The American Eagle has become the cooked  Goose.

Closed Minds

<------------------------------------------------------------------->

Back in the early 1950s the choice for county judge here was between a drunk and a crook.  Rivulets of  tobacco juice were often seen on both sides of the drunk's mouth, which his supporters said indicated  he was level headed. The crook was a part time fire and brimstone preacher. It was a close election, but the crook won as more voters thought him more likely to show up for work on Fridays and Mondays.  On the national level we had similar election in 2016, with a squalid corrupt candidate on one side and a pompous and rude one on the other. We can only hope for a better choice in 2020.

Every day I read the news from several outlets around the world (even the NY Times) to see how far the U.S. left distances itself from reality, but there are no longer hot button issues for me. You become disengaged from a football game if your team  is down 20 points half way into the 4th quarter, but I have not looked for the exit sign yet.

The Democrats would take us down the well-spelunked psychological rabbit hole of socialism. That would be a mistake, but I would not man the barricades to stop them. The further left the Democrats move, the more the right will counter with the likes of Trump. Those in the middle are left to choose between a drunk and a crook. Now where did I see that exit sign?

I read somewhere that Mohammed is the most popular name for new born babies in England; to which the English leaders probably shrug.  Europeans have fallen out of love with Europe. Pessimism is the default attitude and there is a notable lack of  ideas and proposals that energize society. Is the twilight  of Western Civilization upon us. Has the twilight  of Western Civilization come....and now a deadly virus named after a Mexican beer has the entire country deprived of toilet paper!

Where, oh where, is the Deus Ex Machina when your need him? Asleep in the basket? On the other hand, our government is telling us to hunker down (sans toilet paper) at home.  That will give Mother Nature a well deserved break from human activity.

5/31/20

This morning the Drudge Report listed about twenty cities where riots were taking place. Naturally I expected the conversation before and after church service this morning to center on burning cities....not a word. There was a bit about the virus, the price of beef, and inflation in general, but the only memorable line came from a retired teach who said he once had a student named Anita Knapp. I am interested to see what the topic of conversation is tomorrow at the coffee cave in the gym.

Well, Monday and I joined the old guys in the coffee caveand the topic of conversation was .... the price of beef. The consensus: the retail outlets are buying low and selling high, thus making a killing.  So much for interest in the nation falling into chaos.

If mob tactics are now how we change laws and alter public policy, the democratic republic is dead and we become yet another Third World nation. 

6/23

The yellow mackerel cat is twenty something and demented. Yesterday he was standing in the kitchen sink and yawling, so his food and water bowls were moved to the front porch. At six o'clock this  morning something is knocking the cat bowl about, so I go out barefoot to investigate and discover a very pregnant possum pushing the bowl around. Unarmed I can only yell and the possum waddles off the porch and disappears under a fig tree at the back side of the cabin. Great, just what we don't need: a nest of possums.  Later in the day I go out to the woodshed attached to the shop where the animal live-trap is stored and hear strange noises coming from a pile of lumber stored there. On closer inspection, four juvenile skunks are moving around what is probably their home. I have no idea how to rid the place of a skunk family, so I call Animal Control.  As we live far from town there is no chance they will come out, but maybe they have a suggestion. Once the Animal Control lady learns she will not have to physically deal with the problem, she stops being defensive and says that skunks don't like sulfur or  moth balls and to let her know if that works.

Luckily, sulfur to sprinkle on the garden plants and moth crystals to sprinkle under the blue bird boxes to keep snakes away is on hand, so a double dose of crystals and sulfur is placed in an old coffee can.  Thus armed I carefully approach the lumber pile and spot the tip of a black tail disappearing down the pile. Bulls eye! The full load of my potion falls where aimed and I stand back waiting for scampering skunks........nothing happens.

Back on the 'phone with the Animal Control lady, I ask what other advice she might have. She says using a live trap then covering the trapped skunk with a cloth keeps it from spraying.  I have been aware of that method for years and never believed; it reminds me of the joke of catching a bird by putting salt on its tail. Sure.  My only remaining option is to do nothing, so that is my plan. Now back to the possum problem.

I will bait the trap with peanut butter and set it near the fig tree. Hopefully, demented cats don't have a taste for peanut butter and I know possums will eat about anything. Stay tuned, I will finish this saga tomorrow.

July 10, 2020

Well, the skunks moved on and the possum was trapped and carried way beyond our border. I opened the trap door and she waddled away. This morning Vicky said, "What is falling off the roof on to the patio?"  Thousands of pecan tree caterpillars tumbling to their death. Vicky, "Arkansas, the Terrifyingly Natural State." Those remaining on the roof will melt in the afternoon sun. I'll have to hose down the patio.

The conversation at the gym this morning was politics, yet again. Biden or Trump, what a choice. I may vote for Trump, just to see if the editorial staff of the NY Times commits seppuku on Eighth Avenue.

August 10, 2020

The virus has a grip on the country and it seems the social landscape is dramatically changing. Education has needed a major overall for decades and the virus may be the catalyst. Here are some of my guesses:

All public schools in Arkansas will reopen this week or next and it seems likely outbreaks in the coming weeks will send some kids home; back to plan B. The larger school districts have a high probability of experiencing an outbreak. The tools for home schooling, pods, and online education  are available, but many kids in poor homes will be at a disadvantage. Especially those in one parent families with working moms; those kids will have few options.

Public colleges and universities are all bloated with a myriad of extraneous programs and drone functionaries. This might be the time to clean house.  Students are already bringing law suits against them for exorbitant tuition fees for cheap online courses and some football seasons cancelled. I would love to be in charge of reducing the cost of tuition by 50%,  and given total power to do so,  at any state university. Where would I start, he asks rhetorically? When my parents were very old and  unable to do basic house cleaning, a woman was hired to do the job. I asked the woman if the task was too much for her. She said when she went to some homes trying to find something to clean was a problem, but at my parents house she could start anywhere; she loved working there. I would feel the same way cleaning up a public university. First to go: the Sociology Department (aka, chatting about social problems department).

In other parts of the landscape, many nearly empty malls might become shipping centers for Amazon or such, airlines will haul more freight and fewer passengers, and eating out could revert to a once a week event of the1940s, thus leading to the permanent closing of many restaurants. Those working at home will learn to cook.

As far a national politics: I dread November. Gone are the days when the winner of a presidential election was announced  late in the night of an election and the humbled looser concedes.   I think this election will be devoid of civility and grace.  Lawyers will circle like buzzards and there will be riots in the cities. We can only hope this is not another 1860. How did we get to this?

The most insidious form of evil comes when it is disguised as good. Dante's Geryon, representing Fraud, is a sort of dragon with a beautiful honest appearing face. Sagan said the dumbing down of America has lead to a celebration of ignorance, a movement so blinded they are unable to look beyond the face of Geryon. Like their predecessors of the Reformation, who broke out stained glass in churches and dumped pipe organs in rivers, and the Jacobins, who guillotined their opponents, the new Jacobins will self congratulate for their good works in destroying the old racial establishment .... and Geryon will smirk.  The center can not hold.

A few weeks ago an old friend called and said she had been reading the Bible, the Book of Revelations I assume, because she said there are 75 active volcanoes and hinted the world might end soon in Biblical Fire. I do not share that belief, there is little evidence that either the apocalypse of earth nor the end of the USA is imminent. The US may well be entering a period of prolonged self induced entropy, from which we might not fully recover, but the heart and heartland of this country are strong. The mischievous Democrats and their misinformed followers can only weaken us. We will survive.

August 19

                                             "There ain't nothin' more powerful than the odor of mendacity!"
                                                                                       -Big Daddy Pollitt 
 
Election stealing and rigging now are activities orchestrated by lawyers. Increasing ballot ambiguities also gives lawyers a way to fight over outcomes after the vote has been cast. The election is months away and odor of mendacity already is wafting across the country.

The Democratic Party platform is composed of  high ideals underwritten with very low standards.

August 30, 2020

The Urban Dust Bowl

Like the Okies of the Great Depression, who packed up and moved to California, the Urbies are packing up and leaving big cities for the suburbs and far beyond. So sad.

September 13

After outdoor services at our forty member church (only twenty something yesterday) in Washington, four older members gathered under the Magnolia tree in front of the old church building and, as usual,  discussed the news. All are history buffs and some of our impromptu  discussions have ranged from Augustine of Canterbury's arrival in England, the alleged mistreatment of Belisarius by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, and Lee's failure to follow the advice of Longstreet at Gettysburg. It is a well read group.  All agree the problems our country is facing now are relatively small when compared to so many worse tribulations in Western history.  That said, Alan, a lawyer who relocated here some years ago from the Washington D.C. area, said, "I thank God every day that I live in rural Arkansas." Far from the  madding crowd.

September 19, 2020

1. Slavery reparations are economically predatory, historically ignorant, politically divisive, legally unconstitutional, and morally repellent; thus, a perfect combination for a bill designed by a Democratic administration.

2. Judge Amy Barrett of the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals is my choice to replace Judge Ginsburg. We will see what devices the Dims use to block any Trump nomination...hopefully none incendiary

Oct. 20,'20

Dear Diary,

Laid up with a broken arm for a month now. When I was young bouncing back to normal was quick and easy; I no longer bounce, just lie here and moan in a state of boredom.

Tonight is the last presidential debate; two old men hollering at one another. Although I think democrats are insane, when Trump is gone the media and Trump will both shut up and our nation might go quietly into that goodnight. A quiet dotage for this once too reckless nation.

I see the arm doctor on Monday, so maybe the bandage and sling can be discarded and a full night sleep possible

10/27/'20

The WSJ has an editorial today: "The American Experiment Is on Life Support" with the sub-title, " Neo-Marxists on the street and in institutions want to erase their opponents and deconstruct the country.The gist is in this sentence,  "Elites, especially the professoriate, bear much of the responsibility for this state of affairs. For decades in classrooms and lecture halls they laid the groundwork for the present moment. The politics of intolerance preached in nearly every realm of American life assumes that those in “flyover country” are in effect no longer fellow citizens, as they are incapable of grasping the shibboleths of the globalist international order." The writer is correct, but overlooks an important dimension of the mess; those in flyover country are somewhat bemused by the situation in the big liberal cities in the north, west, and east. Those of us living in flyover country, especially the south,  never bought the clap-trap liberal professoriate have been peddling. Our only fear, besides the plague, is that the left wing of the Democratic party will get hold of the reigns of power in Washington and wreck the economy through their stupidity.

11/03/20

Election day and my vote will be cast at Crossroads on the way home from the gym. I certainly will vote against all the amendments and all Democrats, but am undecided about Trump.

I tell myself one vote does not matter in Arkansas, which he will win, but it does matter to me. Should I throw my vote away and cast it for the Libertarian?  There are a few remaining hours to decide.

Next Page