Tagged: love

Serious Question About Citation Conventions in 2021

No joke, I’m really struggling here.

I want to unite with you and all others who support the unity that Biden just called for. But I don’t know if I should say, A. “Gosh. I got goose pimples when Biden quoted Abraham Lincoln, who apparently said, ‘something something ‘my whole soul is in it’?” (Which of course will appeal to blacks on two levels: firstly, they were freed from slavery by the Lincoln, secondly, they only know a few words like, “soul”, “brother”, and “sister”.)

Or, can I cut the boring part and just say, B. “Gosh, it was like an orgasm—wasn’t it—when Biden said, ‘My whole soul is in this: bringing America together, uniting our people and uniting our nation?’”

Quickly now, please. Comment below. Our union needs to start, like, yesterday. A or B.

Midwestern Thoughts on Impeachment 2

Maybe it’s just that I enrolled in some logic courses in college, but, to begin, I want to say that I am more and more surprised how many particular expressions of logical fallacies are put in play in formal American political debate. Then again, logic is just one part of rhetoric.

However, the main reason for this post is to say the following. There are at least two separate ideas in play at the moment. The first is whether President Trump used some sort of indirect, latent, or *wink wink* vocabulary and phraseology known by supporters and which somehow commanded them to “storm the capitol.” This post is not about this idea, however interesting it may be.

The second idea in play during today’s debate is that the United States of America can be irreversibly conquered in a time period of less than seven days, whether the next seven or some other grouping. This is what I want to write about.

The USA cannot be conquered, irreversibly or not, in seven days. If you disagree with me, then this doesn’t mean that the USA can be conquered in seven days. Instead, it means that you do not believe in the concept of National Sovereignty. By this time window talk I mean to quantify that you already don’t believe in America. This is fine! Just admit it.

There are other options than National Sovereignty. Believe as you please.

But I’m here to say that the USA is not going down in seven days—not if Trump wanted it to happen, not if you feared that it could happen. Give me a break. That’s as clear as I can be to explain why I don’t care about anything he or you say or do this next week.

Should the president be impeached? If I understand political process, it cannot be completed much earlier than seven days from now. So the question is not whether the president should be impeached. The question is whether the effort is merely symbolic. If not, then as my question’s time window decreases to six days, five days, four days, etc. as time goes on, my question’s clarity increases.

Finally, if it is symbolic, then what is the benefit of the symbolism?

Imagine the Battle of Bunker Hill

Gibbons—who one practicing (not professional—I stand corrected) historian friend of mine has labeled the “ubermensch from the era of the enlightenment through the industrial revolution”—in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire wrote, “History, which undertakes to record the transactions of the past, for the instruction of future ages…”

The infamous battle which essentially was the first of the Revolutionary War was A. A battle, B. A losing battle, and C. A fight between two opponents.

Take a moment and imagine the Battle of Bunker Hill. Read up on it if it’s been a while. (I only did recently because it is a scene in GA Henty’s, “True to the Old Flag” adventure novel that I just was lent.)

Is war coming? How can that question ever not be answered in the affirmative? Of course war is coming. Unless we’re in war. Then peace is on the way. But after peace, war is coming. (And now you know I’ve read and understand Tolstoy.)

Are the criminals who are rioting today manifesting the Bunker Hill equivalent? Nope.

Next question: are you humble enough to be instructed by history, that is, to admit the difference between the events? I hope so.

Moreover, if you pro-trumpers really want the war, you too can be instructed by history. Merely to evidence that I’m no hopey-dopey-changey-mangy democrat (and not because I want the war—I got bills, remember!), here’s what I see as easy course corrections, based entirely on a long-since passed over boys adventure novel. A. Setup at night. B. Take high-ish ground at night. C. Build battlements at night. D. Have character. E. Have been concretely grieved by the colonizing government.

I don’t normally advocate reading “history” books. But since my best friend has told me to avoid writing about the field because I’m out of my element (though daily proving that a few used books are more than enough to encourage me to have a wild opinion—no PhD program necessary), I thought I’d step into the fray.

Can reading history save us from war? Nope.

But I believe the ability to imagine historical events will help us win the coming war.

Today, then, imagine the Battle of Bunker Hill.

My Best Friend Hates Me and Wants Me To Shut Up

Naturally, he is going to disagree with this headline. That’s fine.

Naturally, this disagreement is half the point.

I wrote a post yesterday, “In Defense of the Dark Ages.” It was lucid, it was clear, and it was to the point. Consequently, my bff disagreed with it.

I suppose I should include the detail that my bff has taken to calling himself a “professional historian” of late. (Back when I was growing up, we were taught, “starving artist”. Kids these days.) We spent about, oh, eight hours or more texting about all things disagreeable about my “grandiose pronouncement” (a unflattering tendency of mine).

In the end, after a bad night’s sleep (anyone else fight with their spouse when something good like free money happens at random?) I realized my friend was right. I did defend the “dark ages”. But the real truth, the fullest truth is that I defended the historical view (one of many) that there was a “dark age”. God forbid. And a proper blog post by a professional historian in 2020 (which I am evidently not) would’ve admitted this nuance. In other words, I displayed the fact that I am an ignorant bigot, racist, and probably, at least indirectly, responsible for all that is wrong in the world.

So here’s my correction post. I do admit I mis-titled my post. I should have called it, “In Defense of My View of History—AKA the Right View.”

Because it is the right view, including the void Dark Age and all.

When it comes to history, The West is my hill to die on, or as the kids say, my “ride-or-die”.

And just like that! The muse has left. Suddenly, this claim doesn’t feel compelling anymore. Signs of the times, I suppose.

About COVID Relief Checks, A Review of Tenet, by Christopher Nolan

SPOILER ALERT: I didn’t need Christopher Nolan and his latest sapio-sexy film in order to believe that there are no parallel universes or, what is the same, that we’re all living in one big tapestry of existence. I didn’t need him to highlight that entropy is conceptually unbound from time. No. I already believed it and have proved it. How else could I have spent my COVID money before it was even deposited, huh? How else?!

As the old proverb goes, “The proof of the pudding is in the eating.”

Confession: I’ve been entraipsing through time my entire life. And it’s fantastic.

****

(To be sure, I needed the money because I thought I had all the books I would ever need—I was wrong. Now I have all the books I will ever need.)

Eating Cheese Curds with Ethiopians in Minnesota

My step-son and I came up with the designation “black haired people” for what in America are generally regarded as “black people”. He’s an immigrant from Ethiopia and, believe it or not, Ethiopians don’t view themselves as “black”. Within the formerly so-called “dark continent”, not too different from the our own “paper bag test” South, our Yahoo brethren see shades, too.

But I digress. That the cashier was “black haired” is not the point. The point is that I’m funny.

I was making a last minute trip to HyVee to pick up snack foods (hence the cheese curd headline) for this holiday. I never, never let my step-son have soda, but today I was feeling an uncommon sensation—which I *think* you all would call “giving”—and so I picked up, not just any old soda, but a four-pack of some locally crafted grape soda. This detail matters because the four cans are packaged together with some sort of homespun, yellow plastic tops. Upon inspection, I noticed that these yellow tops were a bit dirty, but I figured that it just adds character or charm.

Next, keep in mind there’s a mask-mandating pandemic going on, I am checking out and the black-haired cashier advises, “You’re going to want to wash the lids before you drink them.”

Naturally, I become very curious and ask, “Why? Is there some sort of disease going around?”

Her body language leading the near-running retreat, she immediately reduces her initial warning to a casual comment, “Oh, no. They’re just dirty.”

“There’s no disease going around?!” I clarify, cautiously betraying that I believe this fact may be a little bit bigger news than at first glance. After taking a prefatory deep breath, “Hey everyone!” I fake yell, then dramatically pausing to scan for her name tag, I add, “Cindy here says it’s over! It’s over!! We can take off the masks!”

She laughed at the ridiculous life we were apart of. I laughed at the ridiculous life we were apart of.

I then assumed the lady behind me who had insisted I go first (I had fewer items) wondered, “Could this man be The Captain?” And then I went on my merry way.

Once home, I ate cheese curds while my wife fed the baby and my step-son recounted a funny part of a book he knew I had heard him laughing at last night while he read and I played the piano.

I Love My Wife’s KitchenAid Artisan Mixer!

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your Captain speaking. Today we have a post from a guest blogger. Today, Captain “Is-There-Really-a-Difference-Between-Half-a-Teaspoon-and-a-Teaspoon?”, call sign, “I-Don’t-Care-If-the-Internet-Says-There-Is-a-Difference-Between-Baking-Soda-and-Powder-I-Can-Plainly-See-They’re-the-Same” will be taking controls.

****

That’s right, Pete. And I am excited! Let me tell you why!

First, I need to set the stage, as it were, for our readers. Picture this: a handsome devil, about 6 foot in height, adorned, from bottom to top as follows. Faux fur-lined, real Native-American-tribute moccasins connect him to the spiritual earth. (Cabelas.) Boot socks add enough insulation to his keep-warm feet. (Cabelas.) An odd type of heavy fleece sweatpants, nylon knee reinforcements and all–Gore Windstopper to boot (Cabelas–discontinued)–keeps two strong legs warm between innings. Up top, a baby blue, v-neck pajama shirt hangs out of a 1/4-zip desert green fleece (Cabelas) and together the core stays kindled.

Now, onto the main course. The recipe for mom’s Peanut Butter Blossoms Christmas cookies calls for mixing 1 3/4 cups flour with 1/2 t salt and 1 t baking soda as the first step. Then, separately, you’re to cream 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 cup peanut butter. After this, add a mix of 1/2 cup sugar and 1/2 cup packed brown sugar. And at some point an egg, 2 T milk, and 1 t vanilla come to the party. Four bowls for one cookie? No, thank you.

Breaking things into those clean cut groups might have worked in the 90s, sure. But this is 2020. And doing dishes is still a chore. Plus, I have my wife’s new, red, KitchenAid artisan mixer at my disposal.

Segue: Most husbands love this item because they love how their wives finally stop complaining. I mean, what part of life is hard after obtaining the Kitchen-Aid mixer? Not me. I love the item because I get to rebel while baking cookies.

I don’t doubt my mom. I don’t. I need to be clear about that. What I doubt is that she really intended to be so an-, I mean, particular as to limit in which order I add the ingredients. So, in the bowl (before attaching the proper tool), I began with a stick of butter (directly from the fridge) and the peanut butter. I just put them in the bowl, added the paddle-outline looking deal, and set-it-and-forget-it as they say.

Next, I, after only stopping the machine–no other adjustments–added an egg, the milk, and the vanilla. I just cracked the egg on the side of the mixing bowl and plop. Only slightly doubting whether I should have stirred the egg a bit before adding it, I figured introducing the liquid elements now might help cream up the chunks of butter that seemed resistant to my will.

Measure sugar, add. Measure other sugar, add.

Finally, I stopped the machine, and took off the paddle thing. I measured the first cup of flour, not packed, into one cup and then for the other 3/4 cup of flour–instead of using the 3/4 cup line on the same 1 cup cup, I used an entirely separate 3/4 cup cup. Did I tell you how refined I am? (You just have to rinse dry measuring cups to clean them, anyhow.)

Now, here’s where the salt and soda issue unfolded.

Finally, I pressed my luck, because, ‘Why the eff not? It’s Christmas!” and carefully prepared to visually note any detrimental changes to the consistency of the cookie dough as I by feel increased the speed from 2, to 4, and then 6–but only for a second!

In the end, what I am most happy with myself about is that while back in the prison of the index card recipe, as I rolled the dough into balls, I, through some sort of ESP, thought, “Shouldn’t I be rolling them in sugar before placing them in the over?” And, sure enough, I was right. Can you explain that?

Speaking of extra sensory perception, I’m using caramel Hershey kisses this year.

The only problem now is that I feel guilty. No–not for resisting my moms dictatorial recipe. But because my perfectionist personality is pretty positive that with all these changes to order and decor, I cannot claim to have baked my mom’s cookies after all.

What kind of son have I become!?

My Depressing Fantasy

I’ve been following my own advice and spending quite a bit of time watching fantasy movies and reading fantasy books. I should clarify here that I mean romance more than fantasy. All the normal bounds of the time space universe apply. Most recently, I watched the new Costner entry, “Let Him Go.”

These films and books fulfill their purpose just fine. However, as I fancy myself a serious blogger/writer type who could compete with those who perform on the world stage—if only I had the ambition—I often challenge myself to come up with my own take on the genre. What is my fantasy? I don’t mean, “What do I think would sell?” Or, “What do I perceive other people dream about?” No, I mean that I challenge myself to add my own fuel to the warm “good guys win” feeling that I enjoy as I see evil mother-effers reap it and good men be rewarded with beautiful, virtuous women.

Here’s the gospel truth. My fantasy centers on the children I’ve been charged by god with raising to become good men and good women.

The fiction begins with an argument. My character espouses wisdom, in a much too passionate volume. There may even be a hint of what psychologists call “contempt”. My children consistently reply with overly self-righteous bull honkey. Soon after, I kick them out of my house for crossing the line. (I haven’t resolved in which manner they cross it, whether they mindlessly repeat the slander of George Washington, Jesus, me, or one of my military buddies. But I imagine that they say something absolutely retarded and untrue and so they’ve got to go.)

Next, I imagine I resign completely from life. I become a veritable hermit.

Then the world burns.

As for me, I nimbly and deftly survive and do so in style. Eventually, others hear of an older man (they say he was a pilot, back before the Green Skies law) always staying one step ahead of the new troubles brought about by stupid young people. The Captain is suddenly whispered as if the title itself means hope.

Did you hear the latest about The Captain?

I heard The Captain has been planning something big for some time now. He’s got to be getting close.

All the while, in the hands of my children, the world burns.

But then the careful reader and viewer begin to notice new expressions on the faces of The Captain’s, by now, adult children—themselves leaders of the supposed revolution. The faces betray, finally, a wise hesitation. One might almost say the progeny appear, for the first time in their life, uncertain.

Skip to the end, and readers all rejoice as I, The Captain, am unable to outpace my children who are on their way to warn me—themselves being only one-step ahead of their pals who are coming to kill me. The reunion, made all the more compelling by the contrast between painfully slow scenes of family reconciliation and scenes of unabated, furious chase by the enemies, is only long enough for one phrase to pass.

“Father, you were right.”

Having uttered these noble words, they turn to find our mutual enemies have caught up to us. Despite our unified slaying of a significant number of them, they kill us all, saying, “Remember, orders are to kill The Captain and all of his diseased blood!”

****

Yup. It’s not family happiness that I dream about—that seems utterly hopeless in our current world. Instead, I long for vindication from the mouths of my children before I die.

The Total of the Beast

This one’s going to put me on the map! Time to finally go viral! It’s been a long enough wait, I can assure you.

As a time capsule, then, I want to finally make written record of my interpretation of the book of Revelation’s most infamous passage. I’ll be bypassing, for the reader’s sake, all discussion of the nature of prophecy and all survey of historical interpretations. In the place of these things I will attempt to simply and eloquently write my own thoughts. Let the reader be my judge.

The passage in question:

“Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for the number is that of a man; and his number is six hundred and sixty-six.”
‭‭Revelation‬ ‭13:18‬ ‭NASB1995‬‬

My interpretation hinges on the fact that there is no indication whatsoever, anywhere, that the inspired authors of Scripture, while inspired, could do math. Accordingly, the use of the word “number” in the passage calls to mind the wrong idea. Instead, the word should be “total”. With this change, the passage reads:

“Here is wisdom. Let him who has understanding calculate the total of the beast, for the total is that of a man; and his total is six hundred and sixty-six.”

What’s the difference between “number” and “total”? Ready? Here it is. Number is six. (Period.) Total is six cows. Or again, number is 70 million. (Full stop.) Total is 70 million people. With me? Okay, one more, then I’m moving on. Number is nine. (That’s all she wrote.) Total is nine ball players.

In my experience, some humans cannot see the distinction. For my own mind, I have not concluded yet whether I find this ability to see the distinction to be the result of nature or nurture. All I know is some people can’t see it. If this is you, if you can’t see the distinction between number and total, then this post, no matter how appealing, is not for you. Bye bye.

If, on the other hand, you see the distinction, then here’s the theological point. Contextually, the passage is clearly a warning. Lucky for us (lucky for Christians, that is), Jesus wins. So accurate interpretation of the warning is not consequential. (But we knew this already because John wrote that only some folks have understanding. I just want to record my own interpretation, because I’ve never read it anywhere and because I think the other interpretations of this passage are so moronic and childlike that they ought be cast into the lake of fire with all the other hell-born.)

The passage is a warning. And it warns of a method. How does it warn of a method? The only way possible—giving the result. This is a sticky assertion, I know. Hold on tight. And remember, it’s for fun. The interpretation does not matter.

Theologians and scholars agree that early written math in all cultures began by associating numbers to the letters of the alphabet, which otherwise recorded sounds. Roman Numerals are a slightly evolved remnant of this. To be clear, in English we might designate that the letter “A” equals a value of one, “B” , a value of two, and so on. This made for very difficult written calculations. But they were still much more efficient than having to laboriously write, “one plus one equals two.” (Easier version: A + A = B)

Our four-eyed ancestors saw something more though. They saw that a code could be developed, here, too.

Words could contain a meaning hidden to all but the intended, the “read in”, recipient. Love letters, and other private communiques could be communicated in broad daylight.

One such phrase, in Koine Greek (though not in the Bible) is, “the great beast”. Guess what its letters add up to? A value of six hundred sixty-six. But don’t miss the point. Plenty of words and phrases do, too. Quite literally, innumerable words and phrase add up to six hundred sixty-six.

But that phrase does, too. “The great beast.”

The passage’s warning is not of some creature, but of some creation—some total. What total? The total of a man. Which man? Which human? Could be me, could be you.

In other words, I believe that John told us that the beast meritorious of warning is when we mortals leave what is known as “concrete” reality (which does include the spiritual) and move to “abstract” reality (which does include “lies, damned lies, and statistics”, as Twain put it)—assuming we then base our actions on the abstract reality, to the detriment of the concrete reality.

This, of course, has never been done.

There it is. Now you know. Discuss amongst yourselves.