The Struggle, It Is Real

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

First, the Hoyt household woke up cloudy with a high chance of a cat practicing Engineering.

Yes, you know it. It’s Indy. Every morning he wakes up and he chooses engineering. This week we had friends visit, and I realized they were giving the sidelong glance to gates placed in strategic doorways (in front of the doors) and probably think we’d evolved from general purpose nuts to security nuts, and the gates were designed to prevent armed teams from breaking in.

To be fair, mom has similar ones that lock, to break the house into “security zones” which at the very least will slow down intruders who break in, and give help a chance to arrive while parents are still alive. But they live in a far more dangerous country (even if in a decent neighborhood. But I see the crime statistics for breakins in their neighborhood) and they’re in their ninth decade, so this makes some sense.

Of course we explained it was to keep Indy out of oh, the sewing room, our bedroom, and the piano room, and other places that either have stuff that would hurt him, or stuff he could hurt. At which point our friends, probably, merely thought we were crazy.

And then there’s morning like this one. I found out the little sh– The ridiculous cat has used his large and freakishly agile paws to defeat the child look on the baking cabinet. Because this house has a tiny pantry that is an adapted coat closet, we’ve had to co-opt one of the lower cabinets for baking supplies. This might not be the best option.

Anyway the child lock is the type designed to — and according to the Amazon reviews it works as such — defeat kids up to three years of age.

So a great part of this morning was devoted to chasing Indy around and spraying him till soaked. After finding him in the cabinet, ears-deep in the sugar bag, going om nom nom nom. TWICE.

This also sets up an interesting dynamic, because Muse immediately comes to his defense by gnawing on my ankles. she loves me, but loves big brother better. Circe, meanwhile, who is incredibly sweet and pets-oriented is distressed there’s discord, and runs around in circles of confusion.

ANYWAY…. This to set the tone of my highly distracted morning.

Meanwhile, in case you wonder, we keep living in clown world. This morning my world was rocked by my friends discussing the “King Charles Portrait”. Look, this is what a not very smart man does to try to be innovative and special, and above all “smart”. Diabolical? Only to the extent our current “elite” in search of the outre runs into the outright evil. Also — she says in her normal “calm” manner, totally appropriate for the man who at one point wished he could be a kotex sanitary pad.

And to explain what you’re seeing and feeling in clown world: First go here. This is the most clear explanation of what our education does to people, teaching them a closed-system of shibboleths that has no contact with reality, meanwhile making them afraid of actually thinking.

There’s a right name for the “Woke” ideology, and it’s critical constructivism. Critical constructivist ideology is what you “wake up” to when you go Woke. Reading this book, which originally codified it in 2005, is like reading a confession of Woke ideology. Let’s talk about it.

And let me point out this was already going on when I was in college, 40 years ago. It’s just that now it displays its dysfunctionality more obviously in the age of the internet.

Which brings us to the next bit for you to consider this morning:

Scenes From a Global Struggle- Elites still command the strategic heights, but their power and prestige are slipping like water through their hands

Or if you prefer, they’re increasingly more in command of the “structures” while the rest of us build under, build over and build around.

I told you this struggle is world-wide. And it’s in a great way recovering what the late nineteenth and the twentieth century took away. That was the area of centralization. Now we fight for decentralization. In this, the “works of the elites” fight on our side, due to their having achieved “4th generations stupidity” like all Marxist elites do. After 4 generations of selecting for adherence to Marx, they are more incompetent and crazier than old-style nobility after fifteen generations of inbreeding, when they could only find the right end of the queen to put the crown on one time out of tree, given hints. Which is why everything seems to be falling apart and also why, though there is a lot of eating live frogs in the way, in the end we win they lose.

As a side note on this, and as part of my ongoing certainty that G-d is not only an Author, but also basically one of us, including His love of awful puns, I’ll point out from that article, something that might evade you. The horrendous Brazilian fraudsident, a cross between Brandon and Bernie Sanders, goes by Lula. In Portuguese this means Squid.

I leave you with this parting thought: “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn.” (Speaking of King Charles’ Portrait. LOL)

And now I’m going to go and figure out where the screw came from that Indy just left at my feet. And then I’m going to go write another 3 chapters of the book that won’t shut up. Look, I KNOW. I owe you chapters of Witch’s Daughter over in Chapter House. AND I’m THIS close to finishing Rhodes to Hell.

But No Man’s Land has commandeered my brain and won’t let it go. At least I have some hopes of bringing it to a close in another 50k words. Terrifying as it is already 135k words. However if I finish it, maybe I can finish other stuff before the next one in series kidnaps me?

Look, it’s my hope. Don’t take it away from me.

159 thoughts on “The Struggle, It Is Real”

  1. Cats aren’t supposed to have sweet receptors. I wonder if he was chewing on the sugar bag because of the texture of the sugar being crunched in the plastic? You know, like some people go around with a cigarette in their mouths for the feel, but never actually light the things?

    King Charles rendered in red. How appropriate for a socialist elite.

    The fundamental purpose of education is to learn how to learn. Everything else is either providing knowledge, or programming; and it’s a crap shoot for which you’re getting.

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      1. Best explanation I’ve seen anywhere.

        “In humans, the taste bud is made of two proteins. Unfortunately, cats only have one. This means when your cat eats candy, they taste something other than what the common concept about “sweet” is. For example, marshmallows may taste like chicken to them.” – https://www.catster.com/, 5/17/2024.

        So, a cat is tasting something, just not anything like we would associate with “sweet”. And how something tastes is also related to texture, temperature, odors, and combinations.

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      2. I believe this. Doofus will drink lemonade. Well, drink may be putting too much into it. Doofus will knock over a glass of lemonade, get it all over his fur, and lick it away for hours. I make lemonade like Southern sweet tea- just to the point of solubility and maybe a smidge over. Add a bit of lemon zest to it, some lemon juice, cut it with water to taste, then add sugar until it stops dissolving.

        Doofus also with jump into a pot of chicken soup to get a taste though, so his discretion may not exactly be counted on. Chicken is his addiction- anything proper chicken flavored has its days numbered should it come within smelling distance.

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      3. Sounds like you need a canister for the sugar now. Preferably one with a lid that requires too much strength applied in a particular direction to open. (This means Tupperware, not worse.)

        Liked by 1 person

          1. Sounds better than a Luminarc toggle seal jar. (Recalls glass shards after a ticked off 6 pound cat knocked over a decanter.) 20mm can with the two toggle seals might be better for Indy-proofing, unless he can talk Circe into helping.

            Sentry makes small safes… :)

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    2. Yeah, people say that and then they also say you can’t leave puddles of anti-freeze around because cats and dogs will lick it up because it tastes sweet.

      So, who knows.

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      1. My understanding is that antifreeze now has added a very bad taste for just this reason.

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        1. Too late. One lick and they will go into critical organ, usually kidneys, failure. Needs to be something that repels.

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      2. Dogs must taste sweet things, because they treat them totally differently than they treat savory things, or meaty things. Or fatty things. Or cold sweet things.

        I suspect that domesticated animals exposed to sweet things, probably adapt and learn to be able to taste sweetness better.

        That said, we’ve all seen wild animals going crazy for fruit, and especially fruit that is sweet. Sweet things are high calorie, and therefore their bodies have every incentive to let them taste sweetness.

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        1. I remember a story of one place in Africa the fruit ferments as soon as it ripens and animals flock from miles around and get sauced on the fermented fruit.

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          1. Apples that hit the ground ad sit for a while will ferment.

            Deer love them.

            They also can get sh(HONK!)faced from them.

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          2. Peter Capstick described that as a common result when elephants got into marula fruit (wild plum-type fruit), because even when eaten straight from the tree, the elephant digestive winery will ferment it.

            And apparently elephants don’t handle their liquor well….

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          3. Birds will eat fermented juniper berries. I’ve dealt with a few passed out on our porch. They fly funny when they wake up.

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        2. It’s probably one of those things that’s “they don’t have identical receptors” but gets ‘helpfully’ translated to them not tasting something.

          Liked by 1 person

      3. I’ve tasted ethylene glycol antifreeze, just to check out that claim. Prestone brand, if it matters.

        It wasn’t sweet. If anything, it was the most sour thing I ever tasted.

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    3. I have heard the statement that cats do not taste sweet from many sources including veterinarians. And yet we hear of Indy attacking the white sugar. I have had two cats that liked sweet. Spike LOVED maple syrup, He would sneak up next to the girls plates after they had had pancakes or french toast and dip his paw or drag his tail through it and then clean. The cleaning included intense purring, pupils open ALL the way and gentle air kneading indicating a state of feline ecstasy. This was true only for REAL maple syrup not Mrs, Butterworths or other poor substitutes. This hints that perhaps he was tasting something other than sugar/sweet. The other sweet hunter was Tyger. Tyger learned that sugar bowls contained something he liked and would knock the tops off and then take pawfuls of plain white refined sugar and eat it with glee. We lost a couple of sugar bowls and the contents of many sugar bowls (those paws went in the litter box thus strongly limiting the appeal of the sugar after he had pawed it) to Tyger in his nearly 16 years of existence. Here I am hard pressed to come up with ANY other reason than liking sweet as good refined sugar is almost pure crystallized sucrose. Indy is attacking the same kind of sugar I presume. I suspect there is a recessive gene lurking that at least partially restores the manufacture of protein related to tasting sweet. As a warning to our Hostess our Tyger ended up with type 2 feline diabetes. I don’t think the sugar was causative but perhaps that desire is indicative of low blood sugar. You really DON’T want a diabetic cat it is an immense amount of work and we cat types will do it to save our feline friends. Definitely keep an eye on Indy, like you have a choice :-) .

      Liked by 1 person

      1. We had one diabetic cat, DT. No, would prefer not another one. :(
        Later yesterday, he got in the pantry, knocked down a jar of protein powder, removed the top, and was found face-deep in it. Sigh.

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        3. Great now he is trying to be Arnold Shwartzenkitty. And yes testing blood sugar and dosing a cat with insulin (at full list cost health insurance does NOT cover insulin for you cat…) is the worst, The testing was the big one. For those unfamiliar the only easy place to get blood from a cat if you are not a vet tech is in the little veins and capillaries in their ear flaps. This is INCREDIBLY uncomfortable for the cat and kind of heart wrenching on the human.

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    4. A friend had a cat whose favorite treat was angel food cake, so…

      On the other hand, this cat was rescued from an interstate rest stop after being shot, liked to play fetch, couldn’t jump, ran sort of sideways, and didn’t meow, but made an truly indescribable noise. So maybe she was only half-cat or had some of the cat scared out of her.

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  2. I just wonder how many thinking people believe this Christian Nationalism that “they” are pushing especially when it’s applied to Muslim families objecting to the Trans garbage in the schools.

    Liked by 2 people

      1. Nod, some idiot got up on a News Show and Proclaimed that Christian Nationalists believe that “Rights Come From God not From The State/Government”.

        Of course, her critics pointed out the words of the Declaration Of Independence where Jefferson talks about rights coming from “Nature’s God”.

        And of course, various Civil Rights Leaders talked about “Natural Law Rights”.

        She couldn’t explain why Christian Nationalists were Bad while Jefferson and the Civil Rights Readers were Good. 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

        Liked by 1 person

        1. The new leftard straw dog. There are no Christian Nationalists, just like all the fake FBI groups they call White Nationalists. White Nationalists failed to gain traction, so they make it Christian Nationalists. Next they will change it to Religious Fundamentalists so they can include the muslims.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Of just fall back on “evangelicals” like they did in the 1980s. Meaning “people who go to a Christian church and support Jerry Falwell and/or the Moral Majority and who I think are icky. Those people. But not Mormons, because that’s a different icky.”

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          2. The Left won’t call out -that- cohort until 1) they vote 80% Republican and 2) are 100% pacifist.

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    2. You know, I’ve always wondered what this country would be like if the left stopped viewing Islam with deliberate blindness and naivete and instead with the same ruthless hatred they have for the evil conservative Christians just itching to commit a coup and create the Republic of Gilead.

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  3. 😁🤔

    So now you have an Engineer on a sugar high…. You’re going to have to reach back into your bag of tricks for Son #2.

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        1. Why hasn’t anyone thought of doing that for Sen. Durbin?
          Well he is a Dick after all.

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  5. You know, I keep hearing that cats can’t taste sweet…and yet clearly Indy thought the sugar was awesome (young cat on a sugar high, wheee!), and my orange boy will SHANK you for a shot at ice cream. Not cream. ICE CREAM. he prefers the sweet stuff.

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  6. Y’know, that King Charles portrait reminds me of the John F Kennedy portrait in the national portrait gallery.

    Except more skillfully rendered.

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      3. Well, that too, but I’ve actually seen the JFK one in person and it was… memorable.

        Yes. Memorable. That’s the word.

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        2. Sort of reminds me of “The Scream” – a water color by a third-grader. So the one of Chuckie is by a third grader without a full color set? 😃

          Liked by 1 person

  7. Well, I woke up to the sounds of tiny screams of mewing, from the direction of the box that we had set up for Miso … and yep – she had birthed her litter. The latest and last, I’ll have you know. But only four of them this time, so we have that going for us…

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      1. A sneaky way to defeat the liberals, get them so distracted by cute cat pictures they lose sight of their objectives. I thoroughly approve.

        Liked by 1 person

  8. “BLINK? I thought of Obama disappearing into the greenery”

    Man eating plant. Wait, he might enjoy that.

    Liked by 1 person

  9. The King Charles portrait reminds me of an official (I think) portrait made of Winston Churchill in the mid-1950s or so, I think when he was still in his second term as Prime Minister. Present at the unveiling, Churchill, an enthusiastic amateur paint-dauber himself, declared it a fine example of modern art.

    Winston Churchill HATED modern art.

    While I may not know art, I know what I hate, and I agree fully with Churchill. But even that excrescence doesn’t measure down to the King Charles portrait.

    Or maybe it does. I’m not studying them both closely enough to decide.

    Republica restituendae, et, Hamas delenda est.

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    1. Somebody desaturated the red to show the drawings concealed by it, and it was a bunch of butterflies and bees and stuff. That’s why Charles thinks it’s nice, because he likes butterflies and bees.

      The problem is that nobody can see that crap for all the red, and it basically comes across as a murder or martyrdom picture.

      Artists are supposed to be aware of the feelings people get from colors, so of course it’s on purpose.

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      2. I have to admit the red gave it a rather infernal outlook when I first saw it. Now the Baphomet take makes me go hmmm.

        Liked by 1 person

      3. And we are all seeing it through an sRGB filter, so we are literally not seeing most of the painting.

        But an artist for an official portrait should also be aware of how it will be used….

        Liked by 1 person

  10. Some cats do go for sweets. Or other things you wouldn’t think of.

    Few nights ago, we had strawberry shortcakes for dessert. I brought my bowl into the office – and then realized that I forgot to get a spoon.

    Came back, and Artemis had not disturbed the whipped cream on it (I use a lot), what you would think she would get into, but was under the desk chewing on a strawberry half.

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      1. Popcorn seems fine (though likely a bit indigestible to a cat, cat rotorooter). Raw potatoes on the other hand not so good. The solanine in raw (and especially green) potatoes which can give us a sore tummy will have a cat barfing all over the place, kind of like when they eat grass. Cooked would be fine although perhaps a bit binding in large quantities. And again we return to sweet as the potato starch processes into sugars. Not only is that cat an engineer, he might be a chemical engineer…

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          1. When our first border collie was a puppy, we’d take her with us when we’d go shopping. We’d stop and get something at McDs or DQ, and Angie would get some fries. She got used to it.

            The older lab-aussie (Sara) would normally stay home, but both dogs came with us one time (vet visit, I’d guess). She was shocked at the concept of getting food from a window, while the puppy was pretty blase about it by then. (OTOH, being half lab, Sara was happy on a see-food diet, with a loose definition of “food”. Sigh. Sweet girl, but stupid about some things. Still miss her. And the others over the Rainbow Bridge.)

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  11. Re: Child locks.

    They make an invisible lock that mounts on the inside of the door and opens with a magnet. Home Depot carried them the last time I looked. They might solve your Indy-in-the-cabinet problem.

    Liked by 1 person

            1. If you want a small, cheap (free, actually) magnet that will damn near pick up a truck, take apart an old hard drive and pull the magnet(s) out. I use them for everything around the house.

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              1. Aye. For small hard-to-remove magnets, I found the ones in older Sonicare toothbrush heads work well. Don’t know about the newer style.

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    2. We started using child locks in case the Cascadia Happy Fun Shake ‘n Fall earthquake has major effects over here in Flyover County. The official guess is “Not a Problem.” Waggles hand, knowing that the house is not/cannot be well attached to what passes for a foundation. Manufactured housing has its issues…

      When two cabinet doors have adjacent handles (knobs or pulls–works easier for the latter, can work for knobs), Home Desparate sells a U-bolt looking clamp. The long plastic U has ratcheted teeth, while the cross piece has two buttons. Squeeze so that both buttons are depressed “enough”, and it slides. (If you have arthritis in the hands, this might not be fun. Ask me how I know…) There are a couple of different sizes and colors ranging from white to brown.

      This might be Indy-proof, though all I’m willing to say it would be Indy-resistant. Little begger.

      For stand-alone doors, I’ve seen tabs that Indy would have to depress with the door partially open. I suspect it’s easier for smart cats and determined children to open than for adults…

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      1. My late father was a soils engineer, so I picked up a few things along the way. Houses that are NOT attached to a foundation often fare better when the Earth Moves than those firmly attached to the shaking ground. A structure merely set on blocks can fall off the blocks and sustain less damage than one nailed down and subject to every shock.

        (It’s not magic, but it is a thing. There will be damage, just LESS of it.)

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        1. Like building with wood instead of locked-brick, or how the Chinese put very heavy tile roofs on wooden buildings. The Chinese combination didn’t tear itself apart, because the forces of the two swaying at different rates diffused the earthquake energy. As you say, there was still damage, but the thing didn’t fall in on people’s heads.

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        2. Fuck.

          So those seismic retro’s I’ve done are gonna go tit’s up and be worse off than the ones I haven’t.

          That’s a damned cheery thought.

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        2. Picturing this: One paw upper, one paw lower, third paw (or is it teeth?) pushing the clamp away. (Unless it’s knobs, and he’s warping the U. Still…)

          Indy is a very scary cat. :)

          Liked by 1 person

          1. It’s clamps. But again, he unscrewed the lid of a protein powder jar — did I tell you that? We found him int he pantry face deep in protein powder — The protein powder lid is screw on, and it takes several turns to totally remove it, which he did and… I have nothing.

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      3. > Waggles hand, knowing that the house is not/cannot be well attached to what passes for a foundation. Manufactured housing has its issues…

        —

        I don’t know about prefabs, but nowadays you’re more likely to ride out a tornado in a mobile home than a standard stick-built house. To qualify for homeowner loans or insurance, a mobile home has to have fairly elaborate tiedowns nowadays. A stick-built house, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be attached to anything, at least not up to a few years ago when I last checked.

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          1. The place was installed very late 1999, and when I did a look, the best I can tell was that a windowed slab was poured, the place set on piers in the interior, and with concrete block at the exterior. From what I’ve seen, that block is for excluding critters rather than structural support. Anchoring the place would be possible, but seriously hard to do.

            OTOH, the biggest recent (1993) earthquakes in Flyover County were a double header: a 5.9 and a 6.0 a couple hours later. Devastating to some older brick buildings in downtown Flyover Falls. Not sure what it would have done over here. The local geography is complex. Volcanic rock, seabottom clays with pumice, and lots of shale.

            Tornados: we’ve had some EF0s locally.

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        2. To qualify for homeowner loans or insurance, a mobile home has to have fairly elaborate tiedowns nowadays. A stick-built house, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be attached to anything, at least not up to a few years ago when I last checked.

          Don’t know about anywhere else but I follow “Build house in 100 days” HGTV. They build in Florida. Normally build on concrete foundations and outer wall are large concrete cinder block with iron rods and concrete fill. Outer after being waterproof wrap may make it look timber, roof is tied down reinforced timber frame. But typically the house is cinder block. One house they built a timber frame because the “historical” neighborhood designation. It was stated the extra steps because of the requirements to have more tie downs than their traditional methods.

          During the Baeumlers Florida’s home build, he also brought up the differences between Florida and Canada building processes which also discussed tying down timber framed house requirement. Which in their case was retrofitting the tie downs to the house they were re-configuring and adding (up) on to (which increased building time already impacted by supply channel delays … and they thought the island build pre-covid supply scheduling was a PIA).

          So somewhere requires timber frame, stick-built, houses be tied down in hurricane/tornado prone location, on new and major rebuilds.

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        3. You’d have to be kind of stupid to not have your sill plate bolted to your foundation, though I suppose it’s possible that if you’re doing slab-on-grade you might technically be able to not fasten the walls to the floor.

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  12. As a counter to some of the craziness going on, you can watch what’s happening in Argentina. Early days still, so the wheels may come off as the elites predict, but a rare example of voting yourself out of socialism.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. I’m waiting for the car (or plane, or train, or pogo stick, or…) accident to return Argentina to what the elites consider to be “normal” (i.e., end-stage socialism). 😒😒🤢

      Liked by 1 person

  16. Right now, I’m struggling with my job, my paycheck, my piece of mind, and my desire to just watch the world burn because the colors will be pretty. Because I don’t have anything else that interests me or I want or can afford to do.

    If they don’t want me to be this insane, the Powers That Be should give me more valid escape options. Other than the…thing they had on the latest episode of The Series Previously Called Doctor Who.

    Fine, insanity it is then.

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    1. If you can stand to watch other people play videogames, I’ve got some channel recommendations.

      And I recommend switching out your tv subscription for a membership in your local drive through car wash. Much better entertainment, especially if you get the unlimited washes subscription. Pays for itself by the second wash.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. That’s one of my favorite pass-the-time hobbies. I quit playing video games, cold turkey, because I realized I was showing signs of addiction. (Decades ago). But watching them lets me experience the story, and sometimes pause the video to figure out the puzzles, yet it doesn’t trigger my addiction. If I have a ten-minute break, I can watch ten minutes of a Let’s Play series, then pause the video and go back to work.

        So I’d like some channel recommendations; some of them might be ones I haven’t discovered yet.

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        1. I suppose the one I watch most is Gymnast86 on Twitch. He does speed-runs of various Zelda games, and has a very mellow voice and calm interaction with his chat.

          I’ve also been watching the Zelda Speed Runs twitch channels. They’ve been running a bunch of beginner randomizer tournaments the last few months. Those are kind of hit and miss because they do include color commentary and all the commentators are volunteers.

          …I guess that’s only two channel recommendations.

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      2. Direct TV is doing, “You can stream us – you don’t have to have a dish!” commercials. As someone on Twitter put it,they have re-invented cable TV.

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        1. …so, where do you think the next great act of media “piracy” will result? I’m not sure myself, since it was cable and then the Internet via streaming and BitTorrent (next goal for my first raise is to buy a small box computer to use as a BitTorrent hub and way to download anime).

          Somehow, it always seems to go legitimate with people that make the pirates look polite and reasonable.

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      3. I’ve got a few channels I enjoy, especially historical stuff and the odd bits of technology.

        “Let’s Play” videos annoy me because I want to reach through the screen, grab the controller, and do it myself. That, and their commentary usually is just…banal.

        The good thing is that I don’t have to pay for my TV subscription here, which is good because I would be buying that carwash plan if I had to. Or ordering more DVDs off of Amazon.

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      1. Hugs back, Great Aunt.

        It’s not that bad, in a lot of ways. It’s just…well, four years of watching as the dumpster smolder becomes a dumpster fire. Knowing that I’ve been doing everything that I can reasonably do, trying to do more things, and knowing that the weirdness of my own brain makes me more sensitive to the currents of emotions around me.

        I promise, I won’t light any small fires.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. I will admit, had I access to a stone tower in the middle of the wilderness, I definitely would be reprising a certain popular fantasy trope these past few years…

          Liked by 1 person

    3. Today I was insulted, cussed at, and spit upon. Guy had a bug up his rear about something but couldn’t articulate what it was, and I was in range. This did not annoy me as much as it should have, probably. I’ve been cussed at by better and more creative souls with more reason.

      Then he got to insulting my team. That, I disagreed with.

      Not competing with you mind, just saying you’re not alone in the frustration department. I was not allowed to do as was just, which was to throw him bodily out of the shop. Nope. Had to disagree politely and politely tell him where to stick it- by way of saying “Man, that sucks for you. Good luck with that.”

      I’d like the world to take a chill pill. Doofus would like there to be no barking, ever, and no leaf trucks or cars with loud exhausts. We are both disappointed with the world, the orange fuzzmonster and I. Lately, the assaults on Israel and Jews in general have got me to quit listening to the nooz again. I’ve had Jewish friends before, and the things I hear make my fists itch. Such things ought not to be said by those what don’t want a solid left hook to meet their face.

      This latest insult to decency and honor will not be the last one. No, the goblins remain ever brave and hopeful that this time- yes, this time, they will finally get to enjoy the fruits of their ever-hungry cupidity.

      But I am not such a fool as to put myself in positions where my temperament will be tested beyond my limits willingly. Alas, goblin noses remain largely un-punched, more’s the pity. For all the worldly good a solid thrashing would likely do these adult toddlers, it would be prejudicial to good order and discipline in general.

      There are no easy answers. For myself, prayer and meditation are an aid to better equanimity. The blood earned wisdom that tells me no good and much ill are gathered by spreading my bad mood upon innocents keeps my words sweet in public, by and large.

      Of late though, the panacea of unpeopled places has been the best at re-balancing things. Out in the woods, away from the sounds of the city and the people therein, I find perspective.

      The ills of today are transitory. While the human heart will ever hold the seeds of evil, it also holds grace unparalleled. While one cannot reap goodness from forcing it upon the unwilling, one can choose to live in such a manner that the ills of the world are made less, one day, one human interaction at a time. Reward honesty, hard work, and good manners with the same. Avoid goblins and cluster-B disasters whenever possible. Treat bad situations like natural disasters. Prepare for them, execute the plan that gets you home with least damage, and move on from them as quickly as possible.

      May things improve for us all in the days to come. I do not ask for, nor expect miracles. But maybe we can make things a smidge better, here and there, tomorrow.

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  17. The King Charles portrait is weird in that it’s low-contrast to the point where someone desaturated it to show what someone color-blind would see and it’s a murky mess. “Han Solo in carbonite” has been a term applied.

    Honestly, I’m fine with the Realm of the Crimson King concept. Sure. Why not. Just increase the contrast a bit for those folk who don’t have my level of color perception. He’s only going to be king for a few years; can’t imagine he’ll have his parents’ longevity.

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  19. Ah, ‘art.’ Right. Oh, boy, really captures his inner essence or something.

    As to cats, had one that loved citrus and would actively force herself into a glass of grapefruit juice. Apparently not all cats are made the same.

    Child locks? Take a piece of 1″ pvc, the thin stuff, about a foot long. Cut a slit lengthwise. Take a board a tad bit wider than your cabinet doors. Heat the oven to 250, place pvc on a tray into oven until it starts to deform, yank it out of oven and force the pvc over the board in order to make a ‘C’ cross section. Please use oven mitts or kitchen towels. Let cool, smooth corners and edges with some sand paper. You now have a sliding channel of pvc that you can use to span between the two cabinet doors. And use the child locks. Between the two, you might have a chance…

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    1. A cat that liked citrus? that is a new one on me. Most all cats I have met are absolutely repelled at citrus fruit especially citrus oils like lemon or orange peels generate. Thats one of the fundamental smells in the “Don’t scratch this” concoctions. Reaction ranges from backing off fast to triggering their gag reflex. I think that cats nose was broken, their sense of smell is almost as good as a blood hound’s. I’ve always felt if kitties were a bit more amenable to training they’d make excellent search and rescue animals as they can get places a dog could never reach.

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  20. Conflating the Old Gods with Chuckles the Thurd is gonna make life underwater very unpleasant for the servitors…

    Almost as unpleasant as Charles must have been to his Mum.

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  21. When I saw the portrait of King Charles, I was left the with the opinion that he wanted the painter to demonstrate how subsuming the office is. The idea seemed to be that Charles could no longer be just Charles, but could only be the king— hence the red of his official clothing of office took over all the background.

    I don’t know that Charles actually feels this way about the job, but it is an idea I could not get out of my head after seeing the painting.

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  22. The article from Discourse Magazine reminds me of reading about Klemens von Metternich and his and others’ desperate attempts to reverse everything that had happened after, oh, 1760 or so. If they just censored things, reEstablished the Church, made Poland go away again, and kept the Proper People on the Proper Thrones, as G-d had intended, that nasty icky personal liberty and free-market economics, and nationalism, and so on would wither and go away, and all would be good and proper once more.

    It didn’t work for him, either. But it took 1830 and 1848 to get the message across. And even then, change came very, very slowly to the Habsburg lands (although not as slowly as some people like to think.)

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  23. The war on some fascisms was itself in theory based in facism.

    However, it was waged by Christians.

    It in the east, te eastern facist totalitarian regime had maanged to push out Christian implementor influence on decision making to the point of resulting only in horror and destruction.

    In America, the facist totalitarian regime had limited success in implementing totalitarianism, and so the Christian influence via implementors had enough effect on decision making to have good results.

    This is an answer that migth satisfy a relatively sane theory obsessive when it comes to the current future.

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  24. You do realize that if you put the baking stuff in a higher placed cabinet or shelf, that Indy will just find a way to either get up the higher location, or even worse, bring that location back down lower.

    At this point, is even a combination lock or one with a key safe from Indy’s aptitude for engineering?

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  25. My cat was a feral. His mom was killed when he was (possibly) two weeks old, but they couldn’t find the kittens. He and his surviving brother got very good at scrounging.

    He would eat absolutely anything, but he loved black pepper. Green beans, potato peels, asparagus. As long as it had pepper on it, he would chow down.

    I don’t remember how he reacted to sugar. Whether they taste “sweet” or not, it’s obvious that they taste “yum.”

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    1. Tasting “yum”…

      My sister had a black and white cat named Bandit (due to facial coloring). One day my mom baked a sweet potato pie and left it in the middle of the table to cool. We had NEVER had any trouble with Bandit getting onto the table, but when she came back in, the middle of that pie was MISSING. A few minutes later, Bandit saunters into the room with a super innocent, “Who, me? I ain’t done nuthin'” look on her face…and orange whiskers.

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