By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com
There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.
– C. S. Lewis (1942), “The Screwtape Letters: Letters from a Senior to a Junior Devil”, p.8, HarperCollins UK, 2009
While having breakfast with a friend the other day, they commented on an article they had recently read online. The article was about the discouragement of free speech at Ivy League colleges, and Harvard in particular. I told them I saw the headline but never read the actual findings. In any event, I said I wasn’t surprised… but what did surprise me was that the article showed up on their particular newsfeed; and, for them, I would have expected the online algorithmic process to have distilled the findings into another headline such as: “Harvard Leads Ivy League in Prohibiting Hate Speech”.
The person with whom I was speaking was non-political. They are mainstream America. So, given my understanding of the Orwellian Media, I was surprised to learn that an article about free speech, and critical of Harvard University, would show up on their Smartphone. Unless, of course, something else was at play politically regarding the widely disseminated “information”?
After my conversation with that person, I found myself recalling another discussion I had with a more politically liberal acquaintance the week prior. I worked with this person years ago and, upon seeing them again, we conversed in the parking lot of a local business. She is in her mid-sixties and she sheds a sort of hippie-commune vibe. On that day we ran into each other she was wearing denim overalls, her hair was tied in a ponytail, and she asked if a mutual friend of ours still wore his red MAGA hat now that Trump is in so much legal trouble.
When I asked her about Hunter Biden’s laptop she said that his dealings had nothing to do with Joe Biden. When I mentioned Hunter’s peddling of foreign influence that financially benefited the “Big Guy” and others in the Biden family, she said she knew nothing about that. So I inquired as to her news sources and she told me PBS (Public Broadcasting System) and NPR (National Public Radio).
From that point, our exchange proceeded exactly as follows:
She: “Don’t you like Biden?”
Me (not wanting to go deep): “He’s a buffoon.”
She: “Oh, really? I don’t think so at all. Have you heard about the progress he’s made with the relations between Japan and South Korea…..?”
Me (interrupting her while still not wanting to go deep): “The exit from Afghanistan was embarrassingly pathetic.”
She: “That was Trump’s fault!”
Me (still not wanting to go deep): “Trump wasn’t president when that happened! And now we’re sending billions to Ukraine.”
She: “For a good cause! I would rather we spend that money and stand up to a dictator!”
Me (still not wanting to go deep while being overly simplistic and inaccurate on purpose): “Biden bared his ass and showed weakness by abandoning Americans in Afghanistan which encouraged Putin to invade Ukraine.”
She looked at me blankly and had no more words. After a short pause, I said with a smile: “Hey, have you ever known anyone to change their mind?” Then, as her eyebrows rose above her eyeglasses and she started to nod her head and respond in the affirmative, I told her I really had to get going and lied that it was good to see her.
Ironically, sometimes the best way to deflect someone’s ignorance is by emphasizing another angle of their same ignorance.
Even so, deflecting isn’t winning, per se, and I wondered if PBS and NPR covered the prohibition of free speech at Harvard.
And speaking of Harvard…
Earlier this year, pursuant to one of my offspring’s series of amazing accomplishments, I was invited to attend an international ceremony of recognition to be held in a metropolis located on the U.S. eastern coast. Although the banquet and ceremony were not taking place at Harvard University, our trip included a visit to that campus. It was my first time there and, in spite of its formidable history and tradition, Harvard just seemed like another urban college to me.
While there, on an outdoor kiosk ironically positioned to the left of the Harry Elkins Widener Memorial Library, I saw a sticker posted that was an open invitation to join the campus Communist Party. In turn, I speculated on the accuracy of Harvard’s history courses.
In my previous articles “The Abolition of Man Amid the Consequences of Reality” and “The Metaphysics Underlying The Sunset of the West”, the predictions of the twentieth-century philosophers C.S. Lewis and Augusto De Noce, respectively, were addressed. Like their twentieth-century peers George Orwell and Aldous Huxley, Lewis and Del Noce correspondingly warned of the rise of a scientific elite that would seek to replace historical human values with a new morality; or, in other words, those who had ceased being human would establish a technocracy through scientific materialism, political power, and relativism.
In Del Noce’s book “The Crisis of Modernity” he twice referenced radical socialist Friedrich Engels’ Marxist maxim: “Everything that exists deserves to die.” And, by any standard… socially, culturally, spiritually, and economically, another revolution is underway – except this one has high-tech teeth.
The devils may not be recognized by most people as such, but the evidence of their handiwork has permeated Western Civilization to the point of lies coming true and history being rewritten.
The wisdom of Travis McGee…
Before I began to head east, I decided NOT to occupy most of my time on the plane, during layovers, or at the hotel, by staring at my Smartphone.
Instead, I would indulge in the antiquated paperback pleasure of pulp fiction…. and not just any sort pulp fiction would suffice. To mentally escape the New Normal® as I became physically immersed into it more than usual, I chose to re-read some enjoyable novels written decades before: John D. MacDonald’s “Travis McGee” series.
MacDonald was perhaps most famous for his 1967 book “The Executioners” which was later made into two separate films entitled “Cape Fear”. His fans included authors Dean Koontz and Steven King and he was given a literary “thumbs up” from film critic Roger Ebert as well.
Moreover, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., once wrote the following as a tribute:
“To diggers a thousand years from now . . . the works of John D. MacDonald would be a treasure on the order of the tomb of Tutankhamen.”
The fictional Travis McGee viewed life with sort of a melancholy realism as he took occasional jobs as a “salvage consultant”. This basically involved private detective work whereby stolen property was recovered of which McGee received 50% of its value as payment. To the client, half of something was better than nothing; and, pursuant to his successful endeavors, McGee would then “retire” on his houseboat, The Busted Flush. But when the money was gone, he was compelled to pick up another gig (in the next book).
In summary, McGee capitalized on dangerous, high-risk “returns” so he could subsidize “installments” of his retirement while he was still young enough to enjoy the fun. Work hard, play hard.
And, if one searches the internet for Travis McGee they will find quotes like these:
Integrity is not a conditional word. It doesn’t blow in the wind or change with the weather. It is your inner image of yourself, and if you look in there and see a man who won’t cheat, then you know he never will.
― MacDonald, John D. (1973). “The Turquoise Lament”, Travis McGee series, Random House LLC, 2013
and
A woman who does not guard and treasure herself cannot be of very much value to anyone else.
A man with a credit card is in hock to his own image of himself.
― MacDonald, John D. (1965). “The Deep Blue Good-By”, Travis McGee series, Random House LLC, 2013
All of the 21 books in MacDonald’s critically acclaimed “Travis McGee” series had a color in the title and the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, says this was…
… a mnemonic device which was suggested by his [MacDonald’s] publisher so that when harried travelers in airports looked to buy a book, they could at once see those MacDonald titles they had not yet read.
Although Travis McGee novels may not necessarily populate the retail shelves of modern airports anymore, my regional library had the whole collection, so, for old-time’s sake, they were enjoyed during my layovers; and I would mentally mark the page numbers of good quotes to be typed up later for personal posterity and potential blogging purposes.
Here are a few more:
There is only one way to make people talk more than they care to. Listen. Listen with hungry earnest attention to every word. In the intensity of your attention, make little nods of agreement, little sounds of approval. You can’t fake it. You have to really listen. In a posture of gratitude. And it is such a rare and startling experience for them, such a boon to ego, such a gratification of self, to find a genuine listener, that they want to prolong the experience. And the only way to do that is to keep talking. A good listener is far more rare than an adequate lover.
― MacDonald, John D. (1964). “Nightmare in Pink”, pg 32, Travis McGee series, Random House Inc., 2013
And…
…[on a Friday evening on East 53rd in New York City]… I…sat and waited for her, and watched the office people bring their anxious dogs out. You could almost hear the dogs sigh as they reached the handiest pole. There was a preponderance of poodles.
This is the most desperate breed there is. They are just a little too bright for the servile role of dogdom. So their loneliness is a little more excruciating, their welcomes more frantic, their desire to please a little more intense. They seem to think that if they could just do everything right, they wouldn’t have to be locked up in the silence – pacing, sleeping, brooding, enduring the swollen bladder. That’s what they try to talk about. One day there will appear a super-poodle, one almost as bright as the most stupid alley cat, and he will figure it out. He will suddenly realize that his loneliness is merely a by-product of his being used to ease the loneliness of his Owner. He’ll tell others. He’ll leave messages. And some dark night they’ll all start chewing throats.
– MacDonald, “Nightmare in Pink”, pgs 39-40
Many people do not know that poodles are among the more intelligent of dog breeds. I knew it. And, obviously, so did John D. MacDonald when he wrote those words before I was born.
It’s true: We read to know we’re not alone.
The Noseless One…
While I was flying along at 600+ miles per hour and around 30,000 feet above sea level, I found myself immersed in a Travis McGee book where he was contracted by a charismatic, and manipulatively shallow, Hollywood actress. She was being blackmailed with sexual photos pursuant to her participation in an outdoor orgy on a terrace overlooking the Pacific Ocean.
In my mind, however, the “Pacific terrace” was a metaphor illustrating ancient and decadent carnality.
Ironically, in the story, McGee was flying in an airplane too. He was sitting next to a woman and staring at her hands while silently thinking:
“You look at hands as animal paws, and you think of the animal aspects of the human, and suddenly you are back on that Pacific terrace, seeing that final and most dangerous form of gluttony.”
His mental meandering continued: “The most absolute way of categorizing people is by what they are capable of, and what they are not capable of” and he concluded that temptation does not deliver most people into evil because temptation is a “constant” whereas evil is a “sometime thing” with most people.
From there McGee’s musings included a passing reference to author Jack London’s “noseless one”, of which I was not familiar. As a boy I had read London’s “Call of the Wild” and “White Fang” but, after the plane had landed, I conducted a brief online search and discovered the “noseless one” was derived from London’s book “John Barleycorn”… a book about drinking… and with the following assessment:
“All metaphysics, religion, and spirituality are half-believed-in attempts to “outwit the Noseless One [the skull behind the face] and the Night.”
Then McGee entered into a mental soliloquy on wisdom and love:
I had the old illusions, including the one that maybe I might be gaining a little bit, just a very damn little bit, in wisdom as my time went by. And wisdom says there are no valuable goods on the bargain counter. Wisdom says the only values are the ones you place on yourself. And I have locked myself into this precarious role of the clown-knight in the tomato-can armor, flailing away at indifferent beasts with my tinfoil sword. A foible of the knight, even the comic ones, is the cherishing of women, and perhaps even my brand of cherishing is quaint in this time and place. Though I have faltered from time to time, I do want the relationship, if it does become intimate, to rest solidly on trust, affection, respect. Not just for taking, or scoring, or using, or proving anything. That knocks out group adventures right there. Not for recreation, not for health rationalizations, not for sociologically constructive contacts. But because she is a woman, and valuable. And you are a man, and equally valuable. There are more than enough girls and boys around. Breakdown, McGee. Say it. Okay, for love and love alone. They are people, goddam it, not pneumatic, hydraulic, terrace toys. Not necessarily Heloise and Abelard, Romeo and Miss Capulet, or even Nappi and Joe. But just a crumb of some kind of love there, lad. Love that makes her sweet to hold, warm to murmur to, after there’s no more fireworks left in the park, And you can’t do that with a terrace toy.
– MacDonald, John D. (1965). “The Quick Red Fox”, pgs 77-78, Travis McGee series, John D. MacDonald Publishing, Inc., 1992
Wanting to refresh my vague recollection, I performed another search on the twelfth-century lovers Heloise and Abelard and also read some real-life quotes from their ancient letters.
But the internet told me nothing of Nappi and Joe so I assumed they may have been a TV couple similar to… say… Archie and Edith, or Desi and Lucy.
So… what, then, was learned from these mental meanderings?
Well, beyond the existential and ontological musings that I enjoyed while traveling out of state… what intrigued me was how my phone began to list links to the above-referenced book “The Quick Red Fox” – even though none of the book description links contained any of the words typed in my previous internet searches, to wit: “Jack London’s noseless one”, “Heloise and Abelard”, and “Nappi and Joe”.
How could that occur? Hidden algorithms? Secretly obscured search content? A.I.?
This brought to mind some other questions, too: While in the air, I left my phone on “airplane mode” the entire time. Subsequently, when we landed in another time zone, I wasn’t surprised to see the time was wrong – because it still showed the time from the previous time zone.
However, when I toggled the “airplane mode” to “off”, the time immediately changed to the correct hour and minute in the time zone where I was located… but the “location” setting on my phone was still set to “off”.
How did my Smartphone know? Perhaps because the clock app required my previous permission to access geographical location – which would mean, therefore, my phone’s location was never, truly, turned off.
Of course, I knew that already. Buy why the pretense of a location toggle switch?
Because devils hide in the details. That’s why.
The Simulacrum has surpassed the point of no return. The grid has become god-like.
The electric school bus acid test…
As many of my regular readers know from reading my previous articles, I help out our local school system by driving a school bus as needed. Many of the ancient fossils are retiring for good (both literally and figuratively) and there aren’t enough drivers.
Consequently, with another school year underway, I had an annual health physical and was required to attend another continuing education class. Even though our school system has mostly avoided “green” transportation, a film was shown that sure seemed like a sales pitch for electric school buses; and it was laughable.
The buses were shown running on beautiful blue-sky days and the bus parking area was proudly populated with shiny (very-expensive-looking) charging kiosks that must have required the placement of underground cables and all that would entail. The thick charge cords had heavy-duty, oddly-configured plugs that could only be mated to the special kiosks – so, I thought to myself: “Good luck and call the tow truck if the battery bank ever lost charge on the route.”
During these mental meanderings, I heard the narrator smoothly sell the advantages of the “modern” buses as happy people performed onscreen all around the yellow rigs shining brightly:
– No need to breathe exhaust fumes as you pre-inspect the bus!
– A charge gauge that looks just like a regular fuel gauge!
– Smoother starts and stops!
– The battery bank is located below under the center of the bus for proper weight distribution!
– Less moving parts… but be VERY careful never to touch the brightly colored and very dangerous cords while inspecting the bus!
– Quieter than diesel and gas engines!
And there were a few more, but you get the idea.
However, there was no mention of how well the buses heated up and drove in minus 30-degree weather or how long it took to recharge the batteries to full capacity, particularly at below-freezing temps. Neither did the film show the happy bus people unplugging the thick black charging cords from the kiosks while parked out back by the property-line fence and buried under five feet of snow and ice.
The only negatives mentioned in the film were warnings to avoid the “brightly colored” cords on the bus, to watch out for tripping over the black power cords lying everywhere on the ground, and that the buses were so quiet they may surprise and startle students and parents at the morning bus stops who aren’t paying attention. So to overcome the “quiet” sneak attack problem at bus stops, the electric buses could be equipped with a horn that played music that sounded exactly like an ice cream truck.
The entire room erupted in laughter.
I seriously had tears in my eyes. And it wasn’t even a joke:
In partnership with the Bezos Earth Fund, World Resources Institute established the Electric School Bus Initiative in late 2020 with the goal of building unstoppable momentum toward electrifying the full U.S. school bus fleet by 2030. This project builds upon and leverages WRI’s experience partnering with cities around the world to advance sustainable transportation systems, including extensive engagements focused on transit electrification and working to advance clean power options.
– Source
Once again: The devils hide in the details.
No vaccine required for depression screening…
I noticed my health paperwork from the regional medical center showed I had received none of the recommended vaccinations, including zero shots against Covid-19. Certainly, this information was also provided to the interrogators in Room 101 Human Resources.
But even though my vaccinations were not up to date I did see multiple dates recorded under the heading of “Depression Screening” on the forms.
That was strange because I didn’t recall any. But, then, it occurred to me. I remembered. During every annual physical and every visit to the doctor’s office to withdraw blood for labs or x-rays or anything else, the following types of questions were asked by the nurse, doctor, or both:
“Are you depressed?”
“Do you have thoughts of suicide?”
“Do you feel safe at home?”
These questions are being asked to everyone, not just me, and I began to appreciate the massive amounts of data being recorded over time; and imagined the potential forthcoming misery of some poor sap whose spouse or teenager had visited the doctor after a big family argument that morning:
Doctor: “Do you feel safe at home?”
Wife: “Well, my husband gets impatient with me when I forget to pay the utility bill!”
Doctor (while typing into his laptop): “Hmmm. I see. Interesting. Very interesting, indeed.”
Certainly, all of the prerequisites for collectivism have manifested in the Orwellian West.
If you won’t agree to be locked down due to a propagandized coronavirus, then perhaps the devils will set the world on fire and blame the weather. If you won’t give up your guns during an emergency caused by an outbreak of mass shootings, then the Red Flag Laws will just have to do.
Another example, right there, of the devils hiding in the details.
Closing thoughts on blogging and whatever…
This post documents the self-indulgent mental meanderings of an American Nobody whose blog turns seven years old this month. It won’t go viral. It doesn’t need to be featured, and it certainly can’t stop the ongoing economic and societal carnage occurring now.
The aforementioned author, John D. McDonald, once said this about his writing:
“My purpose is to entertain myself first and other people secondly.”
And I can definitively identify with that… because… as I have previously posted:
I write primarily for selfish reasons – mainly to test ideas and, hopefully, generate comments and views that will enlarge my own ideas on any given issue and, sometimes, even change my mind.
Posting original articles takes effort, like throwing bowling balls into the air. It’s up and down and gravity is the default. The traffic pops for a few days and then drops quicker than Building 7 on 911. But that is to be expected because new content is not posted each day on my blog and this is fine by me since I use my blog primarily as a means to catalog my articles over time and as a launch pad into the digital ether.
Here is a graph of the online traffic from the day I posted my previous article last month:
Humorously, an outdated metaphorical article I wrote the month before Trump was elected president in 2016 has recently surpassed my blog’s most popular articles (not counting the page views on other sites). The reason? Because the link shows up on a Chinese search engine and the overpopulated Asians there click on it every day either mistakenly or out of curiosity.
Overall though, and in spite of any downsides and perils to posting, I remain grateful for the past seven years: Several of my posts have been translated into different languages and I continue to receive “follow notifications” and comments (most often sent via the blog’s contact page) from various locations around the globe.
I do speculate often as to how much longer I will be able to post and I wonder how the free blogosphere might come crashing down, or worse: What it will be like when the Noseless One comes for us all.
I wish I knew those answers. Or, actually, maybe I don’t.
When we ignore the devils hiding in the details, we lose. And when we overly obsess over the same devils, we lose… but in a different way.
Collectivism is designed to control but it’s sold as brotherly love and, today, it prospers through the strategic marketing of many modernized brands to various demographics: Social Justice®, COVID-19® (with sub-products like Flatten the Curve®, Mask Up®, Six Feet Apart®, Omicron®, Eris®, etc ), Climate Change®, Sustainability®, Central Bank Digital Currency®, Stakeholder Capitalism®, Environmental Social Governance®, Inclusive Capitalism®, The Great Reset®, Agenda 2030®, The New World Order®, et al.
And the marketing mechanisms are as ubiquitous as the mandates are arbitrary.
Irony, propaganda, and naiveté. It’s the new American way.
In closing, I am reminded of a quote from John D. MacDonald’s first Travis McGee novel entitled “The Deep Blue Good-by”:
I am wary of the whole dreary deadening structured mess that we have built into such a glittering top-heavy structure that there is nothing left to see but the glitter, and the brute routines of maintaining it.
We read to know we’re not alone.
The brightest and darkest difference between fallen man and fallen angles is that man has been given an opportunity for redemption by faith through grace by his loving Creator and fallen angles have not.
always learn something knew.
No offense intended, thought it was Grace through Faith?
Ephesians 2:9 Context
“6And hath raised us up together, and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus. 8For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: 9Not of works, lest any man should boast. 10For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. 11Wherefore remember, that ye being in time past Gentiles in the flesh, who are called Uncircumcision by that which is called the Circumcision in the flesh made by hands; 12That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world:”
i’m probably reading it wrong.
You’re absolutely correct.
The scripture speaks for itself.
The interesting part is that it reads as though the faith part is not of ourselves as well but a gift from God.
We must ask for faith or even greater faith from God.
EWS, you are absolutely right. Salvation, is by Grace and Faith, all gifts of God. Not by anything we can or could do, including works of righteousness, (Baptism, confirmations, church membership, catechisms, etc.)
Complimenting Eph 2:8,9:
Titus 3:5 Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost;
Thats not what the Scripture says; note 1 Peter 3:21, Mark 16:16, Acts 2:38 etc etc.
Note also that EVERY story of conversion in the New Testament is followed by baptism.
Be not deceived my friend…
You need to learn to rightly divide the Word of God, (the Bible.)
Sounds like predestination to me, which is not good faith….
Excellent …
Today at sunset Jerusalem time or @ 6:46 EDT begins the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, or Feast of Trumpets.
The two day festival the Day or hour no man knows.
Possibly to be fulfilled by the rapture and/or the second coming of Jesus.
Could this weekend be the time?
That’s 11:48 EST today
Any minute now…
Y’all get raptured yet? Not hearing any trumpets here.
Two day festival.
Ends this Sunday in Jerusalem at @ 11:45 EST.
Keep watching Ya never know.
But I do know.
No man knows the day or the hour gets obscured by using the fixed Rabbinical Calendar. NASA’s conjunction model calls NO moon a new moon. The Bible calendar depends on actually seeing the sliver of the new moon in order to declare that a new month has begun.
It can be completely dark for up to two and a half days before the new moon shows up. You can set a date for the NASA conjunction “new moon,” but you can’t set a date on when the light of a new moon will actually be visible. The modern calendars don’t always match what’s going on in the sky.
The Rabbi’s lie, the first day of the *seventh* month is not New Year’s Day. Exodus 12 tells us when the actual New Year’s Day takes place.
At any rate, Simcha Yom Teruah!
Thank you for that interesting insight. Vigilant watchmen of old waiting for the visual appearance of the new moon to commence the festival thus none knowing the day or the hour.
Thanks, ‘We read to know we’re not alone.’, it is clear to me that to wonder about your sanity is normal and to not wonder is a disease.
Travis McGee was a great treasure. Enjoyable post!
MacDonald’s Travis McGee series is a great example of why 1st-person story telling is, in my opinion, superior. It allows the delivery of introspection and rumination and philosophizing in a way that other forms of literature cannot produce. This is also why 1st-person books/novels do not translate well to cinema.
Heh heh. Agreed, but perhaps one exception might be Charlie Kaufman’s screenplay “Adaptation” for which he won an Oscar.
A funny 3 minutes right here on film voiceovers and literary conflict:
Interesting to remember that back in the 60s & early 70s there was plenty of free speech at Haavudd, just ask any old hippie that was in the SDS or you could ask a professor. Oh wait, same thing.
Travis McGee and Sinclair Lewis, quite the juxtaposition. I was and still am an avid fan of Travis and John D. McDonald’s writing in general. When I need a boost I sometimes reread
The Girl, the Gold Watch and Everything
and just the other day I picked up a copy of the Screwtape Letters in a book swap.
Your conversation with the idiot female and your patience with her is a wonderous thing to behold. I have no patience anymore, I don’t speak with cretins, they are a waste of time. Like another writer whose works I enjoy once wrote…
1973 Robert A Heinlein, Time Enough for Love (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons) 51: “…[A] fool cannot be protected from his folly. If you attempt to do so, you will not only arouse his animosity but also you will be attempting to deprive him of whatever benefit he is capable of deriving from experience. Never attempt to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
Another quote I need to take to heart. Lol!
When confronted with that label, I respond that I’m neither a pessimist nor an optimist; that I’m a realist, and that I can clearly see that the two halves of the glass are equal.
“it wastes your time and annoys the pig.”
And in a self-styled “democracy”, the pigs will band together and claim that singing is a new form of hate speech.
in case you weren’t paying attention, the pigs have already done that.
Owen Shroyer Sentenced To PRISON For Two Months For His On-Air Observations About The Last Presidential Election. For Not Being “Remorseful.” Did Not Enter Any DC Building—The Charge is THOUGHTCRIME
Greg Reese Video, Share Far and Wide, All Hands On Deck
https://celiafarber.substack.com/p/owen-shroyer-sentenced-to-prison
An actor was charged with a fake crime.
Yes … but most of those ‘hippies’ were only for THEIR free speech … anyone else’s met with fire or bombings or threats or … just like today.
There were a lot of conservative students and professors at Harvard in the ’60s–I was there, and none of my friends were liberals….
Uncola, the conversation you had with the lib lady in the parking lot solidified what I had just said to my wife before reading your article, and after seeing a few clips of the Megyn Kelly interview of Trump.
My wife said (after we watched the interview with Trump, where he doubled down on his purported success with the vaxx, saving millions, and how good the ventilators were) if this would affect the MAGA crowd and some of our friends that still support Trump.
I told her no. It would be blown off and/or just ignored and that they would still support him and give him a complete pass on his role as ‘Father of the Vaxx’ (his own words).
Covid showed me just how easy it is to program people for whatever is needed/wanted. And, as you stated, they don’t change their mind.
How They Tricked Us in 2020: Are They Doing It Again?
The wicked carnival doesn’t end until we end it
https://tessa.substack.com/p/how-they-tricked-us-in-2020
Three Years of COVID: A Tale of S&M
How two weeks to flatten to curve turned into long years of S&M
https://tessa.substack.com/p/three-years-of-covid-a-tale-of-s
.
Brewer , what interview are you referring? Backtracking I could care less what Trump said to the woman at a debate. Distasteful IMO but she’s a “big girl” anyway.
Thanks for the comment. I don’t know I could stomach a Trump interview. One thing for certain, Joe Biden’s brain is missing and there are lot’s of people in denial about Donald Trump. Oh well. preaching to the choir.
Talking to a buddy he mentioned the 2028 election. Who knows the 2024 will take place. I asked , you mean the 2024 “election”. No, 2028. In 2028 neither of these fakes will run regardless who gets the nod in 2024. Long way off I know. The buddy is like me, can’t stand either of these guys. This poor country with its so called “leaders”.
https://x.com/legendaryenergy/status/1702204366982369363?s=12
OMG
Such people are born programmed, Brew. They want a herd alpha savior and will project their wills accordingly. The circus tribe has the audience blood lines they desire.
This is what gives me some hope. They are becoming desperate because their plans aren’t working out as well as they thought they would. So now they are throwing things at the wall to see what sticks and things are just sliding down the wall. Cameras in England that were put up to control how far you drive are being sabotaged left and right. People are done with Covid and nothing they can do can persuade people to keep getting shots except for a minority of die hard Branch Covidians who are sorry that we are not locked down and masked up. TPTB are just humans, they are not super-human they just have a lot of money but money is only part of the equation.
They want to wear us down and make us give up. That’s really all they got. Your story of laughter during the electric bus propaganda is a prime example of how much trust has been lost. Writing is a way to push back. So I’m glad you enjoy it. I don’t enjoy it much so when I do write it’s because I need to get some nagging thoughts out of my head.
It doesn’t matter who wins or how many things are sabotaged.
Fallen man isn’t going to save anyone from what’s coming.
It’s coming anyways.
What matters is that Orange Man signals the imminent last trump and trump of God of the rapture of the true church of Jesus the Messiah.
That does not mean we should stand idly by and let them continue to commit evil. Pushing back against evil honors God, EWS.
Now there are far too many Rapture believers who will sit by and wait for the Rapture. Paul preached against this.
I never said don’t push back.
I said it won’t stop what’s coming.
The rapture.
The False Messiah for 7 years.
The second coming of Jesus the True Messiah.
That sounds like giving up to me. It does matter.
I’ve prepped, I’ll resist and I’ll vote but it won’t stop the evil that’s coming.
Only God can and will.
That’s not quitting that’s reality.
I really don’t think people understand or can mentally comprehend the level of evil that’s coming.
They can’t understand the evil we are already dealing with. And I think that includes people on TBP.
Mary- Funny that you can point these things out and I say the same thing and they send the hounds after me. Oh well.
You are right about some TBPers don’t get it (don’t want to get it) or get paid not to get it. KWIM?
Again this is just the pre-game show.
Eye’s -There can’t be anything more evil than burning children alive to ash in their home. Unless they just plan to end the entire world and all life (including theirs) I can’t imagine it. At that point, I guess TLPTB will have won, but we will still have our souls. They can’t take that away from us and that is why they hate us.
What’s worse is it’s worldwide under a one world dictator.
The true power of true faith in Jesus is looking your oppressor in the eyes the moment before they execute you and smiling in complete peace knowing you’ll be with Jesus for eternity and they can never take that from you.
That’s what drives them batcrap crazy and why they hate real Christians.
They can take everything but your faith.
Never let them steal your faith.
True faith is our courage to speak and act out truth in the face of overwhelming oppression and evil even unto physical death.
I’d rather fight than switch for what it’s worth. That being said, when its time for the end the end will come. Speculating when and because of whom, to each his/her own.
John Hagee much?
Nah, Hagee was morbidly obese, loud and very wealthy on his flocks money.
I’m none of the above.
Me, thankful the chemtrails are not burning US here today. What a blessing, 1/2 ” rain and super fall like temps. Praise the Lord.
I often wonder why they call it Sea level.
It’s a flat earth concept …
The hurricanes move twice as fast latitude than longitude, now that’s just fucking weird.
When John D was still active writing the Travis books I’d read that he already had ‘The Black Border’ written. It was to be published after his death. The subject was the story of Travis’s death. I don’t think it was ever published. Too bad.
I’d learned about this book series while working as a cook at a place called Siple Station, Antarctica. Remnants of the huts, etc are under a few hundred feet of ice slowly flowing somewhere North. Sure enough, several of the paperbacks were there on various shelves. Searching for them was made easier by looking for a color in the title. Credit to ‘George from Salmon’ for telling me about TM as good reading was highly valued there 45 years ago.
Steve,
That would have something to read. I recall “The Green Ripper” as one of the darkest stories, but “Black Border” would have been even more disturbing, I’m sure.
As for dog intelligence, we have sibling Maltipoos. We bought new treats for their joint/bone health. Too big for one, we cut them in half.
Now, everytime we use scissors, they beg for treats.
Devils exist, but they are flesh and blood and in the highest ranks of government and industry. It is time to set aside fantasies of magical beings, and to accept that the human race is its own worst enemy….
And they are so few and we are so many. It is our compliance that installs and maintains them.
People would do well to read Estienne De La Boetie. His “Discourse on Voluntary Servitude” lays it out well. Not too shabby for something almost 500 years old!
(Jump to page 40 if you want to skip intro.)
https://cdn.mises.org/Politics%20of%20Obedience.pdf
Mankind has been domesticated for much of its existence. It is now part of the DNA of the majority.
Men learned they could domesticate animals tens of thousands of years ago. The most intelligent of them almost immediately realized they could use the same tactics to domesticate their fellow humans.
Domestication, over a few generations, removes an animals instinct to fight for themselves, and replaces it it some cases, with the desire to fight for its capturer’s.
A dog that may attack to protect its master, will also cower and accept a beating from that same master without attempting to protect itself. The same is true of humans. Most would cower at the idea of standing up for their own individual rights, but would obediently march off to war if ordered to do so by their government.
Today most people have a religious like desire to be subservient to government and to believe that government is its protector and has their best interests as its goal.
We are not evolved as much as we think we are, and still share a basic instinctual desire to be domesticated and provided for, with the less evolved species on our planet..
Well yeah.
They will have to shoot me in order to jab me however, a corpse.
Resist, mock Trump’s “vaccine”, call the one’s out that go along with this jab thing. Get nasty with them.
Napoleon and Josephine is what my search came up with. Don’t know much about slang from that era.
As for all the ®s, we seem to be in a commercialized, non-industrial version of London’s The Iron Heel.
TYVM Anon. Napoleon and Josephine. Duh! I was overthinking it
Auntie would like to see Hahvid take its fair share of refugees and illegal aliens for one and have some mostly peaceful demonstrations regarding its discrimination towards Asian heritage applicants.
If you know that 99 plus percent of the world is bullshit, you’re not alone. If you see the world groaning under the weight of all that bullshit and know that its collapse is imminent, you’re not alone. If you can be both direly pessimistic and wildly optimistic about the future, you probably are alone, but I think that’s the right place to be.
Good article, Doug, and thanks for turning me on to John MacDonald. Which book to you recommend to get started?
This is from Robert Gore, by the way. I screwed up entering my information.
They are best read in order, imho. You can find the order just by googling ‘first (second, etc.) Travis McGee book). I finally did the series during Covid Insanity, after reading 1984 again and attempting Atlas Shrugged again (too depressing given the current sitch).
Thank you, Robert.
I agree with Tony. In order is probably best. Then it will make more sense than going backward and reading the earlier stories with some of the later characters missing.
For example, in the 5th book, McGee’s friend Meyer is introduced who has his doctorate in economics and also lives on a houseboat. Meyer made his money by consistently moving his nest egg to the next right investment. He’s a ladies’ man, too, and McGee describes him as a hairy guy looking like he escaped from a museum’s prehistoric diorama exhibit. Lol
I think I’m still OT since covid is mentioned. As the mask hysteria progressed from masks with any number of colors, designs and slogans I began to see the plastic mask crowd and it literally cracked my happy ass up. I can understand a plastic shield if spraying a bad ass insecticide around the home but as “protection” against air borne particles? They could be useful in a chemtrail environment. That would make more sense to me than the reason peeps started donning these things.
A plastic shield won’t protect you from insecticides.
Uncola,
Bravo, I thoroghly enjoyed this flashback to the John D. MacDonald/Travis McGee writings. I read most all of the books 40 some years ago, as an antidote to studying Physics, Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, Heat Transfer etc.
Remember Ross Perot saying “the devil’s in the details”?
I’d like to tell you two of my favorite present-day authors, who I believe are comparable to MacDonald/Travis McGee.
C.J. Box, and his hero Joe Pickett, a Wyoming game warden, and John Sandford, and his hero Lucas Davenport, a Minneapolis cop. Both have long-running series, which you can’t put down even though you know it’s long past time to go to bed!
From a fellow dump-truck driver.
Thank you for the hat tips, NtroP. I also like to mix heavy and light reading at the same time
Now write about the slaughter in Maui. Once you realize they will fry you to ash, are elections really important in a godless, evil system? That was as ugly as it gets and libtards need to be put on the back burner until this crime is addressed.
You: 🖾(((🧊🫁, ✝️)))🖾…🪦
Me: 😞…🪦
Unreality Doug- Can you use words? Little pics are meaningless, say what you mean, unless you have a reason to hide your words.
This act was so evil, to use emojis is the most lame expression of how you view these deaths. These people were burned to ash, expressing a sad face is not addressing this crime. We should all be very sad, but it is not hard to imagine thousands more will be victims of selective “forest fire” if this is not properly prosecuted.
We’re in a war, BL. And only one side is fighting. It is sad, but that’s how it goes with war. It will not be properly prosecuted, assuming it went down the way you say.
Best we can do now (since we don’t have an army behind us) is to stay out of the way.
A woman who gets me. Be fruitful and displace the crap, please.
Abby- Question….. How well did the good people of Lahaina stay out of their way? How well did the people of Paradise, CA stay out of the way while they destroyed 14,000 houses? I’m sorry that is not the answer to this massacre.
You and Reality Doug can curl up and suck your thumb and stay out of the way.
PS: Note to Abby and Reality Doug……. The pen is mightier than the sword.
Live it.
Did BL just tell me to go curl up & suck my thumb???? 😂😂 You crack me up!
BL…I used to be in the middle of it all. Problem was that there were too many robots in the way. Couldn’t get past that army. People like you & me have no support. None. Nada. Zilch. So you just have to know when you’re beaten.
Time to get off their system as much as possible, which I know you have. And, maybe they’ll kill us, maybe they won’t. But something will get us in the end, always does.
Ok, gotta take off. Stay chill, you warrior you.
Come back when you are not so defeated, poor human, poor, poor human. I thought Texans had backbones, guess not.
Ouch. 🔥
Someone’s on fire today! Yee-haw! 🤠
I’ll tell you what, I’m throwing my smartphone in the ocean this weekend…in your honor.
That is a good idea Abs, what does that have to do with a lot of dead people? I get the Catch22 side of this, I do. Wave whatever flag is needed even if it’s lily white.
Who cares about dead people in this meaningless life if you got the war god JESUS of hosts following his perfect divine plan? I call myself ‘Reality’ Doug for a reason. How AA condescends to you so graciously I don’t know, but women are talented at their social games.
Just reap what you sow in this life, BL bots; that’s all I ask. I concede eternity to your nebulous wisdom which passeth all understanding and yet you crucify anyone who “just doesn’t get it” lmfao because you are so sure of and full of yourselves.
We’ve said everything there is to say to each other. An idiot who wants justice against the enemy in the enemy’s court of law is just too fucking deficient for further consideration. You are a mental disgrace. The future of TBP does not look promising. There is no where up to go from your genius (((biblical foundation))). The stairway to heaven is not online. Keep tilting, BL. It’s the antichrists like me that want you to lose BELIEF.
Keep waving the white flag RD. Admitted antichrist, well at least you are honest about your dark side, bruh.
whatever flag
In DFW the past couple of days I witnessed Mexico’s flag three separate times displayed from pickup trucks, big flags. It reminded of folks that display those smaller flags on their cars of various college and pro football teams, etc. I’m not certain the big Mexican flags are displayed along the same lines but for Mexico’s world soccer team. Are they playing?
Mexico’s flag being waved on a pickup truck and many Mexican flags displayed at various businesses. We don’t have to go to Mexico, Mexico came here.
Interesting I saw a Comanche with a huge “hook nose”. Nothing unusual I suppose.
BL and all the heart-on-sleeve zealots, I’ve tried words. Facts don’t matter to you. Words that matter to you matter only as incantations with a completely different meaning than the words themselves.
I thought the symbolism might be more to your taste and abilities, the puzzle more interesting. Like you, I am a broken record. You could not guess the answer? *smh* and 🤦
Hint: Christianity has built-in Jewish frame control. Hold (via freeze) your breathes, heart-on-sleeve Christians, who sit on thumbs waiting for Jesus. You will die before anything changes, and so will I. You pests have crushed me with your pretenses to be deserving of my respect and trust, fraudulent superior-equals of an asinine story. You idiots and your handlers that are this matrix made me the man I am today. I had potential to be so much more. You are so mentally little and have so much. Your constant whining on the interwebz is proof enough. If I was not so needy in your fucking void of your creation, useful idiots, I would not come here to be understood. Since you can understanding nothing I say, I dumbed it down for you, and that’s just not good enough for you.
This is as dumbed down as I can make it for you:
Unreality Doug- Why try to make me out as a Christian zealot? I have no connection to any religion, but I can guess yours. This has everything to do with God’s Law which is universal. Shake your head til it falls off bud, I can’t let this go by the ” 2 week” news cycle wayside. You work very hard to trivialize mass murder RD. Why?
You and virtually everyone else deserve ‘mass murder’. Still you cling to legal fiction, coward. The latest deaths at Hawaii five oh are just more of the same. You want justice for Vietnam, Ruby Ridge, subjugation since 1865? It’s just your small-minded flavor of the day. You are trivial in the divine plan and in this life. You don’t even know where you are. You Christian zealots care so deeply about the quantity of human life but never the quality. Are you afraid you don’t measure up? In a metaphor, am I trivializing that the bear watcher gets mauled by a bear? This bear has killed millions with six degrees of separation and broken lives that are attributed to proximal causes. You have a fetish for your little time of adulthood on this earth. You lack an understanding of history, human nature, and yourself. And there is nothing I can do for the people who destroyed me and who double down on destroying me every day. Sorry if my patience is long gone. Since I don’t get to be the adult in the room, get what you get. If I ever become the adult in the room, it will be cleaned mightily according to my beliefs and my judgement with no apologies. Vectors for my enemy are my enemy and would not get a pass. AA is more discerning than you. When women make better leaders, extinction is deserved. I don’t make the rules; I will follow them given the chance to make and effect policy decisions. Some human always does. You have no sense of masculinity. Sad. What a blood line you are. I pray to God I can just over and out with you idiots at this place. Bang the rocks or not. End of transmission.
First pal, I am not part of any religious sect. My disgust comes from a natural instinct to fukkin survive.
So it is masculine to trivialize the burning of children alive into ash? In what , the satanic world ? Ok, so are you a satanist RD? I’m not any part of that crowd, the evil oozes from them bud. YOU should be appalled, yet you are not….. interesting.
The true instinct of masculinity is to PROTECT children, you don’t have that ……. are you human?
Enjoyable read.
Those quiet electric engines are a real problem…especially for bicyclists. You cannot hear them approaching!
I had a brilliant idea recently to take my bike over on a ferry to Victoria, Canada as it was advertised as the most bikable city in Canada. I thought it would be fun riding around the city stopping at cafes, museums, castles, parks, etc. Well, I can’t tell you how many times I thought I was going to get smacked by a stupid electric car that just appeared out of nowhere. I would be cruising, in my own world, & taking in the sights, making a turn and BAM! a noiseless vehicle right next to me trying to turn too. It happened a few times where they’d come right up behind me and I was oblivious. Turned out to be a stressful ride. Probably didn’t help matters that I was wearing my 2A ball cap. Lol. I bet they were TRYING to kill me, now that I think about it!! (Not a bike helmet wearer – too uncomfortable for me)
Anyway, I much prefer the gas guzzlers any day.
Haven’t read MacDonald. Might give him a try.
Don’t wear challenge attire. As they say, “Don’t write a check you can’t cash.”
Being a white female with no tats, no blue hair, no piercings (other than one in ears), and not a whale is “challenge attire”. 🙂
In certain circles I can see that. No pun against Oregon , the state, all I can say is when college students (OSU) are questioning a man instructor that has a girl friend why the man has a girl friend , uh, thank God the man does not have a boy friend. Whacko. The man left that position because of as he put it, “fags” , but also the jab thing. Without the employer coming out and saying no jab , no job the “message” memo was just that.
The Green Ripper was one of the first novels I ever read (outside of school-mandated reading). Loved the Travis McGee series.
I have really enjoyed the comments on this one so far. Thanks to all for posting.
Thanks anyway Doug, Meanderings much? More like some stream of consciousness ramblings. I know its just me but I prefer something a little more focused–something you may seem to be invested in. Have you ever in your life engaged in a passionate, laser-edged rant? I thought not; try it sometime. You may find it exhilarating, kinda like a ghost pepper dare. You write well and you are who you are, but I’ll pray you develop some intensity..
I could do it, Anon, and it would blow your hair back.
But here is my approach to that:
1.) For things I can control: If I’m pissed enough to rant, I won’t write about it. I’ll just do it.
and
2.) For things I cannot control: Beware the patient man.
Doug, Now I like that a lot more already.
The element of surprise and a calm business like demeanor while your prey is caught off guard and effectively and efficiently dispatched.
Good Heavens, UNC.
This one really hit home and my gal is more likely than not, tired of me ruminating over the experience. So, to ruminate even more to a new audience, I’ll begin.
The devilish details were so numerous in my encounter lately wirh FEMA that it still stupifys me.
If moving to the middle of nowhere has taught us anything, her and I, is that the more disconnected from UncSam we are out here the more liberated we feel (maybe were until I invited UncSam in).
FEMA pretty much dictates to this dirt poor county up here/down here in North Central Florida. There are stories, some true, of their lavish spending making people whole and more after a disaster the likes of Idalia.
I bumped into one such FEMA rep tirelessly lost on the back roads yonder here and showed her the way out and thought to inquire about my claim. Had she seen my name on a list? Was my address going to be Oprahed? I merely launched an inquiry as to wether out buildings were covered on the online application for assistance.
Nope, I wasn’t on the list yet. Nor were anything of the sort replaced by their devil in the details. Ok I thought. Just as well. I’ll continue living meager and more free than I’d ever known.
Scammers come aplenty after a disaster. Residents patience is stretched. The Chaff from the Wheat is cut. Weekend Yahoos are culled from the true residents and viewed forward as untrustworthy when the shad hits the fan. The Common Man steps up and in, as always.
Naturally I’d ignored calls I didn’t recognize and the texts misspelling my last name for mold remediation sake.
But one call set me back upon the precipe of living with integrity versus receiving the UncSam handout. Yup, a few grand towards rebuilding my wood storage and tractor shed started to look more and more worth having.
I texted the FEMA rep back late and set up the appointment for the next day.
She was well groomed for her task. Out of the other side of the country, specially flown in to comb thru the claims and declare who’s worthy. Who’s not. Straight out the gate I pointed to the damaged out building. She said nothing but asked to see living quarters. One question followed a multitude. Had I purchased a chainsaw, dehumidifier, air condioner? Had I suffered ill health? Lost teeth? May I see the domiciles bed and bathroom? Every question answered with integrity. Was I actually going to receive four hundred dollars remittance in chainsaw supplies, I wondered to myself? She hasn’t shown a single card of her hand. What was this really all about?
Indeed, the lengthy cold and calculated FEMA fact finding was merely a telemarketing questionnaire. I was turned down for everything. The Devil in the Details you so masterfully layed out in a really great article, Uncola, was wholly revealed to me when the she-rep notified me I might have better fortune thru the SBA loan dept and that her parent group Vanguard will be reaching out to follow up.
She dropped the Royal flush.
Vanguard, I mused.
Twofer….you stupid shit, I thought to myself. You stupid shit. Your weakneed state invited the enemy onto and into your most sacred of spaces for the mere possibility of a pittance.
“Thank you for your integrity”, the she-rep later texted.
“Its all I got. Gday” I replied.
That and a whole lot more respect for the devil in the details.
A FEMA rep said Vanguard was her parent group? How does that work?
Best I could figure in my tired state of mind at the time (I’ve done zero research and don’t wanna know cuz what I heard was what I heard) is that FEMA must at times, subcontract this stuff out and along the journey ask, see and verify pertinent facts as per people’s living status. It made no sense that I be asked about my purchases towards the post hurricane dilemma if none of the questions pertained to a remittance. Perhaps someone with a conscience could fill us in here.
Mary…it’s what I’ve identified as the devil in the details.
Blackrock and Vanguard are two heads of the monster , they own/control just about everything including the US.gov.
Sorry for your troubles, Sea. Don’t be too hard on yourself as you are going through a lot currently. I hope things straighten out for ya at some point. In the meantime, one day at a time, prioritize and work on each problem in order to the best of your abilities. What else can you do?
What else indeed.
A great neighbor with a like Kubota has been helping drag felled logs from the community. Ten foot long by 16 in dia pines. Eighty of them. More to come. Laurel oak, sweetgum and some cedar. All to be harvested and eventually milled.
Why?! Hellifiknow. It just seems the right thing to do. An attempt to make chicken salad from this chickenshit hurricane.
One busy day at a time!
Keep us updated on how it’s going. No one in the media is talking about it. That includes alt-media.
Meanwhile this happened
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/railcar-carrying-toxic-chemicals-explodes-prompts-evacuation-west-of-north-platte/ar-AA1gJhga
“The evacuation order due to toxic smoke from a railcar explosion at Union Pacific’s Bailey Yard in North Platte has been lifted. Highway 30 between Hershey and North Platte is back open.”
Makes me wonder why she used the word “parent” rather than saying they subcontracted some work out. BL is most likely correct. The corporations own fedgov
Honestly Mary, I understood that a long time ago, but the banksters were top in class (KM) followed by the multinationals and CEOs (KM), basically KM.
CONgress sure understands as does the POTUS puppet who runs the USA. Might be easier to list the things they (KM) don’t run.
Was it not Blackrock and Vanguard that stepped in to save the housing markets plummeting even further than they should have? Yup
Consider how interdependent the Borg really is and you’ll recognize your neighbors dependence on some/any “arm” of corporate/fed fascism.
“Parent” was my choice of word and my way of implying that FEMA is parented by corporations in desire of positioning their risk onto the taxpayers.
I’m convinced all gov programs are set up precisely to do this.
How is it then possible to drain any swamp???
Eye’s- Blackrock and Vanguard did not save the housing sector they screwed it up. by buying up tens of thousands of homes and driving up the price, then these homes are rental only properties which drive the return for private equity funds.
Please don’t heap praise on these dark holes of evil.
Wasn’t heaping praise, BL.
Good God, far from it.
My intention was to point out that their buying the underwater homes upheld the scam that promoted the bubble in the first place.
And consequently kept my kids ability to own a fair valued home but a dream.
Clearly, I’m no author as I seem to be smudging my intended points.
“Have you experienced any sadness in the last 30 days?”
“Yes”
3 weeks later [a la spongebob]
The front door is busted down as police swarm in to sieze firearms from what was reported to them as a “dangerously depressed individual who may be potentially violent.”
____
So, let’s try this again…
How do you answer questions like “have you been sad?”
“THE ANSWER IS NO! I’ve been living!”
Questions asked on medical information forms are beyond ridiculous. Last one I filled out the part about Race I just wrote down Rat.
Very enjoyable article, Unc — had a smile on my face the whole time I read it. We need more light in this room anyway, that’s for sure.
Electric school buses are three words that ought not be together. Have you seen some of the roads (well, I know you have, Unc) buses have to traverse on a daily basis? John Q. Pube-lick has no idea how bad it is on diesel-powered buses already, and since these vehicles are also already heavy, imagine what it will be like when you are rolling in something about twice as heavy as normal. Can you spell potholes from Hell?
Then there are the maintenance costs involved; and do you believe that if anything goes wrong with an EV bus that it could be repaired as fast as a diesel, which already lasts 10-20 years longer than gas engines? That an EV is going to last even half that long? That there are spare EV parts you could buy at the O’Reilly in town? And most importantly, as you said, there is the charging thing: so, the grid is already at maximum capacity; hey, great idea, guys, let’s add some huge, energy-chomping buses to it! Then everybody high-fives each other and goes back to the task at hand, which is to make more problems so they can sell their solutions.
It’s Big Business, baby.
I read all of MacDonald’s books, he truly is one of the all-time greats. He is one of my two favorite Donalds (the other being Donald Westlake). I am also an Elmore Leonard fan. These guys were the best in their fields, with memorable characters and crunchy dialogue. Plus the plots are always Byzantine, and fun to read as the characters find their ways through total chaos. I would have loved to have met these guys.
OK, I too have rambled on for a while, so it is time to get back on the road. Thank you for lifting my spirits today. Maybe someday I can return the favor!
I appreciated that comment, Captain. Very much. Safe travels.
I always enjoy your Articles Sir.
People don’t become tyrannical because they are confident. Tyranny always forms under the pressure of control slipping away. It is reactionary rather than ideological.
While the symptoms of it may often inflict harm on the innocent, it’s root causes are in the long term fatal to those who practice it.
I agree.
I completely disagree. The long run is the class of people who practice it not the individuals. It becomes a pyramid scheme of life times. Nature has supported parasitism since the beginning. Life is terminal for all of us, long before the long run of what we sow as societal and institutional norms. Parasites gonna parasite. Christian faithful gonna faith and encourage togetherness. The innocent? Not a natural concept. Innocence is a man-made expedience, at best a tool within sovereign cultural brotherhood, but this deep in decline it is only a pretty lie.
Was always a Travis(been decades,where the hell does time go?!) fan and hope he/Spencer and others are drinking in bar somewhere telling tales and enjoying retirement.
Happy blogiversary, Doug! I always enjoy your mental meanderings, and this thought-provoking piece was no exception. I’d never heard of John D. MacDonald, but that Vonnegut endorsement along with your curated selections certainly piqued my interest.
I know you’re not looking to increase your audience, but I do know there are many readers at Substack who would appreciate your provocative contemplations. Please let me know (reply to any of my newsletters if you’re on my mailing list) if you ever decide to sign up, and I’d be happy to recommend you to my readers.
Well, a big hello to my sister from another mister.
First Robert Gore, then Hardscrabble Farmer, and now, Margaret Anna Alice have made an appearance on this thread…. all three of my fellow bloggers whose words I’ve read to know I wasn’t alone.
Thank very much, M.A.A., for your kind words, your encouragement, and your offer. I do appreciate it.
I believe my personal blogging amidst the largest Fourth Turning in history could be compared to my Dad’s buying new automobiles in the last 15 years of his life.
Just before he retired, my Dad bought what he said “would be the last car I ever buy“. Then, every few years over the next decade he would ask me to find him another Oldsmobile or Buick.
In the same manner, I figure every article I post will probably be my last one. I mean, how much longer can this sh*tshow seriously go on, ya know?
I realize it’s time for me to trade up my preowned Chevrolet WordPress of a blog to a newer rig, but the old girl still starts well, I like the sound of the glass packs, and the chrome rims still look fine after seven winters. 🙂
But, seriously, here are a few more reasons:
1.) Priorities. I could import seven years’ worth of email followers into a CSV file and (probably?) import to SubStack and (possibly?) figure a way to retain all of the WordPress followers as well…. but… “Oh shoot! I forgot to replace the chain on my mother-in-law’s chainsaw” (and other stuff like that)
2.) Gratitude. I wouldn’t even be blogging if it wasn’t for the efforts of Jim Quinn and I certainly would not have the followers I’ve obtained without his allowing me to post on TBP. Plus all my online friends (like you) show up here as well
3.) Selfish reasons. It’s not that I don’t want more followers. I do. However, my blog is a “catalog” in that I have used it over the past seven years to build a comprehensive ideological case against The Borg and, accordingly, I use the blog to hyperlink previous (date-stamped) perspectives and posts.
For example, in the six months preceding the 2018 Midterm Elections, I collated mainstream and alternative media headlines into eight (8) separate categories every month and proved by October of 2018 the predominate global trends were The Rise of Big Brother and Marxism, respectively.
Moreover, although The Rona® was very likely unleashed months before, its first blips on the public radar began in December 2019. That month, I wrote an article entitled “America is Over But You Knew That Already” (because I had already made the case over the previous 3 years), and said:
The coup d’etat could have come any number of ways. But, to be completely honest, it occurred in 1913 and I documented that as well on my blog in 10 separate articles, the first of which was posted in October of 2016, or the second month of my blog.
Others came before me and called things right, for sure. But my blog is my personal compilation and that is what I have decided to stay with until the lights go dark.
Thank you for your words (and courage), M.A.A., and I always await in anticipation of whatever you post. Here or anywhere.
Aww, a big hello back, Doug, and I loved that anecdote about your dad and fully expect you to continue your significant work documenting (and predicting) the Apocalyptic degradation of civilization.
Regarding your numerical concerns, I will address them one by one, not to pressure you but to give you more info so you can decide whether or not to buy the next Oldsmobile (knowing that every person I have talked into joining Substack has thanked me later and some said it was the best thing they ever did—including Austrian Peter, a fellow TBP contributor 🙂
1) Importing emails is a snap and should only take a few moments:
• https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360044079591-How-do-email-list-imports-work-
2) Your presence at Substack would have absolutely no impact on your TBP participation as Jim will no doubt just publish from your Stack as he does with mine and many other Stackers’ posts.
3) Substack also makes importing posts easy:
• https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/articles/360037830351-How-do-I-import-my-posts-from-another-platform-such-as-Mailchimp-WordPress-Medium-or-Ghost-
And if you really want, you could publish at both places, copying/pasting from one into the other depending on what is easiest and poses the fewest technical challenges.
Here are additional writer resources if you’d like to explore:
• https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us/categories/360002403472-Writers
Regardless of what you decide, you may wish to consider turning your personal compilation into a book, much as CJ Hopkins publishes his collected essays in books like The New Normal Reich.
I look forward to future mental meanderings, wherever you decide to publish them 🙂
Excellent. Thank you for the links and info. And since you have so graciously simplified the matter for me, I will explore all things SubStack in more depth as I have time in the forthcoming weeks … and, yes, I fully understand how the pain of every change is forgotten once the benefits of said change are realized. Thank you again
substack allows “their” writers to much control re censorship, example 2nd dumbest guy
banned me for 100yrs, would not tell me why, i used to read several authors their, but there
is always one that takes exception to some one else,s point of view, little man syndrome
who knows, got a big ban hammer tho
Somehow I feel the urge to counteract the abrahamic comments with a quote from a true avatar – the ludicrous idea of “authority” got us in this hell (the only one by the way).
As he grows older, his teachers along with his parents start giving him knowledge about the world. After that the school teachers prepare him in the physical sciences such as geography, geometry, geology, which are valueless like dust. Now this being enters the stage of “youth” and again looks out for further props for his life. Then, as it is predetermined in this world, that support for life comes from money, wife, family, etc., this human being gathers wealth and takes on a wife. He takes it for certain that he can be sustained on this support alone and squanders away time. With fame, learning, power an authority, wealth and wife, he gets added prosperity and becomes more and more entangled.
The principal possessions and his entire life are his wife, wealth, status, youth, beauty and authority. Thus, he takes special pride in these things and under that intoxication, the human being misses knowing his real nature. Pride about money, pride about authority, pride about beauty – all such types of pride get absorbed in the man and he forgets his real nature. When his possessions start dwindling one by one according to the law of nature, the memory of the primary shock he had received shakes him to the very roots and he gets frustrated.
He panics, “What shall I do now? I am losing support from all sides. What will happen to me?” But this ignorant man does not understand that all these possessions had only one solid support – his “I am”-ness. With that support alone money had its value, his wife appeared charming, the honour received seemed worthwhile, his learning brought him wisdom, his form acquired beauty and his authority wielded power. Oh man, you yourself are the support of all the above described wealth! Can there be a greater paradox than to feel that wealth gave you support? Added to this wealth, power, wife, youth and beauty of form, and honour, if he further received ill-gotten fortune, how strange would his actions become?
A poet once described the pranks of the mind as: “Primarily a drunk monkey that gets bitten by a scorpion.” Even such a poet would put his pen down seeing the ludicrous absurdities of this human being and would bid goodbye to his poetic talents.
The sort of man who considers his body as God and is absorbed in its worship day and night should be considered as a shoemaker who carries hide on his back. An apt proverb is that a shoemaker’s God should be worshipped only with shoes. This tells us the way in which this “God” [body] of the said man has to be adored. The devotion of an atheist is to feed his body, and his liberation is the death of the body. For such a man whose ultimate goal in life is feeding his body and his liberation is death, there is no rising above the gross body level. This is not surprising in his case! If due to some misfortune he were to lose all his wealth, he would still borrow money to indulge in his habits of eating, drinking and enjoying. And if his creditors were to hound him, he would declare insolvency and thus get rid of the whole issue. And when death strikes him ultimately, he just lies dead. He passes away just as he came. Could there be anything more tragically wretched than this sort of life?
who is the quote from?
‘with a quote from a true avatar ‘ who is this true avatar?
What you have quoted rings true and I’d like to know where it came from or who said it if you don’t mind answering.
miguel serrano Adolf Hitler the ultimate avatar
Those unfamiliar with Travis McGee have missed much and should correct their ignorance.
Travis McGee!…ah yes, my brother and I gobbled down every book in the series as soon as it came out! His sidekick Meyer is good too…MacDonald also wrote other novels well worth reading…Try The Girl the Gold Watch and Everything…..
Also highly recommended are Ross MacDonald’s Archer detective series…for example, the Far Side of the Dollar…
I so enjoy your musings, Doug. Yes indeed, the metaphorical devil is in the details.
As our beloved America (you know, the one of Jefferson’s moral/political abstractions of the individual’s right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”) circles the drain of duty, sacrifice, while steadfastly clinging to the moral abstraction of being the “keeper” of our brothers claimed well-being – in however many of the endless devilish details one might fashion, the imaginary “Devil” continues to retain his successful cloaking device.
How bout this? Instead of our brother’s “keeper,” why not his simple “guardian?” Whereby we do not impose the tyranny of “keeping” him, we instead, simply pledge our lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to “guard” his right to his own life, liberty and pursuit of happiness?
We pledge never to abrogate his right to his own life, irrespective of how many of his own “devilish details” to which he might succumb, or whether he chooses to believe he has succumbed to the “Devil” himself?
That we pledge to do so irrespective of whether said Devil is ever shed of his cloaking device?
Dave Walden
I, too, read all of the McGee books. Couldn’t wait for the next, always looked for the color in the title. His words were/are triggers for deeper consideration. Half Price Books, here I come.