Well-known blogger, security analyst, and my young freedomista friend and co-author Kit Perez had surgery for melanoma last week. Melanoma is scary in the best of circumstances, and Kit’s circumstances were not the best. Her surgery was no doctor’s office snip, but a major work leaving a long scar down her back and leaving Kit (temporarily, we hope) pretty seriously impaired. Worse, when the diagnosis and rush to surgery hit, she and her husband were, unfortunately, caught without insurance. The rules of the Unaffordable Care Act say no insurer can refuse coverage due to an existing condition. But the rules…
16 CommentsMonth: August 2019
Recent summers have been heavy with house projects, from tearing down walls to building up rotten foundations, from installing new doors to laying patio blocks. Not so much this summer. After a spate of small indoor spring projects … nada. The last nine days, though. Whoof! On Monday the 5th the big rock garden began to form. It was finished on Sunday, then the very next day the tree guys turned up to begin taking out rotted and dangerously leaning trees. Here are pix of it all. This (above) is the house as of Friday. Rocks in place, but not…
10 CommentsArkancide? Something else equally sinister? Judith Miller, a former jailbird herself, sez it’s awfully hard to commit suicide while in federal detention. (Conspiracy theories have gone mainstream since Saturday!) This may not fix a broken medical system, but it’s sure a provocative step: Go to Mexico, have surgery with an American surgeon, get a nice fat bonus check from your insurance company. Red flag laws, “assault weapons,” Republican politicians, and other vermin. Eight dangerous myths about survivalism. The secret to super-long life? Not diet. Not exercise. Not genetics. Just plain old lying. Companies are borrowing money, not to invest and…
6 CommentsPart of this week’s wall-building endeavor involved a lawnmower-powered hoist. Like so: Yeah, it looks cumbersome, but it was surprisingly productive and cut the projected time for the job by a full day. The hoist was The Wandering Monk’s work, but powering it with the riding mower was the brainstorm of his minion, a 14-year-old boy from my neighborhood. The mower belongs to his family. When the guys were wrapping up, I requested, “Please ask your mom or dad if I can reimburse them for use of the mower, or at least replace the gas we used.” “Oh, they don’t…
9 Comments[Peeks around the corner of the Internet.] Psssst — is it safe to look at the news again yet? The only word I’ve had from the outside world is from NPR. That’s been good for about 30 seconds a day, as they’ve dropped their all-immigrant-all-the-time coverage for their utmost favorite topic, all-blood-dancing-all-the-time. But I’m optimistic; I’m going to go out and check the news, assuming not every media outlet can be so narrow-minded. —– Why should you be outgunned by violent people who hate you? This Atlantic article has been around for a few years. But at moments like this…
7 CommentsAbout a week ago I walked under Ava’s overhead dog trolley and it brushed the top of my head. My head is not eight feet above the ground, where the wire is supposed to be. Thinking the wire had slipped loose or stretched, I took my little wrench over to the tree where it’s anchored, figuring to tighten things up. I ended up tippy-toeing carefully away. The only thing keeping that tree from tipping into my house is the branches of the (fortunately strong) old cedar tree it fell into. No surprise, really. The tree (an ash maybe? I’m not…
4 CommentsThe rock wall/rock garden project begins on Monday. I already killed a whole bank of grass and weeds (an early and encouraging victory in my recently declared War on Lawns). My act of vicious, premeditated herbicide is supposed to make it easier for The Wandering Monk to carve through and shape the soil of the bank, but that’s still going to be pick-axe work. Ugh. The quarry brought out the rock yesterday morning and dumped it across the street. My instructions had been “rock of the maximum size one man can handle and some slightly smaller, everything between 60 and…
8 CommentsI’ve been thinking about the characteristics that lead an individual (and by extension, a culture or a nation) toward freedom: sound judgment, an understanding of economics, a live-and-let-live attitude, skepticism toward Authoritah, determination, a hunger for independence, honor (especially in the sense of being a person of one’s word) — there are so many. A disinclination to indulge in witch-hunts, however insistant the cultural drumbeat, could be helpful. So could the ability to recognize one’s own shortcomings. Or having the skill to apply deeply held abstract principles smoothly to reality’s messy vicissitudes. So many. So complex, too. For instance, good…
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