What did I want?

“What did I want?

I wanted a Roc’s egg. I wanted a harem loaded with lovely odalisques less than the dust beneath my chariot wheels, the rust that never stained my sword. I wanted raw red gold in nuggets the size of your fist and feed that lousy claim jumper to the huskies! I wanted to get you feeling brisk and go out and break some lances, then pick a like wench for my droit du seigneur–I wanted to stand up to the Baron and dare him to touch my wench! I wanted to hear the purple water chuckling against the skin of the Nancy Lee in the cool of the morning watch and not another sound, nor any movement save the slow tilting of the wings of the albatross that had been pacing us the last thousand miles.I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom. I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me, “The game’s afoot!” I wanted to float down the Mississippi on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.

I wanted Prestor John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake. I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon.

I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid. I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be–instead of the tawdry, lousy, fouled-up mess it is.” 

– Robert A. Heinlein, Glory Road

Just Past the First Day of Summer

The problem with slow blogging, as I’ve been doing here, is that I forget where I was or where I want to go. I keep a handwritten journal also, which is primarily for me to refer to events at a particular date. 

The last couple of days have certainly been interesting.  

Yesterday, the United States Supreme Court issued an opinion affirming the Second Amendment as an individual RIGHT, striking down the onerous concealed carry law in New York.  This effectively strikes down every “may issue” jurisdiction in the country.  

This was followed by calls from the left for dissolving the court (Leftist Keith Olberman).  The idiot Governor Hochul of New York said she was willing to “go back to muskets.”  What a tool! How has the education system failed so badly?  How do these morons get elected or in to positions of influence?

Today the Court issued an opinion effectively reversing Roe v. Wade. Good, it was bad law to begin with.  Maxine Waters, once again, is calling for violence on the steps of the court.  She sounds almost…insurrectiony… Why is she not in shackles? 

The wailing and gnashing of teeth from the Left is amazing.  And sweet. 

Will we have another summer like 2020? 

Weston Bluffs Trail Kona Rove

Sun trapped

 

Snownami?

 Two years into “15 days to flatten the curve,” COVID finally made an appearance at my home.  First Pam was a bit sick and then me a couple days later (now a week ago). Hopefully we got Mom out of the house in time.  We both came back positive on a PCR test, prompting a call from the State.  I called back and the person wanted me to help them fill out a form.  She had no good answer when I asked “Why do you think I want to help you do that?”  Statists gonna State. 

I’ve had cases of the flu—actual influenza—that were much, much worse.  A week later, I’m mostly just congested and extremely tired. Fortunately, we were able to have my sister pick up the elderly parent for a few days relocation. This could have been much worse.

We had snow overnight.  Originally forecast for 1-3 inches, there is over six in the back yard.  And it is coming down sideways, which is always nice. 

 

Fox 4 reported that this was a record snowfall for KCI.  Several places around the metro are reporting up to 10 inches. It appears to be all but over.  I really wish we’d had more of a winter this year, but Monday and Tuesday are forecast for the 60s.  Ah, well. 

Blue Springs Milk Cartons

 The local news just reported that today, the Blue Spring, Missouri school district went on “lockdown” for fear of “shots fired.”  The Blue Springs police responded. The news report did not say how long the lockdown lasted. Though I imagine it was probably several hours.

Apparently the “shots fired” was merely a milk carton popping. 

How have we come to this?

My father was a young man, really a boy, when he joined the Army in 1944. Underage, at 14 he had his “growth” in already as the Appalachian denizens would have put it.  He told me of changing his birth certificate with ink eradicator and enlisting.  Of course, he was discovered a year later and sent home, but that really isn’t the point.  

The World War 2 generation is only one removed from some of us.  I was born in 1965, so the first of Gen X, not really a Boomer, but I believe I think more like a Boomer.  One generation, possibly two, from the men that stormed Point du Hoc and fought in the Pacific at places like Pielelu and Iwo Jima. 

 A milk carton.

The late Rush Limbaugh referred to this type of cowardice as the “new castrati.”

I think he was right.

New Year

 January 1, 2022

I’m up early as I often am.  Usually I cannot stand to lay in bed for too long.  Over night a storm system moved into the area and there was a pretty steady sleet coming down earlier. We seem to be right on the edge of the ice-snow boundary, with accumulations increasing as you go north. (Well that seems obvious). Temperatures have already hit the high for today and will drop to below zero by morning. The Kansas City forecast for this area predicts three to six inches of snow on top of the accumulated ice. 

I sit here in the warmth enjoying fresh brewed cup of coffee.  I’ve no idea where the beans for my cup of “go juice” came from, South America? Africa? It occurs to me that the comforts that we take for granted in modern civilization are a fragile indeed. Thousands of people, huge sums of money, and expenditures of great energy were required to bring this simple cup to me this morning. 

Of course, it isn’t just the coffee. I look about my living room and consider what would be left if the technological clock were turned back a century or a bit more. Only two items would remain: an Antebellum armoire and a ceramic coffee cup. The existence of everything else, down to the sheetrock and paint, is dependent upon a complex network of economic and industrial forces. The bases of those two things is the dollar as reserve currency and oil as the engine of modern manufacturing. There is a hard push from the Left to change this.  I listen to people talk about a “green economy” and they have no idea what that means.  They have no understanding of physics or how the real world functions. Their goals appear to be driven by some sort of childlike magical thinking.

Just as the Lefty ideas of a green economy and cars running off of unicorn farts and fairy dust are a fantasy, so are the ridiculous ideas of total self-sufficiency of many survivalists. Even the Amish communities are not completely self-sufficient, though they get closer than any survivalist stockpiling five gallon gas cans with stabilizer added. I have no problem with the idea of preparedness—I do the best I can toward this. I do stock up on “beans, bullets, and band-aids,” as well as other things.  However, I’ve never lost sight of the fact that it is primarily a stop-gap measure for short term disaster or political and economic disruption as seen in 2020 and 2021.  I’ve followed a number of survivalist type writers for about twenty years now and I’ve never seen one say what to do once you’ve consumed the last can of beans. There is a reason that dystopian fiction portrays a 95% population loss.

Robert A. Heinlein, the acclaimed Dean of Science Fiction, wrote about the signs of a society in decline. High taxation, deficit spending, restriction of liberty, violence, Balkanization (though that term had not yet entered the lexicon), were all mentioned.  Additionally he included interpersonal rudeness in small matters. That is blatantly evident today, particularly online.  I would include a coarsening of the culture.  A moment ago an advertisement for a new TV show was on.  Apparently it centers around several middle aged women. One referred to another as a “Tik-Tok ho.”  The person did not see this as an insult, but something to which to aspire. How has this happened?  I think we may be well beyond the tipping point to the fall. 

I hope I’m wrong.