Saturday, August 18, 2018

“For some reason, when there’s a garbage can on a corner, it attracts litter.”

These week’s example of Leftist Logic. From Ed Driscoll, highlights mine:

New York City Removes Trash Cans on the Upper West Side:

trash cans overflow

What happened to the baskets? Did they get removed in anticipation of some windy weather? Surely the Department of Sanitation [DSNY] would soon restore the baskets – thereby easing the overflow trash – she thought.

A neighbor who shared her concerns called 311 and was told that the baskets had been removed because people leaving Riverside Park were putting their trash in them. “You can’t make this up,” says Melissa.

Nope.

Counterintuitive as it may seem, DSNY says having fewer trash baskets increases area cleanliness. “For some reason, when there’s a garbage can on a corner, it attracts litter,” DSNY Community Liaison Nick Circharo told West Side Rag. “The corner without a basket is the cleanest corner. If you take away the baskets, people will take their garbage elsewhere.”

I guess the concept is to send the trash home rather than have it overflow the existing facilities. Following that logic I would think that sanctuary cities like New York would be on board with sending the illegal aliens packing.

And cities like San Diego…

homelsssandiegohepaHomeless camp, San Diego

and San Francisco…

san fran homeless3Homeless encampment, San Francisco

might want to find a home for all the itinerants wandering around leaving their human garbage all over the streets instead of hiring “poop patrols.”

san fran poop map interactiveSan Francisco’s interactive “poop map”

The left seems comprised of certifiable idiots who, rather than raising the downtrodden up, seem committed to dragging the rest of us down into their muck.

Linked At: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and Free Republic, Thanks!

Friday, August 17, 2018

Divas Always Wear Mink

aretha-franklin22

Beyond the music itself, the moment everyone talked about after Franklin’s performance at the Kennedy Center was the way, just before the final chorus, as she was reaching the all-out crescendo, she stripped off her mink and let it fall to the floor. Whoosh! Dropping the fur—it’s an old gospel move, a gesture of emotional abandon, of letting loose.Soul Survivor

Ah, such sweet sadness; the lights in Detroit - which only recently began to glow a bit again - will be a bit dimmer tonight as the curtain comes down on one of Motown’s great ones. Aretha’s unbridled talent put all the autotuned, sexualized, humping female contortionists that pose as singers today to shame. The kind of talent Franklin had couldn’t be created by packaging and promotion departments like they are these days. She was the real deal, the once-in-a-century phenomenon that people will listen to, study and emulate for another 100 years. She could sing anything: gospel, soul, pop and jazz standards – like this from  a very young Aretha:

And this from the Sam Cooke songbook speaks to anyone who has fought through life’s struggles – black or white.

And yes, Aretha even tackled opera, not just because she could but because she loved it. Although not a “trained” opera singer she worked with a voice coach in order to do a stand-in performance of Nessun Dorma for Pavarotti at the 1998 Grammys. She performed the aria several times subsequently. While the earlier renditions were certainly more powerful, as both age and cancer eventually took their toll in range and stamina, I find this restrained 2015 version far more moving. It will make you weep, if you have a soul; and if you are a fan of Miss Franklin you most certainly do.

Rest in peace dear lady. Surely in time someone will be sent to take your place, for God is generous that way, but there will never, ever, be another Queen of Soul. For they say when Aretha arrived at the pearly gates she did not join the chorus of angels - they were her back up singers. I believe.

Take it home, soul sister.

In the stillness of the midnight
Echoes from the past I hear
Old-time singing, gladness bringing
From that lovely land somewhere.

As I travel on life's pathway
Know not what the years may hold
As I ponder, hope grows fonder
Precious memories flood my soul.

Linked At: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and Free Republic, Thanks!

Thursday, August 16, 2018

Poster Boy/Girl For Public Education

Yes, there is something worse than socialists winning elections in America: socialists so uneducated/stupid they don’t even know they’re socialists.

Christine Hallquist, after winning Vermont governor primary: “I’m Not Sure I Even Know What Socialism Is.”

“So I just don't have the background to answer that question.”

I don’t blame Christine – who’s running on a socialist platform of universal health care and free public college – for not knowing he’s a socialist, heck, he doesn’t even know what gender he is.

But come on, people of Vermont, you can still tell the difference, right?

180815074815-christine-hallquist-new-day-8-15-2018-large-169

Christine: poster boy/girl for universal public education. Let’s have more of that.

Linked At: Free Republic, Thanks!

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

The Trump Train Is Still Hauling

Omarosa be damned, the Trump Train is still rolling.

Train enters the canyon

Still hauling candidates to victory. Oh, and the Dems picked a Transgender to run for governor of Vermont. 

christine lChristine Hallquist, D- candidate for governor from Vermont

Republicans have Trump, Democrats have diversity and identity politics. Stay tuned, still too close to call in a bifurcated nation. But keep you eye on that Blue Wave™ 

canoe waterfall

…it might not be what you think it is.

Linked At: Free Republic, Thanks!

Tuesday, August 14, 2018

“Two drifters, off to see the world, there’s such a lot of world to see…”

lauren and austin

On August 7, the New York Times ran a story by Rukmini Callimachi about Jay Austin and Lauren Geoghegan, a young American couple, both graduates of Georgetown University, who decided to quit their humdrum office jobs and go on an epic bike ride and camping trip that would take them all over the world. “I’ve grown tired of spending the best hours of my day in front of a glowing rectangle, of coloring the best years of my life in swaths of grey and beige,” Austin wrote. “I’ve missed too many sunsets while my back was turned.” - PJMedia

Thus wrote Jay Austin who, along with his girlfriend Lauren Geoghegan, quit their jobs in July of 2017 and set out on a round-the-world bicycle trip. They had many adventures across Africa, Europe, Turkey, Greece and Kazakhstan before landing in Tajikistan. Austin kept a blog along their route that reads like a social justice warriors guidebook.

“You read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place,” Mr. Austin wrote. “People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil.

“I don’t buy it. Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own … By and large, humans are kind. Self-interested sometimes, myopic sometimes, but kind. Generous and wonderful and kind.” - PJMedia

There, on day 369 of their trip their were run down and stabbed along with 2 other cyclists by  5 men in a car who swore allegiance to ISIS and promised to kill all “disbelievers.” I suppose you could say that they were myopic and self-interested but clearly they held values and beliefs and perspective different from the group of western cyclists they mowed down. That’s the point, Evil is real. It cannot be reasoned with or wished away. Ignore it at your great peril. As stated in the PJMedia article: “Their naivete is nothing less than breathtaking.” Austin’s worldview was summed up in his blog:

“with...vulnerability comes immense generosity: good folks who will recognize your helplessness and recognize that you need assistance in one form or another and offer it in spades.”

The moral of the story? From the article (read the whole thing):

In the last analysis, it's a story about two young people who, like many other privileged members of their generation of Americans, went to a supposedly top-notch university only to come away poorly educated but heavily propagandized – imbued with a fashionable postmodern contempt for Western civilization and a readiness to idealize and sentimentalize “the other” (especially when the latter is decidedly uncivilized). This, ultimately, was their tragedy: taking for granted American freedom, prosperity, and security, they dismissed these extraordinary blessings as boring, banal, and (in Austin's word) “beige,” and set off, with the starry-eyed and suicidal naivete of children who never entirely grew up, on a child's fairy-tale adventure into the most perilous parts of the planet. Far from being inspirational, theirs is a profoundly cautionary – and distinctly timely – tale that every American, parents especially, should take to heart.

Linked At: Free Republic, Thanks!

Monday, August 13, 2018

Without Identity Politics the Left’s Got Nothing

fb46cd941f17f75a609112518648c280--jordan-peterson-quotes-be-humble

In the event you haven’t seen this yet I highly recommend Caitlin Flanagan’s article in The Atlantic, an otherwise deplorable publication: Why the Left Is So Afraid of Jordan Peterson.

A tease:

These are people who aren’t looking for an ideology; they are looking for ideas. And many of them are getting much better at discerning the good from the bad. The Democratic Party reviles them at its peril; the Republican Party takes them for granted in folly.

If you’re “looking for ideas” the Left’s got nuthin’ to offer these days.

Linked At: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and Free Republic, Thanks!

Sunday, August 12, 2018

The Dog Days of August

It’s August, and that means we will have  ☆*¨`*☆StArrY, StArrY NiGhÆ®s☆*¨`*☆

So grab your dog and your camera…

dog days

and head out to capture some magnificent images under the night sky. The Perseids Meteor shower is at its peak tonight.

meteor shower

Photo by Andrew Rhodes

Enjoy it while you can.

Linked At: Larwyn’s Linx on Doug Ross@Journal, and Free Republic, Thanks!