Health – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise

The Health System Sucks

“Life insurance pays off triple, if you die on a business trip.” – Fight Club

Now these are the results that a functioning health care system should provide. Including the hat.

The health industry in the United States is a mess, probably worse than a woke vampire movie where vampires use pronouns like undead/cursed and make their victims go to DEI training (Death, Exsanguination and Immortality) before selecting them based on their social privilege score. Talk about sucking!

But back to the point: the system is a mess. Case in point, the insurance companies are for-profit institutions. As, um, you might have noticed from recent events this leads to almost inevitable conflict between the patient and “their” insurance company.

This has created some really perverse incentives, especially for the company. If they can successfully deny enough claims, their profit goes up, so their best bet to make the most money is to not allow claims, just like the best way for some specialists and hospitals to make the most money is to do the most testing. “Hey, this is the machine that goes ‘ping’, and it’s useful to see if you have the Hong Pong flu.”

For no reason at all.

Oh, and lawyers? We didn’t even mention them. Lawyers just love to find that doctors missed giving the right test so that they can sue them. So, we have the groups all competing for an economic slice of the pie. How big is the pie? In 1960, it was a manageable 5% of the economy of the United States. The average life expectancy then was somewhere around 70 years old.

In 2019, healthcare costs were over three times as much, at 17.6% of the economy. Lifespan had gone up to almost (not quite) 79 years.

So, 12.6% of the economy for an extra 8 point something years? Is that a good deal?

Well, not exactly. Lifespan is certainly extended by modern medical care to some extent, but a huge amount of that uplift is due to factors that have nothing to do with the increased costs of health care. But some of it is better health care: much better trauma care has also made events like gunshot wounds and car accidents more survivable, so the average is going to go up because people aren’t dying young in car crashes as often.

What did the CEO know about the Clintons?

But people aren’t smoking as much, either. Also, cars and roads are objectively safer than in 1960 by an order of magnitude, and since car deaths are skewed to young men, that really helps the average life expectancy. And all of these things have increased life expectancy:

Nutrition
Clean Water
Sanitation
Neonatal Healthcare
Antibiotics
Vaccines

As you can see, many of these things aren’t healthcare, and with the exception of neonatal healthcare, they’re all stupidly cheap. So, a big part of why health care costs so much more is that people are living longer and consuming more health care. If a smoker didn’t die of a heart attack from smoking at age 45 at nearly zero medical cost, now they’re living longer and using medical care at age 80.

This is not a bad problem.

Looks like I picked the wrong week to give up dad jokes.

The other part, though, is that there are so many more vampires surrounding the money trough than there were back in the day.

Insurance Companies (as noted earlier, insurance companies actually make more “shareholder return” by denying claims and treatments, so if they spend $1 to deny $2 in claims, they’re still up $1)
Ambulance Chasers (attorneys produce great benefits against those who practice irresponsible care, but the lottery attitude of many juries giving ludicrous awards raises costs for everyone)
Big Pharma® (Goldman-Sachs actually asked the question if curing diseases is a sustainable business model, versus forever dispensing medicine to be people who are just sick enough to not die, so the model is to sell more drugs)
Hospital Administration (which has to be doubled to account for insurance claims, government required paperwork, Ambulance Chasers and managing television doctors)
The AMA (who has artificially limited the number of doctors produced by American schools to keep doctor salaries up and hide the stethoscope shortage)
The Government (who builds entire bureaucracies to regulate medical care and administer payments and . . . to hire more bureaucrats)
Illegals and Deadbeats (the system must treat them, by law, in an emergency setting, and guess who pays the bills?)

The current medical system is like a vampire-hydra: cut off one group sucking money out of the system, and another two will emerge.

In the 1980s, healthcare went from a still-manageable 6.9% (1970) to 12.1% (1990) – nearly doubling in size. This was largely driven by a 1986 law (EMTALA) that made emergency treatment a right at any hospital that receives Medicare, whether or not the patient had any ability to pay. It’s like saying that if I’m really thirsty, that McDonald’s™ has to give me an iced tea.

What do you call a talkative Columbian? Hablo Escobar.

And, like usual, everyone points to cheap strawberries as the benefit, but skips the $19.75 Tylenol™ pill in the hospital. Healthcare in the United States is so expensive (at least in part) because to so many it’s free. This increases the recordkeeping, and hospitals have to spread their bills on decent hardworking non-deadbeats.

So, it’s broken. How do we fix it?

On insurance, The Mrs. has a simple idea: make it illegal.

All of it. Medical services are cash on the barrelhead. You pay for the services you get. That sounds drastic, but when I really thought about it, this would eliminate the entire medical billing bureaucracy. We talk about a capitalism, but health care tied to insurance is anything but capitalist, especially with all the mandates and cost shifting from programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

The Mrs.’ solution has some real-world evidence to show she might be on to something – real prices for services insurance doesn’t pay for like breast, um, augmentation and laser eye surgery have gone down in real terms. Force doctors to post prices, and for emergency services, well, I’m sure we can figure out ways that hospitals can’t create “pay $90,000 for this shot of anti-venom that cost us $125 or you die” scenarios.

They know a thing or two, because in hundreds of lifetimes they’ve seen a thing or two.

Cap malpractice awards to reasonable levels.

Pharmaceuticals are a bit stickier since we want to foster innovation, but how many of them take public institute research to make their drugs? And we can certainly streamline the FDA, especially for sketchy drugs that might help people that are otherwise terminal.

Get the federal government mostly out of health care, except to prosecute people for fraud. Like the people responsible for the Vaxx®. And make the penalties criminal.

Eliminate free care. If it’s so important to you that people who can’t afford to get treatment, get treatment, don’t use my wallet to assuage your feelings. Pay for it yourself, Sally Strothers.

A Christian cross might make a fictional vampire recoil in horror, but the lack of a money trough will make the health-care-hydra vampire wander away to try something else, hopefully by finding a real job, or, failing that, being paid to suck something else.

Doctor got his degree from Columbia. I told him I wanted one from America.

It Came From . . . 1980

“The chain in those handcuffs is high-tensile steel. It’d take you ten minutes to hack through it with this. Now, if you’re lucky, you could hack through your ankle in five minutes. Go.” – Mad Max

Whole lotta 1980 in that picture.

There is, after this, just one more year to go through in the 1980s, and that’s 1981. I’ve got to say, when I thought back to 1980, I was thinking that I was going to see a lot of garbage. There is a lot of garbage, so I was right. But I was also very pleasantly surprised – there were a lot of great movies that were hiding in 1980, some of which I utterly forgot about.

1980 was one of the first years where video was a big deal (from my recollection). When VCRs became available, they were stunningly expensive, so the first VCR outside of school that we used was a rental – it actually came in a fluffy soft case and you had to hook it up to your TV. I missed many of these at the box office, and although they had a *very* liberal interpretation of who could get in to see an R rated movie (the definition was: did you have money, if you did, you were old enough to get in) I didn’t have a car or a way to get to the theater. Consequently, I saw the rest either on HBO® or on a VHS tape, mostly rented.

Once again, no sequels are on the list. To be fair, in 1980, most movies weren’t sequels – most were original creations. Looking at this list, I see that as a huge loss of cultural wealth and our Current Year as one of uncreative stagnation, mainly mining the past for ideas. Obviously, that will change.

Regardless, here’s the list:

Mad Max – I was one of the few in school that had seen Mad Max (HBO® again) before I saw The Road Warrior (Mad Max 2 for you Aussies). There was something very unique about the visual style and the practical effects that I enjoyed. The time where Max tosses the hacksaw to the handcuffed villain is classic – something Dirty Harry would have done. This movie gave us St. Mel, so, for that, I’m forever grateful.

A.I. can’t spell, apparently.

Saturn 3 – I’ll be honest, I stayed up late to watch this movie on HBO® primarily because I heard that Farrah Fawcett was nekkid in it. She was, but on a tiny television screen without zoom, well, she might as well have not been. I later found out that she was nekkid because Kirk Douglas demanded a love scene with her, take from that what you will. The movie itself is middling at best: a retelling of Frankenstein in space, and they spent most of the budget on the robot/monster. I heard that Harvey Keitel, who plays Dr. Frankenstein, did it all in a weird New York accent, so all of his lines are dubbed by another actor. Like I said, a nightmare. Oh, and, um, it looks way better on a big screen.

Breaker Morant – Ok, I didn’t stay up late at night to watch this movie because it was on in the middle of the day on HBO®. I started watching it while I was building a model tank, and got hooked. I had no idea that there was such a thing as a “Boer War” and watching this film didn’t add much to my knowledge, but it was fascinating and well done. Of the first three films, two were Australian. Good on ya, mates!

Where the Buffalo Roam – This has Bill Murray playing Hunter S. Thompson. One memorable scene has Murray having miniature-sized hotel staff play football in his room during the Super Bowl®. Bill and Hunter apparently became friends on the set, to the point that they got so drunk that Hunter tied Bill to a chair so he could do a Houdini-level escape and threw him into a pool. Thompson then had to save Murray, who apparently didn’t Houdini that well.

Friday the 13^th – The original. A very disappointing movie to me that I saw after I’d seen Friday the 13^th 3-D at the drive in, but without 3-D. Where did Jason® go? It was just a deranged mother? Then were did the monster come from? Bonus points for dead Kevin Bacon.

Chee-chee-chee . . . aww, it’s a kitten!

Fame – Ugh. Artsy movie about teen angst and trying to convince stodgy old people to get with the program. It’s really a generic movie, but I was dragged to it by an older sibling, and this movie alone convinced me that STEM was a much better way to not end up waiting tables.

The Long Riders – Okay, I was dragged to see this one by Ma and Pa Wilder, especially Ma. I’m not sure why, but she kept muttering, “There’s gotta be some clue as to where Jesse hid that gold,” and then something about a family legend. Dunno. Regardless, the people who were actual brothers in the James-Younger Gang were played by brothers in the movie. Couldn’t throw a rock without hitting a Carradine, a Keach, a Quaid, or a Guest.

The Shining – To this one, I dragged Ma and Pa Wilder. One of my teachers(!) had lent me The Shining novel, and, being very, very innocent, I skipped over or didn’t understand the disturbing sexual bits. Ma was a bit horrified. As we had to drive 3 hours from Wilder Mountain to see this one, well, it was a very long, very silent ride home.

A hard day’s work and a hot tub at the end of the day makes for Jack’s boring movie.
A hard day’s work and a hot tub at the end of the day makes for Jack’s boring movie.
A hard day’s work and a hot tub at the end of the day makes for Jack’s boring movie.

Urban Cowboy – I have no recollection of how I got into the theater to see this movie, but I recall seeing Debra Winger on a mechanical bull that wasn’t even remotely trying to buck her off. My take while watching this was, “Huh, this must be how stupid people live and fall in love,” because everyone in the movie except Madolyn Smith was stupid. Stupid. I watched it again when we moved to Houston, and didn’t change my opinion. Stupid. But, a nice soundtrack.

The Blues Brothers – Many hold this to be a classic. It is, but I think the best joke is that Ackroyd and Belushi ended up making one of the most expensive movies (at the time) ever. Why? Because Belushi was “cool” and was the flavor of the moment, which was also cocaine. Had John not died so tragically (injected by the woman who was the subject of Gordon Lightfoot’s song Sundown: some people are just trouble) I think it would have been largely forgotten. Instead, it’s almost a shrine to what could have been. The movie is really about six Saturday Night Live skits strung together with a very thin plot and a lot of music. And, yeah, I’ve seen it a dozen times.

Airplane! – The tragic and heroic true-life story of Trans American Airline flight 209’s nearly fatal crash over Macho Grande, saved by passenger/pilot Ted Striker. And, no, I don’t think I’ll ever get over Macho Grande.

Just not enough sombreros in this poster.

Used Cars – I saw this one on HBO® late one night. And it was glorious. It’s a comedy from the guy who brought you Dirty Harry, Red Dawn, and Conan the Barbarian, and it stars Kurt Russell. That’s it. Why haven’t you seen it? Hal knows what I’m talking about.

Caddyshack – My big brother, John Wilder, took me to see this one. It was awesome, funny, and he made me promise to not tell Ma Wilder that we’d been to see it. I immediately went to K-Mart® and bought the soundtrack. On an album. Unlike The Blues Brothers, the manic energy (also fueled by cocaine) on this film set really worked. One of the best comedies of all time.

The Final Countdown – It’s not a horribly good science fiction movie, but it does answer the question of every kid (like me) who grew up in Reagan’s America: what would happen if we took a modern aircraft carrier to the Battle of Pearl Harbor? No, wait, it doesn’t answer that question AT ALL. Grrrr.

The Fiendish Plot of Dr. Fu Manchu – Rock a Fu. It’s Fu music. It’s not good, but it is Peter Sellers.

Flash Gordon – This movie is fantastic. The science is awful. The acting is uneven – some great, some not so great. But it’s a hero, being a hero. There isn’t any politics (though now Flash is considered a “racist movie” because Ming is supposedly a Chinese alien?) and there is a feeling of optimism throughout the movie, along with a soundtrack by Queen®.

I asked A.I. to draw “piles of white powder” but that was a violation. But when I asked for a pile of flour? Sure!

Also made the cut, but the post is already too long, so I’ll be brief:

The Octagon – Why does the UFC® use and octagon? Chuck Norris in this movie.

Super Fuzz – If you like stupid Italian westerns with Terence Hill (I do), this is your cop movie.

Somewhere in Time – Art Bell (and every girl in middle school) loved this time travel romance starring Christopher Reeve.

Altered States – Sitting in a warm, dark tub of water makes you a monkey. I guess.

Chuck’s hair, feathered like the wings of a majestic bird.

There it is, an embarrassment o f riches, and there are even more from this year I didn’t mention. Hollywood should be ashamed.

Are We Seeing A Crack In Leftist Control?

“By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society.” – Monty Python and the Holy Grail

Smoking will give you diseases, but it cures salmon.

The GloboLeftElite have long been planning the takeover of the United States. It’s obvious that this is the case because their thinkers have been plotting the roadmap since, well, forever. Antonio Gramsci was one such leader, and here’s a quote from him:

“Socialism is precisely the religion that must overwhelm Christianity. … In the new order, socialism will triumph by first capturing the culture via infiltration of schools, universities, churches, and the media by transforming the consciousness of society.”

Gramsci may have been a (really) sub-60-inch-tall Albanian cripple who was in constant pain, born to a criminal father, but let’s let bygones be bygones. This is nearly exactly what the GloboLeftElite did. Their scholars left Europe ahead of certain German extended continental excursions in the 1930s, and many of them made their home in the United States.

Note, they didn’t all go to the socialist paradise of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Nope. The Soviets were too busy starving themselves, executing each other, and building GULAGs for fun and profit.

Instead, these “Socialists” wanted to come to a functional society that was producing wealth and wreck it. Gramsci didn’t join them, because he died. Based on the list of things that Antonio was suffering from at the time – spinal deformity, arteriosclerosis, pulmonary tuberculosis, high blood pressure, angina, gout, and acute gastric disorders – if he was a dog his name would have been “Lucky”.

The functional society that they wanted to wreck? The United States.

If a deaf person goes to court, is it still called a “hearing”?

The United States during pre-WWII time wasn’t the same as Europe. Europe had always been a class-driven society, and from conversations with friends it still is. Moving from one class to another is difficult, unless you’re a family-wrecking divorced tramp like Meghan Markle. In the United States, not so much, since we view Meghan as classless.

Many successful businesses were made by people of humble beginnings, and even our presidents didn’t all come from wealth. Mobility was very possible and that was visible. People could see that if they came up with a great idea, great wealth was available. The ideas of class that had driven division in largely racially homogeneous Europe to create revolution didn’t work, so they had to work on other things.

They chose race and sex. For whatever reason, our most prestigious colleges snapped up these horrible foreign commies – people like Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, Herbert Marcuse and the like. There are dozens more that infected the country at that time and given cushy jobs with nothing to do but try to create rot in our country. Oh, wait, I just described Biden’s appointees.

What’s key to a good mailman joke? The delivery.

And it worked. Infiltration of the schools, especially the normal schools that taught teachers took a decade or two, and a decade or two later the teachers started their indoctrination work inside the school system – first slowly and covertly, then quickly and openly.

Christianity has flirted with this hardcore communism for years, but since commies don’t go to church, it has largely been thwarted, though the “send more refugees while we have lesbian pastors and free abortions during Passover” churches are slowly gaining ground, though there’s not a lot of enthusiasm for them. So, Gramsci has had a harder road there.

The last on Gramsci’s list is the media. That has been firmly in the hands of the GloboLeftElite for decades, shows like All in the Family and Maude were the first “in your face” move to take over television. In 20 years we went from Lucy and Ricky not being able to share a bed . . . to Maude, who in a “comedy”, decided to kill her child because it wouldn’t be convenient to have one.

I’d go onto LGBTQ characters introduced in cartoons for young children, but that started, firmly, in 2013. If I were a parent with small children, let’s just say they wouldn’t be watching Cartoon Network®.

To further this, more and more “mainstream” social media like Twitter™ and content aggregators like YouTube® turned the screws – cancelling people as innocuous as Stefan Molyneux, who just liked to talk about philosophy and preached that you shouldn’t spank your kids. Obviously, he never met my kids. Regardless, Molyneux was frozen out.

Chuck Norris invalidated the periodic table, because Norris only recognizes the element of surprise.

Recently, though, I sense a thaw when it comes to the media. The biggest cause of this thaw is because the American public no longer believes in mainstream media, at all. Depending on the poll, over 70% of Americans have little to no trust in mainstream media. 70%. That means that only 30% give it any trust. This is nearly an exact flip from 1972. We now know when the mainstream media is lying: when they’re talking.

This has led to a wholesale rejection of what the mainstream says. Now, in many cases, like the Vaxx®, ignoring the mainstream was a good idea. They have to admit it because the science is now in – the Vaxx™ has been shown to be worse than the ‘vid.

And that had to be shut down. After COVID, after the George Floyd Mostly Peaceful Riots®, the idea that control of information was crucial became the mantra of the GloboLeftElite. It still is. Hillary Clinton said the quiet part out loud when she said, “. . . if the platforms, whether it’s Facebook® or Twitter© or X™ or Instagram® or TikTok©, whatever they are, if they don’t moderate and monitor the content we lose total control . . . .”

All of those Clinton friends who killed themselves that never left notes . . . would it have killed them to write a few lines?

Yeah, she trots out the “it’s about the children” but Hillary’s version of the perfect world is the GloboLeftElite version of the perfect world. They want a world ruled by their bureaucracy, managed by and for them where coloring outside of the lines really does go in your permanent record.

But, please. The Earth is not flat. You can prove that yourself with a car, 24 hours, a map, a protractor, and a Sharpie™. I think this nonsense is a psyop to make anyone with a “conspiracy” theory sound unhinged, despite so many of those theories being found to be 100% founded in reality.

And enter Elon Musk. I’ll admit that I didn’t think that much would change when he purchased Twitter™ and rebranded it X®. Now, though, I go on X™ and regularly see memes that I’d only seen on /pol/ as produced by that hacker, 4chan. (Mostly) free discourse is now allowed, out in the open.

/POL/ – it’s not just for breakfast anymore.

It is respectable once again to talk about ideas that had been cancelled, not because it’s fashionable, but because the ideas are True. The biggest enemy of those that would lie is the Truth. I left Twitter™ when it was kicking off people telling the Truth, and returned when it again (mostly) allowed the Truth.

Can you say anything on X®? No. But is it much, much closer? Yes.

Gramsci won’t win and turn Socialism into a new religion, because at the heart of Socialism are lies meant for controlling man. And Truth, along with Beauty and the Good, always wins.

And you can tell any short Albanian commie named Lucky that you meet that Wilder says so.

Don’t Stop Now

“You’ll have a grand tale to tell. A tale of victory.” – 300

I guess Kim is chubby because he never had to run for office.

Certainly, the re-election of Donald J. Trump to the Presidency has been a remoralizing event. I know that many (me included) thought that the GloboLeftElite would do whatever was necessary to “fortify” the results so Trump couldn’t return to power. I think, in the end the real power that saved Trump was the power of his hair. I mean, like Hamlet said, let the best mane win.

I’m in hopes that he won’t let his worst impulses take this second term of his administration run into the problems of the first. Trump’s main flaw (not his mane flaw, which is flawless) is his desire to “make a deal”. Hell, his book was even titled, “The Art of the Deal”. That’s where he got his greatest successes, and that was the great flaw that was exploited and why we ended up sending billions to foreigners, yet still didn’t have adequate border coverage at the end of his administration.

Scientists have discovered a way to walk through walls: doors.

So, now is not the time to give up – we must hold Trump accountable for the promises he made. He understands that he’s not our leader, that, rather, he jumped out in front of a parade that was already in motion and gave it a focus. When he gets off track, like when he praised himself for the Vaxx®, MAGA crowds booed him. And then he stopped talking about the Vaxx™, because he knew that wasn’t where the parade was headed.

We must remain vigilant. I do think that there is hope, since his near assassination, this has probably focused him like a laser on his own mortality. He knows he has four years to do what he has to do, and that’s it. Possibly only two: the mid-term elections may change the House, and turn his last two years into a gridlocked standstill.

Now, a gridlocked standstill is probably better than when congress is “doing” things and will probably lead to a dozen more impeachments for crimes like “breathing” and “sighing”, so the next two years is key.

The good news is that the GloboLeft is shell-shocked. They’ve created little echo chambers that made them get high on their own supply and think that a (possibly) drunken (allegedly) cocaine-using diversity hire anchor baby that achieved absolutely nothing, ever, that wasn’t given to her would be a good candidate. They were (and are) shocked.

Good friends are like toasters – if you throw one down the stairs, they probably won’t make toast for you anymore.

Good. The GloboLeft are shaken to the core, and we should make sure that it stays that way. If they think Trump is going to be bad, we should, at every instance, agree and amplify.

This isn’t spiking the ball. This is making them crazy.

Oh, sure, they wouldn’t be the GloboLeft if they weren’t already crazy members of a death cult. But we want to amp it up. We want them to not be able to think straight. For the next two years. We want to hijack (whenever possible) their amygdalae (Anonymous Conservative talks about it at the LINK). If you work with one of these creatures, you can get them to go off at the slightest provocation.

Why? They’re already unstable. Don’t let them plan. Don’t give them their safe spaces. Don’t let up. They may be in HR. They may be community members. When they make accusations in public, or on Facebook™ or Reddit© or X®, they sound crazy. They will call you a Nazi. They will say that you are evil. They will sound unhinged. Good. They discredit themselves.

You are needed. Keep the pressure on.

Her liver was 152.

As long as the GloboLeft sounds like the unhinged death cult members that they are, they move the Overton Window our direction.

Make them crazy. If you see a GloboLeftist flaking out at the supermarket, you can walk by and say, “This is MAGA country, missy.” That’s guaranteed to end up with a shrieking fit and a crazed post. If confronted, you can just say, “I was wondering where the pasta aisle was. Don’t have any idea why she reacted so.”

So, keep them busy.

To the non-crazy normies, keep dropping redpills. One story I heard from about a normie was that she was concerned that Trump wanted to “drain the swamp”. When it was gently explained that “drain the swamp” actually referred to the corruption of the Deep State at Foggy Bottom, the response was, “Oh, I can see that.”

Never expect normies to know what’s actually going on, so don’t get complicated. Explaining basic economics might help. Might.

Be reminded that these are the same people that didn’t know who was running for president, so, be gentle, and don’t start with weapons-grade redpills about deportation. Ease them into it. Help them draw conclusions. Point out how the mainstream media is lying or not covering the real news.

Well, maybe Juan in a million.

And remember that X® is our friend right now – the closest we have to a mainstream news platform that isn’t censoring (much).

Don’t cede the Second Amendment. Ever. Not a single inch. Point out that the real killers aren’t law-abiding gun owners, but gangbangers mainly shooting gangbangers, and they’d have guns anyway when everyone else was disarmed. Point out that there is a correlation with more guns leading to less crime. Disarmed people are victims waiting for second responders – armed people are citizens who are the true first responders.

Don’t cede morality. The latest hilarity is the 4B movement, essentially women promising not to engage in random sex and rather wait until they’re in a committed relationship. They expected us to get mad, when in reality we say, “Awesome, welcome aboard! Nobody likes a tramp.”

Are the security people at a trampoline store called bouncers?

Don’t cede love of your country, and don’t cede love of your nation. They’re not the same thing, but don’t give up either.

Enjoy the win. Keep the steel in Trump’s spine. And don’t spike the football yet.

It’s not even halftime.

But for now? We didn’t win by a hair, we won by a whole headful.

And you are needed.

Project 2026: A Joint Trump/Wilder Project

“I believe in cutting useless government projects. I also believe in cutting useful projects, future projects, and past projects.” – Parks and Recreation

People in my town are tired of useless projects. They even put up signs that say “End Construction”.

I know that Project 2025® got a really bad reputation during the election. At every point, Democrats and their GloboLeftElite tried to convince voters that Trump was going to implement Project 2025™. Well, he isn’t going to implement Project 2025©.

Instead, President Trump secretly called me through the voices in my dreams and told me, “John Wilder, after we win bigly, and want to bring to the people Project 2026. See? It’s one better already. It will be such a good program, precisely because I’m looking to you to write it for me. And, also, if you look behind you, you’ll see your cat is melting into a puddle of butter. Very disgusting. You should fix that.”

If I steal a rich man’s dinner rolls, is that highfalutin gluten lootin?

When I woke up, I immediately got to work. So, here, without further introduction is Trump’s Project 2026®™©. It’s the best.

Project 2026 is magnanimous in our inevitable victory. As such, we decree the following for the GloboLeftists who have been left a shattered shell of their former selves:

First, to our opponent, Kamala Harris, Project 2026 hereby grants you an unlimited supply of cocaine, box wine, and pantyhose.
To our dedicated GloboLeftist opponents, Project 2026 grants exclusive access to a portion of the Internet that has been cleansed of all ideas that you might find disturbing or triggering. Thankfully, it has already been created and is called “Reddit™”.
Don’t despair. Project 2026 will commit to a peaceful transfer of power back to the GloboLeftElite sometime after the Sun expands to consume the orbit of the Earth.
You are not required to call Donald Trump “president”. He doesn’t care what you think. You are, however, required to have his picture on your bedside table and publicly praise him during the daily Trump Praise Minute. While optional, your tears will make Trump stronger.
Finally, to the rank and file, you are welcome to live in either Portland or Seattle. I hear Puget Sound is lovely. The train cars will be available shortly for quick and easy carbon-friendly transport.

But if she and Hillary team up for 2028, we could have Cackles and Cankles.

Project 2026 believes that sports are a healthy aspiration for every American. As such:

Football players will now be treated like indentured servants again. Free agency is hereby forever suspended, and athletes will be required to live in the cities they play in and will be paid no more than $23.45 an hour. After their sports career is finished, successful athletes will be allowed to sell used automobiles.
Trans females will now be known as “dudes” and will be allowed to compete in female leagues, made of other dudes.

The Economy will be a priority, and Project 2026 put Elon Musk and Ron Paul in charge of managing it. Our working title for this is the Elonomy.

Imports from the Free Mars Colony will be tariff-free.
The five-dollar footlong will return.
The Federal Reserve© Board will be forced to work shifts at Wendy’s®.

If you work at the Federal Reserve®, are you required to drive a Fiat™?

Project 2026 realizes the immense hardship that illegal aliens have wrought on our nation. As such, we will act quickly to fix these issues.

Birthright citizenship is ended, retroactively, by Project 2026. Barack Obama will be sent either to Cuba or the newly-formed People’s Republic of Hawaii.
The Department of Exmigration will be officially formed, and every celebrity who posted that they will be leaving the country will be leaving the country. By Wednesday. The motto of the Department will be “Buh-bye”.
The Department of Exmigration will also enforce the repatriation of all illegal immigrants starting Wednesday. And ending Thursday, though if you are in line by Wednesday, we’ll give you another 24 hours. Any illegals left after that will be sent to our choice of either India or Nigeria.
Only females of exceptional beauty will be allowed to illegally immigrate. Our policy is, “9 or 10, come on in!” The judging panel will consist of Mel Gibson, Elon Musk, and Johnny Depp. The anticipated formation of GloboLeftist Wine Drinking Cat Lady Einsatzgruppen to hunt down this new national resource will be put down brutally.

Project 2026 has a goal of two hot chicks for every dude.

Marriage and children are important to the United States, so:

Starting in 2026 unmarried mothers will receive no child support nor governmental support of any type. Widows are exempt.
No fault divorce is abolished.
Women and men are barred from receiving child support payments or alimony.
Only married women and men between the ages of 21 and 63 can vote.
An era of free power will follow based on Project 2026’s projection that we can exploit the power of suffragettes spinning in their graves at near lightspeed after hearing that GloboLeftist women, after hearing about Trump’s win, promise to be celibate outside of committed relationships.

I went to a farmer’s party. They really knew how to turn up the beets!

Government reform is top on the list of Project 2026:

95% of all federal employees are hereby terminated. Pack your stuff. The remaining 5% are park rangers and the US Postal Service®. Project 2026 thought for a long time about other groups, but they all have to go. All of them. Except for the Department of the Treasury to collect tariffs and the Department of Exmigration.
The ATF’s mission will be radically changed: their new mission will be to make firearms plentiful and low cost.
The FBI headquarters will be relocated to the Swanson Motel, in Bismarck, North Dakota.
All federal employees except for the Federal Marshall Service will be disarmed, as Project 2026 realizes someone has to bring horse thieves to justice.
Project 2026 understands and values the role of education in society, and therefore will remove the greatest impediment to education: The Department of Education. All employees will be fired, and will be barred from ever working in any educational role again.

Project 2026 realizes that the United States is just one of a whole host of nations. The best one, but still just one. Here follows the changes to International Relations.

International relations, imports, all financial transactions and all telecommunications are hereby ended with India and Nigeria until they show proof that they’ve executed every scammer in the country, or turned them into valuable mulch.
Our new policy in dealing with other nations is, “Why should I care?” If any other nation contacts us for aid, our official response will be “Rub some dirt on it.”

Those guys were always cold as ice.

Project 2026 realizes a strong military is important to protecting our borders, which is all we’re going to do with it.

Every young man will be sent to bootcamp, and will continue in bootcamp until they pass or reach the age of 40. After passing bootcamp, each young man is sent home with all the weapons and ammunition they can carry, including C-4. Additionally, Project 2026 will officially rename C-4 as “serious putty”.
The bootcamps will be along the southern and northern borders of the United States, and a “free fire” zone will be established within fifty yards (six decaliters) of the border. This includes people attempting to escape Trudeauistan.
Most overseas bases will be returned to the host country, with the exception that all on-base fast-food restaurants will remain. Exceptions to this are Diego Garcia and Guantanamo, because Project 2026 finds them amusing.

This is a work in progress, so any suggestions for additions can be provided before I transmit this to President-Elect Donald Trump tonight in my dreams. I hope the cat doesn’t melt again. Such a mess. So buttery. Very disrespectful.

Deep Thoughts And Dank Memes About Halloween And Strippers

“When the fear takes him, and the blood and the screams and the horror of battle take hold, do you think he would stand and fight?” – The Return of the King

I have a cookbook that mentions ancient evil monoliths: the Necronomnomnomicon.

Most memes “as-found”, maybe an edit or two here and there..

When I was a kid, it seemed that Halloween was really about the kids. I would dress up (usually) as a vampire, until I got older. As I got older, it seemed that Halloween tipped from being a holiday for children to an excuse for younger adults to have drunken parties in costumes like “slutty elf costume” and “slutty Handmaid’s Tale costume” and “slutty presidential candidate”.

One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is that Halloween is about the darker side. Ghosts and witches and monsters have been a part of the celebration since Pharaoh Bubbahotep got his chariot license. You’ve probably not heard of that Pharaoh before – after they mummified him they kept him under wraps.

The time of Halloween is certainly in line with being a harvest festival – I mean, it’s after harvest in the northern hemisphere, and there’s plenty of evidence that some version of Halloween was observed in ancient times. Whether or not the Christian holiday of All-Saints Day (November 1) was a takeoff from this is up for grabs, but the trappings and idea of this being a time focused on dead humans is undeniably thousands of years old.

At college, I told my advisor I wanted to take a class on how to be a mime. He said, “Say no more.”

But, again, a harvest festival. In the northern hemisphere, plants are dying at this time of year, leaves are falling, and it begins to get cold and dark. This is the foreshadowing of winter, a time where the planning and planting and preparing pay off in order to tide families back to spring when the world comes alive again. What better way to celebrate the idea of dead people and the impending bitter winter than by having a party, getting drunk, and dressing like a “slutty Seal Team Six” member?

Trick or treating itself has been practiced for (at least) five hundred years, including costumes and begging for food. Ultimately, though, the idea comes back around to the idea of what happens to the soul after death – the year becomes, essentially, a proxy for the life of a human, with Halloween marking the time when death is contemplated. And it’s scary to think about death.

Many people like to be scared – that’s one reason why horror movies are so popular. In my dating days, I noted also that the scarier the movie I took my date to, the more amorous they became afterwards. Keep in mind my sample size was mainly limited to girls who would eventually become strippers, but nevertheless, it’s still data. Like grandma always said, “Write what you know, Johnny, even if it involves bad decisions, teenage lust, and women with daddy issues and narcissistic personality disorder.”

That meme makes me feel like a Djinn and tonic.

So, just like Pavlov’s dog, I began to associate scary movies with good times. But I liked them before that, even as a young kid I’d stay up late to watch B-movies in black and white on Saturday night and feel the hair on the back of my neck stand up when the sound of the house settling at night would happen in the dark behind me.

Is working on your abs for forty minutes daily a waist of time?

Part of horror for me, though, was the idea of the supernatural. I recall reading Stephen King before he morphed into a parody of someone’s GloboLeft lesbian wine aunt with Trump Derangement Syndrome and the first book of his to profoundly disappoint me was Cujo. Why?

It was about a dog with rabies. That’s it. No evil spirits. No Walkin’ Dude. No vampires. Just a stupid dog with a stupid disease.

So what?

Bad things happen, I get it, but horror to me wasn’t Michael Myers attacking teenagers in the night while wearing a William Shatner mask inside-out. No. It was him getting up after taking damage that would kill a dozen men and relentlessly pressing forward. He wasn’t a man – he was a force beyond anything natural, much like my deodorant.

The other part of the horror trope at the time was that the Final Girl, the one who faced down the supernatural bad guy, was virtuous. Who got killed? The kids drinking and making out. Who lived? The clumsy virgin. In essence, these horror movies were morality plays showing that the wicked were punished and that the virtuous were rewarded, a lesson that thankfully went over the heads of the eager and enthusiastic frolicsome fräuleins.

Those morality plays made sense, and the plot, like a tune, had a melody that was familiar and pleasing.

I guess they couldn’t party in the living room.

Again, for me the element of the supernatural was crucial. One of the things that I realized over time is that the element of Evil implied that there was Good, too. The dark, Lovecraftian world where ancient brooding evil ones who didn’t even pay any regard to mankind in an unfeeling universe hadn’t crossed my mind yet, but that was before I had even met my ex-wife. But a movie like The Exorcist, was based on the existence of Evil.

And that Evil wasn’t aloof and uncaring. No. That Evil was intensely interested in humanity. Intensely. In fact, humanity was the focus of that Evil in a war that we could only see the edges of, one that was being played out in realms we had only the barest perception of. The Exorcist implied all of that, but also more than implied the existence of the other side: Good. With a capital G.

If Cthulhu made cheese, would he call them “LoveKraft Singles”.

I know that moral relativists hate the idea of this duality of Good and Evil, preferring to live in a world not of black and white, but one filled with shades of gray. Or grey. Or . . . now why am I thinking about gravy?

Regardless, lots of people were scared by the embodiment of Evil shown in The Exorcist. I was comforted. My love of horror isn’t about a fascination with death and Bad things – quite the opposite, it’s about a fascination for life and Good things.

And most of those girls I dated aren’t strippers anymore, which is a good thing given their age, that they’re now saying: “Sorry, we’re clothed until further notice.”

The Mrs., CPAP, Visa, and Me.

“MasterCard®! Visa©!” – Twelve Monkeys

My brother-in-law played tuba in high school. He was really into heavy metal.

The Mrs. spent a few days in the hospital at the start of the year. I was particularly pleased that she waited until January 1 so that the deductible for the year was met, and I will be particularly cross if she has to go back next year.

I mean, she should have some compassion. The deductible is a lot.

Several good things and a mystery came out of the hospital stay. The mystery is why she was there in the first place. I mean that. The symptoms clearly required hospitalization, and the symptoms typically mean that some of her organs would be permanently damaged.

Nope. After being there, the organs that should have been damaged (her philtrum and her uvula) were just fine. The doctor, who seems quite competent, says that that means that her philtrumitis was something quite different, and wants to catch her right at the onset this year if it happens again.

The whole “stiff upper lip” thing may be why Bill Clinton hates Great Britain.

It will happen again, because it has already happened twice. I’m just hoping it happens before a new deductible year, but I don’t know if she cares enough so that we can save the $1,500 deductible.

The good news was that they were measuring her the oxygen content in her blood, which the doctors and nurses seemed to thing was important for some reason. “Can’t walk without passing out,” they said. Heck, Pa Wilder told me to just walk stuff like that off, or rub some dirt on it.

Anyway, I have faith we’ll get her philtrum sorted out in time. But during the time, it was also determined that The Mrs. has sleep apnea.

Sleep apnea is where, when a person is sleeping, that they stop breathing. This is, according to experts, not good, because unlike me, The Mrs. is unable to absorb enough oxygen through her skin to live. Such weakness!

One sure sign of sleep apnea (from my experience) is loud snoring. In the case of The Mrs., seismic monitors were set off in every town in the United States named “Springfield” when she slept.

Don’t give off Bundy vibes. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk.

But “slept” is really not a great term for what The Mrs. was doing: the doctor said that prior to the sleep study she was having dozens of incidents where she stopped breathing – per hour. That tends to make whatever sleep she was getting be interrupted every few minutes.

Except that she never knew it was happening.

When they kicked her out of the hospital, they gave her oxygen. Now, the oxygen helped her, but she still stopped breathing. Finally, a sleep study was scheduled. Because Modern Mayberry is two hours from Mt. Pilot, we took her there for the study on a Friday.

The next day she was bouncy and in the best mood I’d seen in years. The CPAP (Continuous Proton Angstrom Predictor) that they had hooked her up had allowed her to sleep, deeply, for the first time in five years (my guess). She felt great for days afterward.

I bought The Mrs. a huge diamond ring. She asked why I didn’t buy her a car instead, but I told her they don’t make fake cars.

After feeling awful for so long that she didn’t know she felt awful, feeling great was like a drug. In fact, she was counting the days from when she had the sleep study to when the doctor would provide a prescription for her to get a CPAP (Cobalt Piston Analog Platypus).

Finally, the day arrived. We drove an hour and a half (the other direction from Mt. Pilot) and found in a little strip mall where the people were ready to give The Mrs. the coveted CPAP (Corndog Popcorn Apple Plate). We got home, and The Mrs. plugged it in, popped on her mask and went to bed.

And The Mrs. slept.

And got the best night of sleep at home she’d had “as an adult.” I think The Mrs. was exaggerating, but she loved her new CPAP (Capering Party Animal Platform).

Now’s the time to admit that, even though I do have several superpowers, I have a CPAP (Constitutionally Protected Ammo Pouch) as well. One day over seven years ago (note that this is beyond the statute of limitations) The Mrs. said I stopped breathing. I read about it, and, um, a day later I had “acquired” a CPAP (Criminally Procured Automated Prosthesis) by finding the equivalent of that liquor store that sold booze to six-year-olds.

I imagine he can’t even walk when he’s sober.

Sleep study? Doctor visit? Insurance? Why? I have a Visa®.

Today, as The Mrs.’ doctor reviewed the data from her CPAP (Crucially Precious Artificial Planet) I casually mentioned that my CPAP (Chronologically Primeval Ancient Apparatus) was seven years old, and I might need a new one. Gradually my unorthodox procurement strategy came to light.

“Well, John Wilder, you’ll need a sleep study, or your insurance won’t pay for a new one.”

“I have a Visa®.”

“Oh, cool. I’ll write you a prescription whenever you need a new one.”

See? The Wilder Way wins again.

Fear: Don’t.

“I am Pasquinel. I come to you, unafraid.” – Centennial

Andre Celsius died in 1744 at the age of 43, though Daniel Fahrenheit would have insisted that Celsius was 103.

This is a week of frequently discussed topics here, or if not frequently, regularly. On Monday, I posted about the looming Civil War 2.0. It’s a topic that’s important, and one that will define whatever rises from the ashes of USA 6.0. I’m calling it USA 6.0 because I number them this way:

The Colonies (before 1776),
The Confederation (before 1788),
The Several States Constitutional Republic (before 1860),
The Single State (before 1913),
The Progressive Empire (before 1990), and
The GloboLeftistElite Playground (ongoing).

Your mileage may vary, but each of these incarnations was different, and each of them rose from the remnants of what had come before. It’s a pretty big and important topic.

So, that’s Monday.

I saw a war movie set in a campground – the battle scene was in tents.

On Tuesday, I talked about how the unbridled “compassion” of the GloboLeftistElite was choking the United States pretty badly, and that, regardless of their intent, it was setting up a situation where the economy along with the culture is becoming pure Weimar.

Never go pure Weimar.

But it’s Friday, so it’s time to return to another frequently discussed topic: Attitude.

If you are religious, the biggest goal of the Enemy is to create literal demoralization in both senses of the word – to cause you to lose hope fill you with despair, along with causing you to lose your morality. The second part is listed as an archaic part of the word, and that’s a shame.

When I pass on, I’m going to leave some lucky ready my arm bone, because I think that would be humerus.

If you’re not religious, don’t tune out – this applies to you, too. You don’t have to believe in Him for demoralization to be a huge danger. Deciding that nothing matters, or nihilism, is the gateway to deciding that anything is possible, and feeling despair is the gateway to nihilism.

Capital E or small e, this is what the adversary wants.

The reason that so much of the news media is set up the way it is, is to provide an echo chamber that makes us all feel alone. Think a baby born with XY chromosomes is a male?

They did find the genetic cause of shyness, finally. It was hiding behind two other genes.

That’s pretty much every sane person. But the GloboLeftElite want you to think that you’re alone in having these thoughts. They thrive on it. They depend on it.

Why?

Because if you feel alone, you’re subject to manipulation. Many people (women especially, because of the way that they’re innately wired), for instance, want to go along with the herd and believe what everyone else does, because to many, politics is just another form of fashion. If the cool people believe it, well, shouldn’t we all? I mean, the Europeans laughed at us for electing Trump!

So?

It’s a perception that the GloboLeftElite is trying to create in our minds. The same way that Kamala has gone from one of the most unpopular politicians in recent American history to within cheating distance of taking the White House, the attitude that they want to instill in us is defeat.

I forgot the rules of chess, but then I remembered I was allowed to check.

And if we take that attitude, and accept it, we will lose. There is a reason that one of the most repeated admonitions in the Christian Bible is “Fear not”. Frank Herbert eloquently wrote this in Dune:

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”

I was an utter nerd in middle school, though I was also a noseguard so I never got picked on, and I had that passage memorized in seventh grade. It was true when Herbert wrote it, it was true when I first read it, and it’s true today: fear is certainly the worst emotion a human can have.

I firmly believe that the worst outcomes of my life are from those few times I gave counsel to my fears. Nothing good ever came of it except the deep understanding that nothing good ever comes from it. Now, when I cried, “Havok!” and let slip the dogs of war and gave it my all, even when everyone said that what I was about to do was impossible?

Good times, man.

To be clear: we can’t lose. Really. I do understand and fully believe that we haven’t seen that darkest night, that time when we think that all hope is lost. It’s coming.

And we’ll win. The reason I am certain comes from the understanding that, no matter what the Enemy (or enemy) has done, it has never, ever kept us down forever. I am not done.

I actually own an authentic human skull. It’d show it to you, but I’m using it right now.

I haven’t finished doing what I was put here to do. And if I do it, facing my fears directly, I know that I’m going to win. And I know that, over time, after heartache and after piles of skulls and blood.

We win. It’s inevitable.

And then, in some far distant future, we’ll have to fight again. But that’s another story.

Prepatude.

“No harm in being prepared.” – The Fellowship of the Ring

If a detective solves a murder quickly, is that a brief case?

(most clips/memes from here on out are as-found)

Prepping is a subject that has been near and dear to my heart since I was a kid.

The Wilder family would frequently go on long hikes and snowmobile trips into the backcountry. Likewise, we’d go hunting and fishing. Before most of those trips, Ma and Pa would talk to me about the dangers on the trip, what to do if I got lost, and what to avoid. I’m still at a loss as to why they covered me in honey when we were in bear country and referred to me as “Hansel” but I did pay attention.

Our spot of land on Wilder Mountain was 15 miles to the first town, which was a metropolis of about 800 people during the school year. It had a grocery store, and a doctor’s office that was open (I believe) two days a week because the doctor went from town to town. It was a time and place where, when I was bitten by a local dog, the doctor asked me to describe it.

“Meh. Probably not rabid. I wouldn’t worry.”

It was a different world back then and Gen X kids, who were pretty free-range.

Got arrested for smuggling books into Washington D.C. Got off on a technicality, since no one there can read.

The winters on Wilder Mountain were cold at -40°F (-40°C) being a regular low, and with snowfall that could total to over three feet in a single night. There were no natural gas lines, or even artificial gas lines, and we heated the place exclusively on firewood. There were times the road was closed, and when the power was out, it was out for hours while the power company scrambled people from nearly 50 miles away to come and fix whatever had broken whereas fire always worked.

Ambulance? Forget it. When I was young, the closest ambulance (I believe) at least half an hour away. The ambulance was whatever car you had and the State Troopers told people to put their emergency flashers on when speeding to the hospital. Did I say State Troopers? Nah, there was just one within 45 miles.

There is an official denial that this is a true story. More info will come out.

And, obviously, no cell phones. Heck, our first line was a “party” line which was shared among four houses, and all the phones would ring for an incoming call. You could tell which call was for your house because each house had a distinct ring pattern, sort of like Morse code for Martha.

From a very young age, I knew that my safety wasn’t coming from some distant location. I was responsible for myself. Our family was responsible for our family.

As the slogan goes: no one was coming to save us, and we knew it. We also lived it, having provisions of food for more than a month at any given time, a freezer full of meat, and enough firewood to last two winters. When the power went out, we had candles, and Ma Wilder had the wax to make more.

I was raised with prepping as a mindset. We lived it.

I could go into more details, but you get the point – nearly everything we did was predicated on the idea that if things went tango uniform, we’d likely have to do all the digging out ourselves, which we did on more than one occasion.

When you don’t feel like physically preparing.

Looking back on it, that was a wonderful way to grow up. It’s really the opposite of being a victim. If I had gotten into a situation that I couldn’t have gotten out of while maintaining a 98.6°F (-40°C) body temperature, I knew it was my own fault.

It taught me this lesson: I’m never a victim.

This is also the story of the founding and conquering of our nation: people setting off to far lands across a sea, and then finally crossing the continent with everything they owned in a wagon, a little island of humanity that would sink or swim.

I’m a descendent of those that managed to swim, and probably, you are, too.

Well, that’s embarrassing for FEMA.

This, really, is the opposite of city life.

For someone in New York, they depend on other people for almost everything. Trash. Food. Heat. Water. Safety. Security. Elevators. Like I said, almost everything. They exist as a cog in a technological machine that uses them for a specific purpose and then puts them to rest in the off hours so they can complain about how alienated they feel to psychiatrists that charge $400 an hour.

GloboLeft prepping aisle.

To them, prepping probably means avoiding scary people on the sidewalk, but even that isn’t any sort of guarantee of safety. Nor is a guarantee that the systems that work to punish those who will do Evil is in any way functional. It looks like those are breaking down at a rapid pace, and that will do nothing but increase the level of violence and corruption already inherent with large numbers of people from divergent cultures living close to one another.

Such a vibrant big-city culture!

For them, prepping isn’t an attitude, prepping is something other people do, because the stores are always open, 24/7.

More than anything, however, preparation is a continual situational review of what you have and what you have to have. I write this now because I sense we’re in a greater degree of danger than at any time during my life, with the possible exception of 1983 when things almost got extra-spicy with the Soviets, who were nearly finished with updating their weapons from World War I.

Now is really the time to assess where you’re at, what you’re doing, and what you would do without things that are “essential”.

Essential is relative: 2 minutes without air, 2 hours without shelter (depending on conditions), 2 days without water, and 2 weeks without food (though lots of folks including myself are pre-prepped for that contingency). How many GloboLeftists could last an afternoon, though, without the warm affirmations of their fellow travelers that they’re on the Right Side of History®?

Why wouldn’t they want people reporting on this? Embarrassed, or wanting to kill opposition voters in a swing state?

No, prepping isn’t about a day or a time or an event, it’s a way of life, because of the horrible things that have happened to me have been none of the ones I expected, like that time I nearly ran out of beer. But since I had prepared generally, well, I was prepared. I have 200’ of rope in my truck. Why?

I have no idea what specific episode I’ll need it, but experience shows that in the next decade someone will say to me . . . “I have no idea why you had the rope, John, but it sure stopped that runaway nuclear reactor meltdown!”

I mean, most people only stop one nuclear reactor meltdown. But two?

Know their priority. It isn’t you.

My prepping background is my parents. We lived near the wilderness, and lived like it. One thing that neither Pa nor Ma would accept, at all, was a victim.

Having a proper prepping attitude, or prepatude is all about that – setting yourself up so that being a victim isn’t in your future. Then?

Lists.

Distractions, Pascal, And Postman

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

I then started a summer camp for people who wanted to be plastic surgeons. Arts and Grafts was very popular.

Distractions.

Blaise Pascal wrote about them in his book Pensées, which is French and means “reflections” and is pronounced “Hamwich” because the French never properly figured out that sounds in words should be connected in some fashion to the letters used.

Pascal was a mathematician, a physicist, and invented the laptop computer, which was initially a plank of wood. In reality, he did some of the foundational work that showed that atmospheric pressure varied with altitude, even has a unit named after him.

Pascal was also a philosopher, and thought a whole bunch about Christianity. This was back before the “let’s get a cappuccino and listen to Pastor Dave talk about why God wants lesbian ministers” type of church, and instead when there were debates on how salvation occurred and if free will was a thing.

Thankfully it didn’t take them too long to clean the kettle out, though they did ask me where I got six gallons.

Pascal wrote: “Distraction is the only thing that consoles us for our miseries. Yet, it is, itself, the greatest of our miseries.”

And, although he’s dead, Pascal was entirely correct. We see it all around us right now.

Distraction is seductive. I remember we were on a family vacation and stopped at a Denny’s® to get breakfast. There was a line, and about 30 people (mainly families) were waiting.

As I looked, every eye was focused on a phone – 30 people sitting next to each other, yet distracted by whatever it was that they were looking at. They had escaped reality, and also escaped talking to each other, almost as if they were addicted to the distractions coming to them over their iPhones®.

In reality, many of them probably are technically addicted to those phones. Much of the internet, even back then, was built on the premise of stimulating dopamine to create engagement with the phone, and not with the world surrounding us.

Such a wonderful society we have to take pills to deal with it. Meme as found.

Were those people worried about their bills, their jobs, or their immortal soul? Nah. They were distracted by flappy bird games or Faceborg™ or InstaChat©. They were allowing the moments of their lives to drain away into that sea of distraction rather than confront reality.

They did have bills. Their jobs sucked. Their immortal soul was in peril. But that’s difficult to think about, so it’s much easier to look at pretty colors and cat videos for ten seconds before flipping to the next infotainment bite. The distraction was total.

Is it any wonder that coping skills have been drastically impacted in the generation raised on the distraction of phones? Kids can’t cope because they’re never forced to confront themselves until the stakes are high. This creates a group of victims.

I hate victims. A lot. They’re whiney and they suck every bit of energy out of the room, like psychic vampires. Oh, wait, I just described The View. Huh.

If you ever feel uninformed, remember that some people get their news from The View.

Absolutely, there are people who are in situations that are far beyond their control. And, absolutely there are people who don’t deserve what fate has given them. However, when I look at people who have self-control, who have looked fate in the eye and said, “Yeah, so what? I’m still standing here, chump,” I feel admiration.

Neil Postman was a professor and writer, but then he died. Perhaps his best-known work is Amusing Ourselves to Death, written in 1985. The Mrs. introduced me to it not long after we met, and I knew she was a keeper. In it, Postman talks about the impact of amusement. Amusement is close enough to distraction for our purposes and both Postman and Pascal are dead, so they can’t put up too much of a fight.

Again, Postman wrote about this in 1985, well before the every distraction, every place, all at once monster of the smartphone appeared. In it, Postman identified television as a drug. If so, it’s a gateway drug like aspirin, and the Internet is heroin.

Part of distraction is that it discourages the formation of complete thoughts. I think at least partially that’s part of the inspiration for this place, since I want to create and bring forth ideas that people might not think about, or might have forgotten in all frenzy of flashing lights, free porn, and distractions of Instabook© and Facegram™.

If idiots could fly, TikTok® would be an airport.

It’s a world where, “Excuse me, I’m talking” becomes a replacement for actual thought and people thinking deeply about issues like old Pascal becomes rarer and rarer. A side effect is that the information we get becomes information we can’t take action on. Want to complain to your congressman? How would you even contact them? How would you get their attention? Hell, getting the attention of an HOA is nearly impossible in some subdivisions.

Instead, you’ll complain to your neighbor.

Worse, though, is the impact that’s happening to our youth. The lesson that bad crap is going to happen to them so they need to learn deal with it simply isn’t taught because they just distract themselves away from the Truth they don’t want to consider. It’s not their fault – their brain is optimized to live in villages, and we distract them with the hardest hitting drug in history: the smartphone.

Failure is an option. And failure is a teacher, but when the teacher is fired and replaced with social media? The lesson is muted or ignored.

I bought a book called “How to Hug”, but it turned out to be volume seven of an encyclopedia.

How did Pascal manage to deal with being a religious philosopher, a mathematician, and a physicist?

I guess Pascal was good at avoiding distraction and dealing with pressure.