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Month: April 2015

Being a freelance writer is sometimes a wonderful pain in the butt

Been feeling distracted and tired lately. Concerned about money. Not “OMG, how will I keep the lights on?” money issues. More like “How do I juggle all this?” It’s temporary (vehicle repairs, taxes) and I’m not asking anything from anybody. Everything is fine. Just know that right now I feel muzzy-headed, unclear on many of life’s little details, as if I want to crawl back in bed by 9:00 a.m., and for some reason also ravenous for protein. Preferably protein saturated in honey and brown sugar (so it’s a good thing I made beef jerky the other day, yes?)

Anyhow, I don’t have much for you right now, so I thought I’d just share a little email exchange from the weekend. It’s the kind of communication that should make you glad you didn’t opt for a career as a freelance writer.

Background: I wrote a S.W.A.T. magazine article asking, “Do we have a right to rebellion?” The article isn’t online, but basically I was answering that statist eejit Paul Begala’s multi-idiocy remarks from earlier this year. Then some “expert” answered me.

Before I get to the exchange itself, I’ll acknowledge that, yes, I’m well aware that some readers here deny that any such things as rights exist. Consider your point to be noted in advance. We have a right to differ. 🙂 But my position in the article was that we damn well do have a right to rebellion, Mr. Begala to the contrary.

For the rest of you who consider discussions of the nature of rights meaningful, on to the exchange.

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Monday miscellany

Ban the trebuchet! (And while you’re at it, tell that writer that 1895 wasn’t “medieval.”) H/T MJR Princeton opts for insensitivity discursive rape hurting people’s itty-bitty widdle feewings free speech and free thought. And does it for the right reasons. Seattle. Cops. Humanity. Hm. We’ll see how this works out I used to know a fair bit about the pre-WWII history of aviation. I could have bored you silly with tales of how Henri Coanda almost invented a jet plane in 1910 and how Jacqueline Cochran won the Bendix Race. But I never knew this. It’s touching that after all…

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A most remarkable movie

A Most Violent Year
Available on DVD and Blu-ray

I watched A Most Violent Year on DVD last night and found it a most remarkable movie.

It’s not the most technically astonishing movie I’ve seen lately (that would be Birdman). It’s not even the most chilling crime thriller (that would be Nightcrawler). It’s not even the best acted (which would be Whiplash). I occasionally didn’t buy some of the plot points and I thought 20 minutes could easily have been trimmed out of it.

Nevertheless, it was remarkable — and in a good way. Why? Because its protagonist is an independent businessman and a man of honor determined, against great odds, to do everything right.

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Rainy Friday afternoon check-in

I’m having one of those “brilliant” blogthoughts that just hasn’t gelled yet, thus the “lite” posting. Today I’m spring cleaning and making beef jerky. The house is filled with a wonderful honey-teriyaki-beef-pepper aroma. Haven’t made jerky since moving into this place because this house doesn’t have an oven and I didn’t think the dehydrators I have for fruits & veggies were quite powerful enough to handle drying meat. But I tossed a folded flour-sack dishtowel over the vents to keep more heat in and they’re doing just dandy. Can’t wait to sample the product. Speaking of sampling the product, a…

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Thursday links and an update on Joel’s siding bleg

The poor WaPost is worried about the “growing insurrection.” So very, very much the poor WaPost fails to understand. Just how bad is the growing growing student loan mess? More info on why the DoJ is so desperate to conceal info about its stingray searches and interceptions. Oh, there’s so much to hide! What? You didn’t already know this? And this, too: “When everything is a crime.” UPDATE on Joel’s siding bleg. He’s getting there, but could really, really use another $400. Just that much more. Yeah, I know it’s tax time and the fedgov thinks you should give your…

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Beadboard scrounge

It’s been a year since I’ve scrounged anything good from the woods. Then it was the foundling end table (which got improved and which Commentariat member Pat eventually dubbed “Doorway to the Sun”). This afternoon I brought home a small heap of equally unprepossessing but potentially useful stuff I found in a newly dumped trash heap. To wit: This is tongue-and-groove beadboard from somebody’s old house. Depression-era, I’m guessing. Probably wainscotting from a kitchen or bathroom judging by the bits of ancient wallpaper clinging to it. This small amount isn’t enough for anything by itself, but I’ve got this ceiling…

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Tuesday links

Seems cops and the U.S. Justice (sic) Department will go to amazing lengths to hide their newest tracking methods from us. A must-read for philosophical Libertopians: “Welcome to the Arena in the Clouds” by Max Borders. Guerrilla civic improvement. (H/T AG) It takes 13,000 words for the Columbia Journalism Review to say it and those words are thoughtful and worth reading. But bottom line: in their zeal to confirm an agenda, Rolling Stone’s staffers chose to mistake the behavior of a manipulative liar for the behavior of a poor, traumatized victim. (To their credit, RS and writer Sabrina Erdely cooperated…

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Joel’s siding bleg

He’s asking for less, but can we make it $1,500 for Joel’s siding bleg? You know how construction projects go. You think you’re looking at $700 and the next thing you know … But anyhow, he’s also had some good news, with neighbors coming across with part of the supplies.

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Monday links

MamaLiberty reviews Jackie Clay’s Summer of the Eagles. Somebody in the mainstream media finally questions whether it’s right to destroy mom & pop businesses that aren’t sufficiently politically correct. Glad ordinary folk don’t even need to ask questions like that. Back when the RICO statutes were first passed, libertarian alarmists predicted that they’d be so misused that the feds would soon be busting penny-ante poker games. Well, it seems they’ve been misused for just about everything except that. But here’s one of the most creative turns of the RICO story. David Boaz notes that the final stage of socialism is…

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