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Fascinating and urgent — 22 Comments

  1. Neo: “And don’t ask me about my vacuuming habits.”

    I can second that, unfortunately.

    On a positive note, I’ve begun devoting more time to reading in general. I got back on board the local library’s winter book discussion program after missing the last several years. It features excellent speakers from various area universities (some of whom drive two hours to lecture and/or lead the discussion). And for the most part, both lecturers and attendants leave their politics at home.

  2. You responded to my email pretty quickly when I reached out to you. I was surprised because I know you do get email. I continue to be grateful for your blog and your writing.

  3. I have the same responses to books and movies, if it’s not fun immediately, out they go. it also reminds me of visiting my parents several decades ago and noticing that they weren’t getting the local paper. My father explained that he’d read the same stories over and over in years past, why bother reading repeats with slightly different details. I only get the Globe for the sports page for the same reason. The front page stories are about the same sad sacks, corrupt politicians, and do gooders that are going to save the world this time for sure.

    We used to have subscriptions to the symphony and theater but let them go for the same reason, been there done that. Modern plays are especially dreadful for the most part with mediocre dialog and about problems I don’t care about, or could solve in fifteen minutes by taking a verbal baseball bat to the immature idiot characters.

  4. “And for the most part, both lecturers and attendants leave their politics at home.” – O&W

    What a refreshing change! We quit going to author lectures and small-venue concerts when the performers made it clear that they assumed everyone in their audience was a Democrat.

    Don’t like my politics?
    Don’t ask for my money.

  5. JimNorCal – saw this post about the whistleblower earlier today, and remembered when his story first came out a couple of years ago.
    Whistleblowers are only revered in the first person – our whistleblowers.

    https://www.bizpacreview.com/2020/02/22/obama-administration-whistleblower-found-dead-of-reported-gunshot-wound-889937?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

    In an op-ed published at The Hill a couple of months after his appearance on FNC [in late 2015], Haney provided the full story behind what had happened during his time at DHS.

    “After leaving my 15-year career at DHS, I can no longer be silent about the dangerous state of America’s counter-terror strategy, our leaders’ willingness to compromise the security of citizens for the ideological rigidity of political correctness – and, consequently, our vulnerability to devastating, mass-casualty attack,” he wrote.

    The problem, he explained, was that then-President Barack Hussein Obama was more concerned with not offending the Muslim community than he was with protecting the American people.

  6. Kind of sidetracking the thread, but maybe because it’s fascinating and urgent?
    From Jim’s link:

    {from a Tweet}
    Close friends of Haney tell us that his wife lost her battle with cancer in 2019. Haney was engaged to be married later this year. The author of See Something, Say Nothing was preparing to go back on the road in advance of the upcoming election. He was currently living in California, just outside of San Francisco.

    In 2018, Haney told Intercessors for America prayer activists that he had been working on a “special assignment” in Minnesota to stop Rep. Keith Ellison from being elected Minnesota’s Attorney General. As we approach the 2020 elections, friends of Haney’s told us he was planning on doubling down on efforts to “protect America from progressive leftists socialists”. {end Tweet}

    Also, Haney’s close friend Jan Markell, a radio host, author and speaker, tweeted out this from her last conversation with Phil Haney.

    My friend Phil Haney was found shot yesterday in CA. I had lunch with him a month ago. He warned something could happen to him. He was to get married in a month. It will be falsely called a suicide.

    May have to add a line to this menu board.
    https://i0.wp.com/www.powerlineblog.com/ed-assets/2020/02/IMG_2613.jpg?w=640&ssl=1

  7. Looks like they got another one.

    RIP.

    The Democrats and their supporters/allies are getting very, very desperate.

    And the violence is ramping up.

    Of course, it’s always possible that there’s no connection between the two.

    What Haney was warning us about is simply what’s been happening in Europe. The UK, France, Sweden and Germany come to mind. But it’s also in the Netherlands. Belgium, ironically(?), is in huge trouble. Denmark is trying to push back but one wonders whether it’s too little too late. (The Danes seem to have a resilience and pride in their country—and a sense of realism/sanity—that is missing elsewhere; perhaps it’s because of their minute size, perhaps because of their experience in WWII, perhaps because they have a history of empire, if limited.)

    There should be no doubt that the same insidious takeover was/is planned for the US, under the rubric of “Human Rights” and other slogans of decency and goodness and morality.

    They’ve been quite successful, but Trump got in the way—of “the arc of history” (or whatever)—somewhat at least. Just another reason why he must be removed….

  8. As I come to realize that I am nearer the end than the beginning this sense of urgency you mention increasingly grips me. Add to that we are engaged in moving (selling one house, buying another) and I find myself reflecting on the past 40 years or so. Wistfully. The thing to do that works best for me is to be around friends, family, coworkers, or to engage in projects and activities.

  9. parker,

    I heard a quote about life I really like. I am pretty sure I heard it from Jordan Peterson, but the cynicism of the quote seems inconsistent with his generally positive demeanor.

    “Life is a sexually transmitted disease and it is fatal.”

  10. I am 56. A few years ago I noticed I was skimming fictional works, sort-of speed reading. For most of my life I read every word, methodically. But now, when I notice patterns in novels and quickly deduce the gist of the passage, I jump to the next. I just finished reading Crichton’s, “State of Fear” and it only took a few hours.

    I enjoy movies but I find I rarely have the patience to sit for 2 hours to watch a screen.

  11. About 20 years ago, I gave myself a 40-page limit for fiction, less than that for non-fiction, skipping through non-fiction for the interesting bits. I was working in a library and would bring home an armful of books every day. So many books, so little time. Now my eyesight is giving me more trouble. I need more light and new reading glasses every year. The hundreds of floaters will never go away, and in fact, increase seemingly daily. The result is that I chose my reading material carefully and quickly discard anything boring, or poorly written.

  12. A Dyson V11 cordless vacuum cleaner will make you younger and keep your floors clean. It is a life changer. You read better in a clean room.

  13. It’s life experience.

    You’re a veteran at life now. You know what’s important “right now!” and what can wait. And what you can get away with in putting off longer and how long to put that off.

    You’re past the Trial and Error part of growing up.

  14. Barry – but Justice Roberts assured us that there were no Obama or Trump judges!
    Seems like neither the Right nor the Left agreed with him.

    spectator.org/of-course-we-have-obama-judges-and-trump-judges-clinton-judges-and-bush-judges/https://spectator.org/of-course-we-have-obama-judges-and-trump-judges-clinton-judges-and-bush-judges/
    Of Course We Have Obama Judges and Trump Judges, Clinton Judges and Bush Judges … that “we do not have Obama judges or Trump … The Left runs to an Obama or Clinton judge in the West to …

    http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chief-justice-roberts-is-wrong-we-do-have-obama-judges-and-trump-judges/2018/11/23/ee8de9a2-ef2c-11e8-8679-934a2b33be52_story.htmlhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chief-justice-roberts-is-wrong-we-do-have-obama-judges-and-trump-judges/2018/11/23/ee8de9a2-ef2c-11e8-8679-934a2b33be52_story.html
    Nov 23, 2018After President Trump called a judge who ruled … declaring in statement “We do not have Obama judges or Trump judges, Bush judges or Clinton judges.” Roberts was not only wrong to speak out …

    Commenter at LI had a good observation:

    tz | February 22, 2020 at 4:22 pm
    So the conservative judicial organizations should get national injunctions against things like bump stock bans, vote harvesting, Illegal Alien IDs, etc. and see how fast Soto does a 180.

    I remember pointing this out to gay activists (I think Glenn Greenwald who did an article) that if you want an imperial presidency and an even more imperial judiciary, you will get one. Good and hard.

    Not so much fun when you have Trump and Federalist Judges holding the reigns, turning right at each intersectionality.

  15. Modern fiction and poetry have become so downright dreadful — I can barely think of anything written in the past twenty years which will be read in another twenty years, much less fifty — that it’s no contest when I decide whether to read something new or go back to something I already read or wanted to read back then but didn’t get to.

    Likewise modern music.

    Modern art is the worst — it’s become a zombie apocalypse out to eat your brains.

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