On Hearing The Wrong Words

 I recently read an amusing story about someone who spent most of his youth under the impression that the quote "Knowledge is power" was the first half of a paired concept with France is bacon being the appropriate follow up. Two concepts? Or, the second supports and explains the first half? Hearing it allowed for a confusion that was only remedied, as the story went, when finally it was seen written out.

"Knowledge is power"- Francis Bacon.

I suspect we have all done that. I know I have. Song lyrics come to mind. There was a particular section of the Elton John Rocket Man song that I simply could not hear correctly and thus invented words that may have worked for the situation. Alas, I eventually found the actual lyric. It must be a common human experience, I believe.

So common it turns out that there are actually names for various types of this mistake. I am tempted to write 'click hear' as I link to an entertaining article which explains. Instead I'll place it after this paragraph without the trite spelling. Try it.

CLICK HERE

And, add to your vocabulary these words:

Mondegreen

Eggcorn

Oronym

The McGurk Effect

And with that I say, chow!

Years go by faster now

 I haven't been active here for quite some time. March 2021? I would explain my absence as a symptom of disbelieving I have an impact. Or, I might say I would find anything I might say in effective. And, if you did not respond, at least in your own mind, that I seem to have repeated myself we should both feel a sense of loss.

Speaking of loss. In this past year my baby sister died. Though she was sixty, she will forever be our kid sister. And, I fear that I will always wonder if there was anything I could have done to make her life worth living for so many years longer. She didn't technically commit suicide, as my previous sentence may suggest, but, she lost the will to keep herself alive and moving forward.

That she and I had not been talking, my choice, mostly, increases my desire to resolve whether I could have helped. Without getting into the details, my answer keeps coming back, no. Yet, that question, and the hurt of losing her remains. 

I watched her tumbled down a set of stairs as an infant. I alone saw her race around a corner and launch down the stairs. She was not yet walking and instead had a cart she sat it in with four wheels. We had a name for it once, scooter? No. Anyway, she raced about in this thing propelling herself with her feet. I was near the doorway to the staircase when suddenly she appeared from the hallway and took a u-turn into the stairwell. I tried to grab her. Even to me at seven years old it was obvious that she was in immediate danger. I had to watch as she tumbled head over heels all the way to the bottom where she smacked the floor and wasn't moving. I was calling for help and remember being afraid that she was dead. I insisted on going with them to the doctor where she was found to be uninjured. Nothing broken. I don't even remember any contusions. I wonder now if that event colored how I viewed her the rest of her life. Did I hold a sense of needing to protect her to compensate for what I couldn't do then. Catch her.

Am I doing it again now? Thinking I should have caught her?

Joe Biden Does Denisovan Thinking.

 Our so-called President has decided to call fellow Americans Neanderthals. Or, at least he says they think like Neanderthals, (because they seek freedom and self-determination.).

That makes him a Denisovan, a distant extinct relative to both modern humans and Neanderthals. They roamed across Asia, where China is located. He loves China, he wants to rule like the Chinese. He hates people who associate with Western culture and chose a characterization of them as Neanderthal because of an assumed intellectual deficiency in that species.  

I believed I'd posted this at the time of its writing, some fifteen days ago. Oops.

Well, in the interim someone else has added to the conversation with a defense of the Neanderthal, a matter I never got around to in my rush to use the Denisovan Biden link.

Lucas: Be careful who you call Neanderthal, Mr. President

 Outside of the Democrats, the only other people I know who shut down schools are the Taliban.

The Democrats not only shut down schools like the Taliban did in Afghanistan, but they have adopted a Taliban-like cancel culture.

If they don’t like what you say, they shut you down.

The Taliban are the fundamentalist Sunni Muslims who ruled Afghanistan for about five years before they were thrown out in 2001 by the U.S. military following the 9/11 terror attacks.

Continue down the Rabbit hole »

The Court Martial of Andrew Cuomo

 I will presume the reader is aware of the scandal involving New York Governor Andrew Cuomo? Perhaps, given the one-sided reporting in the media these days that is too much to ask. In essence there is an ever-growing demand for accountability toward Cuomo over his mandate requiring retirement homes being forced to take in Covid-19 positive patients, even against the remonstrance of the staff of these homes and the concern of the family members of residents.

Some fifteen thousand people, (this number is suspected of being low as many cases were transferred to hospitals and died there, thus not counted among those dying in the homes despite that being where they contracted the illness), died in these homes of Covid-19, with the lowest assessment citing at least one thousand of those deaths due to infection transmitted from Covid-19 positives being forced into the homes.

Cuomo, has never admitted it was a wrong decision. In fact, he has said, given the same circumstances he would do it again. The closest he has come to acknowledging his role is to profess that he was merely following the CDC and White House, (by which he means Trump) directives. While even a cursory inspection of the Federal advice shows that no such order was given, that has been his claim.

I have tried to explain to a number of people why, even if a Federal pronouncement agreed with his contention, he was obligated to not follow such an asinine policy. Unfortunately, I don't think I've made my point all that well. Or, knowing that he wasn't following an actual order those who heard me took it with a grain of salt, as they say. A valid point, if that is the reaction I've received, yet, I'd like to make it once more because I've heard his governance compared to Katrina. "It's his Katrina", some media talking head said. Not exactly. For one, whether the Federal response to that hurricane was not up to standards is debatable. On another point, the Katrina response is criticized, not the hurricane. In Cuomo's actions he more the causal factor, like the hurricane, and less the rescue effort, like the response.

No, what Cuomo did was to mandate the endangerment of unarmed citizens. Then he claimed he was just following orders. He is more Lt. William Calley than he is a leader directing FEMA.

Think about the 1968 My Lai massacre.

In March 1968, a U.S. infantry platoon under the command of 2nd Lt. William “Rusty” Calley conducted a raid of a hamlet called My Lai in Quang Ngai Province of South Vietnam. After taking the hamlet, Calley ordered his men to round up the remaining civilians, herd them into a ditch, and gun them down. Somewhere between 350 and 500 civilians were killed on Calley’s instruction.

Calley was court-martialed for his actions and charged with 22 counts of murder. At his trial, he testified that his company commander, Capt. Ernest Medina, had ordered him to kill “every living thing” in My Lai, telling him there were no civilians there, only Viet Cong. When Calley radioed back to Medina that the platoon had rounded up a large number of unarmed civilians, he claimed Medina told him to “waste them.” Essentially, Calley defended gunning down hundreds of civilians by saying he was just following orders from his superiors (It should be noted that Medina denied giving these orders).

But Calley was unable to hide behind this defense. Every military officer swears an oath upon commissioning. That oath is not to obey all orders. It is to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” It is simply wrong to say Calley had an obligation to follow any order no matter what. His first obligation was to obey the law, and the law prohibits the deliberate killing of unarmed civilians.

Of course, a civilian does not meet justice in a military court, so, court martial will not be Cuomo's fate. But, all of us are expected to know that we must never obey an order which causes harm to our fellow unarmed citizens. 

Cuomo must face justice, he had to know he was  putting our most vulnerable in mortal danger. 

It is a defense to any offense that the accused was acting pursuant to orders unless the accused knew the orders to be unlawful or a person of ordinary sense and understanding would have known the orders to be unlawful.

 

Calley was convicted under this rule. The court found that “whether Calley was the most ignorant person in the United States Army in Vietnam or the most intelligent,” he would have to have known that it was illegal to slaughter civilians who were “demonstrably unable to defend themselves” and that the order was “palpably illegal.” The court noted that, “For 100 years, it has been a settled rule of American law that even in war the summary killing of an enemy who has submitted … is murder.”

So the order Calley tried to use as a shield against criminal liability ­– the order to slaughter civilians – was so clearly illegal that any reasonable person would have known it was illegal. ...

 

The Echo Chamber of the Left

 Shouting down dry holes.

Because the Left is stupid I explain those four words.

Shouting down- In this case refers to the act of speaking out, not the act of silencing your enemy. Read as Shouting, then look at the remaining words down dry holes as a descriptor of the futility with which they shout about causes without perspective or solutions. The writer is not saying to silence dry holes.

THE LEFT

SHOUTING

DOWN DRY HOLES

ECHO CHAMBER

 

Each of the above is a separate idea and must be treated that way in order to accurately comprehend the writer's meaning.

Talent Returned

 Yesterday. One piece of news dominated the day. It wasn't reported until just after noon. It was talked about for the rest of the day and is still being discussed.

People from all walks of life commented on it. It was that important. 

Perhaps it will not become one of those times when we can say where we were when we heard. For me those times have been JFK's death, the Challenger explosion, 9/11, Neil Armstrong stepping upon the moon.... This event will be remembered too. My ability to remember is strong enough that I'll be able to tell people where I was. But, unlike most of those events I listed above, this was expected, though the when was unknown.

After more than a few hours of listening to people talk about it, it's impact, the loss suffered, the benefits which live on, (among others those points would be negatives, such are others), I was finally ready to do what I had done so many times before. I was ready to hear from a voice which had reliably provided insight and perspective most missed. Going all the way back to the George H W Bush v Bill Clinton Presidential election I had been able to hear a unique take on the matter(s) of the day, and on matters which transcend each day. I never blindly took the message to heart. As I did yesterday, I informed myself, either before or after hearing from the source. The source was known for being almost always right, nearly 100% of the time. But, I doubled checked him nonetheless. It is a habit I suggest we all endorse.

It was strange when the moment came. The moment when I thought that I'd heard enough from others and was ready to hear what the Maha Rushie had to say. The strange part was that I at once knew that his passing prevented him from commenting, while simultaneously recognizing that he had told us well before what he would have us know. He would be there speaking with us if he could.

Rush Limbaugh died on February 17, 2021, his death announced to the world by his wife, his then/now widow, as the opening to his daily radio show. {Kathryn}

PS- Just one piece about him, from his friend Mark Steyn.

The Indispensible Man 1951-2021

My SB LV Prediction

 So, I was prompted to think about the outcome of this year's Super Bowl when watching Fox and Friends Sunday morning. The hosts asked the audience to email in their predictions. Given that I don't watch Pro Football since the all the Un-American kneeling took hold, I wasn't of a mind to make a prediction until said prompting.

But, it took only a few seconds for the correct response. I emailed them, and Rush Limbaugh, my expectations.

I said the Tampa Bay team and their Trump supporting QB, Tom Brady, would amass a substantial lead going into to halftime yet would find themselves irrecoverably behind when they returned to the field for the second half.

I texted this scenario to a few of my golfing friends. One, a ninety one year old gentleman finally got the joke some four hours later. I hope you, the reader, don't need so much time.

Remembering the Day After The Music Died.

 I remember the day after. Our neighbor's daughter was out on the swing set inconsolable. We were visiting and her Father led me out there to help cheer her up. I didn't know who Holly was or what rock and roll music was at six, she was older than me and deeply affected by his loss. Clearly as he said it yesterday I remember Mr. Peters saying, "well you still have Fabian. right", he was trying his best but missed the mark.

Biden's Banana Republic Coming Soon To A Town Controlling Your Life

 I had a Facebook account for a time, at the urging of a friend who lauded the site, I accessed and signed up. I never posted to it, (do they call them posts?), I never even looked at my profile options and never once had an urge to create a profile. So, basically, what I am saying is I have never used a social media account.

No to Twitter. No to Facebook, (again I admit to once having an account there which went completely unused). No to,... well there must be other sites that qualify as social media. I have not used them.

Blogs? Yes, I have participated. 

But, basically my initial distrust/lack of interest in social media has been shown to be prudent. Prudent for an American who wants people around him who can be trusted. Prudent for one who believes in the Bill of Rights and the limited government they promise. Prudent for anyone who does not want mean paople in their life.

So, the America-hating totalitarians running social media sites Twitter and Facebook can not block me from their sites. But, they are as persistent as they are pervasive, you can not write totalitarian without total, and I expect they are running algorithms which will ferret out this post and soon I will be cancelled, doxxed, etc., but they can not silence me.

If they take away my ability to post to this blog, if they take away my ability to sometimes post comments to the writings of others, they will not have succeeded in keeping my mouth shut as I walk about. And, given my demeanor, (calm, thoughtful, quietly strong), given my obvious intelligence, and given my will to be heard when I find it important, they will not have silenced my most effective way of sharing my views.

But, they want total control; so, they will come for my voice too? History says it always happens in totalitarian Banana Republics.