January 2022 – Page 13 – Splendid Isolation

Just Imagine

January 11, 2022 Kim du Toit The Gun Thing

Here we go, with yet another of Kim’s imaginary scenarios.

Your house and all your belongings were destroyed in a fire while you were away on vacation. Fortunately, you were extremely well-insured, and your payout will enable you to rebuild your life almost completely.

However, you decide that you’d rather move out into the boonies and live in the mountains, e.g. on a piece of land such as this one:

…and you could afford to build a log cabin such as this one on the property:

So having established all that — and please refrain from making any criticisms or comments on all the above, the really important question is this:

What guns would you choose to have on hand, on your new property? (And to make it a little challenging, assume that for the first year, you only have room for a twelve-gun safe for long guns in your new house; and your wife / girlfriend has limited you to six handguns so she can buy better-class kitchen appliances or some such nonsense.)

Note that the locale will have all sorts of critters roaming around that you may have to deal with, so choose accordingly.

My choices are below the fold.

Swoopy

January 11, 2022 Kim du Toit Architecture

Following on from last night’s post, I happened on this little photo essay:

Eero Saarinen’s outlandish air terminal for TWA at New York’s JFK International Airport was sculpted as an abstract symbol of flight.

Now most Readers. knowing my abhorrence for Modernist architecture, would be forgiven for thinking that this post will be a diatribe against this building. But on the contrary, I think it’s beautiful — for one thing, there aren’t any hideous straight lines and corners such as found in Bauhaus monstrosities. As the writer of the article puts it:

Unlike most air terminals, which seemed intent on depressing passengers, Saarinen’s not only raised the spirits but also showed that concrete structures could be truly delightful.

And it is. In the time it was built, I would imagine that its space-age, swoopy shape would be very much in keeping with the age of early space travel of the late 1950s and early 60s. As the designer himself put it:

“…the architecture itself would express the drama and excitement of travel… shapes deliberately chosen in order to emphasize an upward-soaring quality of line.”

The first tragedy is that Saarinen died the year before his creation was finished.

The second tragedy is that the beautiful building has of course been “modernized” to make it “more efficient”.

Ugh.

There’ll be a parallel essay to this topic on Saturday.

Smoke And Fire

January 11, 2022 Kim du Toit Marxists, Seen On Campus

One of the worst decisions ever made — by a whole bunch of people, not just one — was to allow Chinese scientists to come to the United States and study in our peerless university research facilities. No doubt this was done for all sorts of noble reasons, such as spreading scientific discoveries around the world for the betterment of all, etc.

However:

Former GlaxoSmithKline Scientist Pleads Guilty to Stealing Trade Secrets for Chinese Pharma

and:

Chinese Man Pleads Guilty To Stealing Trade Secrets From St. Louis-Based Company To Benefit The Chinese Government

That’s just in last week’s news. There have been many, many more such incidents, and they were all completely preventable.

What bothers me is that there has been no concerted effort to stop this theft / espionage, by deporting all Chinese-born scientists out of our universities and research institutions.

That inactivity can be laid at the feet of our government.

Quote Of The Day

January 10, 2022 Kim du Toit QOTD

From Heather Mac Donald:

So far, however, the most concrete fallout from the January 6 tantrum is not a “dagger at the throat of democracy,” as President Joe Biden put it in a speech from the U.S. Capitol on Thursday. There was no chance that that clownish crew of disorganized, deluded Trump acolytes would reverse the election outcome or permanently halt the vote certification. The real consequence of January 6 is rather the excuse that the riot gives the Left to go after conservative causes and conservative speech, all in the name of fighting an imaginary white-supremacist threat. And to ensure that the pretext remains vital, leaders from Biden on down are peddling distortions and unctuous, newly found patriotism.

Read the whole thing, for one of Heather’s normal, clear-eyed analyses.

Getting Worried

January 10, 2022 Kim du Toit Architecture, Resistance

Not me, for a change, but the Modernists certainly are. Note the panic in this piece:

This time around, the traditionalist lunatics have succeeded in taking over the asylum. Reactionary ideas hostile to the cosmopolitan, to Modernism, to modernity itself, are in the ascendant. Tory placemen (and they are generally men) are being appointed to the boards of cultural institutions such as the British Museum and the BBC. The thoroughly middle-class National Trust is under attack as “woke” for exploring colonialism.

I am so pleased that our ideas so hostile to Modernism and all that Le Corbusierian ugliness are starting to alarm the Left.

I also love the fact that the author of this nonsense reveals his bias and prejudices so clearly, such as referring to respected philosopher Sir Roger Scruton as “tweedy” — tweed being the clothing fabric of the hated upper classes, don’t you know — and saying that we conservatives are the lunatics simply for wanting to keep and maintain our heritage (as opposed to “rebuilding better” every generation or so). And gawd forbid that more men are becoming influential in the cultural wars…

Note too that this Lefty asshole is a “a member of the Mayor of London’s Diversity in the Public Realm Commission“. Diversity in the public realm?

Never let it be forgotten that people of his ilk perpetrated crimes against the “public realm” such as the infamous Red Road housing units in Glasgow: