Nov 212023
 

Bruce Springsteen’s 1984 song “Born in the USA” is famous not only for having been incredibly popular, bit for being “misunderstood.” Springsteen’s intent, as is pretty clear by a straight reading of the lyrics, is to tell the tale not just of a Viet Nam vet (the US was barely a decade out from that expensive but successful war and incredibly unsuccessful peace), but of a nation in disrepair. But it was grabbed onto by the political right – such as President Ronald Reagan – as a a rah-rah USA USA USA song to rally around. Then as now, leftists explain this as Republicans & conservatives being “media illiterate” or simply dumb. But is that really the case? Consider my own experience.

When it came out I was a dumbass early teenager with no particular political leanings. Yet I also saw the song as pro-USA, and I loved the hell out of it. And, yes, I listened to and understood the lyrics, and saw the darkness therein. But I – and I suspect a whole lot of other people – simply interpreted them differently from the intention of Springsteen. Yes, the lyrics reference the dire economic situation faced by *many* people at the time, coming out of the OPEC oil embargoes and Carters economic flailings and the collapse of the Apollo program and all the rest. But here’s the thing: two people can look at the same thing and see very different results… same screen, different movies.

Everybody in the US in the early 80’s knew that things sucked. You could hardly experience Carter and inflation and stagflation and Iran and the Soviets and the collapse of the iron, auto, farming and a bunch of other industries and not notice it. But there are two ways to deal with “things suck:” despair and determination. And thus we had two different approaches to understanding the song:

Leftists: “Things suck in the USA, therefore the USA sucks.”

Rightists: “Things suck in the USA right now. But we’ll fix it.”

In 1984, things sucked. But they didn’t suck quite as bad as they had a few years before, and things were clearly improving. Those in the middle and on the right saw this, and interpreted “Born in the USA” in that light.

And we got this for the 1984 Presidential campaign:

Essentially, “Born in the USA” was a negative ad against the US that got turned into a positive ad for the US. And that irritated the hell out of a lot of lefties who wanted to wallow in despair… and wanted everyone else to do the same.  Turning it into a nationalistic anthem was a giant middle finger to the nattering nabobs of negativity.

Positivity and optimism can do wonders in an election, and in society. “I Like Ike,” JFK’s “Camelot,” “Morning in America,” “Make America Great Again,” etc. Turning a negative into a positive is a sign you’re on the right road.

 Posted by at 11:44 pm
Oct 122023
 

NOTE: The post below was originally from 2008. But for some reason, it seems like it might be worth a second look.


The basic issue comes down to this… the Israelies had the poor manners to occupy Muslim territory. Granted, it was Christian territory before the Muslims conquered it, and Roman Pagan territory before the Chistians conquered it, and Jewish territory before the Romans conquered it… but apparently Muslims are real twitchy about Muslim territory being made “not Muslim territory anymore.” The consequence of this is that the Israelies are forever going to be in a state of siege. It doesn’t help that both sides see that little scrap of land as their Rightful Gift From God. When people are convinced that their God wants them to be someplace, they’ll often enough make some effort to actually be there.

So, what to do? I have a suggestion. It would work. It only has one serious flaw.

It boils down to this: give up on the scrap of land currently known as “Israel.” Pull the Israeli people out, put them somewhere else. However, the entirety of land area on Earth, except for Antarctica, is owned by somebody. So, whereever New Israel might be, is currently already somebody else’s. At first blush, that means the problem has not been solved… same issue as with Israel/Palestine. But here’s the thing: most people on Earth are sane enough that they can be bought. This was not the case in the Middle East…. they’s crazy. But there are lots of scraps of land that can be had, if you just know how to bargain. And I have just the scrap of land: northern Mexico. Specifically, a strip along the US/Mexico border, 50 miles wide, stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to the Pacific.

A few questions:

1) How much would this cost? I have no friggen’ clue. Probably a trillion dollars or more.

2) Who would pay for this? I’d suggest a split between the US and Israel, both governmental and private donors. I’d suggest that the bulk of it come from the US, and be paid to Mexico over a period of, say, thirty years. Israel would be on the hook to repay the US over the following thirty years or so.

3) Why would the Israelies want this? They’d have their own spot of land for Nuevo Israel, with an ally on one side, and on the other… someone who at the very least doesn’t really give a rats ass.

4) Why would the US want this? Several reasons. For starters, we could finally tell the Middle East to go piss up a rope. The ME’s troubles are hardly going to go away if the Israelies bug out; the local Arab governments are simply going to have to scramble to find some other bullshit strawgoblin to rattle their populace with. Second, having Israel on the southern border would mean nothing but goodness for the US. Illegal immigration would slow to a crawl; the drug trade would be similarly stymied. Cross-border crime from Mexican drug gangs would be a thing of the past. Any drug gangs on the Mexico/Nuevo Israel border who to tried to cause a ruckus would find out that the IDF is not as hand-tied as the US border patrol. The costs involved in this land purchase would, in the long run, be a pittance compared to the savings to the American penal and health care systems, never mind the economy in general.

5) Why would the Mexican government want this? Buckets of money.

6) Why would the Mexican people want this? Many probably wouldn’t… but again, there’s that “buckets of money” thing. The deal could ladle out large sums to Mexican families currently living in the strip to move south. Mexicans who don’t want to leave could be incorporated into Nuevo Israel, much as many Arabs were integrated into Israel. Those who stay would find that their surroundings would get vastly better. Instead of corrupt Mexican cops and government, there’d be the NIDF forces. Criminals would very quickly find themselves deported to Old Mexico.

OK, here’s the big, HUGE stumbling block: God. Getting God’s Chosen People to clear off of God’s Chosen Real Estate could be trouble. Still, the majority of the Israelies seem like reasonably reasonable folk… just as reasonable religious folk see Genesis not as literal fact but as allegorical, so could the idea of “Israel is wherever the Israelies are” be spun.

Also, there are a whole lot of Christian and Jewish “holy sites” in the current land of Israel. Well… presumably they’ll still be there, even after the Palestinians sweep in and loot whatever the Israelies leave behind. And once the Israelies are gone, the Arab world (along with the rest of the world) will stop giving a damn about Palestine; after the famine and general pestilence passes through and burns out the whackadoodle element, the tourism trade will be all that’s left, and should do brisk business with Nuevo Israelies visiting the ancient homeland once or twice in their lives. Practically, this should be doable… after all, all Muslims with the means of doing so are supposed to visit Mecca at least once in their lives, but they seem to be fine with going back home to Indonesia or Canada or wherever once the visit’s over.

And hey… if as the Israelies are packing up and leaving they dig up the Temple Mount and ship it across the sea… who’d notice?

Below is a map showing the rough geometry of Nuevo Israel as a 50-mile-wide strip. There’d be some good seashore for ports, both east and west. Off in the Pacific is the current state of Israel for scale. Clearly, Nuevo Israel would be vastly larger. Lots of room to grow… and seeing what the Israelies did with the Negev desert, it would not be shocking if, a century or three down the line, the US/Mexico border is easily seen from the Moon as a verdant belt fifty miles wide.

neuvoisrael2a.jpg

 Posted by at 10:37 pm
Jul 262023
 

Study results: unsurprising.

Higher Cognitive Ability, Less Concern for Political Correctness – Study Finds

As you can see, there was a moderate positive correlation between cognitive ability and support for freedom of speech, and a moderate negative correlation between cognitive ability and concern for political correctness. (The asterisks tell us these results are statistically significant.)

North Americans with higher cognitive ability are more supportive of free speech and less concerned about political correctness. They’re less woke.

It’s a single study and not a terribly comprehensive one. But with a sample size of a single Kamala Harris or AOC or Swalwell, it’s easy to conclude that wokism leads to a massive case of brain rot.

 Posted by at 12:21 pm
Jul 182023
 

This article from a few years ago popped up on Twitter today:

White people’s bland food isn’t just an internet meme. It’s a centuries-long obsession

The article is pretty much what you’ll think it’s going to be. A lot of yammering about religion, history, privilege, blah, blah, blah. The usual buzz-word salad that’s all too common in any piece that can be used to denigrate white people, white culture, white anything.

But throughout all of it, an obvious point was left unmentioned. Why do a lot of people like “bland” food? Maybe… because they *like* “bland” food. I am one such. I am perfectly capable of making a satisfying meal out of little more than noodles. *Just* noodles. Or plain rice, a mashed potato, an unadorned chunk of chicken. A fine meal can be made from mixing peanut butter with oatmeal. Is it because I like “bland?” No. It’s because the flavor is perfectly satisfying. What people like the author of the linked article don’t seem to grasp is that people’s senses are on a  spectrum. Women, for example, apparently see colors far more clearly than men do. Some people can hear a pin drop, and would be in physical agony to be subjected to the conversational level of the average Friday night at the local bar. Some people can’t smell much of anything and thus drown themselves in perfume; others can pick up the slightest hints of odor from across the room.

Foods that this author, and apparently many others, would find completely lacking in flavor would be a riot of taste sensation to someone else. Subjecting that person to a pile of seasoning  would be to simply overload their senses for no good reason.

I am comfortable in temperatures others might find frigidly cold. I like the lights turned a little dimmer than standard; a nice sunny day is blinding. Some of this is doubtless due to random chance; some of it doubtless due to the northern European portions of my muttly breeding. And perhaps that plays into food: while spices have been present in northern Europe since forever, they were not as plentiful as elsewhere. Many of my ancestors were probably lucky to survive on simple grain, mutton, chicken, that sort of thing. Their foods were likely less “foody” than people from the Mediterranean, the Middle East, India, Africa, etc. Thus they evolved to deal with that. That was normal for them. One might wonder if that made their sense of taste sharper, more keen compared to some others.

So if you’re like me and a bowl of mac and cheese actually sounds pretty good, don’t let goons like the author of the piece shame you. Take pride in the fact that you don’t *need* to shower your food with extravagances in order to be happy and satisfied.

 Posted by at 11:10 pm
Jun 212023
 

As is well known by now, Disney has been making a mess of many of the properties they’re in charge of. The Marvel movies/shows have plummeted downhill; Pixar movies stink; the endless CGI “live action” remakes are soulless cash grabs at best, and to all reports that forthcoming Indiana Jones movie is gonna be *terrible.* And then there’s the smoking ruin of Star Wars. Why is this happening? To an outsider, it looks a lot like sabotage… a vast organization that wants to tear down not only its own legacy, but poison the culture as a whole. That’s crazy conspiracy theory talk, of course. But then… there’s this:

Disney’s Chief Diversity Officer Latondra Newton Exits

The fact that Disney – or any corporation – has not just a “diversity officer,” but a *Chief* “diversity officer” is of course a stinging indictment about their wisdom and sanity. But there’s one line in the article that jumped right out at me:

Disney HR chief Sonia Coleman’s note to staff announcing Newton’s departure … She has been dedicated to ensuring every person sees themselves and their life experiences represented in a meaningful and authentic way.

Ah. No. That’s just… NO. Bad storytelling company. Bad. BAD.

I don’t want to see myself and my life experience in *any* sort of way in any sort of movie that Disney might make. I want to see stuff that would inspire me to emulate. I don’t want to see what I am; I want to see what I can become. Once again, there are two world views:

1: “Look, Captain Kirk is on TV. I want to be like Captain Kirk.”

2: “Look, Captain Kirk is on TV. I want Captain Kirk to be like me.”

Worldview #2 is the one known as “representation.” It is cancer. It should be mocked, spat upon, driven from polite society out into the wasteland to die shriveled and alone, huddled against some broken forgotten ruin of a statue of a long unremembered tyrant. “Representation” does not inspire people to greatness; at best, it inspires smug complacency. It does not bring people together; it only divides. Because if Person A finds themselves represented by Character A who shares all the “important” weird little identity politics quirks of Person A…  then Character A does *not* represent Person B who doesn’t share those quirks. Character A will only appeal to a thin slice of the audience… and then will not inspire those people to much of anything, because Character A tells them how awesome they Already Are. You don’t need to change, because you’re perfect just the way you are. (Unless, of course, you need to go on a risky series of hormone treatments and lop off your dangly bits.) And if Character A *doesn’t* share your identities, and in fact is quite different or even opposed, then you will feel outraged that someone isn’t catering to you.

So, yay for Disney getting rid of this one little symptom of the larger problem. Now get rid of the entire department, and let not the precepts of DEI ever be spoken of again.

 Posted by at 6:07 am
Jun 192023
 

This video hit earlier today. It *appears* to depict (because it might be staged) a family at a gas station; as the video begins, the father, pumping the gas, is apparently acting strangely. It transpires that the father has seen something concerning, so he’s getting the hell out of there ASAP. Some commenters have suggested that he’s “fragile” or over reacting.

 

Over reacting? Well, maybe. Having seen the following video that came out later on the same day… the importance of situational awareness is driven home pretty clearly:

 

When it’s just you, being alert is important enough. When you have family depending on you…

 

 Posted by at 11:27 pm
Jun 142023
 

Maybe something like “you get what you repeatedly vote for.” In this case, Chicago repeatedly votes for the worst possible mayors (and, sadly for the rest of the state, the worst possible Governors). And Chicago suffers for it. Will they ever vote for “the other side?” I doubt it. Not until the city collapses utterly, the population drops by 90% and the survivors are replaced.

In First Month in Office Crime Jumps 38% Under New Chicago Mayor Johnson

Refuse to learn at your own peril.

 Posted by at 9:47 pm
Jun 142023
 

Where the case is made that fandoms are composed not of people laser-focused on a single mono-topic, but who are *generally* nerdy, conversant in a range of fandoms, some related, some not, but all somewhat similar in having canon and lore and the like. The point being that when franchises and IPs are taken over by people who are *not* nerdy, they cannot relate to the fans, and end up making a mess of the product. They have fundamentally different worldviews.

 

 Posted by at 6:03 am