I really want to buy one of those grocery checkout dividers.
But the lady behind the counter keeps putting it back.
*.*
Single Mom Ready To Get Back Out There During 30 Minutes Per Week She’s Not Working Or Watching Daughter
TACOMA, WA—Saying she’s ready to have some fun and meet somebody new, local single mother Denise Tripp told reporters Friday she hopes to get back out there and start dating again during the half hour or so each week when she’s not busy working or raising her 8-year-old daughter. “It will be wonderful getting to know someone in the few moments I have while walking back to the house in the morning after I drop Haley off at her bus stop,” said Tripp, remarking that she also has a four-and-a-half-minute window to build a relationship with a new partner on Sundays after she finishes the laundry and before she does her shopping for the week. “I can’t tell you how much I’m looking forward to just going out and enjoying a meal and a conversation with another adult. As long as I can find someone who lives nearby and doesn’t mind picking something up quick and eating in the car, I should be able to fit that in on my way to pick up Haley from her dance class.” Tripp added that she’s “not looking for Mr. Perfect,” just someone with whom she can curl up and watch a movie in a dozen or so 10-minute installments over the course of several months.
*.*
Oneliners:
Standard and Poor's has downgraded Finland's rating from AAA to AA+. I didn't even know it wore a bra.
The deer population on New York's Staten Island has gone from 24 to over 600 in just six years. Well, it's not like they have a TV to watch...
According to a new study, humans would only last 68 days if they tried to live on Mars. That is, until that new Starbucks goes in...
Scientists have started calling the time we are living in "the Anthropocene," or the age of humans. I believe Anthropocene is Latin for "My God! Look how much they've screwed this place up!"
A study says that 78% of women want a husband who has a steady job. So guys, the trick is finding one of those 22% that don't mind you staying at home playing video games all day.
A Swiss watchmaker has come out with a wristwatch that is selling for $2.6 Million. Or, you could just look at your phone for free.
*.*
I was just thinking; not long ago GM was building cars in Flint, Michigan and you couldn't drink the water in Mexico.
After eight years of support from Obama and his Administration, GM now builds cars in Mexico and you can't drink the water in Flint, Michigan.
Hope and Change delivered!
*.*
Europe is an allegory for the ages of man.
You are born Italian, relentlessly infantile and mother-obsessed.
In childhood, you are English: chronically shy, tongue-tied clicky and only happy kicking balls or pulling the legs off things.
Teenagers are French: pretentiously philosophical, embarrassingly vain, ridiculously romantic yet simultaneously insecure.
During Middle-Age, we become either Irish and fun loving, or Swiss and serious.
Old age is German: ponderous, pompous and pedantic. And finally, we regress into being Belgian, with no idea of who we are at all.
Issue of the Times;
Here a Nazi, There a Nazi, Everywhere a Nazi-Nazi! by Jim Goad
I guess calling everyone a “racist” doesn’t work anymore. If it did, Trump would have lost.
As a result, we are all Nazis now.
Milo Yiannapoulos is a gay Jew who can’t seem to go more than five minutes without mentioning that he loves sucking black cock. He has openly and repeatedly disavowed white nationalism, especially the “14/88” crowd.
Doesn’t matter. Posters preceding his recent appearance in Denver tagged him as a “Nazi” and encouraged punching him.
When he attempted to speak last week at UC Berkeley—which abandoned any pretense of supporting free speech long ago—a violent riot erupted, and authorities canceled the speech. Fires were set, windows were smashed, a female Trump supporter was maced while doing a TV interview, and Trump supporters were beaten unconscious in the streets. There was a million dollars in property damage yet only one arrest—for misdemeanor failure to disperse rather than, you know, felony assault or felony rioting.
While condemning the riots, California’s Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom smeared Milo as a “white supremacist.”
In the past few months Gavin McInnes has gone to great pains to distance himself from Nazis and anyone who focuses on the “Jewish Question.” Regardless, he was pepper-sprayed last week in the course of attempting to give a speech at NYU.
“By any rational definition of the term, there are hardly any Nazis in America right now.”
A video shows a fat, ugly, stereotypically insane female leftist who claimed to be a college professor screaming at the police to shut down Gavin:
You are fucking assholes! You’re protecting the Nazis!
You should kick their ass! You should! These are kids who are trying to learn about humanity!
They’re trying to learn about human rights and against racism and xenophobia, and LGBTQ rights, and you’re letting these fucking Neo-Nazis near here!
It’s not up to these students to kick the ass of a Neo-Nazi! They don’t have to raise their fist! They were taught to be peaceful! Fuck you!
With all due respect ma’am, no—fuck YOU. And fuck the hyperbolic counterfactual lunacy your ilk has puked out for the past few generations. By any rational definition of the term, there are hardly any Nazis in America right now. If you want to be absolutely literal, there are none, because the term refers strictly to a defunct German political party. But there has been such relentless brainwashing that WWII’s losers are the Ultimate Embodiment of Evil, normally tolerant people have a Pavlovian reaction to the very mention of the term. In modern America, “Nazi” is a term used to demean, dismiss, and to justify any violence that may befall you after you are pinned with the Scarlet Swastika.
At a Portland airport last week, rioters knocked a Trump supporter unconscious while gleefully shouting, “That’s how you talk to a Nazi!” and “Fuck you, Nazi.”
At a recent Black Lives Matter hootenanny in Seattle, a megaphone-toting Negress uttered the following calls to violence and sedition:
And we need to start killing people….Give your fucking money, your fucking house, your fucking property, we need it fucking all….Fuck white supremacy, fuck the US empire, Kill the White House, fuck the White House, fuck your imperialist ass lives. That shit gotta go.
At the idiotic and embarrassing March of the Vaginas on January 21, Madonna spoke of blowing up the White House—and she was applauded rather than arrested.
On Twitter last week, comedienne Sarah Silverman called for the armed overthrow of the US government, which is a felony:
WAKE UP & JOIN THE RESISTANCE. ONCE THE MILITARY IS W US FASCISTS GET OVERTHROWN. MAD KING & HIS HANDLERS GO BYE BYE
Miraculously, she was not visited by the Secret Service. Must be her “white” privilege at work.
During the Berkeley riots last week, another privileged “white” Hollywood fixture named Judd Apatow encouraged more violence:
This is just the beginning. When will all the fools who are still supporting Trump realize what is at stake?
Oh, I believe we know precisely what’s at stake. But we’re keeping calm now. We’ve been extraordinarily patient with your never-ending psychotic tantrums. You fools are the ones publicly shitting your diapers daily. But if you keep cheering on the routine beatings of Trump supporters, you risk awakening the slumbering Saxon.
As of February 3, at least 12,000 calls to assassinate Trump had been logged on Twitter. So far, the Secret Service has visited a grand total of two people over the threats. London Times columnist India Knight has openly called for Trump’s assassination. So has Ted Kornblum, CEO of a guitar amplifier company. Last week an Irish magazine called Village featured a cover with crosshairs focused on Trump’s temple and the headline “Why Not.” Rapper Big Sean recently cut a track where he talks of murdering Donald Trump with an icepick. The publisher of Germany’s Die Zeit suggested “Murder in the White House; as an effective method of taking out Trump. CNN produced a fantasy video where Trump gets assassinated.
There is a peculiar sadism at the very root of the leftist mindset, one made all the more foul because it’s buried underneath a fraudulent veneer of compassion and tolerance. There has been next to zero violence coming from the right, but leftists are justifying all their mob violence by saying Nazis want to exterminate everyone, so they’re just preemptively preventing another genocide. That’s a transparently false excuse, and they’d be hard-pressed to point to a single person they’ve attacked who advocates violence, but I realized only a few years ago that truth and facts simply do not matter to these cultists. But when it comes to violence, they should be very careful what they ask for.
There are laws against rioting. There are RICO laws. There are laws against assault. There are laws against destroying property. There are laws against blocking someone’s forward progress. There are laws against sedition and domestic terrorism. I hope the Trump Administration bulldozes these assholes with those laws. He even suggested defunding UC Berkeley, which currently milks federal funds for more than half of their revenue.
In contrast to Berkeley’s “stand down” orders to police during the riots, 231 people were charged with felony rioting in DC on Inauguration Day. If found guilty, I would like to see these “black bloc” assholes put away, where they’ll be forced to deal with a “black bloc” who hates their guts merely for their skin color. I would love to be a fly on the wall when a scrawny rich white “anarchist” inmate tries explaining to his cellmate, a member of the Black Guerrilla Family, about how he empathizes with his cause and has been fighting racism all his life.
I would like to believe that the recent spate of unhinged leftist rioting and violence is the loudest death rattle the world has ever heard. But if they keep shutting down free speech and punching anyone they deem a “Nazi,” they risk facing a violent backlash that unmasks them as the cowards they truly are.
Perhaps a major problem with the right these days is that there are too many suits and not enough boots. If the law won’t deal with this, it may be time to unleash the Saxon dogs.
Quote of the Times;
Comfort is the enemy of achievement.
Link of the Times;
http://americandigest.org/mt-archives/the_wrath_of_the_awakened.php
Calling?
Keanu?
Classic:
One day at a busy airport, the passengers on a commercial airliner are seated waiting for the pilot to show up so they can get under way.
The pilot and copilot finally appear in the rear of the plane and begin walking up to the cockpit through the center aisle. Both appear to be blind; the pilot is using a white cane, bumping into passengers right and left as he stumbles down the aisle. The copilot is using a guide dog. Both have their eyes covered with sunglasses.
At first, the passengers do not react thinking that it must be some sort of practical joke. After a few minutes though, the engines start revving, and the airplane begins moving down the runway.
The passengers look at each other with some uneasiness. They start whispering among themselves and look desperately to the stewardesses for reassurance.
Yet, the plane starts accelerating rapidly, and people begin panicking. Some passengers are praying, and as the plane gets closer and closer to the end of the runway, the voices are becoming more and more hysterical.
When the plane has less than twenty feet of runway left, there is a sudden change in the pitch of the shouts as everyone screams at once. At the very last moment, the plane lifts off and is airborne.
Up in the cockpit, the copilot breathes a sigh of relief and tells the pilot: "You know, one of these days the passengers aren't going to scream, and we all gonna die.”
*.*
"My wife is always asking for money," complained a man to his friend.
"Last week she wanted $200. The day before yesterday she asked me for $125. This morning she wanted $150."
"That's crazy," said the friend. "What does she do with it all?"
"I don't know," said the man, "I never give her a dime!”
*.*
Coast Guard Mostly Saves Very Stupid People, Study Finds
WASHINGTON, DC — Nearly 83 percent of mariner rescues since 1960 involved unrelentingly stupid behaviors and/or people, according to a recent study by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Though the service treats all search and rescue situations equally, most on-scene commanders will privately admit that a majority of the time “it was just some dumb bastard with no concern for personal safety,” according to the study’s authors.
“These statistics are unthinkable,” said Coast Guard spokesperson Lt. Carla Willmington. “Our service prides itself on response time, SAR organization, and comprehensive rescue pattern analysis. But it’s tough to stay on task when the bulk of these cases involve people paralyzed from the neck up. ”
The U. S. Coast Guard Office of Search and Rescue report examined nearly all cases handled on inland and offshore waters from 1960 through 2014. Following the Federal Boating Act of 1971, increases in cases by “fucking idiots” and “goddamn morons” have been staggering, and very challenging to the service as it struggles to operate under a minimal budget.
Between 2010 and 2014, the most recent years studied, incidents involving “total assholery” increased from 10,687 to 38,335.
“I joined the Coast Guard because it seemed like we were the only military service operating even when we weren’t fighting in some war,” said Operations Spc. Bill Horvath, of Sector Humboldt Bay. “But then you realize we are at war, against an army of dipshits with boats.”
“I’ve seen some pretty stupid shit in my time,” said Willmington. “Why would a boater decide it’s a good idea to sail balls-first into a hurricane with zero lifejackets, zero flares, and apparently zero fucks? Why even make an effort for these people? I’m all for a Darwinian Search and Rescue Plan, if you follow me.”
*.*
Oneliners:
Wrestling videogames are actual competitions with no predetermined winner. Does that make them more "real" than the live action they're based on?
All I want is a candle that smells like blown out candles
Cleaning my cats litterbox is like panning for terrible gold.
To Yoda, everyone must sound pretty fucking weird
If you are a twin born on the day the clocks change it's possible to be born before your older sibling.
All pants and jeans should have pockets lined with microfiber material so your phone gets cleaned every time you put it in your pocket.
*.*
As part of the admission procedure in the hospital where I work, I ask the patients if they are allergic to anything. If they are, I print it on an allergy band placed on the patient's wrists.
Once when I asked an elderly woman if she had any allergies, she said she couldn't eat bananas.
Imagine my surprise when several hours later a very irate son came out to the nurses' station demanding; "Who's responsible for labeling my mother 'bananas'?"
Issue of the Times;
KEANU REEVES – GEN X ICON by Theophrastus
Lately, I have been doing quite a bit of reading about generations. Specifically, I have read Strauss and Howe’s The 4th Turning, 13th Gen, and Gordinier’s X Saves the World. Also, there is a fine website (http://www.fourthturning.com/)that gives an overview of the content regarding the Turning Concept (from Strauss and Howe). Not only have I poured over these books, but I also viewed many different youtube videos that cover these topics, both from these authors and others.
Now, I am hardly an expert on the whole process, and do not feel competent to cover them here, but one aspect of their generational concept is something with which I am quite intimately involved, and have been my entire life – Generation X. Yes, that is correct. I am a member of Gen X.
If you read the material on the various turnings, and the repetition of generations, then you know that one particular generation always enters middle age during a time of crisis, which we are now in. Strauss and Howe call this repeating generation the Nomads. In our day and time, as we enter the crisis portion of their cycle, Gen X is that Nomad generation. In fact, through history, it is the very nature of this group that ends up saving the day, despite their natural tendency to avoid being heroic.
Here is the standard definition of this group, per Strauss and Howe:
Nomad generations are born during a spiritual awakening, a time of social ideals and spiritual agendas when youth-fired attacks break out against the established institutional order. Nomads grow up as underprotected children during this awakening, come of age as alienated young adults in a post-awakening world, mellow into pragmatic midlife leaders during a historical crisis, and age into tough post-crisis elders. By virtue of this location in history, such generations tend to be remembered for their rising-adult years of hell-raising and for their midlife years of hands-on, get-it-done leadership. Their principle endowments are often in the domain of liberty, survival, and honor.
So here is my contribution to this concept.
I propose that the films of Keanu Reeves encapsulate the transition that typical Gen X members go through. These movies show how Gen X grows up, transitions into young adulthood, and then accomplishes the societal tasks put before them. Now, this is not an exhaustive look at his movies, and the whole premise could be developed in more detail, but this sampling gives a good overview. Consider the following:
The Bill and Ted era.
Playing Ted Theodore Logan, Reeves is a happy go lucky goofball. He is a disappointment to his father, a loyal friend, and all around slacker. In danger of failing his history course, which will keep him from graduating from high school, Ted joins his buddy Bill S. Preston, Esq., and together they take a journey through history, in a phone booth.
How does this film encapsulate Gen X? It shows the tension between Ted (representing Gen X) and the earlier generations, in this case, his father and teacher. Ted finds little value in the things these authority figures hold dear, and simply wants to do things on his own, in his own way.
Interestingly, though Bill and Ted simply want to form a band, Wyld Stallyns, and play music, the future depends on them accomplishing this goal. In fact, the whole impetus behind their journey is the fact that their music will “change the world.” That is not Bill and Ted’s intention, but it is what happens. This is fine foreshadowing.
The Parenthood era.
In this film, in which Reeves plays a supporting role, his character marries a young woman, and she soon gets pregnant. In a conversation with her uncle, played by Steve Martin, Reeves’ character states: “you know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, or drive a car. Hell, you need a license to catch a fish! But they’ll let any butt-reaming a**hole be a father.” Here, we see a young man, forced to grow up too early, learning to make do with little parental supervision, since the older generation is so caught up in their own lives. In relation to our topic here, we see that this is a generation that learns to make do with whatever comes their way, and they take life much more seriously than those who have come before them.
The Speed, Point Break era.
For several years, Reeves starred in various action and drama movies, usually playing the hero. Now, he was not a super-human hero, but just a regular guy doing his job. He was placed in nearlypointbreak impossible circumstances, but did what had to be done, regardless of the personal cost. This is an example of Gen X coming of age. No longer adhering to the “slacker” identity often associated with his generation, his characters step up when needed. He uses creative methods to solve problems. Unlike the self-absorbed Boomers or Millennials, his Gen X heroes are selfless problem solvers.
The Matrix era.
The first of the trilogy was released in 1999, when Reeves was 35 years old. As Neo, he learns that the world in which he lived was actually a fictional existence. Reality was not what he had always been told it was. This film produced the now universally quoted example of making a choice: do you take the red pill or the blue pill? Boomers represent the blue pill, preferring to live in their delusions, but as a Gen X hero, Neo must take the red pill and escape the lies that hold him back.
The following two films in the series further show Neo’s willingness to sacrifice himself to save everyone else. It does not happen in an expected way, but that is normal for a Gen Xer. We are used to coming up with unique and “out of the box” solutions. These movies serve as a cultural turning point for most Gen Xers.
The John Wick era.
Here, we see Reeves, now entering his 50s, playing a serious, focused, and hard-boiled character. No longer do we see the jovial Ted. Now Reeves’ character is a hit man who cannot be stopped. The first of these movies introduces the retired hitman, John Wick, who simply wants to be left alone. Unfortunately, a group of young thugs are not willing to do that. Symbolically, we have a group of Millennials, tutored by a group of Boomers, who simply will not allow Wick to live in peace. Ultimately, Wick turns his attention to these people and reigns down hell fire, destroying anything that gets in his way.
He does not seek this destruction. He simply wants to be live his life, but when circumstances force him into action, he does what must be done, with no remorse, hesitation, or mercy.
So we see the lifespan of the Gen X generation in these films. Most of us who grew up in the 1970s and 80s found ourselves without lots of hands-on parenting. We were latchkey kids. We stayed home alone, figured out how to navigate life on our own terms, and made do. Older generations did not understand us, did not approve of our choices, and complained about darn near everything we did. We did not care. We just went about our business, making as few waves as possible. We made mistakes, but we learned from them. We grew up with an edge.
As we aged into young adulthood, we fought for jobs. We tried our hands at lots of things, with most of us changing jobs several times. Along the way, we used the skills we had developed in our youth to become good problem solvers. We did the jobs that had to be done. We did not consider ourselves to be special (unlike most Boomers or Millennials). We had little time for nonsense, just fixing the problems we encountered in the best ways we could.
Somewhere along the line, we figured out that the world that was passed down to us was built upon an illusion. Unlike our parents and grandparents, we did not believe the government was here to help us. We knew better. We realized that the world was not improving, regardless of what our elders said. The path we were on as a society was headed to a bad destination, and we took the red pill. We stopped playing that game, and started playing it by our own rules. No doubt, this caused even more tension with older generations, and their younger followers. Again, we did not care (and still don’t). We took the institutions given to us and transformed them, and are still doing so.
Finally, though our real goal was just to be left alone, we found ourselves backed into a corner. Really, this is where we are now. Gen X has never set out to save the world. We really did not even start out to change the world in any way. Boomers and Millennials have the market on those desires. Unfortunately, neither of them is really suited to actually do it, despite their ideological predilections that lead them to want to “change the world.”
So, while we have never had the desire to effect world-changing results, we have been forced into it. Honestly, we just wanted to find a good job, hopefully working for ourselves (we do like entrepreneurship). We want to do the job in the most efficient manner and then go about our own lives. We were content to let Boomers and Millennials do their thing, as long as they left us alone. But they did not. Along the way, the Boomers wrecked the things that worked. Of course, these two generations are not at fault for everything that has happened in the last 50 years, but they have, especially the Boomers, been the catalyst for most of what is now wrong with the world.
So yeah, we are in the John Wick phase now. We have been provoked, and we will do what we must do, just as we have always done. We are the ones equipped to think on our feet, adapt to change, and use pragmatic solutions to the problems put before us.
My suggestion to everyone else? Shut up and get out of the way. We are going to do what we have to do. We are going to fix things. You may not like how we do it, but you really do not have a choice. You are living in a Gen X world now. Learn to enjoy it.
Quote of the Times;
The trouble is, you think you have time. – Buddha
Link of the Times;
https://www.lewrockwell.com/political-theatre/john-lott-brussels-guns-crime/
One day at a busy airport, the passengers on a commercial airliner are seated waiting for the pilot to show up so they can get under way.
The pilot and copilot finally appear in the rear of the plane and begin walking up to the cockpit through the center aisle. Both appear to be blind; the pilot is using a white cane, bumping into passengers right and left as he stumbles down the aisle. The copilot is using a guide dog. Both have their eyes covered with sunglasses.
At first, the passengers do not react thinking that it must be some sort of practical joke. After a few minutes though, the engines start revving, and the airplane begins moving down the runway.
The passengers look at each other with some uneasiness. They start whispering among themselves and look desperately to the stewardesses for reassurance.
Yet, the plane starts accelerating rapidly, and people begin panicking. Some passengers are praying, and as the plane gets closer and closer to the end of the runway, the voices are becoming more and more hysterical.
When the plane has less than twenty feet of runway left, there is a sudden change in the pitch of the shouts as everyone screams at once. At the very last moment, the plane lifts off and is airborne.
Up in the cockpit, the copilot breathes a sigh of relief and tells the pilot: "You know, one of these days the passengers aren't going to scream, and we all gonna die.”
*.*
"My wife is always asking for money," complained a man to his friend.
"Last week she wanted $200. The day before yesterday she asked me for $125. This morning she wanted $150."
"That's crazy," said the friend. "What does she do with it all?"
"I don't know," said the man, "I never give her a dime!”
*.*
Coast Guard Mostly Saves Very Stupid People, Study Finds
WASHINGTON, DC — Nearly 83 percent of mariner rescues since 1960 involved unrelentingly stupid behaviors and/or people, according to a recent study by the U.S. Coast Guard.
Though the service treats all search and rescue situations equally, most on-scene commanders will privately admit that a majority of the time “it was just some dumb bastard with no concern for personal safety,” according to the study’s authors.
“These statistics are unthinkable,” said Coast Guard spokesperson Lt. Carla Willmington. “Our service prides itself on response time, SAR organization, and comprehensive rescue pattern analysis. But it’s tough to stay on task when the bulk of these cases involve people paralyzed from the neck up. ”
The U. S. Coast Guard Office of Search and Rescue report examined nearly all cases handled on inland and offshore waters from 1960 through 2014. Following the Federal Boating Act of 1971, increases in cases by “fucking idiots” and “goddamn morons” have been staggering, and very challenging to the service as it struggles to operate under a minimal budget.
Between 2010 and 2014, the most recent years studied, incidents involving “total assholery” increased from 10,687 to 38,335.
“I joined the Coast Guard because it seemed like we were the only military service operating even when we weren’t fighting in some war,” said Operations Spc. Bill Horvath, of Sector Humboldt Bay. “But then you realize we are at war, against an army of dipshits with boats.”
“I’ve seen some pretty stupid shit in my time,” said Willmington. “Why would a boater decide it’s a good idea to sail balls-first into a hurricane with zero lifejackets, zero flares, and apparently zero fucks? Why even make an effort for these people? I’m all for a Darwinian Search and Rescue Plan, if you follow me.”
*.*
Oneliners:
Wrestling videogames are actual competitions with no predetermined winner. Does that make them more "real" than the live action they're based on?
All I want is a candle that smells like blown out candles
Cleaning my cats litterbox is like panning for terrible gold.
To Yoda, everyone must sound pretty fucking weird
If you are a twin born on the day the clocks change it's possible to be born before your older sibling.
All pants and jeans should have pockets lined with microfiber material so your phone gets cleaned every time you put it in your pocket.
*.*
As part of the admission procedure in the hospital where I work, I ask the patients if they are allergic to anything. If they are, I print it on an allergy band placed on the patient's wrists.
Once when I asked an elderly woman if she had any allergies, she said she couldn't eat bananas.
Imagine my surprise when several hours later a very irate son came out to the nurses' station demanding; "Who's responsible for labeling my mother 'bananas'?"
Issue of the Times;
KEANU REEVES – GEN X ICON by Theophrastus
Lately, I have been doing quite a bit of reading about generations. Specifically, I have read Strauss and Howe’s The 4th Turning, 13th Gen, and Gordinier’s X Saves the World. Also, there is a fine website (http://www.fourthturning.com/)that gives an overview of the content regarding the Turning Concept (from Strauss and Howe). Not only have I poured over these books, but I also viewed many different youtube videos that cover these topics, both from these authors and others.
Now, I am hardly an expert on the whole process, and do not feel competent to cover them here, but one aspect of their generational concept is something with which I am quite intimately involved, and have been my entire life – Generation X. Yes, that is correct. I am a member of Gen X.
If you read the material on the various turnings, and the repetition of generations, then you know that one particular generation always enters middle age during a time of crisis, which we are now in. Strauss and Howe call this repeating generation the Nomads. In our day and time, as we enter the crisis portion of their cycle, Gen X is that Nomad generation. In fact, through history, it is the very nature of this group that ends up saving the day, despite their natural tendency to avoid being heroic.
Here is the standard definition of this group, per Strauss and Howe:
Nomad generations are born during a spiritual awakening, a time of social ideals and spiritual agendas when youth-fired attacks break out against the established institutional order. Nomads grow up as underprotected children during this awakening, come of age as alienated young adults in a post-awakening world, mellow into pragmatic midlife leaders during a historical crisis, and age into tough post-crisis elders. By virtue of this location in history, such generations tend to be remembered for their rising-adult years of hell-raising and for their midlife years of hands-on, get-it-done leadership. Their principle endowments are often in the domain of liberty, survival, and honor.
So here is my contribution to this concept.
I propose that the films of Keanu Reeves encapsulate the transition that typical Gen X members go through. These movies show how Gen X grows up, transitions into young adulthood, and then accomplishes the societal tasks put before them. Now, this is not an exhaustive look at his movies, and the whole premise could be developed in more detail, but this sampling gives a good overview. Consider the following:
The Bill and Ted era.
Playing Ted Theodore Logan, Reeves is a happy go lucky goofball. He is a disappointment to his father, a loyal friend, and all around slacker. In danger of failing his history course, which will keep him from graduating from high school, Ted joins his buddy Bill S. Preston, Esq., and together they take a journey through history, in a phone booth.
How does this film encapsulate Gen X? It shows the tension between Ted (representing Gen X) and the earlier generations, in this case, his father and teacher. Ted finds little value in the things these authority figures hold dear, and simply wants to do things on his own, in his own way.
Interestingly, though Bill and Ted simply want to form a band, Wyld Stallyns, and play music, the future depends on them accomplishing this goal. In fact, the whole impetus behind their journey is the fact that their music will “change the world.” That is not Bill and Ted’s intention, but it is what happens. This is fine foreshadowing.
The Parenthood era.
In this film, in which Reeves plays a supporting role, his character marries a young woman, and she soon gets pregnant. In a conversation with her uncle, played by Steve Martin, Reeves’ character states: “you know, Mrs. Buckman, you need a license to buy a dog, or drive a car. Hell, you need a license to catch a fish! But they’ll let any butt-reaming a**hole be a father.” Here, we see a young man, forced to grow up too early, learning to make do with little parental supervision, since the older generation is so caught up in their own lives. In relation to our topic here, we see that this is a generation that learns to make do with whatever comes their way, and they take life much more seriously than those who have come before them.
The Speed, Point Break era.
For several years, Reeves starred in various action and drama movies, usually playing the hero. Now, he was not a super-human hero, but just a regular guy doing his job. He was placed in nearlypointbreak impossible circumstances, but did what had to be done, regardless of the personal cost. This is an example of Gen X coming of age. No longer adhering to the “slacker” identity often associated with his generation, his characters step up when needed. He uses creative methods to solve problems. Unlike the self-absorbed Boomers or Millennials, his Gen X heroes are selfless problem solvers.
The Matrix era.
The first of the trilogy was released in 1999, when Reeves was 35 years old. As Neo, he learns that the world in which he lived was actually a fictional existence. Reality was not what he had always been told it was. This film produced the now universally quoted example of making a choice: do you take the red pill or the blue pill? Boomers represent the blue pill, preferring to live in their delusions, but as a Gen X hero, Neo must take the red pill and escape the lies that hold him back.
The following two films in the series further show Neo’s willingness to sacrifice himself to save everyone else. It does not happen in an expected way, but that is normal for a Gen Xer. We are used to coming up with unique and “out of the box” solutions. These movies serve as a cultural turning point for most Gen Xers.
The John Wick era.
Here, we see Reeves, now entering his 50s, playing a serious, focused, and hard-boiled character. No longer do we see the jovial Ted. Now Reeves’ character is a hit man who cannot be stopped. The first of these movies introduces the retired hitman, John Wick, who simply wants to be left alone. Unfortunately, a group of young thugs are not willing to do that. Symbolically, we have a group of Millennials, tutored by a group of Boomers, who simply will not allow Wick to live in peace. Ultimately, Wick turns his attention to these people and reigns down hell fire, destroying anything that gets in his way.
He does not seek this destruction. He simply wants to be live his life, but when circumstances force him into action, he does what must be done, with no remorse, hesitation, or mercy.
So we see the lifespan of the Gen X generation in these films. Most of us who grew up in the 1970s and 80s found ourselves without lots of hands-on parenting. We were latchkey kids. We stayed home alone, figured out how to navigate life on our own terms, and made do. Older generations did not understand us, did not approve of our choices, and complained about darn near everything we did. We did not care. We just went about our business, making as few waves as possible. We made mistakes, but we learned from them. We grew up with an edge.
As we aged into young adulthood, we fought for jobs. We tried our hands at lots of things, with most of us changing jobs several times. Along the way, we used the skills we had developed in our youth to become good problem solvers. We did the jobs that had to be done. We did not consider ourselves to be special (unlike most Boomers or Millennials). We had little time for nonsense, just fixing the problems we encountered in the best ways we could.
Somewhere along the line, we figured out that the world that was passed down to us was built upon an illusion. Unlike our parents and grandparents, we did not believe the government was here to help us. We knew better. We realized that the world was not improving, regardless of what our elders said. The path we were on as a society was headed to a bad destination, and we took the red pill. We stopped playing that game, and started playing it by our own rules. No doubt, this caused even more tension with older generations, and their younger followers. Again, we did not care (and still don’t). We took the institutions given to us and transformed them, and are still doing so.
Finally, though our real goal was just to be left alone, we found ourselves backed into a corner. Really, this is where we are now. Gen X has never set out to save the world. We really did not even start out to change the world in any way. Boomers and Millennials have the market on those desires. Unfortunately, neither of them is really suited to actually do it, despite their ideological predilections that lead them to want to “change the world.”
So, while we have never had the desire to effect world-changing results, we have been forced into it. Honestly, we just wanted to find a good job, hopefully working for ourselves (we do like entrepreneurship). We want to do the job in the most efficient manner and then go about our own lives. We were content to let Boomers and Millennials do their thing, as long as they left us alone. But they did not. Along the way, the Boomers wrecked the things that worked. Of course, these two generations are not at fault for everything that has happened in the last 50 years, but they have, especially the Boomers, been the catalyst for most of what is now wrong with the world.
So yeah, we are in the John Wick phase now. We have been provoked, and we will do what we must do, just as we have always done. We are the ones equipped to think on our feet, adapt to change, and use pragmatic solutions to the problems put before us.
My suggestion to everyone else? Shut up and get out of the way. We are going to do what we have to do. We are going to fix things. You may not like how we do it, but you really do not have a choice. You are living in a Gen X world now. Learn to enjoy it.
Quote of the Times;
The trouble is, you think you have time. – Buddha
Link of the Times;
https://www.lewrockwell.com/political-theatre/john-lott-brussels-guns-crime/
Lewis?
Three men are sitting in the maternity ward of a hospital waiting for the imminent birth of their respective children. One is an Englishman, one a black South African and the other a West Indian.
They are all very nervous and pacing the floor, as you do in these situations. All of a sudden the doctor bursts through the double doors saying "Gentlemen you won't believe this but your wives have all had their babies within 5 minutes of each other." The men are beside themselves with happiness and joy.
"And", said the doctor...
"They have all had little boys." The fathers are ecstatic and congratulate each other over and over.
"However we do have one slight problem," the doctor said. "In all the confusion we may have mixed the babies up getting them to the nursery and would be grateful if you could join us there to try and help identify them."
With that the West Indian raced passed the doctor and bolted to the nursery. Once inside he picked up the white skinned infant saying, there's no doubt about it, this boy is mine!"
The doctor looked bewildered and said, "Well sir of all the babies I would have thought that maybe this child could be of English descent."
"That's a maybe", said the West Indian, "but one of the other two is a fucking South African and I'm not taking the risk."
*.*
"Get this." said the bloke to his mates, "Last night while I was down the pub with you guys, a burglar broke into my house.
"Did he get anything." his mates asked.
"Yeah, a broken jaw, six teeth knocked out, and a pair of broken nuts. The wife thought it was me coming home drunk."
*.*
When the store manager returned from lunch, he noticed his clerk's hand was bandaged, but before he could ask about the bandage, the clerk had some very good news for him.
"Guess what, sir?" the clerk said. "I finally sold that terrible, ugly suit we've had so long!"
"Do you mean that repulsive pink-and-blue double-breasted thing?!" the manager asked.
"That's the one!"
"That's great!" the manager cried, "I thought we'd never get rid of that monstrosity! That had to be the ugliest suit we've ever had! But tell me, why is your hand bandaged?"
"Oh," the clerk replied, "after I sold the guy that suit, his seeing-eye dog bit me."
*.*
What is the difference between American teenage girls and Muslim teenage girls?
American teenage girls get stoned BEFORE they have sex.
*.*
Mind-Boggling Statistics :
100% of people die on or within 6 months of their birthday.
The amount of American dollars spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars could have paid for solar panels on the roof of every house in America.
You are more likely to be killed by a toaster than a shark.
Breast cancer is responsible for the death of 300 men every year.
Vending machines take the lives of 13 people per year.
There are 35-50 active serial killers in the United States at any given moment.
Since the 1950s, around 90% of the large predatory fish in the ocean are gone.
1 in 3 Australians will develop skin cancer.
There are more empty houses in the US than there are homeless people.
80% of all Russian males born in the year 1923 didn’t live past the year 1945.
Toothpaste was invented in 1892, whereas kissing was invented a disgustingly long time before that.
CPR only works 2% of the time.
58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
Issue of the Times;
Have We No Right to Happiness?
Editor’s Note: This is C.S. Lewis’ final published article, submitted shortly before his death on Nov 22, 1963. Herein, he addresses his social climate, which has only gotten worse since he penned these words.
“After all,” said Clare. “they had a right to happiness.”
We were discussing something that once happened in our own neighborhood. Mr. A. had deserted Mrs. A. and got his divorce in order to marry Mrs. B., who had likewise got her divorce in order to marry Mr. A. And there was certainly no doubt that Mr. A. and Mrs. B. were very much in love with one another. If they continued to be in love, and if nothing went wrong with their health or their income, they might reasonable expect to be very happy.
It was equally clear that they were not happy with their old partners. Mrs. B. had adored her husband at the outset. But then he got smashed up in the war. It was thought he had lost his virility, and it was known that he had lost his job. Life with him was no longer what Mrs. B. had bargained for. Poor Mrs. A., too. She had lost her looks—and all her liveliness. It might be true, as some said, that she consumed herself by bearing his children and nursing him through the long illness that overshadowed their earlier married life.
You mustn’t, by the way, imagine that A. was the sort of man who nonchalantly threw a wife away like the peel of an orange he’d sucked dry. Her suicide was a terrible shock to him. We all knew this, for he told us so himself. “But what could I do?” he said. “A man has a right to happiness. I had to take my one chance when it came.”
I went away thinking about the concept of a “right to happiness.”
At first this sounds to me as odd as a right to good luck. For I believe—whatever one school of moralists may say—that we depend for a very great deal of our happiness or misery on circumstances outside all human control. A right to happiness doesn’t, for me, make much more sense than a right to be six feet tall, or have a millionaire for your father, or to get good weather whenever you want to have a picnic.
I can understand a right as a freedom guaranteed me by the laws of the society I live in. Thus, I have a right to travel along the public roads because society gives me that freedom; that’s what we mean by calling the roads “public.” I can also understand a right as a claim guaranteed me by the laws, and correlative to an obligation on someone else’s part. If I have a right to receive $100 from you, this is another way of saying that you have a duty to pay me $100. If the laws allow Mr. A. to desert his wife and seduce his neighbor’s wife, then, by definition, Mr. A. has a legal right to do so, and we need bring in no talk about happiness.
But of course that was not what Clare meant. She meant that he had not only a legal but a moral right to act as he did. In other words, Clare is—or would be if she thought it out—a classical moralist after the style of Thomas Aquinas, Grotius, Hooker and Locke. She believes that behind the laws of the state there is a Natural Law.
I agree with her. I hold this conception to be basic to all civilization. Without it, the actual laws of the state become an absolute, as in Hegel. They cannot be criticized because there is no norm against which they should be judged.
The ancestry of Clare’s maxim. “They have a right to happiness,” is august. In words that are cherished by all civilized men, but especially by Americans, it has been laid down that one of the rights of man is a right to “the pursuit of happiness.” And now we get to the real point.
What did the writers of that august declaration mean?
It is quite certain what they did not mean. They did not mean that man was entitled to pursue happiness by any and every means—including, say, murder, rape, robbery, treason and fraud. No society could be built on such a basis.
They meant “to pursue happiness by all lawful means”; that is, by all means which the Law of Nature eternally sanctions and which the laws of the nation shall sanction.
Admittedly this seems at first to reduce their maxim to the tautology that men (in pursuit of happiness) have a right to do whatever they have a right to do. But tautologies, seen against their proper historical context, are not always barren tautologies. The declaration is primarily a denial of the political principles which long governed Europe; a challenge flung down to the Austrian and Russian empires, to England before the Reform Bills, to Bourbon France. It demands that whatever means of pursuing happiness are lawful for any should be lawful for all that “man,” not men of some particular cast, class, status or religion, should be free to use them. In a century when this is being unsaid by nation after nation and party after party, let us not call it a barren tautology.
But the question as to what means are “lawful”—what methods of pursuing happiness are either morally permissible by the Law of Nature or should be declared legally permissible by the legislature of a particular nation—remains exactly where it did. And on that question I disagree with Clare. I don’t think it is obvious that people have the unlimited “right to happiness” which she suggests.
For one thing, I believe that Clare, when she says “happiness,” means simply and solely “sexual happiness.” Partly because women like Clare never use the word “happiness” in any other sense. But also because I never heard Clare talk about the “right” to any other kind. She was rather leftist in her politics, and would have been scandalized if anyone had defended the actions of a ruthless man-eating tycoon on the ground that his happiness consisted in making money and he was pursuing his happiness. She was also a rabid teetotaler; I never heard her excuse an alcoholic because he was happy when he was drunk.
A good many of Clare’s friends, and especially her female friends, often felt—I’ve heard them say so—that their own happiness would be perceptibly increased by boxing her ears. I very much doubt if this would have brought her theory of a right to happiness into play.
Clare, in fact, is doing what the whole western world seems to me to have been doing for the last 40-odd years. When I was a youngster, all the progressive people were saying, “Why all this prudery? Let us treat sex just as we treat all our other impulses.” I was simple-minded enough to believe they meant what they said. I have since discovered that they meant exactly the opposite. They meant that sex was to be treated as no other impulse in our nature has ever been treated by civilized people. All the others, we admit, have to be bridled. Absolute obedience to your instinct for self-preservation is what we call cowardice; to your acquisitive impulse, avarice. Even sleep must be resisted if you’re a sentry. But every unkindness and breach of faith seems to be condoned provided that the object aimed at is “four bare legs in a bed.”
It is like having a morality in which stealing fruit is considered wrong—unless you steal nectarines.
And if you protest against this view you are usually met with chatter about the legitimacy and beauty and sanctity of “sex” and accused of harboring some Puritan prejudice against it as something disreputable or shameful. I deny the charge. Foam-born Venus … golden Aphrodite … Our Lady of Cyprus… I never breathed a word against you. If I object to boys who steal my nectarines, must I be supposed to disapprove of nectarines in general? Or even of boys in general? It might, you know, be stealing that I disapproved of.
The real situation is skillfully concealed by saying that the question of Mr. A’s “right” to desert his wife is one of “sexual morality.” Robbing an orchard is not an offense against some special morality called “fruit morality.” It is an offense against honesty. Mr. A’s action is an offense against good faith (to solemn promises), against gratitude (toward one to whom he was deeply indebted) and against common humanity.
Our sexual impulses are thus being put in a position of preposterous privilege. The sexual motive is taken to condone all sorts of behavior which, if it had any other end in view, would be condemned as merciless, treacherous and unjust.
Now though I see no good reason for giving sex this privilege, I think I see a strong cause. It is this.
It is part of the nature of a strong erotic passion—as distinct from a transient fit of appetite—that makes more towering promises than any other emotion. No doubt all our desires makes promises, but not so impressively. To be in love involves the almost irresistible conviction that one will go on being in love until one dies, and that possession of the beloved will confer, not merely frequent ecstasies, but settled, fruitful, deep-rooted, lifelong happiness. Hence all seems to be at stake. If we miss this chance we shall have lived in vain. At the very thought of such a doom we sink into fathomless depths of self-pity.
Unfortunately these promises are found often to be quite untrue. Every experienced adult knows this to be so as regards all erotic passions (except the one he himself is feeling at the moment). We discount the world-without-end pretensions of our friends’ amours easily enough. We know that such things sometimes last—and sometimes don’t. And when they do last, this is not because they promised at the outset to do so. When two people achieve lasting happiness, this is not solely because they are great lovers but because they are also—I must put it crudely—good people; controlled, loyal, fair-minded, mutually adaptable people.
If we establish a “right to (sexual) happiness” which supersedes all the ordinary rules of behavior, we do so not because of what our passion shows itself to be in experience but because of what it professes to be while we are in the grip of it. Hence, while the bad behavior is real and works miseries and degradations, the happiness which was the object of the behavior turns out again and again to be illusory. Everyone (except Mr. A. and Mrs. B.) knows that Mr. A. in a year or so may have the same reason for deserting his new wife as for deserting his old. He will feel again that all is at stake. He will see himself again as the great lover, and his pity for himself will exclude all pity for the woman.
Why Women Suffer More?
Two further points remain.
One is this. A society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women. Women, whatever a few male songs and satires may say to the contrary, are more naturally monogamous than men; it is a biological necessity. Where promiscuity prevails, they will therefore always be more often the victims than the culprits. Also, domestic happiness is more necessary to them than to us. And the quality by which they most easily hold a man, their beauty, decreases every year after they have come to maturity, but this does not happen to those qualities of personality —women don’t really care two cents about our looks—by which we hold women. Thus in the ruthless war of promiscuity women are at a double disadvantage. They play for higher stakes and are also more likely to lose. I have no sympathy with moralists who frown at the increasing crudity of female provocativeness. These signs of desperate competition fill me with pity.
Secondly, though the “right to happiness” is chiefly claimed for the sexual impulse, it seems to be impossible that the matter should stay there. The fatal principle, once allowed in that department, must sooner or later seep through our whole lives. We thus advance toward a state of society in which not only each man but every impulse in each man claims carte blanche. And then, though our technological skill may help us survive a little longer, our civilization will have died at heart, and will—one dare not even add “unfortunately”—be swept away.
Quote of the Times;
They show that in their hearts they know right from wrong. They demonstrate that God’s law is written within them, for their own consciences either accuse them or tell them they are doing what is right. – Romans 2:14-15
Link of the Times;
https://www.menofthewest.net/best-press-conference-ever/
They are all very nervous and pacing the floor, as you do in these situations. All of a sudden the doctor bursts through the double doors saying "Gentlemen you won't believe this but your wives have all had their babies within 5 minutes of each other." The men are beside themselves with happiness and joy.
"And", said the doctor...
"They have all had little boys." The fathers are ecstatic and congratulate each other over and over.
"However we do have one slight problem," the doctor said. "In all the confusion we may have mixed the babies up getting them to the nursery and would be grateful if you could join us there to try and help identify them."
With that the West Indian raced passed the doctor and bolted to the nursery. Once inside he picked up the white skinned infant saying, there's no doubt about it, this boy is mine!"
The doctor looked bewildered and said, "Well sir of all the babies I would have thought that maybe this child could be of English descent."
"That's a maybe", said the West Indian, "but one of the other two is a fucking South African and I'm not taking the risk."
*.*
"Get this." said the bloke to his mates, "Last night while I was down the pub with you guys, a burglar broke into my house.
"Did he get anything." his mates asked.
"Yeah, a broken jaw, six teeth knocked out, and a pair of broken nuts. The wife thought it was me coming home drunk."
*.*
When the store manager returned from lunch, he noticed his clerk's hand was bandaged, but before he could ask about the bandage, the clerk had some very good news for him.
"Guess what, sir?" the clerk said. "I finally sold that terrible, ugly suit we've had so long!"
"Do you mean that repulsive pink-and-blue double-breasted thing?!" the manager asked.
"That's the one!"
"That's great!" the manager cried, "I thought we'd never get rid of that monstrosity! That had to be the ugliest suit we've ever had! But tell me, why is your hand bandaged?"
"Oh," the clerk replied, "after I sold the guy that suit, his seeing-eye dog bit me."
*.*
What is the difference between American teenage girls and Muslim teenage girls?
American teenage girls get stoned BEFORE they have sex.
*.*
Mind-Boggling Statistics :
100% of people die on or within 6 months of their birthday.
The amount of American dollars spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars could have paid for solar panels on the roof of every house in America.
You are more likely to be killed by a toaster than a shark.
Breast cancer is responsible for the death of 300 men every year.
Vending machines take the lives of 13 people per year.
There are 35-50 active serial killers in the United States at any given moment.
Since the 1950s, around 90% of the large predatory fish in the ocean are gone.
1 in 3 Australians will develop skin cancer.
There are more empty houses in the US than there are homeless people.
80% of all Russian males born in the year 1923 didn’t live past the year 1945.
Toothpaste was invented in 1892, whereas kissing was invented a disgustingly long time before that.
CPR only works 2% of the time.
58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.
Issue of the Times;
Have We No Right to Happiness?
Editor’s Note: This is C.S. Lewis’ final published article, submitted shortly before his death on Nov 22, 1963. Herein, he addresses his social climate, which has only gotten worse since he penned these words.
“After all,” said Clare. “they had a right to happiness.”
We were discussing something that once happened in our own neighborhood. Mr. A. had deserted Mrs. A. and got his divorce in order to marry Mrs. B., who had likewise got her divorce in order to marry Mr. A. And there was certainly no doubt that Mr. A. and Mrs. B. were very much in love with one another. If they continued to be in love, and if nothing went wrong with their health or their income, they might reasonable expect to be very happy.
It was equally clear that they were not happy with their old partners. Mrs. B. had adored her husband at the outset. But then he got smashed up in the war. It was thought he had lost his virility, and it was known that he had lost his job. Life with him was no longer what Mrs. B. had bargained for. Poor Mrs. A., too. She had lost her looks—and all her liveliness. It might be true, as some said, that she consumed herself by bearing his children and nursing him through the long illness that overshadowed their earlier married life.
You mustn’t, by the way, imagine that A. was the sort of man who nonchalantly threw a wife away like the peel of an orange he’d sucked dry. Her suicide was a terrible shock to him. We all knew this, for he told us so himself. “But what could I do?” he said. “A man has a right to happiness. I had to take my one chance when it came.”
I went away thinking about the concept of a “right to happiness.”
At first this sounds to me as odd as a right to good luck. For I believe—whatever one school of moralists may say—that we depend for a very great deal of our happiness or misery on circumstances outside all human control. A right to happiness doesn’t, for me, make much more sense than a right to be six feet tall, or have a millionaire for your father, or to get good weather whenever you want to have a picnic.
I can understand a right as a freedom guaranteed me by the laws of the society I live in. Thus, I have a right to travel along the public roads because society gives me that freedom; that’s what we mean by calling the roads “public.” I can also understand a right as a claim guaranteed me by the laws, and correlative to an obligation on someone else’s part. If I have a right to receive $100 from you, this is another way of saying that you have a duty to pay me $100. If the laws allow Mr. A. to desert his wife and seduce his neighbor’s wife, then, by definition, Mr. A. has a legal right to do so, and we need bring in no talk about happiness.
But of course that was not what Clare meant. She meant that he had not only a legal but a moral right to act as he did. In other words, Clare is—or would be if she thought it out—a classical moralist after the style of Thomas Aquinas, Grotius, Hooker and Locke. She believes that behind the laws of the state there is a Natural Law.
I agree with her. I hold this conception to be basic to all civilization. Without it, the actual laws of the state become an absolute, as in Hegel. They cannot be criticized because there is no norm against which they should be judged.
The ancestry of Clare’s maxim. “They have a right to happiness,” is august. In words that are cherished by all civilized men, but especially by Americans, it has been laid down that one of the rights of man is a right to “the pursuit of happiness.” And now we get to the real point.
What did the writers of that august declaration mean?
It is quite certain what they did not mean. They did not mean that man was entitled to pursue happiness by any and every means—including, say, murder, rape, robbery, treason and fraud. No society could be built on such a basis.
They meant “to pursue happiness by all lawful means”; that is, by all means which the Law of Nature eternally sanctions and which the laws of the nation shall sanction.
Admittedly this seems at first to reduce their maxim to the tautology that men (in pursuit of happiness) have a right to do whatever they have a right to do. But tautologies, seen against their proper historical context, are not always barren tautologies. The declaration is primarily a denial of the political principles which long governed Europe; a challenge flung down to the Austrian and Russian empires, to England before the Reform Bills, to Bourbon France. It demands that whatever means of pursuing happiness are lawful for any should be lawful for all that “man,” not men of some particular cast, class, status or religion, should be free to use them. In a century when this is being unsaid by nation after nation and party after party, let us not call it a barren tautology.
But the question as to what means are “lawful”—what methods of pursuing happiness are either morally permissible by the Law of Nature or should be declared legally permissible by the legislature of a particular nation—remains exactly where it did. And on that question I disagree with Clare. I don’t think it is obvious that people have the unlimited “right to happiness” which she suggests.
For one thing, I believe that Clare, when she says “happiness,” means simply and solely “sexual happiness.” Partly because women like Clare never use the word “happiness” in any other sense. But also because I never heard Clare talk about the “right” to any other kind. She was rather leftist in her politics, and would have been scandalized if anyone had defended the actions of a ruthless man-eating tycoon on the ground that his happiness consisted in making money and he was pursuing his happiness. She was also a rabid teetotaler; I never heard her excuse an alcoholic because he was happy when he was drunk.
A good many of Clare’s friends, and especially her female friends, often felt—I’ve heard them say so—that their own happiness would be perceptibly increased by boxing her ears. I very much doubt if this would have brought her theory of a right to happiness into play.
Clare, in fact, is doing what the whole western world seems to me to have been doing for the last 40-odd years. When I was a youngster, all the progressive people were saying, “Why all this prudery? Let us treat sex just as we treat all our other impulses.” I was simple-minded enough to believe they meant what they said. I have since discovered that they meant exactly the opposite. They meant that sex was to be treated as no other impulse in our nature has ever been treated by civilized people. All the others, we admit, have to be bridled. Absolute obedience to your instinct for self-preservation is what we call cowardice; to your acquisitive impulse, avarice. Even sleep must be resisted if you’re a sentry. But every unkindness and breach of faith seems to be condoned provided that the object aimed at is “four bare legs in a bed.”
It is like having a morality in which stealing fruit is considered wrong—unless you steal nectarines.
And if you protest against this view you are usually met with chatter about the legitimacy and beauty and sanctity of “sex” and accused of harboring some Puritan prejudice against it as something disreputable or shameful. I deny the charge. Foam-born Venus … golden Aphrodite … Our Lady of Cyprus… I never breathed a word against you. If I object to boys who steal my nectarines, must I be supposed to disapprove of nectarines in general? Or even of boys in general? It might, you know, be stealing that I disapproved of.
The real situation is skillfully concealed by saying that the question of Mr. A’s “right” to desert his wife is one of “sexual morality.” Robbing an orchard is not an offense against some special morality called “fruit morality.” It is an offense against honesty. Mr. A’s action is an offense against good faith (to solemn promises), against gratitude (toward one to whom he was deeply indebted) and against common humanity.
Our sexual impulses are thus being put in a position of preposterous privilege. The sexual motive is taken to condone all sorts of behavior which, if it had any other end in view, would be condemned as merciless, treacherous and unjust.
Now though I see no good reason for giving sex this privilege, I think I see a strong cause. It is this.
It is part of the nature of a strong erotic passion—as distinct from a transient fit of appetite—that makes more towering promises than any other emotion. No doubt all our desires makes promises, but not so impressively. To be in love involves the almost irresistible conviction that one will go on being in love until one dies, and that possession of the beloved will confer, not merely frequent ecstasies, but settled, fruitful, deep-rooted, lifelong happiness. Hence all seems to be at stake. If we miss this chance we shall have lived in vain. At the very thought of such a doom we sink into fathomless depths of self-pity.
Unfortunately these promises are found often to be quite untrue. Every experienced adult knows this to be so as regards all erotic passions (except the one he himself is feeling at the moment). We discount the world-without-end pretensions of our friends’ amours easily enough. We know that such things sometimes last—and sometimes don’t. And when they do last, this is not because they promised at the outset to do so. When two people achieve lasting happiness, this is not solely because they are great lovers but because they are also—I must put it crudely—good people; controlled, loyal, fair-minded, mutually adaptable people.
If we establish a “right to (sexual) happiness” which supersedes all the ordinary rules of behavior, we do so not because of what our passion shows itself to be in experience but because of what it professes to be while we are in the grip of it. Hence, while the bad behavior is real and works miseries and degradations, the happiness which was the object of the behavior turns out again and again to be illusory. Everyone (except Mr. A. and Mrs. B.) knows that Mr. A. in a year or so may have the same reason for deserting his new wife as for deserting his old. He will feel again that all is at stake. He will see himself again as the great lover, and his pity for himself will exclude all pity for the woman.
Why Women Suffer More?
Two further points remain.
One is this. A society in which conjugal infidelity is tolerated must always be in the long run a society adverse to women. Women, whatever a few male songs and satires may say to the contrary, are more naturally monogamous than men; it is a biological necessity. Where promiscuity prevails, they will therefore always be more often the victims than the culprits. Also, domestic happiness is more necessary to them than to us. And the quality by which they most easily hold a man, their beauty, decreases every year after they have come to maturity, but this does not happen to those qualities of personality —women don’t really care two cents about our looks—by which we hold women. Thus in the ruthless war of promiscuity women are at a double disadvantage. They play for higher stakes and are also more likely to lose. I have no sympathy with moralists who frown at the increasing crudity of female provocativeness. These signs of desperate competition fill me with pity.
Secondly, though the “right to happiness” is chiefly claimed for the sexual impulse, it seems to be impossible that the matter should stay there. The fatal principle, once allowed in that department, must sooner or later seep through our whole lives. We thus advance toward a state of society in which not only each man but every impulse in each man claims carte blanche. And then, though our technological skill may help us survive a little longer, our civilization will have died at heart, and will—one dare not even add “unfortunately”—be swept away.
Quote of the Times;
They show that in their hearts they know right from wrong. They demonstrate that God’s law is written within them, for their own consciences either accuse them or tell them they are doing what is right. – Romans 2:14-15
Link of the Times;
https://www.menofthewest.net/best-press-conference-ever/
Heinlein?
A gang of robbers broke into a lawyer's club by mistake. The old legal lions gave them a fight for their life and their money. The gang was very happy to escape.
"It ain't so bad," one crook noted. "We got $25 between us."
The boss screamed, "I warned you to stay clear of lawyers! We had $100 when we broke in!"
*.*
How do you confuse a feminist?
Tell them you refuse to allow them to make you a sandwich.
*.*
Donald MacDonald from the Isle of Skye went to study at an English university and was living in the hall of residence with all the other students there. After he had been there a month, his mother came to visit him.
"And how do you find the English students, Donald?" she asked.
"Mother," he replied, "they're such terrible, noisy people. The one on that side keeps banging his head on the wall and won't stop. The one on the other side screams and screams all night."
"Oh Donald! How do you manage to put up with these awful noisy English neighbors?"
"Mother, I just stay here quietly, playing my bagpipes."
*.*
Accidental Deaths You Won't Believe
Man dies crushed by a suicidal woman
A suicidal woman who jumped from an eighth floor window crushed a passer-by to death in a horrific accident. The woman hurled herself from the balcony in Viladecans, near Barcelona, and landed on top of a 50-year-old pedestrian who was walking below. The jumper died instantly, and the man, from the Ukraine, died in hospital shortly afterwards from his injuries. His wife, who was walking with him at the time, escaped with minor injuries in the incident.
Man dies after falling into vat of Hershey's chocolate
In a scene straight out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but with grim real life consequences, Vincent Smith II, an employee at the Cocoa Services Inc. chocolate factory in Camden, New Jersey, had a fatal accident. He was loading chunks of raw chocolate, when he slipped and fell into a large melting tank filled with 50 C (120F) Hershey's chocolate, and was knocked out by one of the mixing paddles. Smith was trapped in the melting tank for 10 minutes before rescuers were able to extract him. He was declared dead a short time later.
Roller Coaster Operator, caught by hair, gets scalped and killed
In 2003, an American amusement park operator was killed when his hair and arm got caught on a roller coaster car, pulling him up as high as 12 metres before he fell, back-first, onto a fence. Doug McKay, 40, was spraying lubricant on the tracks of the Super Loop 2, a ride at the Island County Fair on Whidbey Island, northwest of Seattle, when his long hair got caught on a car full of fairgoers. It basically scalped him, then he fell and landed on the fence.
Man dies after bee attack at his wife's funeral
Jaam Singh Girdhan Barela, a 50-year-old man, died after being stung by a swarm of honeybees while he was cremating his wife in a Madhya Pradesh village. The bees were disturbed after flames from the funeral pyre enveloped their nest. While others fled, Barela could not, as he was performing the rituals.
Italian stripper suffocates to death inside surprise cake
In Consenza, Italy, stag party friends were curious when a stripper failed to jump out of a huge cake. Assuming she was no longer in there, they received a nasty surprise when they found her dead inside it. Gina Lalapola, 23, had suffocated after waiting for an hour inside the sealed cake.
*.*
How is a woman like a road?
They both have manholes.
Issue of the Times;
Robert Heinlein, Speech at the Naval Academy on Patriotism, 1973
(To the Brigade at large:)
Why are you here?
(To a second plebe:)
Mister, why are YOU here?
Never mind, son; that's a rhetorical question. You are here to become a naval officer. That's why this Academy was founded. That is why all of you are here: to become naval officers. If that is NOT why YOU are here, you've made a bad mistake. But I speak to the overwhelming majority who understood the oath they took on becoming midshipmen and look forward to the day when they will renew that oath as commissioned officers.
But why would anyone want to become a naval officer? In the present dismal state of our culture there is little prestige attached to serving your country; recent public opinion polls place military service far down the list.
It can't be the pay. No one gets rich on the pay. Even a 4-star admiral is paid much less than top executives in other lines. As for lower ranks, the typical naval officer finds himself throughout his career just catching up from the unexpected expenses connected with the last change of duty when another change of duty causes a new financial crisis. Then, when he is about fifty, he is passed over and retires... but he can't really retire because he has two kids in college and one still to go. So he has to find a job... and discovers that jobs for men his age are scarce and usually don't pay well.
Working conditions? You'll spend half your life away from your family. Your working hours? 'Six days shalt thou work and do all thou art able; the seventh the same, and pound on the cable.' A forty-hour week is standard for civilians - but not for naval officers. You'll work that forty-hour week, but that's just a starter. You'll stand a night watch as well, and duty weekends. Then with every increase in grade your hours get longer - until at last you get a ship of your own and no longer stand watches. Instead you are on duty twenty-four hours a day... and you'll sign your night order book with: 'In case of doubt, do not hesitate to call me.'
I don't know the average week's work for a naval officer but it's closer to sixty than to forty. I'm speaking of peacetime, of course. Under war conditions it is whatever hours are necessary - and sleep you grab when you can.
Why would anyone elect a career which is unappreciated, overworked, and underpaid? It can't be just to wear a pretty uniform. There has to be a better reason.
As one drives through the bushveldt of East Africa it is easy to spot herds of baboons grazing on the ground. But not by looking at the ground. Instead you look up and spot the lookout, an adult male posted on a limb of a tree where he has a clear view all around him - which is why you can spot him; he has to be where he can see a leopard in time to give the alarm. On the ground a leopard can catch a baboon... but if a baboon is warned in time to reach the trees, he can out-climb a leopard. The lookout is a young male assigned to that duty and there he will stay, until the bull of the herd sends up another male to relieve him. Keep your eye on that baboon; we'll be back to him.
Today, in the United States, it is popular among self-styled 'intellectuals' to sneer at patriotism. They seem to think that it is axiomatic that any civilized man is a pacifist, and they treat the military profession with contempt. 'Warmongers' - 'Imperialists' - 'Hired killers in uniform' - you have all heard such sneers and you will hear them again. One of their favorite quotations is: 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' What they never mention is that the man who made that sneering remark was a fat, gluttonous slob who was pursued all his life by a pathological fear of death.
I propose to prove that that baboon on watch is morally superior to that fat poltroon who made that wisecrack. Patriotism is the most practical of all human characteristics. But in the present decadent atmosphere patriots are often too shy to talk about it - as if it were something shameful or an irrational weakness. But patriotism is NOT sentimental nonsense. Nor is it something dreamed up by demagogues. Patriotism is as necessary a part of man's evolutionary equipment as are his eyes, as useful to the race as eyes are to the individual. A man who is NOT patriotic is an evolutionary dead end. This is not sentiment but the hardest of logic.
To prove that patriotism is a necessity we must go back to fundamentals. Take any breed of animal - for example, tyrannosaurus rex. What is the most basic thing about him? The answer is that tyrannosaurus rex is dead, gone, extinct.
Which brings us to the second fundamental question: Will homo sapiens stay alive? Will he survive?
We can answer part of that at once: Individually h. sapiens will NOT survive. It is unlikely that anyone here tonight will be alive eighty years from now; it approaches mathematical certainty that we will all be dead a hundred years from now as even the youngest plebe here would be 118 years old by then - if still alive.
Some men do live that long but the percentage is so microscopic as not to matter. Recent advances in biology suggest that human life may be extended to a century and a quarter, even a century and a half - but this will create more problems than it solves. When a man reaches my age or thereabouts, the last great service he can perform is to die and get out of the way of younger people.
Very well, as individuals we all die. This brings us to the second half of the question: Does homo sapiens AS A BREED have to die? The answer is: No, it is NOT unavoidable. We have two situations, mutually exclusive: Mankind surviving, and mankind extinct. With respect to morality, the second situation is a null class. An extinct breed has NO behavior, moral or otherwise.
Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define 'moral behavior' as 'behavior that tends toward survival.' I won't argue with philosophers or theologians who choose to use the word 'moral' to mean something else, but I do not think anyone can define 'behavior that tends toward extinction' as being 'moral' without stretching the word 'moral' all out of shape.
We are now ready to observe the hierarchy of moral behavior from its lowest level to its highest. The simplest form of moral behavior occurs when a man or other animal fights for his own survival. Do not belittle such behavior as being merely selfish. Of course it is selfish... but selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.
The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she'll drive off a police dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college - and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a drowning child... and it is still moral behavior even when it fails.
The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for a group larger than the unit family - an extended family, a herd, a tribe - and take another look at that baboon on watch; he's at that moral level. I don't think baboon language is complex enough to permit them to discuss such abstract notions as 'morality' or 'duty' or 'loyalty' - but it is evident that baboons DO operate morally and DO exhibit the traits of duty and loyalty; we see them in action. Call it 'instinct' if you like - but remember that assigning a name to a phenomenon does not explain it.
But that baboon behavior can be explained in evolutionary terms. Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards. Every baboon generation has to pass this examination in moral behavior; those who bilge it don't have progeny. Perhaps the old bull of the tribe gives lessons... but the leopard decides who graduates - and there is no appeal from his decision. We don't have to understand the details to observe the outcome; baboons behave morally - for baboons.
The next level in moral behavior higher than that exhibited by the baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward a group of your kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We have a name for that. It is called 'patriotism.'
Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind. The door they opened leads to hope that h. sapiens will survive indefinitely long, even longer than this solid planet on which we stand tonight. As a direct result of what they did, it is now possible that the human race will NEVER die. Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But those astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: 'One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.' Let us note proudly that eleven of the Astronaut Corps are graduates of this our school. And let me add that James Forrestal was the FIRST high-ranking Federal official to come out flatly for space travel.
I must pause to brush off those parlor pacifists I mentioned earlier... for they contend that THEIR actions are on this highest moral level. They want to put a stop to war; they say so. Their purpose is to save the human race from killing itself off; they say that too. Anyone who disagrees with them must be a bloodthirsty scoundrel - and they'll tell you that to your face. I won't waste time trying to judge their motives; my criticism is of their mental processes: Their heads aren't screwed on tight. They live in a world of fantasy.
Let me stipulate that, if the human race managed its affairs sensibly, we could do without war. Yes - and if pigs had wings, they could fly. I don't know what planet those pious pacifists are talking about but it can't be the third one out from the Sun. Anyone who has seen the Far East - or Africa - or the Middle East - knows or certainly should know that there is NO chance of abolishing war in the foreseeable future. In the past few years I have been around the world three times, traveled in most of the communist countries, visited many of the so-called emerging countries, plus many trips to Europe and to South America; I saw nothing that cheered me as to the prospects for peace. The seeds of war are everywhere; the conflicts of interest are real and deep, and will not be abolished by pious platitudes. The best we can hope for is a precarious balance of power among the nations capable of waging total war - while endless lesser wars break out here and there. I won't belabor this. Our campuses are loaded with custard-headed pacifists but the yard of the Naval Academy is not one place where I will encounter them. We are in agreement that the United States still needs a navy, that the Republic will always have need for heroes - else you would not be here tonight and in uniform.
Patriotism - Moral behavior at the national level. Non sibi sed Patria. Nathan Hale's last words: 'I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.' Torpedo Squadron Eight making its suicidal attack. Four chaplains standing fast while the water rises around them. Thomas Jefferson saying, 'The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots'' A submarine skipper giving the order 'Take her DOWN!' while he himself is still topside. Jonas Ingram standing on the steps of Bancroft Hall and shouting, 'The Navy has no place for good losers! The Navy needs tough sons of bitches who can go out there and WIN!'
Patriotism - An abstract word used to describe a type of behavior as harshly practical as good brakes and good tires. It means that you place the welfare of your nation ahead of your own even if it costs you your life. Men who go down to the sea in ships have long had another way of expressing the same moral behavior tagged by the abstract expression 'patriotism.' Spelled out in simple Anglo-Saxon words 'Patriotism' reads 'Women and children first!'
And that is the moral result of realizing a self-evident biological fact: Men are expendable; women and children are not. A tribe or a nation can lose a high percentage of its men and still pick up the pieces and go on... as long as the women and children are saved. But if you fail to save the women and children, you've had it, you're done, you're THROUGH! You join tyrannosaurus rex, one more breed that bilged its final test.
I must amplify that. I know that women can fight and often have. I have known many a tough old grandmother I would rather have on my side in a tight spot than any number of pseudo-males who disdain military service. My wife put in three years of active duty in World War Two, plus ten years reserve, and I am proud - very proud! - of her naval service. I am proud of every one of our women in uniform; they are a shining example to us men.
Nevertheless, as a mathematical proposition in the facts of biology, children, and women of child-bearing age, are the ultimate treasure that we must save. Every human culture is based on 'Women and children first' - and any attempt to do it any other way leads quickly to extinction.
Possibly extinction is the way we are headed. Great nations have died in the past; it can happen to us. Nor am I certain how good our chances are. To me it seems self-evident that any nation that loses its patriotic fervor is on the skids. Without that indispensable survival factor the end is only a matter of time. I don't know how deeply the rot has penetrated - but it seems to me that there has been a change for the worse in the last fifty years. Possibly I am misled by the offensive behavior of a noisy but unimportant minority. But it does seem to me that patriotism has lost its grip on a large percentage of our people. I hope I am wrong... because if my fears are well grounded, I would not bet two cents on this nation's chance of lasting even to the end of this century. But there is no way to force patriotism on anyone. Passing a law will not create it, nor can we buy it by appropriating so many billions of dollars. You gentlemen of the Brigade are most fortunate. You are going to a school where this basic moral virtue is daily reinforced by precept and example. It is not enough to know what Charlie Noble does for a living, or what makes the wildcat wild, or which BatDiv failed to splice the main brace and why - nor to learn matrix algebra and navigation and ballistics and aerodynamics and nuclear engineering. These things are merely the working tools of your profession and could be learned elsewhere; they do not require 'four years together by the Bay where the Severn joins the tide.'
What you do have here is a tradition of service. Your most important classroom is Memorial Hall. Your most important lesson is the way you feel inside when you walk up those steps and see that shot-torn flag framed in the arch of the door: 'Don't Give Up the Ship.' If you feel nothing, you don't belong here. But if it gives you goose flesh just to see that old battle flag, then you are going to find that feeling increasing every time you return here over the years... until it reaches a crescendo the day you return and read the list of your own honored dead - classmates, shipmates, friends - read them with grief and pride while you try to keep your tears silent.
The time has come for me to stop. I said that 'Patriotism' is a way of saying 'Women and children first.' And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely. I want to tell about one such man. He wore no uniform and no one knows his name, or where he came from; all we know is what he did.
In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut straight through it.
One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing these tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her. But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman's foot loose. No luck.
Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free... and the train hit them. The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and died later, the tramp was killed - and testimony showed that neither man made the slightest effort to save himself. The husband's behavior was heroic... but what we expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very instant the train killed him. And that's all we'll ever know about him.
THIS is how a man dies. This is how a MAN . . . lives!
'They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old;
age shall not wither them nor the years condemn;
At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we shall remember them''
Quote of the Times;
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” – A.A. Milne.
Link of the Times;
http://imgur.com/gallery/hmE1Q
"It ain't so bad," one crook noted. "We got $25 between us."
The boss screamed, "I warned you to stay clear of lawyers! We had $100 when we broke in!"
*.*
How do you confuse a feminist?
Tell them you refuse to allow them to make you a sandwich.
*.*
Donald MacDonald from the Isle of Skye went to study at an English university and was living in the hall of residence with all the other students there. After he had been there a month, his mother came to visit him.
"And how do you find the English students, Donald?" she asked.
"Mother," he replied, "they're such terrible, noisy people. The one on that side keeps banging his head on the wall and won't stop. The one on the other side screams and screams all night."
"Oh Donald! How do you manage to put up with these awful noisy English neighbors?"
"Mother, I just stay here quietly, playing my bagpipes."
*.*
Accidental Deaths You Won't Believe
Man dies crushed by a suicidal woman
A suicidal woman who jumped from an eighth floor window crushed a passer-by to death in a horrific accident. The woman hurled herself from the balcony in Viladecans, near Barcelona, and landed on top of a 50-year-old pedestrian who was walking below. The jumper died instantly, and the man, from the Ukraine, died in hospital shortly afterwards from his injuries. His wife, who was walking with him at the time, escaped with minor injuries in the incident.
Man dies after falling into vat of Hershey's chocolate
In a scene straight out of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, but with grim real life consequences, Vincent Smith II, an employee at the Cocoa Services Inc. chocolate factory in Camden, New Jersey, had a fatal accident. He was loading chunks of raw chocolate, when he slipped and fell into a large melting tank filled with 50 C (120F) Hershey's chocolate, and was knocked out by one of the mixing paddles. Smith was trapped in the melting tank for 10 minutes before rescuers were able to extract him. He was declared dead a short time later.
Roller Coaster Operator, caught by hair, gets scalped and killed
In 2003, an American amusement park operator was killed when his hair and arm got caught on a roller coaster car, pulling him up as high as 12 metres before he fell, back-first, onto a fence. Doug McKay, 40, was spraying lubricant on the tracks of the Super Loop 2, a ride at the Island County Fair on Whidbey Island, northwest of Seattle, when his long hair got caught on a car full of fairgoers. It basically scalped him, then he fell and landed on the fence.
Man dies after bee attack at his wife's funeral
Jaam Singh Girdhan Barela, a 50-year-old man, died after being stung by a swarm of honeybees while he was cremating his wife in a Madhya Pradesh village. The bees were disturbed after flames from the funeral pyre enveloped their nest. While others fled, Barela could not, as he was performing the rituals.
Italian stripper suffocates to death inside surprise cake
In Consenza, Italy, stag party friends were curious when a stripper failed to jump out of a huge cake. Assuming she was no longer in there, they received a nasty surprise when they found her dead inside it. Gina Lalapola, 23, had suffocated after waiting for an hour inside the sealed cake.
*.*
How is a woman like a road?
They both have manholes.
Issue of the Times;
Robert Heinlein, Speech at the Naval Academy on Patriotism, 1973
(To the Brigade at large:)
Why are you here?
(To a second plebe:)
Mister, why are YOU here?
Never mind, son; that's a rhetorical question. You are here to become a naval officer. That's why this Academy was founded. That is why all of you are here: to become naval officers. If that is NOT why YOU are here, you've made a bad mistake. But I speak to the overwhelming majority who understood the oath they took on becoming midshipmen and look forward to the day when they will renew that oath as commissioned officers.
But why would anyone want to become a naval officer? In the present dismal state of our culture there is little prestige attached to serving your country; recent public opinion polls place military service far down the list.
It can't be the pay. No one gets rich on the pay. Even a 4-star admiral is paid much less than top executives in other lines. As for lower ranks, the typical naval officer finds himself throughout his career just catching up from the unexpected expenses connected with the last change of duty when another change of duty causes a new financial crisis. Then, when he is about fifty, he is passed over and retires... but he can't really retire because he has two kids in college and one still to go. So he has to find a job... and discovers that jobs for men his age are scarce and usually don't pay well.
Working conditions? You'll spend half your life away from your family. Your working hours? 'Six days shalt thou work and do all thou art able; the seventh the same, and pound on the cable.' A forty-hour week is standard for civilians - but not for naval officers. You'll work that forty-hour week, but that's just a starter. You'll stand a night watch as well, and duty weekends. Then with every increase in grade your hours get longer - until at last you get a ship of your own and no longer stand watches. Instead you are on duty twenty-four hours a day... and you'll sign your night order book with: 'In case of doubt, do not hesitate to call me.'
I don't know the average week's work for a naval officer but it's closer to sixty than to forty. I'm speaking of peacetime, of course. Under war conditions it is whatever hours are necessary - and sleep you grab when you can.
Why would anyone elect a career which is unappreciated, overworked, and underpaid? It can't be just to wear a pretty uniform. There has to be a better reason.
As one drives through the bushveldt of East Africa it is easy to spot herds of baboons grazing on the ground. But not by looking at the ground. Instead you look up and spot the lookout, an adult male posted on a limb of a tree where he has a clear view all around him - which is why you can spot him; he has to be where he can see a leopard in time to give the alarm. On the ground a leopard can catch a baboon... but if a baboon is warned in time to reach the trees, he can out-climb a leopard. The lookout is a young male assigned to that duty and there he will stay, until the bull of the herd sends up another male to relieve him. Keep your eye on that baboon; we'll be back to him.
Today, in the United States, it is popular among self-styled 'intellectuals' to sneer at patriotism. They seem to think that it is axiomatic that any civilized man is a pacifist, and they treat the military profession with contempt. 'Warmongers' - 'Imperialists' - 'Hired killers in uniform' - you have all heard such sneers and you will hear them again. One of their favorite quotations is: 'Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.' What they never mention is that the man who made that sneering remark was a fat, gluttonous slob who was pursued all his life by a pathological fear of death.
I propose to prove that that baboon on watch is morally superior to that fat poltroon who made that wisecrack. Patriotism is the most practical of all human characteristics. But in the present decadent atmosphere patriots are often too shy to talk about it - as if it were something shameful or an irrational weakness. But patriotism is NOT sentimental nonsense. Nor is it something dreamed up by demagogues. Patriotism is as necessary a part of man's evolutionary equipment as are his eyes, as useful to the race as eyes are to the individual. A man who is NOT patriotic is an evolutionary dead end. This is not sentiment but the hardest of logic.
To prove that patriotism is a necessity we must go back to fundamentals. Take any breed of animal - for example, tyrannosaurus rex. What is the most basic thing about him? The answer is that tyrannosaurus rex is dead, gone, extinct.
Which brings us to the second fundamental question: Will homo sapiens stay alive? Will he survive?
We can answer part of that at once: Individually h. sapiens will NOT survive. It is unlikely that anyone here tonight will be alive eighty years from now; it approaches mathematical certainty that we will all be dead a hundred years from now as even the youngest plebe here would be 118 years old by then - if still alive.
Some men do live that long but the percentage is so microscopic as not to matter. Recent advances in biology suggest that human life may be extended to a century and a quarter, even a century and a half - but this will create more problems than it solves. When a man reaches my age or thereabouts, the last great service he can perform is to die and get out of the way of younger people.
Very well, as individuals we all die. This brings us to the second half of the question: Does homo sapiens AS A BREED have to die? The answer is: No, it is NOT unavoidable. We have two situations, mutually exclusive: Mankind surviving, and mankind extinct. With respect to morality, the second situation is a null class. An extinct breed has NO behavior, moral or otherwise.
Since survival is the sine qua non, I now define 'moral behavior' as 'behavior that tends toward survival.' I won't argue with philosophers or theologians who choose to use the word 'moral' to mean something else, but I do not think anyone can define 'behavior that tends toward extinction' as being 'moral' without stretching the word 'moral' all out of shape.
We are now ready to observe the hierarchy of moral behavior from its lowest level to its highest. The simplest form of moral behavior occurs when a man or other animal fights for his own survival. Do not belittle such behavior as being merely selfish. Of course it is selfish... but selfishness is the bedrock on which all moral behavior starts and it can be immoral only when it conflicts with a higher moral imperative. An animal so poor in spirit that he won't even fight on his own behalf is already an evolutionary dead end; the best he can do for his breed is to crawl off and die, and not pass on his defective genes.
The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for your own immediate family. This is the level at which six pounds of mother cat can be so fierce that she'll drive off a police dog. It is the level at which a father takes a moonlighting job to keep his kids in college - and the level at which a mother or father dives into a flood to save a drowning child... and it is still moral behavior even when it fails.
The next higher level is to work, fight, and sometimes die for a group larger than the unit family - an extended family, a herd, a tribe - and take another look at that baboon on watch; he's at that moral level. I don't think baboon language is complex enough to permit them to discuss such abstract notions as 'morality' or 'duty' or 'loyalty' - but it is evident that baboons DO operate morally and DO exhibit the traits of duty and loyalty; we see them in action. Call it 'instinct' if you like - but remember that assigning a name to a phenomenon does not explain it.
But that baboon behavior can be explained in evolutionary terms. Evolution is a process that never stops. Baboons who fail to exhibit moral behavior do not survive; they wind up as meat for leopards. Every baboon generation has to pass this examination in moral behavior; those who bilge it don't have progeny. Perhaps the old bull of the tribe gives lessons... but the leopard decides who graduates - and there is no appeal from his decision. We don't have to understand the details to observe the outcome; baboons behave morally - for baboons.
The next level in moral behavior higher than that exhibited by the baboon is that in which duty and loyalty are shown toward a group of your kind too large for an individual to know all of them. We have a name for that. It is called 'patriotism.'
Behaving on a still higher moral level were the astronauts who went to the Moon, for their actions tend toward the survival of the entire race of mankind. The door they opened leads to hope that h. sapiens will survive indefinitely long, even longer than this solid planet on which we stand tonight. As a direct result of what they did, it is now possible that the human race will NEVER die. Many short-sighted fools think that going to the Moon was just a stunt. But those astronauts knew the meaning of what they were doing, as is shown by Neil Armstrong's first words in stepping down onto the soil of Luna: 'One small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind.' Let us note proudly that eleven of the Astronaut Corps are graduates of this our school. And let me add that James Forrestal was the FIRST high-ranking Federal official to come out flatly for space travel.
I must pause to brush off those parlor pacifists I mentioned earlier... for they contend that THEIR actions are on this highest moral level. They want to put a stop to war; they say so. Their purpose is to save the human race from killing itself off; they say that too. Anyone who disagrees with them must be a bloodthirsty scoundrel - and they'll tell you that to your face. I won't waste time trying to judge their motives; my criticism is of their mental processes: Their heads aren't screwed on tight. They live in a world of fantasy.
Let me stipulate that, if the human race managed its affairs sensibly, we could do without war. Yes - and if pigs had wings, they could fly. I don't know what planet those pious pacifists are talking about but it can't be the third one out from the Sun. Anyone who has seen the Far East - or Africa - or the Middle East - knows or certainly should know that there is NO chance of abolishing war in the foreseeable future. In the past few years I have been around the world three times, traveled in most of the communist countries, visited many of the so-called emerging countries, plus many trips to Europe and to South America; I saw nothing that cheered me as to the prospects for peace. The seeds of war are everywhere; the conflicts of interest are real and deep, and will not be abolished by pious platitudes. The best we can hope for is a precarious balance of power among the nations capable of waging total war - while endless lesser wars break out here and there. I won't belabor this. Our campuses are loaded with custard-headed pacifists but the yard of the Naval Academy is not one place where I will encounter them. We are in agreement that the United States still needs a navy, that the Republic will always have need for heroes - else you would not be here tonight and in uniform.
Patriotism - Moral behavior at the national level. Non sibi sed Patria. Nathan Hale's last words: 'I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.' Torpedo Squadron Eight making its suicidal attack. Four chaplains standing fast while the water rises around them. Thomas Jefferson saying, 'The Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots'' A submarine skipper giving the order 'Take her DOWN!' while he himself is still topside. Jonas Ingram standing on the steps of Bancroft Hall and shouting, 'The Navy has no place for good losers! The Navy needs tough sons of bitches who can go out there and WIN!'
Patriotism - An abstract word used to describe a type of behavior as harshly practical as good brakes and good tires. It means that you place the welfare of your nation ahead of your own even if it costs you your life. Men who go down to the sea in ships have long had another way of expressing the same moral behavior tagged by the abstract expression 'patriotism.' Spelled out in simple Anglo-Saxon words 'Patriotism' reads 'Women and children first!'
And that is the moral result of realizing a self-evident biological fact: Men are expendable; women and children are not. A tribe or a nation can lose a high percentage of its men and still pick up the pieces and go on... as long as the women and children are saved. But if you fail to save the women and children, you've had it, you're done, you're THROUGH! You join tyrannosaurus rex, one more breed that bilged its final test.
I must amplify that. I know that women can fight and often have. I have known many a tough old grandmother I would rather have on my side in a tight spot than any number of pseudo-males who disdain military service. My wife put in three years of active duty in World War Two, plus ten years reserve, and I am proud - very proud! - of her naval service. I am proud of every one of our women in uniform; they are a shining example to us men.
Nevertheless, as a mathematical proposition in the facts of biology, children, and women of child-bearing age, are the ultimate treasure that we must save. Every human culture is based on 'Women and children first' - and any attempt to do it any other way leads quickly to extinction.
Possibly extinction is the way we are headed. Great nations have died in the past; it can happen to us. Nor am I certain how good our chances are. To me it seems self-evident that any nation that loses its patriotic fervor is on the skids. Without that indispensable survival factor the end is only a matter of time. I don't know how deeply the rot has penetrated - but it seems to me that there has been a change for the worse in the last fifty years. Possibly I am misled by the offensive behavior of a noisy but unimportant minority. But it does seem to me that patriotism has lost its grip on a large percentage of our people. I hope I am wrong... because if my fears are well grounded, I would not bet two cents on this nation's chance of lasting even to the end of this century. But there is no way to force patriotism on anyone. Passing a law will not create it, nor can we buy it by appropriating so many billions of dollars. You gentlemen of the Brigade are most fortunate. You are going to a school where this basic moral virtue is daily reinforced by precept and example. It is not enough to know what Charlie Noble does for a living, or what makes the wildcat wild, or which BatDiv failed to splice the main brace and why - nor to learn matrix algebra and navigation and ballistics and aerodynamics and nuclear engineering. These things are merely the working tools of your profession and could be learned elsewhere; they do not require 'four years together by the Bay where the Severn joins the tide.'
What you do have here is a tradition of service. Your most important classroom is Memorial Hall. Your most important lesson is the way you feel inside when you walk up those steps and see that shot-torn flag framed in the arch of the door: 'Don't Give Up the Ship.' If you feel nothing, you don't belong here. But if it gives you goose flesh just to see that old battle flag, then you are going to find that feeling increasing every time you return here over the years... until it reaches a crescendo the day you return and read the list of your own honored dead - classmates, shipmates, friends - read them with grief and pride while you try to keep your tears silent.
The time has come for me to stop. I said that 'Patriotism' is a way of saying 'Women and children first.' And that no one can force a man to feel this way. Instead he must embrace it freely. I want to tell about one such man. He wore no uniform and no one knows his name, or where he came from; all we know is what he did.
In my home town sixty years ago when I was a child, my mother and father used to take me and my brothers and sisters out to Swope Park on Sunday afternoons. It was a wonderful place for kids, with picnic grounds and lakes and a zoo. But a railroad line cut straight through it.
One Sunday afternoon a young married couple were crossing these tracks. She apparently did not watch her step, for she managed to catch her foot in the frog of a switch to a siding and could not pull it free. Her husband stopped to help her. But try as they might they could not get her foot loose. While they were working at it, a tramp showed up, walking the ties. He joined the husband in trying to pull the young woman's foot loose. No luck.
Out of sight around the curve a train whistled. Perhaps there would have been time to run and flag it down, perhaps not. In any case both men went right ahead trying to pull her free... and the train hit them. The wife was killed, the husband was mortally injured and died later, the tramp was killed - and testimony showed that neither man made the slightest effort to save himself. The husband's behavior was heroic... but what we expect of a husband toward his wife: his right, and his proud privilege, to die for his woman. But what of this nameless stranger? Up to the very last second he could have jumped clear. He did not. He was still trying to save this woman he had never seen before in his life, right up to the very instant the train killed him. And that's all we'll ever know about him.
THIS is how a man dies. This is how a MAN . . . lives!
'They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old;
age shall not wither them nor the years condemn;
At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we shall remember them''
Quote of the Times;
“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” – A.A. Milne.
Link of the Times;
http://imgur.com/gallery/hmE1Q
Unarmed?
Great Sayings by Women
Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.
Old age ain't no place for sissies.
A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't.
Every time I close the door on reality it comes in through the windows.
I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.
If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
*.*
A father brought his son into the doctor because the boy had a matchbox car shoved up his nose. All the while the doctor was trying to remove the car, the father kept saying "I don't know how he did it!" Finally the doctor removed the car, and the father and son left.
A few hours later, the father came back with the matchbox shoved up HIS nose. He told the doctor, "I know how he did it!"
*.*
40 Xcellent X-Words
When the lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson put together his Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, he included a disclaimer at the bottom of page 2308 that read, “X is a letter which though found in Saxon words, begins no word in the English language.” Noah Webster went one better when he published his Compendious Dictionary in 1806 that included a single X-word, xebec, defined as “a small three-masted vessel in the Mediterranean Sea.” Although, by the time he compiled his landmark American Dictionary in 1828, that total had risen to 13.
X has never been a common initial letter in English, and even with today’s enormous vocabulary you can still only expect around 0.02% of the words in a dictionary to be listed under it. But why not try boosting your vocabulary with these forty excellent X-words?
1. X
On its own, the letter X is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb meaning “to cross out a single letter of type.” X. X. in Victorian slang meant “double-excellent,” while X. X. X.described anything that was “treble excellent.”
2. XANTHIPPE
Xanthippe was the name of Socrates’ wife, who, thanks to a number of Ancient Greek caricatures, had a reputation for henpecking, overbearing behavior. Consequently her name can be used as a byword for any ill-tempered or cantankerous woman or wife—as used in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.
3. XANTHOCOMIC
Xanthos was the Ancient Greek word for “yellow,” and as such is the root of a number ofmainly scientific words referring to yellow-colored things. So, if you’re xanthocomic, you have yellow hair; if you’re xanthocroic you have fair hair and pale skin; and if you’re xanthodontous, you have yellow teeth.
4. X-CATCHER
In old naval slang, an X-catcher or X-chaser was someone who was good at math—literally someone good at working out the value of x.
5. X-DIVISION
Victorian slang for criminals or pickpockets, or people who make a living by some underhand means.
6. X-DOUBLE-MINUS
1960s slang for something really, really terrible.
7. XENAGOGUE
Derived from the same root as xenophobia, a xenagogue is someone whose job it is to conduct strangers or to act as a guide while…
8. XENAGOGY
…a xenagogy is a guidebook.
9. XENIAL
The adjective xenial is used to describe a friendly relationship between two parties, in particular between a hospitable host and his or her guests, or diplomatically between two countries.
10. XENIATROPHOBIA
Don’t like going to see doctors you don’t know? Then you’re xeniatrophobic.
11. XENIUM
A xenium is a gift or offering given to a stranger, which in its native Ancient Greece would once have been a lavish feast or a refreshing spread of food and fruit. In the 19th century art world, however, xenium came to refer to a still-life painting depicting something like a extravagant display of food or a bowl of fruit.
12. XENIZATION
A 19th century word meaning “the act of traveling as a stranger.”
13. XENOCRACY
A government formed by foreigners or outsiders is a xenocracy. A member of one is axenocrat.
14. XENODOCHEIONOLOGY
Defined as “the lore of hotels and inns” by Merriam-Webster.
15. XENODOCHIUM
A guesthouse or hostel, or any similar stopping place for travelers or pilgrims.
16. XENODOCHY
A 17th century word for hospitality. If you’re xenodochial then you like to entertain strangers.
17. XENOGLOSSY
The ability to speak a language that you’ve apparently never learnt.
18. XENOLOGY
The scientific study of extraterrestrial phenomena is xenology. The study of extraterrestrial life forms is xenobiology.
19. XENOMANIA
The opposite of xenophobia is xenomania or xenophilia, namely an intense enthusiasm or fondness for anything or anyone foreign.
20. XENOMORPH
Something unusually or irregularly shaped is a xenomorph—which is why it’s become another name for the eponymous creature in the Alien film franchise.
21. XENOTRANSPLANTATION
Transplanting organic matter from a non-human into a human (like a pig’s heart valve into a human heart) is called xenotransplantation. Whatever it is that’s transplanted is called thexenograft.
22. XERIC
An ecological term used to describe anywhere extremely dry or arid. If it’s xerothermic, then it’s both dry and hot.
23. XERISCAPE
If you live in a xeric area, then you’ll have to xeriscape your garden. It’s the deliberate use of plants that need relatively little moisture or irrigation to landscape an arid location.
24. XEROCHILIA
The medical name for having dry lips. Having a dry mouth is xerostomia.
25. XEROCOPY
A xerographic copy of a document—or, to put it another way, a photocopy.
26. XEROPHAGY
The eating of dry food is xerophagy. It mightn’t sound like it, but it was originally a religious term.
27. XESTURGY
The proper name for the process of polishing.
28. XILINOUS
Something described as xilinous resembles or feels like cotton…
29. XIPHOID
…while something described as xiphoid resembles a sword.
30. XOANON
Derived from the Greek for “carve” or “scrape,” a xoanon is a carved idol of a deity.
31. XTAL
An abbreviation of “crystal,” according to the OED.
32. XYLOGRAPHER
A 19th century word for a wood engraver.
33. XYLOID
Why say that something is “woody” when you can say that it’s xyloid?
34. XYLOPOLIST
A 17th century formal name for a timber merchant.
35. XYLOTOMOUS
Describes anything or anyone particularly good at wood-cutting or wood-boring.
36. XYRESIC
Means “razor-sharp.”
37. XYROPHOBIA
The fear of being close to or touching sharp implements.
38. XYLANTHRAX
Nowhere near as nasty as it sounds, this is just an old name for what we now call charcoal.
39. XYSTUS
A type of covered walkway or portico.
40. X.Y.Z.
Late 19th century slang for a journalist who takes on any work going, or else 18th century slang for a dandyish or “exquisite” young man.
*.*
THE PENTAGON — Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley today announced the results of an exhaustive study conducted by the RAND Corporation aimed at understanding and lowering the divorce rates of soldiers.
“Going in, our assumption was that long and frequent deployments were the root cause of the higher than average divorce rates of our soldiers,” Milley said. “It turns out, instead, there’s a very high correlation between the frequency of a spouse removing their clothes in exchange for money and the divorce rate.”
Milley continued, “We also saw a spike in divorces when the spouse regularly uses methamphetamine and stays away from home for days at a time. We are still looking into this other phenomena.”
Dr. Philip Lynch, RAND Director of Research, noted, “The findings surprisingly didn’t support our initial assumptions.”
Lynch says that RAND has supplied Army Training Command with a new program to educate single soldiers during boot camp and then to be renewed annually.
“We really want the soldiers to be alert for five major warning signs,” Milley said. “If they can just remember these, they’ll be fine.”
Lynch said the warning signs are, “First, your fiancee or spouse frequently returns home from work with large stacks of one-dollar bills.”
“Second, you may want to be cautious if your spouse or fiancee was nude when you met her,” he continued. “Third, your fiancee insists she is saving money for medical school when in fact she dropped out of high school or middle school.”
Lynch says that the last two are “a strident insistence” that you purchase at least two drinks prior to speaking to her and then ordering champagne themselves, and then immediately jumping to her feet and taking off her shirt when Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me” comes on the radio.
Milley concluded the briefing by noting that while the five warning signs apply mainly to soldiers interested in women, those interested in men need to be cautious, too.
*.*
I saw a Muslim fall into the Niagara River this morning and being a responsible citizen, I informed the emergency services.
It's 6:00 PM and they still haven't responded!
I'm now starting to think I've wasted a stamp!
Issue of the Times;
Shooting The Unarmed Man - The Fallacy Of Modern Perception
“He shot an unarmed man!”
How often have we heard those screams from an angry community? Trayvon Martin may be the first to come mind but it happens more often than most people think. Kansas City firefighter Anthony Bruno, unarmed and drunk, was shot and killed by an off duty police officer. And, of course, the most recent case of Michael Brown in St. Louis, Missouri.
The problem with the public outcry and the rioting in pursuit of “JUSTICE” is that most people know exactly nothing about physical combat and life threatening situations. They assume that if a person is unarmed that deadly force cannot and should not be employed. And they are wrong.
Have you seen the viral videos of “the knockout game?” Many of those videos involve one solid blow to the head that results in an unconscious victim. There is laughing and yelling and everyone runs away. Well, what if they didn’t want to stop there? What if the attacker decided that he would just kill someone today? He now has an unconscious, helpless victim to beat to death.
Take the case of Michael Fobbs as an example. He walked up to a man sitting on a bench and simply started hitting him repeatedly until the man was dead at an Amtrak station in Texas. Would that victim have been authorized the use of deadly force? Fobbs was unarmed.
Bear in mind that more people were beaten to death with hands and feet than were killed by so-called assault rifles in 2012. Those victims were not allowed to use deadly force simply because their attacker did not have a weapon? I think not. Laws on self defense seldom mention the use of a weapon. They are based on a reasonable fear that your life is in jeopardy, not the presence of a weapon in the hands of your attacker.
You may have missed the television programs on the science of fighting. In that series, Randy Couture was studied. In his well-known “ground and pound” method of dispatching an opponent, Couture was able to generate over 2,000 pounds of force in his downward blows to an opponent’s head. That’s the equivalent of dropping a car on your face. Trained fighters seldom take the full force of those blows because they are moving and defending with their own arms and hands but what if the victim was not a trained fighter? Couture, and any other trained fighter, could kill you with just a couple of blows to the head.
The rise in popularity of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA style sports has also added new weapons to the attacker’s hands only arsenal. Have you ever been choked out? In MMA sports, the defender can “tap out” or the referee can end the fight and pull the attacker off of you. In the real world, you will be choked until you die. That’s a real fight.
So, if your attacker is unarmed and gets you in a choke, is that it? You’re just going to let yourself die because you won’t use lethal force against an unarmed opponent? How about if you are on your back being hammered in the face and you are moments away from losing consciousness and eventual death? Just going to accept your fate? I seriously doubt that.
I’m not. If I’m armed, I’m going to kill you. Dead.
If a cop walks up to someone out of the blue, draws his pistol, and shoots them dead in the street, that’s one thing. But, shooting an unarmed assailant during a fight in the street is another. You do not know the intentions of the attacker and cannot allow yourself to be overpowered or knocked unconscious. You will only be another statistic.
You also have no idea if your attacker IS armed and they just haven’t used their weapon yet. You can’t wait until you are unable to defend yourself to find out. I suspect most of you reading this would not. So, why are we judging a police officer who makes the same decision you would make under the same circumstances?
Get a reality check, folks.
Quote of the Times;
“There never was a man of heroism and virtue who did not contemplate Death.”
Link of the Times;
http://www.returnofkings.com/88093/soviet-defector-yuri-bezmenov-accurately-predicted-how-america-would-decline
Things are going to get a lot worse before they get worse.
Old age ain't no place for sissies.
A man's got to do what a man's got to do. A woman must do what he can't.
Every time I close the door on reality it comes in through the windows.
I try to take one day at a time, but sometimes several days attack me at once.
If you can't be a good example, then you'll just have to be a horrible warning.
*.*
A father brought his son into the doctor because the boy had a matchbox car shoved up his nose. All the while the doctor was trying to remove the car, the father kept saying "I don't know how he did it!" Finally the doctor removed the car, and the father and son left.
A few hours later, the father came back with the matchbox shoved up HIS nose. He told the doctor, "I know how he did it!"
*.*
40 Xcellent X-Words
When the lexicographer Dr. Samuel Johnson put together his Dictionary of the English Language in 1755, he included a disclaimer at the bottom of page 2308 that read, “X is a letter which though found in Saxon words, begins no word in the English language.” Noah Webster went one better when he published his Compendious Dictionary in 1806 that included a single X-word, xebec, defined as “a small three-masted vessel in the Mediterranean Sea.” Although, by the time he compiled his landmark American Dictionary in 1828, that total had risen to 13.
X has never been a common initial letter in English, and even with today’s enormous vocabulary you can still only expect around 0.02% of the words in a dictionary to be listed under it. But why not try boosting your vocabulary with these forty excellent X-words?
1. X
On its own, the letter X is listed in the Oxford English Dictionary as a verb meaning “to cross out a single letter of type.” X. X. in Victorian slang meant “double-excellent,” while X. X. X.described anything that was “treble excellent.”
2. XANTHIPPE
Xanthippe was the name of Socrates’ wife, who, thanks to a number of Ancient Greek caricatures, had a reputation for henpecking, overbearing behavior. Consequently her name can be used as a byword for any ill-tempered or cantankerous woman or wife—as used in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew.
3. XANTHOCOMIC
Xanthos was the Ancient Greek word for “yellow,” and as such is the root of a number ofmainly scientific words referring to yellow-colored things. So, if you’re xanthocomic, you have yellow hair; if you’re xanthocroic you have fair hair and pale skin; and if you’re xanthodontous, you have yellow teeth.
4. X-CATCHER
In old naval slang, an X-catcher or X-chaser was someone who was good at math—literally someone good at working out the value of x.
5. X-DIVISION
Victorian slang for criminals or pickpockets, or people who make a living by some underhand means.
6. X-DOUBLE-MINUS
1960s slang for something really, really terrible.
7. XENAGOGUE
Derived from the same root as xenophobia, a xenagogue is someone whose job it is to conduct strangers or to act as a guide while…
8. XENAGOGY
…a xenagogy is a guidebook.
9. XENIAL
The adjective xenial is used to describe a friendly relationship between two parties, in particular between a hospitable host and his or her guests, or diplomatically between two countries.
10. XENIATROPHOBIA
Don’t like going to see doctors you don’t know? Then you’re xeniatrophobic.
11. XENIUM
A xenium is a gift or offering given to a stranger, which in its native Ancient Greece would once have been a lavish feast or a refreshing spread of food and fruit. In the 19th century art world, however, xenium came to refer to a still-life painting depicting something like a extravagant display of food or a bowl of fruit.
12. XENIZATION
A 19th century word meaning “the act of traveling as a stranger.”
13. XENOCRACY
A government formed by foreigners or outsiders is a xenocracy. A member of one is axenocrat.
14. XENODOCHEIONOLOGY
Defined as “the lore of hotels and inns” by Merriam-Webster.
15. XENODOCHIUM
A guesthouse or hostel, or any similar stopping place for travelers or pilgrims.
16. XENODOCHY
A 17th century word for hospitality. If you’re xenodochial then you like to entertain strangers.
17. XENOGLOSSY
The ability to speak a language that you’ve apparently never learnt.
18. XENOLOGY
The scientific study of extraterrestrial phenomena is xenology. The study of extraterrestrial life forms is xenobiology.
19. XENOMANIA
The opposite of xenophobia is xenomania or xenophilia, namely an intense enthusiasm or fondness for anything or anyone foreign.
20. XENOMORPH
Something unusually or irregularly shaped is a xenomorph—which is why it’s become another name for the eponymous creature in the Alien film franchise.
21. XENOTRANSPLANTATION
Transplanting organic matter from a non-human into a human (like a pig’s heart valve into a human heart) is called xenotransplantation. Whatever it is that’s transplanted is called thexenograft.
22. XERIC
An ecological term used to describe anywhere extremely dry or arid. If it’s xerothermic, then it’s both dry and hot.
23. XERISCAPE
If you live in a xeric area, then you’ll have to xeriscape your garden. It’s the deliberate use of plants that need relatively little moisture or irrigation to landscape an arid location.
24. XEROCHILIA
The medical name for having dry lips. Having a dry mouth is xerostomia.
25. XEROCOPY
A xerographic copy of a document—or, to put it another way, a photocopy.
26. XEROPHAGY
The eating of dry food is xerophagy. It mightn’t sound like it, but it was originally a religious term.
27. XESTURGY
The proper name for the process of polishing.
28. XILINOUS
Something described as xilinous resembles or feels like cotton…
29. XIPHOID
…while something described as xiphoid resembles a sword.
30. XOANON
Derived from the Greek for “carve” or “scrape,” a xoanon is a carved idol of a deity.
31. XTAL
An abbreviation of “crystal,” according to the OED.
32. XYLOGRAPHER
A 19th century word for a wood engraver.
33. XYLOID
Why say that something is “woody” when you can say that it’s xyloid?
34. XYLOPOLIST
A 17th century formal name for a timber merchant.
35. XYLOTOMOUS
Describes anything or anyone particularly good at wood-cutting or wood-boring.
36. XYRESIC
Means “razor-sharp.”
37. XYROPHOBIA
The fear of being close to or touching sharp implements.
38. XYLANTHRAX
Nowhere near as nasty as it sounds, this is just an old name for what we now call charcoal.
39. XYSTUS
A type of covered walkway or portico.
40. X.Y.Z.
Late 19th century slang for a journalist who takes on any work going, or else 18th century slang for a dandyish or “exquisite” young man.
*.*
THE PENTAGON — Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley today announced the results of an exhaustive study conducted by the RAND Corporation aimed at understanding and lowering the divorce rates of soldiers.
“Going in, our assumption was that long and frequent deployments were the root cause of the higher than average divorce rates of our soldiers,” Milley said. “It turns out, instead, there’s a very high correlation between the frequency of a spouse removing their clothes in exchange for money and the divorce rate.”
Milley continued, “We also saw a spike in divorces when the spouse regularly uses methamphetamine and stays away from home for days at a time. We are still looking into this other phenomena.”
Dr. Philip Lynch, RAND Director of Research, noted, “The findings surprisingly didn’t support our initial assumptions.”
Lynch says that RAND has supplied Army Training Command with a new program to educate single soldiers during boot camp and then to be renewed annually.
“We really want the soldiers to be alert for five major warning signs,” Milley said. “If they can just remember these, they’ll be fine.”
Lynch said the warning signs are, “First, your fiancee or spouse frequently returns home from work with large stacks of one-dollar bills.”
“Second, you may want to be cautious if your spouse or fiancee was nude when you met her,” he continued. “Third, your fiancee insists she is saving money for medical school when in fact she dropped out of high school or middle school.”
Lynch says that the last two are “a strident insistence” that you purchase at least two drinks prior to speaking to her and then ordering champagne themselves, and then immediately jumping to her feet and taking off her shirt when Def Leppard’s “Pour Some Sugar On Me” comes on the radio.
Milley concluded the briefing by noting that while the five warning signs apply mainly to soldiers interested in women, those interested in men need to be cautious, too.
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I saw a Muslim fall into the Niagara River this morning and being a responsible citizen, I informed the emergency services.
It's 6:00 PM and they still haven't responded!
I'm now starting to think I've wasted a stamp!
Issue of the Times;
Shooting The Unarmed Man - The Fallacy Of Modern Perception
“He shot an unarmed man!”
How often have we heard those screams from an angry community? Trayvon Martin may be the first to come mind but it happens more often than most people think. Kansas City firefighter Anthony Bruno, unarmed and drunk, was shot and killed by an off duty police officer. And, of course, the most recent case of Michael Brown in St. Louis, Missouri.
The problem with the public outcry and the rioting in pursuit of “JUSTICE” is that most people know exactly nothing about physical combat and life threatening situations. They assume that if a person is unarmed that deadly force cannot and should not be employed. And they are wrong.
Have you seen the viral videos of “the knockout game?” Many of those videos involve one solid blow to the head that results in an unconscious victim. There is laughing and yelling and everyone runs away. Well, what if they didn’t want to stop there? What if the attacker decided that he would just kill someone today? He now has an unconscious, helpless victim to beat to death.
Take the case of Michael Fobbs as an example. He walked up to a man sitting on a bench and simply started hitting him repeatedly until the man was dead at an Amtrak station in Texas. Would that victim have been authorized the use of deadly force? Fobbs was unarmed.
Bear in mind that more people were beaten to death with hands and feet than were killed by so-called assault rifles in 2012. Those victims were not allowed to use deadly force simply because their attacker did not have a weapon? I think not. Laws on self defense seldom mention the use of a weapon. They are based on a reasonable fear that your life is in jeopardy, not the presence of a weapon in the hands of your attacker.
You may have missed the television programs on the science of fighting. In that series, Randy Couture was studied. In his well-known “ground and pound” method of dispatching an opponent, Couture was able to generate over 2,000 pounds of force in his downward blows to an opponent’s head. That’s the equivalent of dropping a car on your face. Trained fighters seldom take the full force of those blows because they are moving and defending with their own arms and hands but what if the victim was not a trained fighter? Couture, and any other trained fighter, could kill you with just a couple of blows to the head.
The rise in popularity of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and MMA style sports has also added new weapons to the attacker’s hands only arsenal. Have you ever been choked out? In MMA sports, the defender can “tap out” or the referee can end the fight and pull the attacker off of you. In the real world, you will be choked until you die. That’s a real fight.
So, if your attacker is unarmed and gets you in a choke, is that it? You’re just going to let yourself die because you won’t use lethal force against an unarmed opponent? How about if you are on your back being hammered in the face and you are moments away from losing consciousness and eventual death? Just going to accept your fate? I seriously doubt that.
I’m not. If I’m armed, I’m going to kill you. Dead.
If a cop walks up to someone out of the blue, draws his pistol, and shoots them dead in the street, that’s one thing. But, shooting an unarmed assailant during a fight in the street is another. You do not know the intentions of the attacker and cannot allow yourself to be overpowered or knocked unconscious. You will only be another statistic.
You also have no idea if your attacker IS armed and they just haven’t used their weapon yet. You can’t wait until you are unable to defend yourself to find out. I suspect most of you reading this would not. So, why are we judging a police officer who makes the same decision you would make under the same circumstances?
Get a reality check, folks.
Quote of the Times;
“There never was a man of heroism and virtue who did not contemplate Death.”
Link of the Times;
http://www.returnofkings.com/88093/soviet-defector-yuri-bezmenov-accurately-predicted-how-america-would-decline
Several animals were savagely beaten in the making of this page, including but not limited to; kittens, rabbits, zebu, skunks, puppies, and platypus. Also several monkeys where force fed crack to improve their typing skills.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.