Posts Tagged → new york
A silver lining
It is easy to become angry as it becomes clearer every day that the coronavirus lockdown response has been a partisan media hype job without any basis, and we have all been deprived of our most essential civil rights by a bunch of power-mad politicians.
After all, as of today’s Pennsylvania Department of Health statistics, exactly 2/3 of the deaths here attributed to covid19 Wuhan Flu occurred in nursing homes and other elder care facilities, among vulnerable elderly people who already had serious health problems.
And we are also learning that a great many of the Wuhan Flu – related deaths are not actually related to the CCP Wuhan Flu. But they are chalked up to it to artificially inflate the numbers, to make it seem worse than it is.
And we are also learning that the death rate of the Wuhan CCP Flu is actually very low. Lower than ye olde regular annual flu! In other words, a lot lot lot of Americans contracted the CCP Flu, showed little or no signs of it, and did not die or become hospitalized.
So as a bunch of justifiably angry Michiganders storm their state house, and as sheriffs in barely-touched rural areas defy state governors’ over-reach, and as counties and townships begin to open up for business on their own terms (with people wearing masks and standing apart), it is easy to see that a public powder keg could go up in dramatic fashion. Why not? It is the American way. It is how we founded our great nation. Hang ’em high!
But there has been a silver lining to all of this stay-the-f*ck-at-home stuff, and that is the result that American families have spent more time together, as families, than since 1952 and the advent of the television. Families have been forced together. In our own home we have had regular family dinners, family conversations, some doozy family fights, and lots of really valuable, really enjoyable, really loving time together. This has been the upside of all the artificial insanity.
And that said, I will also say that I lost a lot of acquaintances and some friends in New York City. They were mostly much older, almost all with some existing health challenges. Some died alone in a hospital, their family members unable to be with them at their time of passing, as they choked to death alone in unfamiliar surroundings. Bad deaths, really hurt and very sad families. There is no question that New York City and its environs have been the hardest hit from the Wuhan Flu, and it is turning out that most of their deaths were also in nursing homes, where Governor Cuomo ordered sick people to go, even as the virus spread.
So yes, there are going to be some lessons learned here. Some painful ones and some good ones. The main good one being that American families are still intact, much more so than we might have thought just eight weeks ago. Let’s not forget this nor let it go. Spending family time together is one of the very best ways to spend time. Hopefully we don’t need a public health emergency to remind us in the future.
Rural & Urban People Experience the Virus Differently
Rural and urban people are experiencing the covid19 CCP virus differently. And this means they each experience the various governors’ approaches to it differently, too. Chinese Flu policies impact rural and urban people differently.
In rural America, like Clinton County and Lycoming County here in Pennsylvania, life is still pretty much going on, not quite like normal, but fairly close to normal. The perceived risk from Wuhan covid19 Flu is low. This is because the rural peoples’ observations are not squaring up with what they are being told from their state capital. Rural people are not seeing up close and personal the disruptive chaos and death that is so pervasive in places like New York City and Philadelphia. So their behavior is different.
For weeks the Lowes in Mill Hall, PA, has been standing-room-only parking on the weekends, as local people shop for gardening supplies. Likewise the other nearby big box stores and small hardware stores are also full of people attending to their needs. Life is going on, albeit with some face masks and people clearly trying to steer clear of one another in shopping aisles. The Wegmans in Williamsport, PA, was full of shoppers the last time I was there, and the shelves were mostly well stocked. Notes about limits per customer are placed in all the usual places – TP, canned tuna, milk, bread. Ladies at the checkout are quite tough and firm about shoppers abiding by these limits, and everyone seems to be getting along just fine.
Elsewhere in rural PA are drive-in church services, food takeout, maybe some bonfires with chairs set apart, but still lots of chairs, nonetheless.
Actual Risk vs. Perceived Risk vs. Government Policy
At the heart of this lifestyle difference between rural and urban people is the difference they have over perceived risk, actual risk, and what the government policy says.
When rural people look around and see none of the catastrophic chaos engulfing New York City, they begin to ask simple and necessary questions about the actual risk of the China Flu to them. The actual risk, not the suggested hype or irrational fear stay-the-f#k-at-home perceived risk that is being breathlessly communicated by the cable outlets every minute. Without bodies stacked high, without lots of people becoming obviously sick from the CCP Chinese Flu, and with local health providers like hospitals and clinics operating as normal, rural people begin to question the value and necessity of the government policy that tells them their Constitutional rights must be suspended.
They then begin to question the value and purpose of their own government.
When we hear about the over-reach in places like Kentucky and Michigan, whose governors are literally demanding that people cower in their homes or else face huge overwhelming coercive force and jail time, it is natural for Americans to ask not just what is the value of these policies, but why can’t we have real policies that are tailored to the realities that each community faces. The potential risks of Wuhan Flu are just not the same everywhere.
Rural areas have more room and space between people, fewer people, less congestion, and a lot lot lot less exposure AND a lot less actual risk. Government policies need to reflect these realities. Blanket one-size-does-not-fit-all policies serve no real health purpose. Instead, no matter how well intentioned the governor may be, these blanket policies that are the same in Philadelphia as they are in Lock Haven, PA, make everyone equally miserable, damage all businesses equally, regardless of the health outcomes.
At the end of the day, government action must both balance risks with costs and benefits, while also safeguarding the citizenry’s sacred Constitutional rights. To date, very few states have done this. Instead, almost every state has treated low-risk rural areas the same as high-risk congested urban areas, and hit them all with the same heavy hammer. This makes the whole covid19 reaction thing seem awfully fishy.
Steven Thrasher has a real PhD in Fake Journalism
Bad journalism is like bad cooking. You can put up with it for a while, until it starts to do you in.
Lately there has been a lot of really bad, highly politicized journalism, the kind where you realize that you just can’t believe a single thing that fake journalists are saying any more. People ingesting this fake news know it is bad, and yet if it is served up with flair and fancy flourishes, it can be tolerated for a while simply because so many people around are similarly pretending to enjoy the crap. They are following the advice of actor Billy Crystal: It is better to look good than to feel good. But now we really feel awful.
Doctoral candidate in “journalism” Steven Thrasher gave a commencement speech to an overly respectful audience at New York University last week that gives perfect and clear insight into all that is wrong in academia, in “higher learning,” and in the supposed craft or profession of “journalism.” And the audience sat there and took it, despite widespread rejection for Thrasher’s white hot hate speech (and surprising amounts of applause at times, too). One wonders how Thrasher would have taken open disruption of his bad performance, like he advocates for others with whom he disagrees.
Steve Thrasher is no “journalist.“ Forget that having a PhD in something as simple as reporting facts makes no sense except as a crotch stuffer. This is a PhD in totally fake news. It is actually pretty sophisticated, because it involves deceptive behavior.
Thrasher’s establishment media is loaded with people just like him: Not seeking real facts or accuracy, not trying to report just the facts so that people have a firm grasp on reality, but instead preloaded with a partisan, highly subjective political mission, and using “journalism” to achieve it. With people like Thrasher, the mainstream media absolutely IS the enemy of The People.
[One of my kids has a science degree from NYU, and she was subjected to political harassment and intimidation by many of her science professors for four long years; I have emails from some of her professors demanding that she attend anti-Trump and anti-America rallies.]
Steven Thrasher:
- Advocated for genocide of “white” people and Jews
- Advocated for violence, vandalism, blacklisting, and oppression against people with whom one does not agree politically
- Advocated for politically correct speech, not free speech, and shutting down speech one disagrees with
Along with his litany of politically correct America-destroying policy points, Thrasher also called President Trump a “fascist,” which seems to be kind of an oh-yeah-take-this moment for political extremists on today’s campuses. Note to Thrasher: You just showed us that you are the intolerant, power-crazed fascist, not Trump. And Thrasher is supposedly an ‘open minded academic’!
From Thrasher’s ugly speech anyone with an open mind can see the disastrous present of academia and the scary future of America. And if you have been willingly ingesting fake news until now, because it is everywhere and easy and it calms your nerves because it makes you feel like everyone agrees with you, and yet having seen Thrasher’s performance you have decided that you finally feel ill, you cannot be alone. Stop eating the crap that is being served up to you by academia and the mainstream media. You will feel better.
Mainstream media, the establishment media, that is the same media which gets its next crop of so-called reporters from institutions like Northwestern University where Thrasher is next set to “teach journalism,” has been poisoned by the likes of Thrasher for decades. Students at these schools cannot get passing grades unless they submit to the political indoctrination of extremists like Thrasher. So education and open minds are out, and politically correct brainwashing is in throughout the establishment media. Thrasher is why the mainstream media has indeed become the avowed enemy of The American People.
Some takeaways we get from Thrasher’s ‘Munich Speech’:
- Communicate clearly with any college or graduate school from which you or your kids hold a degree, that you will not financially support them or speak their praise until all of this politically correct evil is scrubbed from their institution, top to bottom.
- Communicate with information outlets that orchestrate fake news, and tell them that you will not watch them or listen to them or hold them in even middlin’ regard, until they clean up their house and begin acting like non-partisan professional reporters of facts and not like political activists. CNN may be the worst of the bunch, but taxpayer-funded NPR is blatantly partisan and politically correct. National Geographic magazine wants to sell subscriptions, but why would any normal person willingly allow NG’s cutting-edge PC trash into their home? Same with the New York Times, the Washington Post, and about three hundred other mainstream partisan information outlets masquerading as “news.”
- If you find yourself in an audience with a speaker like Fuhrer Steven Thrasher, stand up and object, or show that you object by leaving. The speaker has no right to demand that you just sit there meekly and take their abuse. They certainly do not extend to other speakers the same expectation of respect and tolerance that they are now demanding from you. You are not a captive audience, you can get up and leave. Do it.
- Don’t pay for your kids to attend expensive colleges unless you know they are going to get a real education that will help them advance themselves throughout life. Think about it: Steven Thrasher has a PhD in journalism, and what the hell did it do for him? It made him stupid and close-minded. College education today is a scam, as we see with Thrasher, and as will be seen with his students. Most college experiences today are Marxism 101 to Cultural Revolution 404. This is not an education, at least not one that an employer will value. Pay for four years of science, or pay for a one- or two-year degree at a community college or technical school like Penn Tech in Williamsport, PA. Bankrupting your family while losing your good kid to four years of mind-numbing indoctrination is not a smart move.
Thrasher either virtue signaling or beginning his sieg heil salute, and either way demonstrating how political activism has corrupted and ended professional journalism.
“Vee vill crush zem like stzraw” or some other personification of Nazi German speak
Thrasher’s “Ha! I just said that!” moment
Steven Thrasher, the personification of everything that is wrong in academia and in the establishment media
My 2019 resolution: Not going pee with the ladies
Last night we were celebrating the incoming New Year with friends at a hotel in New York City. Lot of fun, beautiful time of year and place, great, friendly people and beloved old friends.
…and then I had to pee…
Discharging excess fluid is how a healthy mammal’s body works any day, and especially after copious intake. So, I feel the urge, stand up from the table, ask a friendly staff person about the location of the toilet, and receive clear directions. So far so good.
One of Western Civilization’s chief accomplishments is ubiquitous flush toilets. They even come with sinks and hand towels. They are generally clean, tidy, and hygienic, certainly compared to a hole in the floor like you will find the world over. This particular hotel is quite nice, and had all kinds of nice little “extras” about for guests, and it stood to reason that my bathroom experience would be top quality.
Nope.
This is in NYC, a major locus of PC crazy, and it turns out that simply going pee in the homeland of PC crazy results in a crazy pee experience.
I approached the bathroom door and noticed beautiful and often scantily clad women coming and going through that door. Then a well dressed young man entered. The see-through door is labeled “EVERY BODY.”
My inner dinosaur screamed “No f*ing way!” as my feet reflexively stumbled backwards. I may have suffered a brief infarct. Maybe a meteor hit Earth or my head at that moment, too. Reality wheeled around me, and I had an out-of-body feeling.
The kindly young bathroom concierge standing nearby smiled knowingly and said, “there’s a men’s room downstairs, here let me show you,” and he accompanied me downstairs to a glittering bathroom that said “MEN” on the opaque glass and brass door.
This was what I had hoped for: Urinals for guys to stand over, breath mints and mouth wash on the spotless counter, stalls with doors giving enough privacy for guys going #2 or even amorous couples to do their business without interference or observation. A typical nice Men’s room. Natural boundaries. Privacy for men, to be men.
After emptying my body’s excess water tank, I washed up, went back upstairs, and walked past the Chaos & Bizarro anti-civilization bathroom, shown in these photos. Young men and women were still entering and exiting simultaneously, and as a result I made my first and likely only 2019 New Year’s resolution: I will not use a Chaos & Bizarro dual-sex bathroom.
Nope.
I like my high civilization and I intend to keep it. One pee at a time.
Fifty years of designated wilderness
Two weeks ago marked the fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Wilderness Act.
It applies to federal designation of remote areas, not to states. States can create their own wild areas, and some do. States closest to human populations and land development seem to also be most assertive about setting aside large areas for people and animals to enjoy.
I enjoy wilderness a lot. Hunting, camping, hiking, fishing, and exploring are all activities I do in designated wilderness.
Every year I hunt Upstate New York’s Adirondack Mountains, in a large designated wilderness area. Pitching a tent miles in from the trail head, the only person I see is a hunting partner. Serenity like that is tough to find unless you already live in northern Vermont, Maine, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming or Alaska. It’s a valuable thing, that tranquility.
This summer my young son sat in my lap late at night, watching shooting stars against an already unbelievably starry sky. Loons cried out all around us. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves on the birch trees above us and caused the lake to lap against our rocky shore.
Only by driving a long way north, and then canoeing on a designated wilderness lake, and camping on a designated wilderness island in that lake, were we able to find such peace and quiet. No one else was anywhere around us. We were totally alone, with our camp fires, firewood chores, fishing rods, and deep sleeps in the cold tent.
These are memories likely to make my son smile even as he ages and grapples with responsibilities and challenges of adulthood. We couldn’t do it without wilderness.
Wilderness is a touchstone for a frontier nation like America. Wilderness equals freedom of movement, freedom of action. The same sort of freedoms that instigated insurrection against the British monarchy. American frontiersmen became accustomed to individual liberty unlike anything seen in Western Civilization. They enshrined those liberties in our Constitution.
Sure, there are some frustrations associated with managing wilderness.
Out West, wilderness designation has become a politicized fight over access to valuable minerals under the ground. Access usually involves roads, and roads are the antithesis of a wild experience.
Given the large amount of publicly owned land in the West, I cannot help but wonder if there isn’t some bartering that could go on to resolve these fights. Take multiple use public land and designate it as wilderness, so other areas can responsibly yield their valuable minerals. Plenty of present day public land was once heavily logged, farmed, ranched, and mined, but those scars are long gone.
You can hike all day in a Gold Mine Creek basin and find one tiny miner’s shack from 1902. All other signs have washed away, been covered up by new layers of soil, etc. So there is precedent for taking once-used land and letting it heal to the point where we visitors would swear it is pristine.
Out East, where we have large hardwood forests, occasionally, huge valuable timber falls over in wilderness areas, and the financially hard-pressed locals could surely use the income from retrieving, milling, and selling lumber from those trees. But wilderness rules usually require such behemoths to stay where they lay, symbols of an old forest rarely seen anywhere today. They can be seen as profligate waste, I understand that. I also understand that some now-rare salamanders might only make their homes under these rotting giant logs, and nowhere else.
Seeing the yellow-on-black body of the salamander makes me think of the starry night sky filled with shooting stars. A rare thing of beauty in a world full of bustle, noise, voices, and concrete. For me, I’ll take the salamander.
Happy Birthday, Pennsylvania!
333 years ago this week, Pennsylvania was born, when King Charles signed the Penn Charter, granting William Penn millions of acres of land in the New World. Ever since then, Pennsylvania has been a leader in religious tolerance, democracy, and citizen liberty. Contrast our liberties with, say, adjoining states New York and New Jersey. ‘Nuff said.
Condolences to the Mowery family, who lost former state senator Hal Mowery this week. Hal was a gentleman, cheerful, intelligent, thoughtful, charismatic, and without question the best looking man to ever serve in the Pennsylvania legislature. He will be sorely missed.
Breezy Point, NY, Hit Hard by Sandy
Some places are just off the radar, and sometimes the closer they are to large metropolitan areas, the easier they hide in plain view.
Breezy Point is such a place. A slice of Heaven in an otherwise old, somewhat decrepit New York metro area, Breezy Point is a small seaside village nestled in the dunes between Jamaica Bay and the Atlantic Ocean.
About 99% Irish Catholic, it’s utterly safe, pleasant, and home to several welcoming real Irish pubs. For years, Breezy has been my main fishing destination. Its proximity to public land, private beaches, normal people, excellent fishing, and many friends makes it a natural venue to introduce my kids to surf fishing, beach bonfires, and rare friendly exchanges with urban strangers.
Sadly, Breezy took a big hit from Hurricane Sandy. Between unprecedented flooding and a huge fire that has eaten at least fifty homes now [UPDATE: 100 HOMES, developing], the place is really hurting. If nothing else, Breezy’s residents are hearty, able, and unwilling to move into “The City.” So it’ll be rebuilt. This coming Easter I may finally be able to organize the first seaside service with bagpipes that also kicks off the start of the striped bass run. I’ve raised the subject and been met with warm welcome by some locals. Given the state of things there now, it might be a good start.
To my many Breezy friends:
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.