R.I.P. Chuck Yeager, A Model American

December 08, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

Chuck Yeager, First to Break Sound Barrier, Dies at 97 | Military.com

The inspiration for Tom Wolfe’s book The Right Stuff and the subsequent movie, he said, “You don’t concentrate on risks. You concentrate on results. No risk is too great to prevent the necessary job from getting done.”

Fauci and Co. could use a little of The Right Stuff.

So what is “the necessary job?” Controlling the virus, some might say.

Poppycock.

The necessary job is keeping the country strong.
The necessary job is keeping people employed in their businesses, and the jobs within those businesses, to support their families.
The necessary job is ensuring the sanctity of our Constitution and our form of government.
The necessary job is to keep people safe in their homes and on their streets.
The necessary job is growing our children into full, learned, balanced adults.

The necessary job is to live The American Way to earn to The American Dream. To remember how we became the great, free land that we are and not lose that. To dance with what brung ya.

Medical people are by nature risk averse. It’s a good trait to have when performing research and saving lives. It’s not a philosophy for running a free country. People like that aren’t happy until risk approaches zero.

In real life, risk is never zero. Chuck Yeager worked with scientists daily. He certainly asked questions and made suggestions to ensure the best available risk mitigation in the prototype planes he tested. It was life and death for him. But excessive risk concern hinders thinking, creativity, and performance. As a team, their objective was speed - speed as a measure of technological and military advantage in the interests of national defense and accomplishment. A noble Cause, with a capital C.

Thanksgiving 2020

November 26, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

It’s Thanksgiving. However you’re celebrating it today, enjoy it and be grateful for what you still have.

Happy Thanksgiving to our next door neighbors who just yesterday received a clean bill of health after a year of serious and non-covid challenges.

And Happy Thanksgiving to Gen. Flynn.

More trauma soon, but for today, keep smiling.

Addendum 2

November 13, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

HELP WANTED: Short-term position in new government administration. Close proximity to center of power. Perks include gourmet food but limited quantity, excellent pay for as long as it lasts, and life insurance. Medical not needed. Flexible hours a must to accommodate long naps, midnight snacks, and basement time. Apply with resume and most recent physical exam at mydnc.com/careers/food-taster.

Speaking of food, what is it with restaurants and their mounds of bread? I know, this started years ago. Look around you and you can see the results waddling along in their sweat pants.

The health models for weight control are pretty universal in their disdain for carbs unless you’re a marathoner. Minimizing carbs has allowed me and the Missus to maintain our girlish figures after all these years. But eateries continue to bury perfectly good meat and cheese under inches of useless, tasteless bread. Burgers - even worse, crabcakes! - submerged under a giant kaiser or brioche? Where’s the beef?

I ordered a Reuben the other day at a local tavern respected for its menu (outdoor seating, of course). The waiter assured me that their Rueben is legendary, and he was nearly correct. The meat was tender, the sauerkraut plentiful, the cheese well-melted, the Thousand Island wasn’t Russian but it never is anymore. Could have been a nice lunch, but all that luciousness was embalmed in a sarcophagus of that thick bread such joints tend to call Texas Toast. Why? How about a couple of thin slices of nice Jewish rye? Would caraway seeds be asking too much?

At the founding of the sandwich, the bread was merely there to hold the innards together, to accomplish what the innards could not do for themselves. The innards were the core and spirit of the sandwich. In recent decades, the bread has become bloated and out of control. The country needs more Originalists in the kitchen!

Creepy newspaper ad. Creepy robots. Creepy Arthurian imagery. Creepy corporate slogan. Reimagining is a very scary word. Watch your back, Sarah Connor.

Addendum 1

November 10, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

Listening and writhing in pain as the governor of Maryland drones on about how the infections are up and we have been bad-bad-bad about hosting family and not wearing the damn masks. We gave you some slack, kids, and you did not act as mature adults. Therefore, you are grounded. Keep this up and you can forget about Thanksgiving, and Christmas, too.

Sigh.

We used to like him. The Missus thinks he’s lobbying to be Mask Czar in the Biden hierarchy.

Coup-Coup-Ca-Choo

November 08, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

“You’re not going to like what comes after America.”

— Leonard Cohen

Well, it appears the TV nets (starting with schizophrenic Fox) have coronated Joe. So much material here, so little space.

Has this ever happened before, Dad? A question from our daughter a few days after Tuesday. She was only 11 in 2000, but understands the damage this election and the potential challenges can bring to our system. The question led me down a rabbit-hole of Dad-speak (sorry, honey) about how we all used to gather ’round the old black-and-white and flip among the Only Three Networks, who were all seeing the same data and eventually all came to the same conclusions on the march to 270. The parties’ campaign headquarters, who probably had somewhat better sources, were also watching, but no one said a word until the Only Three Networks projected the winner. Then the loser would appear on TV, thank his loyal campaign staff, concede defeat, and pledge to work with the new guy in the best interests of the nation. Then and only then would the winner take to the cameras, thank the loser for a hard fight and gracious defeat, and declare victory. We all went to bed, grumbling about taxes going up or benefits going down, got up on Wednesday and went to work. The nation went on. Nobody burned anything except cigarettes. This model worked until relatively recently.

How did this miracle of government happen? We all trusted the system. We saw the data as trustworthy, the networks as honest, and the politicians as mostly honorable.

Well, as Inspector Clouseau famously said in The Pink Panther, “Not anymore.”

You gotta wonder about Tucker Carlson. He’s about the most entertaining conservative face on TV, next to his frequent guest and regular Rush fill-in Mark Steyn. You need humor on this stuff. The overly wrought sad faces on the MSNBCCNNABCNBCCBSPBS circuit are just so…sad. Government and culture have always needed light-hearted observers, the Mark Twain and H.L. Mencken types. Tucker’s not in their league, but he brings an appropriate sense of the absurd to it all. He can also be serious, passionate, and scathing. Last week, his network Fox leapt ahead of the pack to declare first Arizona, then the election, for Biden. Will this put him in a bind? It had to be a corporate decision; a play to be seen by the new winners as not in the bag for Trump. So, they’re clearly in the bag for Biden. It will be interesting to see how he handles the claims of fraud after the weekend off. Good luck, buddy. We’re rooting for you.

And now, without further ado, the Gunpowder Rebellion debut of Mrs. F’s Soapbox. Go for it, baby!

Thank you, kind sir.

If it does, indeed turn out that our side lost, I propose that we make their lives as miserable as they have made ours for the last four years with their self-importantly named “resistance.” Like they’re the brave French WWII underground or something. Right.

The significant difference will be that, unlike the noisy child approach that those guys employed, we shall operate as we always have, with decorum, respect, manners, and etiquette. Thus, I propose the Polite Old People’s Rebellion, effective immediately. Guy and I are working on a battle plan. We probably won’t recommend ripping your mask off in the supermarket and going BOOOWAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! But potential tactics include:

Stand with your hat off in front of the flag.
If your school or community group opens with a prayer, pray.
All those albums and movies you own by lefty artists? You know they hate you. Bruce Springsteen, Barbra Streisand, Taylor Swift, Bobby DeNiro, Jim Gaffigan - lecturing and ranting how horrible you and America are? Let’s lighten up those archives! Get rid of them! Throw them in the trash, hand them to your Commie kids, or double your pleasure and double your fun by shipping them off to a charity and taking the deduction.
While we’re on the subject of charitable donations, review who you donate to. Not naming names but you know which “charities” are arms of the government or heavily subsidized by it. If you care about the recipients of those charities, locate a different provider of those services. Faith-based foodbanks and health/abuse/child support programs, local animal charities, and independent arts groups.
Your old school, and the ones you spent good money to send your kids to. Have they declared their wokeness? Then stop your annual gift and let the kids support them. Reroute your donation to a school or program that supports your views. Or, buy yourself something that you denied yourself for a long time while you were paying their tuition. That would feel good, wouldn’t it?
Feel free to not support businesses who have made a big deal about not supporting you. No riots, no burnings, just withhold your money. Cancel culture my patootie, our generation perfected boycotts.
If you happen to have retirement portfolios that include such companies, review their performance for your portfolio and your stomach’s reaction when you think about those companies. Keep those companies who are performing for you but consider downsizing your holdings in those that really piss you off by, oh let’s say, insisting on unproductive hiring quotas. Pardon my French.
Drive the speed limit, but not in the left lane.
Turn up the music. Especially the 70s stuff. They hate that.
(But no Springsteen.)

It’s a start.

- Mrs. F

Funny Stuff

November 01, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

By this point, you are probably a decided voter or an already-voted voter or maybe a sh!t, I forgot all about it voter. That’s okay, plenty of time. We’re not going to know who won until Memorial Day, anyway, what with all the shenanigans to follow.

So, rather than get ourselves all worked up about it this week, the Missus and I have been collecting absurdities to share. For instance,…

If you can look at this picture and not think that we’re being taken over by weird, evil aliens, you’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din. Appearing (more or less) before Congress the other day to explain why they won’t let us read stuff were Julius Caesar, Rasputin, and Jeff Goldblum.

In the Age of Zoom, it’s entirely possible these entities no longer even have corporeal bodies.

She’s baaaack.

Funniest Motto from our new favorite site, host of our new favorite article.

The site is Frontpage Mag, and the story that caught our attention is here: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2020/10/ideological-stripe-covid-19-john-waters/

Funniest T-shirt seen on a recent stroll along the Boardwalk with visiting Daughter F.:

I’m not gay.
But $20 is $20.

Funniest T-shirt seen in a recent online ad:

Don’t piss off old people.
The older we get, the less “life in prison” scares us.

Guaranteed to put a smile on your face, and possibly green fairies in your kitchen, from our buddies at Maddafella.com: https://www.maddafella.com/blogs/food-drink/death-in-the-afternoon

Last Word before Election Day. I’ve seen this cited a couple of places: A recent poll by Gallup says that 56 percent of respondents think they are better off today than four years ago. Given what everybody agrees has been a particularly bizarre year (or three years), that’s an extraordinary number. Conversely, another recent poll asked whether the country is better off than four years ago; only 39 percent said yes.

There are truisms about politics that have been proven over decades if not centuries. All politics is local. People tend to vote their wallets. It’s the economy, stupid. Many, many of the rioters in those news videos are young and white. They are not oppressed; they are bored and have been recruited to “a cause.” Voting for an interest that is not your own betrays the logic of the individual having a say in selecting his or her management team. The country fares better when voters stay true to their own self interest. If everyone, the well off, the oppressed, the employed, the jobless, the poor, the sick and the healthy, voted for what would make their lives better - and not some abstract issue that needs an earth-shaking solution - the results would better reflect the needs and values of all 350 million of us.

The funny thing is, with all the noise, this is feeling a lot like 1968. Young people rioting in the streets, subterfuge and confusion on the Democrat side (with Bernie Sanders filling the crazy extremist/comic relief role then played by George Wallace), and a law-and-order candidate (with obvious personality flaws) on the Republican side. The Silent Majority struck then. We’ll have the last laugh when this is all over, too.

Keep smiling. It drives them nuts.

Guy and Mrs. F.

Drinking Games

October 25, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

Mrs. Fawkes and I have been experimenting with a couple of new drinking games. You know the kind, where you pick a stimulus or action and when it happens you take a drink. The debates have gotten us pretty snockered. But there are others.

Simon Says Dodge the Deck Light. We have a motion detector light on the back porch. It flashes on for about two seconds when it detects, well, motion. It’s very good at its job. We were sitting on the porch steps the other night, in the dark, just enjoying a fall evening and staring into the dark woods. Every time we moved, the light came on, including when we brought a glass to our lips to enjoy our evening wine. So, the game became to surreptitiously drink without tripping the light. If you fail, you drink. We like this game.

Find the Tilt. The challenge here is to find the slanted content in supposed news stories. For example, an article in the WSJ about “Extraordinary demand for Trump-related books…” ahead of the election. The author (I’m not calling these people reporters anymore. A small victory.) cites three examples right up front: The hit job by his Angry Bird niece, Bolton’s critical memoir, and the “expose’” by Bob Woodward. Only in the last paragraph of ten does he mention a Trump-friendly book that also topped the charts this year: Hannity’s “Live Free or Die.” In newspaper world, the last graph is the first cut when space gets squeezed, so I think we’re just plain lucky to get that late sop. We sipped in sorrow at the state of reporting.

Speaking of games, I’m sure you’ve heard about the new diversion of Flights to Nowhere - airline flights that take you up for the fun of flying, but bring you right back to where you started from. Thirty-some years ago I took one from Norfolk, over Baltimore, and back again, and it was a hoot. Nice food. Cocktails. Plenty of space. And all for charity. A novel idea. The new version, given the way air travel had deteriorated even before the covid made it worse, doesn’t make sense to me. But now there’s a video game called Airplane Mode that let’s you experience that unique brand of hell from the comfort of your own computer. Why?

And can I have an aisle seat, please?

Let’s talk about Settled Science. Sister Sara taught us in high school: Science is never settled. It is the nature of science to always be inquisitive, challenging, threatening any premise and, in turn, to be inquired, challenged, and threatened by new ideas and data. The new Religion of Science is just as false as the religion that fueled the Inquisition or the witch trials. We must accept as guiding facts all pronouncements by the medical scientists and the climate scientists and the demographic scientists and any skeptical eye will be poked out.

To be fair, some things are pretty settled. The earth is probably round-ish. Evolution better be true or somebody just spent $32 million on a fake T. Rex. But the nature of the universe is still being challenged by almost daily discoveries involving tiny particles and massive holes, by movements large, small, and in-between. As for climate change (nee global cooling, nee global warming): every ten years or so somebody pronounces that, based on science, we only have about 10 more years until the planet is either a burning cinder or a flooded Waterworld (God, I hope not - awful movie.) And each of those dire predictions is apparently based on science. Trial by fire or by water. Trip to Salem, anyone?

The scientific method is hypothesis, testing and evidence, refinement, and theory or thesis based on repeated verification of the hypothesis. It has guided quality science for centuries. How is this being thrown aside in the name of absolute control? The answer is not that Sister Sara is no longer with us. It’s another scene from 1984, and the Ministry of Love is coming for the dissidents, the deniers, and the thinkers.

Fauci was on 60 Minutes last weekend, not being challenged, just being given a friendly platform. He’s not the enemy, but many of us who live in the world he has created don’t think he’s really doing us any favors. What has happened to that show is so sad. It provided such good reporting in the old days. Sigh.

Alas, I feel like this week’s edition has just been an old guy ranting. Not that there’s nothing to rant about.

Keep smiling, but cast your vote.

- Guy

Another bird story that devolves into politics

October 17, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

The Missus and I were availing ourselves of a lovely post-Delta day here after two solid days of rain brought by the remnants of the latest climate-change-induced-threat-to-life-as-we-know-it. Took a drive to the nearby seaside town, enjoyed a long, maskless walk along the mostly closed boardwalk, and wandered the sandy shoreline for a while. It was a bit windy, the ocean was rougher than normal in the aftermath of the storm, but the weather was mild. There were a few brave souls wading in the shallows. Surfers had come out, hoping to take advantage of the rough seas. Surfable waves were in short supply, but they looked to be enjoying themselves anyway.

Accompanying us along with the surfers, waders, and other walkers were multiple gatherings of a shorebird we had never seen. Sort of like your basic gull, but blacker and with long beaks ringed with flamingo red. A Google lookup by Mrs. F (a world-class expert in phrasing productive Google queries) told us our new friends were Black Skimmers. They’re very cool, but native to the Gulf shores of the US and points south, not here. I wonder whether they had been riders on the storm. [Cue The Doors.]

Maryland to Louisiana: We have your birds. Please send postage.

After our walk, we wandered to a new restaurant and, being parched from our exercise, sat outside along the boardwalk to have a couple of post-walk cocktails. A joyful ruckus soon arrived as a bicycle built for six rolled noisily by, staffed by a half-dozen young men in yarmulkes and white shirts (and one carrying a MAGA cap) chanting “Four more years! Four more years!” It might have been easy to write it off as young smart alecks being sarcastic except that the guy with the MAGA lid was also yelling “Biden for Senate.” This, the day after the Democrat presidential candidate publicly and pitifully announced - again - that he was a candidate for the U.S. Senate. That young man (a) was up on the news and (b) had a sense of humor. I don’t think those guys were joking. Bravo, boys! And L’chayim!

Watched bits and pieces of the Barrett hearing, and loved her brain and demeanor. It strikes me that the reason Feinstein and other of her tormentors can’t let go of forcing her to disclose her hidden agenda is because that’s the world they live in. They’re lifelong politicians. They all have hidden agendas, frequently not in sync with their constituents or even legality. Hard for them to comprehend someone who flies straight.

This week’s shutdown by the Twitterbook cartel of the free dissemination of a legitimate news story by a legitimate major newspaper is stunning, scary, and totally on course. They declared themselves the Ministry of Truth some time ago and no one has stopped them. So they get ballsier and ballsier, protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which safeguards tech companies from being sued for what their users post on their platforms, and has evolved to give them broad discretion to censor content.

Ministry of Truth is not too strong an image, either. In Orwell’s 1984, control of communication and the language is the government’s most insidious and useful tool. Today, we have our own version of newspeak being promulgated by the oppressively tolerant: the lists of things one cannot say aloud and of terms one must use in polite company grows every day. And the major media organs pass it along, demonstrate how to use it in a sentence, and punish slow learners gleefully. (And yet, they can’t agree on how to pronounce Kamala.)

These Twitterbook people are not kidding around and somebody has to stop this before it’s too late. Not being fans of government regulation when there’s a viable free market solution, the Missus and I say rescind Section 230 and let them get sued by everybody they screw with. (We don’t like lawyers much either, but sometimes you gotta pick your poison.) It’s like your kids. You gave them some freedom, and they showed they can’t handle it with maturity. So you ground them. Forever.

Did you finish Animal Farm? Good. Now go read 1984 and visit the world that gave birth to Big Brother, memory hole, doublethink, and thought crime. Then look around honestly and tell me it’s not happening here.

Next to last point. An excerpt from a recent magazine article by Robert B. Charles that includes a famous quote generally attributed to Ronald Reagan:

…"Communism only works in heaven, where they don’t need it, and in hell, where they’ve already got it.” ….
When party elites take control over private property, national production, distribution, jobs, benefits, and where money goes, the end is approaching. Greater suppression follows, ends justifying means, until killing becomes part of of how a society gets to utopia.”

Think that’s overstatement? Then read some real history (i.e., history books written in the pre-woke era) about how that worked out for the people in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe, China, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela. As a hack writer said recently, gulags were not part of the original sales pitch.

Last point. The property, money and jobs they want to redistribute are yours, not theirs. How did people like Biden and Pelosi, who have spent their entire working careers as government employees, get so rich?

Keep smiling, but vote your wallet.

Of Birds and Blather

October 10, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

Good morning and happy weekend. I’ve been watching a pair of mating Downy Woodpeckers frolicking over the last couple of days in my back yard (two words, unless used as a modifier). They’re adorable, young and in love. I don’t know the mating cycles of Downy Woodpeckers, but I am surprised to see this chasing and chirping going on as winter approaches. And, in my newly laid back (two words) retirement mode, I don’t really care. It’s just fun.

Not so much fun for small restaurants these days. A story in the paper today says well-heeled and chain restaurants are getting all the business and actually growing, while mom-and-pop joints are folding as the lockdowns continue nation- and world-wide. The Missus reminded me of one of the running jokes in the brilliant Sylvester Stallone movie (Yes, I used those four words together.) titled Demolition Man (1993). Subversively wrapped around a standard Sly action flick is a sly, not so standard commentary on a society that is living Brave New World.

The running joke in question is that a fine dinner out with dignitaries takes place in a Taco Bell. Taco Bell, you see, was the last franchise standing after “the fast food wars.” Now, every restaurant is a Taco Bell, and the people all think it’s haute cuisine. It is a smart, funny movie. Check it out if you want a look at one of our possible futures but don’t want to get depressed. As an added benefit, fellas, you get the young and spunky Sandra Bullock as the sidekick/love interest. Her name is Lenina Huxley.

Regarding the alleged kidnapping plot against Michigan Governor Witmer: Yeah, these guys are probably going to jail. But I still think they dodged a bullet. Be careful what you wish for, fellas.

Speaking of evil geniuses, you’ve got to admire Speaker Pelosi’s latest move regarding the 25th Amendment. Brilliant, using their own psychosis as cover for the planned coup against their own candidate. BWAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!

CNN’s resident loose cannon Don Lemon was quoted after the Kenosha riots as saying the riots are hurting the Democrats, hurting Biden, scaring people (but not in the productive way they intended). It has to stop, he said. Have you noticed of late? No riot coverage. Are they still happening? Did they all suddenly go home to watch Family Guy?

Last gripe. Reading this morning comments by the CEO of Chevron. Asked “What is Equal Opportunity,” he said, “When employees feel comfortable bringing their full selves to work…” Poppycock. Nobody has ever brought their full selves to work (at least, and kept their job). We all have special-purpose selves: our home self, our parent self, our out drinking with friends self, and our work self. The Covid and the resulting sweatpants culture has muddled the mix, but that’s not about equal opportunity; that’s just slovenly living.

If you spent any time in the Baltimore area, you know the name Vince Bagli. “The Dean of Baltimore sports” was one of a gone generation of gentleman sportscasters who saw joy and humanity in sporting competition, not opportunity and headlines. We lost him this past week after a long retirement.

Eddie Van Halen died, too. Only 65, he always looked like a kid just happy to have a guitar. I wasn’t a big Van Halen fan, but they were undoubtedly one of those game-changing bands that many other acts rode the coattails of. (Yes, I know; hanging preposition. I’ve given up on that fight.)

George Burns left us a long time ago now, but the Missus and I streamed an old live standup performance from his last resurgence in the 80s. Clean, even when hinting at blue material, and clearly in love with the footlights. He’s still a treasure.

Loose Ends

October 03, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

This weekend is one of my favorite holidays of the year: Surf Fish Weekend. Initiated in 1993, SFW brings a motley assortment of old friends together at the beach to fish or play golf or go to bars or just sit around and drink beer. There is only a rough agenda (see above), the cast varies from year to year, and the weather always plays a role. But we guys, who have been friends and playmates for anywhere from 20 to 45 years (more, in some, cherished cases), have the freedom among ourselves to do silly things, tell old stories and bad jokes, and generally do the same stuff we did as young men and, at times, adolescent boys. (Okay. Being all happily married or close to it, we don’t chase girls any more. Everything else is in play.)

My oldest friend is fond of saying, “I am blessed to have these people in my life.” Ditto, buddy.

One of this past week’s headlines screamed that President Trump is “millions of dollars in debt.” As though that’s a bad thing. Anybody with a mortgage has debt. And for tax and accounting purposes, it’s not generally a negative. Your average suburban homeowner under 40 has a mortgage and is probably “hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.” My God.

Similar bad math arrives with the arrest of anyone who owns a gun and has a stock of ammo in the house. “Thousands of rounds of ammunition” were discovered in the home/car/backpack/socks of the potential serial killer. Of course, a typical session at the pistol range can easily run through a hundred to several hundred rounds of ammunition. These guys just as likely went to Cabella’s and stocked up at their Memorial Day sale. Just like, oh, your average serial bird lover might stock up on millet and sunflower seed at Costco. Somebody call the cops.

As far as the Debate, I have nothing to add that hasn’t been said by smarter people than me other than, did you see Biden’s eyes? Weird.

And as far as Mr. and Mrs. Trump coming down with it, here’s wishing them a speedy recovery for the good of our national governance, and hoping that they will show that a case of The Covid does not mean the end of your life as you know it. Somebody needs to tamp down the hysteria.

A couple items from the Missus…

Seeing bumper stickers that say “Biden. Restore Dignity.” Think I’ll wear one of my own: “Biden. Install Socialism.”

And, don’t you find the NBC Nightly News’ use of Theme for the Common Man juicily ironic?

Last thing. Wishing Dan Bongino of The Bongino Report a quick recovery from a different health issue. He’s the new and better Drudge. The old Drudge ain’t the Drudge of old. Rumor has it he sold it around the first of the year. Regardless, it’s not fun anymore.

Discourse

September 25, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

We’ve all heard it’s best to stay away from two topics when conversing with neighbors: religion and politics. The Missus and I met a fellow a few nights ago who did not get it. We had gone to a local restaurant (outdoors, of course) to catch a band we like. We were sitting at a high-top, and this guy was sitting alone at the bar nearby. When political conversations start, I generally shut up and let her carry the load because she enjoys it and is much quicker with the facts than I am. He started chatting, and neither of us remember how it got political, but the evolution of the conversation was weird.

Him: The covid thing will be over after the election.
Mrs. F: Yeah, probably.
Him: Uncle Joe and Cousin Kamala have it figured out.

This is what he actually said, and we read him to be, well, on our side based on that phraseology. I mean, pretty facetious, right? Yeah, well…

Mrs. F: [Chuckle.}
Him: Trump’s gotta go. That guy is so wrong in so many ways.
Mrs. F: How so?
Him: He completely screwed up the pandemic.

Now, we’ve heard this on the regular media for months. And we often yell back at the TV what the Missus politely asked this fellow:

Mrs. F: What exactly should he have done differently?
Him: He should have shut everything down, like China. They handled it.
Mrs. F: He really doesn’t have the power to do that, constitutionally. That’s why he let the states decide that.
Him: But it’s a pandemic!

Here’s where it starts to go off the rails. He said that word, which I’m sick of, like it’s a magic totem that explains everything. (Oh, Lord. Did I just culturally appropriate something?)

Mrs. F: Well, China can do it because they don’t have our constitution. We can’t.
Him: IT’S A PANDEMIC!

You know, like “GODZILLA’S COMING!” I swear his lips moved two seconds after the sound came out. At this point, we now know he’s on the other side, and was being coy early on because, I suppose, where we now live he’s vastly outnumbered.

Mrs. F: [Polite pause, trying now to disengage.]
Him: THAT GUY IS SO WRONG IN SO MANY WAYS.
Mrs. F: Like what?
Him: THE PANDEMIC! HE SHOULD HAVE DONE IT LIKE CHINA!

He’s getting louder and faster, but saying the same thing, and the Missus is trying to now talk to me and ignore him. We’re new around here and try to be polite to everyone because you never know who you’re talking to or who’s overhearing you, right? He pauses, and we think we’re free. Then he has a new thought. Damn.

Him: You see those flags?

He’s pointing to a fishing boat at the dock with a pair of Trump 2020 flags fluttering from the flying bridge.

Him: That guy should burn them now. If he burns them now, he’ll be a hero. If he burns them after the election, he’ll just be a sore loser. I’d rather be a hero than a loser.

This was a new one on us, and that quote is verbatim. The other stuff, we have heard forever. But we must have missed that episode of Morning Joe. By this point, we’re both trying hard to ignore him, but he’s lonely. Understandable.

Him: And at least we don’t cheat and lie.

At that, yours truly looked up and the Missus and I both smiled and shook our heads sadly because, of course, we think it’s them that cheat and lie. (See: impeachment, servers, DNC, Kavanaugh, Hunter, et cetera, et cetera.) The Missus couldn’t resist one last volley.

Mrs. F: How so?
Him: THAT GUY IS SO WRONG IN SO MANY WAYS!
Mrs. F: [Silence]
Him: DOITLIKECHINAITSAPANDEMICFORGODSSAKETHATGUYISSOWRONGINSOMANYWAYS CHEATANDLIECHEATANDLIELIKECHINAITSAPANDEMICFORGODSSAKEBEAHERONOTALOSER

Louderandlouderandfasterandfaster. Memorized MSNBC talking points cranked up to 11. Louderandloudernandlouderandfaster.

Blissfully, as I’m pretty sure he was about to work RUSSIA and COLLUSION into his babble, a woman he knew - and who apparently actually liked him - approached and distracted him and the Missus was finally able to turn away and end the encounter.

I swear I am not making that conversation up. Okay, maybe the very last part isn’t quite a quotation. But it’s close. And, if this is the quality of debate these guys are capable of, we’d better not let them take charge, and we should be embarrassed if they win.

And do they really call her Cousin Kamala? What would Uncle Ben and Aunt Jemima say? Oh, sorry. They’ve been disappeared.

Heard a good quote the other day regarding the filibuster and court nomination blatherfest that is apropos here: The left starts a fight, then gets mad when the right wants to fight back.

As I said, we have found that here in our new digs about 80 percent of the population thinks like we do (based on informal observation of yard signs, boat signs, mask resistance, everyday conversation, and high percentage of Home Depot shoppers who know what they’re looking for). That was also true of our last neighborhood. And it’s true of most communities we interact with. And we live in a Blue state, although its blueness is dictated by three dense population centers and the resultant monotheistic legislature. Everybody around them is red; they’re surrounded but they have the numbers. We don’t pick places to live by polls and politics, but it seems that deplorables like us, who value a little freedom, a little joy, and a lot less fraught-ness, are all over the place. We just don’t answer polls, and maybe sometimes we lie to polls because we like messing with the preprogrammed system. Look out for the Silent Majority, kids. We’re still here. In 2016, we were merely frustrated. This time, you’ve really pissed us off.

Last thing on politics, I swear. As we go to press, the latest news is reporters asking the President whether he will accept the results of the election. This, from the people who have, nearly fours years in, refused and resisted the results of the last election, and who have conveniently forgotten St. Hillary’s “Don’t concede. Don’t ever concede.” pep talk of just a few weeks ago. Really?

There’s a great op-ed in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal titled Before Reporting Became ‘Journalism’ about the contrast between what reporters used to do (report the facts, subdue their egos, and let the readers think for themselves) and how they write and behave now that they consider themselves Journalists (stir up emotion and blatantly push their point of view). (Note: The WSJ is paywalled.)

And, yes, the Journal’s news section is guilty of much the same. That’s a discussion for another day.

If you want to have all the holiday joy sucked out of you in one crashing moment, read the CDC’s guidelines for Hallowe’en and other festivities: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/holidays.html. Scroll down to Fall Holiday Celebrations and cry in your bowl of miniature Milky Ways.

Okay, one more thing. In Baltimore, which has historically had one of the nation’s most robust Columbus Day parades each October, the move is on by elected officials to relabel Columbus Day “Indigenous Peoples Day.” As the Missus correctly points out, without Columbus, they wouldn’t be Indigenous Peoples. They’d just be some folks somewhere that nobody ever heard of.

Keep smiling, but don’t talk to strangers.

Equality

September 18, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

There’s a lot of talk about socialism, whether the good old fashioned Karl Marx model, the Russian version of Communism, the equally death-inducing Chinese version, the Democratic Socialist version tried and abandoned by several more civilized countries who at least did not execute millions of their own people, or the as yet undefined Democratic Socialist flavor that an alarming faction of bored American society favors. While they can be forgiven for not living (with a few notable exceptions, Bernie) through the Cold War or not being taught actual History in school these last few decades, they cannot be allowed to skate entirely.

One of the eventual end goals of socialism is equal outcomes. You know, “From each according to their means, to each according to their needs.” (Talk about flattening a curve.) We’ve been hearing the call for equal outcomes in this country for some time. The American Way promises life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness - equal opportunity for happiness, not happiness itself. What you do with that opportunity is up to you. And, yes, we cannot deny that there are still shortcomings here in the fulfillment of that promise of opportunity. But nobody said anything about equal outcomes in life.

Be very afraid of the pursuit of equal outcomes, as explained here in the brilliant six-page short story by the legendary Kurt Vonnegut, Harrison Bergeron. Read it and come back. I’ll wait.

Okay. Any questions? Thought not.

Like George Orwell, who had seen the worst of the Spanish Revolution and the growing attraction of communism among bored, rich, British college kids in the 30s before writing Animal Farm, Vonnegut wrote Harrison Bergeron in 1961 after the Stalin era that lasted from WWII through the 50s left millions of Russian and related Soviet citizens dead or disappeared. These guys didn’t make sh*t up. Well, okay. They did make up talking animals and ballerinas wearing birdshot. But, like Aesop of ancient Greece and ancient cartoons, these were fables with morals, cautionary tales to warn of the crazy stuff that was potentially around the corner.

The stuff in Animal Farm played out in the Soviet Union (official moniker: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. USSR in English; CCCP in Cyrillic.) in the course of my lifetime. Ballets with sashweights are coming soon to a Zoom performance near you.

Socialism is an old, failed philosophy that ultimately requires forceful enforcement for the simple reason that it runs counter to human nature. It is human nature to wish to thrive, and to reap the fruits of your individual success to use as you see fit: to feed your family, to give to charity, to hoard until it rots in the barn. Doesn’t matter, you made it, you grew it, it’s yours. No matter what these guys say about Socialism based on Democratic freedom, it won’t end up that way. You think the Russian people were told they’d be starved, executed, and sent to gulags as part of the attractive sales pitch? Right. Promises are promises, and reality waits right around the corner.

DISCLAIMER: I’m not a historian or an economist. But I know what I know and I’m right. The fact that the Missus thinks exactly the same thing just makes it more right.

And go read Animal Farm. It’s short, too, although I’m not going to wait for you.

Just before I hit Publish on this thing, I flip on the TV and see the news about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg. A fine lawyer, a real hero to women, and a controversial member of the Supreme Court. There’s no denying her love of country and accomplished career, and here’s hoping that the media and the politicians let her death pass with civility and respect for a few days. Then let the last big fight of the campaign begin, and we’ll see how the House will again try to insert itself into a process that constitutionally is the sole province of the President and the Senate.

Heard a great line the other day: If you think mail-in voting is safe, send an envelope with $500 in cash to yourself.

On a lighter note, tomorrow, September 19, is Talk Like a Pirate Day. Here’s a link that explains it all. It’s just good fun, unless you’re the scurvy knave what gits to walk the plank. Arrr.

International Talk Like a Pirate Day

Tomorrow is also the fifth birthday of Mrs. F’s car. She remembers such things.

And one day next week is the second wedding anniversary of Daughter and Son-in-Law F. It was quite a party. We were there!

Keep smiling folks, but lock your doors.

The National Fraught League

September 11, 2020 by Milt Szimanski

You may have read about the fun new things that will accompany your favorite football team’s battle for the Super Bowl this year. I won’t recount them here because it hurts, but here’s a reliable link if you want to see for yourself.

https://www.si.com/nfl/2020/09/01/nfl-end-zone-social-justice-slogans-end-racism

But the Missus and I tuned into the First Game of the Season last night, on Sunday Night Football on Thursday Night (The official moniker. I had to explain it to her. She didn’t believe me.)

To borrow an old critical thinking exercise, if the Martians watched last night’s football game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans as their first view of this civilization, what would their conclusions be?

Based upon the praise and wonderment voiced by the Officiants, people called Al and Chris, the beings in red are the Deities of this world. They are infinitely powerful, incapable of failure, and engaged in a contest with a sacrificial opponent to be pitied for their inevitable fate.

Based on the messages during interludes, this world is mostly black people smiling beatifically at their friends and children. The few white people who exist drive something called a Volkswagen. However, the white people have a sense of humor.

Walmart is a fraternal organization.

A company called Black Lives Matter is a co-owner of the NFL, and makes helmets.

Very few people come to these contests.

And what’s with the masks?

At the intermission, Martian Ygrtzz says to his co-pilot, “What do you think, Blark?”

“I’m bored. Let’s see what’s happening on the The Venus Channel.”

Us, too.