1984 On Steroids

So here it is Caturday and this week’s narrative was the non-stop lamenting of Asian “hate crimes” on the rise, presumably by Trump supporters (who else?).

The media put an anti-Asian spin on the shootings at several Atlanta massage parlors before knowing any facts about the case and it became doctrine overnight. A pity that the facts, as usual, resulted in such a massive narrative failure.

After Optimistically Slotting In the Massage Parlor Shooter As the One White Anti-Asian Thug, Media Is Disappointed to Learn He’s a Sex Addict Who Was Shooting Up the Sex Parlors Because He Blames Them For His Addiction.

Of course the real story here, were any “journalists” interested, is that these “massage parlors” are actually brothels staffed for the most part by sex-trafficked illegals. But the media would much prefer to talk about right-wing white supremacy than sex slaves, and that should be quite telling. The drumming of the anti-Asian hate crime drum serves two purposes: it keeps the myth of racist Trump supporters alive and rolls another special interest group into the D column.

So I watched Breakfast At Tiffany’s on TCM the other night. Hang with me here, my sleepless night, Caturday and Asian hate crimes are all related.  Don’t you  just love it when a plan comes together?

Holly Golightly’s cat, named speciously Cat, wakes her for breakfast

I tuned in before the movie actually started and had to sit through TCM’s gaggle of hosts post-viewing lecture on anti-Native American racism displayed in the previous movie, The Searchers. When they were done with that dead horse I had to sit through their pre-movie discussion of the racism about to be displayed in Breakfast At Tiffany’s. What racism in Breakfast At Tiffany’s you ask?

Prejudice against black cats perhaps?

Having taken notes I am able to respond  to that question: cultural appropriation, and stereotyping. Specifically, Mickey Rooney’s controversial, racially insensitive performance as Holly Golightly’s Japanese next-door neighbor.

Mickey Rooney’s portrayal of Mr. Yunioshi

The TCM talking heads promised to put all of this horror in context at the end of the movie. Fortunately I fell asleep before happened. Frankly the only context I find necessary is the realization that in 1961 we were a scant 20 years out from the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and a good many families across America had lost loved ones at the hands of the Japanese. Given that, a bit of stereotyping in good fun doesn’t strike me as particularly  harsh. I suppose it’s racially insensitive of me to think it might take more that a short 20 year window to forgive your mortal enemies.

Is it just me?

That said, I will give TCM credit, at least they’ve found a way to air classic movies; if progressives were left to their own devices would simply cancel them altogether. TCM’s intent, of course, is noble:

Turner Classic Movies will be airing a handful of films deemed — by a modern lens — controversial or racially insensitive as part of a new series.

The series, titled “Reframed: Classic Films in the Rearview Mirror,” will include hits such as “Gone With the Wind” and “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” The films will be airing throughout March, with commentary from five TCM hosts.

I can’t wait to hear the discussion when they air Psycho where the “problematic” theme relates to depictions of transgender identity and gender fluidity in conjunction with mental illness and violence.

“Psycho,” which will be airing on March 25, the hosts talk about transgender identity in the film and the implications of equating gender fluidity and dressing in women’s clothes with mental illness and violence.

I mean really - just because one transgendered individual is a homicidal maniac doesn’t mean that all transgendered people are. Even a nitwit should be able to reach that conclusion.

Unfortunately our betters no longer trust their lessors-at-large to conclude that on their own. And once that happens, why, they’re going to have to impose and enforce all manner of rules, regulations, laws and mores against ‘hate crimes’ and other thought crimes.

It’s sort of like 1984 on steroids.

 

Mmmmm – That’s Good Bass!!

Ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to introduce the the 80 million vote man!

Joe Biden again says the quiet part out loud: “President-elect Harris” pic.twitter.com/e6kSlwDlnr

— Jake Schneider (@jacobkschneider) December 29, 2020

Oh yes, by all means, let’s have Joey, the most dubiously elected man in U.S. Presidential history debate Vladimir Putin live. That should be…classic.

Why is it this presidency seems more like an old SNL skit than history in the making?

Ask President Carter:

"Just remember you are a living organism on planet Earth…"

Tom Brokaw Pre-tapes:

"Gerald Ford shot dead today at the senseless age of 83."

Or, closer to the truth,  Super Bass-O-Matic:

“Mmmm - That’s Good Bass!”

We Are Being Lied To, But Then YOU Already Knew That

 

Earlier this week we saw a very quiet correction to a sensational WaPo story published earlier about President Trump and the Georgia election. Apparently exposing Pravda style reporting by the newspaper of record in the nation’s capital is of little interest to the masses. 

“Two months after publication of this story, the Georgia secretary of state released an audio recording of President Donald Trump’s December phone call with the state’s top elections investigator. The recording revealed that The Post misquoted Trump’s comments on the call, based on information provided by a source. Trump did not tell the investigator to ‘find the fraud’ or say she would be ‘a national hero’ if she did so.

“Instead, Trump urged the investigator to scrutinize ballots in Fulton County, Ga., asserting she would find ‘dishonesty’ there. He also told her that she had ‘the most important job in the country right now…’ The headline and text of this story have been corrected to remove quotes misattributed to Trump.”

The story, part of the Post’s scorched-earth coverage of the former president’s activities in the aftermath of the disputed 2020 election, sought to depict Trump in the worst possible light, while relying entirely on anonymous “sources” who had a vested interest in destroying the Trump presidency.

But then, it was just a lie and why make a big deal of something that you can’t do anything about now anyway?

Oh, and then there was this story yesterday about Michigan’s Secretary of State deliberately breaking the law in order to produce more (illegitimate) votes in the state (for Biden).

A judge in Michigan has vindicated President Trump by ruling that Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat, broke state law when she unilaterally changed election rules concerning absentee balloting in the 2020 election. This ruling legitimizes a key claim made by the Trump legal team in its challenges to the 2020 election.

A major change imposed by Benson was loosening the signature verification requirement for absentee ballots. Michigan Court of Claims Chief Judge Christopher Murray ruled that this change violated Michigan Administrative Procedures Act.

“This is not the role of the Secretary of State, and there is a clear process that must be respected. Unfortunately, Secretary of State Benson has a pattern of not respecting that process. She issued a mandatory directive requiring local election officials to apply a presumption of validity to all signatures on absent voter ballots, but there is nothing within state law allowing for that type of power from her position. As a result, this directive was found to be not in accordance with our laws and not valid.”

So far not even as much as a “sorry” from the SoS or her office. And why should there be, they accomplished their objective.

Over 3.1 million Michiganders voted by absentee ballot in November. Biden “won” the state by just over 154,000 votes, according to the state-certified results.

So what if Benson unlawfully changed the State’s voting laws making hundreds of thousands of illegal ballots legal? Their guy won and there’s nothing anybody can do about it now anyway.

If you expect honor and honesty in elections that Democrats control you’ve come to the wrong place. The devils with the D after their name have been lying, cheating and stealing elections to the best of their abilities for as long as you can remember. Take the chicanery of Harry Reid for instance. During his years in the Senate he regularly lied about the opposition on the floor – where his slander and defamation was protected from lawsuits by the Speech and Debate Clause. Democrats see that as a right to lie with impunity – as Harry did in the 2012 presidential campaign when he declared that “the word is out that [Mitt Romney] hasn’t paid any taxes for ten years.” It was a blatant lie that even the WaPo issued a 4 Pinocchio rating to. But that didn’t matter, once you throw the chum in the waters of the media cesspool such lies are quickly embraced as “My Truth” by the propagandists and the burden of proof is transferred to the unjustly accused.

So what if years later Senator Dirty Harry admitted it was a lie and he made the entire thing up? He was in fact proud of it: 

"Romney didn't win, did he?" Reid said in response to Bash's question of whether he regretted what he had said about Romney.

He elaborated:

“It’s one of the best things I’ve ever done…if you’re going to do something, don’t do it half-assed, don’t play around. With the Mitt Romney stuff, I didn’t play around.”

It was too late to do anything about it anyway.

That in a nutshell is the endgame of Democrat politics: the ends always justify the means. And the only acceptable end is ‘we win, you lose.’ It’s hard to run a republic – or any kind of “democratic” government - under those terms. And make no mistake: those are the terms of tyrants. They were warmly embraced by Obama and now by Democrats everywhere.

But remember: Trump is the Nazi, and we are the tyrants. We better see what we can do about it before it’s really too late.

“This idea? that government was beholden to the people, that it had no other source of power is still the newest, most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.” – Ronald Reagan, 1964

Happy St. Patrick’s Day: Let’s Be Careful Out There

Top ‘o the mornin’ to everyone and may the spirit of St. Patrick be with you throughout this fine day.

At Zephyr's recommendation today’s St. Patrick’s Day post is dedicated to Succotash and her Irish roots. I do hope that freedom and justice – indeed the roots of Western civilization – are still alive and viable here in America where many of us are proud to have some of those Irish roots. In order for them to thrive once more we too need to drive the snakes out of the country. It won’t be easy.

The hard stuff never is, but once their naked evil is revealed it will be somewhat easier.

But please, do enjoy an Irish feast. Corned beef is fine, as we do need some protein. But as everyone knows, potatoes form the foundation of a true Irish feast.  I think colcannon is a most appropriate potato dish for celebrating, just  don’t forget to slather it in great amounts of butter. Traditional colcannon calls for any type of greens – collards, swiss chard, even (gack!) kale, but I prefer regular cabbage – the addition of green onions is tradition but optional.

Add a bit of Irish cheer if you’re so inclined – I understand that Guinness is loaded with iron so it’s good for you too.

Sláinte!

And the Irish are all about your health.

So I leave you with this image of a St. Patrick’s Day aurora…

and an Irish prayer.

In thanks for the fullness of days spent together, the friends that we pray, will be with us forever, the feelings we’ve shared, the food and good fun, with faith that Gods blessings have only begun.

Now let’s all be careful out there.

I’ll Probably Have Chicken Tacos Today

Current Mood: Dark, very, very dark.

You might even say ‘fowl’

I’m sure I’ll snap out of it later, as I generally do. But it is more difficult when all the facts tend to bear out your inner dread. Specifically, these two stories; the first was posted by Sarah Hoyt:

 Were the lockdowns the worst public health decision in 100 years?

Which she posted with a question “Only 100 years?” and a comment - “But hey, it worked. They got to steal the election and take over our government” - followed by another question:

“How long will you tolerate this?”

The reality is we most likely don’t have all that long to decide according to Roger Kimball who wrote the foul mood article #2: 

For US, Gradual Ruin Is About to Become Sudden.

There is the passage in the house of H.R. 1, the so-called “For the People” bill, which would effectively assure that were was never another fair election in this country.

It would do this by all-but-obliterating voter ID requirements—you need an ID to board a plane but not cast a vote—mandating same-day voter registration and at least two weeks of early voting, and by requiring states to provide unsupervised drop boxes to receive completed ballots.

In other words, H.R. 1 would centralize presidential elections, taking responsibility for oversight away from the states, where the Constitution placed it, and arrogating it to the clutches of the federal government and its sprawling bureaucracy.

If, as seems almost certain, H.R. 1 becomes the law of the land, it would be the final nail in the coffin of electoral integrity.

It’s quite enough to put you off your good mood.

But since I have an appointment I don’t have time to dwell on it just yet. I’ll reserve that agony for later, maybe after I’ve had some tacos.

I’ll probably get chicken tacos today

Let’s Be Careful Out There, Peeps

Feeling a bit stabby today are we?

Perfectly understandable, it is the Ides of March after all. On this day in 44 BC Caesar was assassinated on the steps of the Roman Senate by a coalition of friends and foe. Here we are, nearly 2100 years later, and nobody’s learned nuthin’. Following the Left’s virtual stabbing of President Trump we find ourselves in a situation not dissimilar to Rome’s:

The men who murdered Caesar considered themselves as “liberators” of the republic. Whatever may have been their motives, they seem to have taken little thought as to how Rome would be governed after they had killed their tyrant. If they thought that the senate would take up the powers it had lost, and successfully rule the republic, they were grievously mistaken. The only leading man of the senate who had survived the last civil war was Cicero; but Cicero with all his learning and eloquence could not take the place of Caesar. What Rome needed was what the liberators had taken from her, a master mind of broad views and of great executive power. We need not be surprised that the death of Caesar was followed by confusion and dismay.

Yesterday’s Twitter free-for-all rumor about the Cootie stimulus checks going out under President Trump’s signature rather than President Place Holder Biden’s -

while not true, illustrates a certain level of disfunction never-the-less. I for one am sorry it’s only half true (Biden’s name won’t be on the checks, but neither will Trump’s) because it would have given weight to the theory that Donald Trump really is the rightful President.

Well anyway, do be mindful that we are living in an age where most people are feeling a little stabby. It would be wise to heed the warnings.

Caesar [To the Soothsayer]: The ides of March are come.

Soothsayer: Ay, Caesar; but not gone

Even the squishy peeps can be dangerous in such times.

The staging of “Julius Peeper”

So I’m just saying…let’s be careful out there.

Cleanup on aisle 5!

Beeple’s Opus: Available Free Or You Can Own the NFT For Just $69 Mil

Okay, let’s discuss this “Beeple” – you know, the guy who’s been selling digital (aka CGI) art – like these -

     

for millions of dollars in cryptocurrency. I tell you, it’s enough to make you wonder if you even have a clue to  what’s going on in the world anymore.

I don’t, I’m quite sure

So who in the world is this “Beeple” anyway?

REAL NAME: Mike Winkelmann

HOMETOWN: N. Fond du Lac, Wisconsin

CURRENT: Charleston, South Carolina

FAMILY: Wife, teacher, and two children
PRIMARY MEDIA: Digital [Cinema 4D, Photoshop, After Effects,]
EDUCATION: Self-taught

QUOTE: “It basically boils down to: the only thing that matters is to work. Everything else is a giant f***ing distraction; you just need to work. It’s not always fun, but you need to get up and do it everyday anyway. There is no valid excuse.”

The ‘education – self-taught’ entry is a bit disingenuous. What that means in the art world is he has no degree from a prestigious art school. What he does have is a degree in computer science from Purdue University, something I dare say is quite valuable for a creative guy who likes to make digital art. In fact he never planned to be an artist; he worked as a web designer right out of college. In May of 2007 he started his “Everydays” project, which involved creating a piece of digital art every day, in order to teach himself various software platforms such as Adobe Illustrator and Cinema 4D. He has subsequently completed a project without fail every day.

You might say that diligence has paid off: Christie’s just sold his first 5000 days of efforts in the form of a digital collage for 69 million digital dollars of cryptocurrency. A lot of firsts there: first major auction house to offer a purely digital work, with a purely unique NFT (Non-fungible token) which virtually guarantees its authenticity (until some digital genius figures out how to hack it), and the first time cryptocurrency, in this case Ether, has been accepted in trade.

It’s hard for us mere mortals to understand exactly what the collectors are buying, as all of Beeples’ 5000 plus images are available, free, online via Twitter/Tumblr/Behance/Instagram and in most cases have been for years.

All I can tell you is they have somehow purchased the “original” piece of digital artwork that is marked with theoretically “hack-proof” blockchain technology. I’ll not lose any sleep over it although I do wonder if LifeLock and Identity Guard cover such things. And how do you go about adding digital art to your homeowner’s policy? As you can see, it’s not easy being so green; but still, it is an honor and a privilege to be so wealthy that you’re forced to go digital in what until now was exclusively an analog world of art collection.

He hasn’t asked but my advice to “Beeple” would be to quickly convert at least half of his take-home payday to hard currency with which I would make haste to convert into hard assets – gold, farmland, commercial and residential real estate. And pray that there are no natural or man-made electromagnetic pulses (EMPs) that will disrupt all the blockchains out there protecting his NFTs and crypto-currencies.

If you wish to immerse yourself in the self-important gibberish of the current art world feel free to read the entire article Christie’s published explaining how important Winklemann’s digital doodles are to the world of art: Beeple’s Opus. Although art isn’t what it used to be, the BS surrounding it still is.

 

**All images from Beeple’s Everydays project, freely available nearly everywhere on the internet.