Every library should have at least some classical literature on the shelves. Here is a little of what is on mine.
Every wish you had enough juice to make your real estate agent pay you a house call?
The original bad boy, if Dracula ever ran into Edward Cullen, he would have cut his head off and emptied his bladder down his neck. Continue reading
Normally intercepts of U.S. officials and citizens are some of the most tightly held government secrets. This is for good reason. Selectively disclosing details of private conversations monitored by the FBI or NSA gives the permanent state the power to destroy reputations from the cloak of anonymity. This is what police states do. – Eli Lake, Bloomberg News, February 14, 2017.
Careerists and appointees left over from the Obama Administration deliberately targeted Mike Flynn for political termination. Continue reading
The War On Poverty has failed. As a nation, we need to come to terms with this very simple fact. If not, then the system will collapse of its own weight, because the current model is unsustainable.
There are few things I could tell you about myself that are more embarrassing than at one time I thought this guy knew something I didn’t.
This is going to be a brutal take-down. The self-help and management gurus have a lot to answer for. Of course, if you set yourself up as a great thinker or theoretician, be prepared for some criticism. But mostly, don’t be a fraud. Continue reading
Rebellious Conformity: yes, I thought that one up myself. The paradox nests rather nicely with respect to current events.
Members of the most pampered, protected demographic in the history of the world gathered in Washington, D.C. last weekend to complain about… something. Continue reading
This is the over-arching lesson we’ve gleaned over the weeks following the election and leading up to the inauguration. If we have learned nothing else, it’s that we need to put and keep the Adults in charge.
Paul famously wrote in 1 Corinthians, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.” We are beset on all sides by those who refuse to put away childish things, yet insist on their right to rule over us. The Left loves to wag their fingers at the rest of us when they think they’r winning. But when they loose, they’re ready to burn it all down. Continue reading
I had the pleasure of meeting briefly with General Mattis in Kabul in 2010. I was temporarily in charge of NTMA’s Joint Visitor’s Bureau at Camp Eggers. There was an opening for a deputy commander in the Regional Support Command North and I was waiting for my replacement. General Mattis came in for a VIP visit. I was of course familiar with who he was. I was also interested in a member of his entourage. Author Steven Pressfield filled the roll of civilian advisor to General Mattis. And yes, I got Pressfield to sign the book I had read on the plane ride over.
General Mattis Testifies Before The Senate Armed Services Committee.
Mattis impressed me again today with his plain-spoken testimony, taking complex systems and breaking them down in a way that even I can understand.
Mattis is a master of language and social cues. This is of course true of most people at that level. He does manage to make you feel like you are the only one in the room. In our brief meeting, he asked for a brief auto-biography, civilian occupation, and my thoughts of our mission. I was guarded, of course. I was not about to be put completely at ease in the presence of a four-star general. Never-the-less, he is quite disarming, I have to give him that.
Steven Pressfield, best-selling author of The Legend of Bagger Vance, and The Afghan Campaign, stands with LTC Phil Christensen, Camp Eggers, Kabul, 2010.
Two weeks later, I was on a plane heading to Mazer i-Sharif to take up my new assignment. Good times, good times…
You hate us. You on the Left, really, really, hate us. And you don’t even try to mask it. I no longer puzzle over it. I merely accept it. You take your racism, your hate, and your immense self-regard, and you project it onto me.
Meryl Streep Golden Globes 2017
It comes so naturally to you, as naturally as breathing. You no more notice it than you take note of the line workers from the back seat of your Bentley as they string cable in the dead of winter.
Of course, it’s not your message. It’s not your elitism, your relentless condescension, or the failure to internalize simple cause and effect. You can’t be wrong. I’ve accepted this aspect of your character as well, because if the pitiless slaughter of 110,000,000 souls in the 20th century could not convince you that you’re wrong, then what chance do I have?
You say that using one’s public platform negatively “kind of gives permission for other people to do the same thing.” I’ll take you at your word. The animals who kidnapped that poor mentally disabled young man in Chicago and gleefully tortured him for two days certainly felt they had permission. Of course, the permission came from your side of the political aisle, not mine. And you were deafeningly silent when you had a chance to publicly condemn it.
Your snide dismissal of what we may choose for entertainment was not lost on us.
Further, you, the Left, condemn me for wanting to benefit from my own labor. Because I object to paying for the extortionate policies from which you are insulated.
Suddenly, you want the “principled press” to hold the powerful accountable. Where were you during the last 8 years is anyone’s guess.
So please spare us your ridiculous condescension, and your incredulity. You’re not bent out of shape for any reasons of principle or morality. The Left has always been more pragmatic that, just incredibly short sighted on sustaining a society.
You just can’t get over that no one’s sitting at your feet for you lectures. Finally someone’s taking it you, and you’re just going to have to get used to it. For decades you were able to pontificate from your bubble, surrounded by sycophants. You could go years without hearing a contrary opinion.
This is why you hate Twitter so much. Because it by-passes you, and your filter. For years, you acted as referee and partisan. While the other side restricted itself to The Marquess of Queensberry rules, you engaged in street-fighting. Not so much anymore. And you don’t like it.
What’s next? You still have a lock on 90% of the culture. Television, Hollywood, Madison Avenue, Print and Broadcast News, K-12, plus Higher Ed. All held firmly in your grip. It doesn’t matter who is in the White House, who holds the House and the Senate.
The incoming president can appoint half a dozen originalists to the Supreme Court, yet for the time being, you retain the culture. And we both know it will take decades to make significant headway. The endgame is anyone’s guess.
Ok, no one’s really going to be out of a job, but a lot of people are going to be changing jobs in the decades to come and we really need not to panic. Working for a living is a state of perpetual change. How we react to that change is the over-arching factor. Continue reading
A few selections from the shelves.
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I’ve lost lost tract of just how many of Mozart’s works I have on my possession. Between CD’s (I still purchase them once in a while) and MP3s, it has to number over 100. I have all his symphonies. Numbers 26 and 35 are among my favorites. The Marriage of Figaro (of course), and any number of concertos for any number of instruments. This past year saw something of a revival for Mozart. Decca label’s “Complete Works” box set turned out to be 2016’s best seller according to Billboard, if one counts the individual CDs.
The trail behind me is littered with failure. We’ll see about the trail before me.
