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Contempt

Business, Eco-Crap, Politics, Watermelons

One of my favorite cartoon strips of all time was the late (and much-missed) Johnny Hart’s B.C. series.  The single cartoon which tickled me most when I first read it, maybe forty years ago, was this exchange:

“Oh Great Guru, what is the definition of contempt?”
“Winning the Husband Of The Year Award, and sending your mistress to give your acceptance speech.”

I have a new definition of contempt, and there’s nothing funny about it.  Try this one:

A key lawmaker reacted in disbelief Tuesday when a Biden cabinet official said the climate change agenda took priority over the livelihoods of blue collar workers because “there’s a lot of jobs.”

You have to read the entire exchange to get the full flavor of the contempt that senior government employees people (like this watermelon Deb Haaland) have for the working class.

And we know that they despise the working class even more because they support someone like Donald Trump, who actually does care about blue-collar jobs.  So the Greens get a double win:  ecology “protection” and punishing Trump voters.

How nice for them.

Street Justice

Crime, Law and Order

Of course, when some dangerous asshole tries doing dangerous stuff in public and promptly gets taken down, who else would step up but Mr. Race Hustler himself?

Sharpton: Failure to charge Marine in chokehold death of Jordan Neely will encourage vigilantes

One can only hope.

And no, I don’t care that the asshole was Black, and the hero White.  Asshole is asshole and hero is hero;  had the roles been reversed, I’d be saying exactly the same.

Also:  Semper fi, Marine.

Dark Art

Fine Art

I really, really like the work of one-time civil engineer and now photographer Alec Dawson.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, each one of Dawson’s eerie still-life pics is a volume.  Here are several of my favorites (right-click to embiggen).

In case you missed the detail:

Some suggest abandonment:

And then there are the more explicit (and even more tragic) ones:

I could write a short story — or possibly a novella — about each and every one of these, simply because of the feelings and emotions contained in that simple picture.

I’m not even going to get into the lighting, other to say that it’s a rare skill to light a night scene without making it look contrived and artificial.  And if these pics are nothing else, they’re realistic, almost hyper-realistic.

While all the above are part of Dawson’s Nocturna  series, here’s a video sample of Nobody Claps Anymore.  The man’s a genius.

Summing It Up

Economics

The problem with large numbers is that most people can’t comprehend them.  Here, for example, is a summary of our national economy by John Hawkins:

When it comes to the deficit, this year the federal government is expected to take in 3.86 trillion dollars in revenue (which is iffy) and is expected to AT LEAST have a 3 trillion dollar deficit (it will probably be much higher). That’s on top of our current debt which is at $28.7 trillion. If you count the unfunded liabilities the government has such as payments for Social Security and Medicare, estimates vary, but it may very well be closer to 135 trillion dollars.

The problem with millions is that few people will ever be in direct contact with that number (unless they’re looking at the odds against winning a lottery).  With billions, that distance (and therefore ignorance of the scale) increases exponentially.  Trillions?  Fuggeddabahdit.

Fortunately, Hawkins comes to the rescue in his very next sentence:

To put this in terms that are easier to understand, imagine your Uncle Sam is making $100,000 per year, spending $200,000 per year, is already more than $700,000 in the hole, and has another $3,000,000+ that he’s promised to people.

Now that’s perfectly understandable.  And to make things worse, there’s the attitude of our beloved Gummint towards this looming catastrophe:

When you ask him about it, your uncle tells you that he’s rich and so he has no plans to EVER dramatically cut his spending as long as people will keep loaning him money.

So the Day of Reckoning approaches.

I wish I could offer some kind of solution or hope, but I can’t.  I can only suggest that we stock up on food and ammo.  Lots of both, but especially ammo.

Note:  Hawkins’s larger point in his post is that bankruptcy is a catalyst for revolution — and it may even be a larger catalyst than political differences.  He’s right.