No, I haven’t died and gone wherever you hope dead people of my sort go. I’ve just been playing host to out-of-town company for four days (3-1/2 more ahead). We’ve been out doing stuff and I haven’t had time to blog. This will just be a quick check-in, but I’ll make up for my absence next week. —– My company is very polite and a good guest, but having someone else in the house is a serious adjustment for this hermit — especially since I’ve been diving more deeply into solitude and silence lately. (Solitude, of course, is much more…
2 CommentsMonth: June 2019
When I heard The Wandering Monk muttering phrases like “close enough” and “we can live with that” as he wielded my four-foot level, I knew that I — or my house — had corrupted him. The Monk is a stickler for precision. Ye Olde Wreck has a different view of reality. I can’t tell you the number of times The Monk’s tried to build something straight or level and I’ve had to remind him, “You can’t do that. It won’t line up with everything else.” Don’t get me wrong; starting at the rotted foundations, we’ve raised rooms by as much…
6 CommentsNo, not a commercial announcement on my behalf; I have NFI in any of the following. I just think they’re all worthy causes and items you might be interested in. 1. Liberty Under Attack Publications, aka the very young men who are reviving Rayo’s old freedom strategy of VONU, now have more books online. In addition to books on the vonulife, they’ve got volumes on bitcoin investing, subversion, strategy, and sedition. Who could ask for more? 2. A brief reminder that friend-of-liberty Elias Alias has expanded his Silver Seeds of Liberty line. When he’s not agitating for freedom, Elias is…
3 CommentsThe links, they keep following me … In Phoenix, it’s drawn guns, profanities, and threats over a doll shoplifted by a four-year-old. You see, this is why I love to read Jonah Goldberg even as many other freedomistas scorn him. The utterly beastly tactics of the Mueller team. (H/T JB) Yes, England has gone completely bonkers. Hey guys, Knives have edges as well as points. And there are always plenty of blunt objects around the house for the resident domestic abuser to wield. As Borepatch observes, the British government is downright childish. Kitchen knives! Oh my! One of many trans…
4 CommentsThe note and donation came from strangers who could almost be called neighbors. Friendly neighbors. I didn’t know them, but they were close enough to exult in the same wonderful library system, close enough that we may have bumped shoulders in the same Big City stores. They’d also renovated an old repo house on a hill. In short, we had a lot in common. And they said they were, like me, choosing to stay put in their town — not moving to any inland redoubt as quite a few other freedomistas have done. They put it interestingly; not only that…
13 CommentsI was at a community game night recently and got roped into a table of Dungeons & Dragons. Only the young dungeonmaster had D&D experience, and she was obviously having a blast while the rest of us were mystified at first and ultimately bored. Knowing she just had to be a fan of the Netflix series, I asked her, “Have you watched Stranger Things?” (which is set in the 1980s and opens with Our Four Geeky Middle School Heroes engaged in a game of D&D, whose final move segues into related mayhem and mystery). “I watched the first season and…
9 CommentsYou know I’m a dedicated thrift store and garage sale shopper. My habit has saved thousands of dollars over the years while also giving me the thrill of the hunt and the occasional Big Score. Must confess, though. Thrift stores can also be places to blow money on impulses. To wit: A few readers may recognize those as knitting machines. (Technically the white one is a knitting machine and the other a ribber.) I knit. Sometimes. But until earlier this week I only dimly realized that such things as kitting machines existed. Then the manager’s son spotted me pulling bags…
17 CommentsOnce again, links keep finding me (though more slowly than they did when I was online all the time, so some of these are a few days old) … Mohamed Noor, the cop who murdered Justine Damond, has been sentenced to 12.5 years in prison. (H/T F) Scot Peterson, the school resource officer who cowered in safety while students died, has been arrested and criminally charged. Eric Peters writes of human veal calves and the end of America’s teen romance with cars (and the freedom they represent). Not quite as absurd as the Vatican waiting 500 years to apologize to…
5 CommentsPart I here —– I’ve always disliked Jesus’ three-part statement in Matthew 7:7 containing the phrase, “Seek and ye shall find.” This strikes my literal-minded self as such a blatant untruth I don’t know how anyone can read it without cynicism or outrage. Sure, many people seek and DO find some specific, definable, solid Truth (in religion or outside it). More power to them. More power to YOU if you’re such a fortunate soul. Many other seekers (I’m one) search, search, and search some more, and find only falsehood, error, contradiction, endless and extremely colorful fearmongering, and an excess of…
8 CommentsThe gnostic understands Christ’s message not as offering a set of answers, but as encouragement to engage in the process of searching … — Elaine Pagels, The Gnostic Gospels Trust those who seek the truth but doubt those who say they have found it. — Andre Gide (and many others) You cannot reason with a tiger when your hand is in its mouth. — Winston Churchill, In Darkest Hour —– Political freedom is (almost!) an oxymoron. All freedom is personal. A thoughtfully constituted government like the one these formerly united States started with can for a time slow down the…
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