Daisies As Far As The Eye Can See

I've got a really good series of posts in my head, but don't have the time to share them right now, so this will have to do. On Fiesta Island, where the Catican Guards are sometimes taken for training maneuvers, there is a massive daisy bloom. I took this photo at the daisy-head level, trying to make them seem endless. Enjoy!

Odds And Ends

Seen in La Jolla

Wait, what?

Training

I've been in training for work all week. It was 90 minutes of information crammed into 4 days. I thought about hiring a Mafia hit man to come in and kill me, but I was afraid he'd walk in the door, get some notion about the class and kill himself. I'd be out $20,000 and would still have to complete the thing.

Me: But he didn't kill me!

Don Ferrini: Listen you wanted someone killed and someone was killed. You owe us $20,000.

Rubbish from the bookshelf

Matthew Kelly: Resisting Happiness. Good Lord, Matthew, turn on some sports and have a couple of beers. You've gotten so mopey! You used to be a lot of fun, but now you're a stone drag.

Rod Dreher: The Benedict Option. Rod's book, The Little Way Of Ruthie Leming is awesome. This one is an abject surrender to the modern world. Rod wants us to crawl into a Catholic bunker to weather the storms of modernity. I don't think so.

Saul Alinsky: Rules for Radicals. Reviewed in depth here. Simply horrible. He writes like der Führer, only without the charm. I'm guessing he didn't know what an editor was. It must have been abject ignorance, because there's no way you could produce that amount of chaff and not have some idea you needed someone to cull about 90% of it.

There. That's it for today. Normal ranting and raving will resume tomorrow.

When Prayer Finds A Silver Lining

Blogging from my phone today so I apologize for the unsophisticated format.

I mentioned a while ago how a dear friend of mine had been diagnosed with cancer and how I had taken up prayer and abstinence from my favorite vices for his sake. I don't know how things will end for him, but devoting part of my day to someone else has brought wider benefits.

During my prayers, as my mind wandered, I meditated on a variety of things - family, life, relationships and more. As a result, I've had conversations with my wife and children that I would not have had otherwise.

My friend's illness might be cured or not, but his suffering has been used to increase love and support far beyond those who know him well through prayer and sacrifice.

Women Will Not Be Silenced Any More!

... confuses the living daylights out of me.

Dig this.

Hillary Clinton's campaign advertising was uniquely policy free and negative--even compared to Trump's advertising pic.twitter.com/wff7JCahpZ

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 27, 2017

Hillary's campaign spent, what, a billion dollars on ads? She blew through that much cash screaming at all of us what a swine Trump was, morning, noon and night and the women's, err, rights (? I can't figure out what it is they want, either) are howling at the top of their lungs that they refuse to be silent? How much louder could you get?

I think things like this are what gradually turn guys my age into mumbling, old, bearded dudes, rocking on our front porch, drinking beer with our hound dog, complaining about how things have changed and world don't make no sense no more.

"Can't take no more women complainin'. If'n you got somethin' to say, say it from the street, little miss, if'n you don't want a load of buckshot in your backside."

The State Of College Intellectuals

... described in one link.

Here it is.

Ritual denunciations of Charles Murray are de rigueur. College administrators and professors who allow him to speak on their campuses are quick to let everyone know how much they disagree with him and how they acknowledge he's a crazed racist.

But he's not and no amount of combing through his copious writings will reveal that. In fact, as that link shows, he's quite the opposite and his research and data are excellent.

It's not the philosophical disagreements that cause me to despise the modern academy, it's the anti-intellectualism. The foundation of being an intellectual has to be research and data. If research easily shows that your assertions are wrong, strictly for the sake of honesty you must recant them and reconsider your positions. Without honesty, academia is worse than useless, they are profoundly evil.

That's where we are today. An utterly dishonest and willfully ignorant professoriat. Is it any wonder why college students spout nonsense?

Saul Alinsky Violated The Geneva Convention

... because reading his book is torture.

For reasons to be explained in a future blog post, I'm wading through the sludge that is Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. It's horrible. In fact, it's recursively horrible or maybe mutli-dimensionally horrible or perhaps it's over-horribled as it's crammed with examples of every kind of horribility that a book might ever have.

It also reveals why Obama was such an obnoxious and tedious bore. The book is all about community organizing and after you've sampled what bits you can stand, you see a class of people who are at once pompous, hyper-intellectual, unreflective, ignorant, incompetent and completely useless.

First, there's the prose. Alinsky writes like Hitler. He makes broad, sweeping statements based on ignorance and ego that immediately call to mind reams of contradictions.

We approach a critical point when our tongues trap our minds. I do not propose to be trapped by tact at the expense of truth. Striving to avoid the force, vigor, and simplicity of the word "power," we soon become averse to thinking in vigorous, simple, honest terms. We strive to invent sterilized synonyms, cleansed of the opprobrium of the word power— -but the new words mean something different, so that they tranquilize us, begin to shepherd our mental processes off the main, conflict-ridden, grimy... blah blah blah blah blah...

Then there's the description of his life. Here's a bit of the nth Level of Hell that he not only inhabits, but wants you to inhabit as well.

Frequently personal domestic hangups were part of the conferences. An organizer's working schedule is so continuous that time is meaningless; meetings and caucuses drag endlessly into the early morning hours; any schedule is marked by constant unexpected unscheduled meetings; work pursues an organizer into his or her home, so that either he is on the phone or there are people dropping in.

Meetings, meetings, meetings. That's what organizers do. Sit around and talk. It's enough to make you tear gas yourself.

Then there's the utter insipidness of the thing. Here's a real Deep Thought Alinsky feels the need to share.

Communication with others takes place when they understand what you're trying to get across to them.

Please, just stop.

It dawned on me as I listened to this word hash spray out of the speakers of my car that the only people this would resonate with would be college students. Feed this trash to a 40-year-old plumber with a wife and 3 kids and he'll listen for 90 seconds and then find a way to go do something else. Alinsky himself talks about it when he mentions how some organizers finally get a clue and bail out.

Much of an organizer's daily work is detail, repetitive and deadly in its monotony. In the totality of things he is engaged in one small bit. It is as though as an artist he is painting a tiny leaf. It is inevitable that sooner or later he will react with "What am I doing spending my whole life just painting one little leaf? The **** with it, I quit."

Of course they quit. It's all horrible. Alinsky, however, was too in love with his own self-importance and all the meetings to quit. He was the guy who never left college while the rest of his friends grew up and went out into the real world. He was the campus radical with his pony tail turning gray and his hairline receding and his clothes 30 years out of date, lecturing the kids about how this revolution thing is done.

That led me to an explanation of modern college faculty. The majority of the people they interact with are each other and student-children who don't have the experience to see through their drivel. It's all self-reinforcing. That's why Shapiro, Murray and others are driven from campus. It's protection of their tiny world, insulation from people who will be able to point out their nonsense.

Maybe the riots on campus are really acts of mental self-defense, a fanatical spasm of protection of a world-view they know deep down is idiocy.

The idiot himself. I think the glassy stare is my favorite part of this picture.

Orange

Poppies from my parents' house. Enjoy.

Because There's Not Enough Pictures Of Flowers On The Internet

We will return to our regularly scheduled outrage tomorrow.

Enjoy.

The London Attack

... was a minor sideshow. Not to the victims, of course, but as far as the outcome of the ongoing civilizational struggle is concerned, it was meaningless.

The real combat is occurring in the maternity wards. Western democracies have made the ballot the primary and almost only weapon. It's all about the votes. Muslims are having babies and Europeans are not. When the Muslims can elect the government of their choice, the war will be over.

The Book Of Job

... was the straw that broke the camel's back, causing me to quit reading the Old Testament.

Having said that, it had some interesting things to say. Up to that point, the rule of thumb was that if you were a righteous man, God would pay off with good fortune. When a king was upright and moral, his troops won battles. When he was a pig, his troops lost. Not much was said about the troops who died in combat and their widows, but, hey, we're talking about the kings here, OK?

Job is the answer to the question, Why do bad things happen to good people? It takes five dudes to hash this out. Job, Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, Zophar the Naamathite and Elihu the Dude What's Got the Answers.

The scene starts with Job knocking back cheap whisky because his life has gone to pieces despite having been righteous and good and moral and returning all of his library books on time. Eliphaz shows up with a case of Pabst, Bildad with a pair of fifths of Seagrams and Zophar with a loaf of bread. The other three then ask Zophar, "What are we going to do with all that food?"

The four of them proceed to complain about their wives, kids, jobs and the Cleveland Browns. "Why do bad things happen to good people?" they ask. Bildad maintains that the people of Cleveland suck and they deserve it. Eliphaz says the people of Detroit suck worse, yet the Lions have had some decent seasons lately. Job starts talking about the Cavaliers and King James, but has a coughing fit and no one can understand him. Zophar stuffs his mouth full of bread in a fit of pique.

Elihu then shows up, ticked off because he thought the party started at 7 instead of 6 and by now most of the booze is gone. He kicks the dog and then goes on a rant about how no one can understand the ways of God because he's all-powerful and does amazing things we can't explain like oceans, wind and Michael Jordan. "Give it up, you guys. You'll never understand it. And Job, would it kill you to have some orange juice in this dump? I brought a bottle of vodka and there's nothing to mix it with."

"You ended your schentensche wif a preposchistion, you loser. No juische for you," replies Job who then falls off his chair onto the floor.

Or it went something like that. I have to admit I was tuning in and out as the thing droned on and on and on. In any case, that was the conclusion: How the heck should we know why bad things happen to good people? It's all way too hard to understand, kind of like algebraic topology.

So now you don't have to read the beastly thing. You're welcome.

Frank Rich Drops The Mask

... in the title and tagline, no less. Dig this.

Title: No Sympathy for the Hillbilly

Tagline: Democrats need to stop trying to feel everyone’s pain, and hold on to their own anger.

He then goes on at length to endorse bigotry, rage, hate and tantrums. It's not cloaked or allegorical or anything, it's just raw screaming.

The wheels are coming off the progressive movement. The compassion, open-mindedness, tolerance and understanding were never there, but now there isn't even a fig leaf with the words stitched on it. Worse than the article are the comments. It's nothing but enraged progressives whipping each other into a frenzy as far as the eye can see.

Well, this is what we all wanted, I guess. Bigger government means more politics. More politics means more arguing. More arguing means more rage on the losing side.

Scary stuff, amigos. If you dive into politics on Twitter once in a while like I do, I recommend cutting back and interspersing a lot more non-political content in your timeline. It's in all of our best interests to dial things down a bit.

Tiny hedgehog thinks you can do it pic.twitter.com/IZ2pjW5qHZ

— Land of cuteness (@landpsychology) March 20, 2017

Take it from Tiny Hedgehog. You can do this!

Surrendering To The Old Testament

I've given up. I was trying to listen to the entire Old Testament, but it's finally beaten me. I got through Job and started on Psalms and I just can't do any more. The Koran was a total drag, but this is the Koran times a hundred. At least the Koran was relatively short and full of repetitive chaff where you could tune out or yell at the windshield in unison with the Koran's endlessly repeated boilerplate paragraphs.

I've got some thoughts on the Old Testament that I'll leave for another blog post. In the meantime, I've decided to move on to something more modern and relevant - Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).

Edmund Burke. A smart guy and a snappy dresser.

The Chosen One

Truly, she is the Chosen Dog!

Or maybe just a nut lying in the sunshine.

Going Through Life Confused

... by some of the things I see coming out of the progressive left. Dig this billboard in Phoenix, reported by a news guy over there.

Wait, what?

Dollar signs block-printed and rotated so they resemble swastikas and two mushroom clouds? What pharmaceuticals in what quantities do I need to ingest for this to make sense? It's like the images were chosen at random. Here are some other combinations that would be equally coherent:

• Broccoli and Venetian blinds
• Fire hydrants and hamsters
• Toaster ovens and trees

I'm sure you can think of some yourselves. 

Sigh.

Deep Fried Cornish Game Hens

I used my deep fryer for a third time a few nights back and this proved to be the best dinner yet. I had a pair of Cornish game hens and wanted to give them the hot oil bath treatment. I did some research and the consensus was 375 degrees for 12 minutes, one at a time.

This time, I overcame the whole cooling-oil issue by warming the hens ahead of time. I heated the oven to 200 and popped them in while the oil was heating. I had butterflied one and left the other whole, just in case 12 minutes wasn't enough for a complete hen. By cutting it in half, I made sure the cavity wasn't going to be a reservoir of cold, preventing some of the meat from cooking. I needn't have bothered.

By preheating the meat, the oil temperature barely moved when the hens went in. I pulled them at the requisite 12-minute mark and they ended up perfect. I hadn't seasoned them under the theory that the seasoning would either burn or wash off, polluting the oil I wanted to reuse. That worked out fine as well. The end result was two excellent hens, crispy on the outside and moist on the inside. My wife didn't like it as much, saying the white meat was too tough, but I'd attribute that to the hens themselves and not the fryer.

Delish!

Married Priests

I'm all in favor of them. If Pope Francis is so inclined, and I've read rumors saying he is, I say, the sooner the better.

First, it will make the Church younger and more masculine. There's nothing the Catholic Church needs more right now than big infusions of energy and testosterone. Young people have always left churches as a part of them finding their own way apart from their families of origin. Having said that, it's pretty hard to bring them back when they're ready if your priests are 60 years old and effeminate.

Second, I don't think the theological arguments are all that strong against it. I've always had the feeling that they're kind of explaining the reasoning after the fact instead of deriving catechism from first principles. If you want a knock-out punch, there's Matthew 8:14-15.

Jesus entered Peter’s house and found Peter’s mother-in-law in bed with a fever. He took her by the hand and the fever left her,

If Peter is the rock upon which He built His Church and Peter was married, it seems perfectly fine to allow married priests. On counterpoint, here's the response from Catholic Straight Answers.

Note that the passage does not mention St. Peter’s wife, but only his mother-in-law. The Gospels, however, make no mention of St. Peter’s wife, living or nonliving. Therefore, St. Peter’s wife must have died before Jesus called him to be an apostle.

For full disclosure, Clement of Alexandria (Stromata, III) (c. 202), said St. Peter was married, had children and witnessed his wife’s martyrdom in Rome. These terse points were recorded, citing Clement, in St. Eusebuis’ The History of the Church. Given the silence of other church fathers about St. Peter’s wife and children (who would have had some prominence in the history of the early church), and the lack of any archaeological evidence of ancient Rome, which holds the burial sites of St. Peter and so many other early martyrs, one would conclude St. Peter’s wife died before he had been called as an apostle.

Meh. That's pretty ambiguous data upon which you'd build a crucial point of Catholic doctrine.

Heck, if you really want to go all-in, reclassify priests' wives as nuns and ask that they go through formation as well.

How Do You Fight The Lizard?

Some time ago, while having fun at poor Sam Harris' expense, I posted this tidbit.

We all have limbic systems that drive our animal appetites. Sex n' drugs n' rock and roll are desirable because the primitive lizard brains that sit inside of our glorious human brains says they are. Your limbic system is what drives you to do both the things necessary for survival and the things you really oughtn't like lust and gluttony. For Christians, we face a constant fight with our limbic systems as we strive to be what the Bible tells us to be. When we fail, we're hypocrites. We preach one thing and do another.

In my continuing effort to pray and practice abstinence for my friend with cancer, I still find myself tempted to surrender to gluttony, sloth and more.  Last night, I came home craving a beer or three. It was even worse after I did some paperwork at home that I really didn't feel like doing. Usually, I'm very self-indulgent. I like to give myself limbic treats for overcoming even minor problems. I've done an order of magnitude less of it during this period of abstinence and last night, I successfully resisted temptation.

What happened? What was the mechanism by which success was achieved? I was so busy cracking open the can of V-8 as a substitute for the IPA, that I wasn't mindful of the mechanism by which I won the fight. Is it even possible to pinpoint the sequence that led to winning? Can you pick out the moment when the game was over? I think it was when I picked out the V-8 from the pantry because from there, I wasn't going to head out to the garage fridge to get the brewski.

Is it when you begin to do something that makes sin too difficult? Substitution is a commonly-mentioned way of getting past addictions and temptation in general. Is that how it works? Is it just the act of getting the substitution chain started?

1. Go to pantry
2. Get V-8
3. Open it
4. Make the traditional Monty Python reference, "Crack tubes!"
5. Drink the first sip

For each step, here's the corresponding step that will put you back on the path to sin.

1. Close pantry door and head to the garage. (Easy)
2. Put V-8 in kitchen fridge and go get a beer. (Relatively easy)
3. Put the full, open V-8 on the counter and go get a beer. (Unlikely. Open beverage containers are often the target of house pixies who love to tip them over.)
4. Say, "This is the wrong tube!" (Even more unlikely as you've sounded the bugle and the troops have begun their charge.)
5. Put it down and go get a beer. (Almost impossible. Beer after V-8 sounds dreadful.)

Hmm. Is going to the pantry and grabbing a V-8 right when you get home the answer?

House pixies. They're all fun and games until they tip your V-8 so it spills all over one of the dogs.

White Privilege, Explained

I have to admit, I did not understand white privilege until today. Now that I know what it is, I see it everywhere. It's like the air we breathe.

This morning, I'm going to make sardines on toast for breakfast. I want to add some sliced mushrooms to the mix, but I can't find the Internet recipe I used once upon a time, so I'm going to have to shotgun the thing. Here's the plan.

Using one of my cast iron skillets, I'm going to drain the oil from a tin of sardines into it and heat it on my stove. While it's warming, I'll slice some whole, brown mushrooms I got from Costco. After it's hot, I'll saute the shrooms with some minced garlic, parsley and red pepper flakes, adding the sardines at the end to warm them up.

While I'm doing this, I'll toast my bread.

At the end, I'll take the bread, put the sardine / mushroom mix on top and eat it.

And that, my friends, is white privilege. It affects you every day. Positively if you're one persuasion, negatively if not. I'm sure that if you work at it, you'll learn to notice it in your own life, like the next time you change a tire, buy some shoes, teach your son to hit a baseball or look for your car keys between the cushions of the couch.

You're welcome.

A Rot Of Grubs

I don't know what a group of grubs is called, so I coined the term, "rot." It works on multiple levels. Grubs eat rotting things and it's also great for cheap laughs as you do a crude, Japanese accent.

American: "What are these things?"

Japanese: "A rot of grubs!"

Ha ha.

Ahem.

Yesterday, I was planting our new season's herbs and veggies when I came across a rot of grubs in one of our raised beds. I ended up spending an hour going through the soil by hand, pulling out the grubs as I found them. I must have ended up with about 50. Here they are in all their disgustingness.

When I harvest grubs, I like to throw them out into the middle of our cul-de-sac. It gives the birds and nocturnal varmints something to eat. It's fitting since the grubs were going to eat our plants and now they're dinner for someone else instead.

I've never tossed this many and after I did so and went back into my yard, some of the neighbors spotted them. Excitement and conversations ensued as they tried to figure out how all those grubs ended up in the street. I felt a glow of pleasure for giving them an interesting mystery to solve. Eventually, one of them figured out that it was the crazy guy next door and the conundrum was solved.

KT - bane of grubs, benefactor of neighbors, that's me.

Camoflage