There are occasions when we here at Bloody Nib Manor find ourselves wondering if about twenty-five percent of the local populace have fallen into some sort of madness or mentally and morally reverted back to the era of when looked at an eclipse and feared that the Sun was being eaten by an invisible dragon. This group should not only not be allowed to drive cars, because they find automobiles to be mysterious things that make them commit stupid and foolish acts like parking on a railroad track somehow not expecting a locomotive to come by and destroy the car, they should not even be allowed to use hiking staffs to use on long walks because they do not see such staffs as an aid to walking, but see them as tools to swing at those who they accuse of "dissing" them and impugning their Third World "honor" because a passerby does not raise his hat or tug the forelock to acknowledge that the idiot peasant is an aristocrat in mufti.
It's interesting how the Muslims in the West operate. Let us take the case of the organization known as CAIR. CAIR is an acronym for the Council of American Islamic Relations. The group portrays itself as a civil rights group interested in the rights of Mohammedans. In reality, it is a grievance group not unlike an arm of Scientology or certain gay rights groups that want to use the law as best they can to force the nation to , not tolerate, but to embrace and approve Mohammedism. CAIR throws a bitch when Halal food is not served at public schools for lunch (this despite the fact that according to old Mohammedan scholars the expectation of Halal food can only be made when the population of a nation or country is 51%), calls complaints about the call to prayer over loudspeakers that can be heard five blocks away Islamophobia while CAIR complains about church bells coming from Catholic churches once a week. If a person gives a side eye to a woman wearing a hijab CAIR claims that the person is a hater. CAIR claims a plethora of "hate" crimes against Mohammedans and is not loath to file lawsuits, while, in fact, there are very few "hate" crimes against Mohammedans. Most people, in fact, really want to be away from them. There are Mohammedans who are bearable. In fact, many of them are bearable and even friendly, and they just want to enjoy the freedoms of the nation and get along. But, as usual, it is the loudmouthed minority that sees the long green in grievance who pee in the punch bowl.
Let us look at the name of the organization. It is called the Council of American Islamic Relations. What, exactly, does this mean? At first and second glance it seems to mean that America and Islam are two different things that are of of two different nations or political philosophies. If the name of the organization were, for example, the Council of American Italian Relations or the Council of American Chinese Relations one could only presume that the organizations political organizations promoting the interests of Italy or China over those of the U.S. In fact, both organizations would probably be considered governmental arms of Italy and China. For CAIR to use the name the Council of American Islamic Relations actually, whether the leaders of the organization realize it or not, separate Mohammedans from the U.S. The organization makes their supporters and members the "other" by defining their religion as something that is not part of the American experience. Is there a Council of American Jewish Relations? A Council of American Catholic Relations? A Council of American Protestant Relations? Or Buddhists or Hindus or Wiccans, or even Satanists. There aren't. And the reason is, to put it short, that these groups see themselves as the fabric of the greater nation and not apart from it.
Having said that, have you dear reader, noticed that the Mohammedans spend a lot of time bitching and moaning about the perceived crimes of the West against their cohorts living in the West (Europe and the Americas)? A drunk staggering down the street farts in front of a mosque and it becomes a "hate" crime, Or a kid eats a deviled ham sandwich at school in front of a little Abdul and Abdul feels the "hate" and complains to CAIR. But, when the Peoples Republic of China under the reign of Winnie the Pooh decides that it might be a pretty good idea to lock up about a million Uighur Mohammedans for re-education and forced labor there's not a peep from the professional Mohammedans. CAIR says nothing. The Saudis say nothing. The Pakistanis say nothing. The Iranians say nothing. None of that bunch says a damn thing while the secular and Christian press condemn China's actions. One wonders why the Mohammedan big hitters keep their traps shut. And the only reason that this writer can figure out is that China is putting out the long green for the Belt and Road projects that run through many Mohammedan nations. And that the Chinese government really does give much of a damn what the Mohammedans think. The Mohammedans aren't going to get up an army like ISIS or Al-Queda to march into northern China to save their Uighur brothers because they know that the Chinese, unlike the Americans and Europeans, are, as an army, savages not loath to kill women and children in order to attain their goals. They've proven so time after time for over two millennia.
And speaking of China. The current Pope has decided to align himself with the PRC instead of with Hong Kong and Taiwan. Not only has he allowed the PRC to appoint Catholic bishops inside the PRC (n other words, allowed the PRC to appoint political lickspittles instead of theologically sound priests) in his current visit to the Far East he referred to the PRC as a nation while referring to Taiwan and Hong Kong as a people instead of a nation (in the case of Taiwan) or an autonomous entity (in the case of Hong Kong). The Pope has, in reality, abandoned those Catholics in Taiwan and Hong Kong be they simple fact that in his words we made the Taiwanese and the Hong Kongers effectively as regards the Vatican, part of the PRC.
And during this Far East trip the Pope has gone to Hiroshima and Nagasaki to mourn the droppings of the atomic bombs during World War Two. But he will not bring up the fact that the practice of Christianity, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant, was effectively banned under the threat of death and/or torture in the seventeenth century in Japan. What Christianity that survived in Japan until the late nineteenth century was underground Christianity. And he does not admit that there were more people killed in the conventional bombing of Dresden Germany on one day during WW II more were killed at Hiroshima. He has no plans to visit the Philippines, which has a very large Catholic population, or Vietnam, which has a threatened Catholic population because he is, to be truthful, pretty much a Social Justice Warrior with Red leanings. One finds oneself wondering what Pope John Paul II would make of this idiot.
Sunday, November 24, 2019
Sunday, November 17, 2019
This, that, and the other
It's been a rather quiet week here at Bloody Nib Manor. There was only one instance of the local constabulary being called out, not by the residents of the Manor, to deal with a yokel who, as many of his ilk, has no sense of the consequences of his actions before acting and not quite realizing that waving a pistol about and screaming at the top of his lungs may result in him being put into the nick for a while. But such is the shire.
Your faithful writer has not paid much attention to the impeachment investigation of Pres. Trump now taking place in Washington, D.C. It is not so much that he does not care about the future of the nation as it is that there is nothing that he can do about it. To pay close attention to this circus is like paying close attention to a rain storm. The thing exists and talking about it will do nothing to stop it.
But, in the opinion of your friend, the almost Howdy Doodyish Adam Schiff really has no intention of actually impeaching and convicting Mr. Trump. His intention is to throw as much mud and muck as he can at Mr. Trump before the 2020 presidential election. He wants to make Mr. Trump a Richard III complete with crooked back and charges of murdering poor innocent princes.
Here's the deal: What Mr. Trump is basically accused of is being a President who has a foreign policy that does not go along with the established bureaucratic line. For whatever "evil" reasons that he may have Mr. Trump took a different line with Ukrainia (or as it's now known, Ukraine) that did not line up with that of the "big brains" in the State Department. Mr. Trump is an inelegant and a ham fisted man who does not own the talent for dissimulation that the professional "diplomat" does. He is, despite being a Queens, New York born and bred fellow, is more of a cowboy than Ronald Reagan ever was. He says what he thinks and says what he wants. In a sense, he is a throwback to an American style that ended with the awful Woodrow Wilson; in other words, often rude and crude, but honest.
Mr. Trump's real sin among the yakking class is that he has been taking on the established bureaucracy. Mr. Trump calls that crowd "the Deep State." Make no mistake, there is a "Deep State" in foreign policy that sees itself as the real and wisest source of proper American foreign policy. This crowd includes the State Department, the CIA, the NSA, and even the FBI. That crowd doesn't care about the dictates of an elected president. They know "better." This is the same crowd that was surprised by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union. This is the same crowd that claimed that trading with Communist China would result in the actual democratization of China instead of China gaining a trade advantage with the U.S. Monetarily the U.S. owes China more money than does China owe the U.S. And because of this imbalance the U.S. has reduced its support of Taiwan because the Red Army is big because Americans have unknowing paid for it, and Taiwan is little and is worthless despite the fact that it's a democracy of sorts. The Deep State sees money as the important thing to get, and not the encouragement of free nations in East Asia.
Those who are old enough may remember the movie Dr. Zhivago. In the movie one of the characters during pre-Revolutionary Russia, mentions bureaucrats with contempt. Later, after the Revolution, the same character becomes a bureaucrat of the worst sort. That's what bureaucracy does. It makes a little man or woman into a person with power who really has no more business having power than the average Beagle.
The fact of the matter is that the elect President makes foreign policy and those who have been lucky enough to worm their way into the State Department or CIA do not and should not. They serve at the pleasure of the President. And your writer means every and any elected President whether it be an awful Wilson or Obama, or a Trump or Reagan.
In truth, for better or worse, every bureaucrat, no matter their level, should be required to tender their resignation upon the election of a new President in the same way that federal attorney-generals are required to do. A new President is a new broom who sweeps clean. But because of the laws in place the bureaucrat who supported Kissinger's policy toward China is still embedded in his pigeon hole and tries as much as he can to make the U.S. the bitch of Peking (now known as Beijing).
Don Cherry, a former hockey player and a long time hockey commentator, was fired from his long-time position with the Canadian Broadcasting Company was fired from his long time job as a commentator on Hockey Night in Canada for expressing his opinion that immigrants to Canada are lacking in patriotism by not wearing the Red Poppy on Armistice Day, and that they really had no loyalty to the Canada that he knew. The CBC pretty much considered this a form of "hate speech" and was offensive towards immigrants. The CBC gave the usual "little brown babies" excuse that liberals do for people who do not want to become a part of the countries to which they have immigrated from hell-holes that any civilized person would hardly want to evacuate their bowels into. In other words, the "little brown babies" are just so damn dumb and so damn clueless that they cannot become a part of the nation to which they have infected themselves. And this, in its self, shows that the CBC is more racist than the average Alberta farmer who was suspicious of the Doukobors or Molokans. In other words, the recent immigrant from some God forsaken nation that holds to the Koran (now known as the Quaran for some strange reason) above the Bible, is given an excuse to be protected from verbal offense by a hockey commentator because he realizes that many Mohammedans really have no interest in Canada or its history or war time sacrifices. The "little brown babies" are just too dumb to know their good fortune by being in Canada instead of Damascus.
Have you, dear reader, ever noticed that the current professional political class seem to have no interest outside of politics? Think about this. There was a time when the study of economics was called the "dismal science." Well, anyone with a lick of sense thinks that economics beyond balancing one's bank account and trying to prepare for retirement will know that economics is as about as interesting as counting the number of fleas on a stray cat. But contemporary politics have made economics look almost as exciting as women's Gaelic football. And that's saying something. The current politician, no matter what his or her party is and no matter the political philosophy, is one of those kids in high school who had no aspiration other than getting elected to the student council. That kid was not interested in sports, cars, music, movies. That kid was a freak and a one dimensional freak. And that kid is probably your city councilman, assemblyman, congressman or senator.
When one looks at the awful pols of the past you find that the old pols were a bit more rounded. Truman and Nixon were amateur piano players and were (perhaps unjustly) proud of their talent. FDR was an amateur sailor, Jackson was a bit of a duellist, TR was a hunter and conservationist, Lincoln, reputedly, was a harmonica player, Jefferson was an amateur architect and a bibliophile. Even Mike Huckabee is an amateur rock bass player. These men were, in a sense, more rounded than the current crop of politicians. They had interests outside of wanting to rule other people and "make the world a better place." In other words, the current crop of "statesmen" are just awful nerds who seem to know what is best for you more than you do. And, admit it, you wouldn't want to have any of this bunch at your barbeque. They'd just throw a wet blanket on the thing like an insurance salesman trying to sell you life insurance while you're spooning out potato salad.
You, dear reader, have a life experience that is greater than the average politician. You see the world from the ground up. The average politician is akin to some guy who has read and believes the writing of Derrida or Foucault without ever having read Socrates or even John Bunyan.
But that's enough from this idiot. He has to make sure that his blunderbuss is loaded for when one of the local yokels decides that he wants the copper pot on the hob.
Your faithful writer has not paid much attention to the impeachment investigation of Pres. Trump now taking place in Washington, D.C. It is not so much that he does not care about the future of the nation as it is that there is nothing that he can do about it. To pay close attention to this circus is like paying close attention to a rain storm. The thing exists and talking about it will do nothing to stop it.
But, in the opinion of your friend, the almost Howdy Doodyish Adam Schiff really has no intention of actually impeaching and convicting Mr. Trump. His intention is to throw as much mud and muck as he can at Mr. Trump before the 2020 presidential election. He wants to make Mr. Trump a Richard III complete with crooked back and charges of murdering poor innocent princes.
Here's the deal: What Mr. Trump is basically accused of is being a President who has a foreign policy that does not go along with the established bureaucratic line. For whatever "evil" reasons that he may have Mr. Trump took a different line with Ukrainia (or as it's now known, Ukraine) that did not line up with that of the "big brains" in the State Department. Mr. Trump is an inelegant and a ham fisted man who does not own the talent for dissimulation that the professional "diplomat" does. He is, despite being a Queens, New York born and bred fellow, is more of a cowboy than Ronald Reagan ever was. He says what he thinks and says what he wants. In a sense, he is a throwback to an American style that ended with the awful Woodrow Wilson; in other words, often rude and crude, but honest.
Mr. Trump's real sin among the yakking class is that he has been taking on the established bureaucracy. Mr. Trump calls that crowd "the Deep State." Make no mistake, there is a "Deep State" in foreign policy that sees itself as the real and wisest source of proper American foreign policy. This crowd includes the State Department, the CIA, the NSA, and even the FBI. That crowd doesn't care about the dictates of an elected president. They know "better." This is the same crowd that was surprised by the fall of the Berlin Wall and the fall of the Soviet Union. This is the same crowd that claimed that trading with Communist China would result in the actual democratization of China instead of China gaining a trade advantage with the U.S. Monetarily the U.S. owes China more money than does China owe the U.S. And because of this imbalance the U.S. has reduced its support of Taiwan because the Red Army is big because Americans have unknowing paid for it, and Taiwan is little and is worthless despite the fact that it's a democracy of sorts. The Deep State sees money as the important thing to get, and not the encouragement of free nations in East Asia.
Those who are old enough may remember the movie Dr. Zhivago. In the movie one of the characters during pre-Revolutionary Russia, mentions bureaucrats with contempt. Later, after the Revolution, the same character becomes a bureaucrat of the worst sort. That's what bureaucracy does. It makes a little man or woman into a person with power who really has no more business having power than the average Beagle.
The fact of the matter is that the elect President makes foreign policy and those who have been lucky enough to worm their way into the State Department or CIA do not and should not. They serve at the pleasure of the President. And your writer means every and any elected President whether it be an awful Wilson or Obama, or a Trump or Reagan.
In truth, for better or worse, every bureaucrat, no matter their level, should be required to tender their resignation upon the election of a new President in the same way that federal attorney-generals are required to do. A new President is a new broom who sweeps clean. But because of the laws in place the bureaucrat who supported Kissinger's policy toward China is still embedded in his pigeon hole and tries as much as he can to make the U.S. the bitch of Peking (now known as Beijing).
Don Cherry, a former hockey player and a long time hockey commentator, was fired from his long-time position with the Canadian Broadcasting Company was fired from his long time job as a commentator on Hockey Night in Canada for expressing his opinion that immigrants to Canada are lacking in patriotism by not wearing the Red Poppy on Armistice Day, and that they really had no loyalty to the Canada that he knew. The CBC pretty much considered this a form of "hate speech" and was offensive towards immigrants. The CBC gave the usual "little brown babies" excuse that liberals do for people who do not want to become a part of the countries to which they have immigrated from hell-holes that any civilized person would hardly want to evacuate their bowels into. In other words, the "little brown babies" are just so damn dumb and so damn clueless that they cannot become a part of the nation to which they have infected themselves. And this, in its self, shows that the CBC is more racist than the average Alberta farmer who was suspicious of the Doukobors or Molokans. In other words, the recent immigrant from some God forsaken nation that holds to the Koran (now known as the Quaran for some strange reason) above the Bible, is given an excuse to be protected from verbal offense by a hockey commentator because he realizes that many Mohammedans really have no interest in Canada or its history or war time sacrifices. The "little brown babies" are just too dumb to know their good fortune by being in Canada instead of Damascus.
Have you, dear reader, ever noticed that the current professional political class seem to have no interest outside of politics? Think about this. There was a time when the study of economics was called the "dismal science." Well, anyone with a lick of sense thinks that economics beyond balancing one's bank account and trying to prepare for retirement will know that economics is as about as interesting as counting the number of fleas on a stray cat. But contemporary politics have made economics look almost as exciting as women's Gaelic football. And that's saying something. The current politician, no matter what his or her party is and no matter the political philosophy, is one of those kids in high school who had no aspiration other than getting elected to the student council. That kid was not interested in sports, cars, music, movies. That kid was a freak and a one dimensional freak. And that kid is probably your city councilman, assemblyman, congressman or senator.
When one looks at the awful pols of the past you find that the old pols were a bit more rounded. Truman and Nixon were amateur piano players and were (perhaps unjustly) proud of their talent. FDR was an amateur sailor, Jackson was a bit of a duellist, TR was a hunter and conservationist, Lincoln, reputedly, was a harmonica player, Jefferson was an amateur architect and a bibliophile. Even Mike Huckabee is an amateur rock bass player. These men were, in a sense, more rounded than the current crop of politicians. They had interests outside of wanting to rule other people and "make the world a better place." In other words, the current crop of "statesmen" are just awful nerds who seem to know what is best for you more than you do. And, admit it, you wouldn't want to have any of this bunch at your barbeque. They'd just throw a wet blanket on the thing like an insurance salesman trying to sell you life insurance while you're spooning out potato salad.
You, dear reader, have a life experience that is greater than the average politician. You see the world from the ground up. The average politician is akin to some guy who has read and believes the writing of Derrida or Foucault without ever having read Socrates or even John Bunyan.
But that's enough from this idiot. He has to make sure that his blunderbuss is loaded for when one of the local yokels decides that he wants the copper pot on the hob.
Saturday, November 02, 2019
This. that, and the other.
It's been a normal and yet unusual week here at Bloody Nib Manor. But considering the location and the shire in which the Manor is located the unusual is normal. One of the local yokels decided to shoot at another yokel and actually hit the target of his aim. Of course, the local constabulary were called and the enforcers of law and order showed up about twenty minutes later despite the fact that the local cop shop is a ten minute walk away. But one supposes that it takes about ten minutes to figure out what the dispatcher is calling out on the police radio, and another five minutes for the officers of the law to decide to bother with dealing with a Hatfield/McCoy, or in this case, a Lopez/Garcia feud.
The result of the shooting was just this: a bunch of deputies running around the neighborhood shining bright lights, knocking on doors and pretending to do something while they accomplished nothing except to assure the inhabitants of the neighborhood that the shooting victim would live despite the fact the no law-abiding person in the area really cared much if the victim was going to be pushing up daisies. To most of the neighborhood it was like a fight between two mad dogs -- one finds one's self half hoping for the worst between the two currs.
But on to better things:
Deadspin is a website that has specialized in sports news and sports opinion pieces. As many Internet based "news/opinion" websites, many of the writers working for Deadspin decided that it was their purview to start coloring outside the lines of the original model of Deadspin. Remember, it was founded to be a sports website. The writers for Deadspin, for some reason or another, decided that they should venture into politics (both in reportage and opinion). The reason is probably that they are young and they know that sports is the toy store of life. Sports, in the big picture, really mean nothing despite the fact that sports are important parts of many peoples lives. But many people find unimportant things to be important as a hobby or topic of conversation. The Game of Thrones is an example. It's a silly and stupid program, but if the series does not proceed in the way that they want they act as if the Nazis had invaded Poland. Some Astros fans believe that the Nationals winning the World Series is a second Dien Bien Phu. And some people get into fisticuffs of the Oxford comma. Every person has their line that they will not be allowed to be crossed.
The new owners of Deadspin, G/O Media, recently put out the word to the writers who have been employed by Deadspin to stick to sports and give the politics and opinion pieces a pass. The result was that the "staff" writers decided that they were being denied their "rights" to write what they wanted despite the fact that they were being paid to write about sports. Let us be clear about this. The writers were being to write about sports. Not politics and not culture. They were hired to write about sports.
But as many writers who whore themselves out to organs as staff writers instead of being writers who write because they have to write while having real jobs, they thought that they could make their employer into their image instead of honoring the conditions of their contracts. In other words, because of their time in journalism school or in university they believed that they were exempt from the conditions of their employment because they were, to use the popular word, "woke", and beyond criticism and restriction.
G/O Media stood it's ground and informed the writers that the Deadspin website is a sports only website and not a "woke" website. The writers employed by Deadspin quit to a man and woman because they felt that they knew what was best. And G/O Media replies with, "See ya, wouldn't want to be ya." And the former Deadspin writers started crying "unfair!"
Let us face the fact that writers are pretty much a dime a dozen these days. And there is no shortage of free-lance writers who are interested in sports. There are a lot of blog writers who are paid nothing at all who are better writers and better thinkers (this writer being excluded) than Internet writers who have been to J-School or university. And let's us keep in mind that most of us have, or have had. jobs/careers that demand a certain narrowness of attention at our places of employment. A machinist in the defense/aerospace industry cannot except to spend part of his or her working life developing super-chargers for double A fuel altered dragsters, and a sales person in the liquor industry cannot expect to be paid for writing article for the Woman's Temperance Union.
When you get a job you are expected to do the job for which you have been hired to do. And that's makes sense. But among the self-declared "elite" there is no sense except a sense of one's self importance.
This writer has complained about this before, but he is old enough to remember when the BBC was consider one of the most objective news organizations in the world. It had, of course, a bit of a British establishment tilt, but whenever a world even took place people would tune their short wave receivers to the BBC to get the best news reported by a reporter, and news reader, using the old Received British Pronunciation. To hear, at the beginning of an hour the words, "This is London" meant that one would get the straightest story at the time. Nowadays (how your friend hates that world -- it sounds like something say by a snuff dipping hillbilly) the reporters and the news readers sound like Cockney thugs pronouncing the word "the" as "fee", and spend half their time in interviews arguing with the interviewee instead of letting the interviewee state their position. It used to be the golden rule of the interviewer that the interviewer be the invisible person -- the interviewer let the interviewee speak state his or her case and let them self make a fool of him or her self or show him or her self to be a modern Solon. Instead the contemporary BBC interviewer is trying to lay traps for the conservative and give a boost to the liberal. Apparently the BBC is in the business of trapping foxes and raising rabbits.
This past summer there was a new filmed version of Stephen King's novel "It." the novel is about some sort of supernatural killer clown. Which reminds one of the old movie "The Killer Clowns From Outer Space" and John Wayne Gacy, aka the Killer Clown.
But it known that this writer has not for a very long time been a fan of clowns. But this man=y be because the role of clowns has changed over the years
As a child this writer grew up with such clowns as Lou Jacobs of Ringling Brothers, Red Skelton, Chucko the Clown (not Chuckles as referred to on several episodes of the Rockford Files), the awful Bozo the Clown, Hobo Kelly and Emmet Kelly. And at no time did he think that these clowns were evil or creepy. At the worst, as he grew from adolescence he thought that some of them silly i.e. Bozo. Chucko and Jacobs, but Jacobs could always be a funny when given the chance outside of the circus. Red Skelton and Emmet Kelly were, on the other hand, always funny and/or touching in their acts. Hobo Kelly ( a woman who played an Irish hobo on a kid's show) was always sweet.
And note that this writer's favored clowns are of the hobo/tramp type and not the Auguste or white-face type. The hobo/tramp/bum type of clown is a particularly American type. But this is not to say that the European Auguste or white-face clown is not of value. It's just a matter of "sophistication." If one is a Europhile one sees the Auguste or white-face clown as the plus non ultra, but if one is an awful Yankee or hillbilly the hobo type clown is pretty funny because the bum clown shows what one is or what one can become.
And in the U.S. the Auguste or white face clown is pretty foreign despite two hundred years of there being being Auguste or white face clowns starting with Joseph Grimaldi in the 18th century. But that type of clown has been popular despite, according to the American preference for the hobo/tramp clown.
In the past the clown was a distorted mirror of society. The clown showed the best and worst of society in a funny way. And a real clown, not just some idiot painting his or her face with white paint and putting on a wig and big shoes, worked to reflect the silliness of the world. All one has to do is look at old videos of Red Skelton.
To quote Red Skelton:
"A clown goes out and fits people right on. A clown uses pathos. He can be funny, then turn right around and reach people and touch them with what life is like."
The modern party clown doesn't do those things. He or she, almost always is wearing an Auguste or white-face make up, shows up at a kid's party to blow up balloons and laugh a lot and expect to be funny without any work except putting on white face make-up. That's what Gacy was and that's what It is. Both are pretenders. They both pretended to be clowns of a type -- the Auguste - white face type,
A lot of kids have found clowns creepy from day one, but few of them thought clowns dangerous before It and Gacy. And that's a pretty damn sad thing. It would be better if they thought of their school teachers as dangerous simply because more school teachers ruin them in one way or another than do clowns.
Clowning is an art. It's an old art. And we really don't appreciate the art as much as we should. The American society has ditched the art, and, if things goes as they are now going, we'll be ditching a lot more things that make us a unified nation.
The result of the shooting was just this: a bunch of deputies running around the neighborhood shining bright lights, knocking on doors and pretending to do something while they accomplished nothing except to assure the inhabitants of the neighborhood that the shooting victim would live despite the fact the no law-abiding person in the area really cared much if the victim was going to be pushing up daisies. To most of the neighborhood it was like a fight between two mad dogs -- one finds one's self half hoping for the worst between the two currs.
But on to better things:
Deadspin is a website that has specialized in sports news and sports opinion pieces. As many Internet based "news/opinion" websites, many of the writers working for Deadspin decided that it was their purview to start coloring outside the lines of the original model of Deadspin. Remember, it was founded to be a sports website. The writers for Deadspin, for some reason or another, decided that they should venture into politics (both in reportage and opinion). The reason is probably that they are young and they know that sports is the toy store of life. Sports, in the big picture, really mean nothing despite the fact that sports are important parts of many peoples lives. But many people find unimportant things to be important as a hobby or topic of conversation. The Game of Thrones is an example. It's a silly and stupid program, but if the series does not proceed in the way that they want they act as if the Nazis had invaded Poland. Some Astros fans believe that the Nationals winning the World Series is a second Dien Bien Phu. And some people get into fisticuffs of the Oxford comma. Every person has their line that they will not be allowed to be crossed.
The new owners of Deadspin, G/O Media, recently put out the word to the writers who have been employed by Deadspin to stick to sports and give the politics and opinion pieces a pass. The result was that the "staff" writers decided that they were being denied their "rights" to write what they wanted despite the fact that they were being paid to write about sports. Let us be clear about this. The writers were being to write about sports. Not politics and not culture. They were hired to write about sports.
But as many writers who whore themselves out to organs as staff writers instead of being writers who write because they have to write while having real jobs, they thought that they could make their employer into their image instead of honoring the conditions of their contracts. In other words, because of their time in journalism school or in university they believed that they were exempt from the conditions of their employment because they were, to use the popular word, "woke", and beyond criticism and restriction.
G/O Media stood it's ground and informed the writers that the Deadspin website is a sports only website and not a "woke" website. The writers employed by Deadspin quit to a man and woman because they felt that they knew what was best. And G/O Media replies with, "See ya, wouldn't want to be ya." And the former Deadspin writers started crying "unfair!"
Let us face the fact that writers are pretty much a dime a dozen these days. And there is no shortage of free-lance writers who are interested in sports. There are a lot of blog writers who are paid nothing at all who are better writers and better thinkers (this writer being excluded) than Internet writers who have been to J-School or university. And let's us keep in mind that most of us have, or have had. jobs/careers that demand a certain narrowness of attention at our places of employment. A machinist in the defense/aerospace industry cannot except to spend part of his or her working life developing super-chargers for double A fuel altered dragsters, and a sales person in the liquor industry cannot expect to be paid for writing article for the Woman's Temperance Union.
When you get a job you are expected to do the job for which you have been hired to do. And that's makes sense. But among the self-declared "elite" there is no sense except a sense of one's self importance.
This writer has complained about this before, but he is old enough to remember when the BBC was consider one of the most objective news organizations in the world. It had, of course, a bit of a British establishment tilt, but whenever a world even took place people would tune their short wave receivers to the BBC to get the best news reported by a reporter, and news reader, using the old Received British Pronunciation. To hear, at the beginning of an hour the words, "This is London" meant that one would get the straightest story at the time. Nowadays (how your friend hates that world -- it sounds like something say by a snuff dipping hillbilly) the reporters and the news readers sound like Cockney thugs pronouncing the word "the" as "fee", and spend half their time in interviews arguing with the interviewee instead of letting the interviewee state their position. It used to be the golden rule of the interviewer that the interviewer be the invisible person -- the interviewer let the interviewee speak state his or her case and let them self make a fool of him or her self or show him or her self to be a modern Solon. Instead the contemporary BBC interviewer is trying to lay traps for the conservative and give a boost to the liberal. Apparently the BBC is in the business of trapping foxes and raising rabbits.
This past summer there was a new filmed version of Stephen King's novel "It." the novel is about some sort of supernatural killer clown. Which reminds one of the old movie "The Killer Clowns From Outer Space" and John Wayne Gacy, aka the Killer Clown.
But it known that this writer has not for a very long time been a fan of clowns. But this man=y be because the role of clowns has changed over the years
As a child this writer grew up with such clowns as Lou Jacobs of Ringling Brothers, Red Skelton, Chucko the Clown (not Chuckles as referred to on several episodes of the Rockford Files), the awful Bozo the Clown, Hobo Kelly and Emmet Kelly. And at no time did he think that these clowns were evil or creepy. At the worst, as he grew from adolescence he thought that some of them silly i.e. Bozo. Chucko and Jacobs, but Jacobs could always be a funny when given the chance outside of the circus. Red Skelton and Emmet Kelly were, on the other hand, always funny and/or touching in their acts. Hobo Kelly ( a woman who played an Irish hobo on a kid's show) was always sweet.
And note that this writer's favored clowns are of the hobo/tramp type and not the Auguste or white-face type. The hobo/tramp/bum type of clown is a particularly American type. But this is not to say that the European Auguste or white-face clown is not of value. It's just a matter of "sophistication." If one is a Europhile one sees the Auguste or white-face clown as the plus non ultra, but if one is an awful Yankee or hillbilly the hobo type clown is pretty funny because the bum clown shows what one is or what one can become.
And in the U.S. the Auguste or white face clown is pretty foreign despite two hundred years of there being being Auguste or white face clowns starting with Joseph Grimaldi in the 18th century. But that type of clown has been popular despite, according to the American preference for the hobo/tramp clown.
In the past the clown was a distorted mirror of society. The clown showed the best and worst of society in a funny way. And a real clown, not just some idiot painting his or her face with white paint and putting on a wig and big shoes, worked to reflect the silliness of the world. All one has to do is look at old videos of Red Skelton.
To quote Red Skelton:
"A clown goes out and fits people right on. A clown uses pathos. He can be funny, then turn right around and reach people and touch them with what life is like."
The modern party clown doesn't do those things. He or she, almost always is wearing an Auguste or white-face make up, shows up at a kid's party to blow up balloons and laugh a lot and expect to be funny without any work except putting on white face make-up. That's what Gacy was and that's what It is. Both are pretenders. They both pretended to be clowns of a type -- the Auguste - white face type,
A lot of kids have found clowns creepy from day one, but few of them thought clowns dangerous before It and Gacy. And that's a pretty damn sad thing. It would be better if they thought of their school teachers as dangerous simply because more school teachers ruin them in one way or another than do clowns.
Clowning is an art. It's an old art. And we really don't appreciate the art as much as we should. The American society has ditched the art, and, if things goes as they are now going, we'll be ditching a lot more things that make us a unified nation.
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