Month: August 2023

August 31, 2023 – Rich Men North of Richmond

August 31, 2023 /

In case you have been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks, this song has gone viral. In two weeks, it went to #1 on the Billboard top 100 and Oliver Anthony has ten more songs on the top 100 at the time of writing. YouTube has 46 million views in the last two weeks. Read the comments, people from all over the world are resonating with the lyrics.

Politicians are trying to co-opt it into their own camps. The left is saying that this is the alt-right, hate speech while the right is trying to hitch their wagon to the popularity. What both groups are missing is that they are both the rich men, north of Richmond. They are the cause and the subject of the lyrics.

(lyrics)

I’ve been selling my soul, working all day. Overtime hours, bullshit pay so I can sit out here and waste my life away.

Drag back home and drown my troubles away, its a damn shame. What the worlds gotten to for people like me and people like you. Wish I could just wake up and it not be true, but it is, oh it is.

Living in a new world with an old soul. Rich men north or Richmond Lord knows they want to have total control. Want to know what you think, want to know what you do and they don’t think that you know and I know that you do. But your dollar ain’t shit and its taxed to no end cause the rich men north of Richmond.

Wish politicians look our for miners, not just minors on an island somewhere. Lord, we got folks in the street ain’t got nothing to eat and the obese bilking welfare. God if your 5’3″ and your 300lbs taxes ought not pay for your bags of fudge rounds. Young men are putting themselves six feet underground cause all this damn country does is keep kicking them down.

Lord its a damn shame what the world’s gotten to. People like me and people like you. Wish I could just wake up and it not be true but it is, oh it is.

Living in the new world, with an old soul. Rich men north or Richmond. Lord knows they want to have total control. Want to know what you think, want to know what you do and they don’t think that you know and I know that you do. But your dollar ain’t shit and its taxed to no end cause the rich men north of Richmond.

I’ve been selling my soul, working all day. Overtime hours, bullshit pay.

There are a lot of subtle gems in the lyrics but I think the two are not as straight forward. The first is working class wages and the inflation of the dollar. I don’t see a lot of pride in working hard because you made poorer life decisions and limited your options, but at least you are doing what needs to be done.

That being said, wealth is stolen not just with taxes but also devaluing the dollar with inflation. That tactic is the pyramid scheme to pay off old debt with less valuable new money. While that works for national debt, the real losers are the people earning $30K/year. This is being done by people who make money lending it and collecting it at the same time or the rich men north of Richmond.

The second subtle reference is caring about minors on an island somewhere. This is a nod to Epstein and a class generally above the law. I don’t think the song is saying that they are condoning the behavior but acknowledging that the class exists in the first place.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not going to say much more today. Watch the video and read the lyrics. Think about what is going on in life. Think about what is going on and you decide if this is hate speech or just the life-size mirror being held up on both sides of the dichotomy. The people are speaking, they just need the vehicle to get their voice heard. You go Oliver Anthony.

August 30, 2023 – Gradually, Then Suddenly

August 30, 2023 /

I love this quote from Ernst Hemmingway. It describes major events so succinctly. I promise that this will be the last time that I wax emotionally about my summer of exchange. But first I have to use this quote the way it has impacted my life.

Sunday morning, my wife and I were eating breakfast. We were at the darkest hour of this whole program. My youngest son had just landed in Taiwan in the middle of the night. My older son was on the airplane on his way back home. We had to leave back to the airport in three hours to pick him up.

I think that I dealt with my emotions last week. That is what translated into the last couple of posts. I am now starting to see the bright side of things, not what has changed. Something I rarely do, I was talking about the things that were in the near future to my wife. “I am planning on going to the range on Friday. I want to go on a weeknight ahead of hunting season. The range is bound to be crawling with people on the weekend.”

Usually I wait to see if there is something on the calendar and strike at the last minute. “There is nothing going on tomorrow (or this afternoon), I think I will go to the range.” On top of that, I said that I was planning on going to central Oregon for a weekend of hunting. I might even make it a three day weekend. I am not going to have more than a day or two of PTO now that I have started this new job.

My wife said, “It’s funny. You never talk like this. You never express something that you want to do ahead of time.” She theorized that we haven’t had the luxury of only looking at our own schedule in a long, long time. It’s true. My older son is not nearly as involved in activities and he has his own vehicle if he does choose to do something. I am not saying that we wouldn’t support or watch, but we don’t have to transport and hang around until it is over nor is it in overwhelming quantities.

I turned the oven on to keep the bacon warm. It also tends to really crisp up things as well. I pulled my vegetarian’s skillet out as I do multiple times a week and I realized I do not have to handle this hundreds of times in the next year. I told my wife, I am going to put this skillet away for the next year. All of the sudden our life just became simpler and better.

I support my son’s decisions, including being a vegetarian. But, I didn’t realize the commitment and impact that one decision has on others. It effects how I prep, how I handle ingredients, how I cook and how I store leftovers. It effects what I choose to make for dinner as well as quantities.

For the last five years, every meal has had multiple dimensions. What is my son going to eat? How am I going to make this appeal to both camps? How do I portion this so that it doesn’t contact meat and dirty utensils and serve everything at the same time? To add insult to the situation, many times I take all that care and he schedules something over the top of that. Consequently, all that care I took doesn’t get eaten later in the evening and some vegetarian product is made instead causing more dishes that I wake up to in the morning.

As a parent, I want nothing more than enabling my son to grow up into a empowered adult. I want them to be confident about the decisions that they make; I want them to be able to justify their decisions as thoughtful and considering the upside and downsides of the situation. I think that I am missing something however. I am missing the conscientious part of the equation. How does my decision effect others.

Everyone in the house is acutely aware that he has made a decision to be vegetarian. We all make some sort of accommodations in order to support that decision, some more than others. But, does the vegetarian appreciate the compromises that we have all made to support the decision? Does he know how many times I have to move the skillet out of the oven in a year? Does he know that we check with the event host to let them know that there needs to be a cheese pizza not just one that has the meat picked off?

I started this off with gradually, then suddenly. Supporting a household vegetarian is the same way. All of the sudden it has become an entire way of how I cook and to a larger extent how I live. I want him to play chess and music and participate in sports and Boy Scouts if that is what makes him happy. I didn’t really get that effort was in exchange for my own life force.

End Your Programming Routine: I am not saying that things won’t go back to the way they were before the exchange when he comes back. Again, I support my children. But, it will be under the guise that I understand that I am making a conscious decision to do so. I do hope that this is a growth experience for him and maybe I will share this at some point in the future. For now, we are on a bit of vacation for some of this. At least this is how it feels right now.

August 29, 2023 – Back To Normal… Psyche

August 29, 2023 /

If you are not from the eighties, you may have never heard that phrase before. Middle school is such a great time to make lifelong, meaningless memories. The last week was the second whirlwind of the summer. We spent the last week burning the midnight oil getting my son ready for his trip to Taiwan.

July was all about hosting an exchange student, getting my older son prepared to go, planning a proposal for my anniversary, executing and cleaning up from our party. Fortunately, my younger son is a mixture of ultra responsible and wildly ignorant. It lulls me into a false sense that everything is alright and under control. You just have to look under the surface a little more.

The phrase ‘are you ready?’ was uttered many, many times this year. Me: “Is all the paperwork together for your visa?” My son: “Yes, it is.” Consulate: “This form is missing a signature.” The net result is visa arrived 13 days before departure and that means a $3100 plane ticket. The Rotary keeps insisting that this is their exchange so I did my best to absorb all the punches as they come.

My son had a number of to-dos to get done. What wasn’t planned was a stomach flu. That compressed everything into four remaining days. Also included in those days were Boy Scouts Court of Honor, Oregon State Fair and the final sendoff with his friends. My wife accused me of not using my previous time wisely. I didn’t know that he needed new shoes, shorts, shirts etc. Remember, ‘are you ready?’

My son wanted to get a computer, I think that is pretty appropriate. All summer long Me: “I need some quotes on what you think you want.” My son: “OK, I am busy with (insert activity). I will do it this week.” We found one at Costco but I gave my Costco credit card to my son in Germany, we will have to wait until mom gets back from France. Mom: “The one you want is no longer in stock. What about this one?” Me: “OK, if my son wants that one”.

Literally, the day before he is leaving the computer shows up. I came upstairs from a work break and the opened box was on the table with the still wrapped computer setting on table. I knew that he was at the fair all day, so I plugged it in to make sure there was a full battery charge. But, you don’t just pick up a new laptop and go. There are updates, profile transfers, software installations that need to be done before it is ready to go. Talk about taking it to the wire.

The flight was at 6AM. Rotary said repeatedly be at the airport 3 hours early. For most people that is good advice. But, I travel a lot, including internationally. The only thing that they do differently is check passport and visa at the counter. Otherwise, it is just like any other plane ticket. Part of the reason for planning to get to the airport early is to accommodate for traffic, running late and those types of variables. Nevertheless, we went with the advice.

In order to get to the airport at 3AM, we had to leave the house at 1:30AM. This is the absolute best time to drive through a metropolitan area since traffic is little to none. It was a very short night getting back from the fair and 10:30PM. We powered through as we do but I will say that I crashed at 7PM. That was the longest I could go.

There is my son about to board the plane. You may wonder why there are no faces shown? I have pictures, but in this case, I don’t have permission to show others. He is travelling with another student to Taiwan as well. So, at least there is safety in numbers.

End Your Programming Routine: I did find out that he arrived safely. Also as I am writing, my older son is on the plane back home and we will be picking him up in a few hours. If you listened to the podcast, you would know that there was some emotion in this overall event. I have largely come to terms with that. So, back to normal? Back to the new, normal.

August 25, 2023 – We, Records 1-5

August 25, 2023 /

Like a lot of science fiction, this one as well starts off with a bang. There is little character development or explanation. Some of that comes as you read (I hope). It seems to be written as diary or log. Each chapter or entry is called a record. And they are pretty short with the longest ones being a couple pages long. But, you know all that because you are reading along.

You can see right away the similarities to Brave New World and 1984. You have the kind of laboratory like association to humanity and the overarching authoritarianism of the the United State. The main character’s number is D-503. Notice I said number and not name. All characters are referred to by their number.

D-503 talks about the monitors of society called the Guardians and how they all live in glass apartments so that they can be observed. The only time that they are given privacy is when they have scheduled intimacy. There is some sort of imbedded technology that can change the opacity of the glass on those special occasions.

More background follows as we get into Record 5. Apparently, there was a war several hundred years ago that led to the creation of the United State. Only 0.2% of the world’s population survived and now they live in this new utopia. Happiness is described as every person has been analyzed and are treated according to their biological composition.

This means that person 1 has more X factor so they are given more X. Person 2 has more Y so they are given more Y and less X. By keeping all of these factors in balance then in theory nobody is getting out of line. This is a theme in dystopian fiction. I think of the movie Demolition Man where there is no crime because everyone’s needs are met. We saw it in Brave New World and 1984 as well.

You ever hear the saying ‘life has a way’? Having spent a fair amount of time in the volcanic central Oregon, you see the one pine tree growing in the lava field where even lichen struggle to survive. The laws of nature says that tree shouldn’t be there, but it is. You could say the same thing about polio or even the flu. Without evolution, life would cease to exist.

I think of the late 1880s-1940s as the heyday of eugenics. Clearly, this book was written in the the middle of that on the way to the Nazi crescendo. It is no surprise that the thought process was if we could just breed the right people and satiate the human desires chemically then we could surely end up with a utopia.

Do we think that this is going to work, knowing ‘life will find a way’? I swear that society and entities like the school district are working to that end. One of my children was vegan for about two years a few years ago. For his birthday he had a party and all of his friends bought him cookware. Ostensibly, this was because he was complaining to all of his friends that we did not respect his choice to be vegan and would cook his food on tainted cookware (regardless if it was clean or not). My point with that was that they were sympathetic that we were torturing him because of his vegan choice.

I did not know a single vegetarian, let alone vegan peer when I was in high school. The vegetarians that I did meet were holdouts from the hippy days and always looked thin and sickly to me. This idea had to come from somewhere and that somewhere is programming. If someone eats kosher or halal or even vegetarian/vegan I can respect that is a value choice, even the undernourished vegetarians. I cannot respect a choice because it is in vogue.

But, these are the tactics that have to be used to move the needle of public opinion. We are already at the point that meat is bad because it is a contributor to climate change. Plus, not everyone can have meat, you must have money to do so. Therefore it is not socially equitable for me to have something that others cannot. We are on the path to vilify the natural human diet.

Plus, did I mention that if we buy veggie burgers from a package that we now have to rely on mega food companies to make them instead of hamburger direct from the farmer? So, that is forcing separation of humans from their food source and adding margin within the supply chain. The farther we get from the source, the easier we are to lead with false information because we loose the ability to see cause and effect.

End Your Programming Routine: Alright, so all of that was not about the book or concepts in the book but a reaction to the setting that was portrayed. In order to have utopia, you have to believe that it is possible. And to make that leap, you have to suspend reality sometimes. It’s OK to be a dreamer, but in America, I don’t have to share the same dream as you (yet).

August 24, 2023 – My Wife Brought Me a Real Estate Newspaper and I Found Something Else

August 24, 2023 /

My wife has brought back a newspaper advertising homes in France. I cant really read French but I can figure some things out. I can understand cost in Euros and I can see size in square meters. As with all vacations, she is enamored with the place and it doesn’t hurt that my new company is French.

I was just paging through and at the end, I saw something that caught my eye. A recipe for Beef Burgundy. This was a recipe made famous in the USA by Julia Child back in the 1960s. I have made a couple variations of this myself. So I set about figuring out the words that I didn’t understand.

I am assuming that you don’t speak French, so I will translate into English with imperial units.

  • 2.5 lbs chuck roast, cut into 1.5″ chunks
  • 0.5 lbs bacon
  • 2 onions, chunked
  • 2 carrots, chunked
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • Bundle of herbs, (Thyme, Bay Leaf, Parsley)
  • 1 bottle of Pinot Noir (or French Burgandy)
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • Salt and Pepper
  • 1 lb mushrooms
  • 4 tablespoons butter

For the most part, it looks like a classic ingredient set. I think that maybe the herb combination might be a little different but I could easy see this variation in any cookbook. Ingredients are of course important but technique is imperative. I am going to summarize the instructions.

  1. Brown the bacon in a dutch oven (use oil here as well). After the bacon is rendered remove.
  2. Brown the beef chunks.
  3. Remove the beef and add the onions and carrots to soften.
  4. Add the flour to the remaining fat.
  5. Add the garlic, herbs and wine. Mix until everything is well distributed.
  6. Add back the meat and simmer for two hours. Sauce should be thick.
  7. At the end of the simmer, quarter the mushrooms and fry in butter
  8. With thirty minutes remaining, add mushrooms
  9. Salt and pepper to taste.
  10. Serve over mashed potatoes or pasta and red wine.

Technically, I didn’t translate the instructions word for word. I used my knowledge of technique with select words. So, if you speak French and I am wrong, please correct me. I am going to be making this as the weather cools.

End Your Programming Routine: I don’t think the universe is calling me to move to France. However, I am pretty sure it is calling me to make Beef Burgundy. It is something that I haven’t done in a couple of years. But first, there is going to be one last summer fiesta something I am going to write about in a couple of weeks. This is a simple inexpensive dish that you can impress your friends if you can pronounce the dish in French (Boef Bourguignon).

August 23, 2023 – It Is That Time of Year Again

August 23, 2023 /

So much for summer. We are a little over a week from school starting again. My younger son is off to Taiwan in a couple days and my older son will be home the day after that. We just registered my older son yesterday for school and the end of summer is eminent.

We drew tags to a new deer unit this year. I have been over there twice doing some preliminary scouting this summer. In fact last weekend, we spent a day driving around trying to get the lay of the land. We need to figure out where to camp, how to hunt and how to access the area.

I have always heard that serious hunters spend time with maps and photos before putting boots on the ground. I remember reading an article one time in American Hunter but it has been long lost. So, I have been perusing the internet on how to scout with maps. Maybe this is something that could help my usually poor outcomes?

I found this one that is a little dry, but I thought it contained good fundamentals. The presenters shows features on the map and talks about definitions of words in relation to the map. This is a good start for people that have no basis in maps and the vocabulary.

As a former Boy Scout, at least I understand the vocabulary, maps and compasses. But what nobody really tells you is the application of such. How do you read a map and find a deer?

I guess that there is no substitute for just trying. Now that we kind of know where we are going, I can look at maps to see what might be around and and look at some spots where I might want to look for deer or setup and observe. Maybe I will do a video on what and why I chose what I did and what I learned (don’t count on it).

Currently, with my new job and all of that, I am thinking that I will probably at best get a long weekend to hunt. So, I really don’t want to waste it on tripping all over myself trying to get oriented with the territory. If things go as I expect, then I will also have to consider what the rest of the party has already done before I get there. But, maybe if I do some advanced work, I can influence what they will do with or without me by providing strategies based on my map work. At least this is what I am thinking.

Lest we forget that there are some easier things to do to get ready besides like physical fitness. Truth be told, this probably should have started months ago, but maybe if you are young enough there is still time. And, just because you are not fit enough doesn’t mean that a little bit doesn’t help. I doubt that I will be fit enough as I should be. But, this is a reminder

End Your Programming Routine: I am excited that hunting season is coming around. That being said, this is also approaching harvest season. It is a crazy, manic and wonderful time of year. I think that it just might be my favorite time of year. The hope of a new school year, the gentle warmth of the last of summer, the bounty of the harvest and all of those things that need to get done. I just hope to take some time to enjoy it as well as participate.

August 22, 2023 – Garbage Salad

August 22, 2023 /

I am being a lot sensational. It is not really garbage, but a bunch of things left over in the refrigerator. A couple of weekends ago, we had a family reunion and I needed to make something to take. I didn’t want to invest much in cooking and I really didn’t want to go to the store to buy ingredients. I also wanted to make something that would use things wife wouldn’t eat. Finally, I wanted it to be vegetarian so that if we had leftovers, my son would eat it.

We wax and wane some on gluten. I don’t really believe that anyone should eat it in significant quantities due to the inflammation response that it causes. But, some people tolerate it better than others. And, my wife has recently declared that she was no longer eating gluten so I thought that I would make pasta salad.

Salads are a good vehicle to use up all of those tidbits of things. I am sure that your refrigerator is similar to mine where the one time you made the anti-pasta platter, you have one third jar of olives left over. Well, I have three different jars one third full. I had a small bit of onion, feta cheese, yellow pepper and some dried cherry tomatoes I made a couple of years back.

A bit on onion. I used yellow onion because that is what I had on hand. I think a red onion would have been better but don’t get too hung up on the ‘right’ onion. As long as it is not a featured part of the dish, it is going to be OK. In fact if you want, don’t even put it in the salad if you are that worried about it. If you think it is going to go well, then go for it.

Sometimes I use yellow onion in substitute for green onion and sometimes the other way around. White is distinct and works best in Mexican but I will use that in place of yellow onions. So, use what you have and do what you feel. Best is always best but that doesn’t mean it will be almost as good. I certainly didn’t think my yellow onion impacted the salad.

I mixed the pasta and the garnishes. Now, it was time to make the dressing. I wanted something Mediterranean so that is oil, vinegar and herbs. I also wanted to keep it on the surface of the pasta so I wanted to emulsify the oil and vinegar. I chose the remaining mayonnaise and added some leftover whole grain mustard.

I have a similar take on vinegar as onions. Red or white wine vinegar is best but I would have used cider vinegar or distilled as well. I probably wouldn’t use balsamic, but who knows, maybe that would work too. It would be an interesting experiment.

I used thyme, oregano and parley for herbs. I love oregano in a vinegrette. However, mine is really tough, so maybe I should have focused on mincing rather than a rough chop. I also would have added basil if I had it, The parsley was mostly for looks rather than taste as it gets washed out with the stronger herbs.

It certainly didn’t look or taste like garbage. I was really happy how it came out. I didn’t get the compliments that I did on the coleslaw last year but that is OK. My satisfaction is the most important.

End Your Programming Routine: At any given time, there is two to five different hot sauces in the fridge. All the jams, pickles, mustards drive me nuts. Any time I can repurpose all those things into a productive alternative, I am extremely satisfied. And that is what we have here. Truth be told, I would be just as happy if it tasted terrible, fortunately, that wasn’t the case.

August 18, 2023 – We, Introduction

August 18, 2023 /

We by Yevgeny Zamyatin; I really don’t know anything about this book. It is said to be the grandfather of all dystopian fiction and direct inspiration to Aldus Huxley who by proxy influenced George Orwell, Ayn Rand and Kurt Vonnegut. Sounds good to me.

I have taken a look through the book and there are 40 chapters, called Records. Since I really have no idea about the flow or anything, I think that I will do five Records per week making this a total of ten weeks. That being said, the book is only a little over 100 pages. So, I might change my mind before next week as I get into the book.

This book was originally written in Russian (1921) and translated into English (1924). I can already tell from the language that I am going to struggle a bit comprehending its more archaic dialect. That is one reason why I am thinking of taking smaller bites into the book.

Reading the plot summary online I will give a brief recap of the highlights. It seems that the plot takes place in a homogenous and utopian society. People no longer have names but IDs and live in a highly regulated society. From what I read, it seems like the main character begins to question the perfection of utopianism.

Huxley claims that he was influenced by Orson Wells and that he never read We while 1984 seems like an alternate plot. Orwell claims that he read We a few months before writing 1984. I hope that I am not going to lose my luster Orwell who so far is at the top of my list.

I am going to keep it short today. Partly because I don’t know much about the book and partly because I don’t have much to say yet.

End Your Programming Routine: I will say this in parting. I don’t know exactly what the future holds with this segment. There is plenty of dystopian literature around that I want to read. I am weighing the impacts of other controversial works like Catcher in the Rye or classical titles as well such as Crime and Punishment. Good art should stimulate the brain, not just entertain so there may be something to learn by branching out. I am keeping it in this genre for now.