Category → Fruit of Contemplation
Commando summer vacations
Few things, few activities are as deeply satisfying to me as summer travels in America, especially across the northeast. Call these trips short vacations, commando vacations, traveling vacations, whatever, they are always fun and invigorating. I am always somewhat dispirited when these trips end.
The goals are to see new places, usually off the beaten path, meet new people, see old American architecture, and explore old towns, small towns, take in new sights. Small town America is quite fabulous, although they are all increasingly becoming “discovered” and populated by down-state summertime residents and tourists, and even the dreaded out-of-state tourists, like me. While there is less to “discover” in these “discovered” small old towns, one benefit of the summertime down-state residents is that they increasingly purchase and rehab the most beautiful Victorian and Federal homes that until recent years fell into increasingly sad disrepair. When these old hulking brick, stone, or beautifully complicated trim wooden buildings are fully returned to their original glory, they are really something to see, to behold, to bask in. Each is a work of art in its own right, and the investors deserve our applause and appreciation. I would like to have an ad hoc summertime picnic on all of their porches.
Although I do not always get the level of accommodation I would prefer on these trips, I can make up for poor overnight conditions by staying out late and getting out early, and bringing my own sheets and pillow cases, just in case. One lesson learned over the decades is Trust the Big Hotel Chains. If you can find them, not always possible in the more remote areas, they are universally clean, comfortable, hygienic, well kept, and generally safe. Whereas, bed-and-breakfast destinations are widely hit or miss, with the misses being gross and uncomfortable, and old family owned “spas” and grandiose Victorian or imitation French estates can be a little sticky and pretentious, or downright gross and pretentious with genuinely weird characters hanging about. Give me the universal American standard of three star or better hotel chain every night possible. Or a car-camping tent site at a state park with flush toilets and showers.
The term for exposing people to new ideas and objects, Education, emerged in 1918. It replaced the long term phrase popular instruction. As the keeper of this blog, I think about the differences between these two concepts, education versus instruction. One of the huge things missing in today’s “education” establishment (overrun with rote partisan indoctrination) is the act of instruction, the conveyance of new skills, new ideas, new ways of appreciating or thinking. And so I like to think that here the reader has an opportunity to encounter some instruction, something new. This sounds like a heavy burden, a heavy lift, until you consider what I am presenting as new here: An Upstate New York distillery, which makes various alcoholic spirits, which I had only read about in Mountain Home Magazine. On this most recent commando vacation, I was able to connect a variety of dots on a map in one afternoon, one of which being this distillery.
Situated above Seneca Lake, the Finger Lakes Distilling Company has a pretty nice pied-à-terre, from which we enjoyed our picnic lunch views over and across the lake. I had just enjoyed a very relaxed tasting inside, and being a lightweight with alcohol, I was in no condition to drive. However, I am no lightweight in terms of weight, and I am always ready to eat…so we sat, ate our food picnic style, and let the cool early summer breeze flow across us while the distillery operation ran all around us. Fascinating to me at least is that this distillery locally sources all of its own grains, flavors; everything they use in their many various products is grown right in the Finger Lakes region. And one of the great joys of connecting the various dots across the Finger Lakes region is driving through the great amount of scenic working farmland and beautifully kept farms that make up that special landscape.
Of the four bottles of rye whisky I sampled, and bought, only one really appeals to my taste; the other three are going to be gifts to friends. What can I say; I have friends with poor palates and poor choices in their friends; no fancy gifts from moi. What I greatly enjoyed is the McKenzie single barrel straight rye whiskey (80% rye and 20% malted barley) aged six years, and finished in a “Pommeau” cask. This is really an outstanding flavor, a world-class product. And at $42.50 a bottle, it is about eight to fifteen dollars less than one would expect to pay for a similar quality product in Scotland, Ireland, or in other parts of America. And though I am not a drinker, as I have become a serious lightweight with age, I do enjoy sampling on location the locally made, sometimes internationally famous, sometimes should-be-internationally-famous whiskeys made in Scotland, Ireland, and occasionally America.
One of my favorite related memories is watching small boats putting in at the Isle of Skye, where they would each buy a couple cases of delicious small batch single malt, and then move on up the coast to the next small distillery, unknown to the outside world, but coveted and seriously in demand among connoisseurs. I happened to be standing high up in the Black Hills of Knoydart with a historic double rifle over my shoulder, hunting red stag, at that moment, and so alcohol was that farthest thing from my mind. But the determined boats way down below, and their sophisticated whiskey buyers, will never leave my mind. What a life.
Anyhow, below are some photos from the Finger Lakes Distilling Company, which despite being a real ongoing concern for some time now, has (bizarrely) not trademarked their unique product or bottle labels. See? This is the real essence of small town, rural America: Family-owned-and-run high quality, with all of the refreshing, remote innocence one hardly ever sees any more. Except maybe in Papua New Guinea, where according to one guy the locals ate Joe Biden’s grandfather with a side of whiskey bottle.
The single malt lacks the peaty flavor of coveted single malts from Scotland. If Upstate New York has any peat for roasting the malted barley, McKenzie should get it and use it
Real strawberry milk by the half gallon at Buttermilk Falls… can a summer day be better spent?
Could Today’s Young Americans do a June 6th D-Day?
Today is the 80th anniversary of the June 6th D-Day assault by a combined military force of Americans, British, Canadians, free French, Australians, Greeks, Czechs, Belgians, and others, on the beaches of Normandy, which officially began the Western democracies’ response to the great evils being perpetrated by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, and their allies.
A tremendous amount of heroism took place by the attackers on and around the beaches of D-Day Normandy, and by the paratroopers dropped behind enemy lines, some of it memorialized by movies like Saving Private Ryan. But most of D-Day was just simple military work – logistics with food, fuel, ammunition, spare parts, temporary shelters, etc., driving boats or loading boats, or cleaning boats or preparing or repairing boats, etc.
The men who made D-Day happen, whether way far away from the battle lines or way up close in front of it and right in it, were up to the task, whatever their own personal task was, because they came from a generation of westerners, generally, and Americans, specifically, who valued and knew hard work, who were comfortable taking reasonable risks, and who understood the importance of freedom. They did what was expected of them, and eventually won the war for freedom.
And so as I wandered around this past week “behind enemy lines”, so to speak, in a college town rife with young college age men and older men alike mincing and swishing, all, gay and straight, mind you, I wondered if today’s young Americans would be up to the task of a June 6th D-Day assault on entrenched defenders at Omaha Beach or Utah Beach in Normandy. Or even in an elementary school playground sandbox.
Looking at the ubiquitous un-athletic, unnaturally skinny, occasionally obese men, whose universal gait contains little to no masculine movement, no blocky limbs brought abruptly to the end of their motion forward or backward by tight muscles, but rather includes a most unnatural widely and fluidly swinging arms, with the wrist bending and the hands and fingers swinging upward, and dainty steps, I am thinking No.
Judging by what I have been seeing this past week, I would be betting on the bad guys with this generation of American men. Our guys just are not up to any sort of warrior spirit, much less warrior behavior or warrior actions. Frankly, from what I see, a majority of both the straight and the gay men today are girly. They all adopt lilting and nasally girly voices, baby talk like girls, and almost seem to aspire to be perceived as feminine. These guys are never going to carry a rifle into battle, much less shoot the rifle at their enemy, much less work hard with their bodies and develop manly muscles.
Why is this unnatural feminization of men and artificial dumbing down of 100% natural and 100% healthy maleness happening? Well, we can’t discount the overt assault on masculinity (so called “toxic masculinity”) by government schools, college professor indoctrinators, and pop culture. Recall the disastrous Gillette advertisement. Jiminy crickets.
We also have to consider the overt assault on little boys and boyhood by the educational and medical establishments. Fist fights are a huge no-no now. Fist fights among school boys were common when I grew up, and many of those boys on the other end of my fists ended up close friends until right now today. This was common practice for oh, about eighty thousand years of human development, but suddenly the feminine and incapable men convinced the masculine and highly physically capable men that being masculine and highly physical is bad, unworthy, etc. And so, boys can’t play cops and robbers anywhere any more, can’t pretend to shoot each other even with finger guns (gun shape made by pointing a finger like a gun barrel), and certainly cannot engage in any rough-and-tumble outside of a carefully circumscribed place of athletic activity. And of course, football, being the most aggressive and most testosterone-fueled sport, has been under attack by the media and medical establishments for a long time.
Speaking of testosterone, we know that testosterone levels are way down across America, and across all other Western countries, too. Probably a direct result of the lack of physical activity by boys and young men, and the emphasis on looking and acting feminine, and the wars on boyhood, manhood, and masculinity. As a result, lots of young women are complaining about being unable to find a manly man for a mate, and the older women are complaining that “there are no real men left.”
Plenty has been written and surmised about the effects of ubiquitous hormone-blocking herbicides (causing alligators in Lake Okeechobee to become hermaphroditic, an issue when I first started working at the USEPA in 1991) on both boys and girls and their sexual development.
Plenty has been written and surmised about the effects of over-drugging American children for supposedly “hyperactive” and “attention deficit” problems, which are really just evolutionary adaptive solutions in traditional hunter-gatherer societies (and now liabilities in our modern sedentary society).
Plenty has been written and surmised about the effects of over-drugging American children and adults alike for supposed “anxiety” disorders, which are really just normal human responses to the sensory and stimulation expectation overload addiction that is modern America.
And of course, the elites’ establishment narrative is that guns are bad.
And so here we are, mid-2024, celebrating and marking the 80th anniversary of D-Day, where manly men, masculine men, strong men, brave men, charged right into hellfire so that the world could live free. That’s you and me, son. And I don’t think most of today’s young men would or even could do any of what happened on June 6th, 1944, even if they decided they want to. What a huge failure.
Not only is this failure a shame, it is a huge signal to the world that America is very weak. And weakness invites takeover attempts by those who are not weak. And what amazes me is that the effeminate, mincing, swishing young men, straight and gay alike, do not realize that their effete and artificially soft lives will end abruptly, if they cannot man up and begin to become real men. That takes both a strong mind and a strong body.
A big Thank You to the men of D-Day, whose valor gave us Americans and Europeans freedom unlike the world had ever seen before, and which is now under great attack and pressure by enemies who are not afraid of us.
Tyrant wannabe David Hogg inspires 2A resilience
I photographed this in a visitor guide to Ithaca, New York. Scientific fact that only females can menstruate, but the mentally disabled want to not only pretend that biological men can menstruate, but that everyone must bow down and acknowledge it and support this craziness. This picture is a big part of what is killing America, and one cannot help but wonder who is really behind this
Don’t bite the flag that feeds ya
Tomorrow is Memorial Day, dedicated to remembering the many many sacrifices of military service personnel who from the beginning of America to right now have protected you, me, our kids, our lifestyle, and enabled us to pursue the American dream.
Because we American citizens are not required to serve our fellow Americans in any way, it seems that a great many Americans have forgotten about what it takes to keep this huge country going, or maybe they don’t even care about it.
Extreme examples of Americans showing their purposeful disrespect to America used to be limited to smelly hippies from successful families, who could afford to pose and posture and virtue signal. Today, huge swaths of Americans outright trash their own country and actually call for its destruction. Across America we have daily reports of teachers banning the American flag from their classroom, American school administrators banning the American flag from school sports events and uniforms. We even have a report this week about Brooke Merrell, director of Denali National Park in Alaska, ordering a road construction crew to remove American flags from their vehicles.
This disrespect and bizarre virtue signaling is a sign of a deep sickness taking over America. You cannot possibly hate yourself and also simultaneously succeed. You cannot bite the flag that feeds you, and also expect to have plenty more to eat any time you want it. Americans hating America is suicidal.
A request: Young people who consider the American flag to be all bad and everything, racist and other nonsense, try giving your flag respect today and tomorrow. Take a 24 hour break from being careless with such a powerful and meaningful symbol, full of sacrifice for you, and instead show it appreciation. I guarantee doing this will change some things inside of you. Some good things. Some needed things. The people who died for your comfort would appreciate it, just as you would had you been the one to die in battle for America.
Monument to unknown soldiers at Valley Forge Military Park, 1777-1778. Photo by Author
“Peace” protestors don’t want peace
All of the so-called “peace” protestor people don’t actually want peace, they want endless conflict that gives them something to live for. They thrive on conflict, and so they actually work to promote conflict, even while they say the opposite.
The so-called “peace” protestor people started out back in World War I, as a mix of anti-America communists and socialists trying to hurt America, along with well meaning Mennonite non-violent resistors who nonetheless did their duty as medics and orderlies when called upon. But by World War II, the so-called “peace movement” had swelled to include pacifist Quakers (who were being taken over by leftists by the 1950s and then fully by anti-America hippies in the 1970s), communists, socialists, and generally disaffected liberals who said nothing about communist Russia’s misdeeds, but rather heaped increasing scorn upon the capitalist United States. The so-called “peace” people are really just America haters, not lovers of peace.
Today’s so-called “peaceniks” argue for “conflict resolution” conditions that, contrary to stated aims, are guaranteed to cause conflicts to fester and continue, not end decisively. And that is because these people are not interested in actual peace, which means the absence of conflict.
Rather, they want outcomes that are consistently against the interests of democratically run countries and against people there living in peace. And that is a hard thing to sell, the national suicide-by-peace thing. They know it, but they absolutely live for it, because the adrenaline rush of living for something so impossibly majestic and messianic is positively hypnotic.
Despite the ongoing invasion of Ukraine by Russia, which really started in 2014 when Ukraine declared full soverignty from Russia and claimed eastern regions that have overwhelming Russian citizenry, and which has resulted in catatstrophic environmental and human death and physical damage beyond belief, note that the so-called “peace” people are really nowhere to be seen. No campus riots, no shutting down bridges or highways. Pretty quiet. Same goes for China’s many brutal militaristic adventures, and Cuba+Venezuela+Nicaragua non-democratic authoritarianism.
Same goes for the UN and its anti democracy allies lowering flags to half-mast out of respect to Iran’s Butcher of Tehran, Ebrahim Raisi, who without due process or rule of law was personally responsible for thousands of political dissidents being tortured to death or executed by slow hanging for many years. Actual Iranians living in Iran have been partying since Raisi’s chopper went down and burst into flames.
But when it comes to ten million underdog Jews (worldwide) defending themselves against two BILLION bullying Muslims (worldwide) attacking them everywhere across the planet, why… stop the press, turn college campuses and streets and bridges upside down, and call out the law on those troublesome Jews.
So now, the so-called International Criminal Court and the so-called International Court of Justice are issuing their own anti peace demands and ridiculous arrest warrants for Israeli leaders who are in the middle of defending the sole democracy in the entire region from hordes of very non-democratic and very Medieval barbarians at every corner of the New Jersey-sized country.
Never mind that Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Convention (neither is America), and thus not subject to these self-appointed kangaroo courts’ purported jurisdiction. What is important here is that the so-called “peace” people have been trying to dislodge Benjamin Netanyahu by any means possible for years, and thereby greatly diminish Israel’s ability to defend itself. Like him or not, Netanyahu has proven to be a very tough and reliable defender of Jewish survival in a hostile world, while most of his would-be opponents are desperate to be international media darlings and… people of “peace” at any cost.
The so-called “peace” people want to force on Israel, and on the world, a so-called “palestinian” country beyond the one that already exists in the nation called Jordan (80% of the original Palestine Mandate, 75% of the population identifies as “palestinian”), which they say will bring utopian peace and happiness and an absence of suffering and conflict to the region. It’s always for some mystical “peace” or “for the children” with these people.
By pushing this idea of another “palestinian” state, the peace people are incentivizing Hamas and the other Islamic terror groups to keep on committing attacks on Israeli civilians and holding out for everything, instead of accepting what is reasonable. The “peace” people’s intervention and resulting continuation of this conflict, and their constant encouragement of so-called palestinians to remain defiant and demand everything, as opposed to settling for something, has left the Abraham Accords in tatters. So much for peace from the peaceniks!
If there is one thing we have all learned since October 7th, 2023, it is that the decades of genocidal indoctrination have turned the Muslims living in Gaza and nearby areas into gleeful bloodthirsty murderers. So if Hamas’ October 7th child raping and baby burning massacre were indeed bizarrely rewarded with a formal state from which Hamas could continue to launch more massacres and random rocket attacks, they would do so.
In other words, the so-called “peace” people will get their desired conflict continuation, so that they can continue to wring their hands and write sanctimonious op-eds and pass endless judgment upon people and situations they themselves would never find themselves in (because brave men guard them day and night), and basically feel all mission-driven and holier-than-thou.
And we know that all of the Islamic actors in control of the ICJ, ICC and UN are using these institutions to try to damage Israel. After all, there is no actual Muslim pro-Israel/ pro Jewish/ pro peace peace movement; because that would be actual peace, which we know the self proclaimed peace people both Muslim and non do not really want.
The adrenaline rush and personal meaning high that “peace loving” enabling white liberals get from conflict continuation must be a lot stronger than heroin. Heroin users are satisfied to shoot up and then fall down in a corner somewhere and sleep off their haze, whereas the so-called “peaceful” white liberals keep pouring gasoline on the conflict fire that threatens to consume the entire world.
Self-anointed peaceniks and judgmental hypocrites, the AFSC never misses an opportunity to lie about Israel. What is the alternative to a ground invasion of Gaza by Israel? Should Israeli citizens shoot random bombs onto the heads of random Gazans in retaliation for the October 7th massacre? Note that AFSC makes zero mention of the massacre. Because the AFSC does not believe in peace, it hates Jews
Notice how AFSC fails to mention that Hamas is the sole cause of all of Gaza’s problems, including the theft of daily international aid deliveries. No mention of Israeli hostages, no mention of daily Israeli victims of Gaza rockets. AFSC is just “Israel is bad Israel is bad” all the time. The AFSC people do not want peace, they want dead Jews
talkin turkey
Spring Turkey Season is almost upon us here in Pennsylvania, and around the country. A great deal of the wild turkey breeding season is already behind us, and the significant challenge of calling in a “lovesick tom” at the tail end of the breeding period is now laid before several hundred thousand dedicated and novice turkey hunters alike, here in PA.
Couple of reminders, and one big observation:
- Please do not drive up and down country roads making hen calls out the window of your vehicle, waiting to hear a gobble in response. While it may bring some hunters a premature auditory orgasm to hear the lusty gobbler responses, all this activity really does is educate turkeys about fake calls by fake hen turkeys. And when tom turkeys get unnecessarily educated by guys peeing in their pants with excitement, said toms become a zillion times harder to hunt and bag. It takes the fun out of an already difficult hunt. Don’t do it. Please.
- Clearly identify your male turkey’s red or white head before pulling the trigger on its neck. If all turkey hunters only pulled the trigger when they had absolutely positively identified their target, there would be no heartbreaking hunting accidents during spring turkey season. And when you read the facts surrounding those hunting accidents or negligent shootings, you realize that some people are about to pee in their pants with excitement and so they shoot a human being “in mistake” of a turkey. By only putting our trigger finger on the shotgun trigger when the gobbler’s head is both clearly visible and in range, we bypass a lot of dangerous excitement.
Finally, in a certain nook up north, I have been enjoying the sounds once again of spring gobblers sounding off for probably six weeks now. Few have been the wild turkey gobbles there over the past ten to twelve years, an absence always correlated with the physical evidence of a resident fisher. In other words, fishers have eaten the hell out of our wild turkeys, and only after someone traps the local fisher do the turkey populations begin to rebound. This fact has been driven home for me year after year across southcentral, central, and northcentral PA; fishers have been real hard on our wild turkeys.
Not to say that fishers don’t have a place in Penn’s Woods, they do, of course. But the policy implications of widespread fishers should have been better considered before the giddiness of super-predator 100% ecosystem saturation overtook wildlife managers in the late 1990s and early 2000s. And now Pennsylvania is contemplating releasing pine martens into Penn’s Woods…..knowing already that they eat the hell out of grouse, and that PA’s grouse are in very bad shape.
I don’t mind having a decent population of fishers and pine martens up north in the Big Woods, where they will have the least amount of impact on other wildlife across the entire state. What I do object to is sacrificing the enormous wild turkey conservation success story on the altar of “more predators are better than few” mindset of some wildlife managers. Sometimes, we just have to accept that we can’t wind the clock back to the year 1650, or even 1750, because the few successes we have managed to rack up, like wild turkeys brought back from extinction, is as good as it can get.
Sometimes, good is good enough, and the rest we just need to leave well enough alone.
A fisher in New Hampshire, from wikipedia. Fishers are giant weasels. They eat everything.
Guys (men), don’t be an idiot
Emergency Room staff: “Hi there, what can we do for you tonight?”
Me: “I’m an idiot.”
ER Staff: “Yeah, we see a lot of those in here.”
Two hours before, the dry white oak board was very hard, and the cutter blades were very dull, and so that board was giving the cutter fits. Never mind that I had been running the cutter all day to fulfill a large order of oak, and that I had already sharpened the primary blade once, hours before. When the board end bounced off the dull blades, I leaned into it to force the cut. The last thing I remember is a flash of white in the dusk that was enveloping my worksite, and suddenly I knew I was hurt.
Reeling backwards and clutching my face, I first checked my teeth, my eyes, and unhappily noted the gushing blood pouring out of my face. The pain was overwhelming, and the copious blood told me it was serious.
After leaning on the order of banded lumber, hunched over and collecting my wits, I again took stock of my injured face. All my teeth appeared to be in my mouth, and I could see through my heavy wire frame glasses with both eyes. A big pool of blood was congealing on the lumber below me, and blood was liberally dripping and splotching all around me, wherever I went.
“Broken nose, you idiot,” I said out loud, to no one in particular. Time was 7:40 pm and anyone who might have been around to help me during regular working hours would have been long long gone home by then. From March through October I work farmer’s hours, which means work only ends when there is insufficient daylight to work by. When you choose to work until dark and until after dark, which I actually greatly enjoy, you usually work alone. And if you make a stupid, idiot mistake, you will bleed alone. If you are really unlucky or a really big idiot, you will die alone.
So, guys, don’t be an idiot.
Here are the idiot mistakes I made, which you should learn from and not make yourselves:
- Working around machinery and powerful tools while tired is an idiot mistake. All week a cold had dogged me, and even before beginning to work very physically, I was already run down from it. Hinyucking huge gobs of nasty green mucus everywhere every five minutes is a signal that your body is not well, that it is fighting off some infection or cold, and that it needs rest. Take the hint and rest, even a little bit, here and there throughout the day. On top of being sick, I had worked hard all day, lifting and moving logs and lumber, and when the accident happened I was just deeply bone tired from the heavy physical labor work. Mistakes happen much more easily to tired people, because tired people have poor judgment and slow reaction time. I had all of this in spades, and paid for it.
- Don’t work with dull tools. That cutter was battering the last piece of oak, not cutting it, and yet I foolishly leaned in close to physically force the very last piece of wood through. Big mistake. The powerful motor kicked that wood back into my face before I had time to second guess my poor decision. And yes, I had just been telling myself that after this very last piece of wood, I would remove the cutter blades and sharpen them. Too late, idiot.
- Wear correct protective equipment. Gloves are a must around wood and power tools, but the job I was doing also required serious face protection. Because I wear large, rugged eyeglasses everywhere, every iteration of which shows the battle scars of years of hard physical work, I have become a little lazy about better protecting my eyes. That became apparent about ten years ago, when some grinding wheel metal incredibly ricocheted up under my eyeglass lenses at an impossible angle and stuck in my eyeball. Took a while for that junk to work its way out. Just like with the safety event that prompted this particular essay, that day at the grinding wheel I had lazily neglected to simply slop my big clear face shield on my lumpy head and enjoy the benefits of complete protection from flying fragments, impacts, etc. Had I been wearing the face shield, hanging up on the wall just twenty feet away, while running the dull cutter, I probably would have had a good bruise across my face from the kick back, but nothing broken and no lost work time.
Last time I had a broken nose was my senior year in high school. Like the young idiots we were, a bunch of us were playing full tackle pick up football, in the dark. Heavily rushed, the opposite QB had lateraled the football to Rafael Richards, who, being athletic as hell, rocketed straight up the middle. Playing safety position, I put my head down and aimed straight for him. Rafael also put his head down to punch through the defenders, and the two of us woke up a bit later in the Chester County Hospital ER on two gurneys, next to each other. Naturally, we each had a mirror image injury, which included a broken nose and a deep gash in the forehead that required 17 stitches in the meat and another 15 stitches in the skin above.
Rafael went on to get his MD from Harvard Medical School, long before DEI and wokeness there rendered such a degree a question mark, instead of the world class achievement it should be. Somehow I just know that Rafael does not run the risk of getting his nose broken while being a fancy Harvard trained physician in an air conditioned office.
Me? I’m an idiot farting around with penny ante wood orders in the mountains. Because I like it.
But guys, regardless of doing what you like or don’t like, don’t be an idiot.
Cheap but highly effective face shields are sold everywhere for twenty bucks. Buy one and wear it. Don’t be an idiot
How was your eclipse experience?
How was your full solar eclipse experience today? I hope it was fun. A lot of Americans traveled long distances to be within the path of the full eclipse, which stretched across America for a couple hours. Though the actual full eclipse itself was just a couple minutes. My friend Jim drove all the way to Ohio from central PA to see the full eclipse, and yet his attention fell prey to a myriad of beautiful 1960s muscle cars lined up by car-and-eclipse enthusiasts. We men are so weak, so easily distracted. It’s great.
This morning I traveled a couple hours to the Pennsylvania-New York border for a business meeting, after which I drove a few minutes north and crossed into New York State. Right on the edge of the full eclipse. For two hours I did my best to enjoy the event, which was greatly hampered by heavy clouds. Like a tornado hunter there on the PA-NY border, I drove around and took up various positions along paved and dirt roads, a cemetery, a bar parking lot, a cow pasture, trying to beat the clouds or at least find a big wide open space that would give me an idea of when the clouds would open up and give a rewarding, clear view.
Was it seven years ago that we had another solar eclipse? That one we watched with friends at Cherry Springs State Park, and handed around our two welding helmets among our gang and also to other gawkers who asked to borrow them for a moment. That was a memorable day, most especially because it was summertime and the sky was blue. Boy was the eclipse perfectly visible on that day.
Gotta say, the welding helmet, turned up to 13, really saved the day today. The memento “Full Solar Eclipse 4/08/2024” glasses given to me by Chuck (thank you very much) were difficult to see through, and impossible to take photos through. The clouds were often heavy, and blocked the sun completely, forget the eclipse. Welding helmets have a pretty big screen, that is also adjustable, and a camera can be held up to it for a properly filtered picture. So not only was I often able to see the eclipse through the clouds with the helmet, some of my best photos came from light cloud cover.
What a miraculous and fabulous universe we inhabit. And no, we can’t blame this eclipse on “climate change.” Nice try, though.
Jim Eisenhart, Jr. may have been easily distracted by the pretty 1960s muscle cars today, but he did capture the best amateur full eclipse picture I saw
The best part of this photo is the little bit of ominous dark sky at the top. The eclipse turned daytime into a weird glow, a sideways light, not something that normally shines down. These signs lacked shadows, despite the bright sunlight (not sunshine) on them
My dream clothes washing machine is from 1999
In the past twenty years- plus, an aggressively misleading effort has been shoved down our American freedom-loving throats that the only home appliances we should ever want to own are so energy efficient and water efficient that they don’t actually achieve the results they are made to achieve.
Mostly we are talking about clothes washers (washing machines), although dishwashing machines, ovens, and even microwaves and toaster ovens have been bastardized on the false altar of “efficiency.”
What I miss most about washing machines are two things: A powerful agitator, and a manual override so I can select exactly the combination and level of functions I myself believe best fit the clothes I have placed in the clothes washing machine. I miss these two aspects that were basic to washing machines up until about 1999-2000, because absent them, it is now almost impossible to find a washing machine that actually and fully cleans my clothes.
All electronic/electric clothes washing machines sold today are extremely water efficient, and also extremely energy efficient. For those who struggle with what we are talking about here, neither water efficiency nor electricity efficiency will clean your clothes. You need lots of water and energy to clean clothes in a modern washing machine. Water and electricity efficiency means less of both key ingredients, and energy-efficient machines will not clean your clothes. High efficiency will result in your clothes being far less clean than they could be, were we using a real basic washing machine from 1999.
Today’s washing machines use so little water that the clothes bathing in it are essentially just getting dirty over and over again. Insufficient water is used to actually clean the dirt out of your clothes and hold it in suspension. And the low-electricity thing is just as ridiculous, because the impellers that have replaced agitators do absolutely nothing to actually clean your clothing. What agitators are available on the market are pathetic, limp-wristed little creatures.
Watch an old-fashioned agitator at work. The water is flying everywhere, the clothes are being pushed violently in the water, and your eyes can see that the clothing is being bathed in a lot of water that is also moving very aggressively. That is how clothes get clean.
Now go watch an impeller do its thing. An impeller kind of limp-wrists a pizza throw. It is a half-hearted effort to move whatever is on it. It hardly moves the clothing or the water. I have put folded clothing and sheets and pillow cases in our “deluxe” washer with an impeller, and with the alternative mini agitator, and after the longest possible wash cycle, the objects are removed just as neatly folded as they were when they were placed in the “washer.” Yes, they are wet, but they were not moved around, and the dirt that was lodged in them before they went into the washer is just as lodged as it was in the beginning. In other words, impellers do not work, and claims that they are just a more efficient type of agitator are BS. Your own eyes will tell you this, and probably your nose, too.
And today’s agitators are so small, with such pathetically short turns (guessing about ten degrees of arc) that they, too, do very little to wash the clothes surrounding them.
Why are Americans being fooled into buying electronic appliances that do not work? Because people who think they are smarter and better than us have strong-armed appliance manufacturers to provide “efficient” items that use less water and less electricity than prior models. Yeah, it is true that these dish and clothes washers use less water and less electricity, and it is also true that their amount of clothes and dish cleaning also drops about 90% for the same effort.
The Maytag washer we mistakenly bought takes an hour and a half to do a “Normal” load of wash, and when it is done, we are lucky if the clothes don’t require a second wash. Maytag is not alone; it appears that all of the washing machines made today are just as weak and pathetic.
In other words, “efficient” washing machines are such bad cleaners that they require much more use (= more time, more water and more electricity) to achieve even a modicum of result. The now old fashioned washing machines kicked the crap out of our clothes in a large amount of water, and in about fifteen minutes our entire load of laundry was done. And in fact the formerly dirty clothes emerged very clean.
So my dream washing machine today is one from 1999. It has simple analog turn dials, very few gidgety-gadgety electronics or computer chips, and the entire thing is one big manual override. Every choice I make is because I want that choice and that outcome. The machine makes no choices for me. It is also a top-loading drum that holds enough water to actually wash the clothes that are placed in it, and it has a powerful enough agitator that sweeps far enough (at least a 30 degree arc, and 60 degrees of arc is even better) and aggressively enough to actually knock the dirt off of my clothes and push it into suspension in the abundant water.
That is how we clean clothes with a washer. Anything else is just getting the clothing wet.
When it comes to cleaning my clothes, I really don’t give a cr@p about water efficiency or electrical efficiency. I want performance. The job has to be done right, and whatever it takes to get the job done right is what should be put into the job. Lots of water? OK. Lots of electricity needed to push a powerful motor that churns a strong agitator? OK.
High efficiency? No thanks. I will take the very low efficiency and highly effective washing machine, please.
It is hilarious and also a little spooky that what used to comprise the most basic washing machine that cleaned the most clothing with the least amount of effort is now sold as a machine with “lots of bells and whistles.”
I can’t believe we consumers have to write things like this, because it all seems so self evident. Then again, literally everything surrounding us Americans has been hijacked for some “higher purpose” that ends up leaving us and our needs in the dust. Because the people who push this garbage are “better” than us and “smarter” than us, and they think we are dust, over whom they must exercise heavy manual control.
Funny how symbolically asymmetrical this all is. Like a washing machine that in the 1960s symbolized how advanced America was is now a symbol of how screwed up America has become, and all because of the Left’s extremist politics.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, washing machines had reached their zenith of effectiveness
If I could get a “modern” and “high efficiency” washing machine to work half as well as this 1960 model, I would put on a dress and dance around, too
Imagine doing laundry dressed like you were ready to go out for dinner. Oh the painful irony that our grunge-dressing culture embraces crappy washing machines that in fact don’t get the grunge out of our clothing. Some things in Western Civilization were definitely much better in 1961 than now. Probably a lot of things.
Easter & Passover = Time for American Renewal
America as a representative, constitutional republic run by The People is being purposefully killed by the Biden Administration. In case the horrible inflation and scary economy and ATF cold blooded murder-execution of Bryan Malinowski in his bedroom did not grab your attention recently, maybe today’s headlines will: Joe Biden declared today to be a “transgender day of visibility,” despite today actually being Easter.
A more grotesque and purposefully evil statement could not be imagined, but then again, what evil haven’t we seen with Joe Biden. Sorry to the transgender people out there, but today is a major Christian holiday, and to flaunt hypersexual nonsense at the expense of America’s founding belief system is a major slap in the face of all Americans.
If Biden’s bizarre effort to outright ignore Easter and flaunt hyper sexuality seems to you like a big political risk for very little political gain, you are correct. What you are forgetting is that Joe Biden stole the 2020 election and has not felt accountable to voters ever since. This first-ever bizarre day of trans whatever nonsense is what politicians do when they believe they are not going to experience electoral pushback. And if you steal elections, you don’t feel accountable, and you just do whatever crazy crap you want to do. Like tyrants everywhere else.
America is in huge trouble. Enormous trouble. Who the hell ever saw a president so deeply committed to destroying the foundations of America, as well as its national defense, the rights of its citizens, its economy, etc? Joe Biden is not some aberration, he is being inflicted on America in order to destroy us as a people and as a nation. Joe Biden’s constant assault on America is not sustainable, and you should not think that America is too big to fail. You are watching America be failed on purpose right in front of your face.
Easter is based on Passover, which is right around the corner. Easter is more theological and Passover is more about national identity, and I think this year, these two holidays can, and must, together, mark an American spiritual, cultural, and political renewal that is borne out at the ballot box this November. Christians can pray that a free constitutional America rises again, and Jews can pray that a lawlessly brutal and sadistic federal government is defeated by The People, so that The People can go free and live their American lives as was envisioned from the beginning in 1776.
Hopefully enough Christians and Jews recognize that Easter and Passover of 2024 are uniquely placed to prompt them, you, us, to have a spiritual and national renewal, and that such a renewal allows us to throw off Joe Biden’s slave chains, so that we Americans can be a free people once more. This renewal must be implemented at the ballot box this November. The rejection of Joe Biden’s bizarre un-American/ anti-American values must be so overwhelming that there is no hope of his election cheating again this November.
Avoiding payment scams is easy
Last year, some local person took a picture of a check I had written to a local business, and they used that picture to create several fake checks written against my bank account. Because I bank locally with a relatively small bank owned by local people I know and trust, and because I have personal relationships with the bank staff, the forged/fake scam checks were caught right away.
“I looked at that check, and then the next one, and the next one, and just I knew that there was no way that Josh First was writing them. They are ridiculous on their face. I mean…flowers and gourmet cat food? No! No way. I knew that is not Josh. Chainsaws, yes, could be, I could be fooled by that if someone tried it, but gourmet cat food, no, flowers hell no“, said the local bank branch manager with a big smile.
Because the bank manager knows me and my business personally, he was easily able to discern the fake checks from real ones. He saved me a lot of heartache. And so I recommend to you that you use your local banks, that are owned and run by local people. Unlike the big banks like Chase, these local people get to know you, know your face, and are accountable and connected to the community around them.
A month later I got a call from a sweet and very distressed woman in Arizona, who had shipped off five thousand dollars worth of product from her small business based on a check written in my name. No, I assured her, I had nothing to do with it. I had no need for marketing products, and certainly not her particular products. This nice lady and I had a long conversation about how much America has changed in our adulthood, and not for the better. She said the scam had really hurt her financially.
Fast forward almost a year and I recently got a call from a nice young man in Alaska. A check bearing my business name had been used to purchase thirty-five hundred dollars of beauty salon hair and nail products from his friend in Florida, and the proceeds had been sent to Alaska to help him purchase a home there. Only days after he had deposited the check in his account was he informed that the check was bad, and that in fact he did not have the money. His friend in Florida was cheated out of her salon products.
I would say the common thread I have seen across all of these check scams is that the person getting scammed does not really look into the check they have received. For example, why would a buyer of beauty salon products in Florida pay with a check from a business in Pennsylvania that does land and timber work? This obviously makes no sense, and the young man admitted it.
And when I spoke with the nice lady in Arizona last summer, she too admitted that this same issue had given her pause. To which I asked her “Why didn’t you call us with your question before taking the check? We could have easily protected you from committing this mistake.”
Scams are everywhere: Email scams asking for money, phone calls asking for money, malware and phishing scams by email and text (DO NOT CLICK ON THEIR CONTENTS and links), phone calls about getting a low cost mortgage on your penis enlargement, updating your nonexistent home warranty/ extended car warranty/ computer warranty etc etc etc. We are inundated in this garbage.
You have to care about yourself enough to stay on guard and defend your interests. One little mistake can cause you a lot of grief and cost you a lot of money.
The best ways to protect yourself from being victimized are: 1) Ask yourself if this is a service or product I really have? 2) Is this phone call or email a normal way for a real bona fide service provider to communicate? 3) Why is there a company name from far away on this check? And you can always call that company whose name is on the check and ask them if they wrote the check.
Had that happened in the most recent scam, I would have said “I have nothing against dudes who use girl makeup, but I will also say that I am the last man on Planet Earth who would do so, and so there, you have your answer: The check is bad.”
You just gotta ask a question or two if you want to stay out of scam trouble.