Tag: revenge

Best Served Up Cold

photog Current Events , , ,

“The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge.”

“from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”

“For the love of God, Montresor!”  “Yes,” I said, “for the love of God!”

cask

Revenge is perhaps the strongest vice in my soul.  I come by it honestly.  I think it’s an ingrained family trait.  Revenge and spite are as native to me as breathing.  And I feel the urge for revenge at all levels of existence.  I equally despise the rude coworker and the oligarch who despises and demeans the deplorable masses.  And what my heart craves is revenge.  Not fairness or justice or an apology.  I long for Nemesis to strike down hubris.  And strike it down out of all proportion to the offense.

Of course, the opportunity to indulge such a passion rarely occurs without the necessity of paying a very high price for the privilege of stabbing from hell’s heart.  But the desire is still there even if the intellect steps between the doer and the deed and declares the price too high.

And so, when I think of the contempt that our elites feel for us my instinct is to imagine a way to hit back at them.  So, for instance, when they revel in the pain they inflict by flooding a town in Ohio with twenty thousand Haitians or a suburb in Minnesota with Somalis my sense of outrage wants to see Martha’s Vineyard or Bel Air or Weston Massachusetts suddenly overrun by meth addicts and Congolese.

And not because it would be a teachable moment whereby these people would learn a lesson but rather so they would become the victims of the same dysfunction that they so carelessly wished upon the fellow citizens that they despise so heartily.  But I realize that this is just a fantasy.  The wealth and power these people possess preclude them from suffering the consequences they so richly deserve.  It would take the dissolution of the United States to bring about the “comeuppance” I crave.  And so, I would be wishing for the toppling of the very place that I live in.  It would be like a Roman citizen rooting for Atilla the Hun during the fifth century.

And yet, there are documents that preserve that very sentiment by a character out of history.  That was exactly what the Greek historian Priscus recorded back in 450 A.D.  I guess the question comes down to whether revenge is more important than safety.  Or maybe whether honor is more important than food.

And the funny thing is, I’m beginning to lean toward honor.  Being a despised freak in the Left’s menagerie is getting to be less and less tolerable.  If the Russians and Chinese finished off World War III, would I really be worse off than I am now?  The rational answer is yes.  Even surviving Doomsday in Southern New England is a very doubtful proposition.  Forget about thriving.  Making believe that isn’t true would be delusional.  And yet, a part of me says, “let’s get on with it.”

Well, the dark night of the soul is upon me but don’t worry nobody has shared the codes for the nuclear football with me.  So, sleep deeply oligarchs.  Your time is not yet up.

Left’s Reaction to Trump’s CNN Performance Catalyzes His Base

photog Current Events, Trump , , ,

Trump really got under their skin yesterday. I really love that.

Schadenfreude Moment – Manchin To Be Bounced in 2024

photog Current Events , , ,

It’s a well documented fact that revenge and spite are meat and drink to me.  So you know I will put aside my disgust at the monumental voter fraud that will occur in November 2024 to celebrate the ejection of Joe Manchin from his West Virginia US Senate seat.  I hope he has saved up all of his graft and corruption funds because that will be the cutoff date.

I’m Not from Missouri But, My New Motto is “Show Me”

photog Current Events , , , , ,

I get e-mails, letters and postcards asking for donations, memberships and other forms of support.  Some of these are from annoying corporations like AARP and various energy companies that claim they can make my life better by offering me fabulous benefits and savings.  And I can’t blame these people for sending this crap to me.  Caveat emptor and all that.  Consumers in this country just ignore all that jazz.  Honestly, I need an industrial grade shredder for all this stuff.

But then there are the political candidates from all over the country who are running for office or already are in office but want me to help them “make a difference.”  Well, they’re barking up the wrong tree.  Appeals to my desire for change are too late.  They all had their chance.  They’ve had decades to fix these things.  For fifty years I’ve watched them struggle and stumble and been treated as a punching bag by the Left.  Well, that’s enough.  If they’re too stupid or too lazy to beat out the bad guys then they don’t deserve any money or help from me.

So now the currency of the hour is success.  Results; checks in the win column; scalps on the wall.  That’s the coin of the realm.  So, Ron DeSantis is a winner.  Donald Trump is a winner.  The Supreme Court is a winner.  Tucker Carlson is a winner.  Elon Musk is a winner, sort of.  Each of them has done something that pushed back against the Left and produced results.  Measurable, identifiable and applaudable results.

And you know who else has a win?  All those beer drinkers who are boycotting Anheuser Busch.  That’s a win.  Donald Trump Jr. saying don’t boycott Anheuser Busch because they’re our friends?  Well, that’s a losing message.  Sure maybe it’s too late to change the Left’s control over corporate America.  But it certainly can’t hurt to punish the most egregious traitors.  It’s like primarying Liz Cheney.  It’s just a gesture but it’s a very satisfying gesture and it feels good to hit back at these people.  Make them pay for humiliating us and profiting from their betrayal of us at every single turn.

Results, results, results.  If you want our money, if you want our support, if you want our trust, show us results.  Accomplish something!

And they’ve got the easiest victory laid out in front of them.  Trans-gendering children is an abomination that is just crying out for politicians to get out in front of the movement to ban it.  DeSantis to his credit is already doing something about it.  The schools that groom kids into believing in these things are the obvious targets to attack.  And the pharmaceutical companies and the medical centers that enable these procedures and the AMA that certifies these things safe and effective all should be attacked and punished legally for the harm they are doing.

But until something is actually done it’s just a wasted opportunity.  It proves that no one out there really wants to do anything to help us.  They just want our money because they say they will make something happen if we send it.

Well, no.  Show me that you can do more than parrot some words.  Show me that you’re smart and brave.  Show me the win!  Until then, save the postage.  I’m not buying it.

RINO-ectomy or Creative Spite

photog Current Events, Trump , , , , ,

So, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy stated pretty openly that at a Republican House Conference being held this week he will allow Liz Cheney to be replaced by Rep. Elise Stefanik.  Now don’t get me wrong.  I’ve heard nothing but bad things about Stefanik.  She’s just another Congress critter that cares nothing about me or you.  But she knows which side her bread is buttered on and that Donald Trump is the one handing out the butter.  So, she’ll keep her mouth shut and not help the Democrats when they’re going after our side.

To me, the only thing that makes any of this interesting is that I am a great adherent of the concept of the vendetta.  Basically, it’s a genetic and cultural predisposition.  The idea of just revenge or even spite is one of my primary motivations nowadays.

I’m of the opinion that we are not likely to prevail over the progressives in the federal elections ever again.  But what we can do is punish the quislings who got us here.  People like Liz Cheney and Mitt Romney and Lisa Murkowski are our enemies.  They have damaged this country and will continue to do so for as long as they are allowed to represent us.  Kicking them out of office is a sacred duty but more than that, it is a schadenfreudian delight.  Since they’re not technically Democrats they aren’t going to be offered the sinecures that get handed out to friends of the Deep State.  Liz will have to settle for a spot on a crappy neo-con think tank and maybe some face time on CNN.  Lisa Murkowski will be forced to become a deck swab on an Alaskan king crab trawler.  And Mitt Romney will become a male model for dental implant commercials.  And that is as it should be.  These are terrible people.  Discomfiting them is a good thing.  And if I get a good laugh when it happens that’s just karma doing its job.

I’m under no illusions that we have the votes that will be needed to beat the Democrats at the ballot box.  They have already shown that they will commit massive fraud to get their way.  Until we are willing to say no to their unconstitutional tyranny, we will continue to lose ground in the culture wars and everywhere else.

But at least, at the very bare minimum, we must not let traitors and grifters give away our votes in the halls of Washington.  George Bush I, George Bush II, John McCain, Mitt Romney and if they’d had their way, JEB! Bush were who we were given to be our representatives in the White House.  They were supposed to be conservatives.  It only takes a cursory look at their records to know that not only weren’t they conservatives, they don’t even know what conservative means.

I think the House conference meeting is Wednesday.  If it’s on CSPAN I’ll make a point to watch it live.  I’ll pop some corn.  It should be wonderful.  And next year when all ten of the house reps who voted to impeach President Trump, are up for re-election I’ll be watching to see how they do in their primaries.  If they lose in their primaries, I’m not particularly interested in whether the Republicans retain the seat.  I mean, it would be nice but as I said I don’t think we’ll vote our way out of this.  But just knowing that these clowns will have to get jobs will bring a smile to my face.  And it will be good for our politics.  Who knows?  Maybe someday the Republicans will become known as the formerly stupid party.

John Wick – A Movie Review

photog Movie Reviews, Reviews , , , ,

Keanu Reeves is a bizarre phenomenon. He’s been making movies since the mid-eighties and is 54 years old.  Yet I think of him as basically Ted from Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure.  It’s the same halting voice and basic appearance.  In the interim he has starred in a number of money making movies, most notably The Matrix.  And he has become an action movie hero.  The John Wick movies are the latest extension of this venture.

I watched John Wick probably a year after it was in the theaters.  The premise was of course ridiculous.  John is your basic retired uber-hitman.  He gave up his hum-drum nine to five life of garroting and mangling the enemies of his New York Russian Mafia Crime Lord to live a peaceful idyllic life in his spectacular suburban estate with his beautiful but short-lived wife.  She dies of cancer shortly before the movie’s start but is thoughtful enough to have a puppy delivered to John near the opening scene.  So, you get it, dead wife reaches beyond the grave and bestows gift of love to retired hitman?  Memory of dead wife and gift she left him is most important thing in his life.  Check.  Also, loves vintage sports cars and ’69 Mustang is second most important thing in his life.  Check.  The set up.  Check.

Somehow, completely coincidentally and without knowing who he’s dealing with, the son of John Wick’s crime lord ex-boss accidentally victimizes the now retired hitman and starts a vendetta by stealing his car and killing his dog.  Well I guess it could have been more blatant.  He might have gone for the trifecta and castrated Wick while he was at it.

After this the film embarks on an odyssey of shooting, stabbing and punching pleasure.  You’d think after the first couple of dozen gangsters are dispatched that it would start to get boring and repetitive.  But the hyper-kinetic fight scenes are strangely fascinating.  It was as if you were watching one of those loops they include with a first-person shooter game that show how someone who has memorized the game can dispatch all the enemies one by one in incredible speed and precision.  It’s the extension of the concept seen at the end of the Matrix where Neo has gotten the hang of his abilities and is fighting Agent Smith with one hand held behind his back, parrying every punch without even looking because his reflexes are an order of magnitude faster than his opponent’s.

Anyway, this goes on for the balance of the movie.  The Russian Crime Lord is kind of entertaining and we are introduced to the Continental Hotel and Club that caters to hitmen and forbids them to kill each other on its grounds under penalty of membership termination (which coincidentally includes death).  It’s lots of fun and there are gold coins and lots of automatic weapons and views of iconic Manhattan locations.

By the end of the movie, at least John’s absorbed a lot of damage from fighting the dozens of hit men who stand between him and the Crime Lord that needs killing.  So, you know it wasn’t easy.  And he finds a new dog.  So, balance is restored to the universe and John Wick can go back into a peaceful retirement since everyone is dead.

So, what’s my opinion?  Was it good.  Well, obviously, it has to be compared by the standards of the genre it belongs in.  It’s an action adventure.  It’s almost a comic book movie.  From that perspective, it’s highly successful.  It’s as full of action as it’s possible to imagine.  The fight choreography is meticulous and the cinematography is highly effective.  And he’s only killing bad guys.  He’s the strong silent man bringing down vengeance on his enemies.  He’s the modern-day Gary Cooper or Clint Eastwood but without the occasional complete sentence.

I liked it.  Admittedly it’s a guilty pleasure.  Basically, it’s an atavistic response to injustice.  Take justice into your own hands and clean house.  Scratch the veneer and we’re still just cavemen.  Sure, we’ve got indoor plumbing and 401K plans but the mindless primitive lurks right below the surface.  Once you recognize that, you can jump right in and enjoy John Wick for what it is.  High Octane Revenge.

John Wick 2 – A Movie Review

An Early Spring

photog Current Events, Trump , , , ,

For a man of whose forebears inhabited the summery Mediterranean for millennia, living in New England is akin to imprisonment on Pluto.  Even when you aren’t personally thrust into the jaws of hyperborean cold, you still are surrounded by vistas that at best include the endless blank-white of snow and ice and at worst are restricted to stygian blackness.

There have been recent winters where it snowed relentlessly from New Year’s Day to April Fool’s Day.  The ordeal of clearing snow and going back and forth to work basically took up every waking hour.  And because of the short winter day it seemed like your whole existence took place in snowy twilight or inky darkness.  After living here for the last thirty years I’ve come to completely sympathize with Jack Nicholson’s character in The Shining and see the wisdom of cutting his losses.  Although, to be fair, my wife is nowhere’s near as annoying as Shelley Duvall was.

But this year is quite different.  We’ve probably had only about thirty inches of snow all winter and we’ve had so much balmy weather and rain that my entire roof is free of snow.  There’s been so little snow removal that my back is in excellent shape.  And today I saw a small shoot poking out of the exposed dirt.  My wife said it was a Shasta Daisy plant that she planted a few years ago.  And even the chipmunks have awakened from their winter stupor and begun racing around looking for trouble.  Without a doubt, Spring has sprung.

They say in Spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love.  Well, young I ain’t.  So, to thoughts of what will my fancy lightly turn to?  Why, Supreme Court appointments of course!

Yes, there is no poetry left in my soul.  The progressives have rotted it all away.  In its place is spite, a desire for revenge.  And what better vehicle for this petty malice than the Trumpian blitzkrieg!  Trump’s current nominee is slated to begin hearings next month and be approved by Easter (April 16th).  This will allow his executive orders on immigration to be upheld in SCOTUS and begin the work of challenging some of the other federal court outrages that have cropped up since Scalia’s death last year.

But I must confess I have a fonder and more nefarious hope than Gorsuch’s succession to Scalia’s spot.  What I really want (and actually hope for) is a replacement for Kennedy.  There have been rumors that such an occasion is coming up this year.  Kennedy will be eighty and he has said he wanted to allow a republican to pick his successor.  There are some circumstantial events that have encouraged these thoughts and even though Kennedy has denied any present intention it is not unlikely that he is planning a retirement soon.

This I look forward to with great enthusiasm.  I envision a reversing of all the recent social over-reach that Kennedy allowed and returning these decisions to the states where they can be decided to the satisfaction of the people, the outraged, frustrated, spiteful, vindictive people.  I think that would be true social justice.  So, here’s to an early spring.  In the words of the poet George Costanza, “life, renewal, all that crap!”