Tagged: relationships
Yesterday Was A Good Day
Took A- and J- on probably their longest hike and highest summit yet (4.2 miles/8000’). Sausage, cheese, crackers, and a cutie at the top.
Stopped at Crumbl for cookies on drive home.
Watched Starship 11 test flight (success).
Ate at Freddy’s.
Traditional Archery club at night, before driving in to work.
“Thanks for Nothing, Idiots!” The Iowa Superintendent Headlines Have Some Super Embarrassing Conclusions That Aren’t Being Discussed
Charlie Kirk said college was a scam. This fraud in the great state of “Idiots-Out-Walking-Around” proves Kirk correct, at least among these derecho-blown-cornfield-surrounded morons, for two main reasons. Firstly, if a formally uneducated man can fake being educated—TO FORMALLY EDUCATED PEOPLE—then wtf are we even talking about? Formal education is a scam. In other words, I believe people could fake being a pilot to non-pilots, but people could not fake it amongst actual pilots. Even newbie student pilots who think the world of themselves are easily distinguishable from the real deal, to the real deal. Secondly, if formally educated people are willing to outsource their brainpower and pay others for things such as education level background checks, then wtf are we even talking about? Formal education is a scam. In other words, I believe in outsourcing tasks/work (this is fundamentally “division of labor” and absolutely essential to civilization). But there is a point at which, say, paying a surgeon to perform a surgery on me, only to learn that he merely pays another surgeon to perform said surgery on me, is disingenuous, if not stupid.
With me?
But wait! There’s more.
Now, thanks to the “I-Owe-the-World-an Apology” citizen-educators, every BIPOC employee has verifiable good reason to fear what they have always feared and what they have been told will always be the true nature of things: They are not respected by Whites. They are being handled with kid gloves by Whites. Whites are two-faced. They (back to BIPOC) are viewed as inferior by Whites. They are unequal—window dressing at best—in a White world.”
Truly, this situation’s tragedy is far greater than ICE or lawsuits can reveal. And all parties, especially those who immediately rallied around the fraud/criminal/illegal alien, should be ashamed of themselves and shamed by us to the degree it takes to right the orbit of the earth around the sun.
One Set of Lyrics to Newsies’ “Carrying the Banner”
“We need a good assassination
We need an earthquake or a war
How ’bout a crooked politician?
Hey stupid, that ain’t news no more”
****
The young kids were taking so long to eat dinner that I three on this oldie but goodie soundtrack from childhood in the hopes of keeping my sanity.
Finally Figured Out The Kirk Memorial
Like a mathematician, it finally hit me when I stopped thinking about it.
There’s a scene at the end of many sci-fi movies, Logan comes to mind as a standout, where we are shown a kind of intended-to-be-provocative indication that pre-pubescent children are willingly going to take on all the responsibilities classically assigned to adults.
These scenes always compel me to respond with, “It’s gonna be far more difficult and deadly than the hopefulness the Hollywood director betrays, buuuut I wouldn’t bet against life.”
This is exactly how I feel after sitting through that nearly six hour memorial service.
Wow. There were a lot of young speakers. That was remarkable to me. (Obviously.)
Three other thoughts (and one conclusion) I had include:
1. I couldn’t help but watch with an international perspective, especially the government speakers. I wouldn’t claim to have my finger on the pulse of Europe or Tommy Robinson etc, but I have to believe it would be difficult for any of the remaining Westerners in Europe to find a single fault in the entire proceeding. And if I was them, I would be thinking—right now—“America is with us. Now is the time to push ahead.”
2. I also couldn’t help but put on my “I’m a devout mohammedan” hat and try to decipher what these beautiful people were going off about. In that vein, the promotion of monogamy and the idea of responsible young men is where I would have been most bothered and intrigued. I mean, seriously, that I think, whatever the intentions of the various speakers (and whatever Kirk himself would have intended), I am a sucker for the idea that some challenges (“be a better/real man; it’s worth it”) cross all barriers and cause contemplation on the matter. What would a polygamist mohammedan have in retort? “Naw, dawg. Starting with our mommy, god gives his people many women to take care of us savages and the kids so we can play the oppressed victim and destroy beauty.”
Nope. They have no response because their Old Testament ways are barbaric and have been superseded for millennia.
So, I say, perhaps with too much hope, that some of them, obviously second generation that have lived among us for their entire heathen lives, were genuinely challenged and intrigued by the monogamy part of the speeches.
3. I also tried to watch with an “I’m Black and constantly affronted by every whitey who doesn’t say the words I want to hear (‘Free Kobe’ ‘Hands up, Don’t Shoot’ ‘Black Lives Matter’ etc)” hat. From this perspective, I thought the stage had too much red—definitely Neo-Nazi. The entire event was too white—this means it was a White Christian Nationalist rally (aka Lucifer in the flesh). “Of course they use Ben Carson”. And “sumpin’ ‘rong wid her eyez” while Erika spoke. In short, I would not have been impressed by any of it and I would not have felt welcomed by any of it. And I would not have been moved by any of it, even if Rubio, Kennedy, Hegsdeth, and Vance did share the same Gospel (in the same words) that my pastor has used on me.
****
My concluding thought is, “I felt it on 9/11. I felt it as I participated in OIF. I felt it years later at an evangelical seminary when the apologetics 501 class introduced me to the ‘kalam cosmological argument’, even admitting it was developed by mohammedan theologians. And I felt it while living up in Somalia/Minnesota. The singular and definitive conflict of our generation is Western Civilization vs Islam.”
F@&$ Iraq. F@&$ Afghanistan. F@&$ getting Bin Laden.
This memorial service was the first counterpunch.
One Macro-Scale Reason Charlie Kirk Was Killed
Check this paragraph out. It is from Robert Shaplen’s New Yorker article “Life in Saigon: Spring 1972 We Have Always Survived”, April 15, 1972.
There is no need to complete the paragraph. You get the point.
This was 1972. This was the behavior of the “good guys”. This was conducted in essentially a third world, war torn country, without computers.
I don’t know about you, but I am astounded by the (new to me) information therein.
So I want to ask you: What do you want, my fellow Americans? Do you want to continue to feign outrage at the Left and its lunatic adherents and make wild claims about a coming civil war? Do you want to teach each other that there must be a response, even if it is simply at the polls? Do you want to appear totally shocked by the fact that someone who wasn’t a threat to anyone was assassinated? Do you want to task Tan’s special police to find the next lunatics?
What do you want?
I’ll tell you what I want. I want to be left alone. I want to have a private life. I want my thoughts about, my opinions about, and mostly my actions while living life on this third rock from the materials fusion process we call “the sun” to be officially unknown to any government entity.
Will you give me what I want?
Because of my desire for privacy, I am not particularly concerned about the Left and their lunatic adherents. Because of my desire for privacy, I am not particularly interested in pontificating about the meaning of assassinations. And I am not particularly surprised that harmless people are murdered.
In place of these concerns, I am particularly concerned that my kids grow up understanding that while there might be a way of life which tries to prevent assassinations (or keep the peace in general), that way will never be the way to live life. Practically, then, this means that I spend time preparing to teach them the history of the Vietnam War. Will you join me?
Two Updates on the Boy Child
First, during my attempt to get more of the cookie for myself, when I told him that the cookie was very big, J- innocently said, “My mouth is big!”
Second, we have this game Poop Tracks which is actually a pretty fantastic board game for little kids (if you care to have them turn into Tom Brown Jr.-like trackers). You spin a spinner and do what it says. The options are, “Draw 1 (or 2), Trade, Swipe, or Skip.” Naturally, I take it upon myself to teach my progeny the proper way to trade and swipe. And, naturally, the proper way to swipe is through distraction. So my kids now look forward to the spinner landing on “swipe” so they can say, “Look at that, Dad!” before proceeding to take one if my cards. Well, just now, as J- and I (A- is now in kindergarten 😦 ) were having a donut, he says, “Look out the window, Day-ad!” Obviously he was priming me for the take, but for what? I played along and then he swiped my napkin. What a guy!
Pilots—Hope Embodied
I’m at work today and was chatting with the mechanic. It got me thinking.
Man, this job sure requires me to place a lot of trust in other people.
This led to me wondering What makes someone want to be an aircraft mechanic?
This led to I sure hope the answer is ‘not being as brave or good-looking’ as pilots.
But I backed off that and landed on Flying the aircraft requires more trust in other people than mechanics usually possess.
There are surely other measures of trust or, more broadly, hope. But what I mean to call attention to is the why behind the quality of the trait that pilots necessarily possess.
Once considered, I say one must conclude that it isn’t merely the mode of travel, but the fact of travel that betrays the pilot’s special embodiment of hope. From the functioning of the aircraft, to the people at the (planned or unplanned) destination not killing you upon arrival, the pilot embodies hope.
From another angle, consider that Mark Twain said, “Travel is fatal to prejuidce, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”
That’s got all the right words, but it’s backwards. From where I sit, “Prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness are fatal to travel.”
But, of course, by travel I mean more than the movement of the body from one location to another. I count as travel learning—even via books. I count attending different cultures’ events (ie, Chinamen moving to Chinatown is not travel, but one religious Chinaman’s visiting of a different religion’s Chinaman family—all who live in the same apartment building is) as travel. There are probably other meanings I would count.
Or not.
So I only mean three things count as travel. (1) travel, (2) learning, and (3) dually (i) meeting people who look identical to yourself but are, in fact, not you and (ii) meeting people who look nothing like you and finding out they are, in fact, your identical twin. And the connection which binds these three is not travel, but hope.
Do you see?
A Lesson that Requires Pocket Change
My friend, an older, heavyset gentlemen, keeps his story going with, “It’s about listening. You gotta teach the kids how to listen.”
Here he pauses and apologizes as he needs a break. He often needs to take a break, but doesn’t seem too concerned with the underlying medical condition.
The cloudiness disappears and he resumes.
“I teach my grandkids how to listen by placing a penny on the palm of my hand right here-” here he holds out his left hand, palm facing me, and points to the spot where I have always assumed street magicians palm the coin.
He continues, “Then I place a nickel next to it and a quarter next to the nickel. Then I tell the kids, ‘Johnny’s mom had three kids. Penny, Nick, and ??’”
The man turns to me, and I open my eyes larger than normal, while raising my eyebrows. I mean to merely indicate that I am not ready for an interactive moment, but I also admit that I don’t yet understand anything from this listening lesson.
“It requires the coins. Who has some coins?”
I follow him to the table where some other men are sitting and my friend asks the leader and most responsible of us, “Jim, do you have any coins? I need a penny, a nickel and a quarter.”
Surprisingly, and as predicted, Jim pulls a 1986-sized fistful of pocket change out of his shorts’ pocket and finds the required coinage.
My friend then places the coins in his palm, penny, nickel, quarter. Jim is paying attention, but the previous conversation he was apart of continues to unfold as well.
“Johnny’s mom had three kids. Penny, Nick, and ??”
Wishing to show my language prowess, I forget about the spelling of ‘quarter’ and begin to contemplate every name that starts with the ‘kwart’ sound.
“Kwart? Kurt?” I guess.
Shaking his head in shame, my friend repeats, “Johnny’s-”
“JOHNNY!” I exclaim, joyfully. “Johnny,” I then repeat, with a pronounced note and loud look of playful disgust.
Jim knowingly smiles.
My friend says to him, “You’ve heard this one before, huh?”
A slow nod from Jim answers.
“You see, Pete, someone has to teach them how to listen.”
****
Here’s the catch, faithful reader. Anyone who gets the right answer already knows how to listen. The all important and usually lacking skill in the human, imho, that my friend taught his grandkids (and I) is humility.
When I Think Of Russia and Ukraine, I Think of My Mom
My brother “blocked” me over a year ago. When there are in-person events we are cordial, and even able to have conversations. But he won’t accept texts or calls.
Naturally, he still chats with our mom.
Naturally, I still chat with our mom.
But my mom will not play the middle man. She has never had interest in playing the middle man—between anyone. That is just her prerogative.
This is why I think of my mom, when I think of Russia and Ukraine.
America (meaning “Americans”) does not want to play the middle man. I believe this is the fullest truth that can be asserted regarding the situation.
Reading Log 8.6.25
I used to have a several t-shirts which had authors’ faces on them. James Fenimore Cooper was one of them. I just like his books. They feel historical, even though I know they are fiction. If you are open to testing the waters, I’d start with Last of the Mohicans, but eventually Afloat and Ashore should be read.
I will write a proper book review of Suleyman’s The Coming Wave soon. (It’s about AI.) Just know that he opens by expressly saying that he means to call to mind Noah with the word “wave”. Oooo. Scary.
Poems are what they are. Some are fun. Some are painful to get through. Holmes obviously wrote with great ability. But that didn’t mean his poems are all tier one.
Volume 1 of Reporting Vietnam (and what I have read of Vol 2) will change your life. These should be required reading for all American highschoolers. In short, Ho Chi Minh first entered the political scene in a big way in WWII by insisting Vietnam should be independent. Then in an interview in 1962 he said it will take maybe 10 years for America to give up. In 1973, before a full 10 years, America withdrew. Consider these facts. Ask: Why did America oppose Ho? I am of the firm opinion that in the future, it will be common knowledge among American History buffs that Vietnam was the true turning point in American History. Everything occurring today (in politics) goes back to that war. To be clear: The lesson I will distill to my own progeny is the following. “Ho wanted something and achieved it. Why did America even try to stop him? Oh, I know. Communism. Well, ‘F$&* Communism’. Communism makes people lose their minds. Why? It’s not to be feared. No idea is. And hug any Vietnam veterans that you meet. Also, America has no duty to help any country out of some sort of compassion. We now have Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan (hopefully not Ukraine) as proof that the task of “helping” is impossible. People have to help themselves. America should do what we want precisely because we want to do it. Period.”
Aeschylus’ poems are fantastic. They are timeless too. Read and re-read.
Those essays in Volume 10 (final volume) of Gateway to the Great Books are exceedingly worthy. Of special note is JS Mill and Voltaire. Emerson is a great contrast to Mill. John Dewey is a must-read for anyone in Education—but unfortunately he will never be read by the uneducated. Sad.
Finally, the Vicar of Wakefield. This is a book that “moralizes”. Do you even know what that means? It means to use a story to teach how to act. Our culture, nearly every member, regardless of gender ;), does not believe in teaching morality. So you will not likely see the value of this book. I even doubt that my kids will understand it. But we’ll find out together when they’re old enough. Not the best book. But a good one on how to find happiness during unhappy circumstances.
Captain’s Log 