Category: Fight Club

Victim? No. You Have A Choice.

“We all have it coming, kid.” – Unforgiven

There’s a serial killer who is strangling victims with t-shirts and he keeps using smaller and smaller sizes of shirt.  Police say he’s still at large.

There comes a point in everyone’s life where they look at Carrie Fisher and say, “I ran out of gas.  I got a flat tire.  I didn’t have change for cab fare.  I lost my tux at the cleaners.  I locked my keys in the car.  An old friend came in from out of town.  Someone stole my car.  There was an earthquake!  A terrible flood!  Locusts!  It wasn’t my fault!”

That might even be true:  100% true.  A meteor might have fallen on your house, and you might have unknowingly chosen the slightly cheaper “meteor-exempt” policy from Allstate®, and the Helping Hands™ people would then be justified in giving you the Flying Fragment Finger™.

Everyone on Earth could legitimately claim to be a victim at this point.  This, my friends, is the biggest trap in the world.

Why?

It’s against everything that is virtuous and good.  Victimhood is the poison that destroys lives and civilizations with all of the wanton carelessness of a feminist wine aunt trying to “find herself” on a booze cruise through the Caribbean.

When alcohol says to you, “You can dance,” this is what it means.

Victimhood says there is something wrong with the situation.  Let me clarify something:  there isn’t anything wrong with any situation.  Reality is real.  The situation is the situation.  The first rule of tautology club is the first rule of tautology club.

Fairness is a lie.  Expecting things to be different because we want them to be is, perhaps, the most insidious poison that we dose ourselves with on a regular basis.  And that is the basis of being a victim.

Being a victim is like being in a prison, but it’s a prison that is especially strong.  Why?  Victims willingly build their own prison.

What is the essence of victimhood?

  • Like France, a victim is at the mercy of outside forces.
  • Like Sweden, a victim takes no responsibility for their current position.
  • Like Mongo, victim merely pawn in game of life.
  • Like the Italian Army, victims are weak.

Why do people choose to be victims?

Well, I said they are weak.  But they use that same weakness to control others around them.

“I can’t do this.  Can you help me?”

Never play chess with an Islamic terrorist – it’s always “pawn to C4.”

Victims are horrible to be around.  They’re constantly complaining, but take no action to make their lives better.  Honestly, they don’t want their lives to be better, since they’ve begun to use their victimhood as a weird superpower – as if Superman® won because Lex Luthor™ got embarrassed from beating him up.

Victims don’t expect anything from themselves, so they can’t fail.  The world is against them, so why even try?  They have a world where everyone is responsible for everything.

Except for them.

Like I said at the beginning of this piece, the corollary is that sometimes we really didn’t have anything to do with the fate that happened to us.  It just happened.

So?

Just like there have been times when I haven’t had money, but I’ve never been poor, there are times when the breaks didn’t go my way, but I try never to be the victim.

See, this man may be broke, but he’s not poor. 

The stunning truth that many people go through life is that, even when the meteor hits their house they still don’t have to give up control.  There’s no real reason to be a victim.

  • Cold? Good!  You can make it through that, and won’t that make the hot coffee taste great?
  • Tired? Wonderful!  You can rest later, and sleep like a king.
  • Hungry? Excellent!  The next meal may be the best you’ve ever tasted.
  • Someone make fun of you? Fantastic!  An opportunity to get better and get tougher.

When I was in high school, Ma Wilder had a stroke.

Now, say what you want about Ma Wilder, but that woman had a willpower streak as deep and wide as the Grand Canyon.  This might explain some of our epic fights when neither one of us would back down.  Sometimes our fights would last for days, until the voice of reason, Pa Wilder, intervened.

Strangely, I think Ma Wilder would have liked Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down.”

Pa wasn’t interested so much in justice as in watching Monday Night Football® in peace, and knew that a fight between a determined third grader and his 50+ year old wife (I’m adopted, but within the family – Ma Wilder was my biological grandma) would interfere.

Anyway we Wilders don’t do anything small.  Ma’s stroke was a big one, which paralyzed half of her body.  It left her in a wheelchair, an eloquent woman cut down and left unable to speak except for “yes” and, more often, “no.”

But the one thing her stroke didn’t impact was her will.

One day she wanted a Coke®.  She wheeled over to me with the Coke™ in her one good hand.  I loosened the top of the Coke© bottle so it was finger-tight but left it on for her to finish.

Pa Wilder was a little bit mad.  “John, take that off for her.”

Ma Wilder jumped in.  “No!”  She took it from me, wheeled over to the table, unscrewed the top with one hand, and poured herself her drink.  As much as that woman could do for herself, she was resolved to do for herself.

The opposite of victimhood is:

  • Strength
  • Will
  • Determination
  • Perseverance
  • Purpose

Okay, maybe it won’t regrow your hair.

Fortune may determine your circumstance.  You determine how you act and what you make of your circumstance.

And, win or lose?

It really was a fair fight.  Honestly, we really do all have it coming.

Open Thread For Debate Liveblog, Plus A Prediction Of How It Will Go

“I would not presume to debate you.” – Star Trek II:  Wrath of (Prose and) Khan(s)

Clothing optional.  No, I really don’t want to know.  Really, I don’t.

It’s 2020, and the first debate, so let’s have a little fun with it.  Starting tomorrow at the beginning of the debate, you’re invited to a live debate party.  If you’re here on Wednesday morning, this counts as the Wednesday morning post.

Where?  Here.  On this post, right in the comment section.  Just be here when the debate starts and refresh the page every so often, and comment away!  No ID required and no cover charge, but there is a two-drink minimum.

The Mrs. has tentatively agreed to join in and may even be interested in having some wine during the festivities, so you can expect my stuff to be extra good.  The rules are fairly simple.  Join in, and comment as we roast marshmallows on the bonfire of Western civilization.  The funnier the better, but do please try to keep it PG-13 and don’t make me edit out stuff.

Because I will.

How do I think the debate will go?

Probably something like this:

Chris Wallace:  Good evening.  Per the rules that both of you approved, Vice President Biden will be allowed to occasionally bellow out the names of people that are dead, but that he thinks are still alive.  President Trump will be allowed to yell two words with strange emphasis whenever they pop into his head. 

The first question is for you, Vice President Biden.  How do you like doing soothing things, like painting?  Do you like other art projects?

Vice President Biden:  C’mon man!  I remember back when I worked in the chimichanga factory back in Delaware while running drugs for the Juarez Cartel.  This poor little girl, who was just as smart as a white girl, would want to touch the golden fuzz on my neck, right here . . . .

President Trump:  HUN-tEr CrackHEAD.

Vice President Biden:  Well, Fat, I was in the Senate back in 1840, and let me tell you that Henry Calhoun wouldn’t have had crack, because Lincoln didn’t invent that thing, you know, the toy . . .

Chris Wallace:  Lincoln Logs®?

President Trump:  UkraiNIAN corrupTION.

Vice President Biden:  C’mon, it was back when I had my first Buick.  It was a 1953, I think, bought it from John Travolta back when he was a ghost-man.  You know about the ghost-men, right?  Only come at night, crawl up your leg, leave a hell of a mess?

Chris Wallace:  Thank you Vice President Biden.  President Trump, can you explain how the 1963 IRS laws concerning tax treatment of hotel properties in Barbados after an earthquake are impacting Russian-Chinese relations?

President Trump:  Yes.  You see, HUN-tEr Bi-DEN was very sad in his dealings with his brother’s ex-wife – you know he married her, yes?  And then HUN-tEr had some sort of stripper baby.  Very sad.  Very disrespectful.

Vice President Biden:  Marlena Dietrich!  Is she here tonight?

President Trump (to Biden):  You work for me.

Vice President Biden:  What?  No, I don’t.  I quit that job.  C’mon.  Want me to bust you in the chops behind the gym?  I’ll show you who knows how to do pushups because . . . you know the thing.  I’ve gone on too long.  God bless Ruth Vader Gilbert and Sullivan.  Helluva Broadway show, let tell you that.  Full of sparkly toasters and ham.

President Trump:  You see?  Lock him up.

Or maybe it won’t go like that.  It’s 2020.  All bets are off.  I’d suggest a drinking game based upon Joe Biden saying “C’mon”, losing his place, visibly showing the signs of a meth overdose or brain aneurism or saying two hundred thousand.  One drink for each ad hominin attack on Trump.

For Trump, you’d take a drink every time he says two words and pauses, nodding knowingly, uses the word “Hunter”, uses the word Chin-a, or insults Joe directly with a “Sleepy Joe” or “Chinese Joe” type insult.

Finish your glass if Joe Biden suggests pushups.  Finish the bottle if Joe does a pushup or tries to physically attack Trump or his adult diaper leaks.  Also finish the bottle if anyone from CNN says anything other than, “decisive victory” for Biden.

See you at the debate!

The Funniest Post You’ll Read About Life and Death, Featuring Vikings.

“I understand. In death, a member of Project Mayhem has a name. His name is Robert Paulson.” – Fight Club

DIE

I don’t want to be killed by a large sneeze, though.  I don’t want people saying I bit off more than I could achoo.

As a culture, at least in the developed West, fearful of death.  We hide from it to a degree that I’m not sure most of us are aware of.  How could we be aware?  Like our browser history, we’ve spent so much time and effort hiding it from public view.

I noticed a pattern in my life.  First, when I was young, we went to funerals.  Those funerals were where we buried my grandparents.  As I got older, I started going to a lot of weddings as friends tied the knot, and funerals dropped to nearly zero.    But as I get older, I’m seeing more funerals again.  Most recently, it was for The Mrs.’ grandfather.  Her grandfather was a crew chief on B-17’s for the 8th Army Air Force.  He was buried in the same Army olive drab uniform that he’d worn in World War II.

Funerals are, and should be, a time for reflection.  When I looked a little at the big picture, in modern America most people rarely see dead people unless it’s in a hospital bed or at a funeral.  Sure, there are exceptions.  Cops, soldiers, people in medicine, and morticians see them all of the time outside of those limited settings, but those people are a pretty small percentage of the population.

funeral

When I pass away, I don’t want a fancy funeral.  One like this is fine.

I was half-watching a movie, perhaps in the 1990s, so I’m a little shy on details.  The movie was set during the Great Depression, and the husband had died.  The wife had prepared the body and it was sitting ON THE DINNER TABLE for people to come and see for the visitation.  Okay, not sitting.  But the husband’s corpse was stretched out where they ate their fried okra and possum sushi or whatever it was people ate during the Depression.

What the heck?  “Surely they didn’t really do that,” I said.  There was an older person in the room who had lived through the Depression.  He corrected me.  “Surely they did.  Funeral parlors were for rich people.  And what are you gonna do, put him on the floor?”

Wow.  I guess the old saying of “dust bunnies don’t mix with the dead” is true.

Being a product of my time, I hadn’t really thought about that at all.  Dead people?  Call a professional.  Very nice and tidy and nothing but a bill that you can pay by check or credit card.

But when you look back at life in the 1930s and before, I guess there was a reason that people had little graveyards on the farm:  they were used to dealing with death and couldn’t pass the duties required by death to someone else.  Who else was going to do it?  You couldn’t hire it out like today.  Our ancestors knew what we have now forgotten.  Just as birth starts a life, death ends it.  I heard a statistic from the CDC® that life has a nearly a 100% mortality rate.

TERM

I will say I’m in favor of the new congressional cheese support bill.  Count me as pro-volone.

Close physical contact with our dead relatives used to be the norm, not the exception.  For them, death was a part of life.  My mother-in-law was doing genealogy of her family.  For the most part, genealogy is not horribly interesting to me unless there’s a story.  Just knowing that I had a great-great-great-great grandpa called Duncan McWilder back in 1788 doesn’t tell me a lot.  Was he a scoundrel?  Why did he hop the boat to America?  Was it for better Internet?

I did jump on the Mormon database and at least someone thinks I am the great29 grandson of Harald Hardrada, who had a notoriously bad day in 1066 A.D. when he forgot to put on his armor when going up against the English.  At least Harald has a story.  After one of Harald’s vacations in Bulgaria, he got the nickname “Bulger-burner,” which is probably a lot funnier of a nickname if you’re not from Bulgaria.

HARALDY

And I hear that dead Viking Scrabble® players go to Vowel-halla.

Okay, that was a digression.  I’ll see if I can’t get off at the right exit this time.  Anyway, my mother-in-law was doing genealogy.  One particular male relative had three or four wives.  Polygamy?  No.  His wives kept dying in childbirth or from some plague that we can fix with a shot or thinking that arsenic and lead were what made makeup good, or wearing asbestos corsets and radium jewelry.  People were acquainted with death in a real and up-close manner in the Victorian era.

arsmeme

Sad clowns don’t wear arsenic makeup, they use frown-dation instead.

I think that as we isolate ourselves from death, we start to pretend that it doesn’t exist.  In some cases, people like Ray Kurzweil are attempting to figure out how to stop aging and live forever.  Failing that?  Ray is planning on being frozen into a corpse-sicle for later defrosting and infinite life.  My bet?  People will be able to live longer, but they won’t be able to live forever, because testing immortality drugs takes forever.  And everyone is doing it:  a guy outside of Wal-Mart® was selling immortality supplements, and it looked like a scam, so I called the cops.  They were aware – they arrested the guy last year, in 2000, in 1968, and even, they said, back as far as 1880.

Ray may be able to squeeze a few more years out, but I thing that physical immortality isn’t something that we’ll see.  At least not in my lifetime.  Sorry, but immortality jokes never get old.

Even though life is part of death, that doesn’t mean we have to like it.  But we don’t have to fear it, either.  Very few of us will get to choose the time and place of our death.  But we have the choice as to what we are going to do tomorrow to make this a better world – to do things that matter.

NORSING

If a Viking is reincarnated, is he Bjorn again?

Heck, if I was immortal, I’d probably never get around to doing things that matter, since there’s always another tomorrow.

Until there’s not.

Just like Harald Hardrada, there will be a time and place when we’ll die.  But Harald was a smart Viking, and he knew he wouldn’t drown.  He knew that you could lead a Norse to water, but you can’t make him sink.

So, get going.  And don’t forget your armor.

Inflation? Sure. But not right now. (Special Edition Includes Greta Thunberg Joke)

“In 1899, my grandfather, Henry ‘by God’ Ford, was walking home from Edison Illumination after working a double shift.  He was ruminating.  That morning, he had himself an idea that changed the world.  Sixty-five years, and 47 million automobiles later, what shall be his legacy?  Getting it in the tail pipe from a Chevy Impala?” – Ford vs. Ferrari

KINGDATE

If Stephen King were at the Fed:  “All the interest rates float down here, Georgie.”

The government is getting ready to blast enough paper money into the economy that even Zoomers get the joke.  The Boy has said, on multiple occasions, “Money printer go brrrr.”  By that he means that it’s visible to anyone who is looking that government is willing to just add a zero to every piece of currency coming off the press just to toss money everywhere like Charlie Sheen on a night out with Johnny Depp when one of them is dressed like a Muppet® and the other one gets to be the hand.

But the point is, even teenagers anticipate immediate inflation.

But I can be better than Shoeless Joe:  I can say it ain’t so.

brrr

See, even the kids get it.  Not my meme, probably the work of a 12 year old Anon on 4chan.

In fact, I’ve said before and will say again, I expect that many items will not go up in price, but down.  Here’s an example:  Pugsley is a young man, at that tender age after puberty begins its hormonal onslaught, but before he has a driver’s license.  Generally, that means that the thing he thinks the second-most about is:  cars.  You can probably figure out what first is.  He says it’s the Bible, but I’m not sure he owns one, and that surely wouldn’t explain the Internet data rates I’m seeing.

He’s had me price some beautiful cars, some that do amazing things like go from zero to sixty in a short enough time that I’d worry that I’d look like Shrek® got caught under a steam roller if I put the hammer down.  One of them is the Ford Shelby GT350®.  This particular car can be purchased used, a year or two old, with less than 10,000 miles on it for about $50,000.  Just for grins, I thought I’d check out what they were going for last week.  $45,000.  That’s a 10% drop, in two weeks.

Why?

Because absolutely no one older than 18 is looking to buy one right now, and everybody under 18 has, ahem, the Internet.  Potential buyers are also anticipating further price drops.  Why buy that Shelby™ at $45,000 when you can have it for $40,000 next month?

Anticipation of cheaper cars is one factor that leads to deflation.

SHELBY

But who will be able to a-Ford® it?  I’ll admit it, I’ve even priced insurance.

There’s another powerful force pushing towards deflation:  people just don’t have money.  I’ve mentioned before that something like 80% of Americans can’t afford an emergency spend of $1,000.  Now, people are losing jobs faster than Hillary Clinton’s witness list is shrinking, and it doesn’t take long for rent, phone, and food to add up to $1000.  There won’t be inflation if nobody is buying, and you can’t buy if you don’t have money.

I was slightly concerned during the first few weeks of the COVID-19 lockdown because of empty shelves.  Not a lot, because the way the food system works ensures that there is some slack in the system:  grain isn’t grown and then immediately shipped to the pizza factory as flour.  There are silos.  There are cows in the field.  There are vats of wine fermenting, and barrels of whiskey aging, and the porthole to the alternate dimension where marshmallows come from is holding up fine.  A lot of our food is in the process of being made at any given time.

But this week the shelves were full.  In Modern Mayberry, we had full shelves of everything except toilet paper.  There was sugar, meat, eggs, milk.  Okay, there wasn’t any chicken, but isn’t chicken really just poultry Jell-O®?  But there was plenty of nearly everything else.  How much of those full shelves wasn’t because of the distribution system, but because people were out of money?

That scares me.  People need food.

Finally, there’s a third force.  People who do have money are hanging on to it.  In a very rational fashion, they’ve decided that they have no idea what’s coming next, so best to keep all the spare change in the candy dish available, so to speak.  And spare change in the candy dish doesn’t move in the economy.  It just sits there.

In part, our financial system is built around a concept called money velocity.  In simple terms, after I spend a dollar, how fast does that dollar get spent on something else?  When it moves around quickly, it can account for a lot of transactions in a short period, it seems like there is more money than there really is because it keeps being spent, again and again.  It sounds like a hot check, but it’s not.

VELOC

I actually liked economics classes in college.  It was like a nap, but with a grade at the end.

If you consider that this money came from a checking account, in general according to the statistics a dollar in a checking account bounced around over five times in 90 days at the end of 2019.  That means:

  • I got paid and,
  • I bought some toilet paper from Wal-Mart™ and,
  • Wal-Mart® paid their cashier with my dollar and,
  • The cashier bought my old bicycle and,
  • And I bought some more toilet paper from Wal-Mart©.

It’s simple.  But what if there’s no toilet paper?  Well, then the second half of the transaction never happens.  I just sit on my dollar.  It’s not moving around in the economy.  That means, even if the Fed prints trillions of these dollars, it’s not enough to offset the fact that there’s no toilet paper to buy and that no one is going out to eat for the last month.

Those transactions just never happened.

And people like me that sit on a chunk of their pay?  That drops the velocity on that stack of money to zero until I use it.  Right now, people are in general sitting on every dollar they can, unless they have a good source for bargain toilet paper, and I guess they’re sitting on that, too.

Because of those conditions, a lot of things will cost less instead of more, at least in the near-term future.  Does that apply to everything?

No.

Things that are in demand, and are in genuinely short supply, will increase in price.  Take gold and silver, for instance.  The price of silver today is $15 an ounce, according to Kitco™.  To buy a silver coin?  That’s $24 a coin.  The $9 difference?  That’s the price to get a coin by the United States Mint or from the Canadian Mint.  Silver bars, which have a generally smaller premium?  Forget it.  Kitco© doesn’t have a single one in stock.

So not everything will deflate like my ego after losing that fistfight to William Shatner at Fight Club.  Oops.  Wasn’t supposed to mention that.  Shhh.

inflate

Pugsley tried to Photoshop® something for me, but I told him that teenagers can only do minor editing, at least until they turn 18.

But houses will deflate like a bouncy castle after being jumped on by a dozen toddlers covered with hypodermic needles – but enough about New York City.  How many people are buying and selling houses now?  No one is.  How many people are moving for a new job?

No one is.

Let’s take another example, the New Zealand dollar.  The New Zealand dollar is a currency I’ve followed for several years, just for grins.  I like to imagine buying a New Zealand winery and retiring there to be a funeral director.  I just found out where New Zealanders bury lopsided people – asymmetry.  Trust, me it’s funnier if you read the last word in a New Zealand accent.

In the last 15 years, the very best the New Zealand dollar has ever done against the United States dollar was a little shy of $0.90.  Right now, you can get a New Zealand dollar for about $0.60.  If you look at history, as long as people think of the United States dollar as “safe,” you get people jumping out of currencies like the New Zealand dollar into the United States dollar whenever they get skittish.

DIVERS

Here’s hoping the sheep don’t figure out they outnumber humans in New Zealand.

The United States having a zillion nuclear warheads probably makes people think it’s safe, so they take their money from all over the world.  Instead of buying New Zealand dollars, they buy United States dollars, which makes United States dollars increase in value.

The New Zealand dollar has deflated.

I would have bet that would happen, and it has.  Imagine all the sheep and, um . . . more sheep you could buy with your new expensive United States dollars?

Can I predict what assets are going to drop in price, by how much, and for how long?

No, I can’t.

But be aware that the rules that you are used to aren’t going to apply.

Will there be inflation?

I think so, after a while, and depending upon where and when the Federal Reserve tosses all those scads of money from the printer that goes brrrr.  But if you had just lost your job, and got a check for $10,000 would you spend it on PEZ®, pantyhose, and elephant rides right now?  Of course not.  But it may be farther off into the future than you anticipate.  Houses won’t inflate until people have enough money to buy one.  Unless the Fed fills people’s pockets with money and forces them to buy a house, they won’t.  Would I buy one in San Francisco for $2 million right now?  Would you?

No.

calcutta

Hmmm, makes those Oklahoma double-wide jokes seem a little, umm, self-serving?

Those assets are frozen, harder than a two-year-old’s grubby grip on a Gummy Worm©.  And good luck borrowing money on a house for what it was “worth” yesterday.  In the last bust, I went from bankers offering me more money than I could pay back on my signature before the housing bust to having to having to find a receipt to prove I hadn’t stolen that Spice Girls™ CD I listed as one of my assets.  Banks always seem to close the barn door in a timely fashion, at least one month after the horse ran away.

Inflation?  Sure.  But before then that Shelby GT 350™ will be down another 20%, I bet.

Money printer go brrrrr.

Shelby GT   350® go Rawarrrrr?  But on a budget, right?

Uncertainty, Retirement, and Immortal Lawyers

“This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.” – Fight Club

juicebox

The 13th Rule of Fight Club:  If your mom is going to drive you home after Fight Club, make sure she signs you out first.

With everything in the news right now, it’s probably a good time to talk about money and life.  There are significant uncertainties right now, and here are a few examples in no particular order:

  • Corona Virus – A big deal? It might be.  I just saw that Corona® beer had changed their name to Bubonic Plague™.
  • Nuclear Iran And Nuclear North Korea – The plus side of nuclear war is no more pop-up ads.
  • Impending Market Meltdowns – Escalators were down, while Pencils lost a few points. Paper was stationary and Diapers remained unchanged, while Toilet Paper reached a new bottom.
  • A Left Wing That Has Bad Intentions When It Gains Power – The upside is that when a Leftist walks into a bar after the Revolution, he’ll order shots all around.
  • Jack’s Raging Bile Duct – Wait, hold up?

Okay, it’s not really a bile duct.  And the guy’s name wasn’t Jack.

I was reading about a guy who just retired at about age 60.  He had saved and invested his whole life, making sure that he would have enough money to last until he was 90.  Since he had been a high-powered Wall Street guy, he did really well.  He had saved millions, so he intended to live a pretty nice retirement with lots of travel around the world.  Oh, he wanted to live in a pretty expensive town.  And, even though money isn’t everything, it kept him in touch with his children.

Then?

mario

Mario had to retire from plumbing because the Yelp® reviews all mentioned him raiding the fridge for mushrooms and stomping on any pet turtles he saw.

He was diagnosed with cancer – but a type that’s incurable.  And it’s a fairly tough type:  it’s got a 50% survival rate to make it for 5 years.  Amazingly, he was writing about what people in their fifties might do in the current investment climate.  He wasn’t writing about the fact that the remainder of his life was maybe reduced by 83% from his plans.

Me?  If I were him, I’d be spending at least some of the money that I’d saved to last me for twenty-five years of life until 90 on a very, very nice bottle of scotch.  And perhaps a cigar made from angel wings.  For dinner? Nothing special.  Maybe some surf and turf:  yeti with Loch Ness monster filets grilled over lava pulled from the center of the Earth.  I’d make sure that I used every second that I had left to me.

hannibal

No clowns though.  They taste funny.

But what if our lives were infinite, would that change anything?

I was driving down the street with The Boy and Pugsley several years ago.  We were driving home from a camping trip, and were going through a small town on a sleepy Sunday morning.  It was early enough that people hadn’t even gotten up for church yet.  As we drove I saw a sign that said, “Jim McGill, Insurance and Real Estate” and decided to make a joke, because we’re a fun family.

I pulled out my best booming operatic voice, so deep and resonant it makes Brian Blessed sound like he hasn’t yet hit puberty:

blessed

Don’t hate him because he’s beardiful.

“Jim McGill is here to help you with all of your insurance and real estate needs, as he has for a thousand years here in Cedar Ridge.

“No one has more experience than McGill, who has studied the intricacies of umbrella insurance policies for decades of the countless years of his nigh-immortal life.  McGill can also use his communion with the deep and ancient dark spirits of the Earth to find the very best property for you.  Since the dawn of single-celled life on this puny planet, there is no insurance agent or realtor who will ever get you a better deal.”

The Boy piped in: “Brought to you by the power of the Necronomicon™.”

See, I told you we’re a fun family.

immortal

Oh, I thought you said immoral.  My bad.

I was making a joke, but stumbled upon a truth.  The joke was supposed to funny because here was an immortal being, selling insurance in a small town in the Midwest.  But as I drove on, I realized a different truth:  if an immortal can’t afford to spend his life doing trivial things, why do we?

Not that there’s a problem selling insurance, or a problem with selling real estate.  I have a friend who dreams about selling real estate.  She’s going to get her license.  I think she’ll have a lot of fun with it – she likes working with people, and it’s something that’s important to her – finding the right person to sell the right house to will probably be fun and she probably won’t have to summon demons and other Satanic spirits to find a nice three bedroom on a cul-de-sac for a married couple with a baby on the way.  Probably.

For me, personally, selling real estate would be one of the punishments that would be reserved for a deep level of Hell:  lower than people who mow lawns at 8am on Saturday morning but not quite as low as Congressmen.  But I think it will really make my friend happy.

jake

He has a very special set of skills . . . .

And that’s a good reason to be a realtor – being happy by helping other people.  It’s also a good reason to sell insurance.  But never forget, doing a job is just that, doing a job.

We may not like everything we have to do at work, and we’re certainly not special snowflakes who deserve the job of our dreams just because we got a Master of Fine Arts in Paranormal Entity Identification and Eradication.  We get paid to go to work because it’s not a hobby.  Lots of times we’ll do things we’d only do if you were getting paid, like when I polished Grandma’s corns for a shiny new nickel.

It may be that the gentleman with cancer is writing for a reason – because that’s how he’s wired.  I get it – I’m writing this sentence at 4am.  But he has a choice.

There comes a time to realize that, if the basics are covered, you really do have a choice.  Money only buys a certain amount of happiness.  A new car isn’t necessary if you have one that works – no matter how old it is.  You are trading your life for money, and even if you die with a lot of money, you’re still dead.

Make sure the trade is worth it, because you’re literally trading your life for it.

Meanwhile . . . somebody go pluck an angel’s wings.

The Siege of Waco and the Deep State

“There’s a reason you separate military and the police.  One fights the enemies of the state, the other serves and protects the people.  When the military becomes both, then the enemies of the state tend to become the people.” – Battlestar Galactica (New One)

ATFRAID

Don’t worry, Leftists, all those people at Waco were here legally.

The Waco Siege started 27 years ago.  It started as a raid by the ATF – Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.  The ATF was formed after the Gun Control act of 1968.  In researching the ATF, I was amazed that its history consists of nothing more than an unending series of scandals and heartache visited upon (mainly) people with no criminal intent who had no idea that they were violating some extremely technical law.  And that’s on a good day.

How bad is the ATF?  Here’s what a Senate subcommittee said:  “Based upon these hearings it is apparent that ATF enforcement tactics made possible by current federal firearms laws are constitutionally, legally, and practically reprehensible.”  From that, it actually got worse.

The ATF was involved (besides Waco) in the Ruby Ridge disaster (which netted a body count that included a 14 year old boy and a mother holding a baby) as well as operation Fast and Furious where guns were intentionally illegally sold to Mexican drug criminals.  It’s okay selling guns to drug cartels because Fast and Furious was named after a Vin Diesel movie, and who doesn’t like him?

It appears that most of the actually useful things that the ATF does revolve around databases that attempt to match weapons to crimes.  Keeping close to computer screens and away from actual A, T, and F might be a good idea, since they’ve lost (in just one audit) over 76 firearms, plus hundreds of laptops.  Oops.  Too much A?  And this is the group that revers Elliot Ness and the famous Untouchables as their forefathers.

donut

Looks like the Deputy Director really wanted to win the pie eating contest with the FBI, so they hired Karen.

In an existence consisting of repugnant, objectionable, and odious events the Waco Siege is probably their crowning achievement.  Waco is certainly the worst single thing the ATF has ever done.  The fact that it’s not the only bad thing people talk about when they bring up the ATF tells you just how incompetent they are.

What did the ATF do that was so bad at Waco?

They launched a military-style raid against a church, the Branch Davidians, for no real discernible crime other than being a great target for a raid that could get publicity right before Congressional budgets were set.  Oh, and ATF agents knowingly lied in order to get military support, indicating that there were illegal drugs at the church when there was no evidence at all.  And this is just for starters.

On the morning of the attack, the agents shot the dogs, then engaged in a firefight with the members of the church.  The ATF says they didn’t shoot first.  The surviving Branch Davidians say the ATF did shoot first.  Since the ATF was recording the raid for use in public relations, it seems odd that they don’t have footage of that.  Almost as if the tapes were . . . conveniently lost?  Nah.

The ATF may be evil, but they make up for it partly by being incompetent.  After 45 minutes of exchanging gunfire with the Branch Davidians, the ATF asked for a do-over, since they had shot all of their ammunition.  The church allowed and honored a ceasefire when they could have easily killed every single ATF agent as they tried to withdraw.  But the folks in the church didn’t.  Once the threat of attack had passed, they let the agents leave in piece.  Did I mention that the Branch Davidians called 911 when they were first attacked?

knocking

ATF agents are notoriously bad at knock-knock jokes.

The Waco Siege then spiraled into a circus.  The press, FBI, and the Texas National Guard all showed up.  When a group of moms and kids surrendered, the moms were immediately arrested and the kids placed in state custody, which made the remaining kids not want to leave.  Funny, that.  The FBI hostage negotiators sent in a camcorder so the Davidians could show they weren’t being coerced into staying.  The FBI refused to allow the tape to be given to the media.  Why?

It might make people sympathetic to the Branch Davidians, which wouldn’t do because the FBI needed them to be the villain.

During the standoff, the FBI continually ramped up the stress through lights at night, and horrible sounds during the day – which is probably a questionable strategy when dealing with an end-of-the-world cult.  The FBI then decided that broadcasting “This is not an assault” over a loudspeaker while using a tank to demolish the structure and pump in flammable tear gas.  If that’s not an assault, I’m not sure what is, especially since there are infrared recordings that may show muzzle flashes on the morning of the attack – muzzle flashes of people outside shooting into the compound.   Apparently, this sort of behavior isn’t an assault – it’s just the non-threatening way that FBI agents normally great each other.

attack

I will warn you, the FBI can leave a mess.

Malcolm Gladwell tallied the forces in his article for the New Yorker:  “Outside the Mount Carmel complex, the FBI assembled what has been called probably the largest military force ever gathered against a civilian suspect in American history:  10 Bradley tanks, two Abrams tanks, four combat-engineering vehicles, 668 agents in addition to six U.S. Customs officers, 15 U.S. Army personnel, 13 members of the Texas National Guard, 31 Texas Rangers, 131 officers from the Texas Department of Public Safety, 17 from the McLennan County sheriff’s office, and 18 Waco police, for a total of 899 people.”  Those were just the ground forces – there were helicopters and other flying surveillance, too.

The Siege ended in tragedy after the tanks went in – a total of 76 dead in that final “not an assault.”  The church members perished horribly in a fire that may or may not have been started by the government.

I don’t want to give the impression that the leader of the Branch Davidians, David Koresh, was a hero.  He clearly wasn’t.  Outside of his taking wives that were very young (though still within Texas marriage age at the time, per the Sheriff), Koresh had the opportunity to end the standoff without tragedy.  That still doesn’t absolve the government, because if Koresh felt he wouldn’t get a fair deal, it looks like he was right.

Almost immediately after the first catastrophic attack by the ATF, the involved agents started writing reports on what happened.  And were stopped even though writing reports doesn’t allow them to use what is apparently their only skill – bungling operations and getting people killed.  Someone from Washington, D.C. noticed that the agents were writing things that could be used by the Davidians to prove themselves innocent, which must violate some sort of ATF policy.

Thankfully, the evidence remaining from the fire was at least carefully cataloged so Americans could have faith that the justice system would produce a fair result?  No.  The entire site was bulldozed within two weeks after the fire, destroying valuable evidence.

Evidence?  Why would you need that?

peewee

His courthouse is in the basement of the Alamo.

I mentioned that I was going to write about Waco to The Mrs.  We discussed it for a while, but she opened with, “Well, I guess that’s another list you’ll be on.”

We continued to talk about it.  Her position was that Waco started the Right/Left split in the country.  From one standpoint, she was correct.  If you look at the Pew® data from back in 1994 (LINK), we weren’t that split as a country, but by 2017 the split was in force.  Waco happened right at the front of the polarization of American politics.

voice

I blame the vegans, ruining Thanksgiving with their stupid tofu turkey.

The Mrs. and I continued discussing the Waco Siege.  We both agreed that Waco was also the most blatant display of the Deep State back before the year 2000, and she felt it was the blow that really split the country.  How so?

  • The search warrant for the raid was based on multiple lies.
  • The Branch Davidians had phone lines cut with the outside world so they couldn’t plead their case except through the FBI.
  • Evidence was “lost” including physical evidence as well as video evidence.
  • Agents writing routine reports after the failed first raid were stopped from creating reports because their stories didn’t match and the government didn’t want to provide evidence that the Branch Davidians could use to be found innocent. Innocence is for government agents, silly.
  • Stories of agents never actually matched with each other, being inconsistent as late as 6 years after the raid.
  • Physical evidence (as was available) contradicted agent testimony or suggested agents may have lied.
  • In the end, every charge that could be brought against the survivors was brought, but there were no charges brought against a single Federal agent. Perhaps 9 (from the data I could find) ATF personnel either retired early (presumably with full benefits and honors) or were “under scrutiny” which probably means that they wouldn’t get promoted again for a year or two.
  • There were lasting career consequences, though: one FBI leader was demoted from a very high position, and the rest of his life was horrible.  Just kidding.  He moved from one high paying executive job in the private sector to another.
  • Leftist Senators (most prominently Charles Schumer) bent over backwards to justify what the ATF did during the Senate hearings on the Siege. I can say this with confidence:  Chuck Schumer is the ATF of the Senate.

The parallels to the Deep State today are similar:

  • Hillary Clinton can intentionally violate the law related to storage of classified information. No charge.
  • The FISA affidavit that started the Mueller investigation could be based on . . . lies. No charge.
  • Andrew McCabe could lie to Congress. No charge.
  • John Brennan could lie to Congress. No investigation.
  • Roger Stone could lie to Congress. No investigation.  Just kidding.  Hammered as if by the fist of an angry god, and convicted of a crime.
  • General Flynn made non-consequential misstatements of fact when he was in a “friendly chat” with FBI agents. No charge.  Just kidding.  Hounded like he had stolen Satan’s bra and convicted of a crime.

Certainly I could come up with more examples.  But the point is clear – the Deep State protects itself first.  Members can commit murder, and there will be no charges.  Members can lie to cover each other and be immune.  Members can destroy evidence without consequence.  Members can get in the 10 item only line with 12 items.  No consequences.

stapler

When I think about why the Deep State would go so far to protect its own, my first question is, why?  You see this as a regular fixture with almost any member.  Some of those being protected aren’t important.  The on-scene director at Waco – why protect him?

The answer is fairly simple:  these people know things.  They know of the activities that the Deep State wants to hide.  They’re the ones who know the real secrets, both on you and me but more importantly on each other.

Why could Waco not be ended peacefully?  Because it would give Koresh a victory.  And a victory, no matter how small would, they felt, make them less powerful, less respected.  There is a reason that the ATF and FBI posed in pictures on the still-smoldering remains of the Branch Davidian compound.  There is a reason that after the fire took down the Branch Davidian flag, the ATF raised an ATF flag at Waco.

ATF

Nothing says reasonable like a selfie on top of ashes!

That reason is the Deep State’s deepest desire.  What does the Deep State want?

Power, both personal power, and power to the organizations they serve.  Make no mistake, the Deep State is partisan, and loves all of those who like state control.  Why else would they militarize a Federal Bureau that was less effective than Soviet situation comedy writers?  You could look into the sneering, mocking weasel face of Peter Strzok while he was giving testimony to Congress and see it in his eyes.  Contempt.  Contempt for those that weren’t of his Deep State pedigree, and a smugness borne of the thought that there was nothing that could ever be done to him.

derp

Would you trust this man with your secrets?

He had become like the hero of the ATF, Elliot Ness.

He was Untouchable.

Virginia: How We Got Here, In Four Levels

“I’m branching out from self-loathing and self-destruction.” – House, M.D.

INCEPTION

How does Leo avoid getting his girlfriend pregnant?  Conception.

As I sit writing on the eve of the potentially fateful protest in Richmond, a reasonable question to ask is “How did we get here?”  Like Inception©, there are several levels of answer to that question, each deeper than the last.  Ah, Inception™.  Leonardo DiCaprio really had a dream job in that one.

The highest level answer is, “because an election was lost.” 

And this is true.  A single election has completed the transformation of Virginia’s government from one where there was representation on both sides to one that is under sole control of the Left.

It wasn’t a surprise to the Left.  On day one, the Left was ready to take advantage of their new power.  A slate of model gun control legislation topped their agenda.  Everything from banning semi-automatic weapons to requiring universal background checks to red flag laws was on the table.  Already several bills are moving through the legislature.  As of this writing, it appears the semi-automatic ban has been removed, but that won’t last long.

LION

Making guns illegal will stop all gun crime – that’s how we finally stopped everyone from doing drugs . . .

In addition to the anti-gun agenda, the Left is proposing a series of laws aimed at making sure that this is the final change of government that Virginia will ever see – I read about a bill that would move the governor’s vote from popular vote to a majority of the congressional districts.  As the districts will be gerrymandered, that assures a Leftist governor for ever and ever.  Also included was a provision to give Virginia’s electoral votes for president to the winner of the national popular vote.  So, no popular vote for governor, and the people don’t get to vote for president at all.

Ain’t the Leftist version of freedom grand?

The second level is because the demographics of Virginia changed. 

I know that lots of people have arguments that “ENTER IDENTITY GROUP HERE” have more in common with the Right than the Left.  That might be true.  But the only group that reliably votes for the Right are people who might name their kids “Brandon” or “Logan” or “Sarah” or “Amanda.”  These people reliably want to vote for the traditions that created the United States, whereas many first, second, and even third generation citizens want to replicate the culture and country they left – including replacing the national currency with tortillas, which, the more I think of it isn’t that bad of an idea.

hands

A new study just came out that showed that people who want to commit murder just might ignore gun-free zone laws.

You might not like that it’s true.  You might have a fancy explanation why it shouldn’t be true.  But nevertheless, it’s true.  Immigration, urbanization, and being close to the Leftist center of power, Washington, D.C., has turned Virginia Left.

A third level is because it was planned. 

The election of Donald Trump was, perhaps, the single most traumatic thing to have happened to Leftists since, oh, the election of George W. Bush in 2004.  Which was nearly as traumatic as George W. Bush winning in 2000.  To think:  if only we had elected Gore president, polar bears would have not gone extinct.

What, polar bears are doing great?  Shhhhhh.

FRENCH

Not all of the systems on the Titanic have failed.  The swimming pool is still full.

But the cumulative result of this trauma is a push towards deeper Leftism, plus a push to get all of the state legislatures they can for the Left before the next census (LINK).  Why?  To gerrymander all of the congressional seats they can.  Also on the agenda for a repeat of what went on in Virginia?  Texas and West Virginia.

Perhaps the deepest and most basic level is because Leftists hate themselves, and herd with other Leftists.

Certainly not all Leftists are exactly this.  I know a few people that are committed and are on the Left and are that way for the understandable, rational reasons.  People, who, for instance, think our health care system is crazy and think the solution is more government.  I think our health care system is crazy, and think that the solution is less government.  I can understand their motives.  They can understand mine.  We have good conversations; fun arguments that don’t result in a desire to set up a duel with sabers at dawn.  Dawn is much too early for a duel.  If I’m going to die, I at least want a nap first.

But there are Leftists that hate themselves, and I think this is most of them.  You’ve seen them – people who expend amazing amounts of emotion on behalf of other people, like the white liberals who got upset about Speedy Gonzalez and had him pulled from Cartoon Network®, despite his popularity in Mexico:  “He was like a superhero to us….”

Leftists don’t feel bad just for others.  Any comment you can make about a Leftist (or someone they feel protective over) is interpreted in the worst possible way.  It’s as if every time someone used the term “guy” or “buddy” and men got amazingly upset.  Even worse, if people got amazingly upset because we were called “guy” and decided that they would step in and protect us poor men and stop badthinkers from calling us “guy” and get anyone who said that hateword fired from work.

Secretly, the Leftists believe that the identity groups that they protect are inferior.  Why else would they need to protect them and think up new terms for perfectly good descriptive words like “handicapped” or “secretary”?  It’s not like if we called handicapped people something else they could, oh, walk again?

youtube

I think I saw this flag burning on video, and one of the Lefties managed to burn himself when molten drops of plastic from the American flag they were burning fell on his wrist.  He said it was the same burning feeling he got when he thought about getting a job.

How bad is it?  This level of moral relativism and “there is no truth” required by modern Leftism actually makes the assertion that all cultures are equivalent.  Certainly not – especially in outcome.  If you were to compare the culture of Japan to the culture of North Korea, you can certainly determine that the cultures are different, and that the Japanese culture is superior in nearly every way a culture can be measured.

The Left has made the nonsensical claim that women are physically equivalent to men, which I’ve seen from the Left to justify men competing in (and beating) women in high school track events.  Deep down, they create this ferocious level of defense because they know that a man who says he’s a woman isn’t, but yet have to justify the insane idea that they are.

I blame the dames and broads.

whiteleft

If only I had time to put Greta Thunberg’s face on this meme . . . .

And the Left hates everything good, and pure.  It hates the family.  It hates the way the wind would blow through my long locks of shiny hair, I mean, if I had hair.  And, even though the United States has done plenty wrong in its existence, it’s a shining beacon of hope that people risk their lives to get to.  Leftists hate the heritage of America.  They hate Western Civilization.  They hate tradition.  They hate rationality.  As I discussed last week, the Left idolizes the profane, and treats it as if it were sacred (Why The Left Can’t Handle Reality).

Individualism and individual achievement is their kryptonite®.  Why?  They are afraid that they are inferior, afraid that they cannot compete.  Bernie has to solve these problems, because our typical Leftist doesn’t think they can help themselves because he is a loser.  He also thinks that the Identity Groups are inferior, and could never compete.  Leftist philosophy is built on envy of those who are strong, and greed to take what they have made.

And Leftists are sure that they will be found wanting if judgement is ever made.  Why?  Because they feel they are inferior and are of no real value to society.  Thus reason, science, grades, objective tests (like I.Q. and SAT tests), and norms of behavior are to be avoided in schools.  If a child acts out in school?  It’s not because of lousy parents.  It’s not because the child has a mental or genetic defect that makes self-control impossible.  No.  It’s society’s fault.

participation

So, now you know where participation trophies come from.

Thankfully, all of the millions of dollars we’ve spent on trying to solve the problems of “society” have led to the best educated and behaved children on Earth.  No?  Hmmm.  Must be society’s fault.

Leftists, however, will do anything to protect their group.  When someone on the Right commits a foul against Political Correctness, even decades in the past, they are disowned.  Yet there is no behavior that any Leftist feels that they should be held accountable for – which brings us back to Virginia.

The current governor of Virginia has allegedly committed offenses against racial political correctness to the point that, if he were on the Right, he would be shot into the Sun and his family sent to exile in northern Canada where an old liberal would be sent ‘round to kick them every week.

Why would this be so?

I said that Leftists are herd animals.  All humans seek the company of other humans – it’s normal, and belonging is the most basic need outside of food, water and oxygen.  But Leftists seek safety in the herd.  Again, the concept of individuality is hateful to them, so the collectivist action mimics that of the herd.  The result is they’d never sacrifice a member until he was nearly dead – the biggest fear of the Left is that they’d be judged objectively.

The result of this is that the Left is dangerous due to this self-loathing.  They’re like people who feel themselves to be inferior always have been – vengeful, spiteful, and hungry for power so that they can finally be someone.

So, that’s how we got here.

Addictions – You Have Them. Now Laugh At Them.

“His breakfast will taste better than any meal you and I have ever tasted.” – Fight Club

airplane.jpg

Every day is the wrong day to give up Wilder.

It was the first day of third grade.  I was new to the class, and was nervous.  As I walked through the rows of desks, I felt very shy, apprehensive.  One third grader approached me.  He pointed at a girl sitting in the desk next to his.

“That’s my girlfriend.”

So many emotions.  There was a fierce determination, an aggression in his eyes.  I felt threatened, and I’ll admit, I panicked.  I balled up my fist and hit him.

The rest was a whirlwind.  I can’t remember anything after that until I looked at the face of the school nurse, who stared back at me with a shocked expression on her face.

“What did you do?  His jaw is broken!”

I guess I’ll never teach at that school again.

Okay.  That never happened, except on 4chan.

But I was involved with an elite paramilitary organization mentioned in Red Dawn where we went camping on a regular basis.  One rule of the Troop was that no cell phones went on the trip – in a tent full of boys there is NOTHING GOOD that happens with a cell phone on a campout.  So we left them home.

reddawn.jpg

Pictured working on their merit badge in Escape and Evasion.

Little kids didn’t care.  But eighth graders?  Cell phones had become a part of their lives.  I saw one particular scout become despondent for a whole campout, all from missing the connections he normally got from his phone.

He was addicted to it.  After a day, he was better.  But he was also very happy to get back to his phone.

There are many things in life that we can become addicted to.  There are the obvious ones that everyone thinks about when they use the term:  Alcohol.  Drugs.  Gambling.  Tobacco.  PEZ®.

The prime addiction from the Boy Scout’s phone was social media.  Much has been written about social media and its addictive effects.  All of social media is designed to be addictive and features are tested on a regular basis to make sure that it engages us, that it maximizes user interaction.  That maximizing user action breeds addiction.  But how it is addictive isn’t the point – the fact that it is as addictive as Mel Gibson movies is.

So, what do I mean by addiction?  Everyone thinks of a junkie shooting marijuana in his eye, but that’s overly simplistic, not to mention probably not what junkies do.  By addiction, I have a broader definition:  the psychological need for a substance of set of conditions that aren’t required for life.

You’re not really addicted to oxygen.  It’s required.  The Mrs. is a type one diabetic, which means that without insulin injections, she will die.  I used to kid with her, “Honey, when are you gonna realize it’s a problem?  You’ve got to kick that stuff.  Just say no.”

While I thought it was clever, The Mrs. was less than amused.  So I punched her and broke her jaw.

Again, I kid – The Mrs. has reflexes like a cat.  She also has a deceptively low center of gravity – very hard to push over.  But are there things that are beyond what we normally think about when we think about addiction?

Certainly.

How about . . . air conditioning.  I lived in Houston, and it was easily the most awful climatological experience in my life.  It was heat plus humidity – and when the wind hit you, it felt like the devil was breathing on me.  Plus I wilt like lettuce in the heat.

Having moved to Houston from Alaska, we paid roughly $422,721 a month in bills for electricity to cool our house.  Was it required?  Well, probably not.  People live, have lived, and do live in places much hotter than Houston without air conditioning.  I have no idea what kind of people, but people.

Dare I say it?  We were addicted to air conditioning.  We could have kept the house far hotter, and saved roughly the total cost of an aircraft carrier plus escort vessels during the two years we were there, but not enough to also get the extended warranty, which is really overrated with aircraft carriers.

Likewise, when we moved to Fairbanks, Alaska, we kept the house about 55-60°F (239°C) in winter when we moved there.  Since Alaskans build without regards to things like, oh, building codes, our home inspection found substantial work that needed to be done to prevent our garage from collapsing.  Really.  The seller had a local contractor doing the work after we had moved in.

“Where you folks from?”

We told him.

“No wonder you keep the house so hot.”  Yes.  He considered 55-60°F hot.

redgreen.jpg

Including the hat.  Our contractor looked exactly like Red Green.  I learned later that Fairbanks hosted a summer event called the Red Green River Regatta, sadly now discontinued.

So, in his eyes, we were addicted to hot homes.

But let’s swap to food:

What today is considered the bare minimum level for life today is, in reality, a greater degree of luxury than we’ve seen in nearly the entire history of mankind for a greater number of people.  Ever.  Are there crappy places to live?  Yes.  But the scene of the “refugee” in Tijuana saying that the beans and tortillas given to her by local people trying to provide help to her was “food for pigs” and that she might starve to death.

Given her size, that might take, oh, a decade or so.  The bad news is that she’s been deported from the United States and is, “very thankful to be back in Honduras.”  It’s sad – we really need more people who will assault other people with deadly weapons like Frijoles Lady did.  She’ll do the attempted murders Americans won’t.

illegal2.jpg

I guess she’s a lot like that alien, E.T.  She finally went home.

But the fact remains – we have people going across international borders because of . . . comfort.

What was it like in the past?

I did some research for a post once, and tried to figure out what medieval French peasants (called villeins, which translates from metric French to “Dave”) did in the wintertime in the year 1315.  The links that I was able to find described them as living in their mom’s basement eating pizza rolls and playing Red Dead Redemption 2 on Playstation®.  Just kidding!  The winter as a time of great poverty, and the families would essentially huddle under blankets in bed most of the winter to reduce food consumption, conserve warmth, and not die.

When you view today’s world through medieval eyes, nearly every person in the world has better winters than that, at least outside of the Democratic People’s Republics of Korea and California.  The example of the French also shows that we’re addicted to eating regularly.

lenin.jpg

Fasting was easy in the U.S.S.R.  Comrade Stalin was concerned about your health.

No.  You don’t need breakfast.  You don’t really need lunch.  The fact is, unless they have an unusual medical condition, lots of people voluntarily go for days without food with zero negative health consequences outside of a slightly looser waistband.  And the desire to tell everyone about it.

Are people who are fasting hungry?  Absolutely.  Is there a payoff?  Yes.  From personal experience, the first food you eat after four days without eating anything will be the best burger you had all year.

But the bigger point is this:  we live in a world of unparalleled luxury.

  • In the United States, we have the distinction of having our poorest people having access to so many calories that there seems to be a correlation (in some studies) that shows that poorer people are fatter. Whereas those French peasants had all the time in the world, and none of the food, poor in the United States have all of the time, and all of the food.  And Playstations®.
  • Virtually no one freezes to death, or dies from the heat. In fact, Pugsley sometimes walks around in workout shorts and a t-shirt (no socks!) and complain that the house is too cold.  He does this in winter and summer.  We keep our house ludicrously cold, like our hearts.
  • Most movies made in the last 40 years are available to you after a quick Internet search and a nominal fee. Nearly every book, ever (that we still have copies of), can be had instantly electronically.  Those in paper?  Might take two days.  I have a lot of books, and they’re everywhere around the house.  I guess you could say I have no shelf control.

I won’t say these things are dangerous luxuries.  But they are luxuries, luxuries that we often take for granted.  How long has it been since your power has been out?  How long since you huddled in a cold tent on a freezing winter’s night or sweating on a hot day with an endless noon Sun?

elonsad.jpg

But it’s okay, his butler will go get it.

How long since you went a single day without food?  How long since you went two days without it?

Our ancestors did all of these things, and more.  They called it “Tuesday.”  Well, not “Tuesday” since their language was a series of unintelligible grunts that sounded like tubas played by jabbering twits.

When we become addicted to and accustomed to luxury, it weakens us.  Constant luxury may weaken us physically, but addiction to it weakens us mentally.  Mental weakness screams that when we’re in a cold or dark house that it’s intolerable, even if it’s only mildly uncomfortable.

When we can meet adversity and understand that what won’t kill us, that being away from the Twitter®, Instagram™, and Facebook© might actually be good for us, and that sweating all day in a hot house without air conditioning is just tolerable discomfort?

Then we win.

Alexander the Great, Smallpox, and Saving Western Civilization

“All we can do, Scully, is pull the thread.  See what it unravels.” – The X-Files

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Alexander the Great and Smokey the Bear had one thing in common:  same middle name.

In 333 B.C., Alexander the Great entered the city of Gordium.  In the city there was a really tangled piece of rope – so tangled that no one could see how the intricate knot was made.  It was ancient.  The legend was that whoever could solve the knot, would become ruler of all of Asia.  We have a similar puzzle in our laundry room, and whoever can sort all of the socks can choose dinner next Wednesday.

Alexander the Great, it is said, fiddled with the knot for a few minutes.  After deciding that was as useless as trying to push a piece of spaghetti, Alexander drew his sword and cut the knot in half.  Problem solved.  Was he worried that the locals would think he was cheating?  Nope.  He had an army.  From this story we get the phrase “Gordian knot” for a problem that can’t be solved under the terms it was created.

I’m just hoping Pugsley doesn’t solve that sock problem by putting them down the garbage disposal.  Again.

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Okay, this isn’t my laundry room.  But I once did own a hat just like that one.

We are in a strange place.  In the nation, and in nations all over the world.  We are all separating.  The world is falling apart.  But don’t consider world civilization a complete failure – remember, the swimming pool on the Titanic is still full after over 100 years so that counts for something.

The unravelling of society, however, can be seen in many ways:

  • Vaccine Believers and Anti-Vaxxers
  • No Brexit and Brexiteers
  • Global Warmists and Climate Deniers
  • Globalists and Nationalists
  • Flat Earthers (they’re all around the globe!) and, um, I guess Sphere-ists.
  • Left and Right
  • Nuclear Power Advocates versus No Nuke Activists

This separation was pointed out to me in an email from my friend who I will call John, because he has an awesome first name, and I promise is totally not my alter ego.  The questions he asks are deep, and the answers aren’t necessarily obvious.  When I finally get to a post based on one of John’s ideas, it might have taken dozens of hours of study and research where I try to prove my ideas wrong with the data.  Occasionally, I do prove myself wrong.  As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.

If you haven’t seen this, it’s Thanksfabulous.

I won’t go into detail on all of the symptoms of unravelling listed in the bullet points above, since if I did I think the post would be longer than Bill Clinton’s address book.  And I could easily add additional topics, like the validity of the Moon landing, homeopathy, and court verdicts like the one showing RoundUp® causes cancer.  But I’ll discuss just vaccines, for an example.

All vaccines are safe and a good idea.  Well . . . maybe not.  I looked first at chickenpox.  Deaths from chickenpox have dropped since the chickenpox vaccine became mandatory from about 100 deaths per year in the United States to (as near as I can find) zero.  But let’s face it – to die of chickenpox a kid has to have a pretty weak system already.  If it wasn’t chickenpox, somebody would have probably popped the kid with a Nerf® gun or the kid would have faced a strong breeze and it would have finished him off.

But let’s assume that the 100 who died were perfectly healthy kids.  The vaccine costs about $300.  Multiply that by the 3.9 million kids born in the United States each year, and the cost of the vaccination alone is nearly $1.2 billion dollars.  Divide by the one hundred substandard kids you would have saved, and that’s (drumroll) nearly $12 million dollars per kid “saved”.  I assure you, you can make a new one for far less than that.

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He also lifts dictionaries to work out.  He says that’s how he gets definition.

The cost benefit ratio is silly.  If anyone said we had to spend a billion dollars to save 100 random kids, we’d never do it – don’t believe me?  Our school buses are made from thin sheet metal by the lowest bidder.  If we spent that same billion dollars on safer school buses, we’d save far more than 100 lives.  I don’t doubt that the vaccine works.

So what?  It’s not worth it.

I moved to the next vaccine:  Gardasil©.  Gardasil™ protects against nine variations of HPV – HPV is the stuff that gives humans warts.  In this case, Gardasil® protects against warts on your naughty bits.  So, I started to research, but I assure you I avoided pictures.  Ewwww.

I attempted to look into vaccine safety for Gardasil©, and found a most curious phenomenon.  When I tried to find information that showed data that put Gardasil™ in a bad light, Google® was useless.  Any query about deaths related to Gardasil® led only to how safe and wonderful it was and how we should probably rub it into the fur of our pets, bathe in it, drink it in shot glasses.

I swapped over to Bing© and got actual answers to the question about Gardasil© safety, learning that there were nearly 63,000 reported adverse reactions to Gardasil™, 317 reported deaths, and a study indicating that maybe Gardasil™ causes infertility in 1/3 of the women that take it.

In fairness, it is thought that the vaccinations of Gardasil© might save 2,900 lives a year from cervical cancer starting sometime in the year 2046.  This sounds like me trying to make a joke, but most cases of cervical cancer won’t hit until a woman hits her fifties, and the vaccinations didn’t start in earnest until just over a decade ago on teenage girls.

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So, what if Gardasil© is the vaccine that causes the zombie apocalypse?  Hmmm?  Didn’t think of that in your double-blind studies, did you?

And I used the word “might” for a reason.  There’s no study that shows that Gardasil® will stop cervical cancer, although I’ll believe scientists are probably right.  But that has to be viewed with a grain of salt, too:  according to one source, the fatality rate of cervical cancer for women who get regular tests is nearly zero, with or without Gardasil©.  I ran the numbers on this one, and on a cost basis it’s better than chickenpox, at only $700,000 per theoretical future life saved in 2046.

Me?  If I ever get a uterus, I think I’d skip Gardasil™, though that won’t be the first thing that comes to mind if I wake up with a uterus.

I’m not an Anti-Vaxxer:  my kids are vaccinated against things like diphtheria, tetanus, measles, mumps, and rubella.  Yes, I’d vaccinate them again.   I think we did opt out of the chickenpox vaccine for The Boy and Pugsley, but I can’t recall.  It seems like there’s a clear cut case for eliminating many diseases, like, oh, polio.  I don’t think the world misses smallpox, either, which was eliminated thanks mainly to vaccines.

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I have another vaccine joke, but it’s like smallpox:  no one gets it anymore.

But anyone who questions a vaccine is branded an “anti-vaxxer” and ignored.  In fairness, many people who question vaccines have valid questions, and want the real information so they can make a choice.  Google®, however, seems to think that sort of question is not valid, and only pointed to pro-vaccine sources in page after page after page of results, no matter how I asked the question.  As Mark Twain said, “Censorship is telling a man he can’t have a steak because a baby can’t chew it.”

And that illuminates the real problem.

The legitimacy of Big Science is in doubt.  The legitimacy of Government is in doubt.  People are also doubting:

  • The educational system.
  • The United Nations.
  • Mainstream news media.
  • Mainstream entertainment media.
  • The courts.
  • Silicon Valley tech companies.
  • Many (but not all) Fortune® 500™ companies.

And it’s not just in the United States – it’s spreading.  Riots have broken out in Chile, which is the most prosperous nation in South America and has the least amount of income inequality on the continent.  Europe is facing Brexit, the Yellow Vest movement, and the national rejections from countries like Denmark, Poland, and Hungary to unfettered migration.

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I guess Hillary is still looking for Mr. Riot.

The world is unravelling.  One possible reason is we’ve reached the end of the Fourth Turning (The Economy, The Fourth Turning, Kondratieff, and You.) where this sort of social chaos is to be expected.  Another is that we are seeing increasing polarity in public life.  While the Right has moved farther Right, the Left has gone very far Left.  It’s not me imagining this, like it turned out I was imagining Tyler Durden after I started up all of those Fight Clubs®.  No.  This rift shows up in the graphs:

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Politically we are flying apart.  Is part of this demographics?  Certainly.  Immigrants (legal or illegal) to the United States vote overwhelmingly Left.  Why?  It doesn’t matter.  They do.  Immigrants and their children are perhaps the single largest driving force of this polarity shift, but there are other factors.

We’re also becoming more urban – this urbanization leads to a lower sense of belonging, and drives people to vote Left.  Sure, you’re a fan of (INSERT FOOTBALL TEAM HERE), but how many people in faceless condos in Seattle or Salt Lake City or San Francisco know each other?  When I moved to Modern Mayberry, neighbors up and down the street knew I worked at the PEZ® factory before the house deal closed.  Do we know our neighbors like family?  No.  But we know who they are, and know a bit about them.  Urbanized people are more disconnected from their neighbors than rural folks.  That disconnection makes distrust in your neighbor that much easier.

Lastly, the Internet provides a source of information that wasn’t available in the past.  What was only available in libraries and in mimeographed samizdat is now available to everyone.  It’s now possible to research things like vaccines and global warming from your couch, and pull in better data than would have been available to almost any scientist in 1980.  And news?  The Internet has pulled it from the control of the gatekeepers.  When John Podesta’s emails were leaked, I was combing through them, and found many things before the news media did, like the fact that a nice Nigerian Prince wanted to give him a lot of money.

These are the symptoms of a society where the fundamental premise of that society is no longer a given.  The United States has been defined as meeting everything to everyone.  We are finding that those are empty promises – it’s really about power and control.  With the amount of information out there, however, power and control can’t be kept.

How do we solve this puzzle?

Our society, our culture, our trust won’t be regained through Congressional committees or an impeachment.  It won’t be made whole by an election.  And it won’t be healed through movies or television.

Someone, somewhere, is going to have to cut that knot.

Success, Fight Club, Strippers and Socialists

“We have just lost cabin pressure.” – Fight Club

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The second rule of Wilder Club is if this is your first visit, you have to comment.

I had a conversation with a friend today.  Oh, sure, I hear you say, what would an iconoclastic iron-jawed individualist with a body odor redolent of medium rare ribeye (with just a hint of pepper) like John Wilder need with a friend?  I guess we all have our little weaknesses.  And dogs follow me.  Because I smell like steak.

In this particular case as with most of my friends, I’ve known this friend for years.  I’ve known most of my close friends longer than The Boy has been alive, and he’s in college now.  It’s nice.  If a day, a week, a month or a year goes by, so what?  We can still restart the conversation where we left off.  It’s as comfortable as watching a movie you’ve seen a dozen times.

I’ll make the observation that the only place where the character of people change is in a movie – almost all of my close friends have the same sense of humor and the same sense of values that they had when our friendships were forming.  Absent a significant emotional event, people are a constant.

And I like that.

There is a corresponding trust that comes with being a close friend – honesty.  That’s why when talking with my friend, I really enjoyed the chance to be honest.  Honesty is difficult because it requires that trust, because really honest criticism is hard to take, even when it comes from a friend.  Or a co-worker.  Or a relative.  Or someone you just met.  Or your UPS® delivery guy.  Oh, wait.  Most people don’t like honest.  But my friends do.

This particular friend is really in a good position in life, which seems to be a common pattern with my friends.  He has a spouse that makes more money than he does, and, in general, the household probably brings in enough cash each month so that Nigerian princes send emails to them asking for money.  They’re wealthy enough that they donate to the homeless.  This appears to be a more socially acceptable donation strategy than my “donation to the topless,” scheme.

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Yes, this is the only joke that I’ve ever seen that involves both the Greco-Roman philosophy of stoicism and stripping.  I’m sure that Seneca would be proud.

But lest ye want to class my friend as the evil, selfish, wealthy type, he’s not.  The family has a huge number of kids, and it’s a close family.  My friend is constantly taking time off to go to athletic events, and when we catch up, I can sense that the relationship he has with his kids isn’t a surface relationship – it’s genuine and deep.  I can tell, because I know people who understand genuine relationships, who listen to both sides of a family argument – my neighbors.

And yet . . . despite the wealth, despite the great family, my friend feels that there’s something missing.  He is as high as he wants to go in the company he works at – any higher and the travel demands would pull him away from family.  He’s long since mastered his job – there is little that can be thrown at him that he hasn’t seen in the last fifteen or so years.  So, his condition is one of high pay, mastery of work, and, improbably, discontent.

John Wilder:  “You realize you have an advantage that 99% of people would die for.  You’re financially secure.  You can quit your job anytime.  Literally, you could walk in to your boss this afternoon and quit.  Your lifestyle wouldn’t change a bit.”

Not Elon Musk:  “Yes.”

Unlikely Voice of Wisdom John Wilder:  “So, what is it you want to do?”

Really, I Promise It Isn’t Elon Musk:  “I need to think about it.”

Channeling Tyler Durden From Fight Club® John Wilder:  “No.  If you think about it, you’ll end up doing nothing but thinking about it.  You have to do something.  Physically start it.  This weekend.  I’ll check back on Monday to see how you did.”

There is a scene in the movie Fight Club™ where Tyler Durden holds a gun to the head of a liquor store clerk.  If you haven’t seen the movie, I strongly suggest it.  I probably watch it once a month while I write – I think there are few movies that communicate the human condition in modern life so well.

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Pugsley doesn’t miss many school days.

JACK, in voiceover:  On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.

CLERK:  Please… don’t…

TYLER DURDEN: Give me your wallet.

Tyler pulls out the driver’s license.

TYLER:  Raymond K. Hessel. 1320 SE Benning, apartment A.  A small, cramped basement apartment.

RAYMOND:  How’d you know?

TYLER:  They give basement apartments letters instead of numbers.  Raymond, you’re going to die.  Is this a picture of Mom and Dad?

RAYMOND:  Yes.

TYLER:  Your mom and dad will have to call kindly doctor so-and-so to dig up your dental records, because there won’t be much left of your face.

RAYMOND:  Please, God, no!                            

JACK: Tyler…

TYLER:  An expired community college student ID card.  What did you used to study, Raymond K. Hessel?

RAYMOND:  S-S-Stuff.

TYLER:  “Stuff.”  Were the mid-terms hard?  I asked you what you studied.

JACK:  Tell him!

RAYMOND:  Biology, mostly.

TYLER:  Why?

RAYMOND:  I… I don’t know…

TYLER:  What did you want to be, Raymond K. Hessel?

Tyler cocks the .357 magnum Colt© Python™ pointed at Raymond’s head.

TYLER:  The question, Raymond, was “what did you want to be?”

JACK:  Answer him!

RAYMOND:  A veterinarian!

TYLER:  Animals.

RAYMOND:  Yeah … animals and s-s-s —

TYLER:  Stuff.  That means you have to get more schooling.

RAYMOND:  Too much school.

TYLER:  Would you rather be dead?

RAYMOND:  No, please, no, God, no!

Tyler uncocks the gun, lowers it.

TYLER:  I’m keeping your license.  I know where you live.  I’m going to check on you.  If you aren’t back in school and on your way to being a veterinarian in six weeks, you will be dead.  Get the hell out of here.

JACK:  I feel sick.

TYLER:  Imagine how he feels.

Tyler brings the gun to his own head, pulls the trigger — click.  It’s empty.

JACK:  I don’t care, that was horrible.

TYLER:  Tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of Raymond K. Hessell’s life.  His breakfast will taste better than any meal he has ever eaten.

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How dare you . . . make Greta uncomfortable.

And it’s true.  I tend to think that everyone’s life would be a little better if they had Tyler Durden to be a life coach, to ever so gently coax them to be the best they can be while holding a .357 magnum Colt® Python™ to their head.  That seems to be a bit frowned upon, so that leaves my friends with me.  See how lucky you are?

In my role as Dr. Durden, I’ve noticed that there’s a problem some people have.  It’s being too clever.  It’s thinking.  How do I know?  It’s my problem that I try to compensate for by writing and doing.  If I think about doing something, it will never get done.  I keep thinking about fixing the bannister that broke when we moved in to the house a decade ago.  It’s never been high on my list, since people falling down stairs is funny, with extra points if they are really old.  But thinking about doing something never accomplishes anything.

If I plan to do it, it will get done.  Half of my time driving to and from work on a day I’m going to write a post, I’m writing it in my head, selecting jokes, thinking of themes.  It’s also spent thinking of how I’m going to connect the idea I want to share with students who might be forced to read this post when Mrs. Grundy tells them to compare and contrast my work with that poseur, Mark Twain, in high school in the year 2248 (that’s when Kirk will be a sophomore).

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Okay, generally on my drive to work I have about five or ten minutes between cars, so it would take several hours to get a group of cars behind me like that.  But a man has to have goals!

It may look like I’m driving to work, but I’m really plotting out what I’m going to write about.  To be honest, it sometimes takes both lanes to do that.  I wish the State Patrol® would be a little more understanding to artists like me.

Thankfully, The Mrs. is.

The Mrs. and I had a conversation the other night.  It may or may not have involved wine – I’m not telling unless I’ve been subpoenaed and am under oath to a House subcommittee.  Actually, it wasn’t so much a conversation as The Mrs. describing to me how she felt about this little project I publish three times a week.

I don’t make any money on this blog, though I’ve made clear since day one that can change at any time.  I have plans for several (eventual) ways to do that including adding subliminal messages causing you to want to pay for my health insurance.  It looks like it’s already worked for Bernie Sanders.

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In a socialist paradise all bloggers make $450,000 a year, right?  But I worry that for this Christmas we won’t have an Elf on a Shelf, we’ll have a Bernie on a Gurney.

No, at this point, writing is a hobby.  But it’s a hobby that takes over 20 hours a week, sometimes closer to 30 hours.  I still have a job, and I won’t stop interacting my family, so most nights I won’t even start writing before 9pm.  A lot of that time comes from time I’d normally be selfishly engaged in what you mortals call “sleep”, but a chunk of that time comes directly from time I’d be spending with The Mrs.

When I’m writing, I’m simply not available.  I’m writing.

The Mrs.:  “You know, I would certainly have an issue with the time that you spend writing, if it weren’t important.”  There was more to this, where she detailed the number of hours I spend.  But I keyed in on the word “Important.”

I was a little surprised by that.  “Important?”

The Mrs.:  “Yes.  I can see that what you’re writing about is important.  People need to hear it.  So keep doing it.”

Okay, that proves she never reads this stuff.

But as I talked more with my friend, the concept of “meaning” came up.

My Friend Who is Really Most Certainly Not Elon Musk:  “So, it’s about meaning?”

Suddenly as Wise as the Roman Philosopher Seneca John Wilder:  “That’s silly.  You don’t go off chasing ‘meaning’ in your life.  Pick out something you like to do, and do it.  But figure out how to make it important to other people.  You like to woodwork, right?  You say you never have time to do it.  Do it this weekend.  Film it.  Put it up on YouTube®.  I’ll be checking up with you on Monday.”

I asked myself, why is my friend working at all?  I think because he feels he’s supposed to work.  That having a job is a rule, it’s what he’s always done.  The problem that many of us have is that we tend to create rules where there aren’t any rules.  I’m not sure why.  Perhaps we need to justify what we do.  Perhaps it’s like my two important rules for life:

  1. Don’t tell everything you know.

Success?  My friend is already successful in most ways a person can be successful.  Their life is really good.  I told them, directly, “You’ve been given so many gifts.  If you don’t make something special of your life, you’re wasting it.”

Interestingly, this applies to you, too.

And me.

How will your breakfast taste tomorrow?