll check on the comments so feel free to leave them. This the longest I’ll be away from the site in six years so I’ll probably suffer withdrawal symptoms out there in the wilderness. But it’s probably good for me to unplug and deal with life without the internet for a change.
So Camera Girl had me back in the salt mines. Well, literally, she had me turning over some of her vegetable garden with a pitchfork. And while I was working on a section I started noticing that the ground started moving! I flipped over a piece of vegetation and saw this:
Apparently a rabbit somehow built a burrow inside the garden, which is surrounded by a 4 X 4 lumber rectangle. Is there a tunnel from somewhere outside the garden? Beats the hell out of me.
Camera Girl and I took a morning stroll around the grounds and it was encouraging. Cone flowers are blooming, daylilies are about to pop and the first few eggplants and squash are on the vines.
The weeds and crab grass are growing at a prodigious rate and the local hawk has been picking off mourning does at the pace of one every other day. Black-eyed Susans and Shasta Daisies are everywhere and the milkweed is in bloom and feeding a new cohort of Monarch butterfly caterpillars.
Basically, life is exploding everywhere I look. Which means I’ll be busy watering, weeding and cutting grass for the foreseeable future.
I am on record as saying July is my favorite time of the year. But this year I’ll be away on a trip from the 11th to the 20th. While I’m away I’ll be viewing and photographing bison, grizzly bears, wolves, elk, moose, geysers, mountains and other items that usually don’t feature into life at the Compound. And doubtless that will be exciting. But in a way I’ll be sorry to miss the little milestones that happen here every July. In July I’ll find the first praying mantis.
Me and My Shadow
In July I usually see the first fireflies. And in the middle of the month, I always celebrate my birthday with a party. Well, you can’t make an omelet without cracking a few eggs.
I’ll try to post from time to time but I expect before, during and after the trip there will be disruptions. It’s been a busy month and I haven’t had a chance to cache a bunch of pictures and quotes for the interregnum. But I’ll do my best to provide some content. Hopefully I’ll be able to put up some interesting photos during the trip.
What is becoming clear to me is that after the trip I’ll be revising my writing schedule to facilitate my fiction writing. It’s just too difficult to write between posts. It’s got to become the opposite, posting between writing. Reading about the output that Nick Cole produces filled me with envy and shame. So, things must change.
As for the latest news of the day, why, it’s chicanery, skullduggery, buffoonery, imbecility, failure and ruin as far as the eye can see. As the cities descend into howling chaos, hyperinflation bankrupts us and the economy continues to sputter into recession, Dementia Joe moves full speed ahead to usher in WWIII. I guess since he’s finished off the Democrats’ chances in November, he figures he might as well go out with a bang. It will be interesting to see if his brinksmanship ends up causing an actual war or just destroys what’s left of this country’s military reputation.
Well, I shouldn’t let this devolve into depression. There are plenty of good things happening too. There’s plenty to do and not enough time to do it in. So, let’s see what I can do to keep some copy up on the site and try to keep it on the light side. Enjoy the glorious weather.
In my post I said, “People say that the five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. I think I have detected these stages in news coverage of the Biden Administration. The Left is grieving for the loss of Joe FDR Biden’s New Deal Moment, the Great Reset, the Build Back Better Rip-Off. If you think back to last year I remember when prices started to rise and the headlines were full of denial. Do you remember how they claimed that the Fourth of July cookout was something like $1.47 cheaper than the year before? And then there was the meme about inflation being temporary.”
Now here’s something from Lipson’s post, “Take inflation. The former administration spokesperson, Jen Psaki, initially denied rising prices were a problem. When that became laughable, the administration reframed the problem as a temporary one.”
What the hell! When I want to talk about an idea that someone else has written on, I always give attribution and cite the work and put a link back to the original article. But this Lipson guy did none of these things. What the hell!
I challenge you Charles Lipson, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of Chicago (if that is your real name!) to do the right thing and give attribution to Orion’s Cold Fire and apologize for your scurrilous behavior. Have you no sense of decency sir? Have you no shame, at last? There you are at your fancy university in your la de dah city of Chicago taking the food out of Camera Girl’s mouth. I challenge you to a debate. Who is the greater pundit thee or me?
Well, I feel better now. It’s good to get this thing off my chest. Okay, let me go see what I can “borrow” from someone else now.
For what it’s worth I’ve decided to paly around on Twitter once I heard they’ve unthrottled the Right.
So far I have no idea what I’m doing but I found some people I know over there like Iowahawk and Larry Correia so i have something to read. If you’re on Twitter stop by and say hi.
And what a shame for me! As many who visit here know I am the self-professed, “Laziest Man on the Right.” I enjoy nothing as much as procrastinating and enjoying life. Of course, I prefer to think of myself as, “The Most Interesting Man in the World,” but I don’t have his killer fake Spanish accent. Boy, that was a great advertising campaign.
But of late I have been doing a lot of research and laying the groundwork for a vast commercial undertaking. Not since the early days of Kramerica Industries has the world seen such poorly planned and shamefully misdirected effort from someone who ostensibly is trying to get something done.
All at the same time, I’m starting a limited liability company (LLC), re-opening my PayPal account, assembling and post-processing my first group of high-resolution photo files, working on my first novel, assembling a fine art photography book and for reasons known only to PayPal buying the cheapest mobile phone plan in the world. The last item has to do with the fact that PayPal no longer allows individuals to have a PayPal account without a cell phone. Apparently Big Brother truly does live in Silicon Valley.
As noted, the efficiency of these efforts has been abysmal. I have to redo each step at least three times because of my ignorance or poor preparation. The people I contact, even the AI I interfaces with which I interact, seem to be straining not to yell at me to stop bothering them and just give up. And being the empathetic fellow I am, I tend to agree with them. And because of my ineptitude all of this effort should be doomed to massive failure and soul-searing disappointment.
And yet, I am heartily enthused and invigorated by the whole confusing mess. Slowly and painfully, I’m learning the things I need to know to carry out the program. As soon as I can get the phone thing resolved and the PayPal account up and running, I can load the photos on the commercial website. And once the LLC is official, I can start paying the government taxes on whatever paltry profits I manage to pull in.
And this is only the beginning. I hope to follow up on my first novel with the rest of a science fiction series and other writings of various types and lengths. I have the often-mentioned unbridled enthusiasm and unjustified optimism. Most people I have confided in about my mad dreams have warned me that I have literally zero chance of success in my endeavors. They say that statistically it’s an incredible longshot.
I am undeterred. For I have always been inexplicably lucky. Not just a little lucky but almost eerily lucky. Over the course of a fairly long life, I have almost invariably been unreasonably lucky just when I needed it the most. Even when something bad happens to me something or someone unexpected always shows up and sets things right. I’ve led a charmed existence.
So that’s what I’m betting on, that my luck will hold out again. Deep down I know that one day fate will even up the score. I assume it’ll be something horrendously unlikely or even preternatural. I’m expecting a meteor strike or a lightning bolt to rub me out. But when it comes, I’ll face that day whistling a happy tune. I’ve had the luck that ten men could expect while expending almost no effort at all. I sometimes wonder what I might have accomplished if I had added hard work to luck but probably it would have mucked things up completely.
So, here’s to the future and just a little more luck.
Well, here we are exactly three weeks before Christmas Day and despite the havoc that the pod people have unleashed on the world, I’m feeling kind of happy and even optimistic about what’s to come. Why I’m that way is probably a combination of things. Doubtless, knowing that the Biden administration is in disarray has something to do with it. The fact that I’ll be spending several days with the kids and grandkids is also part of it. Another part is that by December I’ve come to terms with winter and no longer feel the post summer gloom. And finally, well, life is good! Everyone in the family is in pretty good health. We’re going to have another fantastic dinner soon and another one right after that. The house hasn’t been foreclosed on. We have enough money for food, clothes and even enough left over for some toys like the new camera I’m hoping to buy in January. Any sane person would say I’m doing alright. And even though I’m at least slightly crazy I’ll say it too.
So, what’s on the horizon?
I listened to a doctor in England who’s pretty sure that the omicron variant is going to be a very mild virus and should be the end of the farce we’ve been enduring. He said it will be extremely transmissible and quite capable of infecting even the hyper vaccinated. So, everyone will get this thing. It will feel like the kind of virus that gives you aches and a dry cough and headache for a couple of days. Then that should be it. No huge number of deaths, no wave of hospitalizations except for the chronically ill and the really elderly. So, in a month or three Anthony Fauci should be out of an annoying job as health nag of the world. Hallelujah! Of course, nothing is ever guaranteed but I’m guessing the weariness of even the Karens will drive this thing to its ending. So that’s a good prospect.
Every year in the winter I’m always frustrated by the dearth of photographic opportunities. After all, snow and ice sort of look the same whether I photograph it on Wednesday or Sunday so there is a futility to going out in the neighborhood. Plus, I’m not a big fan of being cold. Well, this year I’ve vowed that I’ll make a few treks around New England to try to find interesting snow (whatever that is). Plus, I think I’ll set up a macro studio in the house and bring some interesting subjects inside to do the work in the comfort of forced hot water heating. I’m interested to see if my 200mm Minolta macro lens will be controllable with a program I use to take focus stacks. It allows the focus setting to be very gradually changed between shots. I’m not at all certain it will work because the Minolta lens will be under the control of the LA-EA5 adapter which is nowhere near as precise as one of those lenses that has stepper motors built in. But it’ll still be fun trying it out. And that’ll be just one of the cool things I’m hoping to do with the A-mount lenses on the A7 IV camera once I get my hands on it. Looking back on some of the photos I took on the A-850 DSLR with them I am excited to see what kind of results I can get in the spring. But winter will still provide some opportunities.
I’ve been enjoying the movie reviews. I think it makes a good change of pace from the political stuff. Even the horror of Star Trek Season 3 can be fun if there is enough mockery involved. Mixing science fiction movies with the old movies from the ‘30s and ‘40s seems to work. But I’ll see if I can mix in some later movies just for variety. I don’t want to get predictable!
I’ll have to do some reading into H. P. Lovecraft. I’ve forgotten all the details of the stories and I’ll need those details when I riff on Lovecraft in my Dunwich newspaper articles. I think I might try the “Whisperer in the Dark” next.
And finally on the fiction writing front I’ve made progress on my novel but what I’ve concluded is I need to carve out much more time. I’ve got to get more disciplined. I spend too much time just reading stuff on the net. It’s way too much of a time sink.
OCF is my personal reaction to the reality that the Left owns the internet. And when I bumped into that fact it was a lot less true than it is now. I was revolting against the enforced leftist narrative that I found in every photography website and science fiction review blog. I just couldn’t stand the atmosphere of delusional superiority and even worse the selective enforcement of website rules. So, I built my own kingdom where my own version of delusional superiority and selective enforcement of website rules would be the rule. But who’s to say what’s delusional?
Anyway, Over the years, the site has focused more and more on the political situation until now I’d say that politics is something like 99% of the content if it’s based on text. Obviously, the photo of the day has very little text and the quote of the day is a sentence or so. And that’s fine. During the Trump presidency there was an enormous amount of political action to comment on. And in this time of social and political turmoil there continues to be a raft of topics that need to be discussed, and in most cases, lamented. I intend to continue doing just that. After all, having my say is why I’m here.
But the reality is that there isn’t something to say about the political situation every day. Well, there is but it’s not novel and interesting enough to seem worthwhile. After all, how many times can I call Joe Biden a vegetable or a pervert before I start to seem like a vegetable myself? And in the absence of any kind of actual progress on the Red State revolt front how often can I bang that drum before I start to drive my readers back into the arms of the Blue State matriarchy?
I just thought it would be a good idea if I start to introduce more features that don’t depend on the news cycle and the initiative of politicians. From a practical perspective this will involve more culture topics; book, movie and tv reviews, essays on historical events and opinion pieces on cultural events and groups.
And another thing I’d like to get back to is fiction writing. I’ve been working sporadically (very sporadically) on writing a science fiction novel. Actually, it’s more like three different novels that haven’t really gelled the way I want them to. I’m thinking of putting up installments of one of them as an ongoing feature of the site. It’ll give the readers a taste of my writing style and eventually I’ll use it as a sample when I publish and start to market my work.
Now the thing about writing reviews and essays and fiction is that they take a lot more time to produce than my typical hit piece on Joe Biden. Writing five hundred or a thousand words about how stupid cretins are isn’t that hard. But writing a review means taking the time to read or watch something and then thinking carefully about saying something interesting about it. And writing fiction is on a “ho nudda lebbel.”
What I’m saying is that the long-time readers might notice a change in the output here. There may not be so many quick rant posts. There may be fewer posts. And the post lengths will probably increase significantly. Maybe you could say that quality will replace quantity to some extent. Hopefully that will suit most readers. I suspect it will be an improvement.
Now I don’t want anyone to panic. I’ll still keep a watchful eye out for worthwhile events that need my unique blend of political savvy and rapier sharp wit. But I just don’t see a reason to say the same thing over and over again. So, this is just an explanatory note so that the readers don’t think I’ve been taken hostage and replaced by a ringer from Antifa. OCF continues. OCF grows. photog tries to improve his product.
A lot of you have seen the cartoon. A man shipwrecked on a desert island writes a letter requesting help, seals it in a bottle and throws it into the ocean. The punch line varies based on the philosophy or the humor of the cartoonist. Maybe a bottle washes up with a sarcastic reply or maybe he is rescued and one day finds his bottle floating up to his home port or maybe his own bottle returns to him unanswered or maybe some pirates or cannibals find it and come to finish him off. But the idea of sending out a cry for help to the world is a powerful concept. It appeals to our feeling of solidarity with humanity.
In a way this blog is somewhat like that. Trapped in my little corner of blue state America it’s easy to feel isolated and trapped. Of course, that’s not completely true. I have my friends and family and acquaintances that align with my way of looking at the world (for the most part). And I can read the right-wing websites and even watch some of the non-leftist content on a few outlets that still haven’t cancelled it.
But in a lot of ways the world I remember is being erased and my world is contracting. Thirty years ago public radio used to be fairly entertaining. Now it would be like listening to fingernails on a chalk board. I used to like watching a ball game occasionally. Now it’s just another chance to insult me. They’ve whittled away the things that made life fun. Even the movies have become unwatchable. And I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who feels this way.
So, I had to invent my own game, my own fun. I look at the world and I write out my thoughts and I put it into the bottle and I hit the enter key and it travels around the world and sometimes I get an answer. It could be a yep or a nope or a pat on the back or even occasionally a middle finger but it’s an answer, it’s a voice, it’s an affirmation that the rest of you are out there. It means I exist. You comment, therefore I am.
So that’s the secret of this blog. You all are the power source that make this blog work for me. I get my motivation, my validation from your presence. Even those who don’t comment but come back every week or every day or even several times a day reinforce my reason to write. Sure, part of it is that I just enjoy the mental exercise of reasoning about the things going on in this crazy time we live in. There’s value in figuring things out on paper (or pixels) and I think better when I write things down and I enjoy posting my reviews and my photos. But I mostly enjoy sending out my thoughts and ideas out into the internet ocean and getting some bottles floating back with some replies.
So thanks to all you folks out there who show up and read my notes on the shores of this infinite ocean. It’s nice knowing you’re out there and don’t be afraid to say hello if you have the urge to do so. I can always use the company. It’s an awfully big ocean.
This was Andrew Breitbart’s explanation for why we needed to assert our place in social media and entertainment and other arenas of our culture. And he was right. That explains why Google, Facebook and Twitter are desperate to remove the Right from the public square. They can’t win in the marketplace of ideas and they certainly can’t win in the meme wars. So banished we must be.
And that is why we need our own platforms. So far, we’re laughably outgunned everywhere we look. Something like Facebook has a membership in the billions. So even looking at something like Gab which has had a huge influx of displaced non-leftists is dwarfed by a factor of almost a thousand to one. And there is absolutely no comparison to the monetary discrepancy. We’re microscopic.
But even a site like this, which is invisible to Google, is important. That’s because it gives us a place to go where we can say what we believe without being shut down or told we’re evil. And we can come here to hear and tell news. I’ve found some very interesting links from readers who shared them in the comments.
And even more important it gives us a sense of being part of something extended in space. There are people from all fifty states and other countries who come here. Some come for movie and book reviews. Some come for photography articles. But most come to read something by people on our side of the aisle. Some disagree with what I have to say. Some have already abandoned the mainstream parties and are waiting for some catastrophe to reset the existing order and provide an opportunity for regime change. Much of what they say about society is deadly accurate. I do differ with them on the conclusions they draw about what is and isn’t possible in the way of reform. And I don’t deny that I could be wrong and they could be right. But currently I haven’t given up on the future of the United States. I think there may be scenarios where the red and blue states agree to disagree and allow a looser federalism on these freedoms that we want. This would be similar to how some states have ignored the federal illegal status of cannabis.
I find the range of opinions on the Right healthy. None of us really know how any of this is going to end up. But talking to other people provides me with feedback. For the most part we don’t have very heated arguments like some of the ones I’ve seen elsewhere but screaming matches aren’t really necessary. Twenty or thirty words is sometimes more than enough to allow someone to make a point.
One thing I would be interested in is hearing more from the next generations. Tyler from the Portly Politico comes here often and it’s obvious that he’s not of my generation. But I wish I had a dozen more of the kids here. If you know of any younger folks on the Right, please send them a link. I think they are the most important people for us to reach. I think exposing them to the things that are now essentially excluded from the mainstream social media sites is vitally important. And I think it’s an easy sell. The present-day culture is thin. From a male perspective it’s weak and boring. Comparing the model of traditional family life to the deracinated Gaia worship currently passing for a lifestyle should be a slam dunk.
So, I’ll say I think Andrew Breitbart was correct. We need to win the culture war but up until today we haven’t even shown up on the battlefield. But there’s no time like the present so I do my part and I encourage everyone to join in and even invite new faces especially the young to participate. So, rightists of the world unite. Throw off your chains of Facebook and flock to orionscoldfire.com where the cool kids hang out.
