Handling The Situation

Reader Andy T. sent me this little video, and it had me giggling like a little girl.  As he put it:

“Not quite a Righteous Shooting (this apparently occurred in NYC), but definitely a Righteous Beating thanks to a couple of PO’ed Sikhs…”

Taking the law into their own hands, and righteously so.  I bet the beatee doesn’t come near that shop again.

I must have watched the thing a dozen times, and I bet you will too.

Clear Alternative

It’s all very well to boycott foul companies like Anheuser-Busch and Target, but what are the alternatives available?  Reader JC_in_PA writes about one such organization:

“Kim,

“I heard the founder of this company on Mornings with Maria (Bartiromo) radio show, she’s a legit conservative in business broadcasting.  To counter the ESG nazis driving American companies to adopt insane Global Cooling Climate Warming Change postions, and kowtowing to the LBGTQRSTUVWXYZ fanatics, he created a business network for businesses called Public Square, to proclaim their opposition to this nonsense by proclaiming a set of principles that guide their business practices and connect them with like-minded consumers.  I’ll relay my experience with them shortly, but this is their statement of principles.

“Our Values

    • Pro-Life, Pro-Family, Pro-Freedom.
    • We are united in our commitment to freedom and truth — that’s what makes us Americans.
    • We will always protect the family unit and celebrate the sanctity of every life.
    • We believe small businesses and the communities who support them are the backbone of our economy.
    • We believe in the greatness of this Nation and will always fight to defend it.
    • Our Constitution is non-negotiable — government isn’t the source of our rights, so it can’t take them away.
    • When a business signs up with PublicSq, they agree to respect the values above.

“I heard that interview a month or so ago and never checked out their website. But I needed new blue jeans and I’ll be damned if I’ll buy from Levi Strauss or Wrangler with their anti 2A stance. So I started emailing American jean manufacturers (there are a surprising number of them) with something like the following. ‘I need new jeans and while I don’t need you to make a positive statement of support for 2A, I need to know you have not made any public statements which are anti-2A, I just need to know you are at least neutral.’  Needless to say, crickets, all around.

“So I went to Public Square’s website and found L.C. King Manufacturing, a 115 year old American company making quality work wear at reasonable prices, and got a 25% discount from them for a Public Square promo code! The site is fairly new, but they have a number of clothing companies, housewares, skin care… all sorts of stuff, and the network is growing. I find it fascinating. Much as I love the travails Bud Light and Target are going through right now, I think this is better than boycotts. Spend our money with firms that actually RESPECT their customers. What a concept!

“Anyway, I don’t do this often, but I thought you might find this blog-worthy, and I’d sure like to get the word out about this group.”

And now you know.  I especially like the links just under the masthead:

That’s some good-looking stuff right there.

Give them a shot, and let’s do our bit for the America we want, as opposed to the fucking shit we’re having shoved in our face every day.

Driving Fun

I have frequently referred to Jeremy Clarkson as the Greatest Living Englishman, because he is.  Not only is he unrepentantly un-PC, he’s wonderfully talented as both a writer and a TV presenter.

The fact that he and I agree on practically everything — about cars, politics, social life and society, whatever — doesn’t hurt, either.

So sit back and enjoy a partial retrospective of his 30 years’ work as a car reviewer for the Sunday Times.  And just to whet your appetite, here’s a little excerpt from one:

Many years ago I refused to road-test the Vectra on Top Gear, arguing that if Vauxhall couldn’t be bothered to make the car interesting in any way whatsoever, I couldn’t be bothered to drive it.

To understand just how dull this car was, you need to visualise a chartered accountant in a tweed jacket with elbow patches, playing cricket, in a period drama by Jane Austen, in Belgium, while reading out details of the Enron scandal in a Birmingham accent.

This car was Mogadon in metal, hypnotherapy with a hatchback. Driving it was as interesting as listening to the details of someone else’s dream, and thinking about it had exactly the same effect on your neck muscles as that moment at school when the master dimmed the lights and said: “First slide, please …” You immediately nodded off.

They said, remember, it was a car for the new millennium. And how far did it get? Well, it’s only 2002 but already it’s gone.

I can’t stop with just one.

I have read hundreds of surveys in women’s magazines about what women look for in a man and usually it’s a sense of humour or nice eyes. Not once have I ever heard a girl say that what she wants, more than anything, from a man is an ability to do power slides.

It needs to be explained to Gary that, when he’s doing 100mph round the bypass, with jungle noises bouncing the doors off their hinges, his girlfriend is not sitting there thinking, “Gosh. This man’s car control is exemplary and I hope that later he will perform similar miracles with me.”

She is thinking: “Bleedin’ Ada. We’re going to crash and I wish this plonker would slow down.” But of course she can’t say that because then she’d find herself at the side of the road, in the rain.

We need the people who did those amazing Australian “If you drink and drive, you’re a bloody idiot” adverts to pick up the baton on this one. And I think I have the tag line already. “A smooth ride: if you give her one, she might let you give her one.”

Brilliant.  Like I said:  the Greatest Living Englishman.  Here’s his smooth ride.

Different List

The Daily Mail  has published its list of the Top 39 (?) Beautiful Moments of the last one hundred years.  Of course, a lot of the things they celebrate are among the events I’d have added to my list of the worst moments in the past century (e.g. election of Obama), but there ya go.

Here’s my list of beautiful moments (since Jan 1, 1923, in chronological order).

  1. 1923: Calvin Coolidge inaugurated
  2. 1940: Battle of Britain
  3. 1945:  VE- and VJ Day
  4. 1947: AK-47 first submitted for USSR military trials
  5. 1963: getting my first air rifle (birthday present)
  6. 1964: Beatles release A Hard Day’s Night  album
  7. 1967: Beatles release Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band  album
  8. 1968: first Shakespearean acting gig (in Hamlet)
  9. 1968: French-kissed a girl for the first time
  10. 1969: Moon landing with Neil Armstrong / Buzz Aldrin
  11. 1970: bought my first beer (age 15, Castle Inn, Hillbrow, Jhb)
  12. 1971: lost my virginity
  13. 1971: first played on stage to an audience (rhythm guitar)
  14. 1971: member of team competing on S.A. schools’ radio quiz (we won)
  15. 1971: graduated St. John’s College (First)
  16. 1972: arrested during anti-apartheid demonstration
  17. 1972: bought my first two centerfire guns (Mauser 98K, Llama XI 9mm pistol)
  18. 1973: first professional music gig
  19. 1974: co-founded Pussyfoot Show Band (later Atlantic Show Band)
  20. 1976: bought a Rickenbacker 4001S bass guitar
  21. 1979: first apartment (solo)
  22. 1979: joined A.C. Nielsen
  23. 1980: Ronald Reagan elected
  24. 1980: Borg-McEnroe Wimbledon final
  25. 1981: Hill Street Blues first episode aired
  26. 1981: slept with four different women over a single weekend
  27. 1982: first marriage
  28. 1982: visited America for the first time
  29. 1983: first extramarital fling
  30. 1984: first presentation to the Board of a major client
  31. 1985: bought my first computer (Apple IIe)
  32. 1986: emigrated to America
  33. 1989: Berlin Wall came down
  34. 1989: birth of the Son&Heir
  35. 1997: my first trip to London
  36. 1999: published my first novel (Vienna Days)
  37. 2015: B.A. degree (summa ) in Western European History (UNT)
  38. 2016: Donald Trump elected
  39. 2017: met New Wife again, after over 40 years apart

Ten Things That Make Me Proud To Be American

Inspired by the Brit list, here is mine.

In drawing up my list, I hearkened back to my travels outside the U.S., and asked myself:  what were the things I missed most whilst Over There, and what were the things I was glad to have or see when I returned?

My Top Ten (in order):

  1. the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
  2. the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution
  3. the notion that what isn’t expressly forbidden, is allowed
  4. checks and balances on government
  5. the freedom to succeed or to screw up (and then to try again)
  6. a jillion TV channels
  7. huge pickup trucks
  8. restaurant- and other choices
  9. rodeos
  10. interstate highways

The first five on the list are self-evident, especially as they are almost universally absent from foreign countries;  and I’ll talk about that in yet another post because it deserves a longer exposition.

The last five points are personal, but important.

Only when your TV is confined to a few (usually State-controlled) channels do you realize how nice it is to have a choice — even among dreck.

Large pickup trucks are lovely — they are powerful, not really necessary (unless you’re pulling a large trailer or farming) and one of the things that tourists comment on the most.  And the fact that pickup trucks are by far the most popular choice among ordinary Americans says it all.

Drive along a non-U.S. highway with a gnawing hunger and see how hard it is to find a restaurant of any description along the way.  Granted, our choices are often only from the Usual Suspects (the top 30 chains), but at least there’s a choice.  In Yurp, you often have to go into a town to buy food, which is okay if you’re a tourist, but it must suck if you’re a local.

Nothing says “America” like a damn rodeo:  tough people doing a dangerous thing for fun.

It’s only when you’re trying to get from point A to point B without having to go through C, D and E that you appreciate the freedom associated with our highways.  Now, as  rule I myself try to avoid the stupid things as much as possible;  but when you need one, it’s there for you to use.

Conspicuously absent from my list are things that are uniquely American, but that don’t touch me:  the Grand Canyon, the Empire State Building, Broadway shows, the Rocky Mountains, etc. etc.  Landscape features are just things — the Grand Canyon is a large hole in the ground, the Hoover Dam is a chuck of concrete, every country has a Broadway, the Alps are just as stunning as the Rockies, and so on.

But a busy shooting range and gun show (see point #1) are so much more American than anything one may find elsewhere, and ditto all the other related stuff in each point.