The news of undead Danish mink reminds me of certain other unusual mink which I would also prefer not to encounter
Author: Don
Fifty years ago…
… Scarfolk was ahead of the curve.
For gearheads
Button music
… and that’s enough reality. What the world needs now is Japanese Klezmer accordion music. Here’s Koharu from Charan-Po-Rantan.
Notes from all over
Here’s a motive for one of great crimes of the 21st century:
Wealth increase in the pandemic for founder/CEOs of
Amazon: $91 billion
Walmart: $38B
Google: $37B
Microsoft: $33B
Facebook: $28B
Nike: $8B
Apple: $8BSmall businesses: collectively lost over $200 billion
We’re witnessing a record wealth transfer
Amazon: profit up 100%
Walmart: profit up 80%
Target: profit up 80%
Lowe’s: profit up 74%
Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Google: stock at record highSmall businesses: 21% closed; revenue for rest down 30%. They’re gonna go extinct in the lockdown without help.
(Via Clarissa.)
Jethro on the other shore
Here’s something a little more melodic. I don’t understand a word of it, and it’s probably better that way.
Morris on, Van
I’ve never been a great Van Morrison fan, but I kinda like this one.
Budget Orchidaceae
Memo to the blogosphere
When you come across a hot ‘n’ juicy tweet, take a screencap. Don’t just post a link, because by the time I read your take, the link usually leads to something like the above.
Folly and fish
An old favorite that popped into my mind this morning.
Trapped in an alternate universe
We’ve been living in a counterfactual world since at least 1960. Nixon won the election, but in our space-time continuum, Kennedy was inaugurated president. It looks like we’re at another inflection point. So, what now?
What may be coming our way is an odd kind of “new colonialism,” with flyover country—that Dark Continent formerly known as places like Kansas, Alabama, and Tennessee, largely inhabited by reactionary troglodytes—reduced in effective power to mission territory for our enlightened coastal elites; who, after all, are much smarter than the rest of us and have the expert skills to run our complex technocracy.
And of course, they’ll do all this unselfishly, heroically really, for the benefit of us natives.
What’s going to come of the electoral mess? Nothing good, as we’ve discussed ad nauseam. The likely outcomes — the ones produced by humans, excluding meteor strikes and plagues and other acts of God — range from “bad” to “inconceivably horrible.” There really aren’t any Forces of History, my friends, but something out there wants what it wants, and what it wants, apparently, is rat utopia, the kinder gentler police state, Karen uber alles. Even the increasingly unlikely event of a total Trump victory in the courts only delays it a few years, tops. We all know which way the world is heading.
So… what do we, as individuals, DO?
Tend your gardens. Raise your children. Be loyal to your friends. Pray. Meditate. Read the great books, view the great artworks while that’s still permitted. Enjoy your time in the sunshine, because that’s all any of us ever really get in this world. Amor fati.
See also Edward Feser.
Today’s useful word
Areorobonekomimiocracy (noun)
Government by robot catgirls from Mars.
Today’s useless word
Moderate (adjective)
A term used in political advertising. It doesn’t actually mean anything.
Survivor
December arrived last week and wiped out most of the garden outside. The weather has since reverted back to October, and it turned out that the cold and snow barely touched the California poppies. They started blooming back in the middle of May, over five months ago. After their big display in May and June, and unlike the rest of the hardy annuals which faded out in the summer heat, they kept going and have always had a few blossoms open. Not even the snow and ice a week ago stopped them. There’s mild fall weather scheduled for the rest of the week, so there should be color for a little while yet.
Sanity break
Enough about the end of civilization. Here’s some nonsense I’ve accumulated from various sources, as politics-free as I could manage.
Not-so-ancient noises
I was in the mood for some loud music, so here’s a strathspey/reel combination, “The Fyket,” in a very non-traditional arrangement.