* Why I Am Now Against the War(s)

YT

Because we don’t win them.

That’s where I’d stop if I wanted to be gnomic and glib. But it is a sort of important matter. We don’t win wars anymore because we don’t have the will. We don’t have the stomach. Like fools, like teenagers, we get all upset over something and go in to kick some ass. But it’s not about kicking ass, it’s about making changes that result in our benefit. War, as Bismarck said, or was it Clausewitz, is politics by other means. Clausewitz -- Bismarck said politics is the art of the possible. Politics is the opposite of dictatorship -- not the imposition of will, but the outworking of compromise. If we cobble all this into a syllogism, the conclusion is that war excludes compromise; corollary, that war is best prosecuted by a dictator. That’s it then: we don’t win our wars because we are a democracy. Odd, how television did that.

Something wrong there in the logic of course. Democracies can win wars. War here however does not mean damaging foreign infrastructure and killing enemies and displacing leaders. War here must mean increasing our own safety comfort welfare prosperity, whatever the cost to the enemy. We don’t do that anymore. We have confused, conflated, war with politics. Cuz you see we’re nice guys. Remember just now when I intimated that we were a democracy? More to the point, we are an incipient, hemi-empire, with the duties but not the privileges, and which fact is wholly incompatible with our American ethos of fairplay and generosity and liberty. We have lost our way. We should have propped up, were it possible, the British Empire, let them be the figurehead and world police. Not in the card or the stars, sadly, and our success is the poison pill of our downfall.

Don’t get married unless you’re going to be faithful. Don’t have kids unless you’re going to be responsible. Don’t start wars unless you’re going to win. Democratic America in living memory finishes long wars according to variants on one pattern only: airlifting personnel off an embassy rooftop.

Democracy and empire are, surely, incompatibilities. We need either a dictator -- I nominate Obama -- or we need to get our own house in order. Ah. I’ve just figured out the solution to the tribulation heading our way. We need to empire, no, Empire our way out of this mess. Since we have so clearly demonstrated a total inability to govern ourselves in a prudent manner, we need to more completely exploit the rest of the world. We have so far been not an empire, but a patron. Supporting the freedom of Europe for lo these many decades. Propping up dysfunctional Third World pathocracies (I just made up that word -- accent on the second syllable). Sixteen trillion is chump change, if we take it out of the mineral wealth of Africa and America South. It’s about time Mexico started to earn its keep. Europe is too arrogant and, frankly, warlike. But maybe Russia will get Europe. Asia has those Chinese, who will be the cathode to our anode -- we’ll squabble over Africa. Australia gets a pass, just cuz. It will be the new Land of the Free and Home of the Brave.

We will of course have to abandon our former American character. Oh, wait. Done. So now we need to enter truly into the next, misplaced, phase of the Roman pattern. Usually it’s empire first, then decline. We’re already decadent. Now let’s expand. I think this could buy us another hundred years.

Purely by coincidence -- or perhaps it was my subconscious at work, formulating the ideas that now scintillate before your dazzled eyes -- I was walking through Trader Joes today thinking how odd, the convention to wear pants. Left over from horse-riding days. Do we ride horses? Then I pictured myself striding the aisles garbed in a toga. Animal House echoes aside, I think there’s an argument to be made here. I’ll give it some thought and let you know what I decide.

So that’s why I’m against, now, the former and lost war in Iraq -- wherein my own son, blood of my blood, imperiled his life -- as well as the current and lost war in Afghanistan. I don’t mind the war. I hate the losing. I hate the comfort such lost wars give to the enemies of America, foreign and domestic. I hate the damage to the soul and psyche that lost wars do to those Americans who still remain. War is ugly and a failure of humanity. But humanity is ugly and a failure, and sometimes execution is just, even on a mass, albeit monstrous and impersonal, scale. The liberal wants a live free from hardship and failure, and opportunity and success. The conservative wants poverty and unhappiness, and wealth and inequality of outcome, as the result of freedom, logic, and unavoidable reality. What is unavoidable is inevitable. War.

Also tonight, 49 years out from the killing of JFK, I was thinking that America is always worse after the assassination of a president. We never get over it. Like Rome never got over the assassination of Julius Caesar. You may be drawing the unfounded inference that just as Caesar’s murder ushered in an imperial age of "Caesars", so an American empire might be brought about by, god forbid, such a death -- a dynasty of, god forbid, "Obamas" or "Bidens" or "Hillaries" -- and here I’ve been going on about how an American empire is next up. But you’d be missing the point I just affirmed, about what makes America, always, worse.

Hopefully the end of our Constitution will be brought about along the electoral, fascist model, of Hitler and Mussolini. Since the past several generations of Americans, at least, are incapable of learning from history, it must be hoped that this time a happier outcome may accrue, despite the lessons of the past. As Montaigne said, we know only what we know now -- we do not know what we have forgotten, and we do not know what we have not yet learned. And what we know now is demonstrated in the outcome of the most recent election. Study this paragraph deeply, for the key to wisdom herein may be found.

So, in conclusion, I’m against wars because under our current leadership we lose them, and I’m against assassination because America always becomes more leftist after them, and I’m expecting a literal or figurative tribulation, and in either case I’m expecting an Empire.


J

GV

I’ve been reading Gore Vidal's review of a memoir by John Updike. Gore -- may I call him Gore? -- marshals in full his heroic capacity for sarcasm as he proceeds to deconstruct Updike the man. I’d been waiting for Gore to die -- being the last of that coterie of mid-century luminous literati that danced so enthusiastically before a celebrity-adoring public. (You see, Young Reader, there was once a time (before reality tv, before talkshows had been utterly taken over by comedian hosts chatting solely to actors (mostly B-list starlets)) when actual conversation counted as entertainment.) Truman Capote, Norman Mailer, Gore Vidal, were the Kardashians and Huni Bubus of that lost age, only, possessing talent. Dead dead dead, now, all gone, but lamented only in the way that cellphones are enjoyed … because that’s how progress precedes.

 And I was wondering, reading Gore’s snide, unfair critique of Updike, how might the latter have responded. We cannot diminish it, dismiss it as an attempt at wit, because it is witty. For all that his stylishly framed tropes are oddly (not surprisingly, not distressingly) superficial, yet Vidal (‘Gore’ has become grating) was talented. But the word talent sets up a clangorous resonance with the parable of the talents. What is to be made of the man of talent, who wastes it? Not wasted in terms of productivity, for Gore Vidal, GV, was prolific.

I just don’t know if it is fair to judge a man for his unwisedom, as GV was, a deep, profoundly deep leftist. Maybe it’s an inherent trait in some people, the marrow of their souls, that no lesson of reality gentle or harsh can ever expunge. We judge a man first for his actions, then for his influence, and only
last for his delusions. Be that as it may, what we have here is a put-down artiste, never comfortable with the burly candor of the men’s locker room, save as a homosexual, but in full-throated glory in the epicene’s salon.

 And it was in reading Vidal’s essay on Nabokov’s Lolita that I decided never to read Lolita. The movie, parts of which I have seen, never engaged me. The book, reports suggest, is on a par with Naked Lunch, which long ago once found itself airborne between my hand and the wastepaper basket. Filth, trash -- not quite le mot juste. The nightly and years-long rape of a pubescent and later nubile girl as a morif just doesn’t grip me, for all the elegance of style or pathos of theme. Tsk tsk, ain’t it a shame, now let’s think about her clitoris some more.

Someone Wednesday had a big grin on his face 

because I was interacting with a lovely young woman. Seems I am suspected of heterosexual intentions. It’s almost a source of grief, and certainly one of unrest, how alienated I am from an adult expression, unleashing, of my libido. Who let the dogs out. This one was too young in any event -- not Lolita young, my son’s age -- and I do have a sense of decorum … unless I’m tempted, and that’s unlikely to happen when I’m in the capacity I was then occupying. But she was lovely, maybe a seven on a good day, and I’m quite charming, and I could not help but notice, and I’m good at ignoring, her smooth as cream breasts. Sort of noticeable. Which occasionally gets me to thinking what it must be like to be a woman, with such an obvious and inconvenient, um, badge of sexuality.

 I’m glad I’m not a woman. I simply wouldn’t know what to do with, um, my, uh, breasts. I mean, they’re just there, and you can’t hide them in shame, and it’s not polite or fair to flaunt them. But maybe it is. Not my problem though. Having a dick is difficult enough. And don’t get me started on balls. Always in the way, and I think my scrotum is getting baggier. I’m finding my underwear isn’t providing as much support as in the past. An elastic issue? I do hold on to them for a long time -- I'm referring to my underwear, and I want a pair that lifts and separates.  Somebody should market that idea.

 I know I’m wrong, but I consider it rude and unethical to impose my sexuality on someone I don’t know extremely well. As my first marriage informed me, it is an imposition. I wish I were normal. Cuz from what I’ve seen from the internet, I have an exceptionally nice penis and any woman would be lucky to enjoy it with me for a while. Maybe I should write a novel about that. Give me some feedback and we’ll take it from there. I’ve already got some potential titles: The Night and the Pillar, An American Cream, In Hot Blood ... it’s too easy. I’d do for middle aged horndogs what Nabokov did for incestuous pedophiles.

 Ho hum. Now you might suppose that the use of my own talent also is not entirely beyond a susceptibility to criticism. It may be you harbor the suspicion that I am not utilizing my gifts in a way fully consistent with my artistic and intellectual possibilities. To this I must agree, and add a lament as well for my untapped and seminal potential -- like deepsea drilling, like the Keystone Pipeline, like fracking. Why are liberals so against heterosexual missionary-position sex? But we are the way we are, until we’re some other way. It’s in the bones, which twist with disease, break with trauma, and grow with health until they harden.

 You’d think I’m too smart to be so unwise. But that’s what this whole post has been about. Meanwhile, don’t worry about me. If anything were a real problem, I wouldn’t talk about it.

This is what I did on Thanksgiving. Enjoy your family.


J

A Severed Artery

Here it is then. America has served its purpose. At the end of a productive career it is appropriate to retire.  How can we resent the fact.  As at the end of a long life, even those we most deeply love must pass, gently we pray, into death.  We grieve, but we rejoice the fine life lived.  So we must count it with America.  We will not think of it as degeneration.  The butterfly is changing into a caterpillar.  In a fallen creation, this must be the nature of things.

America rose and stepped onto the world stage for a purpose.  She preached liberty to all mankind, and brought wealth, and health, opportunity, actively and through her example.  She raised mankind to a new height.  In her blessings, she blessed.  We must be grateful for this, and humbled by it.  We have been the possessors and last guardians of something holy.  That we were too frail, too human, to cherish it enough to nurture it counts to our detriment, and we will be judged for it.

After judgment there may be mercy.  If we were not strong enough to protect it, not faithful enough to fight to the very extremity of our endurance to meet our duty, well there cannot be surprise in this.  If heroism were the norm it wouldn't need a name.  Think of it as the crimson cord of redemption, woven through the books of the Bible, passing even through our Constitution -- but regardless of what it might do, in reality it can't do everything that needs doing.  The universe is a balance between fulfillment and futility.  Hope can fail.  We will suffer for it, but we must console ourselves with the idea that our time is simply past, and now some other power must take our place.

It really was a beautiful dream, though.  I find myself grieving, literally grieving, for the lose of even the pretext of something so lovely.  Liberty, and that greatness of spirit that our system allowed -- the generosity and self-sacrifice, the heroism, nobility, the resolve to discern what is right and do that thing.  A wonder for the ages.  So rare.

We cannot lie to ourselves any longer.  Just another country now.  Some may have higher standards of living, some may have better education -- most anywhere may have something better. But we were America, and there was nothing better.  Can't say that any longer.  If we are governed like an occupied people, a broken people, regulated and taxed and allowed our limited allotment of bureaucrat-sanctioned "rights" -- how much soda we can buy, which words we're allowed to use -- this is certainly not freedom, not America as we have believed it to be.

This is not something worth fighting and dying for.  The only loyalty such a place elicits is that which is due to any homeland. It has never been a blessing to be French, or Mexican, or German -- these might love their country, but patriotism is just an intensified sort of fandom, like rooting for a sports team ... it's our team, so we cheer for it.  America was something different. Like Israel.  Not just a light but a star, to guide the world.

Ah well.  We wake from the delusion of Santa Claus.  There is only mom and dad, who work hard to care for their kids.  We had thought our mothers were virgins -- no longer.  Some of them are sluts.  We thought our fathers were heroes.  Some are poseurs.  But I misspeak.  We are that ignoble generation, and it is our children who will pay for it, at a cost disproportionately greater than the pleasure we demanded for ourselves.

I am unspeakably saddened.  It's not that the decline has not been clear.  But now it is undeniable, and I fear irreversible.  Sluts can become chaste, but they can never again be virgins.  We went whoring after a preening fool four years ago.  It turns out we like his sodomy, because we have confirmed our devotion to his perversions.

On the grand scale, it's just a passing from one era of history to the next.  To be expected.  On the personal scale, liberty matters, and we are witness to a sort of mass-extinction of rights.  Turns out man-caused Climate Change was real.  It's just that the climate was that of liberty, and the change was for diminishment.

How will I ever regain control over my own health care?  How will I ever be able to exclude the bureaucracy from my life?  They take a little, and a little more, and more still, until it is all theirs and they allow us to have a morsel, a crust from the lords to the lepers begging at the gate.

I just can't think about it any more.


J

Undoing America

This reelection is a catastrophe. Because the pages of FP have been the playground of excess, you might suppose I'm being satirical. No. It really couldn't be worse, the reelection of this incompetent fool. It is precicely as if Jimmy Carter -- do I capitalize his name? -- I've forgotten ... as if jimmy carter had been reelected. Instead of Reagan's correction, it would have been, uh, four more years of the rabbit. For more fears: OBAMA!

So we're in Alternate Historyland. I like science fiction. It's too much work to explicate thoroughly -- I'm not being paid, you know -- but suppose the USSR had not been stressed by Reagan's policies? An evil empire that did not fall. Now we have an empire in the making, during the Obama Error -- a Caliphate simply awaiting its own Obama, another The One, somehow, charismatic and inspired with some Genius, some Jinn of dark purpose. Understand, I like Islamic culture. Of all dark age systems, it is the least awful. Less mud. Let them have the civilization they want. But it is the nature of a Caliphate, as of a USSR, to expand.

Good ideas prevail, in the free marketplace of ideas. But where is there such a thing as a free marketplace. Do I even have that phrase right? Marketplace of free ideas? Idea-free marketplace? Entrenched powers manipulate markets, governments, to gain more power. In California, the worst state (because it should be the best), it is the unions and the super-majority Left -- I won't make a list of their perversions. In the US, there is no free marketplace of ideas, because that would require a free press, and academic freedom. Free means equal under just rules, which demands the balanced scales of justice, and there is no balance in the media -- a fair hearing of legitimate disagreement -- so there is no free press. Left press. As long as that is the case, the downward slide is unstoppable.

I have a waiver on Godwin's law, so I can with impunity cite the Third Reich. Goebbels was Reich Minister of Propaganda. That's right, an office of government that was all about propaganda. Goebbels was certainly the equal of Himmler and Goering in Hitlers affections, and it was Goebbles who bunkered down with Hitler at the end. Point is, propaganda. In America the gross mass of the gross mass media establishment is an arm of the Left. Not just a left arm, but the corpus. How can freedom prevail, where it has no voice? Liberty does not ring forth.

Likewise with the classroom. It is Left dominated. Youth is already unwise and ignorant. Is it a conspiracy, to keep them so and call it education? I won't expand on the idea. In any case, when the forces that shape and fill our minds are bigoted, this can hardly be called freedom. And a weak military in a fearsome world. And exorbitant energy costs, or unavailable energy as Sandy just demonstrated. And bureaucrats outnumbering productive people. And aliens invading, with impunity and contempt.

Enemies, without and within. This is what is technically called "decadence." Which brings me to my point. I think America is done. The debt will be dealt with via hyperinflation, which will destroy the middle class. Coercive government and public-sector unions (read, government) will undermine any reality of personal independence, leaving only the verbiage of freedom. Obama mouths platitudes about us being a free people, while he takes over the care of our health. Etc. Insanity.

Well, empires disintegrate. The road back to freedom requires less government power. How could such a thing ever happen. Consider the USSR, the British Empire, Yugoslavia, Iraq -- any unnatural welding of unlike parts. The idol with feet of iron mixed with clay. When these things are put together, we think they will stand forever. But they don't.

When we say we love America, what is it we mean? Lincoln loved the Union. Can there be an America without a Union? Yes or no, there cannot be freedom with this present Union on its present course. Is it unconstitutional for a state to secede? Law as it stands says, illegal. But the United States came to be through revolution, unlawful. Justified through natural law.

A people who would reelect Obama is unworthy of its blessings. Punishment is coming, a vicious thrashing by reality. I'm going to buy a generator, a futile act but I must do something. Revolution? Of course not. Science fiction stuff. But decay unto putrefaction. I catastrophize of course. So what if America just becomes Europe West. Some other power will rise to fill the void, and Europe, and Western Annex, like the rest of the world, will plod along. Since mankind has so rarely lived in freedom, its lose is to be expected. Freedom in any case is a relative term. Are we adolescents, to believe in ideals?

Even if there were a revolution, it would not be the revolutionaries who caused America's undoing. It was the Left, and a complacent, unworthy, corrupt American people. It is the nature of the prodigal to seek out the company of pigs. I have rambled here, but the issue is clear: what is it that we love, and how can we reclaim it. I do not owe loyalty to politicians or to government itself, but to the Constitution and the principles it embodies. The oppressed do not owe loyalty to the tyrant. The hostage does not owe loyalty to the terrorist. Somewhere in there is the correct analogy. Bottom line is, Americans must be independent. The alternative is not dependence, but slavery.

Big talk. It will come to nothing. It is the nature of decadence to be ineffective.


J

Tuesday

O was reelected again Tuesday.  Mandate and universal acclaim.  It's been that way for as long as most can remember.  People don't live as long as they used to though, mostly.  A couple of generations just fly by.  Anyway, the usual celebrations.  Selubrayshunz.  Every few years, no particular pattern, he calls for his reelection.  Always gives the same speech -- it's a liturgy by now.  The same misty gratitude from him, the same ecstasy from the acolytes.  Owkstusy from the Okuliytz.

The chip in our wrists votes automatically.  Some people started voting the day they were born.  Saves Karbun,  people not having to go anywhere or do anything.  As the national motto says, "Forward! Everything is always getting better."

His motorcade sped by the school a few weeks ago.  I didn't bother to go to the window.  I was alone, so no one could notice.  Afterwards I thought, what if there had been an earthquake, and a great crevasse had opened in the road and swallowed his limousine?  Then I thought, how could somebody make that happen?  Back when there used to be tv with commercials, there was a show about a little boy with godlike powers who did whatever he wanted to anyone he wanted.  I thought of that, thinking of the earthquake, what it would be like to have that kind of power.  Then I realized O already has it.  I'm one of the few, I think, who remember him promising to lower the seas.  Indeed he did.  Froze much of them over to do it.

Yesterday I went mad.  I read her name in the Rejuster and my heart has not beaten since.  I won't bother to describe it.  But, as I said, once, long ago, all bets are off.

I think I've come to a decision.  I have lived in fear and silence and cowardice and complicity and betrayal for, well, for these recent generations at least.  I may not ever have been the man I once thought I was.  That man, living in freedom, is no longer possible.  No gene splicing of atavistic traits will reclaim that humanity. Ubi non est dubium, libertas non est ibi.

A man cannot live, worried about losing his tyreless bicycle. He cannot live, clutching at a glove because it smells of a woman's hair.  He cannot live, denouncing acquaintances who are beaten to death as a result.  I have forgotten about God.  But no atheism promises a more meaningless end than life as it now is.

There used to be a Resistance.  All that remains of it is fantasy and the memory of old tv shows and the skulking pettiness that sneaks an extra spoonful of mash in the commissary line.  We have been so broken that they have grown careless.  Their violence has met for too long with only weeping, and blood other than their own.

We.  As if there were a we.  I will remind them of fear.  I will show them their own blood.  I will work such obscenity on their fresh corpses that all who see will glimpse a mirror of their own souls.  I will be as monstrous as Dumawkrucy, as evil as O.  I will burn down the world, and all its princes and their babes.  The wrong people have been suffering.

I

After the Blowdown

I awoke this morning disoriented and fatigued after a fitful, painful sleep. Something, something I needed to remember. Ah. Yesterday I was wrongly convicted of child abuse and assault. Yesterday I discovered my wife had given me syphilis. Yesterday I lost my job at the same time that I lost my reputation, my career and my assets. Yesterday one of my sons stabbed me in the back. Yesterday Obama was reelected.

America has left us. Now we must consider the nature of love. Are we to love America only when she is honorable and wise? What of when she is foolish and selfish and greedy and short-sighted and destructive? Shall we love her even when she is recalcitrant, irredeemable? -- when she like Israel goes whoring after other gods? And America herself? -- is she the land, topography, or a history, or a people, or a form of government?

There is of course no America. Only an idea and a continuity of identity, like a corporation. Like the ship of Odysseus, year after year wending the wine-dark seas, all the while worn-out parts replaced with new until no original piece remained. It is the same, yet not. So with America. She has changed, fallen frankly from a higher place, luxuriating in license while forgetting what liberty means. Human nature does not change, but nations do. What are we to do with this syphilitic whore?

Pray, and work, for her redemption.

Immigrants have been a great strength to this nation. Adventurous, courageous to leave their homelands and carve out a way in the American wilderness. God bless them -- they deserve our gratitude. But something has changed. In former decades our new fellow Americans came because this was the land of opportunity, and they wanted some of that, prospering and contributing. Now they are coming not for the opportunity but for the wealth. We are a rich country, and they want that wealth redistributed downward, their way. They flee their own corrupt homelands not to make something better, but to take from what hasn't yet been completely looted. In a social welfare state, to allow the unskilled immigrant unfettered entrance is to invite the Vandal, the Visigoth, who have no stake and feel no loyalty. Of course they come to work. But they harvest, and do not plant.

Very racist-sounding I am sure. But what does race have to do with it? It's about culture, and about human nature. Two of my three sisters-in-law are foreign-born and -raised. I want Third World immigration. How else would I ever find a mate? But, legal, please.  Rule of law radiating both ways -- that is our social compact.  Instead of the current conspiracy, government plantation overseers on the one hand, and underclass semi-dependents on the other.  Spurred on by the minstrel show of the media, oblivious to their own racism: after all, they are -- so sincere and secure -- entertaining us.

God has indeed handed us over to Satan. I mean it. But these things happen. There was, you see, no Great Repentance. Even Assyria had a Great Repentance, and it was an empire as wicked as the Aztecs'. There needed to have been a Day or Week or Month of Fasting, and I heard not one single solitary call for it, but maybe I wasn't listening, and in any case I myself never thought of it until too too late.

So now we have what we have, with his ability to appoint Supreme Court justices, hopefully not replacing any conservatives if they can hold on, but replacing with something even somehow worse Ginsburg and Breyer and the swinger Kennedy. And now we will have the privilege of the government being a third confidant in the doctor-patient relationship. If you can't trust an impartial bureaucrat... and what party is there that could possibly be more disinterested than the government? Or do I mean impersonal. And we will have a vitiated military, not paper but perhaps a cardboard tiger, just big enough to be not quite big enough. And all the anti-sovereignty UN "treaties" brewing in the works. And now we get to find out what ever shall be done with the enhanced "flexibility" Obama's mandate grants him re Vladimir.  And, of course, how could we forget, oil.

We have to love people. They are so weak and foolish. They are so unwise. For my part, I am, it appears, a generally unforgiving man, once I perceive the magnitude and deliberate nature of an offense. My justification is that repentance is such a rare thing. In this instance, Obama's reelection, I am just another victim. God judges humanity through its nations, and nations through their leaders. The USSR had no choice, nor most any of the desperate and despised Third World. For this, their down-trodden peoples deserve mercy. America chooses, and we are so corrupt that the very word, choice, is a rite and an abomination of Moloch.

Yes, I think you are very stupid, unspeakably so, and a whore. You are a drug addict abortionist gay-agenda anti-God traitor. You need to be driven naked through the streets spurred on with a whip. You need to hunch in broken glass, cradling the head of your dead child, wiping ashes from his face with your hair and your tears. But... you will. So you will need love, and forgiveness, and compassion.

First things first, though.


J

Election Day

Stupid.

J

The End of America

To be published on the event of Obama's reelection.

I must have been trapped inside the conservative talk radio echo chamber, believing sages steeped in a thorough knowledge of their own opinions.  I had been, you see, not unhopeful. But there is no hope now.  No political hope.  No social hope.  America, that stupid stupid bitch, has married her seducio-rapist, or rather affirmed herself a slut to the Leftist pimp.  May not be the Scarlet Whore of Babylon, but she's a whore.

There is no more America.  Weep for her, for she is dead.  Europe has leapt its shores and enveloped America into its night.  Another dark age, this one called enlightened, brought on by the flaccid barbarians of vice -- what after all is it, to abandon the precepts that built our civilization.

I had hoped that Sandy would be a divine intervention, but God is silent, or he has handed us over to Satan.  In any case, any corrective lesson that the Hand of God might have dealt has been misunderstood.  Obama, somehow, by sending out a photo of himself looking concerned in the Situation Room, and strolling with rolled-up cuffs on the edge of Jersey's new shores, has so impressed stupid stupid America with his manliness, that there is no orifice closed to him now.  Fuck me five ways, Obama, then Obamacare me into another gender and find a sixth.

So I am giving up on American exceptionalism.  We're just another country now, with no Dream except those of Obama's father, and no more claim to virtue than France or Uzbekistan or Cuba or Kenya.  Extreme?  If the only connection we have with being right is thinking we're right, that's what every country, just any country, can say of itself.  It is right for oligarchys or kleptocrats or islamist imams to press and impose their own advantage.  They think they're right.

We are past, now, in this final most self-revealing act of democracy, any claim of patriotism, which by definition requires sacrifice not advantage.  The only difference now between us and ancient Rome is that their bread and circus involved gladiatorial blood sport, and ours involves abortion.  Baby Googoo and Jersey Shorgies are surely a coarsening of our culture, but only in the way that vomit is  the eructation of an internal corruption.

My experience with God is that he lets you suffer.  Maybe he thinks it's good for us.  But if not us, then who will be a force for good in the world?  We must revise our understanding -- "US" in the context of doing good must refer only to the objective pronoun.  Countries do not do good.  Countries, the great arc of history demonstrates, must always become decadent.  Welcome to the 21st Century.


J

Spectacles

As is well known, among his many stellar attributes Your Humble Author is a revered antiquarian of early 20th century American popular culture. Before the country was taken over by teenagers.   I've touched lightly on the subject on previous occasions.  You of course will be utterly uninformed on the matter, mired in Generation Gack as you are.  Allow me to expose you to brilliance. Here, and here.  Lum and Abner.  Select parts of the above are laugh-out-loud ... no, excuse me, "LOL" funny.  You see, I lower myself to my audience, that I may raise them up.  The way you pat a puppy.

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And speaking of petty arrogance, Obama literally said to Romney the literal actual outloud words in English with his mouth, “While we were coordinating an international coalition to make sure these sanctions were effective, you were still invested in a Chinese state oil company that was doing business with the Iranian oil sector.”  What a punk.  A line fed to him of course by his punk advisers   Now I myself am in no way above saying something so small.  I want to win arguments, and I have no need to protect the dignity of any high office, so being crass is a legitimate tactic with me.  I'm no Jack Kennedy.  Obama is no Joe Biden.

Speaking of whom, the man 0 chose to succeed him said, to Navy Seal Tyrone Woods' grieving father at the memorial service, "Did your son always have balls the size of cue balls?"  Yes, Joe, and his dick was very big too.  Now, what body part shall we talk about, in reference to Joe?  Comments Mark Styne: "One assumes charitably that the vice president is acknowledging in his own inept and blundering way the remarkable courage of a man called upon to die for his country on some worthless sod halfway across the planet. But the near-parodic locker-room coarseness is grotesque both in its inaptness and in its lack of basic human feeling for a bereaved family forced to grieve in public and as crowd-scene extras to the political bigshot. Just about the only formal responsibility a vice president has is to attend funerals without embarrassing his country. And this preening buffoon of pseudo-blue-collar faux-machismo couldn’t even manage that."  Couldn't have said it better myself.

 But I digress.  Back to the super genius.  At the debate, 0 continued, "Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets, because the nature of our military’s changed.  We have these things called aircraft carriers, where planes land on them.”  I've cited this great oratory before.  Allow me now to cite the incomparable Charles Krauthammer on this point: "This is 0bama’s case for fewer vessels? Does he think carriers patrol alone? He doesn’t know that for every one carrier, ten times as many ships sail in a phalanx of escorts? 0bama may blithely dismiss the need for more ships, but the Navy wants at least 310, and the latest Quadrennial Defense Review Independent Panel report says that defending America’s vital interests requires 346 ships (versus 287 today)."

Logic is a dying art -- went out with the study of Latin, and Shakespeare, and classical (rather than  loose) rhetoric.  We'll find out if it is thoroughly dead, come Election Day.

You are very dumb.


J

Culture

Allow me to demonstrate my meaning, re Mohammad Ali. Reading something by Budd Schulberg, on boxing. Only okay, but I like the subject. He knew Ali, traveled with him to Zaire for the Rumble. Once, just before the fight with Norton, Ali was goofing about acting with Schulberg's wife, actress Geraldine Brooks. Scene set.

Then the mischievous Ali had another idea. "Let's go to the middle of the lobby and you turn on me and in a loud voice call me nigger." Again Geraldine obliged. As they were walking long, Gerry the consummate actress suddenly stopped. "Damn you, Ali, I came up here to do a photo shoot on you and you backed out on my! You promised!" Ali improvised, "Don't bother me, lady. I never promised you nothin', now leave me alone." Then Gerry dropped it on him. "You know what you are, you're just a god-damn lying nigger!"

Ali's bodyguards, his sparring partners, his entourage, the whole bristling Ali brigade started moving in with bad intentions, and I was thinking that this time Ali the mishcief maker had gone too far. But at the last moment Ali announced that this whole mad scene was this idea -- they were just practicing acting together -- and the tension dissolved in nervous laughter.

Okay. There it is. So what? Well first, you never disrespect a man's wife. If you do, you apologize, and mean it. Perhaps some reader fails to see the disrespect? I commend him to his conscience. Ali put a woman in danger. More telling, consider the thugs Ali surrounded himself with, who would menace a woman. Bodyguards? Arrogance-guards. Maybe you don't get it. When I read it I was disgusted. Followers, entourage, hangers-on, pilot fish, take their lead from the shark. Ali hired and surrounded himself with scum who would intimidate a woman. End of story.

How Obama-like. Either O is lying about the murders in Lybia, or he employs liars who lie to him. "But every piece of information that we got as we got it we laid it out for the American people," he averred to Lefty intellectual-leader slash funnyman Jon Stewart. Not true. Email to the White House Situation Room, here.

Note the date: 9/11. Note the time: a half hour after the attack started. Note the information: "approximately 20 armed people" is not "a flash mob of protesters incensed over a months' old Youtube video." Both the Benghazi Consulate and the American Administration's pants have suffered catastrophic fire damage.

We had troops an hour away, in Italy, and a Delta squad 2 hours away. The terrorist mortar position was laser-targeted by our side. But ... nothing.

If Obama gets or takes any credit at all (one cannot in this context call it 'responsibility') for the bin Ladin-killing, does he get any credit for the Chris Stevens-killing? These Americans died not because of Obama's indecision. It was because of his decision.

Feckless dithering hypocrite coward.

At best, Obama has surrounded himself by liars. He has allowed a culture of indifference, expedience and deceit to thrive around him, which is inimical and crippling to good governance. Excusing him from any other failing, this alone disqualifies him from the office of high honor he would continue to hold.


J

10 24

Modified from the internet:

Dear Headquarters: I, the penis, hereby request an increase in benefits for the following reasons: I dive head-first into physical labor, in dark, claustrophobic conditions, laboring in hot and humid conditions and I do not get weekends off; furthermore, my work may expose me to contagious diseases.  Sincerely, Penis

Dear Penis: You do not work 8 hours straight, fall asleep after brief work periods, follow directions and expectations inconsistently, do not take the initiative, require excitement, pressure or other exceptional stimulation to start working, leave a messy workplace, object to the use of protective work gear, and can't be counted on to work double shifts; furthermore, you have been seen entering and leaving the workplace dragging a suspicious-looking bag.  For these and other reasons having to do with hygiene, your request is denied.  Sincerely, Headquarters

-----

I feel physically bad most of the time.  It occurs to me once in a while that this cannot be a normal condition.  I ascribe it to the amount of intense exercise I do, bjj etc, and to age.  But even so it seems too much.  I wake up feeling unrested and heavy and stiff, no matter how much I sleep.  Joyless.  Has it always been this way?  I don't recall.  Could it be something else?  Do I have a virus? -- did I pick up a parasite in Australia, 25 years ago?  Cuz there's been something wrong my whole adult life, more and more nowadays manifesting physically.

I never thought my actual health was a problem, because I've taken care of myself, and trusted my lifestyle.  But not every problem is the result of a personal failing.  Sometimes you just get struck by a bolt from the blue, drink water that has an anomalous amoeba,  play ball in a field where dioxins have been dumped.

I should go to the doctor, get tested for a broad range of, uh, things. I do have a bit of a doctor phobia -- just another one of my endearing peccadilloes -- and I don't have a doctor or insurance, and I have a problem with the thought of my name and records in somebody's files.  I've been managing to save some money, even with the stipend I send my mother's way, but I have no idea how much a doctor visit costs -- that's not the real issue, but it's an excuse.  I don't know how these things are done.  Just do it, of course.  Man, I'm so unsuited for the world.  Learned helplessness.  Man up, indeed.

This is what I mean when I reference a passive self-destructiveness.  I am diligent in all things that require only my own effort.  Not so good when it comes to involving others.  Pride and distrust, no doubt.  What a way to live.

The only sports reading I like to do is on boxing.  I do not understand at all the appeal of or respect for Mohammad Ali.  I've read nothing that would make me respect him.  A disrespectful racist, low character propped up by a great skill of which he was unworthy.  What, he liked children? -- he had nice intentions?  Who doesn't.  After he beat Liston, his resolve to visit all the Heads of State in the world was a reflection of his narcissism  not his altruism.  How Obama-like.  No skill-set but self-regard, and imagining himself nevertheless able to do good.  It's easy to seem saintly when you're famous, adored and old.  When he was fighting, he was a pig.  It would take a lot to explain away his calling Frazier -- a man who was personally generous to Ali -- a gorilla.  On what level is that acceptable?  A pig.

Oblamer drove by a couple of hours ago.  On his way to do Leno.  Big motorcade, caused a 45 minute delay for people who only had to go a block.  Remember this, come election day.  Or you can blame Bush.  I'd make the joke, where's an GPR when you need one, but even now I've flagged myself with the IBF.  Kidding, guys, just kidding.  Hyperbole is my metier.  I have no respect whatsoever for the current Occupier of the WH, but he'd be even more of a nightmare as a martyr.  The Oswalding of KFJ unalterably changed the ASU for the worse -- made the hippies and the Vietnam betrayals thinkable, possible and inevitable.  So, please, always, honor the process -- the Constitution RULES!

That's a nice note to end on.  Up with people!


J

Apology Tour

So did Obama go on an "apology tour"?  Cannily, he nowhere uses that phrase directly.  I would stupidly have been more direct, uttering the words "apology tour" and thereby giving the opposition a sound byte -- Jon Stewart would plotz.  Yes, I am in the habit of imagining myself in positions of world influence.

Replies Obama, "Nothing Governor Romney just said is true, starting with this notion of me apologizing. This has been probably the biggest whopper that's been told during the course of this campaign. And every fact checker and every reporter who's looked at it, Governor, has said this is not true." [Taken from an uncorrected transcript, by which is meant a um er eh ach huh ergh euxxgheqqaxfhdewwad3j9fr corrected transcript.]

Obama goes on about how that Cairo etc tour was about visiting troops and not accepting campaign contributions and visiting museums. "So that's how I've used my travels, when I travel to Israel and when I travel to the region. And the — the central question at this point is going to be: Who is going to be credible to all parties involved?"   Non-responsive you say?  I could not possibly comment.  Except that you are a racist.

Is there a case of Obamnesia going on here?  Let us examine the matter.  From the White House release of the Cairo speech, delivered with perfect elegance by Obama from his telepropters, right and left:

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT ON A NEW BEGINNING
...And finally, just as America can never tolerate violence by extremists, we must never alter or forget our principles. Nine-eleven was an enormous trauma to our country. The fear and anger that it provoked was understandable, but in some cases, it led us to act contrary to our traditions and our ideals. We are taking concrete actions to change course. I have unequivocally prohibited the use of torture by the United States, and I have ordered the prison at Guantanamo Bay closed by early next year. [Adoring adulation.] So America will defend itself, respectful of the sovereignty of nations and the rule of law.

Well.  See?  Obama was right. Bush lied, by which I mean Romney.  Clearly Obama never uttered the word "applegoy", therefore there was no "apogee-izing".

On the other hand, and being perhaps a bit precious and pedantic, let us consider what an apology is.  It is not merely the utterance of the phrase, I apologize.  That in fact is not an apology.  The word itself, pedagogue that I am, means an exculpatory explanation.  You explain your actions, with the intent of excusing them, giving an impression that offending behavior will not happen again.

1) We were provoked to fear and anger; 2) this is understandable; 3) therefore we violated our ideals, to not torture; 4) the torture chamber is to be dismantled; 5) from now on we will respect other nations and the rule of law.  

What an adolescent.

Then there's the horses and bayonets thing.  "But I think [modesty] Governor Romney maybe [courtesy] hasn't spent enough time looking at how our military works [condescension]. You mentioned the Navy, for example, and that we have fewer ships than we did in 1916. Well, Governor, we also have fewer horses and bayonets [non sequitur], because the nature of our military's changed [confusion]. We have these things called aircraft carriers [condescension], where planes land on them [sarcasm and poor grammar]. We have these ships that go underwater, nuclear submarines [loc cit].        

"And so the question is not a game of Battleship, where we're counting ships. It's what are our capabilities. And so when I sit down with the Secretary of the Navy and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we determine how are we going to be best able to meet all of our defense needs in a way that also keeps faith with our troops, that also makes sure that our veterans have the kind of support that they need when they come home."

Obama is implying that the Secretary of the Navy wants fewer ships? And keeping faith with our troops is maybe to not supply them with, you know, them useless things, bayonets.  I mean, Iraq ain't no trench warfare thing.  Sheesh.  And also something about when the troops come home, uh, fewer ships is good then too.  I'll have to speak with my son, about how useful bayonets are in combat nowadays.

Stating the obvious, comparing, conflating outmoded equipment like buggy whips and sulfa drugs (more apt examples) with SHIPS ... not so smart.  Obama got elected for a reason.  He can say nothing, or less than nothing, with authority.  As when he said gas prices were lower 4 years ago because we were going to enter a recession.  Huh?  Low gas prices caused the problem?  Wha?  But because it was some sort of "answer" -- in the sense that it followed a previous point and was delivered in an explanatory tone -- any further thought on the subject ceased.  It's a technique the cognoscenti will have known.  It's sort of new to me, this trick of giving any response as if it were responsive.

I of course am not world-renowned for my brilliance and eloquence, so it is petty of me to hold O to a high standard of grammar and diction.  And logic.  And civility.  Man that's whack, that I'm not world-renowned for my brilliance and eloquence.  I just can't get over that.  No justice, no peace.

And so, in conclusion, you remain very stupid for electing this empty-chair-Occupier.  Either get testicular cancer and have your medals stripped from you, or get smart.

Man you're dumb.


J

Obandonment

Barack H. Obama, super genius of incredible oratorical superlative nonpareil masterfulness, converted a hostile crowd of arch conservatives to his enlightened progressive polices through the unmatched power of his persuasive forensic puissance.  In perhaps the most brilliant verbal trope ever employed in history, President Obama launched a devastating neologism at his right-wing neo-con reactionary woman-hating opponent, Mitt Romney.

Said the leader of the free world, Romney is "forgetting what his own positions are, and he’s betting that you will, too. I mean, he he’s changing up so much and backtracking and sidestepping [hoots and laughter] -- we’ve gotta eh we we gotta we gotta name this condition that he’s going through. I think aa aach aa ah it’s called “Romnesia.” [uproarious laughter and unrestrained applause.]

Well, maybe I might have overstated Obama's genius a little bit, although the transcript has been corrected to represent what was actually said.  Maybe some White House staffer or other government paycheck collector spent several tens of millions of dollars conducting a study to come up with that bit of wit.  On the other hand, maybe it was just scribbled down on a napkin and then hacked together into a shoddy ad hominem stump speech, unproofed and unrehearsed, because, after all, Obama's speeches are directed, all of them, at adoring teenagers, self-loathing America/capitalism/male-hating Leftists, blacks, unionists, parasites, and withered hippies.

Romnesia.

So I took precisely three seconds and created an equally incisiveness retort.  Obandonment.  "Uh um er, eh, maybe maybe uh maybe Mr Obama um er has forgotten h-his duty to er uh his um office and cuh cuh cuh country.  Huh eh acq hah but I mean er eh I I I uh Achq mean he he hehe haahaa has Obandoned..."  And there follows a long list of just a few of Obama's countless failures to fulfill virtual all of the actually serious obligations of the office his considers himself sufficient to continue to hold.

I can't be bothered to make a (long) list.  I was disappointed by Hugh Hewitt's book, "The Brief Against Obama." One of the few political books I've bought recently, and I found it slight.  He stated positions rather than evidence.  Not much of an indictment.  Disappointing.  Maybe Medved's book is better, but I'm not that interested.

But a list isn't hard to make.  Obama's hostility to American oil (shutting down the Gulf, the Keystone Pipeline, increased regulation on oil, gas and coal, rather than a loosening in this critical time), compared to his devotion to foreign oil -- 'we'll be Brazil's best customer.'  His dereliction re terrorism -- drone-bombing al-Queda leaders must be matched by protecting ambassadors and labeling their murderers as terrorists, and killing said terrorists.  His Obandoment of American sovereignty -- the Law of the Sea, UN internet tax, UN billionaire's tax (what tax, once introduced, continues to apply only to the original limited target group? -- the income tax originally applied only to American millionaires.)  Etc.  It just goes on.  He'll have more flexibility with the Russians once he's re-elected.  Say what?

America is decadent and on the decline.  Consider the profoundly unamerican situation, that a citizen cannot work without government permission, via Social Security licensure.  I ran into that fact some years ago when I need to produce a SS card, and didn't have one -- it had been stolen, in Australia.  Unable to work, until I got that permission.  Say what?  The more one thinks about that, the more offensive to the fundamentals of the American idea it becomes.  Imagine what the framers of the Constitution would have thought.   Unthinkable.  Oh well, can't unring that antiliberty bell, but even so, Government is TOO BIG.

The beauty of the Federal system is that there's some other place to run to.  If some state, say, California, succumbs to rampant socialism, productive tax payers can flee to a more American state, and leave the would-be Confiscator to collapse under its own corruption.  That's the theory.  From many, one -- but still many.  Big government is the opposite of that.  I won't elaborate.  It's obvious.

I am displeased.  America is the hope of the world, but it is unmanning itself.  Thus do the righteous fall, succumbing to temptation after perhaps a productive and honorable career of humanitarianism.  Pigs beg to be slept with -- what is a prodigal to do?  But there is repentance as well, and a return home, to first principles, discipline and self-sacrifice.  That after all is the definition of patriotism.  Not just a love of country, but sacrifice for it.

The latest "Town Hall" "debate" -- Obama aided of course by the "moderator" -- called to mind a previous such episode, when some typical American, female, thought herself clever and showed herself smug by asking of a candidate, "What can you do for me?"  I will refrain from any sexually-charged abusive comment on her intelligence.  It would have been too much to hope that the candidate recall JFK's phrase, "Ask not what your country can do for you..." -- perhaps to continue the idea with something like, "Let us both, you and I, and all of us in this hall and throughout the nation, stand up, step forward and resume that most noble, most American task, of promoting freedom, personal responsibility, generosity, opportunity, freedom." Etc.  The words are easy.  How beautiful the idea.  What a sweet moment that would have been.

Please, please, America, you dumb bitch, please understand the severity of these times, the sword tip hard into our belly and unabashed enemies surrounding us, foreign and domestic.  This is not a time for humility.  It is a time for pride.  Pride works hard and takes responsibility.  It accepts charity only to save loved ones.  Our loved ones are our progeny.  We must not squander their future, bestowing charity upon ourselves, charity stolen from our children.  This is a time for sacrifice.  It is time, finally, after these several generations of un-self-critical indulgence, to man up.


J

Character and Destiny

Last we heard of my stepfather was in "The Adventure of the Twisted Catheter", during which episode the doctors, such as they are, thought he had kidney failure. No -- he was all backed up because he wasn't being drained. Effing morons. Effing malpractice. Today my mother told me they were suggesting the possibility of putting him in hospice care, that is, keep him comfortable but do not take extraordinary means to save his life in the event, likely, of a crisis.

Let him die, in other words.

I'm against it.

My thinking is, Jack in the Box killed him.  Thirty years of white bread, potato starch deep fried in rancid oil, factory meat rich in omega 6, and some sort of colored, sweetened liquid chemical concoction.  Out of that nutritional base, the likely if not inevitable outcome will be Parkinsons, Alzheimers, diabetes, and, um, something else.

I have an unexpressed but effectuated disgust with my mother and her fecklessness.  She pissed away every penny she and her husband had, on my brother and his family -- private school for three kids, K thru 12, probably college although I never inquired, music lessons, private sports coaches, various and sundry legal expenses, don't ask, etc.  What was she planning on having in her old age?  The housing crash destroyed her ability to refinance, which is what seemed infinitely possible back in the heady days of yore.  That was her plan, I guess.  Refinance in an ever-expanding real estate market.  Poof.

Upon her husband's imminent passing, she will lose half her social security.  What then?  Honestly.  Four years ago or so I took two rooms of her house and made an apartment.  I'm most proud of the door and porch I built, on the side of the house.  Actually quite nice, for what it is.  A monthly $900 bucks, out of nothing.  Where would she be, without that?  My brothers are useless.  I'm the male bachelorette eunuch son who will grow old taking care of his mommy.  Not a fate I would have plotted out for myself, except there it is.

I've had some time starting with the past two weeks, which I have used entirely to rest.  Didn't realize I needed it, but I did.  Now I'm going to go buy a bunch of building materials and get my stupid mother another $1000 a month.  Building a kitchen onto the garage, and a bathroom -- plumbing, electricity, roofing, flooring -- house wrap, sewage pump and tank, digging, footing, type-S mortar, cement blocks, concrete, 2x4s, plywood, rafters, underlay, shingles, nails, sealants, lagbolts, laminates, fixtures, faucets, wiring, switches, pvc, doors, jams, joists, raising the bathroom area, toilet, tub, sink, fencing, latticework, landscaping, AC, windows. Et cetera.

You see why I've been dilatory.  It's daunting. It will take a few months, at least.

Then I may have to do it again -- there's a side area next to the garage that's room enough for another place.  Point is, I can't have my poor stupid hapless mother living hand to mouth.  Dealing with two or three tenants is a hassle, but at least it brings an income.  That would make her comfortable, at least.  Was she thinking her husband would live forever? -- cuz she's gonna lose that money, and then what.  Stupid stupid stupid.

Whereas I have always planned on living on a few dollars a day in the desert, in a trailer, when I'm old.  Alone of course.  That is my fate.  I think I've given up on anything else.  I am after all a eunuch.

Her washing machine stopped working this week, and she was all panicked about that.  Well, of course.  Her  plan was to go to Sears and get one for $400 on sale.  I said repair it, and she said once they start breaking down they go bad.  I got her some numbers, and the repair cost $90.  Please note the difference between those two costs.  I told her to keep the guy's number.  I don't need cheap, but I require reasonable.

Her current tenant has lost his job, at Warner Bros, and she lives off that income.  Of course she spent the security deposit, so I'll be supplying that.  Meantime, I'm advertising, "Charming Attached 1-Bedroom Apartment" in desirable leafy neighborhood.  All true.  "Charming" means "small".  Truth in advertising.  Point is, I will be taking up the slack until it's rented.  I am not cheap, but I am very frugal, and I consider my resources to be tight.  I would like some savings, for my desert retirement 15 years hence.  And I have a phobia of passing money on to my parasitical sibling and his ungrateful and entitled family.  I already monitor her checking account and put money in when it gets low.  Don't know if she knows that.  And I give her cash.  Maybe four or five hundred a month.

What was she thinking.

But I am aware of my blessings, and it is necessary to share, with those who are helpless, and with those who are foolish but for whom one is responsible.  I don't suppose I am gracious.  I'm too honest and judgmental for that.  But I wouldn't say to her what I've said here.  Wouldn't do any good.  I did hear myself saying, actually uttering the phrase, "Money doesn't grow on trees" when she announced her plan to buy a new washer.  I was a little exasperated.

You don't want to admit it, because for all the turbulence of our relationship you have benevolent feelings toward me, but I am, truth be told, mentally disturbed.  Mentally, emotionally, spiritually, whatever.  There is something not just twisted but broken in me.  It manifests as a sort of apathetic self-destructiveness.  It can be mistaken for integrity, but it's not.  Integrity is the opposite of brokenness -- one is not here referring to a relationship with God.   I'm becoming more and more aware of this, and it troubles me.

I still do bjj, and today a young fellow started, an actor on a Disney Channel show.  Came in with his mother to sign up.  Aggressively charming young man, forceful in his good manners.  Trained to be that way.  Stage mother, if you know what I mean.  It was almost comical, almost frightening, she was such a stereotype.  Looks much older than she must be, because of all the makeup and presumed surgery.  Like a shrink-wrapped bag of toothpicks, tight and sharp and troweled into her Jordache jeans or whatever the fashion is.  Very creepy energy.  But a charming young man, especially once he realized he wasn't auditioning.  Son, be natural.  I may get a chance to model some common sense -- I can fake it.  Child actors ... not a great prognosis.  Stupid parents and corrupt adults, mostly.

So, the theme for today: stupid parents.


J

Conversion Factors

America survived the Civil War.  It can survive Obama.  $16 trillion of debt?  What does that translate into as 1865 dollars, and what was the debt then?  Well, using cost estimates for the War from this site, and "economic power" dollar values from this site, we have this:

North war cost, $6.2 billion, and South, $2.1 billion, total, $8.3 billion;  "econ power" inflation, times 1,530;  cost of War in today's dollars, $12.7 trillion.

For the less mathematically inclined of our readers, we will point out that 12 in cost is a smaller number than 16 in debt.

Oh.  Hmm. We had thought that our point would be that we survived the horrific financial burden of the Civil War, so we could certainly survive a lesser, modern debt.  But our debt is greater.  That can't be right.  Some other inflation conversion factor must be more apropos.  I mean, how could Obama be sitting on a debt that's more than the Civil War cost ... and he wants to make it BIGGER!?

Like, how much did Obama squander on his cronies at Solyndra -- like $530 billion?  Can this be right?  $810.9 quadrillion in 1865 money?  Nudging up to a quintillion.  A quadrillion here, a quadrillion there, pretty soon yer talkin bout real money.

Well, regardless of math with estimated conversion factors, it's a historically unique debt.  In case you don't know it, every American man, woman, child and infant owes Obama over $50,000 -- $79 million in 1865 dollars.  Ha, ha, O-ba-ma, how many bucks will you squandah? (No, I confess, that doesn't really work: Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?  Remember?)

Two things.  Obama's October surprise, I hope, is the unemployment figures ginned up and released today.  Finally, for the first time, under 8%.  Hurray.  Never mind about all those people shunted over onto welfare  (because Obama decreed it so), who no longer have to look for work, and therefore are not unemployed.  Never mind that each month all summer fewer jobs have been created.  Because after his stumble bum performance at the "debate", if the best he's got is a few tenths of a percent teased out to make Obama look a tiny bit less incompetent, well, please continue along this path for the next four and a half weeks, unto the full measure of your haplessness, and then be voted out.

Have I ever mentioned how stupid you are, for electing this poseur?  His only talent is self-confidence. Not even a good speaker, as it turns out.  How could you have been so stupid?

But even so, America can survive.   Regardless of the actual cost of the Civil War, financial and in human terms, it was incalculable.  Our current debt is not as great as that.  Regarding the decay of our civilization, well, slavery was an assault on our values too.  Gay "marriage" and illegitimacy and drugs and incredible Big Government takeover of little government's rights -- well, civil rights were abrogated during the War, and our institutions were challenged, and all that,  and we recovered.

It isn't about character.  It's about will.  There are plenty of actual Americans left.  Question is, will they fight.  This is the first election ever that I'm going to donate money to a political campaign.  Politicians can go get screwed.  But this time there's such a clear difference, under such important circumstances, that to do too little is to do nothing at all.

America can survive Obama's reelection.  The way any conquered people survive an occupation.  By transformation, or through resolve.  Obama wants the former -- fundamental change.  I'm for resolve.

I forgot what the second thing was.


J

Element 113

In August, Japanese researchers produced the latest, nearly-largest element, 113 on the periodic table. Chances are, they will have the privilege, earned, of naming it. Here are the top ten suggested names, put forward by your humble author:

10. Newelementium
9. Herecomestroublium
8. Onethirteenium
1. Godzillium

Well, it turned out to be harder than I had thought. What, I have nothing better to do with my time than think up nuclear jokes about the Japanese?  Nagasakium?  Puh-leeez. I just hope it's not something totally lame, like, uh, Tokyoium. That's what they did with 105,  Dubnium -- Dubna, a town in Russia. How dull.

Speaking of whom, the Russians have bred a liliger, a cross between a liger, a cross between and lion and a tiger, and a lion. Freakin hall of mirrors, dude, but ubercool. Primal. Urcool. Waiting for a ligerger.  Sweet.

Craig Packer, director of the Lion Research Center at the University of Minnesota, and a National Geographic Society/Waitt Foundation grantee, "can't imagine why zoos would breed liligers and other such hybrids. 'In terms of conservation,' he said, 'it's so far away from anything, it's kind of pointless to even say it's irrelevant.'"  But of course. Conservationists of this ilk are extremely, one might say radically, conservative. In the Environmentalist sense -- not at all conservative, but reaction in their adherence to Gaia. Perhaps I'm unfair in the peculiar particular of Packer.

 There is however a prevailing view that species are fixed. Says one commenter to this article, "Dogs are all the same species which have been unnaturally bred to have certain attributes and features (which is a problem in itself), but at least they are from the same relatives. However, both Lions and Tigers are different species and it is totally unnatural for them to breed in the wild. The health problems and issues which arise from this breeding is beyond understanding."  Very conservative.  Must be totally opposed to gay, um, unions.  

Brushing aside the dogmatic assertions about the health and issues of Lions and Tigers and Dogs and Nature and whatnot, let us examine what the very word species means. Related to inspect and spectacle and spectral. It's about appearance. Well, dogs and coyotes and even foxes are all the same species then: corgis and alsatians are much different looking than wolves and alsatians.  When we get into more exotic phyla, males and females of certain sea creatures don't even look like members of the same, uh, phylum.  The details have faded with the passing of the decades.  I'm very old.

Species are not fixed.  Kinds are fixed, mir, kinds, as in the pairs that went on to Noah's Ark.  If they are interfertile, they are the same species.  A mutation or two that has isolated breeding strains is not Evolution, it's degeneration, as with zebras and horses.  Size matters, of course, practically speaking -- my go-to example is great danes and chihuahuas. Take your pick though, big and little chickens, big and little cats -- we can discover if they are the same species via artificial insemination.  Extinct species can be resurrected via back-breeding, just as new can be created by cross-breeding.  Reshuffling existing genetic material is not Evolution.

These Environmentalists.  So inconsistent.  So reactionary.  Clinging to their, uh, traditions and conventions.

Dumbass, it's not about conservation of your wrong ideas about speciation -- it's about learning something about reality.  Not pointless.  Not irrelevant.  Not appearance.  I love it when they talk about co-evolution, but cannot abide cross breeding.  Nerts.

From Google Maps, a blood-red lake, unexplained, outside Sadr City in Iraq, 33.396157° N, 44.486926° E.

There's something fishy here.

Perilous times.  We need a hero.  Ah, here's one:

Biggest guns in the world,dude.  Man that's strength!

Someone, save us!

Um, next.

Americans just can't handle these hard times.

Gets me down.

Here's your Evolution: First, many.  Then, from many, one -- you know, Americanism.  Then, "Progressivism": from one, many.  Now, from many, zero.

Nine stripes, zero stars.  Fundamental change.  Obama, man, he's the One!  

I know I'm being incoherent here.  So?

J

*Butcher Day

YT

Civilization is an idea, not something with material reality, not an object taking up space. Were it mere buildings, then ruins would be a civilization -- say, sacked Carthage.  But it's not. It's not unread books in unattended libraries. It's no more musical artifacts than it is wind wailing through hollow trees. It is an agreement between people about rules. At a certain point of degeneration or growth, it is imposed by some more benevolent power upon some mere chaos of willfulness and self-seeking.  Barbarians have to be subdued, their barbaric practices suppressed, their savage culture extinguished. Not all behaviors are equal, you see.  We are not speaking of technology, but of sensibilities.

 So we are civilized either by temperament and custom, or by force, as some children are mild and need few rules, and some are undisciplined, spoiled, and need punishment.

 I say this because I was hearing news about a certain scum culture and ethos with regard to our neighbors to the south.  Specifically the cartels -- Zeta, Sinaloa, Ciudad Juárez, Nuevo Laredo Tijuana, Matamoros. Savage border towns ruled by drug cartel anarchy and terror.

Unless it's your head on the block, it doesn't matter, the details. It's like knowing the details of 

yes, it's history, not current events.  But that's the differene between  a depraved legacy, and a depraved  present -- if you're not affected, as by violence and crime on your very streets, it's practically theory -- like sewer gas that you get used to.  

 And I was thinking about what civilization is. What happens when the agreement falls apart, and there is no power to impose justice? The rules of civilization are no longer in play. You can't play with cheaters. Civilization is not a thing, an object. It is a set of rules that apply only under particular circumstances. When those circumstances change, behavior must change.

So, Los Zetas, the Letter People, whose names must not be uttered, such is their terror, like Voldemort. It's not just that they behead, say, journalists. They sew in penises where tongues once were. They are to be destroyed through uncivilized means. On a Night or Week or Month of Long Knives, they must be isolated and butchered as one butchers pigs. Not warned, not frightened, not driven away, not reformed, not saved. Slaughtered. Also, their children must be killed, and their wives, and their abuelitas. 

 No quarter. Is this savage? Of course it is. But civilization, like the Constitution, is not a suicide pact.

Night of the Long Knives was a Nazi thing.  Soviet purges just swept people up, innocent with the guilty, if there were any guilty.  KGB custom was to come for you at 3 AM, the Devil's Hour.

But, no quarter.  A very unchristian proposition, you assert. I agree. Let us examine the point. Jesus could afford to sacrifice himself, offer himself as the archetypal victim, because he was the Son of God. Among other things, it is his nature and purpose to sacrifice and suffer and die. So may it be for every good man, to be selfless. But the family situation of Jesus did not stop only with his Father. Or rather, it did stop there. He was, you see, not married, and had no children. He could afford to sacrifice himself. No one was depending on him.  Please don't quibble.  My meaning is clear.

 It is the first duty of a man to protect his family -- by which is not meant his birth family, the one that happenstance or Providence placed him helpless within, but his real family is, becomes the one that he himself forms out of his own character and commitment. A man who follows his theoretical ideals about helping his neighbor, or the stranger, or the monster, at the sacrifice of his children,  this person is not just a fool -- he is a reprobate.  Help the stranger, second -- perhaps as a way of teaching your children about decency, about civilized conduct.\.  

 When society, culture, government, fails to protect from savages, when the social compact is abrogated, disavowed, then vigilantism is not just understandable, it is required as an act of survival.  Honor and manliness, are civilized and barbarian traits, both.   But self defense  is justice. 

To save civilization, the families of monsters will suffer, as, in the decline of civilization the families of the innocent do suffer. 

 This is not Old Testament verses New Testament. It is how to save a society in the first instance, and how to save an individual in the second. No contradiction. Different contexts. Evil is not tamed or accommodated. It is contained or destroyed.

You might tame a wild fierce animal -- but do not trust it around children.

That is the battlefield upon which we find ourselves. Savage gangs, cartels, and their filthy corrupt governments, among which I count the current American regime.  

We, who adhere to that highest american ideal, rule of law -- we would be peaceful but must be fierce. Find the multiple heads of the monster and lop them off.  Which follows the cartells example, only virtuously. Perhaps the monster's limbs, the digits, little toes, will fall still. Satan cannot be saved. Like the poor, evil will always be with us. With the poor, we are kind and firm, mindful of compassion, diligent to not enable sloth, prudent in our stewardship, grateful for our own blessings. With evil we must be intolerant and judgmental and utterly bigoted, and we must hate it. God loves, but he hates. Jesus rejoices always, but he was angry. Deal with it. Both. Different circumstances call up different reactions, out of a righteous character.

We are at the end of our civilization. Only a Great Awakening could actually save us, understanding that every civilization falls.  Almost all of the kings of Israel were bad, so, what hope have we? 

A politican and presidential aspirant once observed, to great derision, that about half of Americans get an unearned government check. Approx 25 million others get a government check for their employment.  Is that 60%? -- I'm to lazy and self-indulgent to bother to verify, and do math.  But, who has the grit to stand against the check-writer? European college students have been observed to riot, at the mere suggestion of receiving less than their parents did, regardless of any impending calamity. 

 Any continent that has had to look to Germans to save it is doomed. And here we are, open borders, paying illegals 10k in tribute to their, what, brownness?  Indigence?  Can I say that?  I'd say the same of Norwegians, if they were invading.  The vikings were monsters.  My people.  Then.  See the point?  Uncivilized.  

 What hope? No hope. Or only that which will come from sacrifice -- blood sacrifice, in the case of, say, monstrous drug lords, lords, and their acolytes. And there are not enough men in the world, resolute enough to pick up knives and start butchering the pigs.

So as I sometimes do, I ask again, am I serious.  Of course not.  You don't kill family. Well, drone strikes,  bombing terrorist compounds.  What's the euphemism?  Collateral damage.  "Collateral" is a word nobody ever uses, except as an adjectival modifier of "damage".  Damage, here, is a euphemism for "killings".  And "killings" is a euphemism for, well, fill it in yourself.  Then do the same for "abortion".

People who use euphemisms are not serious.  So, then, as I say: kill them.


 J

My johnson

My johnson is powerful. It has an IQ four standard deviations higher than johnson-normal, yet it has several learning disabilities which keep it humble -- it finds all this amusingly ironic.

It is not attractive, but it is not gaining weight and is pleased with that. It feels it is getting old, but it is not losing its hair, which is still its original color. It has several thousand friends on facebook under the name "Jack Johnson", and is just now getting into twitter, because it likes the immediacy and brevity of the format.

My johnson does not like complicated relationships or dramatic emotionalism. It likes order and predictability. It understands it is neurotic, and it takes care not to be a burden. It is very proud, in the old-fashioned sense of the world.

My johnson used to play poker, several decades ago now, and it misses that. It broke about even, small stakes -- it wasn't about the money, or winning or losing. It just liked the excuse to be sociable.

It is large enough to feed a family of five, and is available in seven flavors, including original cinnamon swirl.

My johnson has a headache that has lasted for over six weeks, and that's getting to be a bit of a concern. It has several phobias, and a diffused anxiety that causes it to avoid contact with other people.

 My johnson used to write free verse poetry, but finds that in the past few years it has lost its creative urge, and is oppressed by the seeming futility of the world. It gets lonely, and wonders what the meaning of life could possible be.

It is aware of the passing years, and is growing uneasy about its future. It does not want to grow old in isolation and without security. But it is resilient and flexible when it needs to be, and if feels it will do all right, and meet all unavoidable challenges. it is resourceful, and it feels respected by those whose opinions it values.

Ah well. My johnson. My johnson.

 J

Stuff

I'm finally relenting, after literally years of internet begging from my countless fans.

Here .

That's right, baby. Disco lives. Women are always blown away by my craggy beauty, so angular, so elongated. Did you enjoy my booming baritone? I'm not German, but I was big in Germany back in the day.

*****

David Shulman's sonnet, "Washington Crossing the Delaware":

A hard, howling, tossing water-scene.
Strong tide was washing hero clean.
"How cold!" Weather stings as in anger.
O Silent Night! -- shows war-ace danger!

The cold waters swashing on in rage.
Redcoats slosh in wrath! Win! Engage!
When star general's action wish'd: "Go!"
He saw his ragged continentals row.

Ah, he stands – sailor crew went going.
And so this general watches rowing.
He hastens – winter again grows cold.
A wet crew? Gain Hessian stronghold!

George can't lose war with's hands in;
He's astern – so go alight, crew, and win!

So what, you query? Every line is an anagram of the title. Pretty good. I did repunctuate it slightly for clarity of meaning. Poetic licence. And I substituted an unintelligible "Redcoats warn slow his hint engage" with "Redcoats slosh in wrath! Win! Engage" -- it's just better. I do what I want. Dude, my IQ is higher than your weight (in pounds, smartass).


*****

Sounds your kids almost certainly have never actually heard: a rotary phone dial, a typewriter, a flash bulb or cube, a TV dial, a TV sign off tone, a broken record, a record changer, a gas station bell, a cash register, a film projector, a slide projector, a film strip, a mimeograph machine.

*****


J

Diapers and Diadems

Came out of nowhere, dude. Nowheresville. A sudden, acute depression. Mudslide. I know enough to not pay it too much attention, but what the hell, dude. I rolled just now with a beginner for an hour or so -- a very verbal and self-critical guy, with sharp elbows and a tad of MMA experience ... which apparently trains people to use pain moves. That just makes me aggressive, so I was a little vigorous with him a few times ... he didn't really correct it when I used words. Operant conditioning, then. Makes me feel a little guilty, though, a bit like a bully. But don't jab my thighs with your pointy elbows.

And now I'm oppressed with depression. Hard pressed. Not the time to evaluate one's life, one's joyless, meaningless life.

I've seen an episode before, of this bizarre freakshow, Toddlers and Tiaras. But again, the other night. The poor wretched little girls are to be excused. They are objects, innocent and not yet ruined, forced into that shape and its requisite behaviors. But the "adults." What a nightmare. Desperate faded bionic debutante wannabes, stretched like taffy, shrill as parakeets, somehow both robotic and squidlike. Reptilian, insectoid mothers, what purported to be a father, although the jar he keeps his gonads in must be pretty small, and, believe it or not, actual litteral drag queens as judges. How apt. Men and little girls both trying to look like whores, mothers who are pimps, fathers who are, well, actual whores?

I watched, transfixed, like a puppy before a cobra, filled with the ominous conviction that America was done, simply done. There's nothing to be done about it. It is absolutely child abuse, but all bad judgment is abuse, and I have had personal, deep and intimate contact with the state child welfare bureaucracy -- it would not be better, just different.

Like Romney. This is a really good man. Ideally suited for the job he seeks. A thoroughly competent, proven executive, leader, goal-oriented, successful in every endeavor -- a turn-around master, and, for every public purpose, a genuinely kind and generous man. This is a country that needs turning around.

Isn't it amusing, observing the opposition? The name-calling. I just have to shake my head. Calling it pathetic or desperate or despicable just doesn't say it. The irrelevance of what the dems are doing. The unseriousness of it. I didn't see the convention, didn't see Clint, but he apparently did a little role playing with an empty chair representing Obama. An empty suit? And I heard the line, something like, "If he's not getting the job done, it's time to let him go." A gentler way of saying You're fired. There's a lot of wisdom in that. It's not about popularity, or philosophy or hope. It's about ability. I don't want to have a beer with anyone, let alone with a world leader. I want a world leader who will lead, from in front. Thanks for trying, Barack. We'll do our best to transition you into another job, more suited to your very real talent, albeit somewhat mismatched to the requirements of this particular position.

Meanwhile, as a wayward Christian, alienated from God but feeling the loss, I have to wonder what God thinks, about this Mormon. Mormonism is a non-Christian cult -- in the theological, not sociological sense. It teaches that Jesus and Satan were brothers, equal, and that Mormon men will one day become the literal god of their own literal planet, as God is the god of a planet, and Jesus is the god of a planet. We shall be like God. Well. Regardless of whether or not it's true, or odd, it is not in line with the historic Christan faith, and preaches another Jesus than that of the Gospels.

So what must God be thinking? Will he be angry with America, to elect someone who misbelieves on the nature of Christ? Well, has God been angry with America in other cases, where a professing but not actual Christian has been elected? Apples and oranges, since they profess orthodoxy, whereas Mitt adheres to something, uh, more, um, heterodox.

I have two ideas. First, why has the historic Christian church not produced a leader of Mitt's quality? We can only select from the choices offered, and, say, Huckabee isn't running this time and seems unelectable anyway. Second, God used Nebuchadnezzar, a pagan of the giant fiery idol. And Nebuchadnezzar was the king of the Jews, and he was a blessing. Did he get saved? We might infer as much, but I don't recall that we are told.

The Mormon church will be raised up, in Romney. They are a social good. What sort of a compromise is it then, to promote our nation at the expense of our faith? Let us call Mormons, then, righteous pagans. Let America be at least a righteous nation, if not a Christian one. Let Cesar rule for a time, a wise Cesar, who worships Jupiter but forbids child sacrifice. Cuz right now we have a White House chair-occupier who gets everything wrong except the look.

Of course, the only Mormon I have known in a meaningful way was a 35 year old mother who got pregnant by my 16 year old ward. But Mitt isn't like that. Hopefully. We've been fucked up enough.


J

National Petroleum Day

There aren’t too many non-schizophrenic non-anarchists who live a more alternative lifestyle than I do. It seems I had a breakdown a decade ago. I’ve been living with post-traumatic stress syndrome slash dysfunction ever since. Before, too, from ancient traumas, but that’s background noise. I haven’t bothered to inform myself about the condition or its treatment, but I’m guessing that the vivid ideations I have, reliving certain vicious scenarios, are flashbacks. I hadn’t thought to think of that, before. But yes, I am there again. It gets old.

A sweet and lovely young woman raced at me today and gave me a birthday hug. I get tired of being such a freak. I reverted to my adolescent persona, and seized up, a broad joke of course, to mask my discomfort. It’s not that I don’t like to be touched. I need warning though. Part of that pattern, where I’m not a greeting but a farewell hugger.

I’ve taken the past couple months easy, mostly doing strength training, and not a whole lot of that. Now I’m getting regular again with workouts, and I’m significantly detrained. Disheartening, but what should I expect. Excellence is earned. I now look more fit than I am, and I hate that. So I’m going to get fat. Ha. My time is strangely organized, with a few free hours in the middle of the day, but most recently I need to use that time to get an hour or so of sleep. A little nap, to tide me through the evening, at the cost of not being able to sleep at night. But I can’t sleep anyway. As I have said, I’m like a thoroughbred – highstrung and temperamental.

I don’t look closely in a mirror for months on end sometimes. Now I find that I’m showing some age. I’ve gone a long time without having to deal with that. I don’t have boyish features, but time has never had a chance to work at me. Age now represent lost opportunity. If I’m old, I’m less desirable to that hypothetical female who would bear me more offspring. My little fantasy -- how would that happen, of someone who can hardly be touched. If I don’t have youth, and I don’t have wealth, and I don’t have charm, what attraction do I have? My genius? That would be expressed via conversation, and I barely speak on any subject of merit.

I am not disturbed by the realization that I have to be immeasurably grateful to my former wife. I have no idea what would have become of me if I hadn’t become a father, and no normal woman would ever have had me. So, a bad match, for which I must be thankful. Sort of what life itself seems to be. A bad match from which we extract blessings.

Life. Maybe I'm doing it wrong.

J