Category: Review

December 23, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:5

December 23, 2022 /

This was a long one at fifty pages. The good news is that while there are a lot of words, not that much was really important. A lot of back story and setup was going on. That kind of reminds me of year end. There is a lot going on but none of it is important. We spend a lot of time reflecting on the year that was but all those things already happened.

Shortages begin. Jim gloats to Dabny about his acquisition of d’Anconia Copper but all of the sudden the mines are blown up, presumably Djanneskjold. Emma Chalmers (aka Kip’s Ma) is promoting Soy Beans over the traditional grain crop of wheat. For that reason, the rail schedule is being manipulated by Cuffy Meigs to favor getting soy beans to market rather than wheat. Trains are not staged and the wheat crop is ruined.

This series of events begins an entire chapter of civil unrest. Murder, succession, riots and all the things that go along with shortage of basic food stuffs and supplies. There are multiple incidents of mechanical failure which are the triggers to such events and it is implied that the cause is the shortage of copper wire.

Sometimes a national diet is the result of a necessity and sometimes it is a result of a decision that someone else makes. Take for instance ancient China. Diets consisted of vegetables, local protein and rice in the more southern region. Cultures that grew to a large population had a large agrarian component for obvious reasons. A society needed a huge amount of calories to sustain growth. Those calories largely came as a result of carbohydrates.

Contrast these relatively huge population numbers in Asia against protein oriented cultures such as Mongols, Germanic barbarians or prairie native Americans. Those populations were tiny in comparison. Part of the reason is that animals contain a large number of calories compared to carbohydrates by the acre but they also have a degree of chance related to procuring food. It was not practically possible for these societies to grow to such a large size given their efforts to survive.

Something quite transformational happens when a society becomes agrarian. They also become docile and weak. No longer is freedom valued over security. The individualistic characteristic starts to become an identity of a collective. This is not an exhaustive treatise on the types of societies or their diets per se but an argument with the generalities of such.

It is sort of ironic that the American stereotype of a farmer is a hard scrabble, protagonist of sorts. When in reality, they have silently become the serf in the collective machine. They are the foundation of big food which is the fuel tank of the imperialistic regime. Not only do they feed the world but they are the first advocates of the patriotic propaganda. Talk about the slaves proud of their chains.

Lest you think that I am picking on farmers, I am simply saying that they are the enablers to the agrarian society. It’s not that I don’t think they work hard, they sure do. If I had a choice to hang out with the red, white and blue crowd or the high earning liberals you can guess who I would choose. The real problem for me is that I don’t belong to either.

So, where does this leave us? I believe that the soy bean reference is an homage to the versatility of the legume as a food source and the Asian origin a hotbed of communism in the 1950s. At least the classical definition of communism contained a 100% planned economy and society which included a diet steeped in classical diet. I don’t know for sure, but I would be willing to guess that North Koreans have limited choices when planning meals.

It is the sociopath that want’s to rule others. And by ruling others doesn’t just mean creating the laws from a legal standpoint but also how big their house has to be, how much rent is too much rent to charge, how fast you can drive, what is too big to fail and let us not forget what to not eat. The way the new world order is going, meat is on the out just like surcharging portion size. We literally have the ‘food plate’ to guide us on a diet that leads straight to obesity and diabetes.

I am speaking off the cuff and I should do the research rather than speak in speculation but I don’t have the time at the moment. Soy has been linked to phytoestrogen and the feminization of America. We colloquially call them ‘man boobs’ but it is much more than that. An increase in allergies and obesity and heart disease for a high soy diet which ironically we have with a highly processed diet.

Here is one to whet the appetite because I felt bad about just speaking in platitudes.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/soybean-fertility-hormone-isoflavones-genistein/

All that being said, I am relatively sure that if you ate soy beans every day there would be no real consequences. But that is not how we use them in our diet. More on that another day.

End Your Programming Routine: Dangerous speech filtration is now protecting us from seeing the truth or even lies. While we can still read whatever books we want, we are a society that is becoming too lazy to bother. On my recent flight to Indianapolis, not a single reading light was on, including mine which was broken. Maybe they all were but I estimate one in thirty lights on a typical flight. Everyone is on a device or built in screen on the plane. The longer we live with portable electronics, the less reading lights are on during flights.

Reading is not the solution, but the indicator of critical thinking. TV is called programing for a reason. It is entertainment not stimulation. I think fiction is a healthy part of being well rounded but too much fiction becomes fantasy. And, when we live in fantasy, we forget to question whether a soy based diet is the right choice or even a proper choice.

December 16, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:4

December 16, 2022 /

I kind of go off today. I sat down and just started writing because what is happening in the book holds such a mirror up to our own society. I guess that I can only say how ironic that the parallels of the 1950s are matching the 2020s so many times. It just has to be that they are not parallels but truths because that is the only justification that would make logical sense.

Jim Taggert’s wife confronts him after listening to the radio program that Dabny spilled the beans on her affair with Hank Reardon. The nature of the conversation was more about who was really in control of Taggert Transportation. This is a night that Jim was supposed to be at a party whereby he was celebrating that he would acquire d’Anconia Copper by government takeover. Incidentally, I thought a person could only own one business? OK, so there is a story gap or things are so broken now that it doesn’t matter.

A series of arguments occur in this chapter. The last one being that Jim has an affair on the very night that all of this takes place with Lillian Reardon. What I really want to talk about is the language that Jim uses during the argument. “Who the hell are you, you cheap little nobody? I’ll do as I please, and you will keep your mouth shut and go through the right tricks in public, like everybody else”.

Here is the mindset of the well healed and better than you liberal. I don’t actually like the term liberal because it does the term injustice. In the days of communism, this is the Politburo. This is the upper class of the party that is not bound by the same rules as the rest of 99.9% party members. While the entire country is standing in soup lines, the party leaders are eating caviar every night.

I don’t usually name drop, but in this case I think that it helps illustrate what I am am saying. You have the Jeffery Epstein/Prince Andrew types that operated above the law for so many years. They must have crossed some unknown line to move from a position of privilege to outcast. These people were born into positions of unknown wealth. But they believed that they could have/do whatever they wanted. In some cases, I guess the consequences are still not realized. I suspect that there are many more of these type people, I just don’t know who they are.

There is a huge list of liberal loudmouths like Whoopi Goldberg/Michael Moore and the likes. These people earned a voice by acquiring wealth and fame. Make no mistake, they are not in the politburo class but they are the useful idiots. By continuing to spout off and act like they represent a class they continue to keep focus on themselves allowing the real puppet masters to continue with the play, unseen and unknown. They are continued access and pretending that they are part of the class as long as they perform their useful activities. I do believe that when the chips are down, we will see them sniveling and begging like the rest of the country.

There are some that have entered the scene by luck like AOC. Again, I would put her into the useful idiot category. She is not there, but may end up in charge by a series of calculating political moves. Everyone knows Gorbachev/Yeltsin/Jung Un. Some on that list left their mark by changing their ways and some never will. These are the public/political figures that enjoyed the life of politburo while the majority of the country was living a different standard.

I am not sure yet how to categorize those that move between the politburo and the spotlight. Maybe they are the true ruling class and I just cant see it. The Bill Gates/Zuckerberg/Bloomberg silicon valley types. These are the ‘do-gooders’. They want to censor your speech because it is potentially harmful. They want you to stop eating meat because of potential links to climate change. They want to limit your portion size for your own good.

I was reading an article when I was working on this post titled ‘How did the Democratic Party become the party of the billionaire?’ It really didn’t answer the question but the answer seemed very clear. It is the party that wants to limit other peoples freedoms so that others can get rich. Using a populist platform i.e. unions and welfare, it is so much easier to dupe people into thinking they are doing the right thing while they are getting screwed. All you have to do is write some entitlements for some while taking more for yourself. All they see is the free pizza for life, meanwhile I am also getting all you can eat salad bar, open bar, chicken wings and you get the point.

As long as this Ponzi scheme will last my useful working life, that is all that matters. It is why communism failed in the USSR, Vietnam, Cuba and China. North Korea only exists at the whim of China because it is another useful idiot in global politics. The brand of socialism that we are building will eventually fail, it has to. But, whether it will ultimately persevere is irrelevant, I only live one life and this is it – minimum viable product of government so that I can get mine.

I probably haven’t done a good job linking my rant to the story here. What got me thinking about all of this was Jim’s behavior. He thinks that he is capable of doing or having whatever he wants. This got me thinking about what I call people in the ruling class doing whatever they wanted despite the laws (i.e. Epstein). Not being a very public figure, I had to link public figures to the ruling class specifically media stars etc. I had to justify the behavior of the other figures in relation to the politburo to be clear in the structure.

The truth is, I don’t know. Every time we find out about living lives above the law, they go just like we expect. The thing is, we don’t know what is happening until after it happens. So, I suppose you can call this accusation, but it is my truth.

End Your Programming Routine: I spoke only about people associated visibly with the democratic party. Make not mistake I think people on the other side are just as vile. I tell myself that George W Bush was a rube. But then, how does an idiot graduate from Yale, own a professional baseball team, become governor and then president? No, pure evil. There is a reason that no-names like myself speak of altruistic principals. We are not getting anything from the system. If I was would I be so cavalier to denounce it? I’d like to think so

December 9, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:3

December 9, 2022 /

I suppose that you could say that we are becoming fast friends: Friday’s with Ayn Rand. We started this journey July 8 so that makes us five months in with still nearly two months to go. Crazy because on one hand, it seems like it is just wizzing by but on the other hand, it seems like this had been going on forever.

I am not sure why Rand does this. Within this chapter, there are three distinct things going on and really could have been three chapters. At least the second sequence leads to the third and is loosely associated, but they really are three separate happenings. Once again, I am not going to give a plot synopsis but talk about it.

This chapter is titled ‘Anti-Greed’ which doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for once. I think I would have titled it ‘Truth is a Choice’ or maybe ‘Choices have Consequences’. At the beginning of the chapter, Dr. Robert Stadler is whisked away for a demonstration. It turns out the demonstration is a new weapon. A weapon to end all wars and bring peace forever (sound familiar?). It is Stadler’s science and experimentation that provided the basis of this new weapon even though the research was allegedly unrelated.

The weasel that is Dr. Floyd Ferris has been working with the government to create this new weapon without the knowledge of Sadler. When it comes time to do the Public Relations after the demonstration, Ferris essentially blackmails Sadler to either stand for the new weapon as a show of unity or face the consequences. Sadler, being a prototypical liberal turns out to be spineless and goes with the flow.

Later in the same chapter, James Taggart informs Dabny that she is booked on the Bertram Scudder radio program. Her survival for over a month is cause for national celebration and an event to promote unity. Dabny refuses to do it until she is called on by Lillian Reardon. At such time Mrs Reardon threatens Dabny with blackmail about her affair with Hank Reardon unless she goes on the radio show. Dabny does go on, but it is not a repeat of the Sadler affair.

I am a believer in Social morals and codes. I think they are necessary for well functioning society. I guess to me that those are really derived from a higher power and not necessarily an obligation to a peer. For instance, do not lie is not in the 10 commandments.

8. Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbor.

Notice that this is not written as Thou shalt not lie, it is more circumstantial than that. Do not lie at the expense of someone else. When it comes to the truth, some truth’s are not earned when they are purely for someone else’s gain. As an example “Do you own firearms?” Now, I ask you what business is it of yours? What are you going to do with this information? Who really wants to know? To me, this is baseless questioning where the worthiness of the truth is subjective.

I am not naïve. The fact of the matter is that most lies do harm someone else. I am merely pointing out that we are not biblically commanded to always tell the truth. Ironically, when I read the biblical analysis this is all in reference to business type proceedings be court or trade. I think that if we look at the other related commandments.

2. Thou shalt not have any other gods before me

4. Honor thy mother and father

10. Though shalt not covet

These are all directing us to remain faithful and have a form of lying associated. I do find it interesting that they are directed at specific people God, parents and peers. There really is no code of conduct for spouses, children, slaves or extended family. If you are taking the Christian approach, extended family could be neighbors but I certainly don’t see people within the nuclear family impacted by these commandments. My wife is not my neighbor – you get the point.

How did we get here you ask? If I quote Hank Reardon from the chapter “People think that a liar gains victory over his victim. What I have learned is that a lie is an act of self-abdication, because one surrenders one’s reality to the person to whom one lies, making that person one’s master, condemning oneself to then on to faking the sort of reality that person’s view requires to be faked.” From a biblical lie, even in the case where someone ‘gets away with lying’, they are still trapped in that alternate reality.

End Your Programming Routine: This chapter actually had another theme in it that I completely ignored. But what I wrote about was so much bigger. Tom Gresham is famous for saying ‘a lie is only a lie if you deserve the truth’. Sometimes, it takes guts to tell the truth and sometimes a lie is completely justified. You just have to know when is the right time for either.

December 7, 2022 – Are Two Things Worth It?

December 7, 2022 /

It is not everyday that I actually learn something. Most of the non-fiction type entertainment ends up being a perspective rather than actually something new. I can’t say that I actually know everything, that would be ridiculous but I do get surprised when I come across something that is new.

As I continue to evaluate the Backwoods Home universe, I keep getting surprised on what I learn. Since this issue was dubbed the ‘potato issue’ I knew that it was going to be pretty spud heavy. My dad quit growing potatoes in the early 1980s as a result of blight in the soil. To be frank, potatoes were cheap and readily available.

I guess in my head, I thought that growing potatoes was really impossible as a result of my upbringing. But, from this issue I learned that there are many (possibly 1000’s) of different varieties, some much more resistant than others. Unless I move somewhere more rural, I doubt that I will dedicate space to grow potatoes, so this was interesting but didn’t really change my perspective.

The first thing that I really learned was that there are two types of potatoes waxy and starchy. I guess I always knew that there was such a thing as boiling potatoes but I had never considered that there were two distinct categories. From this I also learned that there are some in-betweens like Yukon Gold that share properties of both (must be why it is so popular).

Of course, I have cooked with both but to me a potato was a potato. It is 95% likely that we would have a Russet (or starchy) potato on hand rather than a waxy variety. Now that distinction is clearly made, it is much more likely that I will consider the variety for the recipe. It would seem like the in-between varieties would be the best to keep in the pantry.

The second article in this issue that really opened my eyes was about coffee. I have always prided myself on not being a coffee snob. I don’t like cream or sugar and am not big on ‘mixed’ drinks. The fanciest I usually go is Americano – black.

But, the truth is that I think a fresh cup of Folgers can be quite good. I have ran a pot of Folgers after a Starbucks French Roast and found it just as appealing. I am not a rube when it comes to coffee, but I would say that I am ignorant. Let us get a little technical.

Green coffee beans need to be roasted to be brewed. The amount of roasting determine the darkness of the bean and therefore the coffee. Green beans hold freshness for a long time (I would say years, but I don’t know for sure). It is oxidation that effects the flavor. Apparently, oxidation doesn’t occur until after roasting and is significantly increased after grinding because of the exponential increase of surface area.

Long story short, for the best coffee leave your beans green until ready to be used. Here is my ignorance kicking in. I thought roasting coffee was an exotic process requiring expensive equipment. It turns out that this can be done on a skillet over the stove or even in a hot air popcorn popper. This is where my revelation began.

I just did a quick check at it seems like 3 lbs of raw coffee can be purchased for $21 from Amazon. I have no idea whether this is a good price or not, but it definitely seems like a price that can justify trying it. I can’t speak to quality of outcome but generally speaking, it is a pretty inexpensive experiment.

End Your Programming Routine: It does seem like I am getting value out of these magazines. I am leaning more strongly each episode to subscribing. It is nice to be pleasantly surprised. I think what else makes a difference is that I can see myself doing these things. Don’t get me wrong I love Fine Woodworking, but most of those projects I will never attempt. It is mostly inspiration (and desire) when I read it. Hence, I stopped subscribing years ago (but I do read it at the library every time I go).

December 2, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:2

December 2, 2022 /

I think I can see the end is near, at least I think I can. Have you ever ran a long race? I did a half marathon one time and you could see the mile markers. At mile 10, you didn’t know quite what the finish line would look like but you knew that if you kept going you would make it. That is kind of how this feels.

As books go, this chapter was a long one. At almost 60 pages and tiny font, it feels like I could have read a book just in this chapter. I am going to try and not spoil the plot by talking around what is going on. I will let you infer what happens without me outright saying it.

The citizens of Galt’s Gulch give Dabny thirty days to choose to stay or to leave. It is their hope that they can prove life is superior here to the outside world. I would say that Dabny takes advantage of her time and waits to the last minute to make her decision.

While there are so many parallels to real life in this book, there are just as many results of fiction as well. The book would have you believe that a small group of doers could disappear and put the foundations of a modern society together by chance. Somehow, it would all work out because every person would fill that exact niche in an economy.

Someone would grow all the wheat needed, someone would mill it and package it and someone would sell it. Someone would make the machinery to harvest and process. Someone would make the packaging. Someone would mine the ore to refine to metal, and someone would take that metal and make equipment with it to harvest the grain, even if it is just a scythe. And this is one food item.

I will say, ‘in the real world’ I will talk about two types of people in this category. There are the citizens of Galt’s Gulch and those that haven’t yet given up or seen the light. Within that latter group, there are some that simply won’t give up. I think that this is what makes society work. Just like the song says, the world needs ‘All Kinds of Kinds‘.

There is some advice that I wish I could more easily follow. To find your passion or maybe better, to truly be happy you need to quit. You need to quit doing the things that make you miserable be it a job, an education, a habit or a relationship. As I have eluded to in the course of my writing, the only major thing I have ever quit was my job in 2019. Even then, I only did it because my wife forced me to choose my job or my marriage.

I never give up or surrender if there is a chance that I can still persevere. I was always taught that this quality was admirable so it is ingrained in me. But, it also lacks the true secret to happiness because you spend all your time fighting to win and when you do, it is hollow and empty.

I would wager that a higher percentage of rich people are high school/college dropouts. Why is this? Because they didn’t waste their time, marking time, getting programmed. It is us that followed the path all the way through to start a new journey of someone else’s vision for our lives that didn’t get it. They quit because the status quo didn’t work for where they wanted to go.

I am not convinced that every successful person followed their dreams to what they are doing. I think that their true dreams were to be free and independent whatever business endeavor that manifest itself in. And even then, the creative types try new things, sell their endeavors and try to start over.

Think about Elon Musk for a moment. He was set for life when he sold PayPal. But, then he started Tesla and SpaceX and bought Twitter. I can’t speak for the financial state of the sum of the businesses. But, he didn’t sell PayPal to buy Twitter. He sold PayPal because he was ready to do something else. That is quitting something (like running a company – forever) to try and develop new interests.

To me success is not achieving a goal, it is enjoying the journey. By that definition, there is no possible way to be successful when the journey is miserable. There is a commonly held belief in business that if the business is not growing, it is dying. Why is this? There is no number that a business can achieve that is definitive because it is almost a living entity itself. A business is measured against it’s continual advancement, not what it did, once. So should we behave as people.

End Your Programming Routine: I knew that I would not be successful when I took a job in 2021. The reason being is that nothing changed, only the nameplate on my LinkedIn account. It wasn’t who I was working for that made the difference, it was the fact that I went back to doing the same things as before I quit. The one thing that did was that I started Altf4. The smart person would quit because it hasn’t made a dime. But, you know me: I won’t quit.

November 23, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 3:1

November 23, 2022 /

Surprise! It is a short week so I am doing Atlas Shrugged on Wednesday this week. I may or may not be working on the site during this period, but we both deserve a rest. I want to wish you and yours a Happy Thanksgiving. Don’t forget to be thankful, not just making turkey.

I didn’t fully get what was going on at the end of the last chapter. I even re-read some of it to try and follow but I couldn’t. Apparently, Dabny was flying a plane and it turns out following another plane. I got the part where she was flying but I missed that she was following someone else. As it turns out, John Galt was flying with Quentin Daniels. In the course of flying, she ends up crashing the plane.

The reason that she crashed was that this particular valley is covered by some sort of mirage. This is the same mirage that protects Galt’s Gulch from being seen from the air. If you haven’t read the book, Galt’s Gulch is where all of the industrialists have gone to check out from society.

This was a mistake. While the industrialists are keeping an eye on her, their modus operandi is that this move is free will. It will happen when the person is ready and not without prompting. So, Dabny has not made the full commitment but gets a preview for what is possible.

When John Galt declares that he is going to stop the motor of the world, he does. He takes his revolutionary invention of a motor that derives electricity from static and declares that this world will never have it. He did however perfect his invention to power the community of Galt’s Gulch.

Every single industrialist that left the previous world has taken residence here and has assumed a menial role in society such as grocer, farmer, plumber, handyman, etc. This is really the means to an end because whatever their true passions are are pursued for the benefit of themselves only. They work a small amount or as much as necessary but the rest of the time is leisure time.

“I swear by my life that I will never live my life for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for me”. This is the one pledge to enter or join life in Galt’s Gulch. I find it ironic that I am reading this book at this time. Maybe if I would have read the book earlier, I would have seen the parallels earlier but for some reason the time is now.

The very concept of social justice is the manifestation of what this book is trying so hard to combat. From Wikipedia “Social justice is justice in terms of the distribution of wealth, opportunities, and privileges within a society”. There is something in me that just rails against the premise. Didn’t we tell ourselves in grade school that this was the land of opportunity or anything is possible? Social justice exactly contradicts this idea.

You cannot attain your vision because so and so has more power or this or that and/or the color of you skin prevents success. We must take from others to equalize this injustice. An acceptance of the principal of social justice is a denial of self-sufficiency. And that is against my grain.

Before this is taken completely out of context, I am not for poverty, racism or even inequality. I do have compassion and understand that these subjects are complicated. I do feel that these issues are largely self-inflicted. But, I reject the argument that these problems are my fault or the fact that I am a member of a socioeconomic group by your labels or how or where I was born. I am just as resistant to my stereotyping as social justice warriors are purporting that my group is labelling theirs.

End Your Programming Routine: I am a strong proponent to the concept of giving a poor man one million dollars versus making a successful man penniless. Success is always about mindset and not the assets. Sure, it is easier to make money starting with some money, but still not impossible. The answer will never be taking things in the name of equality whether it is money or respect. If it is not earned, it wont be valued and if it is not valued, it wont be kept.

November 18, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 2:10

November 18, 2022 /

This is the last chapter in part 2. Things seem to be no where near resolved at this point, so we will have to stay tuned for the last 400+ pages of the book.

Dabny meets a transient. He used to work at Twentieth Century Motor Company. He describes the process where the owner died and the factory was taken over by the workers. Part of the process was need based voting on wages and other issues.

“Remember that none of us may now leave this place, for each of us belongs to all others by moral law which we all accept”. One man, stood up and as he left the meeting and disappeared forever said “I will stop the motor of the world”. That man was John Galt.

After that conversation, the train stopped, the crew abandoned the train, possibly in Oklahoma or Kansas. Dabny walks with Owen Kellogg a former employee to find a telephone which is every five miles down the track. During the walk, she discovers that he is in possession of cigarettes with the dollar sign on them. He refuses to talk about the origin, but says that they can only be obtained by gold.

I suppose that these are the main two themes in the chapter. However neither is really new. This chapter is forty pages of marking time. Sure we learned the back story of John Galt and the Dollar symbol (in the book). It kind of reminds me of a podcast I heard years ago about the origin of the dollar. Apparently, the origin of the US dollar was based on the Spanish dollar when it was adopted as currency in 1792.

Kellogg draws some comparisons of the symbol, much like history or politics. There are facts and then there is how those facts are interpreted. For instance, there are those that use the dollar symbol as a weapon to mark greed and selfishness. While there are others that see it as a symbol of creativity and output.

I suspect that people that use the 1% moniker would not refuse a $100 bill if I handed them one, no strings attached. I have never heard of anyone refusing a raise solely on principal. For that matter, those same people do not work for free. So, it is not the money itself that is evil but more likely jealousy. And even more likely hypocrisy meaning who wouldn’t trade financial situations with someone in the 1% assuming that we could handle the transition?

Is everyone that rich a nice, hardworking and deserving person? I doubt it, in fact I would be willing to bet that a lot of them worked in some sort of gray area to get there. So let us look at my version of the Facebook story.

Back when MySpace was the top social media site, the internet was much more undeveloped. Because MySpace was adopted by the newest tech generation (pre-teens and teens), it drove slightly older people to Facebook. These also happened to be the population segment that had money unlike teens. Facebook used mining technology to gather information on it’s users to sell. It was a twist of fate that Facebook conquered MySpace.

As a result, Zuckerburg grew wealthy by a gray area activity. Was it legal, yes. Was it ethical, yes as long as the user agreement disclosed it. Was it proper? I dont know, I don’t use Facebook partially for this reason. Do I like Zuckerburg? No, but not for this. I don’t like the fact that Meta is in the business of manipulating speech.

Enough of that, let me remind people how you get rich. You do this by paying people less than what you make. For instance, I am not rich but I don’t pay the person that mows my grass the same wage that I make. This allows me to focus on the things that I want to do. If the price of the job ever came to my current wage level, I will quit my job right now and start mowing grass. I certainly respect and appreciate the job. They can do in one hour what takes me all day to do. But, my time is worth more to me than the cost of mowing the grass.

Whether it is the Waltons, Musk, Buffet, Gates, etc they all payed people around them less than they made so that they could use their talents in other areas. And let us not forget that there are a lot dull people employed at XMart making $18/hour that would struggle to find a replacement job that is as good. Before we get too judgmental about who did what to get where, it would be good to refresh ourselves with the the tenth commandment: ‘thou shalt not covet’.

End Your Programming Routine: I will say that I struggled today. I kept writing until something quasi-impactful emerged. It all starts with the book and this thing is starting to get a little long in the tooth. I certainly don’t regret doing this and it has definitely been worth it so far. It’s just that some of these chapters don’t add any value to the overall work. I will save the rest for when I finish.

November 11, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 2:9

November 11, 2022 /

I would say happy Veteran’s Day, but I don’t really think this is an appropriate statement. I have spoken about feelings on veterans on Memorial Day. And to get more technical, a veteran is a living person that served in combat, not just spent time in the military. Despite my feelings on whether our country should have been involved or not, I can appreciate the sacrifice of service.

Growing up, we had a parade in town that was billed as the largest Veteran’s Day parade west of the Mississippi. I was in band, so I was marching in the cold and the rain every year. Since leaving home, I have never had it as a holiday so I really haven’t seen it in a long time. But, I assume this is not the reason that you are here so let’s get into it.

I had in my notes “short chapter, kind of worthless”. What happens is Francisco goes to Dabny to see if she will change her mind about going back to working for the railroad. Of course she will not. This conversation is interrupted by Henry Reardon coming in and loosing his cool.

I won’t say that there is nothing of value in the chapter, the conversation and debate between Dabny and Francisco was pertinent. There are two camps: either don’t support the looters by continuing to work or don’t let the looters win by quitting. Which side is correct? I suppose that it has to do with where you stand on confidence with your abilities, pride in outcome and stubbornness to continue.

I know which side I fall on. Maybe you can guess what it is, but I can relate an anecdote to highlight my stance. I have spoke of this before, but I once ran a program. The people above me were extremely poor running their own programs, hence I would call them looters. In fact, the company was taking money out of my program to prop up these other failing programs. In the end, it was all from the same bucket but the point was taking from me to make them look better.

These people made my life miserable. Misery at work translated to misery at home. But, I was running a successful program. I was happy with my team’s results. We were named a ‘Center of Excellence’ for the company. Along with that success came more meddling to the point where the company took that program away from me in a way. They hired someone to run and expand the program I was running, in effect pushing me away.

That move was explained to me as ‘making my life better’ by reducing my interactions with the looters. What they didn’t realize was that my fundamental success running the program was the only thing keeping me satisfied with my job. In my mind, it simply gave me no possible way to happiness because instead of making my life better, I was more miserable. I had reason to keep fighting when I had something to prove. By being relegated to team lead instead of a program lead, I no longer had that motivation.

So, I quit. The program failed within six months. In fact within a year, the company imploded. I don’t claim that this was all me. Mismanagement left a structure riddled with holes like termites in wood. I was simply a part of the structure that was no longer sound and when I crumbled, so did the rest.

It is not in my nature to quit. For right or wrong, this is one of the few things I have ever quit. I was devastated to surrender my identity but I was also at a point where staying was self-destructive. I no longer wanted to prove something, I wanted to take the whole thing down. I had no other success criteria than a total re-write of the company in my own image. That wasn’t realistic, so I gave into the looters and natural consequences took their course.

End Your Programming Routine: I think that you can see that I side with Francisco. At the time, I didn’t do it with the same intent, it just happened to prove his theory. On my last day, I walked out the door with a small box of my personal belongings. I didn’t leave a single item that was mine, including the business in which I was engaged. I choose the path of force disrupter rather than head on battle for change.

November 8, 2022 – Taste: My Life Through Food

November 8, 2022 /

Taste by Stanley Tucci is the June Left Coast Culinary Book Club selection. Yes, I said June. I ordered it in May. By the time the book was delivered, we were getting ready to leave for Spain. I looked at the page count and I knew that it wasn’t going to be long enough for the trip. I left it home for weight purposes and then all of a sudden I had two books to keep up with all summer and fall.

Since we missed the book club gathering in June, I just waited until I got ahead on Atlas Shrugged and didn’t have a second book to go back to. Now was the time.

I am certainly not a big Hollywood person. Most of Stanley’s movies I have never watched. The most famous include Prizzi’s Honor, The Devil Wear’s Prada, Lovely Bones and Julie & Julia. This book is a memoir of sorts that traces his life through food memories.

There are probably 25-30 recipes in the book, nearly all of them are of Italian origin. Typically, they come near the end of each chapter. However, there are sometimes two recipes in a chapter. And some, don’t have any. I would describe it this way, there is some sort of anecdotal story about a period of his life ended by the recipe involved in the anecdote.

How to be kind here? Let’s just say that unless you are a Stanley Tucci fan, this book is pretty much a train wreck. It very roughly follows his life from childhood to current day. Knowing nothing about him, the book cuts right into some situation where he talks about food and then usually punctuated by a recipe. It jumps back and forth in time with unfamiliar characters after about the first third of the book.

I suppose part of my irritation of the book is that I certainly didn’t appreciate the politics whitewashed throughout the book. I would characterized him as New York City liberal turned ex-patriate feigns interest in traditional dishes. He does talk both about Thanksgiving and the Fourth of July with what feels like contempt. I get it to a degree, you like what you like but why bring it up at all?

I started out enjoying the first third of the book. These were largely about the nostalgia of childhood and certainly more innocent and varied. The recipes were interpretations of memories. After that, the book turned into a wandering, food triggered grab bag.

He seems to have a propensity to talk about restaurants that no longer exist. It is written as if it is still available until you read the entire story and then there is a footnote that this is now closed. I think it could have been written in a more agnostic fashion such as “the best XXXX I ever had was at YYYY” and not “Go to YYYY on ZZZZ for XXXX *It is now closed”. I guess for me, New York City or Sicily is just as foreign as the moon so I don’t feel the need to follow all of his restaurant suggestions. Nor would I expect something from the 1980s to even be available 30-40 years later.

It is not that often that I am this critical about something. I personally give this a ‘not recommended’ because the book was expensive at $25, boorish and just too neurotic for me. But, to each his own.

End Your Programming Routine: Stanley bills himself a foodie. I can respect and appreciate that. It is clear that he strongly leans towards Italian food which is way more diverse that the Olive Garden menu. I am not a big pasta person at all, so I can appreciate recipes that go deeper into the cuisine than what everybody knows. We are brother’s in that respect.

November 4, 2022 – Atlas Shrugged 2:8

November 4, 2022 /

It’s not a spoiler if I talk about something that has already happened in the book. It is however if you have not read it. So, you have already read the book, you are reading along with me or you just don’t care. Dabny hears about the train crash on the radio and immediately returns back to work.

Immediately before the news was put on the radio, Dabny was having a conversation with Francisco D’anconia. Francisco is this enigma that I can’t tell if he is orchestrating all of this or he just happens to be like Nathanael Green and the right place at the right time (on purpose).

The title of the chapter “By Our Love” is again double entendre. There is the love between Dabny and Francisco. But their conversation is really about the love of the work and how that is being harvested by the Looter’s for profit. Without the industrialist’s passion, the entire economy will disintegrate.

Time for opinion again. Using generalizations here, have you noticed that the left wants more taxes and the right wants less taxes. No one is arguing that we should have no taxes at all. Why is that? Because they are different degrees of the same thing. The premise is that we all have some sort of civic duty to fund schools, roads, parks, libraries, welfare, etc. If you are picking a side, then you are choosing your degree of civic responsibility and not the premise in the first place.

This all dovetails together by the end, so hang in there. What do you suppose is more profitable: healthy, dead or chronic illness? Using our brains, you got it right chronic illness. If you can be kept ‘in the system’ then you have prescriptions, testing and follow-up visits. This is literally a money printing strategy for life.

What if there was a professional duty that said doing harm was immoral? Now, what if there was a pharmaceutical that kind of worked? And what if you scared the crap out of someone to never stopped taking it? What if the food you ate for your entire life caused the condition in the first place? So, now we have food industry, medical and pharmaceutical industry all working hand in hand in profit.

Are you hanging in there? My favorite subject to pick on is Covid vaccines. Did you know the fourth booster is out? Did you know that these vaccines are pursuing approval for ages 5-18? Did you know that once approved for children the vaccine no longer is considered experimental? Did you know that once accepted, liability is suspended. This is in the wake of pharmaceutical executives admitting that vaccines efficacies are dubious at best. And yet, the CDC is now adding the Covid vaccine to the recommended list of routine shots.

When Dabny goes back to work, she demands to talk only to Mr Weatherby not Wesley Mooch. She is not going to be hamstrung by Directive 10-289 to get the railroad back on track after the disastrous crash. She essentially dares him to stop her. His response is that law’s today are not rigid, but elastic. That should be read as ‘rigid for all people’. Because when you have something that they want then they are going to compromise, otherwise get in line.

So, we have the lawmakers writing the rules as they please. Like for instance US congress members are the only people legally allowed to engage in the practice of insider trading. Literally the people making the laws are the only people that can legally profit on the outcome of the law (with intent). How is that for fair?

In case you didn’t follow the lines. There is collusion between government and industry at the whim of those currently in charge. The rules are being written to endorse certain products and practices. Meanwhile, those on the outside will be kept there. Only with a force disruption will change.

End Your Programming Routine: Reading the book on the surface, you get some romantic mumbo jumbo with a barely interesting story. This post came about as I was trying to relate the conversation between Francisco and Dabny to a current situation and it just flowed. I am not saying that the I think the pharmaceutical industry is intentionally doing harm, but this is all a convenient side effect. It’s worked out pretty well for them, don’t you think?