“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
I want rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits… muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers… bull dykes, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers, and Methodists.
I don't think anybody has ever seen anything like what happened the other night at Madison Square Garden. The love in that room… It was like a love fest and it was my honor to be involved.
Donald Trump.
It's likely just me, because I have a historical mindset, but Trump's authoritarian mindset, combined with the term "love fest" keep causing me to recall the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler.
Why?
Well, the conventional translation of that SS unit would be "Body Guard Adolf Hitler", reflecting its origin in terms of recruiting. But you cold also translate late it as "Our beloved standard, Adolf Hitler".
Like I said, I'm probably the only one to whom that comes to mind.
Maybe other people think if Haight Ashbury or something.
yesterday. Unlike the vision of a lawyer, I don't have a really nifty sportscar or something and I don't want one either. My daily driver is 27 years old. My regular truck is, as noted, a large one ton diesel with over 200,000 miles on it.
It's beginning to get a rust problem.
And I don't care that some of my colleagues are totally baffled why I don't buy something newer. At age 61, one year younger than my father was when he died, and being in two occupations, one of which is high stress, I don't plan on really making it long enough for any new vehicles to make sense. Besides that, I like what I like, and I like standard transmissions.
I had to get diesel fuel before I came back. In thinking about it, it's not every day you see a guy dressed in wool dress pants, white shirt, and tie, filling up a large ranch truck type truck.
Anyhow, a man pulled up next to me as the gas station driving a very nice car licensed in Oregon. He rolled down his window and spoke to me in a thick Arab accent. My hearing isn't great, so I had to have him repeat his question, which he did.
He was asking for gas money, he said, and pulled off two large gold rings and offered them to me.
That was weird, I don't carry cash anymore, and it was a bit too weird for me to say "yes".
I've never had an experience like that one before.
Men rush towards complexity; but they yearn towards simplicity. They try to be kings, but they dream of being shepherds.
G.K. Chesterton, The Moral of Stevenson
Indeed, if I had power for some thirty years I would see to it that people should be allowed to follow their inbred instincts in these matters, and should hunt, drink, sing, dance, sail, and dig, and those that would not should be compelled by force.
Hillaire Belloc
How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your TV; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.
Edward Abbey
You can best serve civilization by being against what usually passes for it.
Wendell Berry
I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life; I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.
Theodore Roosevelt, 1910
Well. . . having lived a relatively difficult life, but perhaps not well, I don't know that I can endorse this one.
Lex Anteinternet: Drill sergeant shoots first perfect score at Army ...: Drill sergeant shoots first perfect score at Army marksman course
Why can't this be big news in The American Rifleman instead of how we need to all bow to the wishes of Donald Trump or how Stalingrad is going to break out at the Loaf and Jug?
It really is.
Bills are always published. If people can read your article, they can read the bill. . . oh. . . wait.
Trump is the one that gave shock and awe to the whole world when he walked across the DMZ line, hand extended, shaking hands with Kim Jong Un, ending Little Rocket Man’s reign
Marjorie Taylor Greene
Kim Jong Un is still the Communist monarch of the Stalinist theme park, North Korea.
He's a bigger problem now, then he was then.
He still has nuclear weapons.
Trump's shacking hands with him probably did nothing more than cause Kim Jong Un to run back to the latrine and wash his hand thoroughly.
What on earth is wrong with Greene's district that they return this person to Congress?
Playboy model Crystal Hefner admits she was never 'in love' with late husband Hugh Hefner.
Gosh, what a shocker.
It is true that I am of an older fashion; much that I love has been destroyed or sent into exile.
G.K. Chesterton
The happy life which all men desire cannot be reached by any who does not cleave with a pure and holy love to that one supreme good, the unchangeable God.
St. Augustine
If you have to keep a secret it's because you shouldn't be doing it in the first place.
David Nicholls, One Day
I've come to despise secrets.
From the Economist:
Western values are steadily diverging from the rest of the world’s
With the Western World's values increasingly being valueless, if not downright goofball, who can blame the rest of the world?
It is, however, something worth remembering. Or at least noting.
I'm afraid that the West will die. There are plenty of signs. No more childbearing. You are invaded, still, by other cultures, other peoples, who will progressively dominate you by their numbers and completely change your culture, your convictions, your morality.
Cardinal Sarah
I am firmly convinced that the Reformation of the sixteenth century was as near as any mortal thing can come to unmixed evil. Even the parts of it that might appear plausible and enlightened from a purely secular standpoint have turned out rotten and reactionary, also from a purely secular standpoint.
By substituting the Bible for the sacrament, it created a pedantic caste of those who could read, superstitiously identified with those who could think. By destroying the monks, it took social work from the poor philanthropists who chose to deny themselves, and gave it to the rich philanthropists who chose to assert themselves. By preaching individualism while preserving inequality, it produced modern capitalism. It destroyed the only league of nations that ever had a chance. It produced the worst wars of nations that ever existed. It produced the most efficient form of Protestantism, which is Prussia. And it is producing the worst part of paganism, which is slavery.
G. K. Chesterton
