On my parents’ first anniversary in April of 1945, they went to dinner and dancing and cocktails at the Rhythm Room in LA’s Hotel Hayward.  Later that spring night, I have it on good authority, I was conceived.

In that spring the world was still engulfed in war. In that spring, Germany was to unconditionally surrender and Roosevelt would die. At the end of April, Hitler would kill himself. In early May, Germany would surrender.  In June Okinawa was finally taken. Then, on July 16:

As the countdown reached 10 seconds, Griesen suddenly blurted out to his neighbor Rabi, “Now I’m scared.” Three, two, one, and Sam Allison cried out, “Now!” At precisely 5:30 a.m. on Monday, July 16, 1945, the nuclear age began. While Manhattan Project staff members watched anxiously, the device exploded over the New Mexico desert, vaporizing the tower and turning the asphalt around the base of the tower to green sand. Seconds after the explosion came to a huge blast wave and heat searing out across the desert. No one could see the radiation generated by the explosion, but they all knew it was there. The steel container “Jumbo,” weighing over 200 tons and transported to the desert only to be eliminated from the test, was knocked ajar even though it stood half a mile from ground zero. As the orange and yellow fireball stretched up and spread, a second column, narrower than the first, rose and flattened into a mushroom shape, thus providing the atomic age with a visual image that has become imprinted on the human consciousness as a symbol of power and awesome destruction.

Trinity 15 Seconds After Detonation

In July Winston Churchill would be voted out of office in England. In August, the nukes would incinerate Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In September, Japan would unconditionally surrender.  In December I was born into a world at peace 77 years ago. In that December, the world was at peace for the first time since 1939. The American soldiers who had survived would come home and the peace would begin. As on the day after Christmas so would I.

It was quite a year, or so I have been told. With the peace, the world had certainly had enough of war. With the advent of nuclear weapons, the world had certainly seen the end of war.

Oh really?

Sort of.

So far. . . .

The rest of this strange meditation can be found Here for paid members at The New American Digest. If you haven’t subscribed, please do. It makes my work possible and inspires me. Thank you.

As Communists, the Chinese do not disappoint.

China evidently has its new Caesar. Is ours among us, in the wings, or yet to appear?

CROWS AND CONSERVATIVES || DR STRANGE BIDEN || CONTROLLED BURNS IN SPAIN || FRESH TROOPS FOR UKRAINE || CRYSTAL DAGGERS || DRAG QUEENS || VOODOO DOLLS || BLOOD COLLAGES

We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives  Put bluntly, if conservatives want to save the country they are going to have to rebuild and in a sense re-found it, and that means getting used to the idea of wielding power, not despising it. Why? Because accommodation or compromise with the left is impossible. One need only consider the speed with which the discourse shifted on gay marriage, from assuring conservatives ahead of the 2015 Obergefell decision that gay Americans were only asking for toleration, to the never-ending persecution of Jack Phillips.

https://twitter.com/fasc1nate/status/1582923351215206401

Dr. Strange Biden |    It is a well-known aspect of regime psychology to project what they are doing or plotting onto some enemy of the regime. In 2016 we got the Russian collusion hoax in which Trump was accused of plotting with foreigners to rig the election. What we eventually learned is that it was the regime that was working with foreign intelligence services to not only rig the election but undermine the Trump administration. The opposite rule is an iron law of understanding regime behavior. . . .

Recent actions in the Ukraine make clear that the

Russian plan is to rely on conventional forces to finish off the Ukrainian army. Despite Covid-like narratives in Western media, the Ukrainians have not been winning. Their army has been slowly and methodically depleted. This next phase aimed at making it more difficult for Ukraine to function at all will be followed by fresh offensives. This time there will be a quarter million fresh Russian troops, rather than militias.

A controlled burn in Spain with fire crews setting pollen alight at a popular park, revealing lush grass underneath. pic.twitter.com/5JeWOPuhN9

— Fascinating (@fasc1nate) October 19, 2022

https://twitter.com/fasc1nate/status/1582726091826831360

https://twitter.com/fasc1nate/status/1582897936710926342

Another Bay Area House Party –   My theory is – you know how sometimes you hear a really catchy song, and it’s in your head for days?…. My theory is that this never really stops. You hear a catchy song, it runs in a loop in your brain, and even when you consciously forget about it, there are still some brain cells dedicated to looping it, all the time. Over time you learn more and more catchy songs, and more and more of your brain is devoted to looping them. By the time you reach 70 or 80, maybe half of your brain is playing jingles from old commercials again and again, and you don’t have that much left to think with.”

https://twitter.com/fasc1nate/status/1582943979607576582

Nose Hair Extensions Are The Newest Beauty Craze and I Wish I Was Kidding

2100 year old Ecuadorian infants buried wearing 'helmets' made from the skulls of other children. pic.twitter.com/egdJNAVtbK

— Stone Age Herbalist (@Paracelsus1092) October 22, 2022

Volunteers in #Leith cleaning up the river found a box of voodoo dolls 😲😳#Edinburgh #Voodoo #Scotland https://t.co/eiB4JmnMKF pic.twitter.com/Aw8ydeHVus

— Mac :: Scotland (@MacScotland4) October 6, 2022

TX AG Calls For Prosecution Over Drag Queen’s Sexually Explicit Performance In Front Of Child |    The event in question featured a drag performer singing “My p*ssy good, p*ssy sweet. P*ssy good enough to eat” and “F*ck me all night” in front of a young girl while flashing underwear at the audience and simulating a sex act. Adults in the crowd cheered and threw money at the performer while the child watched quietly.

WARNING: EXPLICIT VIDEO OF THIS EVENT IS ON THE NEW AMERICAN DIGEST.  PLUS THREE TIMES AS MANY ITEMS. FOR MEMBERS. THANK YOU ALL.

The Gift Outright
by Robert Frost

The land was ours before we were the land’s.
She was our land more than a hundred years
Before we were her people. She was ours
In Massachusetts, in Virginia,
But we were England’s, still colonials,
Possessing what we still were unpossessed by,
Possessed by what we now no more possessed.
Something we were withholding made us weak
Until we found out that it was ourselves
We were withholding from our land of living,
And forthwith found salvation in surrender.
Such as we were we gave ourselves outright
(The deed of gift was many deeds of war)
To the land vaguely realizing westward,
But still unstoried, artless, unenhanced,
Such as she was, such as she would become.

— Delivered at the Kennedy Inauguration

Four Presidents at the Inauguration of JFK: (left to right) Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon

Why Robert Frost Didn’t Get to Read the Poem He Wrote for John F. Kennedy’s Inauguration – 

On the morning of the inauguration, January 20, 1961, Frost presented the poem to incoming Secretary of the Interior Stewart L. Udall in his hotel room. Pleasantly surprised, Udall had a new copy typed up before whisking Frost off to the ceremony with the poet intending to read “Dedication” as a preamble to “The Gift Outright.”

The inauguration unfolded on a sunny but bitterly cold day at the U.S. Capitol. Approximately one hour in, Frost made his way to the podium and began reading “Dedication,” but soon stopped: the sun’s glare, reflecting off the snowy ground, was far too bright for a pair of 86-year-old eyes.

Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson tried to block the sun with his hat, but Frost abandoned the effort altogether and began reciting “The Gift Outright” from memory.

Heeding Kennedy’s request, he closed the short poem with his own added emphasis: “Such as she was, such as she would become, has become, and I – and for this occasion let me change that to – what she will become.”

Somedays I just can’t help thinking the whole country has contracted BrainCovid™ from exposure to Brandon.

Far-called, our navies melt away;
On dune and headland sinks the fire:
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!
— — Kipling

And yes it’s a true story. Keep the Faith.

Stick around for the “Credits.”

Vile couple are arrested after throwing kitten like a FRISBEE off Florida beach and demanding $1,000 to stop – cat survived and is adopted by rescuer

A couple is facing charges after they were filmed torturing a small kitten while swimming at a local beach – throwing the helpless animal feet in the air like a pool toy and into the shoulder-deep water.

When approached by outraged onlookers, the suspects, 27-year-old John Laguerre and Jamarria Wayne, 22 – joked and demanded $1,000 from the Good Samaritans just to stop.

‘They were throwing her like this into the water,’ Miami resident Natalia Martin recalled of the abuse, which spurred her to rise up from her towel and confront the kitten’s attackers. ‘They were trying to make her swim and the cat was so scared, she was passing out already. She was half alive.’

However, upon approaching the young couple – who was filmed wading in the Florida waves as Laguerre clutches the limp kitten with one hand – Martin was rebuffed by the couple, who allegedly began to intimidate the woman.

‘The guy started being so aggressive towards me,’ Martin told Local10 of the ensuing standoff.

‘He starts stepping up,’ she said of Laguerre’s response to being reprimanded during the episode, which occurred on September 24.

‘He says, ‘Hey, look, this is my cat. This is not your business. I can do what I want,’ she said. . . .

Eventually, police approached the couple about breaking the ‘no animals on the beach’ rules, and asked them to leave the premises.

That’s when, according to a police report, Laguerre resisted arrest, hurling profanities at officers while defying their orders to vacate the beach without incident.

The woman, meanwhile, reportedly screamed at the officers, threatening them and saying she would ‘bite them,’ cops wrote.

Eventually, matters escalate to the point where the encounter became physical, forcing eight officers to force down the resisting pair on the sands of the beach and put them in handcuffs. . .

‘I took this cat. I adopted her officially two days after this incident,’ Martin said.

She has since found a new home for the kitten, who did not sustain any visible injuries.

The case against Laguerre and Wayne is currently ongoing.

======================== ***** ========================

Meanwhile, in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg (Not Florida) Russia, cats are doing God’s work daily:

Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg houses one of most important art collections in the world. Since it's creation, museum has had an exceptional vigilante patrol; 70 felines that chase away rodents, thus ensuring the integrity of works.#archaeohistories pic.twitter.com/SD4PWWTTcP

— Archaeo – Histories (@archeohistories) October 20, 2022

https://twitter.com/fasc1nate/status/1580626357847216128

Who, if I cried out, would hear me among the Angelic
Orders? And even if one were to suddenly
take me to its heart, I would vanish into its
stronger existence. For beauty is nothing but
the beginning of terror, that we are still able to bear,
and we revere it so, because it calmly disdains
to destroy us. Every Angel is terror.
And so I hold myself back and swallow the cry
of a darkened sobbing. Ah, who then can
we make use of? Not Angels: not men,
and the resourceful creatures see clearly
that we are not really at home
in the interpreted world.
Rilke — Duino Elegies

Biblically Accurate Angels Would Actually Be Pretty Scary   Malakim are said to be the closest depiction of human beings. However, they are not mentioned in the Bible as beings with wings. Indeed, the earliest known Christian image of an angel, from the mid-third century, depicted them as human-like beings without wings.

This image, however, changed in the late fourth century as artists reimagined angels with wings to represent their sublime nature, even though the scripture makes no mention of wings. . . . .

“Their entire bodies, including their backs, hands, and wings, were full of eyes all around, as were their four wheels.” (Ezekiel 10:12)

Ophanim, or “the wheels,” are one of the strangest, most bizarre beings referenced in Ezekiel’s vision. They’re portrayed as beings made of interlocking gold wheels, with every wheel adorned with numerous sets of eyes on the exterior. These wheels, however, do not change directions as the creatures move by floating in the skies. . . . .

“God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” suggests that God creates beautiful things, why are angels made to be terrifying rather than beauty incarnate?

One theory is that humans would find angels terrifying because we would not be able to comprehend their eldritch forms. They’re mighty creations that stand by and are of service to God. As a result, when angels appear to us, their presence can emit their powerful presence.

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Who would 54% of voters vote for? “Someone else.” Then there’s Milton Friedman.

Can we, as they say, vote our way out of The Decline? Maybe, maybe not. But it is permitted to be vaguely amused on the way to the Egress.

[continue reading…]

Just for some perspective: this is what almost five years of hormones does to a teenage girl. Remember, I’m 21. pic.twitter.com/DZh1ycVt6O

— KC Miller (@KCMiller1225) October 9, 2022

S/he’s been there.

Eric S. Raymond is a UnixGod with no shortage of controversial ideas. That’s the nature of Unix Gods. Strip the t-shirt off a UnixGod and you’ll as likely find Mars as Jove. (Rarely, if ever, Venus.)

Curmudgeonly, scratchy, and brilliant, Raymond is the author of numerous articles and several books which have a wide influence outside the arcane field of Unix programming. His most well-known works are The Cathedral & the Bazaar and The New Hackers’ Dictionary AKA The Jargon File.

 Raymond’s most influential book to date is , The Art of Unix Programming which, according to Raymond,

attempts to capture the engineering wisdom and philosophy of the Unix community as it’s applied today not merely as it has been written down in the past, but as a living “special transmission, outside the scriptures” passed from guru to guru. Accordingly, the book doesn’t focus so much on “what” as on “why”, showing the connection between Unix philosophy and practice through case studies in widely available open-source software.”

[continue reading…]

“And the pale sun of October whispers the snow will soon be coming
And I wonder when I’ll be home again and the morning answers ‘Never’
And the evening sighs, and the steely Russian skies go on forever”

They crossed over the border, the hour before dawn
Moving in lines through the day
Most of our planes were destroyed on the ground where they lay
Waiting for orders we held in the wood
Word from the front never came
By evening the sound of the gunfire was miles away
Ah, softly we move through the shadows, slip away through the trees
Crossing their lines in the mists in the fields on our hands and on our knees
And all that I ever was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red, silhouetting the smoke on the breeze

All summer they drove us back through the Ukraine
Smolensk and Viasma soon fell
By autumn we stood with our backs to the town of Orel
Closer and closer to Moscow they come
Riding the wind like a bell
General Guderian stands at the crest of the hill
Winter brought with her the rains, oceans of mud filled the roads
Gluing the tracks of their tanks to the ground while the sky filled with snow
And all that I ever was able to see
The fire in the air glowing red silhouetting the snow on the breeze [continue reading…]

Now Playing for Members Only at the New American Digest: Spare Change which notes that:

“Change is just the drippings from money already spent; the sawdust from your logs of liquidity. Few would be willing to separate the coins and pack them into tubes as was the case in the Ancient of Days. Fewer still maintain their own change counting machines. It’s just not worth it since the dollar became the new dime sometime between 2008 and now.”

Join now for free at Spare Change

“The signs and the planets are lining up like before”

For an old bitch gone in the teeth,
For a botched civilization.

Charm, smiling at the good mouth,
Quick eyes gone under earth’s lid,

For two gross of broken statues,
For a few thousand battered books.
— Pound, 1920

[continue reading…]

David Horowitz (author) joins Dave Rubin to discuss the Communist Party, Black Panthers, his 1986 column ‘Why I am No Longer a Leftist,’ as well as his views on gay marriage, abortion, Islam, Donald Trump, and more.

This article first appeared in The Village Voice, September 30, 1986.

My life as a leftist began with a May Day Parade in 1948, when I was nine years old, and lasted for more than twenty-five years until December 1974, when a murder committed  by my political comrades brought my radical career to an end. My parents had joined the Communist Party along with many other idealistic Americans in the 1930s before I was born. Just as today’s leftists believe that the seeds of justice have been planted by the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua,  my parents and their radical friends saw them blooming in Soviet Russia, which many of them visited during Stalin’s purges. Not even the testimony of a Bolshevik legend like the exiled Trotsky could persuade them that they were deceived about the “new society” they thought they saw under construction in the socialist state. Confident that their own ideals were pure, my parents and their political friends dismissed Trotsky and others whose experience had caused them to know better, smearing them as “counter-revolutionaries,” “anti-Soviets” and “renegades.”

Twenty years later, when my parents had reached middle age, their arrogance betrayed them and took away their self-respect. In 1956 power shifted in the Kremlin, and my parents along with the rest of the progressive left discovered that the socialist future they had served all their lives was a monstrous lie. They had thought they were fighting for social justice, for the powerless and the poor.

“When Castro established his own dictatorship and gulag and joined the Soviet axis…. I averted my eyes from the truth.”

But in reality they had served a gang of cynical despots who had slaughtered more peasants, caused more hunger and human misery, and killed more leftists like themselves than all the capitalist governments since the beginning of time.

After Stalin’s death, it was the confrontation with this reality, and not Senator Joe McCarthy’s famous crusade, which demoralized and destroyed the old Communist guard in America. I was seventeen at the time, and at the funeral of the Old Left I swore to myself I would not repeat my parents’ fate. I would never be loyal to a movement based on a lie or be complicit in political crimes; I would never support a cause that required the suppression of its own truths, whether by self-censorship or firing squads or political smears. But my youth prevented me from comprehending what the catastrophe had revealed. I continued to believe in the fantasy of the socialist future. When a New Left began to emerge a few years later, I was ready to believe that it was a fresh beginning and eager to assist at its birth.

For a long time I was able to keep the promises I had made. As an activist and writer in the movement of the Sixties, I never endorsed what I knew to be a lie or concealed what I knew to be a crime. I never stigmatized a dissenting view as morally beyond the pale. At the same time, however, I closed my eyes to evidence that would have shown me the left had not really changed at all. Like the rest of my radical comrades, I welcomed Castro’s triumph in Cuba, which he proclaimed a revolution of “bread without terror” and “neither red nor black but Cuban olive green.” When Castro established his own dictatorship and gulag and joined the Soviet axis, I too blamed his dereliction on the anti-Communist phobia of the United States, and I averted my eyes from the truth.

[continue reading…]