— WHEN in the course of human Events, it becomes necessary….

Jim Daniels vs Ghostsniper: You Bring Out the Boring White Guy in Me

by Vanderleun on September 22, 2022

Standard Issue Boring White Guy

You Bring Out the Boring White Guy in Me
the Ward Cleaver in me. The Pat Boone
in me. The K-Mart in me. The Slurpee
in me. The boiled hotdog in me. The mac
and cheese in me. The Tang in me.
You bring out the Hamburger Helper
in me. You bring out the Twinkie
in me. The Cheez Whiz in me.
You bring out the bowling trophy
in me. The student council in me.
The parliamentary procedure in me.
The missionary position in me.
You bring out the canned vegetables
in me. The Jell-o in me. The training
wheels in me. You bring out
the lawn edger in me. The fast-food
drive-thru window in me. The Valu
Meal in me. You bring out the white
briefs in me. You bring out
the cheap beer and weak coffee
in me. You bring out the 15%
tip chart in me. The sad overweight
weekend golfer in me. You bring out
the ex-smoker in me. The jumper
cables in the trunk with flares
and the red flag to tie to the window
in me. You bring out the Tony Orlando
in me. The canned situation comedy
laughter in me. The elevator music
in me. You bring out the medley
of TV commercial jingles in me.
The Up with People in me.
I’ve come to a complete stop
at the stop sign. I’ve got my
emergency flashers on. My doors
are locked, baby,
I’m waiting for you.

—Jim Daniels, 2003

ghostsniper responds:

This country, and that article above, seem to be obsessed with food. Have you noticed? Of course, you do. I remember back in the ’50s, ’60s, and even ’70s, everybody was skinny. Everybody. Now? The opposite.

When I venture out into society I marvel at the size of people. My wife and I chowed down at 5 Guys burger and fries recently in Bloomington and we each had a junior burger and a small drink and split an order of small fries and still ended up throwing some away. Yet there we were surrounded by huge people engulfing enormous sums of graar as if they do it every day.

Here in the compound, we don’t eat 3 meals a day and never have. We have 1 meal, our supper, a very light lunch, and no breakfast. Lunch might be half a sandwich or a small portion of leftovers, or a piece of fruit. Lately, because they have been in abundance, I’ll scarf down a pair of medium size locally grown tomatoes out on the side porch, and throw the cores to the wild creatures. If I’m feeling froggy I’ll take a salt shaker with me but usually not. They is good as is.

I think easy access to “fast” food causes lazy people to magnetize to it. Prior to 5 Guys I don’t remember the last time we ate that stuff. Maybe a month or more. Maybe 2 months. The closest joint is about 7 miles from here, a McDonalds – which I’ve eaten at exactly twice since we moved here 12 years ago and didn’t care for it, and after that, some serious driving must occur to get some. So fast food doesn’t happen much around here. And we’re not much into the more regulated sit-down type of restaurants, which to are long distances away.

So it’s routine to eat maybe 1500 calories a day, my wife eats less, around here. With the constant physical movement, it gets burned all day too. We only drink 2 things, filtered water, and coffee, made with filtered water. I stopped buying soft drinks about 8 years ago and maybe 3 times a year I’ll drink a cold tea. I had a green tea at 5 guys but couldn’t stand the fruitiness of it, so I only had a few swallows.

Snacks? Rarely. At least not sweet or salty junk-type snacks. My “breakfast” this morning was 2 strawberries. Yesterday I ate a banana. Don’t eat much in the morning cause it slows me down and I hate the backward drag. Just a strong cuppa mud 1st thing and then large quantities of water. I’ll also have mud midafternoon sometimes.

Driving thru a medium size ‘ville it’s stunning the number of cars at ALL the food joints is. How in the world do people afford that stuff? And why? Is it pure laziness? And look at the people that work in those places, the people touching all over their foods. -shiver- All tatted and pierced all over the place, I wouldn’t let them mow my yard. You can’t help to wonder about the diseases and lack of hygiene. Jayziss

We don’t watch much TV, no radio, no streaming, and little other exposure to modern media so we are not pummeled by advertising which might be a contributor to the inducement to consume food. But in the end, each person has to choose to put that construct in their head cave and accept the consequences. And there will be no argument from me about it, but I do wonder. [continue reading…]

{ 14 comments }

Why Did it Have to be … Guns? by L. Neil Smith

by Vanderleun on September 21, 2022

by L. Neil Smith

Over the past 30 years, I’ve been paid to write almost two million words, every one of which, sooner or later, came back to the issue of guns and gun-ownership. Naturally, I’ve thought about the issue a lot, and it has always determined the way I vote.

People accuse me of being a single-issue writer, a single-issue thinker, and a single-issue voter, but it isn’t true. What I’ve chosen, in a world where there’s never enough time and energy, is to focus on the one political issue which most clearly and unmistakably demonstrates what any politician — or political philosophy — is made of, right down to the creamy liquid center.

Make no mistake: all politicians — even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership — hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it’s an X-ray machine. It’s a Vulcan mind-meld. It’s the ultimate test to which any politician — or political philosophy — can be put.

If a politician isn’t perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash — for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything — without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn’t your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn’t genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody’s permission, he’s a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude — toward your ownership and use of weapons — conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn’t trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

If he doesn’t want you to have the means of defending your life, do you want him in a position to control it?

If he makes excuses about obeying a law he’s sworn to uphold and defend — the highest law of the land, the Bill of Rights — do you want to entrust him with anything?

If he ignores you, sneers at you, complains about you, or defames you, if he calls you names only he thinks are evil — like “Constitutionalist” — when you insist that he account for himself, hasn’t he betrayed his oath, isn’t he unfit to hold office, and doesn’t he really belong in jail?

Sure, these are all leading questions. They’re the questions that led me to the issue of guns and gun ownership as the clearest and most unmistakable demonstration of what any given politician — or political philosophy — is really made of.

He may lecture you about the dangerous weirdos out there who shouldn’t have a gun — but what does that have to do with you? Why in the name of John Moses Browning should you be made to suffer for the misdeeds of others? Didn’t you lay aside the infantile notion of group punishment when you left public school — or the military? Isn’t it an essentially European notion, anyway — Prussian, maybe — and certainly not what America was supposed to be all about?

And if there are dangerous weirdos out there, does it make sense to deprive you of the means of protecting yourself from them? Forget about those other people, those dangerous weirdos, this is about you, and it has been, all along.

Try it yourself: if a politician won’t trust you, why should you trust him? If he’s a man — and you’re not — what does his lack of trust tell you about his real attitude toward women? If “he” happens to be a woman, what makes her so perverse that she’s eager to render her fellow women helpless on the mean and seedy streets her policies helped create? Should you believe her when she says she wants to help you by imposing some infantile group health care program on you at the point of the kind of gun she doesn’t want you to have?

On the other hand — or the other party — should you believe anything politicians say who claim they stand for freedom, but drag their feet and make excuses about repealing limits on your right to own and carry weapons? What does this tell you about their real motives for ignoring voters and ramming through one infantile group trade agreement after another with other countries?

Makes voting simpler, doesn’t it? You don’t have to study every issue — health care, international trade — all you have to do is use this X-ray machine, this Vulcan mind-meld, to get beyond their empty words and find out how politicians really feel. About you. And that, of course, is why they hate it.

And that’s why I’m accused of being a single-issue writer, thinker, and voter.

But it isn’t true, is it?

Permission to redistribute this article is herewith granted by the author — provided that it is reproduced unedited, in its entirety, and appropriate credit given. lneil@lneilsmith.org

[This above is back because the election season is back. — GV]

{ 42 comments }

Just. Press. Play.

by Vanderleun on September 21, 2022

An annual reminder.

(With a 2022 addendum concerning Neal Foard, who wrote and made the above video. He’s not “big on Youtube” nor is he an “influencer.” But he is important as are many others like him. . . .)

Hebrews 13 2 Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.

http://www.les-pieds-dans-la-toile.fr/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/index.html

https://congresociacc.org//wp-content/uploads/2020/05/page2.html

https://www.labefest.cz/cache/page-1.html

https://www.daypharma.com.br/wp-includes/images/media/index.html

https://lacap.ca/images/logos/index.html

About – Neal Foard

Neal Foard grew up in Oakland, California, and currently resides in Los Angeles. He has spent three decades on the creative side of advertising and marketing.

He now wishes he could spend all his time just recording videos for friends and meeting the people who have reached out inviting him to share coffee or drinks.

Neal Foard @ YouTube Recommendo

{ 39 comments }

Noted in Passing: Those who live alone should pay special heed

by Vanderleun on September 20, 2022

Presented here as a public service complete with rave review by Michael Montenegro

Hey Jeff! I am literally emailing 30 minutes after using your technique on myself as I was choking on a thick sliver of a carrot from my dinner. I was choking and my wife didn’t know what to do, she slapped my back, then ran to the grab the phone to call 911. As I was starting to panic and slightly getting blurred vision, your video literally flashed in my head. I grabbed my first, placed it upon my diaphragm and literally lunged forward onto the ground and suddenly the carrot shot out of my mouth. I just wanted to thank you for creating this video and I will be sending it out to family and friends to show them how important this is. Thanks you! Mike

{ 8 comments }

Beyond Meat? Bite Me! “Beyond Meat COO Doug Ramsey arrested for biting man’s nose”

by Vanderleun on September 20, 2022

Rule 1: Don’t drive hangry! As in: Football fandom turns Beyond Meat exec carnivorous as he’s arrested for biting a man’s nose An incident fueled by plant-based alcohol and one too many Beyond Meat meatless hot dogs. An incident wherein: Ramsey allegedly punched through the back windshield of a Subaru after it made contact with the front tire of Ramsey’s car. The Subaru owner then got out of his car, and Ramsey allegedly started punching him and bit his nose, “ripping the flesh on the tip of the nose,” according to the report. The victim and a witness also alleged that Ramsey told the Subaru owner he would kill him.

Rule 2: Just stop making this fauxmeat crap to begin with!

“Beyond Meat” is just that…. so far beyond anything like meat that it is made from the food my food eats. It is made from the food that my food walks above and shits on. Indeed all these woke “food” products, these stalking horses for bug meat as food for the non-elite outside the walled billionaire bungalows of abundance; all these foodclots carry with them the whiff of the ancient vegetarian oatmeal burger they once sold in health stores. You remember the ancient “Health Food Stores” that smelled of aluminum foil, rancid bean sprouts, and tainted homeopathic vitamins? You know those stores where everyone inside them that had been “vegetarian” for years looked gaunt to the point of translucence.

Indeed, for all the denigrating of meat by vegetarians and vegans, I note that they hate meat so much they buy endless fake versions of meat compulsively. It’s almost as if something is lacking in their diet. Chik’N, Beyond Meat, Cashew Cheeze, and that hideous juice of the brutally milked almonds… on and on through piles of fauxmeat crapola all chemically slathered with the tastes of burnt, granulated “mouth feel”, and lashings of sweet barbeque sauce (vegan “friendly”). Fauxfood is a blight on the landscape and reduces our essential grain crops as well as our stores of petrochemical byproducts.

And not only is it all fake meat, fake dairy, and fake cheese, it all tastes fake. Fauxmeat’s running on the original lie buried inside brands like “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” where one bite lets you believe it’s not butter. All this fauxfood is a scam and a sham and a hump, pump and dump stock play. Look at this nose-eating COO. Do you think that’s a face that’s beyond meat?

Nope, that’s “Ramsey.” That’s the face of the corporate carnivore you bring in when your Beyond Meat company is tanking and you need to keep it afloat just long enough for your shares to vest and you can sell your way out of the company and into a private jet.

Ramsey has been the operating chief of Beyond Meat since December. The food company has been facing skepticism from investors over disappointing sales, operating challenges, and its long-term growth prospects. The stock has fallen 73% this year, dragging its market cap down to $1.09 billion. Just three years ago, the company was valued at $13.4 billion.

Of course, it is not just this ragged shell of a company that is hemorrhaging money: According to an SEC filing from December, Ramsey will be forced to repay a pro-rated portion of his $450,000 sign-on bonus “if for any reason his employment terminates within one year of his start date.” He is also due to receive a cash bonus of $275,000 to mark the first anniversary of his start date, which he would lose out on if his employment was terminated before December.

So it’s going to be meatless Mondays for a bit in the Ramsey household. Is it going to be a meatless week in the stores sooner or later when your country doesn’t raise enough meat stock ( Methane bad for atmosphere! Save planet! Starve self ! And your little dog too!)

I’ve despised this fake food trend for a long time. It’s the latest in a long line of marketing lies that are spun out of stock-fraud startups. I track the rise and fall of FauxFoods at my local Discount Grocery, the place where over-produced food items go to die. Of late one of their freezer rows has been slowly filling, back to front, with more and more fake food items. This morning I made a visit and took photos of the current fauxfood failures. Here’s a couple:

There are a number of others plus a look into one of the greatest real meat butcher shops (no faux meat ever). If you are a paying subscriber you can find these at:

New American Digest — American Studies Past Present and Future

{ 7 comments }

The “Hot Crazy Matrix” — NO Girls Allowed

by Vanderleun on September 20, 2022

This is just for the guys, or those that for mere convenience identify as guys. Everyone else such as girlz and things like them is not aloud in. This is done on the honor system. You non-guy gilrz know who you be, right? Right. [continue reading…]

{ 20 comments }

The RACISTS of Martha Vineyard

by Vanderleun on September 19, 2022

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Today for Members at the New American Digest: The Strangers Knocking at My Door

by Vanderleun on September 19, 2022

Those two abortions were all long ago, but now I know that those were two children I didn’t have and will never know, and not a month goes by I don’t think about those children and regret my support in killing them.

As they did last year, they’ve come twice in the last two days. They’re kids out running “a raise money for the ProChoice Abortion Factory NARAL” scam. The kids get a cut of anything they pull in, and they sell any info they get to Planned Parenthood or other death mills.

The NARAL Kids are pleasant and enthusiastic (I love the painting! I really admire the tree! Then they hand you the clipboard expecting you to sign in your enthusiasm to support their “work.”

I listen politely until their sign-up spiel slides into its lugubrious end and then I tell them,

“No, I don’t support what you’re doing or the people and causes that you represent. I think it’s evil for you to do this, and worse still because you are doing this for money.”

Here in Seattle’s Queen Anne, where smiles, nods, and prochoice signups for their scam are their usual rewards, they seem genuinely surprised and taken aback.

“You mean you’re not pro-choice?”

I assure them that I am not pro-choice. And then I say I once was, long long ago. It doesn’t matter. They shrug and bounce off to fresh fields and pastures new at my socialist next-door neighbors who give them money and cupcakes.

Yesterday evening, at night on the darkened porch, they came yet again. It was a young woman. I listened and then told her she was, and I quote, “EVIL.” She just shook her head and walked away to get on with her “mission” of going door to door bilking pro-choicers out of money.

I guess she forgot to leave the hobo chalk mark on my door that indicates “Satan!” because just now a boy old enough to be a man – but forever avoiding it – knocked with the same knock and announced himself as, and I quote, “Hello, I’m your friendly neighborhood feminist.” He pointed towards the pink watch cap he wore. He flashed me a fey smile and he could have even slipped in an insouciant twinkish wink. Man-boys in pink watch caps always make me suppress a shudder, but I manned up and listened. . . .

RTWT (IF YOU ARE A MEMBER) AT THE NEW AMERICAN DIGEST: American Studies Past Present and Future

{ 1 comment }

Noted In Passing: When driving into a storm on Nightmare Road

by Vanderleun on September 18, 2022

Wisdom always takes the first dirt road to the Right.

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Boomer Laments: The Chain

by Vanderleun on September 17, 2022

“The Chain” is the “signature song” of the once gigantic Fleetwood Mac. For years “The Chain” opened their concerts and, over the course of the years, “The Chain” became the coda, the epitaph, for the group as a group.

As loners, Mac went on and went on but in truth all save Stevie faded into the waters of oblivion. Lindsey? Who knows? Rejoined Mac in 2018 but was sacked pretty quickly. Fleetwood? Still in the band, and the only original member of said band, for the last 54 years. It’s his night job. Christine? Staggered away but then re-upped with the lads (sans Stevie) in 2014 to no particular notice. John McVie? Did a long slow fade but survived and was even plucking away in whatever version of the Mac had not gotten off the stage in the dimming lights of the 2010s.

Stevie? Currently some of the finest ruins to be seen in Golden Age Rock Royalty. Still belting it out and still, even in her early 70s, somebody the whole world still wants.

Here they are after their peak but still taking the groove in their stride.

Ah yes, it all seems very polished and purple and well presented. Perhaps a tad over-produced…. as we can see

. . . but then they reach down and Turn. It. On. and suddenly the overdone Vegas set fades out and

. . . and we get. . . as always. . . . creeping up on you . . . and … soft and lulling and … and pow! an uppercut to right to your amygdala.

RAW SEARING. GROOVE CONNECTED. . . . WITH THRICE THE INTENSITY / WITH THRICE THE MELDING OF VOICES / SEE AND HEAR THEM MELT THE WALLS. THEY ARE NOT singing IT. THEY MEAN IT.

And in the end, the whole world wants Stevie……

In the end, the above version is a great roll in the groove but is still of the second intensity. We want it closer to the breaking of the chain if only to give us a place from which to measure our own broken pain.

So we turn time backward on the magic YouTube music machine to 1982 and see them do “The Chain” back when the applause and the wounds that made it happen were fresh; back when the links of The Chain were fresh forged and white hot.

This is how it went then. And. . . if you listen with fresh ears you get. . .

|||||rolling dobros ||||| swore you’d never break never break neverbreakneverbreak ||||| and then it seems like Mac could melt the ceiling and iceblast the floor with the baseline alone……. and then the whole world loves a crescendo. . . . and the world gets what it wants. . . .

And suddenly the entire world wants Stevie. Again and as usual.

Still does.

You know you do.

{ 27 comments }

Strange Daze: Party Lines, Marilyn, Sparta, Hydrofoils, More Marilyn, Cat Piano, and How the Vandamm House in Alfred Hitchcock’s ‘North by Northwest’ Changed Cinema Forever

by Vanderleun on September 17, 2022

July 1942. “Oakridge, Oregon. Population 520. Town telephone switchboard.”

“THEY CAN DISH IT OUT DOWN BY THE BORDER, BUT THEY CAN’T TAKE IT UP AGAINST THEIR OH-SO-WHITE PICKET FENCES.”

LET’S REVIEW:Your problem is not Trump.You don’t look smart or clever when you carry on as if he’s the problem. It takes just a little bit of critical thinking to realize there are other problems. You only have to watch things a little bit. Might be good to stay quiet if you’re not up to the task. Like the old saying goes, “Better to be silent and thought a fool, than to bitch about Donald Trump and remove all doubt.”

Lithograph of the “Department of Electricity”, which was powered at the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago using Westinghouse and Tesla’s alternating current technology

It’s a busy world. So what?
Read the minutes.
Research the subject.
Consider the counter-arguments.
Understate your case.
Coordinate with possible allies.
Be patient.
Check precedents.
Review definitions.
Challenge the assumptions.
Get curious. Be patient.

Don’t run down to win a battle when you can walk down and win the war. — Execupundit.com: Gain Curiosity and Patience

An “enhanced” members-only edition of our irregular Strange Daze collections of the weird and the wonderful, the repulsive and redemptive, the sky above and the mud below. Now with added pix and clix, dreams and memes, jokes, quotes, and brilliant strokes. All this and more awaits members at

The New American Digest

{ 7 comments }

Vespers: American Tune (emphasis added)

by Vanderleun on September 16, 2022

On this day in 1620, the Mayflower set sail for Virginia from Plymouth, England with 102 passengers onboard. The Hammock Papers

Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I’ve often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
Oh, but I’m alright, I’m alright
I’m just weary to my bones
Still, you don’t expect to be bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

And I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered
I don’t have a friend who feels at ease
I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
But it’s alright, it’s alright
For we lived so well so long
Still, when I think of the
Road we’re traveling on
I wonder what’s gone wrong
I can’t help it, I wonder what has gone wrong

And I dreamed I was dying
I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly
And looking back down at me
Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying
And high up above my eyes could clearly see
The Statue of Liberty
Sailing away to sea
And I dreamed I was flying

We come on the ship they call The Mayflower
We come on the ship that sailed the moon
We come in the age’s most uncertain hours
And sing an American tune

Oh, and it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright
You can’t be forever blessed
Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day
And I’m trying to get some rest
That’s all I’m trying to get some rest

{ 5 comments }

Noted in Passing: The First Car Phone and the First Tesla

by Vanderleun on September 16, 2022

Du Mont engineer James A. Craig demonstrates a simple dialing procedure on a completely automatic “dial-direct” mobile two-way radiotelephone system in Clifton, New Jersey, on March 28, 1957. The system, presently used by the Richmond Radiotelephone Service, Inc., is manufactured by Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories, Inc., is the first radiotelephone equipment to allow phone calls to and from vehicles to be relayed completely unattended through local telephone companies.

PLUS: The First Tesla [continue reading…]

{ 7 comments }

“Contrails” Now at newamericandigest.com

by Vanderleun on September 16, 2022

In a hidden valley in the foothills of Utah’s La Sal mountains, my old friend and I sat on his stone porch in the fading light and watched the sun disappear behind the soaring limestone of the Moab Wall ten miles off to the west. As always from this perch along the fault line between basin and range, the view from Pack Creek revealed four different American landscapes: desert, farmland, rolling ranch land, and high mountains.

In the pasture to our right, the wranglers were bedding down the ranch’s horses for the night. Up along the pine-dotted cliffs on our left the last hunting hawks were circling. In front of us, the impossible burnt orange of a Moab sunset swarmed up the side of the western sky.

It was September again. Not like that September at the beginning of the century. Not like that at all. But it was close enough that in September you still felt it again. Felt that September feeling and not in the manner of Frank Sinatra’s romp through the nostalgia of lost love. Not that sort of bittersweet September at all. Bitter? Yes. Sweet? Never again. . . .

Continued at || Contrails . . . for members @ The New American Digest

{ 1 comment }

“Decent times make decent people. Indecent times make indecent people.” The New American Digest Commentariat Speaks

by Vanderleun on September 15, 2022

Ghostsniper ghost typing while ghost thinking over at The New American Digest member site: Democrat Deer Stare into the Headlights of History

There’s a dark wind blowing and it’s increasing to hurricane velocity and every US citizen with a couple of working brain cells can feel it. They can point to several things they know to be absolutely wrong but they have no idea the quantity of the wrongs. Everybody has their own ideas about what is, and where it comes to gov’t, and none of it is good.

When was the last time you had a conversation with someone about gov’t that was good? Probably never, unless you’re a parasite getting handouts from stolen proceeds. Normal, working people have little need for gov’t. They just put up with it, tolerate it the best they can, avoid it wherever they can, and get on with the business of running their lives, caring for and providing for their families, and trying to have some time for relaxation and reflection as they can.

When left alone the people can be decent to one another and downright helpful at times. Decent times make decent people. Indecent times make indecent people and they are not helpful to anyone and are spiteful and indifferent to others. Even flat-out hateful of others. This is no way to run a country.

In fact, I say this is not even a country at all. It is a collection of people with seemingly nothing in common, no goals except petty selfish ones, and the notion that something evil this way comes. These peoples need guidance. Not overbearing leadership, but real, moral behavior from the top down.

Unfortunately, the pattern that now exists in the upper echelons of gov’t proves this is not possible unless something terribly tragic happens. That it may not be possible to eradicate the bad and replace the bad with the good. Perhaps it is too far gone? Maybe this experiment cannot be fixed. Is it, like I’ve always said, flawed from the beginning, and therefore unfixable and needing to be replaced entirely? I have no answers.

I haven’t read this so, sorry for any errors. I just ghost-typed while thinking.

If you were a member of American Studies Past Present and Future you could be ghost-typing too. After all, how do you know what you think until you see what you say?

{ 25 comments }

Martha’s Vineyard: “Why pay less?”

by Vanderleun on September 15, 2022

26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it. — Matthew 7:26

During my life in the Gone World, I rented summer digs in Martha’s Vineyard. The first rental was through the kindness of very rich friends who “hosted” my small family for a sum so minuscule it was actually a reverse- donation. The second time I was a bit more solvent than usual in those years as a book editor so I rented a cottage out in the Vineyard slums of Oak Bluffs. It was a light structure with a heavy rent set under some tall trees and raised up on cinder blocks. It was placed on a headland above a beach, and both the headland and the beach were made of sand. I reflected on this during the restful afternoon in September when my then wife and small daughter and I hunkered down as a hurricane blew through. We were on the edge of the storm so it only sort of nudged the house on its blocks a bit. I felt my daughter shudder and told her not to worry. At the same time I didn’t think houses were supposed to bounce on their foundation.

In my own mind, I was replaying that scene in Wizard of Oz where Dorothy gets spun up into the clouds (with her little dog too) and gets dropped on top of a witch. She opens the door into. . . colors!

Even with that ending, I didn’t fancy taking a ride on a hurricane while in a house. The hurricane did pass and I did make my way out into the shambles of Oak Bluffs. A few oaks were down in the roads and some small oaks had, I think, been uprooted and blown out to sea. It was not, the elite remarked at later dinner parties, at all as bad as was expected.

I walked to the edge of Oak Bluffs in a sudden absence of all wind. That’s when I sensed we were in the eye of the hurricane. Looking out to sea I saw just off the coast a vast bowl of water moving along the surface of a smooth sea with a slow swirl. The bowl of water just off the coast was higher than the headland on which I stood. I watched. It swirled. Then it passed us by.

That was in the Gone World. That was in Oak Bluffs where rent was a dollar a minute. That was on Martha’s Vineyard that was proud, DAMNED PROUD!, to have restaurants where your entree could clock in at a dollar a bite. And this was in 1985.

Martha’s Vineyard dinner parties were a cost-conscious alternative. As a book editor for the then venerable firm of Houghton Mifflin, I was considered entertaining and so we had as many invitations to these as I could wrangle. Having a beautiful wife who styled herself a “painter” helped me to no end.

But even though the rich old-money/new-money American elites that infest this once proud whaling station have no real-world problems they always have problems that seem real to them. At the dinner parties, with many servants and waiters always hovering about, one of the constant complaints voiced assertively at the table was ye olde “good help is so hard to find.”

Now, at long last, Governor Ron DeSantis feels their pain. . . .

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Sends Planes Full of Illegal Immigrants to Obama’s Vacation Spot in Martha’s Vineyard

Now thanks to DeSantis, problem solved. What a man.

Marthas Vineyard: Just Because You Get Less Why Pay Less?

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Dear S. M. King,

by Vanderleun on September 14, 2022

Please contact me via email at

vanderleun@gmail.com

Thank you.

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The “Eat Them Bugs” Theme Song

by Vanderleun on September 14, 2022

Warning: If you are easily repulsed by insects.

The Refusers have cast a cold eye on the WHO and their bug diet and decided to eat the members of WHO first. Long pig before crickets. Works for me.

Why we need to give insects the role they deserve in our food systems |

Insects contribute to the biological foundation of our terrestrial ecosystem. They bring organic matter to the earth by decomposing waste, act as pollinators for the reproduction and dispersal of plants and flowers, and are also a source of food for a multitude of animal species, from birds to amphibians to humans.

The concept of insect farming is not new and, currently, 1-1.2 trillion insects are raised on farms annually for food and animal feed. The practice has, however, remained mostly manual – until now. Thanks to new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT), we are at a turning point and finally able to industrialize the breeding of insects in a contained environment. Insect breeding is a data centric agro-industry with a lot of commonalities with precision agriculture.

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