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January 7, 2022 – Brave New World, Chapters 7-12

January 7, 2022 /

We are now in the mid section of the book.  All of the newness has worn off and this section is largely about plot development.    Sticking with the idea concepts rather than revealing the story, I have compiled a more concise and less chapter by chapter analysis.

The truth is, as I am writing this I have already finished to book.  I suppose I am now able to stand back a little better and take a higher level look at things rather that trying to see everything as it is happening.   However, my notes I took before I finished the book so hopefully it is non-bias enough.

My book is 220 pages long.  In my opinion, the story really doesn’t start until Chapter 8 which begins on page 104.  While some of the preceding pages are interesting, it makes for a very slow beginning.  This is where John, aka The Savage tells Bernard his life story.  John was born to Linda who was abandoned on the reservation by her boyfriend (and father of John), the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning, Tomakin.

If you haven’t read the book, then that is enough spoilers.  But suffice to say, the rest of the book is about John’s interaction with London’s civilized society and how the clash of his upbringing is irreconcilable to the rest of civilization.  Below are the concepts I observed in this chapter group.

Acceptance in Society – The Reservation is not succinctly described, however it seems to be a combination of Native, Latino, possibly Asian or Indian as well people.  They believe in God, perform Native American rituals and speak in a non-English language. They seem to eat southwestern or Mexican food, drink alcohol like mescal and live a life that we might recognize as compared to rocket travel and scent organ indulgence.

John being born to an English woman did not fit in to the reservation with blond hair and blue eyes.  Linda accepted her fate as there was nothing she could do to leave seemed to survive as a call girl.  I think this concept is perfectly understandable to us.  If you don’t look like us and are not from here, then you are an outsider.  John and Linda were outsiders at the reservation.  But they were also outsiders in civilization as well.  

Linda had grown old.  Despite being 44, she is described as someone of eighty,  Without access to the drugs and hormones, the natural aging process happened, apparently so did poor hygiene and lack of medical care.  John would never be accepted in civilization as he was born and not hatched as the rest of the people.  Living in society no matter how detached we may want to be is imperative survival.  It is the same reason why living out your days in a bunker is ultimately a failure.  We are meant to be some degree of social creatures.

Coping through medication – Despite Linda’s desire to be re-introduced into society, she would never be accepted.  Her looks and many years on the reservation had made it impossible for her to fit back in.  Supposedly, Soma was non-addictive but essentially Linda checked out with the drug as soon as she realized that this was not going to be the reunion fantasy that she had in her mind.  We will find out her fate later in the book but she is as good as gone at this point. 

Again, there is nothing too earth shattering about self-medication.  Both Bernard and John shunned the practice preferring to feel emotion and pain rather than push it away.  This is what makes this concept significant.  Humanness needs to feel both sides of emotion, not just the high side.  That was the whole point of providing the drug in the first place, to dehumanize civilization.

Division of the family unit – The book is written in a fashion that sort of portrays John as codependent.   He seems to simultaneously have love and rage for Linda.  The fact that all civilized humans are hatched and the words mother and father are titled pornographic.  I think that means shockingly vulgar, like a racial slur rather than our current definition.

Despite that, John clearly has love for Linda and he wanted to have the same with Tomakin.  That puts him at odds with society and of course has consequences to to the director.  There is extensive talk about this later in the book but this is where I first realized it was going to be a theme.  

Power of the State and Disobedience –  I would call this foreshadowing.  But there is strong indication that Bernard, Helmholtz and John are going to have a clash with the state before this book is over.  Helmholtz is some kind of English Professor and is having treasonous thoughts to borrow from 1984.  You can’t be alone, write about it or even talk about it.  

Good thing the book is short because I was starting to struggle.  I didn’t really get a sense of where things were going until we got there.  I will talk more about this in my wrap-up in a couple of weeks.  The first three concepts today are really very strong in dystopian fiction and are good tools of totalitarian governments.  Divide the society if you disobey, drug them if they don’t fit and weaken the family unit.

End Your Programming Routine:  I am going to take this back to masks for a minute.  Do you know what I never see when out and about?  I never see a child wearing a mask and a parent not or vice versa.  It is always parent and child acting in the same fashion. It isn’t until they get to the age of my children (teenagers) that you start to see a divergence.  My kids actually hassle me to the point that they don’t want to be seen with me not wearing a mask.  How does this happen?  They have been separated and socialized in a way that makes them shun if you are not fitting the social norm.  Think about that.

January 6, 2022 – ‘Taticool’ Thursday

January 6, 2022 /

I got out to the range last weekend for my months delayed trip.  I was so exited to go, I muffed some items and kind of wasted the trip as well as the ammunition, which was already skinny to begin with.  Let me explain.

I talked about my red dot sight I bought over a year ago.  I wanted to sight it in with my new barrel and then compare how the sight functions with different loads and barrels.  My going in premise is that loads and barrels will make a big difference and I wanted to see when setup for hunting how that might effect would be with a shorter barrel installed.

Sabot slugs (for rifled barrels) have always been expensive.  With purchasing limits in place as well as extremely limited availability, I was able to buy some at $4/round.  Fortunately, it is still hunting season in states where shotguns are required or I probably wouldn’t be able to get any at all.  I figured (or hoped) with the sight bore sighted, that I could do the job with 15 rounds.  That turned out not to be the case in my ill-fated trip.

The first thing I did wrong was make assumptions that were not true.  A classic scope typically uses something like 1 adjustment unit on the dial makes a 1/4″ change at 100 yards.  I didn’t read the manual before leaving for the range and it turns out with this sight, 1 click was a one inch adjustment.  So, I was over adjusting four times the amount that I was supposed to each time.  Needless to say, my first shots were all over the place.  

Since I bore sighted in the basement, I was going to try and redo it at the range to try and correct my wild inaccuracies.  Of course, I left my laser at home so I ended up holding the firearm on target and looking over it at the target while I squeezed the trigger to visually see where the slug was hitting on the berm and then making a guess from there.  

I did get it on paper but then (I didn’t know) I over adjusted and was off again.  Finally, with three shots left I was going to see how they group and not do any more adjusting.  I shot two and then the sight stopped working.  My speculation was that it was too cold as it was right at freezing or the batteries were dead.

By the time we got home, the sight was working again.  It was something to with the temperature, I think but I am not 100% sure.  I read the manual and I didn’t see any operating temperature restrictions.  Even so, I wouldn’t expect 33 degrees to be under the limit.  There are definitely some lessons here.

First of all, most of the time, this shotgun is going to have the 18 1/2″ barrel on it.  If you listen to the talking heads in the industry, a defensive shotgun is recommended to have a sight that is useful in low light.  That could be a red dot or it could be a glow in the dark or big loop.  The theory being that at close range, shotgun patterns should be aimed and not pointed like in bird hunting. 

My concern is really around the operating temperature.  It is rarely consistently this cold including hunting season, however I have proved there is something going on here.  I also don’t have a dialed in sight yet, so this thing is still nearly useless.  Yeah I can use the  ‘Kentucky Windage’ by holding it where I think it should be, but even that I am not confident yet.

End Your Programming Routine:  This was a perfect, know your equipment moment.  It is where the saying “Beware the man with one gun” comes from.  The person that has one firearm uses it consistently in all situations.  Had I done this test in the summer I probably would have never seen the problem.  In fact, I prefer to use the indoor range in the winter because I can turn on the heat.  I only was at the rifle range because I postponed for three months.  

It is also quite possible that had I not been dicking around with the adjustments and guessing why I wasn’t hitting paper that I would not have seen the problem either.   So the lesson is know your equipment.  Know it when you are setting up, know its operational limits and possible faults.  My plan is to work on this test again this month.

January 5, 2022 – PC Audio Comparison

January 5, 2022 /

Where are we going today?  It’s time to move beyond the year end wrap ups and goals for the new year for now.  I have recently bought two sets of PC speakers.  One retails for $30 and the other originally $200.  

I have never had the opportunity to compare items like this side by side so, I purchased them blindly.  The set on the right was purchased to give me consistent sound on my work setup.  In that case, the monitor had built in speakers but I was always having it changed to the built in sound and I was hoping that using the headphone output would be more reliable.

The set on the left, I purchase as sort of a luxury.  I had a set of speakers that was originally purchased in 2005 attached.  They worked fine, I was hoping to upgrade because I stream music and podcasts while I work.  Plus, I am also eventually going to send the old ones back to the Linux machine I setup so I can continue to play around with that setup (as soon as I get another monitor).

First and foremost, I cannot easily tell the difference between the expensive audio and the ones that were on there.  Yes, it also has a subwoofer and I think that I hear a richer and more balanced sound largely when I play music and I happen to be listening.  It doesn’t really happen when I have it on in the background and I am working away.

I did also test the set on the right before I plugged everything in for the final setup on my work side.  I thought that they sounded fine and everything works like I hoped it would.  I was considering buying a second set until I ran across the the Klispsch speakers.  I had seen them at Costco about a year ago and thought I might appreciate them on my computer audio since I play them a large part of the day but I couldn’t justify the price.  These were used (returns I think) and about a third of the original cost, so I thought why not.

Two years ago, I wrote about Amazon Warehouse and my opinion has only been reinforced with my continued trial of that business unit.  I bought another item from Amazon Warehouse where it works, however the on/off switch always gets stuck in the off position.  I have to manually flip it up each time I want to use the device. but it is not worth sending back as it does work. This is two in a row that there was some sort of defect or I didn’t get the deal that I thought I was getting.  I would say buyer beware when buying used items from Amazon Warehouse.  These particular speakers came in better description than described and were from a third party vendor, not Amazon.  But, I was already resolved to send them back immediately if there was some sort of defect other than cosmetic.

I do think the more expensive pair does a better job of more clear sound at higher volumes.  I can hear the subwoofer in the background along with the music which still sounds good.  That being said, I rarely have the volume up high enough to hear that difference.  I am perfectly happy with the performance of the more inexpensive speakers even though I do know what I am missing now.

End Your Programming Routine: I think it is hard to appreciate the subtle differences of more expensive PC audio.  I saw them advertised for use in gaming as well.  That may be a better justification as you are spending larger amounts of time in front of the computer than having it on in the background.  My recommendation, save the extra money and space and buy the cheaper set. 

 

January 4, 2022 – New Year, New Plans

January 4, 2022 /

I won’t deny that I kind of checked out around Christmas time. Yes, I did some obligatory retrospectives and I think that there was a lot of value doing that, I also didn’t spend a lot of time looking ahead. I didn’t really want to, I wanted to make a fresh break.

Both last year and this year, I didn’t take any extra time off around the holidays.  Last year, I needed to work as much as possible.  This year, I didn’t have the time off to take.  I also happened to catch a sickness New Year’s Eve.  It was really mild, but I took the opportunity to just rest as much as I could (that is a story for another day).  

Now that I am feeling pretty much normal, rested (restless?) and the work week is starting, it is time to start getting serious about 2022.  What do I want to accomplish?  I am going to save most of that for myself this year.  But, I am going to talk about how I am going to go about things.

It is no secret that I dream of spending time on the range.  At the beginning of the year, I try to outline what I want to accomplish each month.  My going in proposition (or goal) is to try to get to the range once a month.  I have a running list of new things to work on so I have a supply of things that I attribute to each month.  It usually takes a little thought as well to orient hunting preparation before hunting season for instance.   

I do the same thing with my other projects.  In fact, they go on the same list.  I am not so neurotic that I schedule everything, but this is the basic technique that I use to push what I want to do for the year.  Often times,  things get moved around or one thing gets priority over other things, like building my office for instance got priority of most every other project.

The process is more dynamic than once a year.  As things get shuffled around, the items that get displaced get shifted.  In other words, the process is ongoing throughout the year.  Occasionally, I also change my mind an remove things, but that is pretty rare.  When that happens, it is something that perennially gets pushed and I ultimately decide that the project I really don’t want to do, hence the reason it gets pushed in the first place.

For example, I have had something on my list since 2005.  Under the kitchen crawlspace, there is a beam that supports the floor joists.  That beam has a post that rests on a foundation of a couple of bricks in the dirt (I am not sure if there is an actual footer or not).  The post itself is not treated and I highly suspect the post is taking water every year in the wet season.  The floor also has some sag to it.  It was one of my goals to jack the floor and raise or replace the post so that it does not eventually rot.  It is my belief that it is only a matter of time before this is a bigger problem.  but it is not enough of a problem that I have been motivated to do it.

There are other problems, like the foundation has failed around the kitchen.  We also have penciled around the idea of a kitchen remodel.  For those reasons plus it is not going to be fun or easy that project has been reprioritized.  Even though it is a matter of time before there is problem in that specific scenario, ultimately there is a larger project somewhere on the horizon.  After pushing this project forward over ten years, I removed it from my list a couple of years ago.

End Your Programming Routine:  There are no hard an fast rules, in fact I don’t schedule all year long because I know that things are going to change.  I have eight to ten months penciled out depending on what task I am looking at.  This is a way that I sort of guide how I want things to go as the year moves on.  Anytime is a good time to start something like this, I choose this time because it is a natural transition.

 

January 3, 2022- Welcome to the Future

January 3, 2022 /

I really like Brad Paisley’s work. His sense of humor appeals to me and most of his songs are pretty lighthearted. This one did get radio play, but it is not one of his best known. Sometimes, you just hear something that resonates with you and this is one of them.

Back when I lead a team, I would put together a Friday playlist that would describe the week.  Then, I would open it up for the rest of the team to add to after I started it.  Usually, it was silly, sometimes angry and sometimes I would just let them make their own connections to the songs on the list.  We would then release it Friday at lunch time.  

I used to play this song a lot on Friday mornings while I was early in the office and no one was around.  I suppose what it said to me was at the time was that things can get better.  That was a message that I wanted to hear and believe.  

I am not going to do a deep analysis of the lyrics today.  According to what I read, Paisley wrote the song in relation to Obama’s nomination to run for President.  As someone that is mid-life, the amount attitude changes around race has changed dramatically in the last forty years.   To go a little abstract, this song is about observing the impossible to possible through technology or attitude.  It appears that Brad and I are not going to agree on politics, but it doesn’t mean the message or the intent is wrong.  

End Your Programming Routine: To boil it all down, what we do today does matter for the outcomes of tomorrow.  My hope is that some day, we will look back with the benefit of time past and be able to have a clearer understanding of how we got there.  As Brad eludes, today is always the future from a different perspective.  Here’s to 2022.

December 30, 2021 – Bon Voyage 2021

December 30, 2021 /

Tomorrow is a holiday for me so this is the last post in 2021 and then we will be on to the new year.  As always, there are many things planned for the holiday and the weekend.  I mean this when I say that I am looking forward to getting into the new year and then things start settling down quite a bit.

I have already written about the year in review and my Festivus airing of grievances so I am not going to rehash all of that again.  But, I think it is always good to spend some time reflecting.  In many ways, I think 2021 was more difficult that 2020.  Yes, 2020 was crazy but it was also a new kind of crazy whereas 2021 was the same shit, different year.

I think one of the differences for me was my work situation.  Since I was very driven in 2020 to remodel the apartment, I was hyper focused on that project sun up to sundown.  Driving for Amazon, I had to concentrate on my surroundings, my driving and planning my next steps as well.  For example, I couldn’t really listen to my podcasts while I was delivering because I wasn’t paying any attention to what they were saying.  I tried, but it just didn’t work.

This last year, I have spent most of the working days behind a desk, where my mind wanders at times.  I think about what I want to make for dinner, what my project plans should be next, what do I want to write about for the week, how many chapters do I have to read in a week to keep up with my reviews, etc.  Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate that kind of luxury, but I think it is kind of like being an addict.  You are kind of anticipating your next hit (I mean until work is over so I start on that project).  That mental mindset is different than you are not punching out until all of you packages are delivered.

People that know me, know that I am not emotional.  My wife on the other hand is.  We are yin and yang.  This has been a very difficult year for her, and by proxy myself as well.  There have been times of spontaneous tears, shouting matches as primary caretaker and patient, extended trips away from home.  I have had to play the role of peacemaker and lighthouse as well as Mr. Mom.  I suppose that is assuming the consequences of assuming the role of Patriarch for that half of the family.

Speaking of Mr. Mom, having teenagers has some benefits and a lot of drawbacks.  With all the time that they spent at home last year, they lost a lot of discipline.  Everywhere they are is a mess, meal time is literally almost anytime of the day and their personalities are driving me crazy sometimes.  One child is vegan every other month and the other picks and eats all the meat out of leftovers.  One child leaves for school at 7AM and returns at 8PM, the other selectively turns in assignments.  Neither feed and care for the animals or perform chores adequately or without prompting.  This causes friction with my wife and me as well as the kids.

I am not saying the calendar changing does anything about any of this.  It does allow me to reflect on what I want to change.  I want to be careful, this is a path that can lead back to where I was a few years ago, marching through time not with passion but because you don’t know how to get off the wheel.  It has the sights of deja vu, only I have been down this road before.  

The next logical step is to decide and make those changes.  This is where I get stuck a bit.  I am pretty good a laying out options, but moving forward is more difficult.  I suppose that it is more like you already know that you don’t like the choices so doing nothing is the easiest.  At least you know the downsides already. 

I think about some of the most radical changes that have occurred in my life, many of them were done without a lot of thought.  For instance, when I moved to South Carolina.  The truth is, I really didn’t want to do it.  I was happy with what I was doing and had only been in our house less than two years.  But, when the opportunity came up, I didn’t say no and everything just happened.  In retrospect, that was one of the best opportunities that I could have ever accepted.  There was so much learning and growing that came from it that if I would have stuck to my instincts would have never happened.

If ever there was a personality trait that I wish I had, I wish that I had to ability to know what I wanted and be decisive.  In contrast, I suppose I have the same type of discipline that makes a good scientist.  I want to collect all of the data, then analyze it and finally make a conclusion that the data supports.  What do you do when the data is inconclusive?  You perform more experiments until a clear analysis is possible.  Life definitely isn’t a well defined experiment with finite outcomes, so I am still collecting data.

Looking back to my first post of this year and my goalsetting, I accomplished none of these things.  The truth is, those are the logical steps to move this endeavor from a hobby to a business.  But, the real question is why didn’t I do any of those things?  I can make up excuses like I was working but the real truth is I didn’t want to.  To be brutally honest, I was lazy and didn’t want to put in the extra work that was required to do all of the small things to accomplish the larger goal.  I wanted to spend my extra time building my office, reading 1984 and writing my daily posts rather than I did working on a business plan.

I would liken it to my process oriented brain.  It is very easy for me to see the endpoint and make up all of the logical steps in between.  What is not as easy is to impart the intangible discipline to do it, primarily driven by desire.  Does that make me a loser who wants to live in misery?  A little bit because there is only so much whining people will tolerate from someone that appears chronically unhappy and it seems to be their own doing, especially when they don’t follow their own plan. 

To stave that off, it is up to me to figure out the motivations and do something different with my situation.  For instance, maybe I should spend my time writing a book rather than this blog?  Or maybe I should stop writing for a while and really figure out if podcasting is what I would rather do?  Or maybe I should narrow the focus of this and stick to one subject to build a targeted audience rather than my daily whatever is top of mind? Or maybe I should keep this as it is because I enjoy it and stop trying to wish I was an entrepreneur type of personality?

End Your Programming Routine: I think it is OK to not know what the future looks like as long as you are aware that is the case.  The lucky few know what they want and are doing it.  The rest of us know that something isn’t quite right. I want to be in the subset that keeps looking rather than accepting this is all there is.  That being said, I am going to make some changes in 2022, just not sure what that is going to be yet.  I am checking off 2021 and wish you a happy new year.

December 29, 2021 – Snow Days at 46 versus 13

December 29, 2021 /

We had snow on Christmas Day. It wasn’t in the morning but started coming down in the early evening. It snowed all night and continued the next day. The last time I remember having snow (on the ground) Christmas day was 1992.  From my memory, there has been one, true ‘White Christmas’ here in my part of Oregon, that was in 1988 where it started snowing Christmas Eve.

I had a four day weekend.  Friday and Monday were holidays for me around Christmas.  I spent Friday cooking as I made mole from scratch.  We had a low country boil for Christmas eve dinner.  Saturday was Christmas and Sunday was a down day.  Monday, it was back to work, so to speak.  Since my mother-in-law was staying with us over the weekend, it was time to get her back home.

I shoveled a path on the deck, stairs, driveway and a few access points.  Part of why I did that was forecasts were all over the map in terms of high temperatures.  I didn’t want the packed snow to ice over and be days worth of problems, including the driveway.  When I got to her house, I knocked the snow off of the awning, shoveled the snow off the roof, shoveled a path to the door.  We then discovered that the water line was frozen.  I spent an hour defrosting that and getting the water running.

When I used to work outside of the home, a snow day was not a day the office was closed, unlike the kids school or working for the state, like my wife.  I would plan extra time to get the car cleaned off and drive half speed or less.  When I had the ability or forethought to take my equipment home before the storm, I would work from home while everyone is watching movies and playing in the snow.

In 1988, my brother and I got mountain bikes for Christmas.  We road them in the snow and ice for the first time.  Needless to say, we found that combination didn’t work too well.  I don’t remember my brother’s outcome but I know that I laid my new bike down several times that day.

I suppose that I get my tendencies from my parents because a snow day was just a regular day.  They would go off to work in the morning and we were left to ourselves. We lived on a hill in the country and there was some traffic but not a lot.  We would start a fire in the woodstove in the shop and sled for hours down the hill, every couple of hours going into the shop to warm up and dry off.  

There is a stark contrast between what we did and my kids.  They don’t really play together, not even making a snowman or snowball fight.  I would estimate that they barely spent an hour a piece over the last couple of days outside.  Maybe they get it from me?  I was spent from the month of December and the hours in the kitchen over the last week.  I just wanted to sit down and watch football for a couple of hours.

It seems like a lot of people appear excited to have snow.  Here, it is about a once a year event.  But, the truth is, I don’t see a lot of people doing stuff and really taking advantage of it.  Maybe it is just a good excuse to do nothing?  I guess what I feel like is that there is everything that needs to get done, plus more work and time to do it.

My son asked me if I was excited that it snowed. I told him that I have spent winters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Canada;  not really.  I used to work for a Canadian company and the majority opinion was that it was better to live somewhere where snow was not in the daily routine.  One guy even told me that people had winter cars because of the salt on the roads (at least he did).  

End Your Programming Routine: I like seasons, I don’t think I would do well in a semi-tropical climate.  Last year I wrote about the transition to Winter makes you appreciate the Summer and was necessary for life to recharge and grow strong.  That being said, I am OK if this is our annual snow event.  It has been a number of years since we have seen any accumulation of snow.  I really appreciate that I don’t have to add several hours to my drive or even leave the house at this point.

December 28, 2021 – Brave New World, Chapters 1-6

December 28, 2021 /

So, I miscounted the number of chapters, there are actually 18. Divide by three and that should be six chapters per week.  Today, I will be reviewing the first six chapters of “Brave New World”.

If we think about the world in 1931, when this book was written and apply our critical thinking and knowledge of history,  we know that the world is in the beginning of the Great Depression, there is the rise of Fascism with the election of Mussolini in 1922 and the writing of Mein Kampf in 1925 and with it came the pseudo-science of eugenics.  That is a good place to start since this is really how the book starts.  Eugenics is the manipulation of human reproduction to have more desired traits and less undesired traits.

The book begins with a tour of the factory where babies are created.  It follows through with raising after they are born and then character development begins.  Some good stuff happens while touring the factory, here are some concepts from Chapter 1.

  • Slogans – A unified population is an obedient population.  That is done by having people believe the same things.  To do that, they use a motto or slogan ‘Community, Identity, Stability’.
  • Classification of people –  The concept of Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilon and Gamma (including + and – of each) individuals is introduced.  Knowing and accepting your place in society helps maintain order and stability.
  • Matching mental and physical maturity and purpose – Huxley is proposing through the director’s character that when the body is physically mature but the mind is not it leaves more time for a person to think.  This is an undesirable gap in that it could lead to rebellion or acting or learning or believing out of class.

In chapter 2, the babies are in the world.  There is a aversion to using the word born because that implies a natural childbirth which is not how they came to be.  This chapter is all about how the children are trained into class.  Including what clothes they wear, what stories they hear and what propaganda they are continuously looped.  

  • Learning + Nature = Wild = Ungovernable – There is a distinct attempt to keep people away from nature and natural experiences.  Too many and they start to rebel because they start to understand that this life is not right (proper).
  • Science requires understanding, Morality is programming – This one jumped out at me because I didn’t realize how true it was.  The spirit is that morality can be trained/taught/programed whereas truth cannot.  

Chapter 3 gets a little fuzzy as it is a series of flashbacks and character introductions.  It is a little hard to follow when it is a series of short sentences and jumping back and forth between different character groups.  Nevertheless there are some good new concepts.

  • Eroticism – Whether it is culturally expected promiscuity or something called ‘erotic play’ it seems like there is an supernatural focus on sexuality that is missing in a culture of test tube babies.  I think that it is further emphasized with the next concept.
  • Drugs – It seems that women are taking hormones for regularity or ‘Soma’ for feeling more or Soma for feeling less.  They are even required contraceptives so that women don’t end up pregnant.  There is also reference to abortion clinics so it must not be completely effective, pregnancy is definitely not permitted.

Chapters 4-6 are character and plot line development.  We find that there are some doubts in to complete belief in utopia.  The main character Bernard Marx opens up with a friend Helmholtz Watson and girlfriend Lenina.  He might have an ally in Helmholtz but Lenina cannot overcome her programming to even indulge in the fact that there might be more to life.

End Your Programming Routine: I am trying to get through the concepts that make this work a great text to end your programming, not spoil the book.  So, I could write more about the later chapters but they require more setup in terms of explaining what is happening in the plot rather than in your face mechanisms of control.  I did find it interesting that technology such as helicopters, rockets and television was mentioned in the 1930s.  I didn’t know that such technology existed at the time.  Stay tuned to chapters 7-12.

December 23, 2021 – Happy Festivus

December 23, 2021 /

As you know from last year we do celebrate Festivus here at AltF4.co. While most of the activities are difficult to convey in written format, the airing of grievances are particularly suited.  I think traditionally, grievances would be associated to people attending the dinner, but in this case I am not going to impose that limit.

I think that we all recall how the year started out.  January 6, a huge group of useful idiots stormed the US Capitol. With shock and amazement, six people died participating in a manufactured crisis and subsequent legal/PR/propaganda clusterfuck this turned out to be.  What a perfect beginning to 2021.

  • Oregon’s own Governor Brown – I saw a survey a couple of weeks ago that listed Kate Brown as the least popular governor in the United States.  It is no wonder that I have a problem here.  Granted, not all of Oregon’s problems are related strictly to the figure, but it is a good start.  Whether it is losing freedom or imposing administrative fear in the population, she has earned her Festivus place.
  • The ‘Rust’ crew – This has got to be one of the dumbest tragedies of the year.  Fools playing with guns mix live ammunition into stage work and someone dies.  I feel so bad for the director (and family) that was likely innocent but also the victim.  There is no doubt to me that Alec Baldwin is reaping what he sows here.  The flimsy excuses and nonsense that has subsequently come out as a result makes me hope that those involve pay dearly for negligence.  Even terrible accidents happen which I believe this was, the fact that no one takes responsibility for this is deplorable.
  • Useful idiots –  From Jessie Smollet, Antifa and woke culture to Proud Boys stooges both sides play parts in the ongoing drama.  As I keep saying, it doesn’t matter which side you are taking, if you take a side you are advancing the agenda of both sides of the political dichotomy.  We are all losers here.
  • Monetary Policy Makers, Politicians and Media reporting – The ‘official‘ inflation rate is 6.8% for 2021.  Those of us living in the real world know that the gerrymandering of the statistics that go into the number is a farce.  Let’s look at some items: OSB – 3X last year, 2x4x8 #2 studs- 2X last year, available ammunition – at least 2X last year, 20# propane tanks – 2X last year, ground beef – 2X last year.  I could go on and on about every time I turn around something is costing significantly more than it used to (anyone priced houses lately).  It turns out that if you take all the items out of the calculation that actually have inflation, then you can get to 6.8%
  • Politicians (again) – Let us not forget that much of the inflation is tied to ridiculous Covid policies and stimulus severely effecting the supply chain.  The claim that prices are driven by raw material costs and availability are direct reflections of paying people not to work, disbarring rental contract enforcement and economic stimulus that has no other consequences but inflation.  Many of you probably don’t realize (yet, until April) that the checks the government sent in the summer were advancements on the Child Credit.  That money will be factored into your total income and in my case, I will likely have to pay that back.  Thanks US Treasury.  I didn’t need it, nor did I ask for it but just tack $2000 onto my bill in April.

Here are some honorable mentions this year.  I will save some of my vitriol and describe a simply disappointed.

  • OSU Beavers football team – At times they looked brilliant and dominated opponents, including the PAC-12 champions Utah.  They were 6-0 at home but on the road they looked downright listless.  This includes getting shellacked by 5-7 Cal and losing to Colorado at 4-8 in overtime.  As much as I wanted this to be the year of change, it was clear after the LA Bowl that this was probably a fluke.
  • Las Vegas Raiders –   I have always been a Raiders fan but this year I was hoping for more.  The Raiders were also my father-in-law’s favorite team.  This was one sports team that we could cheer for in common because I definitely didn’t want to talk about how the Ducks are doing every year.  The rest of the family was hoping for a good showing too to help transition through the grief.  It’s not over, but it sure doesn’t look good especially after being blown out by Kansas City two weeks ago and squeaking by Cleveland’s third string offense last week.

End Your Programming Routine: Just because I listed a bunch of bad things above doesn’t mean there weren’t good things too.  This is however the Airing of Grievances so I stuck to topic.  As I wrap up the year here, I hope that you take time to enjoy the holidays and focus on what is important in life: God, family, friends and building the Quiet Insurrection.  We wont fix this by electing the right people, we will fix this by being a better neighbor, having compassion and loving those around us.