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“That’s right. And if I think that Kirk is a Denebian slime devil, well, that’s my opinion, too.” – Star Trek, TOS
I’ve found that telling pizza jokes is all in the delivery.
Opinions.
Marcus Aurelius (dead stoic guy with a crappy son) said, “It never ceases to amaze me: we love ourselves more than we love other people, yet care more about their opinion than our own.”
I was talking with a friend about opinions today. Which opinions matter?
Well, if a toddler had an opinion, I’d generally disregard it because, like Joe Biden, they poop themselves and can barely string a coherent sentence together, even if you spot them a verb.
Toddler opinions generally don’t matter to me. And I never feel bad making fun of toddlers because, just like students in Baltimore government schools, toddlers can’t read.
Are chubby babies heavy infantry?
Okay, toddlers are out. Not that toddlers are always wrong, even they can see that I’m bald, for instance. Bald, however, is not an opinion. But try explaining that to a toddler, those drooling idiots with their Cheerio® encrusted fingers.
When I hear an opinion, I generally don’t accept it at face value. I try to filter it.
First, does it matter? Most people have opinions about most things. And most of those opinions don’t matter, really, to anyone. I don’t care about what anyone’s favorite color is. When The Mrs. wanted to paint my study, I didn’t really care about what color The Mrs. picked, as long as it’s not purple – I hate purple more than blue and red combined.
I don’t, however, let The Mrs. pick my cigars. My opinion on them matters, really, only to me and the company that I buy them from. I mean, when I looked up “how to light a cigar” on a search engine, I got 70 million matches. I might be interested in your opinion on good cigars, and might even try one, but it won’t change my world.
Can a cigar box? No, but a tin can.
The second filter is whether I can do anything about the opinion. If it passes the first filter, of “it matters” then I ask if I can do anything about it. This is a bigger question – I do have opinions on things I can’t do anything about. But as I go through life, I’m finding that often I have the ability to do things I never thought possible, like live in a country at the edge of civil and nuclear war with a president that has a dementia patient meth addicted son. So, there’s that.
I often find that, when I really try, that things I thought impossible were, in reality, really not that hard if I put my mind to it and dedicate myself to them. Of course, to really dedicate myself, then I face the risk of failure. Failing is tough, but it’s worth it on something that really matters.
I wonder why Ma Wilder always said “Embrace failure,” when she gave me hugs.
So those are the two big filters on whether an opinion matters to me.
I keep seeing Cthulhu memes, but I’m disappointed because all I ever see are the Old Ones.
But when people I respect share that opinion, well, I listen. And I run it through the filters.
This was a short one, and it’s also time to mention I just finished reading Hans Schantz’s latest book, The Wise of Heart. Full disclosure, I did get a review copy. I enjoyed it, as I have the other works of Mr. Schantz – especially the first book of his trilogy, The Hidden Truth.
“Who is Poppy Adams? After graduating Harvard Business School, Adams was briefly held for serious mental health issues before disappearing without a trace.” – Kingsman: The Golden Circle
Every day I tell my family I’m going out for a jog and then I don’t. It’s my longest running joke.
FYI – minimal humor and memes in today’s post due to subject matter – it just didn’t fit.
We’ve driven the kids nuts.
I don’t necessarily mean you or I, but the change in society has caused a great decline in the mental health of the kids. It really started showing up in 2009 or so, when the emergency room visits for kids started a sharp uptrend. The kids (ages 10-19) were going to the hospital due to self-harm spiked by over 60% in a single decade.
For girls it was worse – it spiked nearly 100% – doubling in that time period. The rates of depression doubled in that time frame as well.
What I’ve seen when I talk to kids is that many, many of them have huge anxiety issues. Many are on psychoactive drugs. Many are visiting therapists regularly.
I look back to when I was that age, and I’m not sure I knew even a single Gen X kid who was seeing a shrink. I’m sure that it wouldn’t have been something they’d have shared, but it was a school, so that would have gotten around. Also, as far as I know, there was only one girl on any medication, and as I recall there had been some significant family tragedy.
Suicide? Only one kid tried it in the decade I spent in that age group. And I knew a lot of kids. But, to be fair, something like 30% of kids with mental health issues drop out of school so I never would have seen them. However, the numbers really do show that this is certainly the most mentally ill generation in the history of the country.
What’s changed?
Luxuries are available today that would have boggled the minds of my generation when we were growing up. Kids today can talk to anyone, anywhere, at any time. Listen to any song. Watch concerts of their favorite bands. Yet, with all the information, connection, and amusement available, something is horribly wrong.
My first guess at a major factor is a simple one – the iPhone™ came out in 2007. Given two years for smart phones to become more or less everywhere among the teen set, that correlates pretty well to the start of the increase in mental issues.
This shorter-term focus, the smaller “bite size” ideas make something that was typical decades ago, like reading a book, seem like forever. Not being able to tune out and relax can’t be good.
Social media also has another insidious function – it is designed so people show off only the glamorous and nice things that happen to them. Who spends a lot of time posting about their pain, and sorrow? In the end, it makes a certain segment of the population feel that everyone is doing great except for them. Me? With my friends we spend as much time talking about the rough bits in our life as we do the great things.
Online friendships are also shallower, so the real bonding that kids get when they’re on adventures is lost. Add in that porn of the vilest types is available to most any kid with a phone? How are they not messed up in ways that no other generation has ever been?
2009 was also the dawn of Obama. Obama started defending traditional marriage and ended in full Pride® mode. Gender confusion wasn’t really something that was very big when I was growing up, except for Dee Snider. Now people are talking about transitioning toddlers, and somehow these people are being taken seriously and not being strung up on telephone poles.
To be sure, not all kids are a mess, but enough are that there’s a very big problem – I’ve seen one statistic that 44% of high school students feel persistent sadness or hopelessness. That’s a big number – I do think that, perhaps, the kids see some of the same things coming that we do – I do know they look at the economy and think, perhaps correctly, that they’ll never do as well as their parents.
I’m not sure how to fix those millions of kids that have already passed through their teens and are now in their 20s. From the outside, the one thing I’ve seen with most psychiatrists/psychologists is that they never really cure their patients, they just keep coming back, week after week to pay for the therapist’s BMW®. And I’m exceptionally skeptical of many psychoactive drugs. Yes, I know that some of them work very, very well for certain conditions with a physical cause.
What now?
The solutions to preventing a lot of these issues in the first place are fairly simple, but a big step for many:
Religion gives life a greater meaning. I’m pretty sure it’s not a coincidence that as church attendance declines, mental health problems increase.
Be involved.
Technology control (i.e., limit the damn phones), especially for young girls who seem to be more impacted.
Remove the gender confusion – homeschooling or a decent religious school would be good options.
Make sure they learn skills that allow them to be useful. Start small, and build up. Don’t coddle them or walk them through every step. Make them work for it.
Make sure the boys are involved in sports, especially if they don’t want to be. Get girls involved in something like 4-H or the church youth club.
The Zoomers (Gen Z) have had a tough time of it, and this will be another factor (along with their horribly messed up dating and sex lives) that is already impacting the economy.
“Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women.” – Jaws
If you’re lonely you could buy some stocks. Then you’d have some company.
In July, the New York Times® ran a story titled, Is the Cure to Male Loneliness Out on the Pickleball Court? It wasn’t particularly political, and I think I can summarize it in just a few words: “If you’re a dude, have a few friends. The best friends are those that share some sort of common interest with you. Friends make you happy.” Writer Michelle Cottle strung those three sentences out into several hundred words of mainly forgettable fluff that would be obvious to anyone with an I.Q. higher than a Phoenix, Arizona winter temperature. In centigrade.
The real joy of this particular story, however, was the unleashing of memes. The picture that accompanied the article, however was, shall we say, regrettable. It’s above, showing a man (I think, it’s 2023, so who can even define a man in 2023) with massive, fat tears containing enough water to keep California going through a megadrought. I think he might be crying because he hates pickleball, or maybe because he can’t afford a shirt with sleeves.
I have so many orb memes.
Regardless, the /Internet/ reacted predictably to the picture, and created a list of memes that would make all those sages pondering orbs proud. I saved a few of them, just for you in the hopes that you, dear reader, might find your key to cure your loneliness. If you’re like me, you don’t have feelings other than cold, salty, and drunk, so I haven’t figured out what the whole “lonely” thing is.
Anyway, here are the memes, as found, with some annotation.
I think that drinking with Quint and killing sharks is definitely going to solve any issues with loneliness.
Curling? Not so much.
Now being in a Roman Legion? That’s the stuff! Hiking every day! Just avoid Germany.
It’s weird that the Turks mispronounce “Constantinople” as “Istanbul”.
I, for one am always happy when I’m at Chili’s. It is the booze.
I’ve never tried it, but, what could it hurt?
Now this looks inviting. I think termites like saloons, because they like the bar tender.
I wonder if he’ll be a crying-on-the-inside NPC?
Can confirm, this is fun until the cops show up.
Is the Wendigo related to the Whodigo, or the Wheredigo, or the Whatdigo?
Who can be lonely interacting with 400’ tall anime girls?
Travolta and Cage walk into a bar. Bartender says, “Why the wrong face?”
Lovecraft walked into a bar, and the rest is too humorous to even describe.
Ever notice that you never see Walken and Buscemi in the same place? Discuss.
Hell yeah, brother!
Well, even Hunter gets lonely.
I guess it didn’t work for Kaepernick.
But it might have worked out for Kaepernick’s dad.
Sometimes, it’s the simple things.
Or many simple things.
What’s a little psychosis between friends?
If I tried that, I’d be grounded.
Well, back to giant women . . .
And who doesn’t need another synthesizer?
Is there more to life?
Yes, yes there is.
Thankfully, my job will let me work as many hours as I want to.
Inflation has really started to bite here in Modern Mayberry. I’m not sure about the Big Cities, but I’ve begun to notice it around here. Today at lunch I made a trip to McDonald’s®. It’s rare, most of the time (if I eat lunch at all) I eat at home. It’s more convenient, and I really, really hate lines, but this was a late lunch and I could drive straight to the window. But hey, for me, it’s the McChicken®.
The prices at McDonald’s® have gotten silly. Whereas there used to be enough value in a Big Mac™ to make one of them (occasionally) worth it, it’s just not the case nowadays. I didn’t spend too much time pondering the price on any of the burgers, since I could get nearly a pound of steak for the price of the average burger-fries-drink combos. But again, for me, it’s the McChicken™.
What a fun, cool, happening place, if you can get 3-for-free!
The result? I’ve noticed that the lines are much shorter at the local fast-food restaurants, even at peak hours. One of the regional chains hasn’t raised their prices, since all of their restaurants are just scattered around Upper Lower Midwestia and they don’t have to worry about the price of a Quarter Pounder™ in Manhattan. Their lines are the longest in town, so I follow Yogi Berra’s advice, “Nobody goes there anymore, that place is too crowded.”
Since COVID, my favorite local restaurant has closed. It was a bona fide restaurant, great service, great food. Supply chain issues coupled with labor oddities and lower business slowly torpedoed them. They liquidated before they lost a lot of money – they saw what was coming and wanted to go out on their terms.
I’ve been told that McDonald’s™ was sued once for bugs in their food. They won the case – no one on the jury believed they used any natural ingredients.
And our world got a little bit smaller, so we now have dinner somewhere else. It’s cheaper, but I notice that both of the places that we normally go aren’t very busy anymore. And the waitresses that work there aren’t changing jobs anymore – the good ones are keeping their jobs now. Something tells me they’re a little harder to get now.
So, if you’re counting restaurants and the people who work there (and those that used to own them) Modern Mayberry definitely has fewer restaurants. The revenue in the town might be the same, but there are (my guess) 20% fewer customers.
This is the invisible recession.
I always carry some McDonald’s® fries when I walk the dogs in winter. Fries go great with chilly dogs.
I suspect this is going on everywhere. Wages are certainly not keeping up with daily expenses, and those who are less fortunate haven’t had raises that have kept up with inflation. And why should employers pay more? In a recent month, a net 1.2 million jobs were “created” but 600,000 Americans lost their jobs. They were replaced by immigrants (illegal or legal).
Thankfully, corporate profits were saved!
It’s better than when he ran the farm using Artificial Intelligence and had to reboot it all before the power outage – AI, AI, Oh.
Interest rates are up, and I expect they will continue to go up because there is no semblance of any fiscal adulthood in Washington, D.C. on either side of the ball. The Democrat mantra of “spend more” is always followed by the Republican response of, “Well, okay, but not quite that much” as the dance of the destruction of the currency continues.
I hope I’m wrong, but this is based on the bet that politicians will continue to be weak and craven, and that 2024 is an election year. What do politicians like during an election year? A good economy with low inflation. Failing that, politicians like distractions and spreading money out like AOC on a Saturday night. If you can’t make a good economy, fake one.
More money floating around means . . . more inflation. But if wages aren’t going up because there’s a massive influx of illegals?
Just more misery, especially for those at the lower end of the pay scale. All of the typical Leftist voting blocks will be rewarded, of course. The standard Leftie professor at the average Leftie college (but I mostly repeat myself) will get raises because the Left takes care of itself and funds itself. The Left believes in the state and uses it as a propaganda and funding arm. Why do drama programs get special federal funds?
Because they vote Left.
I guess the finale was shot before a live audience.
Bill Clinton thought Hillary would be a good president: “There’s no chance she’ll blow it.”
Alexander the Great is said to have solved the riddle of the Gordian Knot in 333 B.C. Whoever solved the Knot, the legend said, would rule all of Asia. Alexander took one look at the large and complex knot, pulled out his sword and cut right through it. I think Alexander was certain that he’d be successful and that no one would challenge his solution since he had, you know, an army with him. I guess you could say he was so confident that he was knot sure.
One of the things that I’ve seen fairly consistently in my life is that, like Alexander, I generally know the answer right when I see the problem. Some of them, like calculus problems, it took a lot of work to get the answer, admittedly, but there was no place when I said, “Well, if only the Federal government had a Federal Bureau of Solving Calculus problems, I’d be set.” No. I knew the only answer was for me to sit down and hack through that calculus problem until I had it solved.
Most problems in life are just that simple. Too hot in the living room? Get a fan. Turn the air conditioning down. Experiment to see how many cold beers it takes to make me feel cold. But I never think to act on that until I’m uncomfortable. When I’m slightly warm, I don’t go running for the fan, I just deal with it. But when I start to sweat?
Time to take action.
What does a hipster say to create peer pressure? “C’mon, man, no one is doing it!”
I think most people are like this, not just me. Sure, there are things I do when I anticipate a problem coming down the road to save myself the trouble. But like that room temperature slowly rising, at some point I look at the situation and note, “This must be dealt with.” But I always knew the solution.
The solution itself isn’t the issue. Most solutions are mind-numbingly clear. The level of frustration or fear or whatever motivating me just has to be high enough that I’m willing to take the action necessary to solve the problem. To be clear, I also have to believe that my action might work – if I think the air conditioner is broken, for instance, I won’t bother to go over to turn it on and will stick with the whole “drink a lot of really cold beer” idea.
The above paragraph contains all three of dead economist Ludwig Von Mises’ causes of Human Action. Von Mises said for anyone to take conscious action, for any action three things needed to be present:
A Vision of a Better State
A Path to That Better State
Belief That Following the Path Will Take Us to That Better State.
While I’m focusing on today is when we already know what we want, I’ll just noted that it doesn’t have to come in that order.
It turns out my chemistry teacher was right – alcohol is a solution.
On a personal level, I have to be uncomfortable enough from where I am and where I could be to initiate action. The Vision has to be sufficiently far from where I am for me to care. But, again, I generally know the solution, it just requires enough discomfort to create action. If my air conditioner isn’t working in December, that’s not a big deal. If it has failed in July, that’s where I’m willing to pay extra to see the repair folks show up on a Sunday afternoon because the liquor stores are closed then.
Other examples – I don’t paint my house when it’s a little faded, I might need to see some bare spots. I wait until the trashcan is maybe slightly more than full to take it out. But in each case the action isn’t in question. I always know the solution. It’s not a mystery.
It’s similar as a society. In a society, we all have the ability to act as individuals, but there is some minimum number of people that are required to take action. One group, the 3%ers, took their name from the idea that only 3% of the American Colonial population fought and won against the British. I’m not sure that 3% is correct; that’s irrelevant to the post.
Why did the chicken cross the playground? To get to the other slide.
Certainly, that’s a minimization, because if there hadn’t been broad support for the American Revolution anyway, it wouldn’t have happened. Rather, I am certain that group of fighters represented the symptom of a greater dissatisfaction.
Everyone on the side of the Revolution knew what had to be done. If you take a few minutes to re-read the Declaration of Independence, it certainly spells out the vision, and also spells out the reasons why it was important to take the action.
Of the signers, at least John Hancock had belief that the actions would work, since he signed his name so boldly and largely. And John Hancock never told a knock-knock joke. Why? Freedom rings, baby.
For each of the societal ills we see, the solution isn’t complex, it’s simple. We just haven’t had the guts to implement it. If mobs are ruling the streets of San Francisco or Chicago or Malmo, the solution isn’t to study the problem with a commission. The solution is to make crime much more uncomfortable than the reward for committing the crime.
I’m glad Godzilla® wasn’t Korean. That would have been Seoul destroying.
That solution to stopping crime will involve dead criminals. Oddly, it takes less to keep criminals in line than to stop criminality, but the solution almost always involves Rooftop Koreans and bar owners with very short shotguns and prosecutors that don’t prosecute good and honest people stopping crime.
If the problem is illegals flooding the southern border, the only actual solution is to make living in the United States a living hell for illegals. I assure you, if sufficient pressure was applied, the illegals would deport themselves in weeks.
Have an anchor baby? Fine. It goes into an orphanage or with foster parents. Illegals have to leave. Something tells me the parents will pack up the kids as they head out.
Brought here as a young child and the United States is the only country they’ve ever known? Not my problem. They have to go back.
Drugs? Simple solution. I’ll leave that one to you.
Illegitimate kids? Remove spousal support and child support and welfare. Illegitimate kids will cease in a year and the baby-daddy with 20 different baby-mommas will disappear while those baby-mommas cease to have sex randomly. Or, if they do? They have to suffer the consequences.
What about the kids? Yeah, heard it. Don’t care. It’s that sort of forced compassion that destroys nations, turns them into countries, and eventually leads to Balkanization.
I fell into the reupholstery machine at the furniture factory. I’m completely recovered now.
I’m right and every person reading this knows it.
The wonderful part is that these solutions will take place. Sadly, because the room is getting warmer, these solutions will take place only when the discomfort is so high that it will be unpleasant for all concerned.
And then, once again, the Gordian Knot will be solved.
“I can’t hear you. I’m too busy hitting buttons randomly.” – Phineas and Ferb
At dinner sometimes I pretend to gag. My kids know it’s just another dad choke.
There’s a time for odds and ends, and Friday is as good as any since a lot of them are on the health side. These are sort-of random, and are around a central theme of experiments that I do to myself and some of the results. I’m not going repeat the one where I replaced my arms with animal limbs – that idea still makes me mad enough to rip up a car with my bear hands.
First: Humans have been taking drugs for at least 12,000 years. I have written (and stand by the idea) (Beer, Technology, Beer, Tide Pods, Beer, Civilizational Stability, and Beer – Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise (wilderwealthywise.com)) that the reason that civilization was formed was so we could have beer. If you look at the artifacts found at Göbekli Tepe you’d find that one of them is a stone trough perfect for making beer, with residue from making beer. People have also been ingesting or smoking various things for millennia from coffee to mushrooms to the Devil’s Lettuce. Humans are drug using – it changes our mood.
I was listening to Scott Adams while flitting about this week and he led off with an interesting comment. “Music is a drug,” because it alters our moods. I was working the other day with earbuds in and found myself really happy. Why? Music. It put me in a great mood and I was amazingly productive.
I watched a LOT of horror movies on dates when I was in high school. I guess you could chalk that up to Pavlov’s libido.
I have made this point many times: be careful what you let into your head. It can act like a drug, and the wrong drug at the wrong time can be fatal. Choose wisely, and avoid things that make you feel despair.
Second: YouTube® recommended an 8-hour dreaming track that they promised would allow me to have lucid dreams. For those not aware, lucid dreaming is where you’re dreaming, but you’re fully conscious. It’s an odd state – it’s not like being hypnogogic, where you’re in that twilight zone between being awake and being asleep. Nope, you’re dreaming but you’re fully conscious.
My boss said I was on the Dream Team! He also asked me to stop sleeping at work.
Sounds like something good, right?
The first night I tried it, The Mrs. reacted very negatively. “What on Earth were you playing last night? It gave me awful dreams.” I persisted for a few weeks. Normally, I go to sleep quite easily, and just like Epstein’s prison guards, I can sleep through almost anything. I still found it easy to go to sleep with the “music” but my dream quality really changed over several weeks. My dreams became incredibly dull. Imagine dreaming about being at work. On a normal workday. Doing normal work.
Aaaargh! I love dreaming when I’m a pirate, or hanging out with Tom Cruise having adventures or being asked by ZZ Top® to play bass at a concert because they were desperate. Those are good dreams. But being at work doing normal day-to-day crap?
It was awful. And I was conscious during the work dreams. Sometimes I’d end them, but end up going right back to work. In my dreams.
That was bad enough, but the final straw that ended this experiment for me was that I would wake up at 4am and I couldn’t go back to sleep. I’d be there hours, awake in bed. Or so I thought. In reality, I was dreaming that I was trying to get to sleep, but I was fully conscious. I figured this out one morning when my alarm went off during a dream about trying to get to sleep.
That was weird.
I cannot recommend this sort of “music”, unless you want to relive a boring day at the office without being paid for it.
After I stopped, within a week my old sleep patterns returned.
Third: I was the victim of a plagiarist this week. Oh, sure, I’ve actually seen that someone tried to make .pdfs of my posts and (maybe?) sell them a few years ago, but that isn’t what I’m talking about – I’m talking about someone taking one of my posts and re-writing it, beat for beat, even using the same analogies.
I’m still mad at the guy who did it.
Surprise: It was me.
Sometimes I take notes (I used to use notecards, but don’t have the same set up, so don’t anymore) for posts. Other times? Walking around, or snoozing, and a post idea hits me. I’ll often work it out in my head, and then write it out.
Plagiarist? Their words, not mine.
I did the latter in this case. Then I saw an old post of mine getting traffic with a really similar name after I posted the piece I had just finished. I clicked on it, and it was amazingly similar – the algorithm that suggests posts based on the post I have up suggested it. That post was also four years older, so I guess my main defense was that I’d written somewhere north of 600 posts (nearly 750,000 words) and slept over 1300 times (1260 if you discount the lucid dreaming nights) since then.
Fourth: I’m really enjoying doing the podcast. This isn’t a commercial or anything, since if only one or two people listened I think we’d still be doing it because it’s fun. It’s a livestream now, but I think it’s pretty tightly produced, so we don’t end up with a lot of the awkwardness you’d expect with an amateur like Shawn Hannity. Nope, we’re professionals. Also, I’m thinking this makes us journalists. For legal reasons. You can watch it here (LINK).
I bring it up because a) I can prove The Mrs. actually exists, and b) it’s something we have a lot of fun doing, and it’s creative and we mostly have our clothes on when we do it. As far as you know.
Fifth: I used to hang out with The Mrs. at lunch, but since her schedule changed, I don’t. Instead, I’ve packed off my laptop and tried to be productive wherever I am during lunch, and it saves mileage and I just don’t eat, so that’s a bonus, too. I’m writing this at lunch, and I’ve been pretty pleased with the results so far since I tend to do the first drafts and then when I get home later I do the research and edits and add the (bad) jokes.
Actual German joke: “Why are there so few crimes in Germany? Because it’s illegal.”
It may not sound like a big change, but it shaves hours off of my writing time, and those are hours that I can sleep instead rather than building up a big sleep debt and paying it off on the weekend. Plus, I’m fasting at lunch. In reality, when I went home I’d eat, but I find I don’t miss it at all.
I also think I might get a better overall quality since I’m writing during my most productive time, and editing and cracking jokes at my sillier times. We’ll see.
“Yes, sir! That’s exactly who I am and what I am, sir. A victim, sir!” – A Clockwork Orange
What’s black and white and red all over? A victim of an industrial accident at a newspaper printing press. (All memes today are as-found)
The inversion of virtues: I’ve written on this topic recently, but decided I needed to have another go at it. Part of the blogging theme is that my posts are limited in space. No one wants to read a 10,000-word post on PEZ™ on Friday morning as they drink their coffee.
Virtues make a civilization worth living in. I’d rather live in a poor civilization with great values than a rich one with poor values, and both of those sound better than what we’ve got going on now. And I’d suggest that our current free-fall is due to that loss of virtue.
What were Epstein’s last words before he committed suicide? “You don’t have to do this! I promise I won’t talk!”
Let’s compare values at the peak of Roman Civilization, the peak of Western Civilization, and what the Left is shoving down our throats right now. For instance:
Rome: Worshiped gods.
The West: Worshiped God.
The Left: Worship man (atheism) or the State.
See? Inversion. Who did the cultures idolize?
Rome: Worshiped heroes.
The West: Worshiped heroes and Saints.
The Left: Worship victims.
See, that’s not hard, and yet more inversion. What about sin?
Rome: Sin of hubris.
The West: Sin of pride.
The Left: Sin of privilege.
I’ll just quit making inversion comments, because this is a slam dunk. Who are the spiritual leaders?
Rome:
The West:
The Left: Professors, Leftie politicians.
Ideals?
Rome: Ideal was glory, excellence (Areté).
The West: Ideal was holiness, modesty, courage.
The Left: Social Justice, victimhood.
Ideal social class?
Rome: Warriors and those who served their fellow men.
The West: The middle class.
The Left: The lower class, victims, victims, victims.
Even a virtue, charity, has been turned from a voluntary act that provides spiritual growth in the terms of the classic West, to taxation to provide forced “charity” to the (often) undeserving.
I’m thinking I don’t want to know how my tax dollars are spent because I’m afraid all mine went to buy crack pipes in San Francisco.
This inversion bleeds over into all of society. “Drag Queen Story Hour”?
Wonder why they don’t read to old folks in nursing homes, or to the blind? Whenever I hear about that, my mind sees:
And then there are questions that are more difficult to answer:
Inversion, of course, shows up in the obvious things:
Jazz Jennings is a transgender person who feels no need to change with no sense of irony:
And their goal is that you will live and produce and that you should be okay with not being meaningful or having any joy, so live in the pod, and eat the bugs, wagie.
And we now have a Marine Corps who worries about people’s feelings. Perhaps they’ll land with Nerf™ guns so that they won’t have their feelings hurt.
But the pushback is well underway. Or overweigh:
But there’s a catch:
And I think this has broken the Left, mentally:
And the internal contradictions in their “victimhood” matrix are starting to show:
Canada has shown that it certainly can’t be trusted with the power of life and death:
The inversion has hit, but people (and maybe Higher Powers) are pushing back. And, I think we will win. Why? Because we’re so very pretty. And? PEZ®.
“Crazy people can be very persuasive.” – The X-Files
Do werewolves live in warehouses?
I’ve enjoyed Scott Adams for years – the first time I saw his strips were on office photocopypasta in the 1990s where his brand of humor really hit home with folks at the place I was working. So, he’s an awesome cartoonist, and very funny. We’d say things like, “Dilbert’s just like me!” but then realize that we were in color and three dimensional.
Adams also picked Trump as a walk-in winner in 2016 way ahead of the crowd, but was dead wrong on the ‘Rona and the Vaxx®, so he’s not an oracle or a cult leader. But he does have interesting thoughts and I like reading him, and his podcast, while not good as mine, seems to have attracted a slightly larger audience.
So, when he tossed these Tweets® (or are they Xeets™ now??) up I thought I’d share them. Here are the rest:
I’ll admit, I’ve been fascinated by UFOs (the old name before they got fancy and started calling them UAPs) since I was a kid. I’ve been following the unfolding story since the “Tic-Tac®” videos came out in 2017 because any version of an answer for what was observed was interesting. Either the United States had amazing tech beyond anything, .gov is faking it, or it was something that fell into that big bucket of “aliens and demons and interdimensional beings – oh, my!”
Scott presents the idea that this subject is being brought up at the very moment that lots (and I mean a record number) of other things are brewing in the news:
We live in a nation at the brink of civil conflict,
White House Resident Joe Biden is facing a presidential scandal, with amazing evidence, that is the biggest since Watergate,
We might be seeing a soft coup against Biden right now as the Left wants to jettison him for someone else,
Prices for luxuries like food have jumped, and are set to jump again as the Ukraine Conflict enters day 5,000, and
Payments for interest on the national debt are starting to be higher than Johnny Depp.
What’s the difference between Hunter Biden and his prostitutes? His prostitutes probably pay at least some taxes.
Is there something to distract us from? Yup.
Everything.
Why? Because that list above isn’t even close to being complete.
This is the danger. Scott describes it as a secret war, but I’m not sure that there are even two sides, since the FBI, CIA, and most other (but not all) organizations are tied back to supporting the Left.
I bought my ex a big diamond ring. She said, “Thanks, but we really need a new car.” Me: “But they don’t sell fake cars.”
So, is all this fake, the biggest and fakest thing ever?
I don’t know. It would make sense that it was. The Soviets Russians seem to have their “it’s all a lie” face on and China’s doing, well, whatever it is that China does when no one’s watching. Maybe hate-eating a box of Twinkies®?
And as we see all of the shiny, sparkly news going on, keep in mind the important things – your faith, your family, and your friends. There’s a lot of news that we get that we simply cannot do anything with, that for many of us is nothing more than a signal of what’s going on in the greater world.
We need to come together, find like-minded folks who share your values, and be ready for the changes that are coming in the world, because if they’re using aliens to distract us, well, they must be very scared indeed.
I’m glad that Hillary didn’t win, because then so many people would have moved to Benghazi, because at least there she’d leave them alone.
Don’t let it make you fret, and certainly don’t let it control your mood.
Because Scott is right from the standpoint that we have to keep living our lives, yet keep an eye out for the real story.
So enjoy that kitten while you can – they grow up so fast.
“The Moon Unit will be divided into two divisions: Moon Unit Alpha and Moon Unit Zappa.” – Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
There’s always that one kid who won’t smile in the team picture.
(Repost from 2019)
I was at a garage sale the other day when I came across a small leather-bound journal in a box filled with Tupperware®. Embossed on the worn cover was a now faded and flecked NASA logo that had once been a solid, shiny gold. In the lower right-hand corner I noticed, so faded they were barely visible, two initials: N.A. I flipped through and saw page after page of journal entries in what I assumed to be Neil Armstrong’s printed writing. I quickly paid the $2.50 price on the orange sticker on the book.
Here are the journal entries:
7/14/69, 21:00:00 GMT
Countdown begins. I will admit to being a bit excited. A rocket launch is never a routine event. They’ve kept us busy though, re-practicing procedures, re-reviewing maps of the Sea of Tranquility, and, for Buzz Aldrin, eating meals consisting entirely of re-fried beans. He says it’s for luck. Michael Collins continues to be . . . Michael Collins. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him smile. Or blink.
7/16/69, 07:22:15 GMT
Last shower, shave and breakfast. Collins doesn’t eat anything, stares blankly ahead – I guess that’s the way he deals with stress. Buzz had 16 cups of coffee – I counted them – and about thirty eggs. “For luck.”
Fun fact: your car insurance may cover you if you’ve got a rental, but generally not if you leave the United States.
7/16/69, 13:00:00 GMT
Ignition of the main engines, then 17 long seconds later, liftoff as the Saturn V slowly moves past the tower. The first stage burns for three minutes, total, and then stage two kicks in after a brief lull, and burns for nearly six minutes. Two minutes later, we’re in orbit. All of this is exactly as planned, exactly as written down in the procedures. Eleven minutes for Apollo 11 to enter orbit. That’s got to be a good omen.
For the first time in the mission, we’ve got some time to kill. I can’t stop smiling. Collins continues to stare directly ahead. “Mike, are you doing okay?”
He slowly turned his head towards me: “All of my systems are operating at nominal levels.” He then turned his head back towards the controls.
Does he blink? I’m interrupted by groaning coming from Buzz.
“Oh, man, I’m hurting. I didn’t think about the pressure differential.” He’s holding his stomach.
The pressure inside the Apollo Command Module, Columbia, is only 5psi, or the pressure at the top of Mount Everest. At sea level on Earth, the pressure is 15psi, or three times as much. We don’t pass out, because the atmosphere is 100% oxygen.
Apparently the food that Buzz ate is causing him discomfort. A minute later, Buzz sighs.
It smells horrible. I said, “Oh, Buzz, how could you?” My eyes are watering. Eggs and beans. The smell is nearly incapacitating.
Even Collins jumped in, “My nasal sensors detect a significant increase in organic gasses in the atmosphere.”
Collins was rechargeable, thankfully.
Mission Control: “Apollo, are you alright up there? We have just monitored a significant increase in methane in the cabin? If this keeps up, your atmosphere will become explosive. Do you have a situation?”
Buzz sighs again.
7/16/69, 16:16:16 GMT
Translunar injection burn started – that’s the boost that gets us to the Moon. Six minutes later, we’re on the way. Thankfully Buzz’s extravehicular emissions end about an hour later and the atmospheric scrubbers manage to keep the atmosphere safe until Buzz is finished.
7/16/69, 16:56:03 GMT
While we’re on the way, it’s time to dock with the Lunar Module. It’s in that last stage that boosted us to the Moon. Buzz then gets an idea.
“Hey, let’s change the name of the Lunar Module from Eagle to something else. How about we name it something funny, like Soviets Suck?”
I’m against this. “Buzz . . . we can’t do that. NASA already has the t-shirts printed.”
Buzz continues, “Okay, let’s vote on it. All in favor?” Only Buzz raised his hand.
Collins added, still staring straight ahead: “This violates mission parameters.”
The long distance rates shut that particular business down.
We can hear his side of the conversation: “What are you going to do, send NASA police up here and put me in NASA jail? Ha!”
It’s about this point that Buzz starts to try to read over my shoulder as I write in this journal. He pretends he’s not looking when I catch him.
7/19/69, 17:27:47 GMT
Lunar orbit. We’ll spend about a day here while we get ready to go down to the Moon. I’m starting to get a little irritated with Aldrin. First, there’s the humming. He won’t stop humming the theme to the Wild, Wild West®. Then, there’s his ear hair. Doesn’t he know that it’s there? It’s this one, long, 2 inch hair coming out of his ear.
If that wasn’t bad enough, I swear I hear a faint whirring, as if from small electric motors and gears from Collins during sleep period. Maybe it’s the space ship. I hope it’s the space ship.
7/20/69, 17:44:00 GMT
Lunar Module undocked. When we said goodbye to Collins, Buzz made a joke, “Hey, don’t go out joyriding while we’re gone!” Collins said, “No. I will be in rest mode while you are gone to conserve supplies.” Come to think of it, I haven’t seen Michael eat during the trip so far.
7/20/69, 20:17:39 GMT
The Soviets Suck Eagle has landed! This is the first gravity we’ve had in days. Aldrin immediately takes the opportunity to, umm, do things that are easier in gravity. The Lunar Module doesn’t have a vent fan, but we will dump the atmosphere when it’s time for our EVA. Which can’t come soon enough.
7/21/69, 02:56:15 GMT
First step on the Moon! On one hand, it’s pretty exciting. On the other, the responsibility is pretty big. Buzz follows behind me after about twenty minutes. He’s sulking – we rock-paper-scissored for the chance to go first, and he lost. He always, and I mean always throws rock. Speaking of which, it’s time to collect a few.
Heck, we can’t even do it since we’ve started using the metric system a little.
7/21/69, 05:11:13 GMT
The walk on the Moon is complete. We’re supposed to sleep, but we’re on the Moon. Buzz tries to tell spooky stories, but I’ve heard the one about the hook on the spaceship door before. He tries to make it scarier by thumping on the wall of the Soviets Suck Eagle. I remind him that even though the wall is supposed to be tougher than a steel beer can, we left the duct tape on Columbia.
Thankfully we were AAA members.
We’re supposed to sleep. Aldrin is laying down on the floor, and I’m propped up on the ascent engine cover. Not really sleeping, neither is Buzz. Finally Buzz stops humming the Wild Wild West® theme, only to start humming “In the Year 2525.” This is not much better.
This was the number one song as Apollo 11 lifted off. Even the Moon wasn’t far enough away to escape it.
“Neil, we need women astronauts.”
“Why, Buzz?”
“Those sandwiches aren’t going to make themselves.”
He’s not done.
“The next time I dump a girl, I know what I’m gonna say.”
“What, Buzz?”
“I need more space.”
Neither of us sleep at all that night, though I do come to the conclusion that there is no jurisdiction that I could be convicted in if I were to kill Buzz.
Yeah, I know. I’m mad, too.
7/21/69, 17:54:00 GMT
Liftoff from the Moon! Heading home.
“No, you’re upside down.”
7/21/69, 21:35:00 GMT
We’ve docked with the Columbia. As we open the hatch we see that Michael Collins is in the same exact position that he was when we left. It was as if he’d never moved.
“Welcome back, fellow humans. Was your excursion enjoyable?”
Buzz responded, “It was like any spacewalk, Collins. No pressure. Get it? No pressure!”
Collins stared blankly and then said, “I am not programmed to respond in that area.”
Getting back into the Columbia was pretty rough. It smelled like swamp and wet dog, and that was after Buzz had already been gone a day. Ugh. Why did Aldrin choose so many space tacos and burritos for dinner?
7/22/69, 04:55:42 GMT
We fire our engine to return to Earth. Two and a half days to home. Did Aldrin really order refried beans with every meal?
If I my rice is too dry, do I put it in a bag of cellphones?
7/24/69, 16:50:35 GMT
Splashdown. I never thought that smelling air would be so wonderful. I couldn’t wait to open the hatch to the Columbia. A deep breath with 100% less Aldrin.
7/24/69, 19:58:00 GMT
In quarantine – Collins, Aldrin and I are stuck here so we don’t start an epidemic of space pox. I can certainly understand why we would want to quarantine aliens so they didn’t bring in epidemics of disease.
There was a two-drink minimum.
8/10/69, 20:00:00 GMT
Release from quarantine. I’m outta here. Maybe I shouldn’t share this journal, after all. Perhaps it’s best if history remembers the official story . . . .
100% heroes.
Okay, yes, this was parody, or at least that’s what my law firm, Dewy, Cheatum and Howe suggests I say. Outside of my supposition that Michael Collins is really a robot, none of this is true. The Apollo astronauts represented the best of us in our nation at the time, men able to go into space, yet with enough humility to understand that their achievement was made possible by 400,000 other Americans working together to design everything from their underwear to the F-1 engines of the Saturn V to the food that they’d eat during the three weeks they spent in quarantine after returning to Earth.
An aside, they really did have problems with bad smells and space gas. NASA even calculated to see if the gas would build up enough methane to cause the ship to explode.
“Yeah, yeah, it came in the shape of a bottle? We’re from the Kingsman tailor shop in London. Maybe you’ve heard of us.” – Kingsman, The Golden Circle
During COVID they said I needed to wear a mask and gloves to go shopping. They lied. Apparently I needed clothes, too.
There was a time in my life when I had to make a choice. It was a dark time for me. Let me give some background. Please, everyone pretend that there’s a swirling motion and fuzzy stuff as we go back in time . . . to a land before cell phones and Google®.
In my first semester at college, I did pretty well. I studied for a few hours and got a 3.4 at a college that had the reputation as being the toughest one in the state. Life was good. I believe that I spent more time with Coors Light™ that semester than I spent studying calc, physics, or chemistry.
My second semester wasn’t the same.
In my first three tests (within the first two weeks of the semester) I got three Fs. These were the first three Fs I had ever gotten in my life on tests.
Ever.
They asked me to describe failure in two words. I replied, “I can’t.”
They weren’t horrible Fs, but the percentages were all in the 50s, except for physics 2 which was in the 40s. To be fair, the average score for the physics 2 test for all students was in the 50s – physics 2 was a designated “weed out” course.
Right before spring break, I had midterms. I didn’t know the scores that I had gotten on the next tests, but spring break was not fun. I had a full ride scholarship, and it required that I keep my grades above a certain GPA for both semester and cumulative to keep the scholarship.
Yikes. Do you mean there are consequences for my actions?
For the first time in my life, I was looking real failure in the face. It was the long, dark, Kobayashi Maru of the soul.
I got 8 out of 10 on my driver’s test. Two jumped out of the way.
I sat on the hood of my car at the end of spring break for a few hours at an Interstate rest stop under the gentle spring Sun, still hours away from the school. I figured I had two options:
Go back to school and tough it out. Nine more weeks of hell, and no promise that I’d do any better than I had done in the first nine, but if I did, it would mean studying harder than I ever had studied anything, except those times I studied the rare illicit Playboy® that came into my hands.
Drive north. It was before there was much of a border, and I could just drive into Canada, get a knit hat. I already knew the language, I could say “aboot” and “take off, eh” as well as anyone. I had a Visa® with a $500 limit, and a car that was owned free and clear, I had half a can of Copenhagen®, and I was wearing sunglasses. I could drive to Saskatchewan and become a lumberjack. Yes, this was my backup plan, even though I’m not sure Saskatchewan even has trees.
After a long time thinking, I . . .
There are several strategies in life, just like there are several strategies in a supermarket. Oh, sure, I could shop like everyone normally does here in Modern Mayberry and cover my nipples in yogurt while I’m in the dairy aisle (because nipple yogurt is free here), but I’m not talking about the shopping part, I’m talking about checking out.
The first option is to pick a line and stick with it, even if the lady in front of me has 43,238 coupons and price matches every item on the sale flyer from the competing grocery store and ends up getting $983,365.55 worth of groceries for $1.98 plus a raincheck for sour cream. For the nipples, you know, if you’re allergic to the yogurt.
What’s the most important culture in the world? Agriculture.
Okay, that’s not a great option, because every other line in the grocery store will cycle 43 times while the lady does one checkout and the clerk silently fantasizes about going home for a few gallons of gin.
Option 2 is a different one. In this one, I could flit from line to line like a politician being:
against gay marriage during election season
to being for gay marriage in special circumstances when election is comfortably far away
to being silent before election season
to sponsoring mandatory hormone treatment for toddlers because toddlers can’t consent to choosing their gender.
Yeah. While that might get a politician lots of money and votes, it just gets me moving from a stopped line to a moving line that stops as soon as I get in it and I don’t even get appointed as an ambassador to the Swedish Bikini Team.
I sold my Swiss watches to a friend in Mexico. Adios, Omegas!
Option 3, however, is probably the sanest one. Look around for the best line. If the coupon lady gets in, or there’s a price check, or the clerk is obviously on some sort of depressant medication because they’re not at home drinking a few gallons of gin, move to the next best line.
In my career, I jumped lines a couple of times. My first job was into an industry that was in the middle of a slump in the region I lived. So, I jumped. In this case, I jumped to an entirely different industry, and had a pretty good career. When that industry slumped, I jumped again, and then jumped back.
All of the jobs were basically related, except if you looked at them from the inside – they were all different. The combination of those experiences led me to a career that turned out to be a pretty good one, though there is the possibility that if I had jumped one fewer time, it would have been even more lucrative.
Or not. I might have ended up as a clerk who was missing their evening gin. I’m not going to worry that I might have done better if I had or hadn’t jumped a line, because life is far too short for that type of regret.
Also?
I’m going to try to not let the choices I’ve made in the past make me too timid. As many of the readers here, there are likely more years behind me than ahead, and it’s far too early to stop trying to kick a dent in the Universe, which in itself requires risk. I may win, I may lose, but I’m still in the game.
Looking back, I’m fairly happy with the progression that developed from my choices. And it’s because I stayed in line at the first opportunity to jump: college.
I made a paper airplane that wouldn’t move. I guess the problem was that I used stationary.
Back to that Interstate rest stop, far away in time and space . . . . (imagine the swirly thing again)
After a long time thinking sitting on the hood of my car on that warm spring day so many days ago, I decided that I could pack up my stuff and go up to Saskatchewan any time to be a lumberjack, even at the end of the semester if things didn’t work out. I could also take the time to learn if there were trees there or if I would have to fight the beavers for maple syrup so I could be strong when the wolves come.
But I only had one shot to try to see if I could dig myself out of the hole that I had made for myself.
I did. I got two Cs and a D – the best-looking D (and still the only D) that I’ve ever had in my life. My scholarship was safe. The semester after that one was okay, and then every semester after that I got great grades. I had learned that I could come back from failure, and though I changed lines later a time or two, I decided to see if this line would move for me because I was only risking failure, and only risking nine more weeks of my life. The line moved.
In life, pick your line. Move when you need to. And realize that the choice is yours.
