On Lifting a Finger

Michael Yon, whose missives to my inbox tend to contain a call to attention and preparation, along with truths and genuine concerns that ride the edge of doom and gloom, sent a video link yesterday. It went to one of those in-the-moment cartoon drawings on whiteboard illustrations/explanations, presented by After Skool.  This one, liberally sprinkled with paintings and quotations, was entitled "A Killing of the Mind", on the subject of Mass Psychosis--how an entire population becomes mentally ill.  As I was watching it, part of me felt like I was being sold something and another part was saying, "Oh, my! Does this make sense or what??"  Figuring out where to land after taking it in involved looking up Gustav Le Bon, Joost Meerloo, and Vaclav Havel for a start.  Toward the end of the video, a five fingered approach (referred to in the vid as "multi-pronged!) to the problem of mass psychosis was listed, coincidentally providing yet another possible answer to the earlier question of which finger to lift!  

From the video, the first step in their approach is to "bring order to our own minds, and live in a way that provides inspiration to others".  Then commit to:

-Spread information that counters propaganda as far and wide as possible, for "truth is more powerful than the fiction and falsities pedaled by would be totalitarian rulers".

-Use humor and ridicule to delegitimize the ruling elite

-Construct "Parallel Structures" (per Vaclav Havel) as any form of organization--business, institution, technology, or creative pursuit that exists physically within a totalitarian society yet morally outside of it.  (more explanation at the 19:15 mark)

-Action, practiced by as many people as possible, in a deliberate, concerted effort to move the world back in the direction of freedom  

Here's the link, (which I can't get to imbed) for your own consideration as you regard the dilemma of what to believe, how to move forward and which finger you may or may not wish to raise:

https://rumble.com/vo0dwu-mass-psychosis-how-an-entire-population-becomes-mentally-ill.html

“As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.” Happy Thanksgivi...

Doesn’t Slow Joe remind you of Les Nessman?

Happy Thanksgiving!

To all you witches!

"The Black Lives Matter Christmas Massacre"

Do not ignore nor whitewash what that was. BLM, beloved by corporations and law profs nationwide, is directly responsible for the killing and maiming of White Christians. We are at war but currently only one side is fighting, and they are winning.

This was a terrorist act, done by a career criminal who is jealous of the accomplishments of Whites and who hates America, and to call it anything else is bullshit.

Call it winning if you want to, but it sure looks like the murder of innocents to me. 

One more thing, that asshole Trump is still pimping the clot shot and he can fuck off and die as far as I am concerned. It's been over a year and reinstatement is not going to happen. Please name one country that has peacefully removed communists from power. I'll wait.

One Who Is Vigilant

It's been another lousy week for the bad guys. I appreciate a lot of people feel like Troop, but we ought to take a look at where we are.

Rittenhouse walks, "hundreds" protest (doubtless wary of more "vigilantes"), and some black racist career criminal plows his SUV into a parade, Among the 6 dead are 4 of the Dancing Grannies. Fake News is killing itself trying to ignore it. CDC announces the Birx Barf vaccines' effect declines rather rapidly (New England Journal pegs it at 2 months). People are refusing the shot in the tens, if not hundreds,of millions. Demonstrations around the world protest medical dictatorship. Even though the, "Let them eat cake crowd", crowd on the Left is trying to cast inflation as a good thing, it would appear people are still thankful.

The Left whines about white supremacy and Thanksgiving being like Columbus Day, not realizing the the Indians were colonizing and stuff long before the white men got here (you never read how the Iroquois exterminated several tribes?), but most of the country celebrates a good verdict, all-American holidays, buys Let's Go Brandon stuff for Christmas, and smiles as 2 racists feud with each other.

Indigenous Peoples Day has been a big flop, mostly because the country sees the Native American dodge for the scam it is. Our red brethren prefer to be called American Indians, saying you can be white, brown, yellow, or black and be a native American. Very tolerant and civilized, these American Indians.

If the country, in the wake of Lefty DAs' and mayors' insistence on letting the hoodla run wild, decides Committees of Vigilance are the answer, it will be reaffirmation of another great American tradition. The Vigilantes worked prodigies in San Fiasco at the height of the Gold Rush and in pretty much the same political climate. A few of the roughs banished, a couple of murderers strung up and it's safe to walk the streets

What fascinates me is how the Left loves to invoke the word, vigilante, against anybody who fights back, even though it turns the people who fought into folk heroes. Remember Bernie Goetz, the "subway vigilante", who took on 4 thugs and won? Vigilantism is, to quote Rap Brown, as American as apple pie. Hey, couldn't the Lone Ranger be considered a vigilante? The people protecting their freedom when government refuses to.

Again, I say we are winning and, better, they are losing.

Let that be the whipped cream on your punkin pie

On blogging

 

Blogging is an interesting thing. I love to do it. But it sometimes becomes a chore. 

You see the politics of it has begun to bore me. Wait that's not true. It has always sort of bored me. That's why my blogs always had a ton of non-political posts. I can't get upset so much at the vagaries and bullshit of the current outrages. I know where I stand. Most people are set in their positions. The latest outrage is just the latest outrage. If it's not Trayvon Martin it is Kyle Rittenhouse. It's all the same bullshit.

I come to realize that I want to blog about my personal doings. Which I don't think a lot of people are interested in. Or should be revealed and talked about for one reason or another. So I let days go by before I blog something.

I hope I can got more inspired. It is just that Slow Joe Biden has sucked all of the interest out of me. 

I mean he really sucks.

I was told there would be no Dylan

I have longed to move away

From the hissing of the spent lie
And the old terrors' continual cry
Growing more terrible as the day
Goes over the hill into the deep sea;
I have longed to move away
From the repetition of salutes,
For there are ghosts in the air
And ghostly echoes on paper,
And the thunder of calls and notes.

I have longed to move away but am afraid;
Some life, yet unspent, might explode
Out of the old lie burning on the ground,
And, crackling into the air, leave me half-blind.
Neither by night's ancient fear,
The parting of hat from hair,
Pursed lips at the receiver,
Shall I fall to death's feather.
By these I would not care to die,
Half convention and half lie.

Whose that girl that gave Elvis a Chubby?

 

The King had many hot chicks co starring in his movies. Mary Tyler Moore. Ann Margaret. Barbara Eden. Hope Lange. Ursula Andress. Yvonne Craig. 

But only one of them made him stop swiveling his hips and start making a tent in his trousers. On camera.

Whose that girl?

Not quite Heaven!

For the past couple of months I have been teasing the wife about going to a concert. You see she bought tickets with her three best girlfriends from when she was a kid to go see an Eighties band. The Psychedelic Furs.

Now this was a big production. Two of the girls were traveling from the bowels of Jersey to Long Island so it was a four hour trip with traffic. We have been talking about it for months. You know where would they eat before because Lisa needs gluten free. Just recently they have been texting about being worried about being crushed in the crowd but I told them not to worry because all of the fans would have walkers that would get in the way. Also they should be sure to bring their Depends to throw up on the stage.

You see the fan base was pretty old. Just not as bad as the band.

So they get all tarted up to go in their best concert going garb. You haven't seen anything until you see four sixty year old women dressed like Madonna. They went off happily on their adventure. I was happy too.  I was going to be able to order a regular pizza  that was not gluten free and watch a Western. Just like the good old days. In fact I ordered a pizza, a calzone and some mozzarella sticks. Why not go for the hat trick.

The girls get to the venue and go for dinner. The Mexican Restaurant next door was very good and had some really good gluten free options. So they had a few pops and a plate of fajitas and they were primed and ready to go. They walk down the street to the theater and what do they find.

The Fucking Furs had cancelled the concert.

They were freaking out. They proceeded to bitch slapped the people at the venue Old School Brooklyn Style. When Lisa texted me I said that there was only one thing to do. Go to the bar. So they did.

The joint had this speak easy type club that they got comped to and their first drink free. They took over the joint and made the bartender play eighties music and dance. A bunch of thirty year old's joined in and danced and sung all the words. When the girls asked how they knew it they said that it was their Mom's favorite music. They had to hold Lisa back from slapping the shit out of them.

Meanwhile back at the ranch I was eating my pizza extravaganza. You know what? I had been talking about this for months and it wasn't really that good. I mean the calzone was subpar and the pizza nothing to write home about. It just wasn't The House of Pizza or Spumoni Gardens quality. So I sat home and listed to the lonely saxophone while the girls drank and cavorted. 

Everybody got home safe although they had nasty hangovers. I had the shits from the pizza. But at least we weren't like the Furs.

Some bands are tragically hip.

Some bands are tragically broken hip.

So they have to cancel a long anticipated concert.

The fuckers.

 

On Birds, Bees, Manly Men and Double X Women

 This, from Powerline, came through as fun, as it addresses my current dilemma of knowing how to identify, acknowledge or refer to the mostly manly men and primarily double XX women I know.  Or maybe better said, the predominant groupings in my purview.  I'm currently leaning toward use of the terms, "genetic male" and "genetic female", as that what works best for me and appears to be a fit for the natural world of birds, bees, raccoons, porcupines, chipmunks, possums, frogs, rodents, coyotes, and deer around me.

On Predators and Prey; Evil and OddFathers

 Two of the blogs I checked into today, Neo and Don Surber, both caught my attention with posts that brought me back to the notes I’ve been taking and keeping under the heading of Cowboys and Evil, after mention of those two subjects was made last month here at Levity.  

Neo’s post on predators and prey entitled: Rittenhouse was (and is) the designated prey of psychopathic wolves, brought clarity and invited insight into the motives and intents of those involved in the Rittenhouse chase and shooting.  It confirmed the thought I’d had earlier, after learning of Rosenbaum’s record of sexual molestation involving young boys, that it was likely he was experienced (savvy, to use Neo's word) in sensing vulnerability and setting up/hunting down victims, as abusers and bullies tend to have an uncanny ability to sniff out their prey.   Which had started me wondering: Who was the cowboy?  Who was the outlaw? And, what was driving all involved to do what they did?

Surber’s post from yesterday, on President Oddfather, also opened the door to more by setting up the Oddfather parallel, while coming right out with naming the person involved as evil. 

Both tied into what I’ve been reading and thinking about after pulling an almost 40 year old copy of Scott Pecks “People of the Lie” (1983) off the shelf in my downstairs library to re-read it, along with “Further Along the Road Less Traveled” (1993) based on Peck’s lectures.  Though I’m not yet ready to post on the notes taken from those two books, I'll close with this from Peck, which also, in a reverse way, addresses the situations presented at both links:

“Mental health is the ongoing process of dedication to reality at all costs."

Panda Sex with Trooper’s Aberrations.”

 

    

                  

lonely as a dry and used orchard
spread over the earth
for use and surrender.

shot down like an ex-pug selling
dailies on the corner.

taken by tears like 
an aging chorus girl
who has gotten her last check.

a hanky is in order your lord your
worship.

the blackbirds are rough today
like
ingrown toenails
in an overnight
jail---
wine wine whine,
the blackbirds run around and
fly around
harping about
Spanish melodies and bones.

and everywhere is
nowhere---
the dream is as bad as
flapjacks and flat tires:

why do we go on
with our minds and
pockets full of
dust
like a bad boy just out of
school---
you tell
me,
you who were a hero in some
revolution
you who teach children
you who drink with calmness
you who own large homes
and walk in gardens
you who have killed a man and own a
beautiful wife
you tell me
why I am on fire like old dry
garbage.

we might surely have some interesting
aberrations,
it will keep the shrinks busy.
and the butterflies and ants and bridges and
cemeteries
the rocket-makers and dogs and garage mechanics
will still go on a
while
until we run out of stamps
and/or
ideas.

don't be ashamed of
anything; I guess God meant it all
like
locks on 
doors.

“It’s the Great Negro Charley Brown”

 

Linus [writing to the Great Negro]: "You must get discouraged because more people believe in Santa Claus than you. Well, let's face it; Santa Claus is white, but being number two, perhaps you should lead a riot. Nothing combats white supremacy more than looting a CVS.”

On Darkness and Gravity, Light and Levity

This past weekend I opened a book of poetry that's been sitting unopened on a shelf in my studio ever since I moved in over two years ago, just prior to the arrival of Covid in January of 2020.  The first poem I turned to made me smile as it was an offering from Charles Bukowski, a poet first encountered through Trooper York's online aberrations.  It also reminded me of mention made previously by a commenter here on death as a hunter, and edutcher's recent post on fighting. 

a song with no end

when Whitman wrote, "I sing the body electric"

I know what he

meant

I know what he

wanted:

to be completely alive every moment

in spite of the inevitable.

we can't cheat death but we can make it

work so hard

that when it does take

us

it will have known a victory just as

perfect as

ours.

--Charles Bukowski

Reading it, I felt fortified and connected in a way I haven't experienced in a long time due to the fear, anxiety, overwhelm and confusion that has come along with the political use and misuse of all things Covid.

Then, when I turned the page to another, entitled, "Under Ideal Conditions" by Al Zolynas, I was further reminded of the power and freedom I still hold to stand in an empty and desolate place and step forward and back on my own volition, into my own awareness of the presence, reality, and mystery of light in darkness. 

 I'm grateful to have found both poems waiting to reinforce the power of choice, song, light, community, perseverance, commitment, focus, and the value of finding a place to stand.

Under Ideal Conditions

say in the flattest part of North Dakota

on a starless moonless night

no breath of wind

a man could light a candle

then walk away

every now and then

he could turn and see

the candle burning

seventeen miles later

provided conditions remained ideal

he could still see the flame

somewhere between the seventeenth and eighteenth mile

he would lose the light

if he were walking backwards

he would know the exact moment

when he lost the flame

he could step forward and find it again

back and forth

dark to light light to dark

what's the place where the light disappears?

where the light reappears?

don't tell me about photons

and eyeballs

reflection and refraction

don't tell me about one hundred and eighty-six thousand

miles per second and the theory of relativity

all I know is that place

where the light appears and disappears

that's the place where we live.

My prayer and hope:  May I live in that place and not lose sight of light or levity in the face of darkness and gravity. 

RIP Sam Huff

The cigarettes didn’t mean squat.

The new motto of the blog

Happy Odd Couple Day!

“It’s the Great Negro Charley Brown!”

 

Linus: "Each year, the Great Negro rises out of the Ghetto to pick the cracker that he thinks is the least racist. He's gotta pick me this time. He's got to. I don't see how a cracker can be more sincere than me. You can look around and there's not a sign of hypocrisy. Nothing but sincerity as far as the eye can see."

Goodbye cruel world!

 Some people are just crazy about their dogs. To the point that it is ridiculous. 

We have this friend who has a wiener dog that is about 130 years old in human years. She has spent so much money on it that it is criminal. She told me she spent $5,000 on dental bills last year! On a dog that is on its last legs!

So we are over her new house and I noticed something very strange. The poor sap is wandering around in his diaper walking into walls. First I see him dragging a rope and trying to throw it over a door knob. Then he was dragging a toaster toward the bathtub.

Finally I saw him trust his face into plastic so he couldn’t breath.

Do you think he is trying to tell us something?

I finally figured out what I am getting the Dude for Christmas!

 

Words

This will be a short one.

Remember how your  parents, even grandparents, spoke the same language you did? You used a ton of the same expressions. Yeah, stuff was cool, something different was wild or crazy, but you had a lot in common.

Then the Commies, once the blacklist disappeared, began screwing with everything back in the middle 60s, when you started seeing Reds like Will Geer or Jeff Corey on TV.

It just hit me how many of those old expressions were so apt. Maybe that's why, after decades of use, they disappeared.

Or should I say, they were disappeared.

F'rinstance

Brandon - creep, jerk, molester.

Chlamydia - tramp, slut

Lurch - stuffed shirt

Willie - doublecrosser

Hildabeast - old bag

Zippy - snob, phony

"homeless" - bum

Deep State Dwarf - mad scientist

If you can up with others, feel free.

I remember a real "Indian Summer!"

This song was replayed over and over again one summer on WABC!

Those were the days. It was 1973. We didn't have Ipods or Ipads or Iphones. We had kitchen phones with long cords and typewriters with ribbons that got all over your hands. That summer we went to Coney Island a lot.  A bunch of us would go on the F Train. We didn't need much. A towel. Flip flops. Shorts. A Yankee t-shirt. Maybe a bottle of baby oil. I am very white so I burned like a motherfucker the first few times we went. But eventually I tanned for the summer even though I probably had sunstroke a couple of times.

Anyway the one thing we always brought was the battered white transistor radio. I used to have it with me when I went to bed and listened to the West Coast games with my shitty earpiece. I think that is where my love for listening to baseball on the radio comes from. Listening to Mel Allen and later Phil Rizzuto was the Golden Age for me.

We brought that radio and turned up to the highest volume and put it on WABC. We actually didn't need it because almost everyone was listening to Dan Ingram or Cousin Brucie. When you went from your towel to  the water you passed twenty people listening to the same people. Three Dog Night. Jeremiah was a bullfrog. Maybe some Grand Funk. The Jackson Five. Sonny and Cher. The Rascals. The same seven songs played over and over and over again. It made you a community. Everybody knew those songs. Everybody knew the words to those songs. 

All of that is gone now. The audience is splintered into a million pieces. We don't listen together. We listen past each other. It is part and parcel of the New America.

In my mind I am still on that beach. Sweating and getting sunburned. Waiting to go to Nathans for a hot dog. Maybe riding the Cyclone. Sneaking a beer at Sloppy Joes. Thinking about fucking Cher right through her sequined breechcloth the whore.

Do you think she might get cancelled today?

Indian Summer

We've had a few days of exceptionally warm weather here in western Wisconsin. We used to call this Indian Summer.

Then God commanded November to brighten the sky and to mitigate the air for the entire duration of Martin's travel. And since God does not rescind his orders, the first days of November are always cheered by a warm sun. We call this season Indian Summer. Link

If one is not inclined to the sacred, there is always the profane redeemed:

According to Robby Krieger, "Indian Summer" was the very first song The Doors ever recorded, in 1966. The version everyone knows was released in 1970 on Morrison Hotel. I think that the vocal track dates from 1966. Morrison's voice was not yet ravaged by all the booze and cigarettes. 

This is the depth I have fallen…oh wow is me!

 

Recently we did a big clean out of the kitchen. We got rid of old stuff and put in new shit. The wife got one of those stupid coffee machines that make one cup at a time with that stupid fucking plastic tiny cup of coffee. Plus she threw out my Faberware percolator. Okay fine it was on its last legs since it was a cheap Chinese piece of shit that replace the original that I had for twenty years.

Anyhoo when I reached up into the upper cabinet where the resupply of the coffee thingys are kept and I noticed my humidor. You know the one I used to keep my expense Cuban cigars.

It’s full of herbal tea bags now.

What have I done?

It is all coming together

 

Why we fight

Most of what is known in some quarters as the Anglosphere is pretty docile these days. With the exception of the Irish, most English-speaking countries have never had to really fight for anything. The Limeys fought the Normans, the Romans, and the Germans. The rest had their liberty handed to them. Maybe that's why all these "advanced" socialist countries of Australia, New Zealand, and Canada have no problem knuckling under to their betters. Perhaps generations of Sir Paulie and Lady Vinnie have inculcated in them the idea that they should listen to those placed above them.

The story is told about a ranch foreman in the 1880s who was asked where the owner was by an English visitor, "Is your master at home?", to which the foreman snapped, "The SOB hasn't been born yet".

We do not knuckle under easily. We do believe in doing things right and it does take a lot to get us mad. When in the course of human events that does happen, we do tend to go in hard. Then you have a problem on your hands.

The past year or so we've seen a lot imposed upon us, much of which most people didn't know existed. Now that they know it, they're not going to sit still. Some here may remember my post on the American Western this time last year. It's sort of the same thing. The man in the school board who says, "Now just a doggone minute here"; the woman horrified when her daughter asks if she's a racist because that's what she was told. People finding out the level of corruption in the last election (not to mention this one). People who were raised to trust the FBI, FDA, CDC, and all the agencies that are supposed to protect us, but learn they lie and put Americans in jail in defiance of the Constitution or lie to us because they're power-mad.

We didn't start fighting back Tuesday. We've been fighting back since we found out the election audits uncovered evidence crooked judges dismissed out of hand. We've been fighting back since we found out that stolen election last year installed the worst crew of crooked incompetent crypto-Communists this country has seen since the 30s. We've been fighting back since we saw prices go through the roof because of policies that we knew didn't work. We've been fighting back since we were told the gauleiters in DC's "patience was wearing thin" because we refused  to get a shot of a lethal vaccine.

We fought back with Buck Fiden and Brandon. We used our rights and our votes to throw out the scum that conspired with foreign governments (and, yes, it all does come back to that) to steal our votes and our livelihoods.

Any time I hear somebody talk or write about elites, my attitude is they must mean Camp Darby at Fort Benning or NAB at Coronado. The assorted crime families of the Democrat party and the faculty lounge types are not elite. Nor their fellow travelers in corporate America.

No more than the lords and sirs 245 years ago when we decided we weren't putting up with it any more.

No taxation without representation sounds as sweet today as it did back then.

Keep fighting. It's the American thing to do.

Cat got you’re tongue?

 

From my favorite cookbook!

I know where they are....the New York City Mayoral Race!

The New York City Mayoral Race is a canary in the coal mine for the arc of political efforts in this country.

The Republicans nominated Curtis Sliwa a fucking clown if there ever was one. He is the leader of that bullshit group the Guardian Angels and a radio host on WABC. Look this guy was a publicity whore from the get go. A conservative version of Geraldo Rivera. He has a long history in New York of lying and bogus activity. This is the best the Republicans can come up with?

They are just conceding the election. Which they have done in other places like California and Portland and Minnesota. The Republican Party and the so called conservatives have decided that there not enough normal people to elect someone in these deep blue shit holes. The normal people have mostly moved out. Instead of trying to energize the more conservative Latino or Asian electorate they ran a joke candidate. Everything bad that happens to NYC is well deserved. More than 20 firehouses have closed because the fireman refuse to take Fauci's vaccine. The cops are in the same boat as thousands have been suspended. Paramedics too. The wheels are coming off the bus.

Just think about it. The best they can come up with is Curtis Sliwa.

The Demos May Be In For A Bad Week

We'll see how VA turns out. All the people promising we'd get even in '22 may have a hard time keeping the Great Unvaxxed in their places if this one is stolen.

However, it goes deeper. Just when the Left was trying to understand what they call the Biden insult, we have a new one. Now Chlamydia has an insult all her own referring to the way she got where she is.

Specifically

So any idea of her replacing the incontinent Brandon would appear to be exceedingly unpopular.

Worse, the idea that the Demos will go on stealing elections appears to be very much in the air. Unarmed Americans were murdered because they threw snowballs at the local enforcers of the sovereign's will. 

We seem to be heading there again.

Giving The Inscrutable East A Good Scruting

There's a good many things out there that appear incomprehensible. Some are.

Some are merely veiled.

F'rinstance the name Jiang Jemin may ring a bell. He's the guy who got Red China admitted to the WTO. He's also Shih Jinping's bitter rival and has been orchestrating a number of market crashes inside Red China with the connivance of Goldman Sachs, Credit Suisse, and everybody's favorite last Nazi, currency manipulator, and self-hating Jew, Dr Evil. So it looks like there's a very nasty factional rivalry going on inside Old Cathay.

What makes this intriguing is that Jiang has the internal security apparatus on his side and Shih has the military. As you may have read, Shih is an old-style Maoist and wants to turn the country inward. Trouble is, he's got huge money troubles, crumbling infrastructure, a generation bomb, growing desertification, and his foreign policy provocations only seem to unite his neighbors against him. 

Then there are some problems that are understated. While most Chinese are Hans, many have other ethnic origins - Tibetans, Uighurs, and others who want their homelands independent. Yes, it's not about Islam. We're talking secessionists.

Then Shih connived to steal the US election. Now the Democrats are in bed with him. So we've got the American Left divided between 2 Communist dictators.

This will not end well.

Then there's Iran. While everybody talks about how Shih owns the current clown car over here, there's another player that is often ignored. While the Pushtuns are the major tribe in A-stan, the second largest are the Tajiks and the Taliban have been having a lot of trouble with them.

Shooting trouble.

Someone has come to back up the Tajiks and the people in their homeland of Tajikistan. Russia seems a lot less happy about the current state of affairs than one might think. While making noises about being an honest broker, Putin has been backing the Tajiks to the point of arming them. This is Russia's long-time sphere of influence, or at least desired influence. They can't be happy about Shih building bases at Bagram.

Furthermore, the Russkies and the boys in the Forbidden City have never gotten along and this may well kick new life into an old feud.

And one more little point of interest. There'll be a new movie showing in this country soon that ballyhoos a great victory by the Red Chinese over the US. It's Red Chinese. Presumably to get people  here thinking the Demos and the Reds are unstoppable.

Well, that's the way it's been hyped.

Remember Chosin Reservoir? The Reds contend they sent our guys running like frightened aardvarks. Too bad we regard it as a victory. We were overwhelmed 4 to 1 and yet fought our way out and brought our gear and wounded with us in good order. The Reds OTOH were so poorly supplied to the point they froze like the Krauts before Moscow. The 3rd and 7th Infantry Divisions and 1st Marine Division inflicted 5 times the casualties they sustained.

Does this matter? It does when Shih is talking tough about Formosa . It does when Shih is trying to bring back the bad old days of Chairman Mao. And it does when you keep in mind that the Red Chinese have never been worth much in a fight. 

They played footsie with the Nips for most of WWII. We fought them to a standstill in Korea until they had to settle for an armistice. And Inja has yet to lose a fight with them.

And you may ask why didn't the Reds ever invade Formosa instead of messing around in Korea? Stalin pushed Mao into Korea. Mao wanted to go to Formosa. The elite troops earmarked for it were decimated at Chosin

It's all of a piece.

PS The Lefties must really be mystified. The best they do with all the trolling we've done with Buck Fiden and Brandon is call it the Biden insult. I guess they're not used to having their tactics turned against them.

We're winning.

On a Coming Together of Certainties and Synchronicities in a World Bristling with Chances

 What happens when thoughts left by those already dead, rise up to speak truth to those still living, as their written words are read and passed on from one blog to another, only to circle back in the form of a comment left by a blog child on the birthing blog and land here at Lem's Levity, with thanks and appreciation:

Excerpt taken from a C.S. Lewis essay, written three years after the bombing on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, “On Living In An Atomic Age”:

"In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”

In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors – an aesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.

This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things – praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts – not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds."

Via a comment left at Althouse,  with a link to this Darkhorse Podcast.