I visited an old friend, who held my arms and wondered, what stories they could tell? So many years, so much pain….
And She held me tighter…..
Most people have Scars, physical and mental, and I have a few, as some of you know,
But let’s take a tour of a lifetime, a Tradesman, in this case, my arms. In my time, safety wasn’t all that big, we took chances, and sometimes we just needed paper Towels and Duct tape, other times oops, we got some stitches, but we didn’t care, we were Young and bulletproof.
It was odd at first, getting cut all the time, HvAC and being a Tin knocker will get you, if you are good, bloody if you aren’t, and the scars begin…
The time I tossed a roof jack up to my Friend, he missed, 15 stitches and 2 staples,
When I stapled my hand to a Floor joist,
One unit, a Frost burn on one hand, and a heat burn on the other, Burns hurt!
Intentionally cutting the last piece of ductwork, knowing you would be cut, Paper towels and duct tape at the ready, We watched the blood pool, very cool! And while all that was happening..20 stitches and 2 staples….
Dubz was a 100 pound Rottweiler/Pitbull mix, Big like Daddy, and very Tough, I wore my my Big jacket so she didn’t tear my arms off, but she still got through, scars again, worth every one, a great dog, Then of course came My Bella,
By this time my arms are getting used to the bleeding and scars, and I just don’t care, everything is sharp and wants to cut me, so I bring a towel..
I get cuts working in and out of machines every day, large and small, as I age, my skin has become thin and easy to slice, so I watch out, but still…
XP
Swing Life Away
I had a Beautiful Dog once, and now I’m crying, but anyway, what a shark! She fought hard, and gave me some new scars and in the end, my scars are my memories. Wendy is in a box behind my shoulder, with her Dog atop it all. I still work full time and bleed a lot, more scars to add I suppose but….
Every scar is a memory, a memento of my long life as a builder, the good, the sad, the painful and joyous,
I make the World run, Without people like us, the Builders, Maintainers, Sanitation, and Service, The world would fall apart,
I’ll take my scars,
if you are interested, there is more,
https://photos.app.goo.gl/7g3CyLAqWqqVNwMt7
Bonus:
I am rather thin as some of you know, and I am very useful in tight locations, such as under a 5000 gallon mixer,
Tight spot
This is the kind of spot you crawl in forward, and Back out, upside down,
Stainless Heaven
And that’s about it for this trip, til the next one,
Come in here, dear boy, have a scar
You’re gonna go far, you’re gonna fly
You’re never gonna die
You’re gonna make it if you try
They’re gonna love you
I call it riding the gravy Traaaain!
The Doc knows.
I knew I recognized that song.
Oh fer fucks sake it said my last link was no good……….you get it twice.
Howdy Yusef,
I had lines like that on my forearms one time. my arms looked like roadmaps, they itched mercilessness. My forearms were bright red, I thought maybe poison ivy, only I have very little around my house and I avoid it. After about a week or 10 days I went to the local clinic, doctor had no idea, as he walked me out another doctor walked by, and he was asked.
His answer, “I don’t know, could be Lyme disease, get a blood test” I got a blood test but in those days it was a week turnaround,(maybe the clinic wasn’t big enough to do their own testing. Anyway, a week later test results were back and I had Lyme disease. Got the antibiotics and within hours the itching stopped.
Had Lyme disease again last year but it was a text book case, saw the doc, pills and it was gone. Lots of scars but mostly fade with time.
Mine are all pure scars, XP baby! I am however worried about ticks and Lyme disease due to where I play Disc, we are in Ticklandia all the time,
“Ticklandia” kind of works for a place name. Not terribly appealing though.
When I have to work at an artillery range in tick country out east, I wear 4 flea collars: one per wrist and one per ankle.
Watch out for those bullseyes!
Lyme sucks. I had the typical bullseye radiating from a tick bite. Felt like shit for a couple days and was lethargic for what felt like a month.
It can have reoccurring affects, similar to malaria.
Um…great to hear you’ve a survivor who keeps on tickin’ like the (probably scarred) Energizer Bunny.
Now I mixed up my commercials.
…going and going.
I seem to be quite Bulletproof, til Cancer says, Hi!
Try to knock it off….
/Bob Conrad for Energizer
But I already made the good clean food!
I’d love to trade scars with folks.
My shoulder has two, but looks like one.
My right knee has a nice one.
Best is the one that runs from my crotch to my sternum. Bob: “They gutted you like a fish!”
Mine are all from surgeries except one or two childhood mishaps.
Ouch!
Why did Mrs. Hobbit do that to you?
From the last one:
Last died for freedom? I’d say Kuwait and asterisks for Iraq and Afghanistan.
Last died for our freedom? Mexican Expedition with an asterisk for WWII
“Mexican Expedition with an asterisk for WWII”
1. Not our fight,
2. Everyone else was doing it, why not jump in?
Disagree, the Mexican Expedition wasn’t. Mexican bandits were repeatedly invading the US and killing US citizens on US soil. WWII- Japanese attacked and occupied US territories.
a bunch of Mexican GangBangers? no issue, Vene, Vidi, Vici,
Oh-ra-le!
American lives were taken/threatened? What was our interest in Kuwait/Iraq/Afghanistan? The US is not the police force of the world.
WW2 we were attacked. War is justified. Name another. 1812? Struggling, here.
WW2 was an exception, we had the immediate threat of the Japs, the first threate of Hitler, and the long term threat of Stalin a lot to juggle,
I agree: no way American interests weren’t seriously threatened by a Nazi takeover of all of Europe, which seemed plausible. Even Britain joined WWII before being directly attacked themselves. They knew it was coming (well, some of them did.)
I agree, however your question was died for freedom not specifically our freedom, which is why I divided my answer into two parts.
I agree with Gustave on Kuwait. That was the first time since the formation of the UN that one member state invaded and absorbed another. All the UN “I’s were dotted and T’s were crossed” as part of a large coalition. We freed the state of Kuwait.
Afghanistan was a righteous invasion and taking down of a government that enabled a significant attack on the American homeland. We should have wrapped it up and been gone by 2005 IMHO.
Korea was saving one state from invading and absorbing another. I think the ROK’s have bene able to defend themselves without us for some time.
WWII we were attacked by two ferocious countries. That was for freedom.
Grenada and Panama? Both countries are happy we freed them. Grenada at least had a fig leaf of rescuing US citizens. Panama much less so.
Good analysis, in and out is hard for us though, we keep seeing money,
The other obstacle to “in and out” is that we try to play by rules in asymmetric warfare with forces that have no qualms about using any and all means to win, and to them winning can simply mean demoralizing the US military and the public at large.
The troops who’ve lost buddies and have been injured themselves have a hard time letting the Afghanistan and Iraq wars end in this inconclusive way, even after 17-20 years, because it’s terribly painful for those sacrifices to mean nothing.
That’s the only real reason we’re still there, and it’s just not a good enough one to keep losing troops.
It’s heartbreaking.
War is hell.
WWII we were attacked by two ferocious countries.
We were attacked by one. Germany declared war, but really didn’t present much threat beyond the Atlantic theater of submarine warfare. The Nazi declaration of war was a colossal mistake, but far from their only one of those. It’s rather strange that our first action against Germans was in North Africa – not exactly either nation’s turf.
North africa was so green american troops could get experience against seasoned german troops but had supply prooblems. The american military went from about 100,000 soldiers to 7 million soldiers in a few years. Many soldiers were city boys who never held a gun.
“Seasoning” the Troops.
Carried over from the last.
In the early days of Viet Nam we were mislead to believe in Eisenhower’s domino theory. First VN, then one by one the rest of SE Asia and finally Korea and Japan. I don’t remember ever hearing that the war was about American freedom.
Those like me, too young to remember Korea, just wanted to go and kick some ass. Young people are stupid. For some, like me, it offered opportunities that peacetime didn’t. Promotions, excitement.
Movie title should have been “We Were Young and We Were Stupid”
I’m not disparaging the troops, we were believers. A lot of people did heroic things, a lot of young men and women died for Ike, JFK and LBJ. I’m still bitter.
My second tropical vacation began my questioning of authority, the seeds planted in what became my quest and then journey to libertarianism. By that time I was 34 years old.
Ike and Ridgeway said no to bailing out the French at/after Dien Bien Phu.
JFK promised that we would bear any burden; LBJ subsequently was snowed by Taylor, McNamara and Bundy, and feared the charge of losing VN as China was allegedly lost.
Dont forget, south korea and vietnam asked us to help them. There is more to it but there was probably a sound strategy to fighting the commies to prevent them from taking even more countries. Commies controlling more countries would theoretically make Americas position to resist communism harder.
People underestimate what COMINTERN wanted. Total communism world domination. fDR gave in to Stalin about eastern europe and stalin took absolute control of those countries.
Im not saying endless war is a good idea, but freedom isnt free. We are probably going have to fight the chinese commies because their goal is to take over territory. America being who we are just means tyrants like the commie chinese want to break us and turn us into slaves.
Plus we have a growing religious war on the horizon between muslims and nonmuslims. We are infidels after all.
I would say WWdos
I’m thinking of that Simpson’s episode. War is wrong. Exceptions: American Revolution, Civil War, World War Two.
Now I suppose they’d strike the Am. Revolution from the list and add the imposition of the left-wing Aristide on Haiti.
At the same time, the soldier’s business is not jus ad bellum, but jus in bello.
I asterisked WWII because Europe was mostly due to the fuck up of WWI and conflict with Japan was escalated in part due to our growing empire of overseas territories and paternalism in China, along with enslavement of free Americans for over a year prior to actual hostilities, and embrace of fascism with American characteristics as “necessary” to win.
Read, “Human Smoke”. Hitler was a monster, but it was assholes all the way down.
No disagreement on that, but does Hitler become anything beyond a failed artist if WWI went on a different path without US involvement?
And Stalin wasn’t much better but he was our guy.
Read The Second Crusade. We dealt with monsters in WW2. I got so enraged that I couldn’t finish it.
America’s Second Crusade.
I thought I downloaded a free copy but cannot find it on the net.
https://archive.org/details/AmericasSecondCrusadeWilliamHenryChamberlin
The Treaty of Versailles almost guaranteed WWII.
One strategy for America is to pull all troops from overseas and use our oceans to deter invaders.
Neocons tend to want America to be involved in endless conflict for various reason.
Unfortunately, with ICBMs America needs to maintain good relationships with allies and maybe stopping aggressive tyrnats before they get too strong might be a sound strategy. Point is, its a complex issue and its in America’s interests for world peace, which we have technically had since WWII.
Im more mad with ignorant Americans who dont know history and our shitty schools who dont teach kids the basics of the dangers of communism/Party of slavery.
Our corrupt leaders and elitist commies trying to run things use patriotic Americans to die for causes not stated. This is probably going to backfire on Lefties during this civil war 2.0 and cold war 2.0. There are large populations of war on terror vets who know how a lot about IEDs. The kungflu hysteria supply problems to cities illustrated that Lefties in cities will starve in less than 30 days after they are surrounded by patriots.
Here is the thing, people with the luxury of freedom should feel the need to share it. As the more you share it, the more yours is secured.
If your neighbor is getting ass-raped, is it ok to intervene? Or should you just let it go? Not in your house. NAP you know? Or wait until the rapist convince all of your neighbor it’s okay to do it until they come for you before you say no?
The question shouldn’t be when did we (Western Nation) entered war to save freedom, but where did we lost our ways into re-construction.
Good post. Reminds me of that one cheesy Mel Gibson movie. I have plenty too.
Pretty sure I skated with Salba, yesterday. I wrote a post about it. Maybe it’ll get posted. Is he a short guy, with a big nose and fucking huge kneepads? He had a goatee, which doesn’t seem to be in his online pics. Didn’t skate crazy hard either, but he was with a bunch of young’ns. He did alright, better than me, for sure. All grey. Used his kneepads to good effect a few times.
That’s SteveO, He taught me how to slide on your pads instead of just fall, did you get to pop out onto the Flat? Crazy fun there,
No, but it was a big story. It’s all in the post. I was beat by all the hiking. Probably did it the hard way. Hit about 3:30/8:30 at best. Kid was almost as good. Crazy fun!
Cool! can’t wait to see it, sadly, there is no skating here, but lot’s of other cool stuff,
Represent!
Skate parks are why we just a few states east of you envied CA when we were growing up. Even now they are few and far between and the kids have to wait for snow to get in a pipe. At least on this side of the state.
Glad to have grown up and raised my kids in SoCal, Glad I’m gone,
Still miss it…
We didn’t have skate boards but we had a lake, boats and knee boards and would surf them. We also had rivers, a bridge, rope and plywood so we made river skim boards. That among other idiotic things that involved wheeled things.
They are literally everywhere out here now. They are mostly free, too. What a world! When I was first skating, we didn’t have any. When they finally arrived they cost like 5 bucks an hour to ride in and had mandatory pads/helmets. We mostly skated pools when we could. Now, we go to Pedlow and sneak in under the fence and skate all day for free in one of the best bowls I’ve ever seen. I appreciate it even more after skating Baldy.
Old School! hop that fence! just have your getaway vehicle ready!
Love it you and your kid are doing that. Write more stories about it!
Ya’ll better not laugh at the pic of skinny assed me wailing away at around 4:30, is all I’m saying. Assuming my pics actually show up in it. They wouldn’t upload, so I posted links to google photos.
Except for the stingray scar, all of mine look cooler than their backstories are.
None on my arms are too bad, but there are just so many, it’s amazing,
Most of my scars have gone away or are really diminished. This brings me back to my impeccable health and natural immunity theory. Recent ones include the pulled pork incident.
The only scars that count are mental, I have them, may as well go on…..
We all do, and amen.
I have a scar from when I was five. Got scratched by a cat on my left wrist from the center inside towards the thumb. then another from when I was removing my swingarm from my first bike at about age 19, from the inside center towards the pinky. Very symmetrical. They are faint now, but still visible.
Must…resist…temptation…
Must…resist…
Ah, temptation overcame me!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I47floRRAFs
I had this from the first sentence.
Much better Nugent.
Yes, and if those other songs get in my way…
Scar comparisons eh?
I was going to post that very clip upthread.
My most impressive scar is from my 2007 CABG . If people ask about it, I do the Hooper thing, only substituting Kathleen Mavourneen for Mary Ellen Moffitt.
I need a catchy name for an upcoming festival. The beer is a blackberry berliner weisse.
Mildly profane is workable.
Blackberry FuckFest?
And, here is a good start.
I’m notoriously stuck in Middle School.
“Blackbutt buttfuck wiseass”
Sorry.
Not sure how that one is going to play in boring Iowa.
Whoa Black Betty
I like it.
Bam-O-Lam!
ベッリベッリベルリンビール祭
Berrry Berry Berlin Beer Festival.
Baseball been berry berry good to me.
Ahh, so.
Blackberry Smoke. Plus they are a good band who puts on a solid live show.
Nice JaKe Shimabakura link last post. I seen him play …Weeps live a few years ago and the tone of the uke was beautiful.
Agreed on BlackBerry Smoke. They’ve go some good stuff.
Ich bin ein Berliner
Crossed my mind.
Black Weisse Matter
Also crossed my mind
Brom Beer.
Or, alternately, ‘Bramble and Roll’.
19 foot Prindle catamaran. The wind was nukin’. I forgot to put the diaper on. The diaper has a hook that hooks onto the ring on the trapeze line. The trapeze line goes to the top of the mast. I was sans-diaper, just hanging on the trapeze line. The wind gusted and lifted the pontoon out of the water, then died and slammed the pontoon down. I lost my footing but still held on to the trapeze line. As I slipped, the side stay anchor scraped my side from waist to armpit. We kept sailing because the wind was nukin’.
Same catamaran. Same YMCA summer camp. The main halyard clip broke. I take it up to the shop in wet swim trunks and wet moccasins. Welded it back together, but not before a piece of hot welding slag dropped down the moccasin.
Simon the Siamese cat. He used to sit between my shoulder blades when I did homework on the floor. He got in a fight with another of our foster cats. Sounded like he wanted to kill her. I grabbed him to separate them and he sunk his fangs into the fleshy part between thumb and pointer finger. He didn’t let go until I choked him unconscious. That was pretty much the end of fostering cats for a while.
I’ve heard chicks dig scars, but I’m not so sure.
I sailed a 16 footer for years, Diaper Needed! unless you want to be flung off the front as the boat porpoises, HAHA!
Sailed a Hobie once and capsized it. I’m a monohull guy. I respect people that can wring out small catamarans v
Generally prefer larger boats.
I’ve heard chicks dig scars, but I’m not so sure.
I thought they dug the long ball?
I got a few scars and some temporarily loose teeth sailing an International 14.
One ouch after another. It’s good that none of them killed you.
Tired and injured, see Y’all on the other side,
‘Night!
Rest up.
I have my scars and wear them as one should. Some are from hard work, others hard play, and then a few from hard drinking and being young and dumb.
OT: I was worried about this
In the recent primary election, Pennsylvanians voted to amend the state Constitution and strip Governor Wolf of his power to declare endless emergencies and deprive the state’s citizens of their civil liberties. Disgusted by a tyrant in Harrisburg who has destroyed countless small businesses and devastated the state with his dictatorial decrees, Pennsylvanians stood up and spoke loudly and clearly.
End the lockdown. End the mask mandates. Return us to normal.
In response, the Pennsylvania state legislature, both houses of which are controlled by the GOP, is now proposing – to extend Wolf’s emergency declaration until at least October.
You read that correctly. They intend to extend the emergency.
?
Sigh…
This could literally be about almost any politician and any issue.
Representative democracy.
That is unbelievable. What does Team Red hope to get out of this?
Did they become evil once they were sworn in, or did they have the intent to abandon their constituents all along?
That random names out of the phone book method sounds better every day.
Nice write up Yusef, right up until this-
I make the World run, Without people like us, the Builders, Maintainers, Sanitation, and Service, The world would fall apart
That self important back slapping shit always bothers me, whether it’s teachers, politicians or truck drivers doing it. It’s some odd mixture of tautology and luddism, that without people doing “x” then “x” won’t get done (well no shit, Sherlock) and that “x” is the only way that some sort of issue can be addressed. I’m a builder, and if I may say so a pretty damn good one, but I am under no illusions that if I croaked tomorrow that any one of a hundred other builders wouldn’t finish what I started or that some of them would even do a better job of it. You/I/We don’t make the world run, the world running is what makes “us” (the royal “us”, the editorial “us”) do the things we do.
I think you are reading too deep into it. Really, the only job that matters is Telephone Sanitizer.
“Really, the only job that matters is Telephone Sanitizer.”
Fake Newz!
https://youtu.be/pMRUszqMVM8
I told a chick once that they named that album after me.
It didn’t work.
Whatever.
One of the best songs ever.
Anyone can spray Magnolia.
https://www.arrowmagnolia.com/product/telephone-booth-glass-cleaner/
This is one of my favorite reminders:
Just because you’re necessary doesn’t mean you’re important.
LOL the cheesy model really sells it.
My immediate response was, “oh, fuck you”.
You are familiar with Despair.com correct?
They’re the best! One year, we bought my boss a copy of this book for Boss’s Day or his birthday.
We don’t know how our kids will ever make it without us but they do.
I thought the army would fold when I left but somehow it still exists but seems to be crumbling. I knew it!
The company that I worked for still exists but it is seeing changes being made, as society changes. Maybe for the better, maybe not.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
If whatever I’m working on can’t continue after me, I fucked up.
I’ve been at several jobs where an “irreplaceable” employee left. You deal with it.
I do a ton at my company, unlikely they’ll get a single person to replace me when I quit/retire/expire. Nonetheless, they’ll deal when that happens.
I learned as a younger man that the more my subordinates knew the better for me. I could take a vacation, sneak a day off once in a while. As an example, I discussed the monthly P & L statements with every employee, left a copy with the store manager.
“If you want a pay raise here’s what you have to do” Employees feel better when they are included in the loop. When I visited a store I took the employees to lunch, leave the manager alone for a couple hours. In the evening I took the manager (and spouse) to dinner.
X was here before me and X will be there long after I’m gone.
The cemetery is full of indispensable people.
You would survive without me but those dick jokes aren’t gonna pop out of nowhere.
Without Hyperbole, who would be there to shit on a post written by a person who took the time to write and submit it for public viewing/reading?
Oh, that’s right—we don’t really need anyone doing that. At all.
Hey Hype! Go fix it yourself, if you think you can,
/Fuck Off
My god, you’re old.
I had to give up stripping due to some unfortunate scars.
https://youtu.be/YMGVMtnxXEw
Bloodhound Gang – A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying
Filled with angst and ennui while wearing lederhosen and smoking a Gauloise is how I prefer them
Casio VL-1 FTW
Yup. One of the best parts.
Thinking about the “when did a soldier last die for freedom?” question, I’m wondering if this guy counts?
A few months ago, I visited Beauvoir, the gulf-front home of Jefferson Davis in his last years. After his passing, the house became a home for confederate veterans and their widows. When they died, they were buried out back in what is now Beauvoir National Cemetery. As you may imagine, going by the place on Decoration Day would send your everyday SJW into apoplexy.
No one who ever fought on the losing side of a war or whose side didn’t support 2021 corporate progressive values deserves to be remembered.
This sort of thing is something that I have been struggling with. I am trying to figure out how to rectify my general respect for the sacrifice of soldiers writ large with my abhorrence for the causes they fought for.
Tulsi says it quite well.
https://mobile.twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1399040887129141249
Sounds like something a commie would say.
*sigh*
She’s great about so many things. And awful about a few important things.
I gotta assume you mean those workout videos.
Workout videos?
I was thinking more of her opposition to chronic capitalism and warmongering.
And then there’s her gun-grabbing and “free” college and “green” innumeracy…
“crony
Chronic capitalism is what Snoop engages in
Kronic Capitalism, yo.
Yes, all that in the first part too, but did you see her workout videos?
Anti war above all else. A non bloodthirsty leftist is a harmless oxymoron.
I have done some research – the workout videos are good, for a politician.
She’s a D.C. 9 (and I’m not talking about a plane)
I’m digging the chronic capitalism.
It’s got a certain something…
So much this.
That profile pic. Whatever happened to Glamour Shots?
Glamour.
And teeth.
Yeah, I did the Glamour Shots thing once…supposedly for my first husband, but really for myself. Still got ’em – down in the basement. (Well, one’s in the living room.) That was a loooooong time ago.
How about this: The Confederates extended the war until the North considered itself obliged to turn to emancipation as a goal in both theory and practice.
“Yup, if it hadn’t been for us holdin’ off the Yankees for so long, slavery would never have been abolished!”
My theory is that a big chunk of soldiers just don’t want their homeland to get invaded. For most of history, that entailed pillaging, massacres, and sexual enslavement of women. The United States government does terrible shit right now, but I’d fight for it in a heartbeat if there were a serious chance that we would get invaded and all the females I know were at risk of being raped.
And though I should have posted this hours ago, here’s my selection for a Memorial Day song.
It was actually written for a Mel Gibson movie, but it’s become a USMA concert standard.
To fallen soldiers let us sing
Where no rockets fly nor bullets wing
Our broken brothers let us bring
To the mansions of the Lord
No more bleeding, no more fight
No prayers pleading through the night
Just divine embrace, eternal light
In the mansions of the lord
Where no mothers cry
And no children weep
We shall stand and guard through the angels sleep
While through the ages safely keep
The mansions of the lord
Man! I’ve been getting tinnitus recently. It turns out you get it from NSAIDs. Fuckin bums me out. I live off of those things. Now, I gotta stop at least for awhile. I switch around between the three of them. Naproxen, Ibuprofin and acetaminophen. Thinking I am spreading out the damage to my various organs. Turns out all three cause the ringing in the ears. Just gotta get tougher, I guess.
Yes. And aspirin. Ask me how I know.
to answer your question: because it’s there.
I forgot the question.
I’m deaf as a coot but no tinnitus. I got off the Tylenol as soon as I could when I got home from the hospital. Sorry to hear that, BJ, my bee partner has the same problem.
One of the X-ray techs looked at my messed-up colon last summer and said to me, “Advil?”
Multiple docs told me, “Hey buddy, stop doing that”.
Haven’t touched it since.
It’s a case of what were once habits now are vices.
Yes, my gastroenterologist is sure my small bowel obstructions arose due to many years of daily motrin use.
This is what the human shits fighting the War on Opioids want for you.
In my case, they said it exacerbated the diverticulitis that was already present. Which sort of makes sense because I was only taking it for the pain there.
Wikipedia concurred, FWIW.
A little late, but here it is . . .
Golden Ribbons
Oh, Kinnath is premium member.
The Statler Brothers ~ “More Than A Name On A Wall”
https://youtu.be/56gy0Moqffo
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/30/opinion/memorial-day-covid-national-service.html
Nevertheless, the need for some nonmartial way to nurture communitarian qualities is more urgent now than ever. We have lately been reminded of the absolute necessity for Americans to be motivated by warm fellow feeling across divides of region, race, class, politics, religion, age, gender or ability; to cultivate a sense of common purpose; to make sacrifices for the sake of others. And that reminder came in the form of watching what happens when such qualities are absent, even anathema, in whole regions of the country.
Lied to by the president of the United States and egged on by craven commentators, many Americans staunchly refused to give up social gatherings, no matter that staying home was the best way to keep the virus from spreading. They refused to wear masks, and they mocked and harassed people who did. Some are, even now, rejecting a vaccine that could keep the virus from mutating into so many variants that there will be no hope of containing it. And they have done it all, they insist, because they are patriots.
That wasn’t supposed to be a quote…
You know, sometimes it’s helpful to walk yourself through your opponent’s reasoning process. You don’t have to agree; you just have to make some good faith effort to see how they got to that position. That paragraph above was a piss-poor summary of the anti-lockdown/mask beliefs.
So I’ll break it down for them: People saw one apocalyptic prediction after another that failed to come true. People saw all the lockdown/mask supporting politicians flaunting the rules in their private lives. People saw those authoritarians carve out a huge exception to the “no gatherings” rule for the BLM riots that were politically advantageous for them. People saw the charts that showed absolutely no correlation between lockdowns/masks and better outcomes. After a while, they get tired of this and say “fuck it – if these elitist assholes are just lying to us and milking this for their own benefit, I’m not following their stupid rules either.”
My choice
https://youtu.be/RCHSkXFB46g
This Memorial Day, we recall our national motto: “At least we aren’t [quite] Canada!”
“What the authorities are afraid of is that this ruse, and with it their own credibility and immunity, will be revealed by the likes of the Church of God in Aylmer: by places where people meet, sing, pray, and hug without getting sick and dying in droves; places where people, as an accident of their faith in man’s public duty to God and neighbor, expose the lie that dealing with a coronavirus requires trading away basic rights and freedoms.”
https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2021/05/a-struggle-for-public-worship-in-canada
Canada is fucked. Fake country in every word…
They just arrested three people about a mile from my house for refusing to leave a place ordered closed because they violated covid protocols. We are nipping on the great donut/hockey nation’s heels.
I took the political compass test.
https://imgflip.com/i/5bnq5e
The big problem with the political compass test was that they didn’t comprehend the possiblity of state mandated nontraditional values or the existence of shitty non-traditional values. Of course if they had studied the Social Reformers in the Progressives Era or what the Left actually thought about social issues at the time (gun control, nutritional guidelines, etc.) They would have realized this.
The problem with the test I took was that I didn’t really take it.
The problem with that test is what the creator took before making it.
The test are naval gazing. One step above personality tests on Facebook.
https://mobile.twitter.com/Samfr/status/1399091234287849475
Does Richard Cobden count as a populist to the Economist?
The middle and industrious classes of England can have no interest apart from the preservation of peace. The honours, the fame, the emoluments of war belong not to them; the battle-plain is the harvest-field of the aristocracy, watered by the blood of the people.
I’m in downtown LA tonight. It’s a ghost town. I don’t remember ever seeing it like this.
I haven’t been downtown at all the past year and a half. I imagine it’s a political statement of self locking down, or it’s because of the massive rise in crime. Either way, good luck!
Thanks. I’m at the Westin Bonaventure so it’s a good part of town. All the restaurants in the hotel are closed for Memorial Day. I’m pretty sure in the Before Times at least some of them would have been open.
Vanilla sky?
?
NY not LA, but you get the point.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=kagVPRjH0lE
It undoubtedly would have helped if I had seen the movie. Sorry I missed the reference.
Local dive bar -Sligo – was open and packed with maskless folks tonight. Loved seeing it.
?
Downtown LA was always a ghost town when I was growing up there.
I went about twenty five years without going down there (except for an occasional concert).
In the last ten years downtown has shown some life. There has been substantial residential development and a good number of restaurants opened. I was in LA the night before it shutdown. What I saw tonight was nearly the polar opposite.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/fee.org/articles/the-urban-origins-of-liberty/amp
So with the rebirth of the city came the rediscovery of liberty.
On the feudal manor or the clerical town, the liberty of the common man had no place. Only in the commercial society of the cities, which then as today attracted the ambitious, the talented, and the misfit, did liberty have a real meaning and substance. Only if you can “vote with your feet,” leave the manor or village to pursue your dreams, or simply travel (and have a reason to travel) from place to place, are you really free. That is what the city fundamentally represents. As the old saying goes,
Stadtluft macht Frei!
But “city air” didn’t simply make us free. It gave us the chance to think about freedom, as well as the means to articulate its philosophy and, in the dense social networks of cities, to spread the idea.
This aged well….
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal doesn’t get enough love here:
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/inflation
(Though his politics aren’t ours, obvs)
Legit lol. That was good!
Blackjack – fun story from…*cough* decades ago.
Was working at Play It Again Sports out in Chino and one of my work mates convinced our boss to sponsor us to go to the big ASR Convention down in San Diego. We scored a $300 budget and some passes.
We get down there and I always thought my work mate, who ended up being a really good friend, was full of poop on his “I know all the skaters”.
Once in the doors first booth we come upon Tony Hawk is doing something or another and my buddy says “You want to meet Tony?” Yeah like you know Tony. Next thing you know its “Hey Ryan! (not his real name) what’s up long time no see. Remember when we skated that blah blah blah.”
It went on and on with all the old school skaters there. On top of that, some new skate park opened up somewhere just outside San Diego and we stopped by just to look at it. The person opening for the day said sorry, we open in an hour. Somehow, buddy convinced the guys from Play It Again Sports that we were some big skaters and we got the whole park to ourselves.
Just thought I’d share a memory since your Baldy Pipeline one from earlier.
Patton didn’t kill himself.
Yusef, I enjoyed the write up very much. Thank you for letting us have a peek at, and under, your skin.
I agree with fourscore: it’s like a map of where you’ve been. Maybe some of where you’re going is recorded in there somewhere too.
Im betting the people who are advocating that all jobs should remain as telework do not have such scars.
And in answer to the questions others have posed, in general, yes, chicks dig scars. Not for their intrinsic beauty (there isn’t any) but for the implication of a story, a battle, an adventure, a journey into and back out of a crucible.
My meager scars are limited to a leg injury and several subsequent attempts to fix it, and one relatively new one to my lip, but it barely shows.
Thank you for sharing the pictures and stories.
I suppose it’s a bit late for this now, but be careful! 🙂
Thanks HE, I’m always careful, that’s why I’m still alive,
Stretch marks are hawt.
Just sayin’.
suh fam ?
Oh look, it’s SMOD
https://www.yahoo.com/potentially-hazardous-asteroid-size-space-201757371.html
…and just like that, it’s gone! 😉 (For some reason, had to do a quick search, but found it pronto.)
Oh, MAAAAAAN! Can’t it wait until AFTER our weekend anniversary getaway? 🙁
I had to deliver Jugsy to the airport a couple hours ago, and Im blind, stinking, sober.
Suppose I could do some shit around the crib.
Covfefe! Try cleaning your house, I did, its amazing how nice it looks
The Palatial 2X-Wide is still in decent shape from when I cleaned Friday for Jugsy’s triumphant return.
Hell, there isnt even any dishes in the sink.
I’ll bet there’s a turd in a shoe, somewhere… Mornin’ Friends!
Morning, Glibs
Good morning, U! And Yu & Tres & Tulip!
How goes it this morn?
Well, other than going back to work and having to dive right into month-end stuff (the Board meeting is always the third Tuesday, and thus this month it’s as early as it gets,) very well! How goes it for you? Did you have a pleasant weekend?
I re-read “Beyond the Edge of the Map” and the completed portion of “On Unknown Shores” in order to get back in the mind of the characters.
Excellent! 😀
I’m ready to start a complete re-read of Prince start to finish. I think I’ll have an easier time keeping track of the dramatis personae this time.
Good. I need some idea how cohesive it is, since I wrote it over five years.
Oh, unrelated, I’m trying to figure out what Anton might name the Dread Alicorn…
I’ll ponder that. Gotta get to work!
Howdy to you and all the others early glibbies
And to you as well, Yu!
Had a nice, impromptu neighborhood cookout/gathering in our next-door neighbors’ “side-front” yard (the narrow bit between their driveway and our “side-front” yard.) Had the couple next door, the couple across the street from them and their adorable (quiet!) toddler, a couple from around the corner and their adorable (and mostly quiet) baby, Tom T & me – and a tiny elderly dog with one tooth whose tongue lolled out to the side so far that at first I thought he was eating a strip of raw bacon. They had grilled hot dogs & brats, and TT & I brought some Italian sausages, plus corn-on-the-cob right off the grill. Big fun! We’re so lucky to have good neighbors!
In other news, 25 years ago today, my ex, the Rev. GT, stood in front of Tom T and me officiating our wedding and to his everlasting credit, refrained from asking TT, “Are you sure??
We’re still sure.
And this second observance of our 25th – the first was in December to mark the day we made it legal. This is the day we threw the party. – will beat our first observance, when TT was in physical rehab after his Christmas stroke. (It was all good. He got to come home the next day.)
Happy second 25th anniversery
Thank you! That’s exactly what we call it. 🙂
25 years…ex Mrs. Tres and I only lasted 15.
Jesus H. Koresh- you’re old!
(congrats anyhow!)
Thanks for…most of that.
Now I know why I dont watch 2 news. This stupid bint was on doing traffic. She may weigh 90 lbs. At least someone in HR @ WHIO and I think along the same lines.
She apparently got dressed in a hurry. 😉
Yeah…that’s odd.
Her train of thought was way-laid by the station manager’s dick in her back-hole.
My Ex and I lasted five and it seemed longer than the 25 that Judi and I have built.
Congrats to you both, W and I made it past 31 years, hope you double it,
Thanks! 🙂
Congrats!
Awesome! Judi and I passed our Silver in April. We never tied the knot but the bond is strong. I’m happy for you both! Working through that many years deserves celebration. Opppaaaa!
Congrats on the second 25th.
Hey, Uncivil. IDK if you’ve seen this already but I thought it was fun; Snipe & Wib discuss the first Space Marine. https://youtu.be/Chvv55ITo3A
I have not, because I find it difficult to listen to their voices.
Regarding the scar thing, a couple of the worst that I own on my arms are from tin-work as an untrained kid. I have shit-loads all over me from sports and general yahooery. I’m proud of most of them and probably wish I’d been a little more careful, especially now that I’m reaching my “golden years”. You should see the state of my knees…
Crap. All my best comments are at the tail-end of the overnighters and then I start getting too pissed. I envy the day-walkers.