Archive for January 2, 2023

9th Day of Christmas, Burl Ives

Posted: January 2, 2023 by datechguy in culture
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Stacy McCain had a rather amusing and informative post on Burl Ives titled “Have a Holly Jolly (Commie) Christmas” which you really must read. It contained the classic quote when he noted someone playing: Have a holly Jolly Christmas but not the Burl’s version:

“Who is this singer? Why aren’t they playing the Burl Ives version? That Commie bastard had exactly one great achievement in his career, and it’s ‘Holly Jolly Christmas.’ Why rob him of that?”

Well far be it from me to have a Christmas playlist without Burl Ives so Burl gets the ninth day of Christmas.

Report from Louisiana: Dodging Gunfire in Shreveport, LA

Posted: January 2, 2023 by Pat Austin in Uncategorized
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By: Pat Austin

ARNAUDVILLE, LA – Each year my husband and I abandon Shreveport and go south for New Year’s. We actually come down here five or six times throughout the year but always at New Year’s. Shreveport sounds like a war zone all night long.

I’m fairly certain that my little northwest Louisiana city isn’t the only one with this problem. Shreveport has a population of about 180,000 so it’s not a great big city. In 2021 we had 100 homicides; we had 50-something in 2022 and multiple shootings. There is zero manufacturing; our jobs are in the public school sector, in the hospitals, and in gambling. The Shreveport/Bossier metro area has four aging casinos. If they go the city will implode.

Some see hope: voters ousted our inexperienced one-term Democrat mayor in favor of a Republican attorney who has been around for a long time. We will see what he can do. It won’t be easy.

On New Year’s Eve, Saturday night, we had one homicide which occurred during a carjacking and, nearby, while teenagers were doing donuts in their cars in an empty shopping center parking lot there was a terrible crash with multiple injuries. This parking lot nonsense happens every weekend and nothing is done. “At least they aren’t shooting people! It’s good clean fun,” they say. Until someone gets hurt.

This afternoon a local news anchor posted a photograph of literally handfuls of empty casings picked up off the street by a young lady in front of her grandmother’s house. One bullet came through someone’s roof and landed in the middle of someone’s living room. Gunfire exploded all over the city.

And people wonder why I want to move.

Down here in Cajun country the only gunfire we heard was someone shooting a deer. We spent New Year’s Eve at the local brewery listening to top Cajun musicians playing accordion, fiddle, and guitar and singing classics like D. L. Menard’s “The Back Door.” The teenagers played board games and went to bonfires. On New Year’s Day we were invited for pork roast, black eyed peas, cabbage and dirty rice at an old hole-in-the-wall bar over the levee on the Atchafalaya Basin. Everyone here is open and friendly and nobody is trying to kill anybody or waste perfectly good ammo firing it up into the air.

Life is easier here; happier. Genuine.

I’m returning to Shreveport on Monday afternoon, reluctantly, but I am hoping that by New Year’s 2024 I will be celebrating at my own home here in paradise and not dodging gunfire in Shreveport, Louisiana.

Summing up the Transgender Nonsense Succinctly

Posted: January 2, 2023 by datechguy in culture, Vive L'Empereur
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Mr Shelhammer: But… but maybe he’s only a little crazy like painters or composers or… or some of those men in Washington.

…

Dr Pierce: Thousands of people have similar delusions living perfectly normal lives in every other respect. A famous example is that fellow…I can’t think of his name. For years, he’s insisted he’s a Russian prince. There’s been much evidence to prove him wrong…but nothing has shaken his story. Is he in an institution? No. He owns a famous restaurant in Hollywood and is a highly respected citizen.

Miracle on 34th street 1947

As we close the new year let me as a person who has worked with, carpooled with, gone to church with and attended political events on the same side with Transgender people explain the position I have concerning the matter a position which I suspect is shared by the vast majority of people.

If an adult person thinks they are Napoleon. Dress like Napoleon, Walks like Napoleon, Talks like Napoleon, and has himself surgically altered to resemble Napoleon even to the point of losing height and weight. That’s they’re business. I can work with him, eat with him, have conversations with him on various matters, even live next to him without incident, because it’s his problem and delusion and not my business. Of course if he asks me, I’ll tell him he’s not Napoleon and suggest he get help. If he’s a friend considering cutting off bits of himself to look more like Napoleon I’ll quietly and privately suggest that it’s a bad and drastic idea and advise against it because that’s what a friend does, but if he goes ahead, I’ll let it go because ultimately it’s his decision and if he wants to live with the consequences, so be it.

BUT

If that same adult person who thinks they are Napoleon not only insists that he’s Napoleon but insists that I refer to him as such then he becomes my problem and someone to be scorned ignored and avoided. If he works to amend the laws of the land to compel me and others to say “Vive L’Empereur!” then he must be fought and opposed publicly

Furthermore if he and like minded people convinces teachers in schools or public servants to encourage schools to convince other people’s minor children that they are Ney, Murat, Jourdan or Masséna or any other officer or soldier in Le Grande Armee, and having them act out the same even to the point of encouraging surgery so they can resemble an 18th or 19th century solider pf the French republic or empire without the consent and knowledge of their parents then they become society’s problem and a united effort must be made to expose them, publicly condemn them and expel any such teacher or public servant aiding and abetting such actions from their positions

Frankly the real villains here are not the people with these delusions. Mental illness is, by definition an illness and to a degree limits culpability of one who has such an illness for actions associated with said illness. Of course limited culpability doesn’t give the right of anyone to injure others or force us to not prevent it.

The people who are actually evil here are those who, knowing and recognizing this illness for what it is see such folks as a path to profit, power and position and encourage their delusions for the sake of those goals. Even to the point of traumatic physical and psychological harm to them and others.

Those folks have a lot to answer for. Pray for them.