Solzhenitsyn pretty much says what I do in my last comment. Good quote.
The commentary on Ken Burns is a good one, too. I read that Del Vecchio book, and anytime you get a rare glimpse at the real thing I’d say you’ve found gold. Ken Burns is mental midge-try, comparatively speaking.
edaddySeptember 29, 2017, 5:55 PM
Mainstream Polls: I call this “Eating their own excrement”. There was a point in time about ten years ago when I notice that the MSM had started interviewing the MSM. That is when I coined the phrase and it has only gotten worse.
In the old days, Walter Cronkite knew what he was doing and the Baby Boomers didn’t. Cronkite was in on the joke. Nowadays, Rachel Maddow THINKS she knows what she’s doing and the rest of us do not. The problem now for the left is that Rachel Maddow and the rest of her ilk have been eating their own excrement for so long that they think whatever they are told to say is actually Truth. They ARE the joke.
Nowadays the only people who care about polls are the Left. There might be a couple of Baby Boomers outside Tulsa who are dumb enough to think TeeVee is still Walter Cronkite. The rest of us? We don’t care about polls because we know they can be conjured out of thin air. We only read polls to know what agenda the lefties are trying to push on us at the moment.
The rest of us are just waiting for the Baby Boomers to exit the world stage. They sold their children into moral and financial slavery. The sooner they’re gone, the sooner we can begin cleaning up the mess.
Lector, Man of the West, has taken a vector into vagueness, superficiality, and self-contradiction.
Lector confuses culture with civilization with being civilized —
“The cannibals of the darkest jungle are a civilization. But they are not civilized.” In the very next paragraph Lector states that they are civilized if they follow their cultural protocols.
Huh? What?
Why not define civilization as people with different ideas, interests, behaviors, values living peacefully and productively among each other resulting in mutual benefit. Metrics to assess would be physical and mental health status, crime types and rates, charitable.givng, volunteerism, free speech and its ratio of truth-to-falseness, cooperative ventures among neighbors and within communities, …
Of tertiary value would be all else that does not contribute to the values above. Different cultures will have different hierarchies of values. How do they measure up in fairness and in promoting the civilizing influences?
Obviously, those who deliberately harm their own species, for example, too many politicians, score poorly no matter their IQ, education, wealth, creativity, or power.
The link to Terry Garlock’s piece on the Viet Nam war and Ken Burn’s documentary is pure gold….so here’s what happened in part of my family after I read it:
I sent the link to my grown, liberal daughter who’s been watching and raving about Burn’s series. I suggested she read and apply some critical thinking to her enraptured opinion. Late last night I got a text saying I had disrespected and upset her terribly. When I awoke this morning, I had received another text saying the piece had made her sick, caused her to stay up all night crying and was making her cancel all the rest of her weekend plans. She ended by dramatically saying she would not communicate with me for a while while she stayed in seclusion and got over the link I sent and again, how dare I do such a thing..
It must have hit a bullseye? Maybe towards a move toward reality and maturity? I certainly hope so, but who knows.
Snakepit KansasSeptember 30, 2017, 6:54 AM
Casey,
I read both Del Vecchio’s 13th Valley and James Webb’s Fields of Fire, retaining copies of both. Excellent pieces of literature.
Kansas, when I was in OCS, and in the infantry, we had an informal must read list. Those were on it. Also, Pat Conroy’s books. Every swinging Richard I knew in the national guard was a Vietnam combat veteran, so by very distant proxy I got educated.
Webutante. What a story! Vietnam is still dividing us. My crass self wonders why the liberal take on Vietnam doesn’t keep them up at night, crying. Turns out, it’s an article challenging liberalism! I pray your daughter has had a seed of change planted in her mind.
My daughter, who is 14, went to DC on a school trip. She asked me ahead of time if there was a name on The Wall she could take a rubbing of for me. We’re talking about the National Vietnam Memorial, which has chiseled the 58,000 names of our dead from that war. I got so choked up, I couldn’t say the name. I just wrote it down and handed it to her. She did get the rubbing, and brought it back to me. I contacted the deceased’s younger brother, who is my friend, and he said he didn’t need it, because he had dozens given to him! His brother was a decorated hero (DSC) who died trying to rescue his fellow helicopter crewmen previously shot down. He just plain wouldn’t stop and…anyway, that’s the type of person who served in Vietnam. Not some victim or outcast or Ken Burns loser.
BillHSeptember 30, 2017, 7:55 AM
Careful with the baby boomer stuff, edaddy. You’re talking about five of my kids, and the sixth only missed boomerdom by a year. As you might have guessed, I see things from a completely different angle, and from my angle, what’s followed the boomers is nothing to write home about either.
ahemSeptember 30, 2017, 8:07 AM
I have a great idea for a Christmas present for naive liberal zombies–an antidote to Mr Burns’ misleading propaganda—the works of Dr. Tom Dooley, ‘Deliver Us From Evil’, ‘The Edge of Tomorrow’ and ‘The Night They Burned the Mountain’, all published in the 50s and 60s, about the US’s humanitarian efforts in SE Asia. Their importance has since been disfigured by the Left, but they are still worth reading:
I know that hurts more than you’re letting on; how sharper than the serpent’s tooth, and all that.
I disagree that it’s Vietnam that’s “still dividing us.” The division lies at the feet of the Left, who’ve successfully propagandized generations of our children, and left them to blame us for their confusion and unhappiness. Ken Burns is simply one of them; before this it was The Civil War (It Was Worse For Black People,) Jazz (It Was Worse For Black People,) and Baseball (Guess What?)
My daughter, the gentlest and most loving child imaginable, is now 52. Her mother, who took her from me when she was 6, proceeded to fill her poor head with horror stories about how earthquakes and hangnails were obviously on accounta me, because Wimmin iz Victims. Having milked all she could out of “feminism,” she’s become a stereotype Narrow-Minded Conservative, and my poor baby became a SJW in rebellion against her.
And guess whose fault it all is now?
I’m sure you’ve been the most patient and loving of mothers. You have my sympathy for the pain she’s causing you now.
ghostsniperSeptember 30, 2017, 10:50 AM
Burns knows what side his bread is buttered on. He’s been sucking gov’t/PBS dik for a long time now.
The best way to view his stuff is with the sound off and the toonz playin, preferably Floyd, Crimson, Quicksilver, or Uriah, and a dank blunt in each hand. Where my lava lamp iz?
indyjonesouthereSeptember 30, 2017, 12:57 PM
edaddy…The gen x programmed the Obamacare sites for billions and they didn’t work and they had a big hand to packaging the derivatives nightmare. The millennials are the biggest part of Bernie’s kids and antifa. After I’m dead and buried you still have to deal with them. Now to deal with Ken Burns, the website “peakingat70” is Del Vecchio’s site and his series on Viet Nam and its history is better than Burns/PBS. If you like actual history and not re-education camp history try his site for a starter.
Thanks Casey and Rob. Actually she called me later this morning, wanted to get together, then apologized. Of course I accepted. It isn’t easy for kids whose parents divorced and then moved worlds apart politically and spiritually as hers did….a lot of healing today, some tears, then hugs.
It’s been a long road to here, but worth every minute of the struggle.
indyjonesouthereSeptember 30, 2017, 1:11 PM
Webutante…At least she read it, there are a lot of people that simply don’t want to hear anything beyond the Ken Burns version. Now she has to digest it and that’s on her. You did your duty as a parent.
VanderleunOctober 1, 2017, 1:11 PM
That’s a wonderful outcome Webutante. Wonderful. I hope it holds and blossoms.
I liked making covers for my books. Folding the brown paper correctly so that the book could be opened and closed correctly. Then you got to decorate the cover with important information about the contents :-). Sort of. Maybe…
Real World Address for Donations, Mash Notes and Hate Mail
Gerard Van der Leun
1692 MANGROVE AVE
APT 379
Chico, Ca 95926
Green Pants Interior by Klahn
Who Am I? by Carl Sandburg
My head knocks against the stars.
My feet are on the hilltops.
My finger-tips are in the valleys and shores of universal life.
Down in the sounding foam of primal things I reach my hands and play with pebbles of destiny.
I have been to hell and back many times.
I know all about heaven, for I have talked with God.
I dabble in the blood and guts of the terrible.
I know the passionate seizure of beauty
And the marvelous rebellion of man at all signs reading “Keep Off.”
My name is Truth and I am the most elusive captive in the universe.
Duty, Beauty, Liberty, Country, Honor, Family, Faith — Plus a few simple easy to follow rules for guys
Men saw the stars at the edge of the sea
They thought great thoughts about liberty
Poets wrote down words that did fit
Writers wrote books
Thinkers thought about it
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
Many’s the road I have walked upon
Many’s the hour between dusk and dawn
Many’s the time
Many’s the mile
I see it all now
Through the eyes of a child
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
Lost dreams and found dreams
In America
In America
In America
And close your eyes
Leave it all for a while
Leave the world
And your worries behind
You will build on whatever is real
And wake up each day
To a new waking dream
Take it where you find it
Can’t leave it alone
You will find a purpose
To carry it on
Mainly when you find it
Your heart will be strong
About it
[Chorus]
Change, change come over
Change come over
Talkin’ about a change
Change, change
Change come over, now
Change, change, change come over
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I’m gonna walk down the street
Until I see
My shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
I see my light
See my light
See my shining light
Mainstream polls use up to 58 percent more Democrats than Republicans
For millennia, we’d never seen anything like film cuts. How do we process them so easily? 
NFL Favorability Nearly Cut In Half 
Gerard Van der Leun
Comments on this entry are closed.
Solzhenitsyn pretty much says what I do in my last comment. Good quote.
The commentary on Ken Burns is a good one, too. I read that Del Vecchio book, and anytime you get a rare glimpse at the real thing I’d say you’ve found gold. Ken Burns is mental midge-try, comparatively speaking.
Mainstream Polls: I call this “Eating their own excrement”. There was a point in time about ten years ago when I notice that the MSM had started interviewing the MSM. That is when I coined the phrase and it has only gotten worse.
In the old days, Walter Cronkite knew what he was doing and the Baby Boomers didn’t. Cronkite was in on the joke. Nowadays, Rachel Maddow THINKS she knows what she’s doing and the rest of us do not. The problem now for the left is that Rachel Maddow and the rest of her ilk have been eating their own excrement for so long that they think whatever they are told to say is actually Truth. They ARE the joke.
Nowadays the only people who care about polls are the Left. There might be a couple of Baby Boomers outside Tulsa who are dumb enough to think TeeVee is still Walter Cronkite. The rest of us? We don’t care about polls because we know they can be conjured out of thin air. We only read polls to know what agenda the lefties are trying to push on us at the moment.
The rest of us are just waiting for the Baby Boomers to exit the world stage. They sold their children into moral and financial slavery. The sooner they’re gone, the sooner we can begin cleaning up the mess.
Lector, Man of the West, has taken a vector into vagueness, superficiality, and self-contradiction.
Lector confuses culture with civilization with being civilized —
“The cannibals of the darkest jungle are a civilization. But they are not civilized.” In the very next paragraph Lector states that they are civilized if they follow their cultural protocols.
Huh? What?
Why not define civilization as people with different ideas, interests, behaviors, values living peacefully and productively among each other resulting in mutual benefit. Metrics to assess would be physical and mental health status, crime types and rates, charitable.givng, volunteerism, free speech and its ratio of truth-to-falseness, cooperative ventures among neighbors and within communities, …
Of tertiary value would be all else that does not contribute to the values above. Different cultures will have different hierarchies of values. How do they measure up in fairness and in promoting the civilizing influences?
Obviously, those who deliberately harm their own species, for example, too many politicians, score poorly no matter their IQ, education, wealth, creativity, or power.
“Mental midget.”
The link to Terry Garlock’s piece on the Viet Nam war and Ken Burn’s documentary is pure gold….so here’s what happened in part of my family after I read it:
I sent the link to my grown, liberal daughter who’s been watching and raving about Burn’s series. I suggested she read and apply some critical thinking to her enraptured opinion. Late last night I got a text saying I had disrespected and upset her terribly. When I awoke this morning, I had received another text saying the piece had made her sick, caused her to stay up all night crying and was making her cancel all the rest of her weekend plans. She ended by dramatically saying she would not communicate with me for a while while she stayed in seclusion and got over the link I sent and again, how dare I do such a thing..
It must have hit a bullseye? Maybe towards a move toward reality and maturity? I certainly hope so, but who knows.
Casey,
I read both Del Vecchio’s 13th Valley and James Webb’s Fields of Fire, retaining copies of both. Excellent pieces of literature.
Kansas, when I was in OCS, and in the infantry, we had an informal must read list. Those were on it. Also, Pat Conroy’s books. Every swinging Richard I knew in the national guard was a Vietnam combat veteran, so by very distant proxy I got educated.
Webutante. What a story! Vietnam is still dividing us. My crass self wonders why the liberal take on Vietnam doesn’t keep them up at night, crying. Turns out, it’s an article challenging liberalism! I pray your daughter has had a seed of change planted in her mind.
My daughter, who is 14, went to DC on a school trip. She asked me ahead of time if there was a name on The Wall she could take a rubbing of for me. We’re talking about the National Vietnam Memorial, which has chiseled the 58,000 names of our dead from that war. I got so choked up, I couldn’t say the name. I just wrote it down and handed it to her. She did get the rubbing, and brought it back to me. I contacted the deceased’s younger brother, who is my friend, and he said he didn’t need it, because he had dozens given to him! His brother was a decorated hero (DSC) who died trying to rescue his fellow helicopter crewmen previously shot down. He just plain wouldn’t stop and…anyway, that’s the type of person who served in Vietnam. Not some victim or outcast or Ken Burns loser.
Careful with the baby boomer stuff, edaddy. You’re talking about five of my kids, and the sixth only missed boomerdom by a year. As you might have guessed, I see things from a completely different angle, and from my angle, what’s followed the boomers is nothing to write home about either.
I have a great idea for a Christmas present for naive liberal zombies–an antidote to Mr Burns’ misleading propaganda—the works of Dr. Tom Dooley, ‘Deliver Us From Evil’, ‘The Edge of Tomorrow’ and ‘The Night They Burned the Mountain’, all published in the 50s and 60s, about the US’s humanitarian efforts in SE Asia. Their importance has since been disfigured by the Left, but they are still worth reading:
https://www.amazon.com/Deliver-Us-Evil-Tom-Dooley/dp/0451061241
https://www.amazon.com/edge-tomorrow-tom-dooley/dp/B000W22L1M
https://www.amazon.com/Night-They-Burned-Mountain/dp/0374222126
Tante Web,
I know that hurts more than you’re letting on; how sharper than the serpent’s tooth, and all that.
I disagree that it’s Vietnam that’s “still dividing us.” The division lies at the feet of the Left, who’ve successfully propagandized generations of our children, and left them to blame us for their confusion and unhappiness. Ken Burns is simply one of them; before this it was The Civil War (It Was Worse For Black People,) Jazz (It Was Worse For Black People,) and Baseball (Guess What?)
My daughter, the gentlest and most loving child imaginable, is now 52. Her mother, who took her from me when she was 6, proceeded to fill her poor head with horror stories about how earthquakes and hangnails were obviously on accounta me, because Wimmin iz Victims. Having milked all she could out of “feminism,” she’s become a stereotype Narrow-Minded Conservative, and my poor baby became a SJW in rebellion against her.
And guess whose fault it all is now?
I’m sure you’ve been the most patient and loving of mothers. You have my sympathy for the pain she’s causing you now.
Burns knows what side his bread is buttered on. He’s been sucking gov’t/PBS dik for a long time now.
The best way to view his stuff is with the sound off and the toonz playin, preferably Floyd, Crimson, Quicksilver, or Uriah, and a dank blunt in each hand. Where my lava lamp iz?
edaddy…The gen x programmed the Obamacare sites for billions and they didn’t work and they had a big hand to packaging the derivatives nightmare. The millennials are the biggest part of Bernie’s kids and antifa. After I’m dead and buried you still have to deal with them. Now to deal with Ken Burns, the website “peakingat70” is Del Vecchio’s site and his series on Viet Nam and its history is better than Burns/PBS. If you like actual history and not re-education camp history try his site for a starter.
Thanks Casey and Rob. Actually she called me later this morning, wanted to get together, then apologized. Of course I accepted. It isn’t easy for kids whose parents divorced and then moved worlds apart politically and spiritually as hers did….a lot of healing today, some tears, then hugs.
It’s been a long road to here, but worth every minute of the struggle.
Webutante…At least she read it, there are a lot of people that simply don’t want to hear anything beyond the Ken Burns version. Now she has to digest it and that’s on her. You did your duty as a parent.
That’s a wonderful outcome Webutante. Wonderful. I hope it holds and blossoms.
Thank you truly, Gerard.
I liked making covers for my books. Folding the brown paper correctly so that the book could be opened and closed correctly. Then you got to decorate the cover with important information about the contents :-). Sort of. Maybe…