Backwards

In 1985, I came to New York City for the first time.  I remember the almost unimaginable expectations I had:  the Big Apple, “If I can make it here”, and all that.

Of course, I arrived in the middle of a garbage strike, so the streets were filthy, mountains of trash bags were on every street, and rats the size of fox terriers roamed the streets like packs of hyenas, in broad daylight.

I remember being hustled on every block by someone, not asking but demanding that I buy their cheap tat of dubious origin, and every shop along the street was proclaiming that they had to sell sell sell all their merchandise NOW! because they were losing their lease.  (A total lie, like so much about New York.)

Then I went to the Lower East Side.

I was forcibly reminded of all this yesterday morning, when I saw this front page pic:

…and the accompanying article:

It’s been six months since the mayor promised to pump more money into the city’s street-cleaning efforts. And the trash problem has only gotten worse.
De Blasio in September announced initiatives to reallocate Sanitation Department funding to bolster litter-basket pickups in communities hit hardest during the pandemic, including Bushwick in Brooklyn. But according to the official mayoral report of “acceptably clean city streets,” street cleanliness there plummeted to 33.3 percent in January, compared with 86.1 percent the month before.
The same neighborhood scored 95.4 percent a year ago.

But this post isn’t about New York fucken City.  It’s about the whole country.

NYFC Mayor Bill de Blasio is quite clearly the most Marxist of all elected officials in the United States (residents of San Francisco, Portland and Seattle may quibble), and it is quite clear that what he is doing as mayor is just a microcosm of what his fellow Marxists are attempting to do all over the country.

They’re taking us back into the Third World.

Anyone who has ever spent any time in Third World countries will know that one of the most obvious manifestations of Third Worldliness is the amounts of trash that people there just toss out into the streets and out of car windows;  and when you travel through the countryside, fences will be plastered with plastic bags and other trash blown against the wire by wind.

Here’s Los Angeles:

…and San Francisco:

…Chicago:

 …and Philadelphia:

I could go on, but you get my point.

Let’s look at other aspects of the Third World… such as their elections.

In the main, Third World elections are corrupt, whether through the actual process or whether by fraud, suppression of the “incorrect” vote or denying impartial monitoring of the process.

Oh look, it’s Detroit in November 2020:

Here’s another example of blocking observers from checking the counting process:

Oh wait, that’s not Detroit;  it’s Nigeria.  I was distracted by the razor wire atop the wall.

Does any of this ring any bells?

A new report on the vast expansion of mail-in ballots in the 2020 election is set to spark new concerns among some Republicans who back former President Donald Trump’s charge that some states went too far to change the rules — illegally.
Among the three “key takeaways” cited was this: “28 States changed their policy to make it easier to use a mail ballot.”
As a result, it added, “For the first time ever, more people voted early with a mail ballot or in-person than filled out a ballot at the polls on Election Day.”

Of course, the typical Third World mantra about elections is, “One Man.  One Vote.  One Time.”

So here’s the U.S. version:

It would be an understatement to describe H.R. 1 as a radical assault on American democracy, federalism, and free speech. It is actually several radical left-wing wish lists stuffed into a single 791-page sausage casing. It would override hundreds of state laws governing the orderly conduct of elections, federalize control of voting and elections to a degree without precedent in American history, end two centuries of state power to draw congressional districts, turn the Federal Elections Commission into a partisan weapon, and massively burden political speech against the government while offering government handouts to congressional campaigns and campus activists.

And that’s the opinion of the National Review, surely the most ineffectual and milquetoast collection of conservatives around.

And finally, let’s consider the corruption through nepotism that is a fact of life in the Third World — and now in the U.S. as well:

During his long senatorial career, Joe Biden cast himself as an everyman, “Amtrak Joe,” known for taking the train daily to Washington, D.C., from his home in Delaware. The image he sought to create was one of a simple legislator independent of the usual corrupting influences pols face.
In truth, Joe Biden knows those influences all too well. He heads up a family of wealthy lobbyists and political operatives who have spent decades trading on his last name.
In Profiles in Corruption, Peter Schweizer points out that the Biden family’s wealth “depends on Joe Biden’s political influence and involves no less than five family members: Joe’s son Hunter, daughter Ashley, brothers James and Frank, and sister Valerie.”

It’s taken the Left some time to effect their change of the United States, surely the first among First World nations, into a Third World state.

But here we are.

And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to the range.

Not Ready For Prime Time

Oh good grief.  Here’s something that at first seems like a good development [sic], but when you see the details…

AUSTIN, Texas — A Kansas City developer has announced America’s first 3D-printed homes for sale.
3Strands is partnering with Austin-based construction technology company ICON to leverage ICON’s proprietary 3D printing construction technology, software, and advanced materials to deliver the two- to four-bedroom homes in Austin.
“We want to change the way we build, own, and how we live in community together,” says Gary O’Dell, 3Strands’ co-founder and CEO. “This project represents a big step forward, pushing the boundaries of new technologies, such as 3D-printed homes.”

Sounds perfect for a town like Austin, dunnit?

And then comes the pic of the likely dwelling:

Yikes.  It looks like a prototype for a CIA detention / torture center.

Let me know when 3D printing can produce one of these, and then we could talk:

Until then, nope.

Suspended Plans

It looked as though New Wife and I would be able to move back into our apartment around next Monday (March 8), but that was before we went back there yesterday evening to get a few things.  Here’s what greeted us, firstly the living room:

…and the laminate flooring has gone bye-bye too.  Next, the entrance hall:

And finally, the master bedroom:

…but amazingly, the carpet (which was soaked) is being covered up to protect it from the carnage — which means they don’t plan on replacing it.  Uh huh.  Time for a little explanation of the facts of life to Management…

But it looks as though month-end will be a more realistic move-in time, now.

And once again, folks:  Thank you all so much for your unbelievable generosity.  It has made all the difference, by enabling us to order replacement furniture and such before the insurance company made its final settlement offer — the excellent news being that we’ll be getting a full settlement of our stated replacement value, and the funds will arrive either tomorrow or the next day.  But having that little bit of financial security immediately after the catastrophe made all the difference to our mental well-being, and we are eternally grateful.

Amen To All That

Found via Insty, this diatribe against “modern” (fugly) architecture.

“Let’s be really honest with ourselves: a brief glance at any structure designed in the last 50 years should be enough to persuade anyone that something has gone deeply, terribly wrong with us. Some unseen person or force seems committed to replacing literally every attractive and appealing thing with an ugly and unpleasant thing. The architecture produced by contemporary global capitalism is possibly the most obvious visible evidence that it has some kind of perverse effect on the human soul.”

For newcomers to this website — there may be one or two — here are some of my own thoughts on the matter, and you may find a common thread among them all:

Back To The Classic —  My StyleOld Fashioned?  Me?  — Another RCOBTalk About UglyAs I SaidSquares, Cubes And BlocksInsisting On Beauty

Just re-reading some of those posts raised my blood pressure five points.  And that picture at the top of both this article and the one it’s linked to actually made me slightly nauseated.

A pox on all of them.


Afterthought:  I once stayed in a little apartment in this building, just north of Sacré-Cœur in Paris:

While the apartment itself was small and rather foul, every time I stepped out into the streets surrounding the place, I felt invigorated by being in the midst of such beauty.  If I had to step into a street lined with modernist concrete blocks, I’d want to kill myself.

Quote Of The Day

From Taki:

“The irony today is that Americans keep bragging about their land of the free, yet cannot tell a joke, paint their face, whistle at a pretty girl, or even worship an ancestor without losing their careers and livelihoods.  PC tyranny rules supreme;  media, Hollywood, Big Tech, and academia follow strict orders;  and foolish Americans pretend that they’re free.”

Analysis:  TRUE.  We are about as free as Germans under Hitler.  And if the Left gets their way, conservative Americans will be as free as German Jews under Hitler.