We are just a group of retired spooks that discuss things that you’ll not find anywhere else. It makes us unique. Take a look around. Learn a thing or two.
When I was married to my first wife, she told me a story about what happened when her grandmother died. Once this 90-something woman died, the “children” all went over to her old house “on the hill” and started probate on the belongings. And there they discovered that there was a very large, and very heavy bureau that had been against the one wall for as long as anyone could remember. And when they emptied the bureau, and moved the heavy massive piece away, they discovered a locked door.
When they opened it, they found a child’s bedroom dating from the 1920’s all perfectly preserved.
Apparently, my wife’s oldest uncle told the story that when he was five years old, he and his older brother, who was six went out playing on the frozen river, and the older brother fell into the ice and died. Since he was so young at the time, he had forgotten about the older brother and the event, but the grandmother simply walled up the room. Closed the blinds, shut the drapes and never spoke of the lost son ever again.
Inside was the room just as the boy had left it. With clothing on the floor, an unmade bed. Toys about, and other things of that period such as books, cast metal toys, an an old baseball mitt and bat.
It’s a fascinating story, and one that comes up time and time again over the years.
Time capsules are purposely built to contain interesting and unique items meant to be uncovered at a predetermined date in the future. This can often be a century or more after the capsule is buried.
Unintentional time capsules are something else altogether as they are far rarer and only appear when least expected. These are places and items lost for a time. But when they are revealed, they showcase what life was like in the past.
Here we can look at some other time capsules as we explore this interesting subject.
Lost Purse From 1957 Discovered In 2019
In 1957, a young woman named Patti Rumfola was attending Hoover High School in Ohio when something terrible happened: She lost her purse. That stroke of bad luck for Rumfola turned into an incredible discovery in 2019 when her handbag was finally found by a custodian.
Unfortunately, it was a bit too late for Rumfola as she had passed away in 2013 at age 71. Still, the purse was found, and with some Internet sleuthing, the original owner was identified. The handbag was given to one of her daughters, who had the opportunity to peek into her mother’s life from 62 years in the past.[1]
The purse, which had fallen behind some lockers, ultimately became an unintentional time capsule filled with the kinds of items you might expect to find in a young girl’s handbag in 1957. There were several pristine tickets to her school’s football games, a couple of library cards, a photograph of one of her friends, a wallet, and a small amount of change. Each of her five children kept a penny from the purse to remember their mother.
The Town Of Bodie, California
Shortly before the US Civil War broke out, gold was discovered east of the Sierra Nevada mountains. By the late 1870s, the site had grown to become a boomtown called Bodie with some 10,000 residents. By 1915, the gold was gone, and people had to leave the town for good.
Bodie became an unintentional time capsule because it’s more than 2,500 meters (8,300 ft) above sea level. In the early 20th century, it wasn’t easy to get in and out of the little town. As a result, the residents left most of their possessions there as it was too expensive to have them hauled over miles of mountain trails.
In 1962, California State Parks stepped in to establish the ghost town as Bodie State Historic Park. It is preserved in an arrested state, so nothing is disturbed except for the occasional repair to ensure that a wall or roof remains intact.
The place is exactly what people envision a ghost town to be. But more than that, it’s a glimpse back in time to the Old West without the kitschy tourist traps found in places like Tombstone.[2]
Completely Intact Shoe Store Rediscovered After Half A Century
From the 1940s to the 1960s, the Fashion Shoe Shop stood as a staple mom-and-pop store. But it eventually shut down. Years later, it was bequeathed to a man who went by to see what the property looked like. He found a shoe store that had been shuttered several decades earlier.
The shop was something of a step back in time as the shoe store looked just as it had when the doors were locked years earlier. Instead of cleaning out an abandoned space, the new owner found a treasure in perfectly preserved vintage shoes. As the shoes were still inside their boxes, they were preserved without damage from dust, mold, or anything else.[3]
The time capsule was also filled with fashion from previous eras. In such well-preserved conditions, the items were worth quite a lot of money. In addition, the shop had a Victrola Credenza Talking Machine full of vintage records, a vintage stove, and more incredible finds from 40 years ago when the shop was closed.
Abandoned Home In Ontario Revealed A Link To The Past
Not every abandoned property is a decaying mess that people should avoid. Occasionally, a place will turn up something surprising, which is exactly what happened when a home in Ontario, Canada, was discovered by an urban explorer in 2013.
The home wasn’t in the best shape. But looking past the “usual smell of decay and years of abandonment” revealed a hidden gem showcasing how people lived in the 1960s when the property was abandoned.
Inside the home was a plethora of items from the 1960s and earlier, including several musical instruments, a shaving kit, a shoeshine polish kit, a cache of vinyl albums, cartons of food far beyond their expiration dates, furniture, books, clocks, televisions, a gramophone, a piano, jewelry, and two complete sets of polished silverware, which are worth their weight in . . . well, silver.
It’s unclear why the home was abandoned with everything left inside. But it helps to paint a picture of the people who lived there more than 50 years before the property was rediscovered.[4]
A Shop Boarded Up For 30 Years In Lancashire
Typically, when a shop goes out of business, its contents are sold, the building is vacated, and then it’s taken over by someone else. But something that seldom happens turned up in Accrington, Lancashire, in October 2008.
As builders were working in the area, they uncovered a shop that had been boarded up for at least 30 years. Instead of a decrepit empty space, they found a perfectly preserved corner shop and ice cream parlor. It was filled with items from the shop’s earliest days in the 1920s to products dating to the early 1970s.[5]
These included cigarette advertisements from the 1950s, a magazine that went through the day-by-day happenings of then Princess Elizabeth’s tour of Australia in 1938, old-fashioned sweet jars, and ice cream spoons. The original owners had left the property over 30 years earlier without removing the contents.
Paperwork found within the shop dated back more than 80 years. It indicated that the establishment had belonged to the Boyd family for several generations. The building was renovated, but the items were preserved by the developer.
A Victorian-Era Pharmacy Hidden For 80 Years In Somerset Village
In the early 1800s, John Wellington opened a chemist shop at South Petherton, Somerset. He also sold groceries. After John’s passing in 1845, the shop stayed in his family for more than four decades. Then it was sold to W.C. White in 1887.
White operated the shop’s chemist side until he died in 1909. Then his son and heir, Charles White, continued with the grocery business only. Charles wasn’t qualified to dispense medications, so the store’s chemist side was sealed behind a locked door.
Despite having several other owners, it remained that way until 1987. That year, the shop was sold and the locked door was finally opened. Inside was the chemist shop precisely as it had looked when it was sealed 78 years earlier.
The Victorian-era pharmacy was purchased in its entirety by Flambards Theme Park in Cornwall. The shop was moved and reestablished exactly as it had looked nearly a century before. Some items didn’t make the transition—but not because they were damaged.
Certain chemicals were now considered dangerous and deadly. They were confiscated by the British Home Office. But everything else has been perfectly maintained and preserved.[6]
A Long-Forgotten Closet Revealed A Treasure Trove Of Civil War Artifacts
In 2010, the former Carnegie Library in San Antonio, Texas, was undergoing some renovations when something unexpected turned up. The workers found a closet that had been walled up in the early 1950s. Inside, they discovered a treasure trove of artifacts dating back to the US Civil War.
More than 200 items were found in the closet. Although most were from the Civil War era, the oldest was a priceless copy of the 1615 King James Bible printed in London. Beth Graham, a spokesperson for the library system, described it as “in astoundingly good shape for being nearly 400 years old.”[7]
At least one document was dated 1861. According to Graham, another was “a proclamation by the Governor of New Mexico calling up the militia to repel Confederate raiders coming into the territory from Texas.”
Several magazines were dated 1952, which suggests that the closet was walled up before the building housed the Hertzberg Circus Museum in the late 1960s. The library staff cataloged the items and put them on display at the San Antonio Public Library.
Parisian Apartment Left Untouched For 70 Years Discovered In 2010
In 1942, as the Nazis invaded Paris, playwright Solange Beaugiron, the granddaughter of Madame Marthe de Florian, fled the city. Beaugiron left behind her apartment but continued to pay the rent until her death at age 91, almost 70 years later.
It is believed that Beaugiron didn’t return at all between 1942 and her death in 2010. So the apartment remained closed. Initially Marthe de Florian’s home, it was filled with opulent furniture and paintings. All of them remained untouched.[8]
The apartment was finally opened in 2010. Although it was an amazing unintentional time capsule of 1940s Parisian life, it also contained many valuable artifacts. One such item was a portrait of de Florian by Giovanni Boldini. It sold at auction for €3 million, a record for the artist.
Other paintings by famous artists, ornate furniture, a piano, a phonograph, and much more were uncovered in the apartment. Somehow, the place survived World War II without a scratch as did everything sealed inside.
Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Chemistry Lab Found Hidden Behind Wall
Conservators working at the University of Virginia’s Rotunda have inadvertently uncovered a chemical hearth designed by Thomas Jefferson. The discovery is offering fresh insights into how chemistry was taught over 200 years ago.
The iconic Rotunda, constructed in 1826, is located on The Lawn of the original grounds of the University of Virginia and is currently undergoing renovations. Inspired by the Pantheon in Rome, Thomas Jefferson designed it to symbolize the “authority of nature and power of reason” and the separation of church and education.
Back in 1895, a fire destroyed much of the building’s interior. But during the 1850s, the chemical hearth—part of an early chemistry classroom—was sealed in one of the lower-floor walls of the Rotunda, which protected it from the fire. Recently, while preparing for the current renovations, workers examining the cavities in the walls unexpectedly discovered the lost chemistry hearth.
Back in Jefferson’s day, chemistry was taught on the Rotunda’s bottom floor. His collaborator, professor of natural history John Emmet, taught the classes. UVA Todayexplains how it worked:
The chemical hearth was built as a semi-circular niche in the north end of the Lower East Oval Room. Two fireboxes provided heat (one burning wood for fuel, the other burning coal), underground brick tunnels fed fresh air to fireboxes and workstations, and flues carried away the fumes and smoke. Students worked at five workstations cut into stone countertops.Brian Hogg, senior historic preservation planner in the Office of the Architect for the University, said the chemical hearth may have been for Emmet’s use; the students may have had portable hearths with which they conducted experiments.“Back then, the different experiments would get different levels of heat from different sources,” said Jody Lahendro, a supervisory historic preservation architect for U.Va.’sFacilities Management. “For some, they would put the heat source under a layer of sand to more evenly disperse and temper the heat.”
According to Hogg, this may be the oldest intact example of early chemical education in the United States.
The University of Virginia will put the chemical hearth on display once renovations are complete.
Now some other stuff…
All of this stuff is interesting and a curiosity. There is no question about that. But what about today? What about your life now? What about things, people, places, food, friends, drink, pets and other interests? Well…
…lucky for you all, I have some videos that I am gonna deposit here for your enjoyment. And as you look at them remember that those relics that you read about are from another person’s time; another person’s life. But this time; this life, is yours NOW.
Make it a good one.
Please contribute. Don’t disparage.
Check out this guy who used to ice skate when he was in elementary school, and then life carried him away. Now, for the first time in 50 years, he tries to ice skate again. Not so easy is it? video
Remember!
You are not your age. You are not your color, nationality, your style, your wealth. You are not your job. You are not your career or your education. You are very unique and you are very, very special.
Never forget that.
Here’s a video where a middle-school student discovers what her dad does for a living. It’s a bit of a shock, but you know what…? It doesn’t matter. video.
What the world needs now is more understanding; more humanity; and more kindness. Help others. Be the Rufus. Show understanding, compassion and kindness. Help others. And when someone is in need, help them.
Do not be afraid to volunteer. You can join the volunteer fire department, be an auxiliary in the police. Help in the local community. Volunteer at the food pantry. Go to the local humane society and just volunteer. Be part of the community. Smile. Make friends.
This is just a very simple article. I just want to throw out some areas and places where (I believe) cats would enjoy to romp and play at. You know, often I would walk by a scene, a glade, a tree line, or a place and think to myself “My. This would be a nice area to explore were I to be a cat.” And this is what this article is all about.
Cats love nature.
Cats love nature.
Places to practice the art of catting
Cats love to cat around. They like to play and practice, and when I go look at these fine woodland places I imagine them playing and being a cat. Like in the “first blood” GIF below…
First blood.
And they do love to play…
Major cat-play.
Shady Glade
You come across these glades from time to time. Often it’s simply an open area in a wood or in a forest. They are often filled with shrubbery, and grasses and maybe a boulder or two, and surrounded by deep dark, lush woods all around.
A shady glade is the perfect spot to pause and get your bearings on the world around you.
A shady glade is the perfect spot to pause and get your bearings on the world around you.
Maybe you should go there, or a place like it. A quiet and secluded place. Take a friend with you and just be…
Take a friend with you.
Deep woods
I love deep woods. And so did my cats.
Deep dark woodsy forests.
The deep dark and cool forests are often clear of substantive under-growth, but very shady and nice. Fine tromping space, and scatter about areas for the cats to play in.
Nice soft mossy mounds for the cats to romp and play in.
The woods are filled with wildlife to listen for, scent trails to follow, and the music of nature. The cat’s paws walk on soft deep lush carpeting underfoot, nice mosses, and the songs of birds that inhabit the tops of the trees.
Deep trails that lead into lush greenery and moisture.
Cats love to play
They do as this example clearly indicates…
Being playful.
Bubbling brook
Where there were hills, there would be rocks and brooks. These were always filled with life (and insects) but my cats enjoyed exploring the area immensely.
Boulders and rocks in the forests.
And a creek that the little guys would need to navigate, jump over or test their footing with…
A kitty adventure land.
Cats love nature.
Cats love nature.
A place to play and to hunt
As this cat clearly demonstrates.
Playing around cat style.
A large fallen tree
My little guys would love to climb on these things and trim their claws and race about it up and down. Sometimes I would play with them and we would bat at each other, swipe at each other and just play around.
The cats would love to scamper and play about any all fallen trees. First order of business was to climb up, and then they would look down. LOL.
Fallen trees were always a top priority in cat exploration and adventure. As this following picture plainly indicates…
Fallen tree in the forest.
Cats do love to play
They really do.
Cats do love to play.
A rural village road
You do not need to live in a cottage in a forest to make your kitty happy. The most exciting places for them to romp and play could be right there in your own backyard.
Village road.
And here…
Nice woody road.
Rabbit lair
A lair is filled with tunnels in the brambles and briars. Humans cannot enter, unless you are a five or six years old, but they are perfect size for a fine adventuresome cat to prowl.
Rabbit lair…
Places to hunt
Cats love to hunt. Whether it is cockroaches, mice or birds, they stalk and stalk and then pounce. Sometimes it doesn’t work out quite like they planned. Sigh.
Hunting gone wrong.
And other times, it’s payback time…
Payback time.
A light birch wood
A birch wood isn’t so deep and dark as old growth hardwood forests. they are light, and airy. As such they create a unique environment for cat exploration and meanderings.
A light birch wood. Perfect place for feline adventures.
Massachusetts boulders
When I lived in Massachusetts, the near perfect temperatures in the Summer, and the lovely natural surroundings were like a balm of calmness for my cats. They would hang out on these boulders and just chill out while the world around them scampered.
Massachusetts rocks in the woods.
Typical places for a cat who was busy “catting around” to lick his / her paws, feel the sun on their skin and take a much needed nap. As you well know; life is hard. Then you nap.
A fine rocky shelf.
Cats love to play
They most certainly do.
Cats love to play.
Old fence line
An old fence line offers lots of fine cat resting places, and spaces to observe, hunt, track and just play about in. It’s like a cat fairground.
Old Fence Line.
A nice woodland trail
I would often think of my furry friends when I would go on walks or hikes in the various State Forests or parks.
Caldwell fork trail
Old barn
An old barn is often a great place for cats to hunt the local rodents that inhabit the farms. There’s a lot to do, a lot of climbing and jumping, and often many aged bales of hay that make fore great rest areas.
No matter what the weather is…
Cats love equal parts of cuddling and romping outside with you. Sort of like this image here…
Cozy time for kitties.
A fine time for kitty cuddles…
Kitty cuddles.
You can tuck your loved ones in bed, nice and safe…
Tuck in your loved ones for the night.
And my political statement
Up until the 1970’s zoo’s were horrible bare cement and cinder block places where the caged and trapped animals would waste away until they died of loneliness and boredom. Such as this lion…
Poor, sad kitty.
But that has changed. Well managed zoo’s now take the time to provide better care and more “natural” habitats for our friends to live in and exist in. I for one welcome this change.
A modern zoo.
Conclusion
When I had my little guys I would sometimes take them out to the forests with me, or barring that, I would have a house that was next door to a forest. They would love those excursions. All of their senses would perk up and they would be ALIVE.
I hope that you enjoyed this article.
I hope that you enjoyed this article.
This is my tribute to all the cat and cat lovers in the world. Maybe I’m weird for thinking these things, but we shared many a great time together. It is my hope that the cat lovers in the audience will love and appreciate this post as much as I enjoyed writing it.
A kitty on the prowl.
The big cat seal of approval
Big kitty approves of this article.
I approve!
Do you want more?
I have more posts like this in my Cat Section within my Happiness Index. Here…
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Please kindly help me out in this effort. There is a lot of effort that goes into this disclosure. I could use all the financial support that anyone could provide. Thank you very much.
I am not in America. I live in China, and I am getting these occasional “feelings” that indeed something was wrong. Something inside of America is seriously wrong.
Not “wrong” as in… The Fourth Turning is in process.
Not wrong as in “get your SHTF” preps in order.
Not wrong as in “Uh oh, the USA wants to start World War III”.
Wrong as in “why are my cats hiding, and where is my dog? Hey! Where are the birds?” And why is the sky so dark? Wrong.
Of course, I know all about the Fourth Turning. I know about the collapse of empires, and I am aware of the social upheavals that can occur when empires collapse.
I’ve written about them extensively, and I have suggested that others get on a “lifeboat” and sail off away from the United States to safety. It’s just that I never…
…in my wildest dreams…
…thought that the idea that you need to abandon the USA would become a meme, or a widespread theme that many others, not just preppers, would embrace.
And so, yeah. I knew all about the changes and the collapse and I have written about it extensively. It’s just that the full extent of what must be going on RIGHT NOW inside of the USA, just surprises me.
…
It’s not just for preppers any longer…
I suppose it all began when Nomen Nescio said this in a comment…
“Yes, they still believe Democrats are the worst, Biden sucks, Pelosi is the devil, etc, but they still feel pretty burned right about now.
They went from FNC to Bongino to Infowars to Rush to Breitbart, back to FNC, over to NewsMax, on to QAN, and...
...finally, now, many have just found some new hobbies.”
Does that mean that Americans have pretty much “given up” and succumbed? That they no longer believe in the “news” or in a political “savior”, or hope in change from the Washington DC establishment?
What happened to the America that I grew up in?
Yes, boys and girls, change is upon us all. But there has to be some kind of baseline of hope. Even if it is far away off in a far away land. There is always hope.
When I was in my darkest days in Prison, I still had hope.
Hope is what keeps us going on. Hope is what anchors us down and in place while the hurricane rages, and hope is what energizes us to calm down, accept things as a fleeting passage of time.
Hope.
In the America that I grew up in, it was a very calm and relaxed pace of life. The worries that seem to permeate modern society were absent.
All my SHTF writings relate to a handful of survivalists who are paying attention to what is going on, and are thus taking the necessary steps to assure survival in a contentious and changing environment.
But something unexpected is also going on.
Mr Joe and Suzy Average seems to be accepting the prepper meme. Many want to “get out of Dodge”. And that is shocking (to me) and illustrative of the late stage of societal collapse that is in process.
So it’s no longer “just” a small minority of Americans that want to bail (out of the insanity), but it is an ever growing proportion.
And as this proportion grows and increase in size, very bad people; very crazy people, very silly ideological-minded people can use the fright and fear that these people hold, and manipulate it to bad ends.
...I thought of these curious examples because, recently, a 31-year-old wanted my guidance. Not the best idea, but sure, why not, so we chattered via Skype.A Vietnamese-American married to a Filipina, he was pondering moving to Vietnam.“How many times have you been there?” I asked.“Actually, none.”“Wow! Why not?”“I never had the opportunity.”“Have you traveled much?”“No. I’ve only been to Canada.”“Man, you’re in for a real culture shock. You might hate it! Just go there, and see how you feel. Who knows? Has your wife been to the Philippines?”“A couple times.”“Hey, why don’t you move to the Philippines? Your wife will fit in better, and you can get by with English. Many Filipinos speak English. They’re all over Asia, singing American music!” I laughed. “First, though, you must go there and see how you feel. Do you have money saved up to last a while?”“Yeah.”“You’re probably ten times richer than me, so just go there and see how you feel. Don’t overthink it. Just do it!”Why would someone with a decent job in the federal government consider moving to a country he knows almost nothing about? Because there’s no sanity or security left in America, and no meaningful resistance.
Constantly cowed, everybody is hiding and, hunched over, guarding his cans of baked beans, with the only boldness unleashed pseudonymously online, nearly always against the wrong targets. Unlike Hamas or Hezbollah, Americans don’t even know who they must fight!
Why indeed?
Why would an American with a good job want to leave it for a nation where he has never been to?
As in…
"Hey! You know my mail is late again. Where is that pesky post-person? I'm sick of this. It's time for me to move to Greenland!"
Maybe for something like this…
I mean, I understand why I left the States. But I was different. I had no other options. No friends. No family. No money. No ties. No job. No job prospects, and forced to live as a third class slave. So I left.
It made sense for me.
Living in flop-houses, eating at soup kitchens, and living alone with no job, no job prospects, and shunned from society is not a life.
And, of course, if I rode in a car …
…and the driver owned a gun, or a cell phone…
…or even had an outstanding warrant for jay walking…
… I would immediately violate the law, just by being in close proximity of that person. And then…
…boom!
I would go back to prison as a two-time offender and looking at forever-prison as a consequence. I did not want to go back to the ADC. I did not enjoy working on the chain gangs, and I most certainly hated hoe-squad and picking cotton. And don’t even get me started on the institutionalized gruel that was “Global” that they fed us.
Nope. I did not like it.
The threat of a return to the ADC was part of the reason why I bailed out onto my lifeboat.
But…
But what of the rest of you all in the “bright and shining castle on the hill”? You still have work. You still have jobs. You have family, friends, clubs, associations and roots. You don’t have that same kind of Damocles‘ swordhangingoveryourhead. As I did. You all don’t need to leave. It’s just a tad bit uncomfortable for you. Not really lifestyle-threatening.
Is it worth chucking it all away?
What would your ancestors think?
America was founded by hard-scrabble pioneers. Not prissy-boys who flee the first moment when someone says a mean word or two.
Then he adds…
“Something very evil is coming,” I wrote to a Pennsylvania acquaintance, “but it won’t just be in the US.
In Albania, there won’t be race riots, at least, as stoked by the Jews. I don’t know what your work or family situation is, but it would be wise to at least think about leaving the country, just in case life there becomes too dangerous or just unbearable.“You should also consider what to do should they shut down all airports and close all land borders.
You can also escape to a safer and saner place inside the country, of course, but you must think ahead about the possibilities. This is not paranoia.
All the ominous signs are there.
Yes. I know all about the social re-engineering efforts.
But, if people have jobs, a career, and a chance to build a life, it all fades into the background. You just go to your job. You put food on the table. You invest your money and you plan for your family and their future. You spend time with loved ones, and you don’t worry about life or “what might happen”.
I just cannot imagine that the “woke” reality has saturated American culture to such an extent that people want to flee the USA.
Why flee the USA when you have an entire life ahead of you?
Seriously is all this “woke” culture all that bad? It’s not like you are being forced to wear golden stars of David on your lapels, or being chased down the streets by mobs with clubs. Is it?
It’s not like you will lose your job for not having the right political viewpoint, or not getting a promotion because of the color of your skin. Is it?
So what is actually going on?
Yes, flee the USA for better opportunities. Flee the USA to avoid insurrection, riots, and discord. Flee the United States police state.
But to flee it because a minority of vocal woke activists are spouting nonsense is absurd.
So what is going on?
Woke folk.
What is really going on?
Is the “woke” culture far more invasive than it appears to me (sitting outside the USA), or has Americans become just too sensitive to handle a diversity of opinion?
You just don’t leave a comfortable life with loved ones simply because of an expression that you read about on social media. You just do not.
Chances are you might read about it, and maybe ponder it, but you won’t take action on it aside from a trivial Google search, or an article or two. You won’t be traipsing down to get a visa for the nation you want to go, and you won’t start emptying out your bank accounts. Will you?
A worry free life with a big cat.
So what is really going on?
You are too busy making a life than to worry about chucking it all away and fleeing to a “third world cesspool” to quote Mike Pompeo about the rest of the world.
Certainly the people that are “running” the United States today are bat-shit crazy, dysfunctional and insane. Their toadies might be more capable, but hardly, and the ship that they set in motion is far too difficult to steer, to navigate and to dock.
All the “noise” in the daily media barrages cannot compete to the reality that you are working, that you have a paycheck and a chance at the “American pie”.
President Biden says that “America is Back” and industry is roaring back to life.
He continues…
“In early March of 1975, I was still going to school and taking judo lessons.
(then...)
By the end of April, I was on a military transport plane to fly to Guam, where I would live in a tent as a refugee. Normality can disappear in a flash.”His response, “I have thought long about where this is all headed. It is pretty obvious that the US is fucked five ways to Sunday. The masses just haven’t figured it out and are slowly cottoning on.“You asked about my family and work situation. I work in the construction field doing semi-skilled labor and maintenance and have started learning HVAC over the last couple years.“I’ve been with the same woman for about 13 years. We aren’t legally married but own a house together. I love her and her family very much. Her mother is widowed and in her 70’s. She has an aunt and uncle that live up the road from us. We look out for them a bit too.“At this point it’s hard seeing a way out. I’ve known a lot of people over the years that have had to flee. I’m old enough to have met Polish and Ukrainians that got out during or right after the War to Save Stalin. Same with people such as yourself. While traveling through Vietnam, I met old ARVN guys who stayed and were ‘reeducated.’ Certainly do not envy them.“Lancaster is a great town. However we did not escape the peace riots of this past summer. This area has been overrun by New York ‘creatives’ and their pets, the various lumpen proles that have moved down because the welfare benefits are good and the Section 8 voucher goes further.“The city council mayor and head of police are all avowed BLM and Antifa supporters. In essence I am behind enemy lines.“My lady is pretty level-headed and no dummy as far as certain non-PC topics are concerned. Working in health care and moving from small town PA to Baltimore will do that, I guess.“However she is reticent to leave the familiarity of family and friends for more rural, less populated areas. Ironic because most of her family and social circle are essentially on board with the whole raft of neo-Bolshevik BS that is being churned out by the multinationals and Zionist Occupied Government…“At the end of the day, I don’t see any real way to get out from under the falling limbs of this dying empire. If I were single, I would be holed up somewhere in the mountains of Appalachia. Possibly west Texas. Maybe overseas.”Although fleeing abroad entails its own complicated and drawn-out set of problems, just about every nationality, save Americans, have had to do so during the last 100-odd years. I’ve fled twice, and am still drifting.
Why does everyone want to leave? What are they afraid of?
Getting yelled at?
Somehow I do not, or cannot, believe that people are terrified of hurt feelings.
Why do Americans feel this way? It seems uncharacteristic.
Perhaps it a general feeling of discomfort; a generalized anxiety disorder that has entangled vast swaths of the American population. And I do not make this statement lightly. Aspects of this is something that I have learned to live with ever since I was implanted.
Since I moved to China, all my worry (for the most part) ended. The only time that I start worrying is when ever some jackass in the United States tries to lob bio-weapons at my home, discusses firing ICBM's in my front yard, or making arbitrary rules concerning my passport.
Perhaps, living under the thumb of out-of-control psychopaths inside a military empire…
…and see the entire nation decay and collapse as the entire nations is geared, not for serving the citizenry…
…but rather to destroy the rest of the world at the pleasure of the oligarchy…
…is the source of this discomfort.
And like frightened rabbits, the citizenry are trying to run and hide from the voracious wolves that are running all over the fields untamed and unchecked.
For American preppers there’s only one solution: move to a red state.
Most red states are in the South. So the best place to ride out America’s collapse is a region with a history of racial tension and antagonism towards the Federal government, a region with a Ford F-150 lifestyle totally dependent on cheap petroleum and cheap imports.
Hmm, but guns right?Call me crazy but my native California doesn’t sound so bad in comparison: https://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/2015/04/postcard-from-end-of-america-silicon.html. At least there’s some anti-anti-White Asians and Hispanics around.
Maybe I’ll go teach English in Asia or live in Europe for a while.
Call me a commie traitor but I have no ability/desire to become an Idaho potato farmer / small arms instructor.
Others have different ideas.
Americans from different backgrounds and parts of the country are saying the same things.
Americans in the Bubble are the 21st century equivalents of the British Colonel Blimp. It’s good to snicker and make snotty remarks at them because they’ll be the last ones to see it coming and even then they STILL WON’T BELIEVE IT.I’ve seen well-off almost rich dudes go homeless. It happens because they can’t believe this sort of thing happens to them, only “losers”.A loser is any one of us whose luck runs out. Hope your luck holds, and don’t let the bastards get you down.
Those who have never experienced the hospitality and happiness of ‘poor’ foreigners have absolutely no idea of life. Those with no experience of Albania, or Bulgaria, or Romania, Lesotho, Botswana, Chile etc. don’t have a clue.
Mix with the working class (as well as the bankers) if you want to know what life is about.
The hospitality of all Arab people is beyond belief.
Ignore the USA-USA-USA mob, they are brainless and take their limited horizon as being the whole planet. Thank you for bringing light to those of us who have not the opportunity to visit the east and parts of Europe.
What about those that have already left the USA. What are their thoughts?
What about those that left the United States, what are their thoughts?
That is a key reason why I moved out of the US.
I see no hope for at least a few generations.
Whites are very uncomfortable addressing the blatantly anti White hate that is permeating nearly all institutions.
The JQ is completely off the table for 90 percent of whites.
Asians see what is happening so they increasingly mimic Jewish hatred of whites even though most don’t actually hate whites.Whites spring from one simplistic solution to another.
The most recent is Secession.
Thinking that Secession can happen requires not dealing with the reality of the country. Even if the country did break into two, that would just mean that the Jews had two countries to rule and spread anti white hate and degeneracy.I just can’t see being associated with a country that flies the BLM flag at its embassies and publically worships a repeat felon who died of a drug overdose. Sometimes societies are just too stupid to survive.It is a big world out there and there are pockets where things are much saner than the US and not under a Jewish stranglehold
But according to the news media everything is just fine.
Don’t believe for a second that the majority of Norteamericanos believe the claptrap that is being promoted by the digital minesweeping social media or the coastal newspapers. That’s the mistake.Election results don’t mean much in the scheme of things, except in 2020. I live in a county that voted 75-25 for Trump. All of the counties in this region have similar numbers. I’ve obtained this information from NYT election data, so it’s not my wishful thinking. Every county in America outside of those where open blatant ballot box stuffing took place have similar results.Since Trump accomplished nothing governmentally important and even advanced policies I find disgusting, he has to be seen merely as an indicator of discontent with the Ruling Class.
The Ruling Class has corrupted the entire education system, has made economic progress meaningless and has insulted anyone with a modicum of traditional morality. A Trump vote was a protest vote, both in 2016 and in 2020.
The article itself soon fell apart with the “Jews, Jews, Jews” narrative. Jeeze and I stopped reading. But I am still wondering (pondering) about these various comments. It seems like these “proud” American are very unhappy. And so, I wonder how can that be?
The mutterings that I am hearing just don’t match the “news” that is being reported.
Why is that?
Fundamentally, the media must reflect the opinions and feelings of it's readership, or else the people reading it will leave. So eventually, "news" becomes an echo chamber for the readership.
Yet, what I am apparently seeing is that all flavors of the "news"; Alt-Right, mainstream to Alt-left are out of touch with what the vast majority of Americans feel.
The speed of the collapse
I admit that I am a little stunned that the collapse has moved ahead so quickly in what seems like a matter of months. For it has been less than six months that the general American population has suddenly embraced fundamental prepper beliefs, and most regard America falling into a SHTF situation.
This is FAST.
And while I have announced that I believe that the year 2020 was the climax of the Fourth Turning, I have never the less been stunned by the rapid conversion of most Americans to “abandon ship”.
What is going on?
Well, here are the four signposts of American Collapse that the Soviet Union experienced when it collapsed.
Article from HERE. All credit, etc. This article from the Russia Insider archives and was first published on RI in June 2018. You guys all know the drill.
"Having witnessed one collapse, and now witnessing another, the one approach I would definitely not recommend is doing nothing and hoping for the best."
In thinking through the (for now) gradually unfolding collapse of the American empire, the collapse of the USSR, which occurred close through three decades ago, continues to perform as a goldmine of useful examples and analogies.
Certain events that occurred during the Soviet collapse can serve as useful signposts in the American one.
Thus, allowing us to formulate better guesses about the timing of events that can suddenly turn a gradual collapse into a precipitous one.
When the Soviet collapse occurred, the universal reaction was “Who could have known?”
Well, I knew.
I distinctly remember a conversation I had with a surgeon in the summer of 1990, right as I was going under the knife to get my appendix excised, waiting for the anesthesia to kick in.
He asked me about what will happen to the Soviet republics, Armenia in particular.
I told him that they will be independent in less than a year.
He looked positively shocked.
I was off by a couple of months.
I hope to be able to call the American collapse with the same degree of precision.
So what to expect?
It is difficult to concentrate on things that matter to you when your government is acting like an out of control lunatic.
I suppose I was well positioned to know, and I am tempted to venture a guess at how I achieved that.
My area of expertise at the time was measurement and data acquisition electronics for high energy physics experiments, not Sovietology.
But I spent the previous summer in Leningrad, where I grew up, and had a fair idea of what was up in the USSR.
Meanwhile, the entire gaggle of actual paid, professional Russia “experts”…
…that was ensconced in various government agencies in Washington or consuming oxygen at various foundations and universities in the US…
…had absolutely no idea what to expect.
I suspect that there is a principle involved:
[1] If your career depends on the continued existence of X, and if X is about to cease to exist, then you are not going to be highly motivated to accurately predict that event.
Conversely, [2] if you could manage to accurately predict the spontaneous existence failure of X, then you would also be clever enough to switch careers ahead of time. Thus, you would no longer be an expert on X and your opinion on the matter would be disregarded.
People would think that you screwed yourself out of a perfectly good job and are now embittered.
What he is seeing…
Some people say that it is time to pack up and leave.
Right now I am observing the same phenomenon at work among Russian experts on the United States: they can’t imagine that the various things they spent their lives studying are fast fading into irrelevance.
Or perhaps they can, but keep this realization to themselves, for fear of no longer being invited on talk shows.
I suppose that since expertise is a matter of knowing a whole lot about very little, knowing everything about nothing—a thing that doesn’t exist—is its logical endpoint.
Be that as it may.
But I feel that we non-experts, armed with the 20/20 hindsight afforded to us by the example of the Soviet collapse, can avoid being similarly blindsided and dumbfounded by the American one.
This is not an academic question: those who gauge it accurately may be able to get the hell out ahead of time.
While the lights are mostly still on, while not everybody is walking around in a drug-induced mental haze, and mass shootings and other types of mayhem are still considered newsworthy.
This hindsight makes it possible for us to spot certain markers that showed up then.
And are showing up now.
The four that I want to discuss now are the following:
1. Allies are being alienated
2. Enmities dissipate
3. Ideology becomes irrelevant
4. Military posture turns flaccid
All of these are plain to see already in the American collapse.
As with the Soviet collapse, there is a certain incubation period for each of these trends.
Each incubation period ended up lasting perhaps a year or two.
And during this incubation period, not much seems to be happening.
But…
… but when it is over everything comes unstuck all at once.
1. Alliances
As the Soviet collapse unfolded, former friendships deteriorated, first into irrelevance, then into outright enmity.
Prior to the collapse, the Iron Curtain ran between Eastern and Western Europe.
After the collapse; three decades later, it runs between Russia and the Baltic countries, Poland and the Ukraine.
Whereas in the post-war period the Warsaw Pact countries derived many benefits from its association with Russia and its industrial might.
But as the end neared their membership in the Soviet camp became more and more of a hinderance to progress.
In effect, hampering their integration with the more prosperous, less troubled countries further west and with the rest of the world.
Similarly with the US and the EU now, this partnership is also showing major signs of strain as Washington tries to prevent the Europe from integrating with the rest of Eurasia.
The particular threat of unilateral economic sanctions as part of a vain effort to block additional Russian natural gas pipelines into Europe.
As well as to force the Europeans to buy an uncertain and overpriced American liquefied natural gas scheme.
Other issues include Huawei, 5G technology, and the BRI.
All of this has laid bare the fact that the relationship between the USA and Europe is no longer mutually beneficial.
And as Britain splits from Europe and clings closer to the US, a new Iron Curtain is gradually emerging, but this time it will run through the English Channel, separating the Anglophone world from Eurasia.
Similar developments are afoot in the east, affecting South Korea and Japan.
Trump’s flip-flopping between tempestuous tweeting and conciliatory rhetoric vis-à-vis North Korea have laid bare the emptiness of American security guarantees.
Both of these countries now see the need to make their own security arrangements and to start reasserting their sovereignty in military matters.
Meanwhile, for the US, being incoherent is but a pit stop on the way to becoming irrelevant.
2. Enmities
Enmity | Definition of Enmity by Merriam-Websterhttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/enmityEnmity (which derives from an Anglo-French word meaning "enemy") suggests true hatred, either overt or concealed. Hostility implies strong, open enmity that shows itself in attacks or aggression. Animosity carries the sense of anger, vindictiveness, and sometimes the desire to destroy what one hates.
During the entire period of the Cold War the United States was the Soviet Union’s arch-enemy.
Any effort by Washington to give advice or to dictate terms was met with loud, synchronized, ideologically fortified barking from Moscow:
"The imperialist aggressor is at it again; pay no heed."
This self-righteous noise worked quite well for a surprisingly long time, and continued to work while the Soviet Union was making impressive new conquests.
The Soviet Union continued to advance, in space, in technology, science and medicine, in international humanitarian projects and so on, but as stagnation set in it started to ring hollow.
After the Soviet collapse, this immunity against American contagion disappeared.
Western “experts” and “advisors” flooded in, and proposed “reforms”.
Reforms such as…
The dismemberment of the USSR into 15 separate countries (trapping millions of people on the wrong side of some newly thought-up border.
Shock therapy (which impoverished almost the entirety of the Russian population),
Privatization (which put major public assets in the hands of a few politically connected, mostly Jewish oligarchs)
As well as various other schemes designed to destroy Russia and drive its population into extinction.
They would probably have succeeded had they not been stopped in time.
Symmetrically, the Washingtonians considered the USSR as their arch-enemy.
After it went away, there was a bit of confusion.
The Pentagon tried talking up “Russian mafia” as a major threat to world peace, but that seemed laughable.
Then, by dint of demolishing a couple of New York skyscrapers…
…perhaps by placing small nuclear charges in the bedrock beneath their foundations (those were the demolition plans that were on file)…
…they happily embraced the concept of “war on terror”…
…and went about bombing various countries that didn’t have a terrorism problem before then but certainly do now.
Then, once that stupid plan ran its course, the Washingtonians went back to reviling and harassing Russia.
But now a strange smell is in the wind in Washington: the smell of failure.
Air is leaking out of the campaign to vilify Russia, and it is putrid.
Meanwhile, Trump is continuing to make noises to the effect that a rapprochement with Russia is desirable and that a summit between the leaders should be held.
Trump is also borrowing some pages from the Russian rulebook: just as Russia responded to Western sanctions with countersanctions, Trump is starting to respond to Western tariffs with countertariffs.
We should expect American enmity against Russia to dissipate some time before American attitudes toward Russia (and much else) become irrelevant.
We should also expect that, once the fracking bubble pops, the US will become dependent on Russian oil and liquefied natural gas…
… which it will be forced to pay for with gold.
(Fracking involves a two-phase combustion process: the first phase burns borrowed money to produce oil and gas; the second burns the oil and the gas.)
Other enmities are on the wane as well.
Trump has just signed an interesting piece of paper with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. The deal (if we call it that) is a tacit act of surrender. It was orchestrated by Russia and China. It affirms what North and South Korea had already agreed to: eventual denuclearization of the Korean peninsula.
Just as Gorbachev acquiesced to the reunification of Germany and the withdrawal of Soviet troops from East Germany, Trump is getting ready to acquiesce to the reunification of Korea and the withdrawal of American troops from South Korea.
Just as the fall of the Berlin Wall spelled the end of the Soviet imperium, the dismantlement of the Korean Demilitarized Zone will spell the end of the American one.
3. Ideology
While the US never had anything as rigorous as the Soviet Union’s communist dogma, its hodgepodge of pro-democracy propaganda, laissez-faire capitalism, free trade and military domination was potent for a time.
Once the US stopped being the world’s largest industrial powerhouse, ceding ground first to Germany and Japan…
… then to China…
… it went along accumulating prodigious levels of debt…
… essentially confiscating and spending the world’s savings…
… while defending the US dollar with the threat of violence.
It was, for a time, understood that the exorbitant privilege of endless money printing needs to be defended with the blood of American soldiers.
The US saw itself, and positioned itself, as the indispensable country.
A country able to control and to dictate terms to the entire planet.
As such, terrorizing or blockading various other countries as needed.
Now all of these ideological shibboleths are in shambles.
The pro-democracy rhetoric is still dutifully spouted by politicians mass media mouthpieces, but in practice the US is no longer a democracy.
It has been turned into a lobbyist’s paradise in which the lobbyists are no longer confined to the lobby but have installed themselves in congressional offices and are drafting prodigious quantities of legislation to suit the private interests of corporations and oligarchs.
Nor is the American penchant for democracy traceable in the support the US lavishes on dictatorships around the world or in its increasing tendency to enact and enforce extraterritorial laws without international consent.
Laissez-fair capitalism is also very much dead, supplanted by crony capitalism nurtured by a thorough melding of Washington and Wall Street elites.
Private enterprise is no longer free but concentrated in a handful of giant corporations while about a third of the employed population in the US works in the public sector.
The US Department of Defense is the largest single employer in the country as well as in the whole world.
About 100 million of working-age able-bodied Americans do not work.
Most of the rest work in service jobs, producing nothing durable.
An increasing number of people is holding onto a precarious livelihood by working sporadic gigs.
The whole system is fueled—including parts of it that actually produce the fuel, such as the fracking industry—by debt.
No sane person, if asked to provide a workable description of capitalism, would come up with such a derelict scheme.
Free trade was talked up until very recently, if not actually implemented.
Unimpeded trade over great distances is the sine qua non of all empires, the US empire included.
In the past, warships and the threat of occupation were used to force countries, such as Japan, to open themselves up to international trade.
Quite recently, the Obama administration was quite active in its attempts to push through various transoceanic partnerships, but none of them succeeded. And now Trump has set about wrecking what free trade there was by a combination of sanctions and tariffs, in a misguided attempt to rekindle America’s lost greatness by turning inward.
Along the way, sanctions on the use of the US dollar in international trade, especially with key energy exporting nations such as Iran and Venezuela, are accelerating the process by which the US dollar is being dethroned as the world’s reserve currency, demolishing America’s exorbitant privilege of endless money-printing.
4. Militarism
The Soviet collapse was to some extent presaged by the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Prior to that point, it was still possible to talk up the “international duty” of the Red Army to make the world (or at least the liberated parts of it) safe for socialism.
After that point the very concept of military domination was lost, and interventions that were possible before, such as in Hungary in 1956 and in Czechoslovakia in 1968, were no longer even thinkable.
When Eastern Europe rose in rebellion in 1989, the Soviet military empire simply folded, abandoning its bases and military hardware and pulling out.
In the case of the US, for now it remains capable of quite a lot of mischief, but it has become clear that military domination of the whole planet is no longer possible for it.
The US military is still huge, but it is quite flaccid.
It is no longer able to field a ground force of any size and confines itself to aerial bombardment, training and arming of “moderate terrorists” and mercenaries, and pointless steaming about the oceans.
None of the recent military adventures have resulted in anything resembling peace on terms that the American planners originally envisioned or have ever considered desirable:
Afghanistan has been turned into a terrorist incubator and a heroin factory;
Iraq has been absorbed into a continuous Shia crescent that now runs from the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea.
US military bases are still found throughout the world.
They were meant to project American power over both hemispheres of the globe, but they have been largely neutralized by the advent of new long-range precision weapons, potent air defense technology and electronic warfare wizardry.
These numerous “lily pads,” as they are sometimes called, are the opposite of military assets: they are useless but expensive targets located in places that are hard to defend but easy for potential adversaries to attack.
They can only be used for pretend-combat, and the endless series of military training exercises.
Such as the ones in the Baltic statelets, right on the Russian border…
… or the ones in South Korea, are meant to be provocative, but they are paragons of pointlessness…
… since attacking either Russia or North Korea would be a suicidal move.
They are basically confidence-building exercises, and their increasing intensity testifies to a pronounced and growing deficit of confidence.
People never tire of pointing out the huge size of the US military budget, but they almost always neglect to mention that what the US gets per unit money is ten times less than, for example Russia.
It is a bloated and ineffectual extortion scheme that produces large quantities of boondoggles—an endlessly thirsty public money sponge.
No matter how much money it soaks up, it will never solve the fundamental problem of being incapable to go to war against any adequately armed opponent without suffering unacceptable levels of damage.
Around the world, the US is still loathed, but it is feared less and less: a fatal trend for an empire.
But America has done quite well in militarizing its local police departments, so that when the time comes it will be ready to go to war… against itself.
…
This analysis may read like a historical survey detached from practical, everyday considerations. But I believe that it has practical merit.
If the citizens of the USSR were informed, prior to the events of 1990, of what was about to happen to them, they would have behaved quite differently, and quite a lot of personal tragedy might have been avoided.
A very useful distinction
A very useful distinction can be made between collapse avoidance (which is futile; all empires collapse)…
… and worst-case scenario avoidance…
… which will become, as collapse picks up speed, your most important concern.
Your approach may involve fleeing to safer ground, or preparing to survive it where you are.
You may choose your own collapse markers and make your own predictions about their timing instead of relying on mine.
But, having witnessed one collapse, and now witnessing another, the one approach I would definitely not recommend is doing nothing and hoping for the best.
Humanity
No matter what happens, or what crazy shit is going down in the United States, never forget your humanity. It’s not what happens that matter. It’s how you deal with them that does.
Remember your humanity.
Others might not understand
Do not try to convince others to understand why you are doing what you do. It’s not their business; it’s not their reality. You are doign what feels best to you, for the good or the bad. And sure, they might think you crazy, strange or a little bit “off your rocker”, but so what.
It’s your life.
Do what you want and live your life as you see fit and let the rest of the world howl.
Do what you want and live your life as you see fit and let the rest of the world howl.
Everything follows cycles
Empires come and go, and during the sunset period it is a time of harvesting what you can and then move on to the New Beginning. But some hate change, and they have made a nice cushy life for themself and they don’t want the change, and they fight it “tooth and nail”. But MM readers realize that when you see things go cyclic, you hop on the train and ride it out of town.
Cycles are natural.
Cycles are natural.
What about war?
Well, there is a lot of provocations being made by the United States on the international front. The aggression is spellbinding in breadth and with as well as intensity. And no one can predict the future, but maybe we can take a look at what happened with the former Soviet Union for some guidance.
From HERE. It's titled "Russian Missile Tech has Made America's Trillion Dollar Navy Obsolete". With a sub-heading of "Times have changed and America can no longer project its military power like it did in Iraq. Those days are over.". All credit to the author and note it was formatted to fit this venue.
For the past 500 years European nations—Portugal, the Netherlands, Spain, Britain, France and, briefly, Germany—were able to plunder much of the planet by projecting their naval power overseas.
Since much of the world’s population lives along the coasts, and much of it trades over water, armed ships that arrived suddenly out of nowhere were able to put local populations at their mercy.
The armadas could plunder, impose tribute, punish the disobedient, and then use that plunder and tribute to build more ships, enlarging the scope of their naval empires.
This allowed a small region with few natural resources and few native advantages beyond extreme orneriness and a wealth of communicable diseases to dominate the globe for half a millennium.
The ultimate inheritor of this naval imperial project is the United States, which, with the new addition of air power, and with its large aircraft carrier fleet and huge network of military bases throughout the planet, is supposedly able to impose Pax Americana on the entire world.
Or, rather, was able to do so—during the brief period between the collapse of the USSR and the emergence of Russia and China as new global powers and their development of new anti-ship and antiaircraft technologies. But now this imperial project is at an end.
Russian battle tanks.
Prior to the Soviet collapse, the US military generally did not dare to directly threaten those countries to which the USSR had extended its protection.
Nevertheless, by using its naval power to dominate the sea lanes that carried crude oil, and by insisting that oil be traded in US dollars, it was able to live beyond its means by issuing dollar-denominated debt instruments and forcing countries around the world to invest in them.
It imported whatever it wanted using borrowed money while exporting inflation, expropriating the savings of people across the world. In the process, the US has accumulated absolutely stunning levels of national debt—beyond anything seen before in either absolute or relative terms.
When this debt bomb finally explodes, it will spread economic devastation far beyond US borders. And it will explode, once the petrodollar wealth pump, imposed on the world through American naval and air superiority, stops working.
Chinese hyper-velocity nuclear missiles.
New missile technology has made a naval empire cheap to defeat. Previously, to fight a naval battle, one had to have ships that outmatched those of the enemy in their speed and artillery power. The Spanish Armada was sunk by the British armada.
More recently, this meant that only those countries whose industrial might matched that of the United States could ever dream of opposing it militarily. But this has now changed: Russia’s new missiles can be launched from thousands of kilometers away, are unstoppable, and it takes just one to sink a destroyer and just two to sink an aircraft carrier.
The American armada can now be sunk without having an armada of one’s own. The relative sizes of American and Russian economies or defense budgets are irrelevant: the Russians can build more hypersonic missiles much more quickly and cheaply than the Americans would be able to build more aircraft carriers.
Russian aircraft.
Equally significant is the development of new Russian air defense capabilities: the S-300 and S-400 systems, which can essentially seal off a country’s airspace. Wherever these systems are deployed, such as in Syria, US forces are now forced to stay out of their range.
With its naval and air superiority rapidly evaporating, all that the US can fall back on militarily is the use of large expeditionary forces—an option that is politically unpalatable and has proven to be ineffective in Iraq and Afghanistan. There is also the nuclear option, and while its nuclear arsenal is not likely to be neutralized any time soon, nuclear weapons are only useful as deterrents.
Their special value is in preventing wars from escalating beyond a certain point, but that point lies beyond the elimination of their global naval and air dominance.
Nuclear weapons are much worse than useless in augmenting one’s aggressive behavior against a nuclear-armed opponent; invariably, it would be a suicidal move. What the US now faces is essentially a financial problem of unrepayable debt and a failing wealth pump, and it should be a stunningly obvious point that setting off nuclear explosions anywhere in the world would not fix the problems of an empire that is going broke.
Chinese ICBM with MIRV nuclear hyper-velocity warheads with swarm targeting ability.
Events that signal vast, epochal changes in the world often appear minor when viewed in isolation.
Julius Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon was just one river crossing; Soviet and American troops meeting and fraternizing at the Elbe was, relatively speaking, a minor event—nowhere near the scale of the siege of Leningrad, the battle of Stalingrad or the fall of Berlin.
Yet they signaled a tectonic shift in the historical landscape. And perhaps we have just witnessed something similar with the recent pathetically tiny Battle of East Gouta in Syria, where the US used a make-believe chemical weapons incident as a pretense to launch an equally make-believe attack on some airfields and buildings in Syria.
The US foreign policy establishment wanted to show that it still matters and has a role to play, but what really happened was that US naval and air power were demonstrated to be almost entirely beside the point.
More Russian food.
Of course, all of this is terrible news to the US military and foreign policy establishments, as well as to the many US Congressmen in whose districts military contractors operate or military bases are situated.
Obviously, this is also bad news for the defense contractors, for personnel at the military bases, and for many others as well. It is also simply awful news economically, since defense spending is about the only effective means of economic stimulus of which the US government is politically capable.
Obama’s “shovel-ready jobs,” if you recall, did nothing to forestall the dramatic slide in the labor participation rate, which is a euphemism for the inverse of the real unemployment rate.
There is also the wonderful plan to throw lots of money at Elon Musk’s SpaceX (while continuing to buy vitally important rocket engines from the Russians—who are currently discussing blocking their export to the US in retaliation for more US sanctions). In short, take away the defense stimulus, and the US economy will make a loud popping sound followed by a gradually diminishing hissing noise.
Needless to say, all those involved will do their best to deny or hide for as long as possible the fact that the US foreign policy and defense establishments have now been neutralized.
My prediction is that America’s naval and air empire will not fail because it will be defeated militarily, nor will it be dismantled once the news sinks in that it is useless; instead, it will be forced to curtail its operations due to lack of funds.
There may still be a few loud bangs before it gives up, but mostly what we will hear is a whole lot of whimpering. That’s how the USSR went; that’s how the USA will go too.
Our economy has been goosed in the last decade (and even more so recently) by:
Artificially, and permanently low, interest rates.
Rampant money printing.
A never-ending supply of “stimulus” packages and tax cuts to goose the economy.
An experiment in Universal Basic Income by paying out of work people more than they were paid working to not work.
Blatant political cronyism far in excess of the usual – your elected representatives are even trying to bail out Jeff Bezos’ so he can compete with Elon Musk’s SpaceX®. This is actually happening (LINK).
One hundred miles per hour sounded like it was really fast to me when I was driving a pickup truck that wouldn’t go that fast downhill on a mountain pass (topped out at 95). But the economy is so goosed now that we see $100 plywood sheets tumbling in the breeze as we cruise down the highway. The stresses from the velocity as we shamble and skitter between the lines are evident.
What’s next, a $50 ribeye?
When they film a post-apocalypse movie in Detroit, they have to use CGI to repair buildings.
I didn’t use Texas, because I like Texas and Texans, so I picked Minneapolis because I think it’s on its way to becoming a quaint “Detroit on the Mississippi” where the primary source of amusement is Thunderdome Friday nights. Large Marge, a frequent commenter, called me on this quip (edits only in formatting):
A) Military recruits from prison
I am a former Corrections Officer.
I worked at three penitentiaries . . . including a max.
Some of the most intelligent individuals are prisoners. The most intelligent of them are organized and exceptionally efficient in the use of violence and intimidation.
Although better people than me might question their primary loyalties — gang/club? or Constitution? — I would expect them to continue to hone their adaptive skills in a military setting.
In fact, I would anticipate them quickly establishing a hierarchy and running the joint in no time… while eliminating slackers. Anybody they cannot eliminate, they recruit. No middle ground, no spectators.
Two of my ‘adopted’ sons are also Corrections Officers. Both are Marines, one was a SEAL. Intelligent, competitive, dedicated, observant.
Ask around, you may discover your assumptions to be the opposite of reality.
And assumptions can get somebody hurt.
B) Military recruits from inner-city slums
Happens daily. Pigment is no guarantee of inbred stupidity or ineffectiveness, however, it is a guarantee of tribal acceptance.
Anybody not in the tribe is prey:
If you are alone, they are five.
If you are five, they are a faceless two hundred in a spontaneous leaderless non-thinking swarm . . . they act, then disperse into nothingness.
Similar to recruits from prison, these folks are effective at violence and intimidation.
Just do not expect complex thought processes resulting in traditional long-term ‘White Collar’ crimes.
Complex planning is not required for crimes of opportunity.
C) These A and B elements are not exclusive.
Expect cross-overs.
Flyers can ruin your afternoon.
Large Marge is, of course, right in every respect.
The first point is that the general attitude is that all of the Left is represented by the soy-boy weakness we see from the Left’s poster children.
It is not.
A final thought
If any alarm bells were ringing earlier, it should be considered to be foreplay.
Right now, the Civil Defense sirens are blaring, and everyone should be running for their underground bunkers.
There might be world War III any day now, or not.
There might be riots in the streets, or maybe not.
There might be a complete collapse of the US Dollar, or maybe not.
Do not be lulled into complacency. There was a nice Memorial Day holiday. I hope that you enjoyed yourself, and worked on prudent measures to adapt to a changing environment. To quote from the above article…
If the citizens of the USSR were informed, prior to the events of 1990, of what was about to happen to them, they would have behaved quite differently, and quite a lot of personal tragedy might have been avoided.
And this one…
But, having witnessed one collapse, and now witnessing another, the one approach I would definitely not recommend is doing nothing and hoping for the best.
Of course, my opinion is well understood.
From the movie “Aliens”…
And my Video
I am not in America. I am in China.
It is my “lifeboat” while the USS Titanic American sinks under the waves.
And for me, sitting in my lifeboat, I am watching the rats scurry all over the deck. A few are starting to jump into the cold, cold ocean. But most are still on the deck and starting to fight against each other.
Yeah.
That is the way it is, and to end up this article, let me provide a final glimpse of what my lifeboat looks like.
Here is an end of article video for your enjoyment. It shows a little about what China is like where I live. HERE. 127MB.
Do you want more?
I have more posts like this in my New Beginnings Index…
Hey everyone, I’ve been busier than a dog in a forest going tree to tree pissing indiscriminately. And some of my activities enables me to mix a little bit of business with pleasure. And isn’t that the way we want to do things? We work a little bit, and we play a little bit too.
Anyways, I decided that I would give you all a taste of what my last few days were like. It’s nothing super fantastical. I’m not driving a Ferrari, and staying in five star hotels and all that. It’s all rather middle class and plebeian. Don’t you know. But it’s so gosh darn different from what things are like in the Untied States that perhaps you all might might a glimpse into what it’s like to be me.
Sounds ok?
Everyday carry
One of the themes in Western media is “everyday carry”. People take pictures of the things that guys stuff in their pockets when they go out. And for most of America it’s a set of car keys, a wallet stuffed with cash, a multi-purpose tool, and a nice pocket knife or so.
I’m in China. My “everyday carry” is a cellphone and a couple of fobs. No one uses money anymore. We just scan to buy things, and some fobs for access to gates, or passes. These are only for the places that don’t have facial recognition yet.
But, I’ve kind of made up a picture of my gear bag for travel that you all might enjoy looking at.
First up is my bag. Nope, it’s not a designer bag with Gucci on the side of it. It’s just a basic functional bag that has stains and wear from use. that’s about it.
Typically, I keep it pre-loaded with basic gear and when I need to go overnight, I just top it off with whatever I need, and sling it over my shoulder and out the door I go.
Next up…
What I put inside it.
The last night was typical. I met a few new bosses, and we are out drinking and there we go again! They want to “bottoms’ up” me (Geng Bei) me until I can hardly stand. Now, my aide(s) are telling him, no. Please don’t try to drink me under. that I can drink anyone under the table. but he wouldn’t listen, and then one of my aides told them my age, and he about shit himself. He thought that I was in my late 30’s early forties. LOL.
Never the less, I did continue to drink And I did drink him almost under. He cried “uncle” after the third bottle of Beijiu.
Anyways, also in my travel bag are these essentials…
Now, of course, I have other things. But I want to elaborate on what they are and the limitations involved in using them.
For starters, you will notice that there isn’t a lighter. But there is a pack of cigarettes. In my world, people fight for the honor to light my cigarette. And they prefer to offer me my own packs out of a case that they tend to buy for the occasion. So I rarely have the need to carry my own cigarettes or a lighter. Not to mention that if I am flying that I cannot bring it on board the plane.
Of course, to this mix, I would throw into the bag a change of underwear. Usually socks and underpants. And what ever medicine that I am taking at the time. Which currently is blood pressure medicine. (It’s pretty much what you all will have to deal with when you pass 60-years old.)
And that, pretty much is my carry bag.
Having Dinner
So after arriving at our destination, we visited a couple of bosses of various factories. All friends of mine. And we enjoyed “death by tea and cigarettes”. I tend to deal with the small to middle-sized factories. And that’s just fine with me. And after we took care of some business, we went out to eat.
Now, there are all sorts of great places to eat in China. But as far as I know, no one discusses the “on the farm” eating establishments. What this is, is a restaurant that is a farm. They have a pond where they raise their fish, and cages where they raise their chickens, geese, and pigs. And a nice garden where they raise their vegetables. When you order a meal, say a chicken with leeks, peppers and garlic, they will kill the chicken there, and get the vegetables right there. All very, very fresh.
So here we are going to the farm restaurant. You can eat in these little bungalows that sit over a pond where fish are raised and the ducks and geese swim. though right now, the pond is all dried up (this is the season).
And then, of course, we all get settled in and select some food, and open up the massive quantities of alcohol. In this case, we agreed to drink a combination of Rice Wine and Beijiu. That’s 53 degree poison and will peel the paint off your car if you spill a drop. Yikes!
You will notice that we brought the alcohol with us. Which is pretty much the norm in China. You can bring in alcohol or other food to eat in any restaurant as you desire. they don’t have laws or rules forbidding you from doing that like they have in the United States.
You will also note that there are these clear plastic bags of water handing from the ceiling. these little bags keep the flies and mosquitoes away. Somehow when the insects get near the pavilions the water gets them confused and they fly away. So you aren’t bothered by them.
We pretty much ate Guangzhou style. Which is one food that walks, one that flies and one that swims. It was delicious. Of course.
So we ate and drank and had a fine time. This is what friends do. And you can see how much it resembles my life growing up in Western Pennsylvania. This is how things used to be back in the 1960’s and 1970’s before the ultra-billionaires bought up the United States and turned it into a feudal society to service them.
One of the topics of conversation is the big drive by President Biden (in the United States) to invest one trillion dollars in infrastructure.
Over all, this was welcomed as a positive development, and many felt that America was on the right track trying to copy China, though most had their doubts that it would actually come to fruition.
One said that America would need to pull out of Afghanistan, and some of the other wars that it is fighting to get the money, while another pointed out that America should have done this much sooner, and that there needs to be strong serious changes in how the United States makes and authorizes plans like this. China it isn’t. Most people came to the conclusion that it was just a bunch of “hot air” to appease the masses, and that the money would flow upwards to the wealthy oligarchy instead.
Then after dinner it’s a drunken drive to the hotel…
Now, of course, we had one of the workers or staff drive us to the hotel. We do not drive drunk. It’s too dangerous.
So we went off and went to the hotel. Now, this is a local small town hotel, not one in the big city and as such I ended up with a room with a tea table and a tea set and a large king size bed. My companions ended up with different rooms, one of which had a Majong table, and they decided to go play Majong until late in the night.
So to make a long story short, they were off getting drunk, playing Majong, and they sent me to my room with a few new friends to play with. It was a nice calm evening of delights for all of us.
It’s always fun to make new friends. I’ll tell you what.
Of course, everyone slept in, and where we got back on the road the first thing we wanted to do is go eat something warm and filling. So we ate Congee, and noodles. Then off to meet some more bosses who then whisked us off into their cars and we went out to eat some beef hot pot.
I am sure that many readers already know that Hot Pot is. It’s sort of a Chinese fondue. Only instead of cheese, you deal with beef, and you dip it in flavored oil. Then once it’s cooked, you can go ahead and eat it in your own sauces. It’s like this…
It’s pretty delicious.
Now, you will notice that there is this brown mixture to the side where I panned the camera to. This is a make-your-own dipping sauce. Mine is a mixture of garlic, sauces, some peanut sauce, and other goodies.
Here’s where you go to get the ingredients to make your own dipping sauce.
Doesn’t look like China is wracked with Famine like Townhall.com has claimed since 2017, or that people are dying everywhere and that the evil CCP is hiding the “true numbers” and the “truth about China”. LOL. You have to be a brain slug dumbed down imbecile to believe the nonsense out of the American media these days.
It’s all pretty tasty I’ll tell you what.
One of the things that I enjoy about China is the FREEDOM that you have that is impossible to have int he United States. And to underline this point, I made this little video to rub it in the faces of any “I’m free and China is a boot-stomping, totalitarian nation!” folk.
Here, I do something that you all in America CANNOT do, and would probably get you arrested for even trying it.
Freedom, you either have it, or you don’t.
Anyways, here’s how you cook the beef. You put it in this kind of basket ladle and then dip it inside the scorching hot oil for a spell, then you take it out and you eat it by dipping it int he sauce that you prepare.
Cool huh?
Like this…
I’ve got much more to say about China, and the adventures over the last few days, but this will suffice for now.
I do hope that you enjoyed this little insight into my life, and if you are from America (my old stomping ground) you will note that in many ways it is similar to the way things used to be in the Untied States, and often very different. Furthermore it doesn’t resemble anything like the nonsense spewing out of Townhall.com, Hall Turner, Rush Limbaugh or FOX “news”.
Like the “famine” in China that the CCP is “covering up” and hiding…
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
This is part four of a multi-part post. Here we will discuss what happens once you have isolated the human mass from the portal mass, assigned a frequency profile of both, and then established a destination coordinate system. Here we will discuss the actual mechanism that will slide the human “passenger” within the dimensional portal to another world-line.
Introduction
Now, I have read all sorts of speculations of whether or not a person can actually teleport, go into worm-holes, or visit other world-lines. Most writers consider themselves “experts” on this and say that it cannot be done.
Teleportation has not yet been implemented in the real world. There is no known physical mechanism that would allow this. Frequently appearing scientific papers and media articles with the term teleportation typically report on so-called " quantum teleportation ", a scheme for information transfer.
An actual teleportation of matter has never been realized by modern science (which is based entirely on mechanistic methods). It is questionable if it can ever be achieved, because any transfer of matter from one point to another without traversing the physical space between them violates Newton's laws, a cornerstone of physics.
-Rubens Talukder, Ph.D.
The “experts” have spoken!
To be honest, our understanding of teleportation is as clear as that of black holes, at this point. Dematerializing matters surely consumes a lot of energy and data. We should also take into consideration that the human brain contains so much information that it takes a football field-sized computer to completely replicate its prowess.
Remember, your entire being will be disintegrated into particles and the same exact ones should be reassembled at the destination point. Not only that, all your memories and your brain functions must remain intact after the process. Teleportation is similar to being killed and reborn, all in a short period of time. The timing must be precise through the whole of the process, because the slightest disturbance will really alter the state of your being. More importantly, who knows what might happen when an experiment goes wrong? You are relatively lucky if you come off with a missing limb or a different eye color, but things can really go south. Worse, you might not be reborn at all. Good luck getting locked in a quantum limbo for eternity, in that case.
Unfortunately, at the moment, we do not have the technology and the know-how to teleport matter visible to the naked. The technique also involves transferring us at the speed of light, and that alone clashes with Einstein’s theory of relativity. Sadly, technology is not the only limitation, but also the current rules of physics.
-Gizmo Shack
What ever floats your boat, cowboy.
I’ve done it.
I know that it can be done.
I have experienced it first hand. It is a technology that is in possession of the United States government under the aspects of MAJestic within the ONI.
It’s an advanced technology, that is sure, but it is not impossible. It’s just that the methods involved tend to be esoteric.
So let’s see what I’ve covered within Metallicman, eh?
Intention / prayer for self-navigation of consciousness through the MWI.
Magick and ritual, and religious intention.
MAJestic “dimensional portal” used at NAS NASC Pensacola Florida.
Use of extraterrestrial technology and a biological apparatus for world-line “anchoring”.
Outfitting a vehicle for (apparent) “time travel” like John Titor.
My DIY series on manufacturing your own “Dimensional Portal”.
And here we are. We are at part four of DIY dimensional portal theory and construction.
Navigation
This is a pretty complex subject, don’t you know. And it is so easy to get all bogged down on the “nitty-gritty” details. So let’s just review a little bit of the first three prior posts.
Introduction. (What you can find on the internet.)
Gravity isolation of the human traveler from the portal.
Converting the individual gravity elements into waves and coordinates.
And now, we are going to discuss the actual teleportation of a person from the portal to another world-line…
Please take note that unless you have a dimensional portal at your destination location, you will be forever trapped there, and can never return back home.
Field Resonance Systems
We will use a “field resonance system” to conduct the teleportation. This is a well-known “theory” (well supported by conventional science) embraced by NASA for the future transport of people over large distances.
The field resonance system artificially generates an energy pattern which precisely matches or resonates with a virtual pattern associated with a distant world-line space-time point.
According to the model, if a fundamental or precise resonance is established (using hydromagnetic wave fine-tuning techniques), the person entering the dimensional portal will be very strongly and equally repelled by surrounding virtual patterns.
At the same time, through the virtual many-dimensional structure of space-time, a very strong attraction with the virtual pattern of a distant space-time point will exist.
The model predicts that this combination of very strong forces will result in the translocation of the person from the egress portal’s initial position through the many-dimensional virtual structure to the distant world-line space-time point.
It’s not a “turn key” solution. You just cannot make a device and expect it to work immediately “right off the bat”. The mechanics of this resonance effect will be determined through extensive experimentation, which may also revise the basic resonance requirements. You never know with R&D and NPD efforts.
However, the result, a space-time “jump,” most certainly appears to be supported by astrophysical research.
Several analogies can be used to clarify this effect. It can be described as the temporary formation of an Einstein-Rosen bridge. Which is a tunnel through space-time which connects two different regions in space-time in a way similar to that which has been otherwise proposed for such things as a black hole/white hole (quasar) portal.
The resonance effect can be considered to be analogous to the nuclear particle tunneling phenomena.
In this phenomenon, the wave nature of the particle enables it to tunnel through a potential barrier without having the energy required to go over the barrier.
Following this analogy, the traveler’s wave characteristics are increased dramatically by the artificially generated energy pattern, allowing it to tunnel through the space-time barrier without having the energy normally required to traverse the space between the two space-time points.
The travel times for such trips are expected to be nearly instantaneous.
If complex coordinate destinations are specified, short durations might manifest (seconds to weeks). All of which is dependent on the pattern precision, the amount of energy in the pattern, the space-time distance, and the virtual structure entry point.
Time
There is no such thing as “time”. That is the impression of a train of world-line experiences taken together.
We know it does not really exist.
Time does not have an independent existence in the General Theory of Relativity and it will be redefined in the model as a type of energy flow. However, since time will continue to be used to catalog our experiences in daily life, its use is likely to continue in the description of this type of dimensional travel.
Secondary Resonance Effect
Now there may be other effects and things going on when you enter the egress dimensional port.
If the artificial energy pattern does not precisely match the virtual pattern at a distant world-line space-time point, a secondary resonance effect may be observed.
In this case, the repulsive and attractive forces are not strong enough to relocate the traveler, but the resonance is sufficient to connect the two points through the virtual structure, resulting in energy flow to or from the distant world-line space-time point.
We do not know what this might manifest as.
Dissemination of a person into “the void”.
A partial teleportation of a person to the destination, while the rest of that person stays at the egress portal.
A merging of elements of the traveler with the portal components.
Extreme destinations
In order to explore distant coordinate systems in wildly divergent world-lines, several intermediate world-line space-time jumps would likely be required for safety purposes.
The initial slide would take the traveler into a world-line with only one significant change in the destination coordinates. The next slide would be a destination coordinate with a different major change to the destination coordinates, followed by a slide to a destination with minor coordinate changes for control and reliability considerations. At each step, the predicted and actual locations would be compared and computerized models would be updated accordingly. Exploration of a world-line would probably be best done by a gravimagnetic system that could be carried inside the larger field resonance system.
If the energy pattern generation system of the field resonance portal has an ultrafine-tuning system, world-line space-time jumps to the nearby world-lines could be accomplished. If the portal cycled frequent and very short slides, it would appear in many cases to be in a smooth continuous long-duration slide through world-line space-time.
Hydromagnetic wave fine-tuning techniques
Here we are going to model the process of what happens when a person enters the dimensional portal.
For we know the frequency coordinates of both the person and the portal, and when we bathe the portal in a strong magnetic field and artificially induce the destination coordinates over that of the egress coordinates, the human traveler would be teleported to the new world-line.
In modeling this process we will simplify the equations a bit to simulate the human traveler, and the two portals; egress and destination.
The dynamics of wave propagation in a hydromagnetic waveguide has been well studied and established. For our purposes, we will simplify the equations to represent an electrically conducting conduit (the human traveler) inserted in the field of a steady magnetic field which is the egress dimensional portal. For our purposes, we will treat the human traveler to act as if he/she behaved as plasma.
In the simplest case, the applied field is parallel to the axis of the tube. When the plasma moves with a fluctuating velocity in a direction normal to the axis of the waveguide, the lines of force are shaken to and fro in the direction of the applied velocity. A transverse wave is thereby made to travel along the lines of force.
It is well known to workers in hydromagnetics that the governing relations for the motion of a plasma in a magnetic field are analogous to those describing the behavior of an ideally conducting fluid in the presence of a magnetic field. Hence, our discussion begins with the relations for the conservation of momentum and matter and with the equation of state. As a result of linearization, we find that these equations are
In these expressions, zero subscripts indicate quiescent values, and lower-case letters fluctuating variables. The velocity is denoted by V, the pressure by p, the density by p, the velocity of sound waves in free space by a, the fluctuating local current density by j, and the applied steady magnetic field by B o .
The set of corresponding Maxwellian relations, corrected for relativistic effects, is
The fluctuating magnetic field is denoted by b, the electric field by e, and the permeability of the medium by t. Relations 4, 5, and 6 are valid when the plasma is quasineutral, and when the characteristic dimension of the apparatus is large compared with both the mean free path of the gas and the Debye shielding distance.
It can be readily found that the velocity satisfies the equation
in which k = w/c, the wave number for the Alfven wave velocity in free space. This velocity c equals Bo/(p)/2. The parameter p = a/c is the ratio of the two velocities of wave propagation, and ib indicates a unit vector in the direction of the magnetic field. Similar relations for the other field variables can be obtained by manipulating the set of Eqs. 1-6. The appropriate boundary conditions for the problem require the vanishing of the normal components of the oscillating velocity and the magnetic field at the walls of the waveguide. If we define the velocity by the identity
it can be shown by substituting Eq. 8 in Eq. 7 that we obtain two simultaneous equations in the velocity potentials c and M. These equations for the general case, when ib is at an arbitrary angle with the axis of the waveguide, are quite complicated and have to be solved approximately.
Two extreme cases, however, allow the equations to be solved exactly.
The results for these two cases will now be briefly indicated.
Case 1. The magnetic field is aligned with the axis of the waveguide. Then the two wave modes propagate along the axis of the waveguide. One of these modes displays the character of a longitudinal, or compressive, wave and is called, in this report, the “acoustic wave.”
The other mode is of transverse character and represents the hydromagnetic mode. Several interesting alternatives may occur that depend upon whether p is less than or greater than unity. When P is less than unity, the acoustic mode has no cutoff for all orders of the wave eigen numbers. This is quite different from the conventional acoustic wave propagation that takes place in a pipe. The hydromagnetic mode does, however, have a cutoff that depends upon the order of the eigen number. It can be checked that whenever p < 1, the pressure from collisions, p, is considerably lower than the hydromagnetic pressure Bo/2L. This means, of course, that the collective behavior of the electrons is controlled, in large part, by the electromagnetic forces. When P > 1, we find that the hydromagnetic mode is then the mode that suffers no cutoff for all orders of the wave eigen number. The acoustic mode, on the other hand, has a cutoff frequency that depends on the order of the wave eigen number. The case of p > 1 indicates that the density of the plasma is high, and is probably more representative of the density of a liquid metal than of the density of a plasma.
An interpretation of the reversal of the noncutoff property of the two waves for B >< 1 can be given by visualizing the behavior of the plasma as it is squeezed by the lines of forces during their transverse motion. For stronger magnetic forces with P < 1, a side distortion of the lines is always accompanied by a longitudinal forward motion of the plasma, hence the acoustic wave suffers no cutoff. A similar explanation can be given for the behavior with P > 1. The expression for the component of the velocity transverse to the axis of the waveguide is given by
in which n, m = 0, ±1, ±2 … ; and 2L 1 2L2 are the width and height of the waveguide section. In expressions 9 and 10, K is the propagation constant for the waves. The functional relation of K on k, the wave number, is shown in graphical form in Fig. III-1 for p 1 and p = 1.
It is obvious that for p = 1, it is not possible to identify the particular wave associated
with the two branches of the function K = f(k).
Case 2. The magnetic field direction is at right angles to the axis of the waveguide.
In this case, the analysis shows that no hydromagnetic wave propagates along the axis of the waveguide. Indeed, consideration of this situation leads us to conclude that the hydromagnetic wave appears as a standing wave along the lines of force, and hence it is trapped between the walls of the waveguide.
The alignment of the magnetic field in another direction besides the two that have been mentioned gives rise to intermediate situations which, however, cannot be obtained as a superposition of the two waves indicated in Eqs. 1 and 2 because Eq. 7 is not linear in the vector ib.
The analysis that has been given cannot be extended to frequencies higher than the ion cyclotron frequency, without taking into account the necessary correction, because the plasma is now composed of two fluids interacting with the magnetic field.
This correction is easily made, and it can be shown that the symmetry of the eigenfunctions in the positive and negative values is lost.
Magnetohydrodynamic Shocks
Whenever you are dealing with plasma (a human) in a magnetic field that undergoes a force or acceleration of some type, you can expect a magnetohydrodynamic shock. In other words, just how useful would this portal be if the person slams into the destination coordinates at a very high speed squashing him/her into jelly?
Luckily this does not seem to be the case.
The work reported here was started for the purpose of investigating the dynamics and the structure of hydromagnetic shocks. In particular, the parameters of the shock that have to be estimated are its thickness, pressure ratio, magnetic-field ratio, and the corresponding density ratio. The preliminary theoretical work was carried out on the basis of a continuum theory.
The calculations follow conventional techniques for studies on shock waves, i. e., the discussion begins with the equation for the conservation of momentum and mass. An appropriate equation of state is also introduced. The hydromagnetic interaction is taken into account by means of a well-known relation for the magnetic field,
where 11 is the intensity of the magnetic field, – is the velocity, N is the permeability, and o- is the conductivity.
It can be shown that a one-dimensional dependence for the variables leads to expressions 2 and 3 which relate the value of the upstream parameters of the shock to its downstream parameters. The relations are valid for distances that are large compared with the thickness of the shock.
Manipulation of all of the equations mentioned in Sec. III-A leads to a pair of simultaneous expressions, the first of which is
stands for the ratio of the square of the Alfen velocity to the square of the velocity of sound; Mo, 1 is the appropriate hydromagnetic Mach number, defined as the ratio of the local velocity to the Alfvn velocity.
For the second relation, we have
Equations 2 and 3 are sufficient to define completely the state of the gas downstream of the shock.
The experimental verification of this discussion will be carried out by means of an apparatus that will allow a magnetically driven shock to travel in an externally applied uniform magnetic field.
The ponderomotive force (PMF)
The ponderomotive force (PMF) is a ubiquitous nonlinear wave effect arising in plasma physics when applied wave fields or plasma parameters have significant spatial gradients.
We should include the possibility that the PMF may energize magnetospheric ions in significant numbers. In particular, the PMF may play a role in transporting and energizing O+ ions at the destination coordinates. This might result in the experience of the traveler experiencing O+ ionic buildup on their exposed skin. This would appear and feel like they had just come from a warm Summer rain shower.
The PMF can also generate nonlinear coupling between the slow magnetosonic mode and the other hydromagnetic modes. This should lead to limitation of density enhancements and, notably in the case of standing Alfvén waves, to spatial harmonic generation, secularly growing frequency shifts, and saturation of driven wave fields. These effects might result in some minor discomfort for the traveler as they egress from the destination portal coordinates.
Conclusions
The use of the Alan Holt field resonance proposal along with hydromagnetic wave fine-tuning techniques will be sufficient to transport a human from an egress dimensional portal to a destination portal / or coordinate on another world-line.
There are concerns related to…
Secondary Resonance Effects.
The ponderomotive force (PMF).
Magnetohydrodynamic shock.
However, calculations indicate that these concerns are minor, or can be minimized with proper care and due diligence.
Now, with all this being clear, we can now discuss the mechanism used to implement the Alan Holt resonance transfer procedure within the magnetic field when a person enters into the egress portal. We will cover that in the next post. Post five. Stay tuned.
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Well, here I am. Stuck in the middle of a bioweapons attack. As part of the Trump Trade War, all sorts of germ warfare has been unleashed upon China. This last bout, the coronavirus was the worst. The Chinese military has locked down the entire nation, and drones are keeping everyone inside. Being locked inside is incredibly boring. I mean that there is only so much that you can do, right? So, I’ve been watching some classic science fiction movies…
Today, I would like to chat about a movie titled “First Men on the Moon”. It’s terribly dated, but really… who cares? It’s a charming romp for being locked inside your residence for weeks at a time. I mean, you can only eat so much re-fried rice and drink so much beer, eh?
Based on the HG Wells story.
The world is delighted when a space craft containing a crew made up of the worlds astronauts lands on the moon they think for the first time.
But the delight turns to shock when the astronauts discover an old British flag and a document declaring that the moon is taken for Queen Victoria proving that the astronauts were not the first men on the moon.
On Earth an investigation team finds the last of the Victorian crew - a now aged Arnold Bedford and he tells them the story of how he and his girlfriend Katherine Callender meet up with an inventor Joseph Cavor in 1899.
Cavor has invented Cavorite - a paste that will allow anything to deflect gravity and he created a sphere that will actually take them to the moon.
Taking Arnold and accidentally taking Katherine they fly to the moon where to their total amazement they discover a bee-like insect population who take an unhealthy interest in their Earthly visitors.
This movie is one of those Saturday-afternoon B-grade classics that I used to watch on snowy Saturday afternoons when I was a kid in the 1960’s. It’s great.
1960’s rocket travel via the science fiction medium. It’s a true and real classic escape from the harsh realities of modern life.
Pedigree
The First Men in the Moon came out a few years after Disney’s adaptation of Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954). This had kicked off a spate of period science-fiction classics adapted from Verne, which included the likes of Around the World in 80 Days (1956) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (1959). After George Pal’s successful period adaptation of The Time Machine (1960), other filmmakers turned to the works of Verne’s contemporary H.G. Wells. 20,000 Leagues and The Time Machine remain this cycle’s high points but its downside was that many, if not most, of the films ended as burlesque – Verne had to suffer the increasingly buffoonish likes of the 20th Century Fox Journey to the Center of the Earth, Irwin Allen’s Five Weeks in a Balloon (1962), then Jules Verne’s Rocket to the Moon/Those Fantastic Flying Fools (1967) – and with The First Men in the Moon it was H.G. Wells’s turn.
-Moriareviews
H.G. Wells is one of the most revered classic authors of all time. He sits on the Mt. Rushmore of science fiction beside Jules Verne, Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury (some would put either Frank Herbert or Arthur C. Clarke ahead of Bradbury, but this is my review, so I call the shots!). Really, I could easily write this entire article about how awesome Ray Bradbury was, but I’ll spare you that indulgence.
Wells wrote many classic works, some of which have been adapted into films to varying degrees of success (The Island of Dr. Moreau, The War of the Worlds, and The Time Machine, to name a few). Is director Nathan Juran’s take on The First Men in the Moon
one of the better H.G. Wells adaptations? Not necessarily so. But I
think it has its charms and it’s pretty easy to see how it influenced
the sci fi genre as a whole.
This 1964 entry was made right smack-dab in the middle of the
USA/USSR space race and Cold War. The Vietnam war was picking up
steam. Kennedy had been assassinated a year earlier. Definitely a period
of tumult and change.
The team in their spacesuits in the movie “The First Men on the Moon”.
Cinema was going through a renaissance as well, finding its way out of the studio system. However, by the early 60s, with movies struggling to compete with that B&W box in virtually every home, big, bombastic musicals, widescreen auctioneers and family films were the order of the day.
For instance,Mary Poppins came out in 1964, as did My Fair Lady. The Sound of Musicwould come out a year later, all three among the biggest box-office leaders of the decade.
It was the right time for The First Men in the Moon.
Spaceship interior details.
The film starts off with a ship landing on earth. Two U.N. astronauts on a lunar mission casually exit the cockpit and talk to their crew deeper inside the vessel, which sports a set more akin to a modern (i.e.; today) tech-club.
Certainly, the Lunar scenes are good and display a degree of imagination in places – images of vast bubbling cylinders of liquid to generate air, solar lasers and so on. The issues of weightlessness and air and sound in a vacuum are conducted with a little more credibility than most pre-1969 Moon landing science-fiction, although the script has the tendency to bring up the fact that sound does not pass in a vacuum and then ignore it anyway. The cave sets and blending of opticals used to depict the Selenite city are very good too.
Harryhausen animates a Moon calf but for time’s sake was forced to abandon the idea of animating most of the Selenties and have them played by children. As a result, the stop-motion creations here count as the most anonymous, least showcasey examples of Ray Harryhausen’s work. The optical effects are variable – while individual model scenes impress, thick matte lines abound and the models ache for the advent of motion control camerawork.
-Moriareviews
The movie begins in 1964 with a space ship “United Nations 1” landing on the moon with an international crew.
But once the astronauts de-board the ship, they find out that (record scratch!) they aren’t the first men on the moon.
The people that fear a one world government must be wetting themselves at the thought. As the whole world watches a Russian, an Englishman, and an American leave the ship. I assume that the Englishman and the American are astronauts which mean star voyager while the Russian would be a cosmonaut which means universe voyager.
Anyway, they are poking around and looking at rocks when the Russian
cosmonaut, finds a Union Jack flag and a piece of paper claiming the
moon in the name of Queen Victoria the 1st who lived from 1837-1901. The
paper is dated 1899.
It is very fortunate that the Russian found the paper given the Cold
War tension. If the English astronaut found it the other two would have
cried foul. They get the paper back to the ship and send it by space fax
back to UN HQ. The note is written on a summons for Kate Callender
(Martha Hyer) so a multi-national delegation heads to the records office
in a quiet English town.
First Men on the Moon.
This is all conveniently explained by an aged Arnold Bedford (Edward Judd, a British Sci-fi vet with such big titles to his credit as The Day the Earth Caught Fire and Island of Terror).
According to Bedford, back in 1899, eccentric scientist Joseph Cavor (Lionel Jeffries) and his prim and proper fiancee Kate Callender (Martha Hyer) took an impromptu trip to the moon after a botched attempt at making a pesky batch of “cavorite” (a Wells created anti-gravity “substance.”)
Cavorite.
Hummmm….
Anyways, Cavor is cooking up his anti-gravity paint that he has named Cavorite. Arnold sees the paint working when he is lifted to the ceiling in a chair. After that, Arnold is all in. He will do anything to get a share of the money that is going to be made from Cavorite. He talks about its war applications if it was painted on the bottom of boots. Cavor shows Arnold his moon ship which looks vaguely like a World War II sea mine. He is ready to go on a two person round trip to the moon.
Lionel Jeffries as Joseph Cavor, inventor of Cavorite.
Arnold agrees to sell the cottage he doesn’t own to Cavor. Arnold has
Kate sign the papers selling the cottage with a cock and bull story
about hiding it from his debtors. Nice boyfriend.
Sometime later Kate is given a summons for fraudulently selling the
cottage. She is mad as a hen. Cavor blows the roof off of his house and
Kate goes to find Arnold and they make up. She brings them an elephant
gun, chickens, and feed.
They accidentally launch in a Jerry-rigged space vessel that resembles a steam-punk billiard room.
They accidentally launch in a Jerry-rigged space vessel that resembles a steam-punk billiard room.
This “ship” takes off with Cavor, Arnold, and by accident Kate. Cavor pilots the ship to a moon landing by controlling the Cavorite.
Once they hit the lunar surface…
When the two men are ready to explore they put Kate in an airtight
cabinet and they get into deep sea diving suits complete with brass
helmets. In the Well’s book, he did not have suits because he wrote that
the moon had an atmosphere. This could have been disproven at the time
because the moon disk would have a haze around the edge when viewed by a
telescope. Their space suits didn’t have gloves and there is much
debate about what would happen. Most sites seem to indicate it would
cause swelling, pain, and bruising but no long term damage.
The two moonwalkers leave the flag and the note and then discover an insect colony that lives underground on the moon.
Now, this is an alien civilization that looks a heck of a lot like a colony of ants, complete with queen, soldiers, and busy little workers. How they got back home and the results of their journey make up the final act. (So it’s a movie about the moon that doesn’t actually spend much time on the moon. )
A Mooncalf, on a rampage, is zapped by Selenites.
Hence the time first men in not on the moon. Cavor names them Selenites after the Greek moon goddess Selene. The two men escape back to the ship and find that it has been drug underground with Kate still inside.
Yikes!
The two men find the drag trail for the ship and head into the
underground bug city to find Kate. They are attacked by a giant
caterpillar. The Selenites eventually kill the moon bull with their stun
rays. The two earthlings realize that the Selenite city is powered by
sunlight that focuses through a large glass panel.
The astronauts discover an entrance to the underground Selenite city.
The Selenites begin communicating but they have to power down
regularly. Arnold slips away and finds the ship being disassembled by
the Selenites. Once the Selenites have learned English they begin having
a conversation with Cavor. Cavor thinks its is about the scientific
exchange but Arnold thinks they are putting the Earth man on trial.
Finally, Cavor is admitted to see the big guy, the Grand Lunar. Arnold
tries to get Cavor to escape and in the struggle, the elephant gun is
fired at the Grand Lunar. Cavor decides to stay behind in the name of
science. Arnold and Kate escape and fly the ship through the glass
panels and back to earth.
As Arnold finishes his story he says the ship splashed down near Zanzibar and sank. They never hear from Cavor again.
Back in the present Arnold and the delegation watch the television as
the astro/cosmonauts are breaking into the Selenite city. It is decayed
and there is no life there. They barely escape as the city falls down
around them.
Arnold looks out the window and comments on how bad Cavor’s cold was and how the Selenites had not immunity. He smiles.
Plastic models!
Released by Larson Designs in early 2006, this beautifully crafted kit was mastered by Alfred Wong, a man with much experience creating quality sci-fi patterns. The kit consisted of upper and lower body halves, plus individual rail car bumper and eight portholes.
The sphere’s heavy geometry and rivet-covered surface beautifully evoked the simple functionality of Victorian-era technology.
And another view of this model…
Modern technology with a miracle anti-gravity coating.
Dynamation!
Special effects artist Ray Harryhausen will be forever remembered for the magical fighting skeletons seen in both Nathan Juran‘s inspired fantasy The 7th Voyage Of Sinbad (1958) and in Don Chaffey‘s Jason And The Argonauts (1963).
Harryhausen animated the skeletons with his own variation on the stop-motion technique – Dynamation – with which he recreated scenes that a child of the fifties or sixties might well have been able to imagine (thanks to comics) but would have never dreamed of actually seeing such scenes re-enacted on the big silvery screen.
Despite all the advancements made by modern computer and digital technology, Harryhausen’s effects still impress us, largely because they were always based on a resolutely human scale and were, as such, always believable.
His extensive career also includes The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms (1953), The Three Worlds Of Gulliver (1960), One Million Years BC (1967), and Clash Of The Titans (1981).
-Horrornews
The real reason to check out The First Men in the Moon is Ray Harryhausen, the visual effects maestro who advanced stop motion animation, (here called “Dynamation”) always used to an impressive result.
He was a true pioneer and this film (his tenth) had him at his best.
A successful landing on the moon.
Even though the first half of the movie has a serious drag issue, once the trio actually gets to the moon, it becomes a fun little romp.
The acting is good.
Judd, Jeffries and Hyer play off each other well in their respective roles. Jeffries’s eccentric scientist Joseph Cavor can be seen as an early precursor of Back to the Future’s Doc. Brown.
Lionel Jeffries should really be a household name, in my humble opinion.
Wait, you’ve never heard of Lionel Jeffries? You’ll most likely recognize his voice from the late 70s BBC children’s series Wombling Free, as the voice of Womble. Oh, wait, you don’t know that one?
How about the mid-sixties British comedy The Spy with a Cold Nose?
No?
Okay, I give up.
Enjoying the view on the moon, 1960’s style.
If you can get past the rather slow first half of this film, it gets pretty fun.
It’s a romance disguised as a piece of science fiction, reminding us that audiences tend to not care about the plot or MacGuffins, but instead, the relationships.
It’s a tiny little gem, coming off the heels of Journey to the Center of the Earth, and worth watching for Harryhausen’s special effects and for Lionel Jeffries charming performance.
All of which are excellent flicks to watch while you are bored waiting for the “all clear” horn to sound and you all can get out of your “fallout shelters”.
Conclusion
It’s a charming movie that has the ability to whisk you away towards simpler times. That, my friends, is something that we truly need today.
Hey! If you enjoyed this post, then you would love my index. Check out my Movie index here…
You’ll not find
any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Here are just some pretty decent websites, bookmarks, URL’s and sites that I would like to share. I think that there is something here for everyone. These, in my mind, are the “cream of the crop” of underappreciated websites, and some places that you all might want to visit.
My first up is a major personal favorite. I could spend hours flipping though the photos here…
Shorpy.com is a vintage photography site featuring hundreds of thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.
Shorpy.com is a vintage photography site featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s.
What is really cool about this site is that you can see what things were like “back in the day”. The visions of everyday life, the buildings, the cars, and the people are just wonderful to browse and explore.
It often carries me back to a simpler time…
Fall 1911. “The village street — Lee, Massachusetts.”
All the photos are in glorious clarity.
Most are black and white, but some are in color. Additionally, super high resolution photos are available for you to obtain, and put on your wall if you want. It’s a fantastic resource, and super fun. Not to mention, a great way to reconnect with our past.
Here’s another photo…
A tough-looking group and their Essex sedan somewhere in Northern California in 1929. From a box of negatives found in a thrift store.
And the photographs of the buildings are absolutely astounding. Seriously. Why in good-Gods name would these structures be demolished back in the 1960’s and 1970’s? What were people thinking?
New York circa 1910. “Bird’s eye view of new Pennsylvania Station.” Demolished in 1963.
Update 28APR21. Ol' Remus passed on. The website is still up but it hasn't been update in months. FYI.
From the beautiful photos to some thought-provoking articles. We go to the Woodpile Report. It’s glorious.
Here’s what it’s all about, from o’ Remus himself…
Woodpilereport.com is an entirely private information service that is my sole property made available to others as a form of free personal expression under my de jure Preamble Citizen’s right as later guaranteed in the First Article in Amendment to the Constitution.
Woodpilereport.com is not a “public accommodation” and it is preemptively exempt from any forced or coerced accommodation, via legislation or bureaucratic interpretation thereof or any dictate, directive, or decree by any agency of government or by any NGO or by any individual under any future “Fairness Doctrine” or similar charade.
I reserve the right to refuse service - to wit: to refuse posting, linking, or mention of anyone or anything, at my sole discretion - to any person, agency, corporation, or other entity.
Woodpile Report is from the Hermetic School of websites. There is no advertising, no partnerships, log-ins, popups, subscriptions, print version, Disqus, feedback section, tip jar or shop. There are no trackers, cookies, LSOs, analytics or widgets. Posted links are cleansed of superfluous identifiers.
The woodpile report is a wonderful weekly report by ol’ Remus.
He collects and reads the news and articles from all over the internet. Ones that he finds interesting, he places a paragraph or two and his opinions plus a link. These articles are what are of interest to him, and most lie outside the mainstream media.
As such, each week is a great cross section of alternative (non-mainstream) thought on the internet. There are great links to such diverse topics from canning, to history of old radios, to prepping, and opinions on modern American politics.
It’s all worth a visit. Don’t you know.
Like this here blog, it’s not a well-known and heavily trafficked site, and I think that part of what adds to it’s charms. Go ahead and take a visit, you will not be disappointed.
Here’s an example, as this screen capture can plainly show…
But, you know, I do like to look at art and enjoy the beauty and the meaning that lies with in. As such I often go to the…
The Art Renewal Center was founded by an Art Lover who was perplexed why museums and the “art industry” rejected the works of the old masters.
He wondered why, instead, they embraced the “new, progressive” art without form and meaning. (Such things like turd in a jar of olive oil, and a painting of dog foot prints on a white background.)
So, he built this website, and to his surprise, discovered that others, much like himself, were appalled at the treatment of the old artists, and the embrace of new “junk art”. He discovered that there is a world full of people, much like himself, that loved art for the sake of beauty and poetry. They, like himself, felt deprived as modern “progressive” thought was eradicating real beautiful art from society…
The Art Renewal Center was founded by an Art Lover who was perplexed why museums and the “art industry” rejected the works of the old masters, and embraced the “new, progressive” art without form and meaning.
He created a website that collected all the known beautiful works of art in the world, and offers them up for free to view and appreciate.
This is what he has to say about the Art Renewal Center…
Leading the revival of realism in the visual arts, the Art Renewal Center (ARC), a 501(c)(3), non-profit, educational foundation, hosts the largest online museum dedicated to representational art and includes works by the old masters, 19th century, and 21st Century Artists as well as articles, letters and other online resources.
The ARC is the foremost and only vetting service for representational art schools ensuring that the teaching curricula and quality of teacher and student work meet our strict standards to become ARC Approved™.
The ARC also runs the ARC Salon Competition, which is the largest and most prestigious competition in the world for realist artists painting, sculpting and drawing today with eleven categories and thousands of works competing, culminating in a traveling live exhibition of many of the winning works.
The ARC works with other ARC Allied Organizations™, artist groups, museums, and publications to become a central news hub for the 21st Century Representational Art Movement.
Read the ARC Philosophy written by ARC Chairman, Frederick C. Ross, to learn why ARC is so passionately dedicated to representational art.
Well, we know now, that the “new, modern, progressive art” is just a mechanism for transferring enormous sums of money. It does this back and forth between the global oligarchy so as to avoid the tracking and banking (read taxation) issues that the rest of us have to deal with.
Never the less, those of us that appreciate art, want to be exposed to it, and share our love of art with others. Thus this site.
Here, you can find many, many beautiful works of art done in the classical sense. This is the stop for beauty and art.
It’s got everything from the old masters…
Napoleon I and the King of Rome at Saint-Cloud by Francois Flameng , a member of the Academic Classical artist technique.
To new up and coming artists…
The International Figure Painting Competition is one of a series of competitions held by NTD Television. It is a platform for artists all around the world, to showcase their talents and jointly revive the traditional art of realistic oil painting.
I cannot stress how profoundly important this website is. As such, I am including ” The Philosophy of ARC”. If you agree with this philosophy, perhaps you might want to browse the collections and make a donation and become a member. They are doing great work. I’ll tell you what.
Fine art at its best has the power to move one to tears, or grab your sensibilities and rivet you in the moment with an overwhelming sense of beauty and excitement.
People often report the sensation of cold chills going up and down their spine. It may be the rare work that accomplishes this, but for those who have had this experience, many have credited it as the stimulus that set them on a personal lifetime quest; whether as an artist, collector or art historian.
Other human activities can create a similar experience, whether in poetry, literature, dance, theatre, or music, but it is the experience of beauty in fine art and beauty and its relationship to fine art that is the focus of this essay.
If you are reading this, in all probability you are one of the millions of art lovers who in the 21st Century are disillusioned with the Modernist paradigm which for more than a century has been the dominant way the concept of art has been taught and presented in nearly all institutions of higher learning throughout the world.
If you are like us, it seems more than a little self-evident to you that works of art have infinitely more to say and communicate if they portray the real world, or use figures and objects from the real world even when portraying fantasies and dreams.
You experience such "realist" works as infinitely more successful than any Modernist works.
The success of Modernism seems like a form of mass insanity, a nightmarish anomaly from which we pray the art world will finally soon awake.
For most of the 20th century, people who felt as we do, found themselves attracted to fine art in most if not all cases from having been to museums and fallen in love with a number of works of art created in the 15th through 19th centuries.
You may have wanted to become an artist yourself and were channeled by advisors into fine art courses taught in the art departments of colleges and Universities where you were promptly told that your instincts were all wrong.
That such works had a place in their time, but that modernist works were far superior.
What followed was an attempt to change your attitudes and beliefs and to convince you that works, which commemorated the destructions of some aspect of what used to be traditional Realism were the only worthwhile artworks and concepts.
You were never told that these "educators" had never themselves learned any of those skills needed by all artists during prior centuries, and so were completely bereft of any of the experience, skills and knowledge for which you had assumed your tuition bills would be paying.
They made you believe that they all could draw and paint but had chosen to abandon those skills due to some great epiphany.
If you were true to yourself and your feelings and beliefs, you probably left that "art" department and considered doing something else with your life.
Many of you went into commercial art.
Others became art historians, but most found other fields entirely. A rare few of you searched out and found one of a handful of ateliers who actually still taught the methods of the old masters. To the best of our knowledge there were 7 such ateliers in 1980 and all of them were taught by students of Pietro Annigoni or Ives Gammell1. Both atelier masters could trace their training seamlessly to the 19th century and beyond.
By 2002 when the Art Renewal Center decided to add to their website a section of ARC Approved® Ateliers schools the number of such schools had grown to 14 with each having between 5 and 15 students.
We added a map of the world where it became very easy to identify all the schools and to find the nearest one to any local. Within a few months the numbers of students able to find these schools started to grow geometrically, and today, just 14 years later, there are over 100 schools teaching the atelier style training and thousands of students.2
So, what do all these students and educators see that Modernists do not? And why is it that most educated people who are not part of the art world seem to also prefer traditional realism?3
It is the purpose of this essay to answer that question in the clearest most direct way possible, and to thereby help establish for artists and the consumers of art, a set of criteria by which they can judge works of art, understand their own preferences, and if needed, to arm them with the facts, concepts and information to deal with the modernists, educators and apologists who are constantly attacking and denigrating the skills and subjects which enable fine art.
The skills like with literature, poetry and theatre that enable us to communicate our shared humanity.
We will accomplish this by delineating a simple way to understand and define what fine art is. We will also look in particular at the aesthetic foundation of fine art as it evolved during the 19th Century and the Modernist juggernaut which almost lead to its complete suppression during most of the 20th Century.
The following information also advances criteria by which to view artists and movements, and help to determine why some works of art are experienced as beautiful and successful and why others seems to fall flat or are even boring.
It will hopefully also satisfy the needs of practicing artists to determine what type of art and subjects they wish to explore and which skills and techniques they will need to learn and practice in order to accomplish this.
As in all education, individuals should ultimately decide for themselves what makes sense and what is nonsense or babble.
CONTINUED HERE
The visual fine arts of drawing, painting and sculpture are best understood as a language … a visual language. Very much like spoken and written languages, it was developed and preserved as a means of communication. And very much like language it is successful if communication takes place and unsuccessful if it does not.
Fark is what Free Republic should of evolved into, instead of being bought-out by progressive liberal interests. People post links and a sort introductory paragraph, and others comment on it. It’s clean and just getting started. It has a lot of potential, and a healthy dose of sarcasm.
On Fark, people post links and a sort introductory paragraph, and others comment on it.
Boys like being mischievous and playing tricks. It’s a boy thing I suppose. (I just don’t remember any girls doing these types of things. Though, I am quite sure that they were involved in more cerebral activities playing “head games” with other girls.) Boys like to see the physical results of their torment. They want to see girls react in horror to a toad. They want to light firecrackers outside people’s bedrooms, and set bags of dog poo on fire on people’s porches.
When I was growing up, we would find these types and kinds of advertisements inside of our comic books and magazines. They would be full of all kinds of fun things to amuse a young child.
I remember as a boy how we had somehow come across a gadget catalog that was advertised in the back of one of the comic books that we would often read. You know the kind. Pages and pages of things like magic tricks, pranks, books on Black Magic, fake (pellet shooting) fingers, trick buzzers, masks and ”pea shooters”. As a kid, we loved it and wanted everything. We must have circled over a hundred items in that catalog.
I think that it is an interest of growing children to expand and explore these tricks and devices of prankster humor. Too bad that the days of yodeling pickles are long gone. Indeed, you need to leave the ultra-sanitized United States to find some politically incorrect playthings for your child to enjoy.
…Or, do you?
Let me introduce the reader to the Archie McPhee store.
This is the kind of place that is a young boy’s wet dream. Inside the store (physical as well as the Internet version) are absolutely enormous assortments of useless pursuits. They’ve got boxing nuns and bacon scarves. They’ve got yodeling pickles and finger hands. Don’t know what a finger hand is, well then go HERE to find out. They have stuff that only a madman could think of.
“Less talk. More monkey.”
How about rotisserie chicken flavored candy canes, emergency inflatable toast (why?), rubber chickens (big and small), and propeller beanies. Ah we all wanted one of these as a kid. They have trick gum, Holy toast, and bags of busted businessmen. They carry x-ray glasses (yes, you wanted these didn’t you?) and hypno-glasses, wind-up lederhosen, and strange action figures to include horrified movie victims. They’ve got everything from plastic arks, to singing fish. It’s a childhood delight. This store brings out the little kid in all of us. It’s many things, but above all, it’s the go-to place for plastic poop.
I just can’t stop! It’s such an amazing place.
“If there’s a heaven for the deranged, Archie McPhee is probably it.”
-Josh B in Seattle
There is a store in Seattle. The rest of us are limited to visiting their (most comprehensive) website.
Do yourself a favor. Let your child buy something from this store. Give them ten dollars to spend, and wait while they go back and forth, back and forth deciding what to buy. It’s all in good fun.
Here are some great articles that are out of the mainstream, yet do not fall under “doom porn”, ‘Global Warming” or “Reptilian Government secrecy”. LOL. Maybe some of the articles are out there, but they do make you think. And at that, it’s a good thing.
Leenks is another website where links are posted. These links tend to be entertainment links, and includes porn, memes, and articles worth a passing glance. If you are bored, this site will give you a ting or two to look at.
This is a reasonably decent conservative site with great links and organization. I tend to visit it from time to time to get my American-insanity political fix.
Ace of spades screen capture.
Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
Here are some other similar posts on this venue. If you enjoyed this post, you might like these posts as well. These posts tend to discuss growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with the society within communist China. As there are some really stark differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
I have broken apart some other posts. They can best be classified about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Funny Pictures
Be the Rufus – Tales of Everyday Heroism.
Articles & Links
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This is the full text of the story "R is for Rocket" by Ray Bradbury. It is not only a classic, but it is also a story that held particular meaning to me. For it was how I felt about my dreams to become that mystical "Spacemen". For us, back then, those of us who were "bitten by the bug" of space travel were fixated and driven by the one singular goal... to leave the Earth and explore "Outer Space".
I hope that you, the reader, will find this lovely story as wondrous as I have. Please enjoy it, and again, many thanks to the great master Ray Bradbury for composing this masterpiece.
R is for Rocket
There was this fence where we pressed our faces and felt the wind turn warm and held to the fence and forgot who we were or where we came from but dreamed of who we might be and where we might go. . . .
Yet we were boys and liked being boys and lived in a Florida town and liked the town and went to school and fairly liked the school and climbed trees and played football and liked our mothers and fathers. . . .
But some time every hour of every day of every week for a minute or a second when we thought on fire and stars and the fence beyond which they waited . . . we liked the rockets more.
The fence. The rockets.
Every Saturday morning . . .
The guys met at my house.
With the sun hardly up, they yelled until the neighbors were moved to brandish paralysis guns out their ventilators I commanding the guys to shut up or they’d be frozen statues for the next hour and then where would they be?
Aw, climb a rocket, stick your head in the main-jet! the kids always yelled back, but yelled this safe behind our garden I fence. Old Man Wickard, next door, is a great shot with the para-gun.
This one dim cool Saturday morning I was lying in bed thinking about how I had flunked my semantics exam the day before at formula-school, when I heard the gang yelling below. It was hardly 7 a.m. and there was still a lot of fog roaming in off the Atlantic, and only now were the weather-control vibrators at each corner starting to hum and shoot out rays to get rid of the stuff; I heard them moaning soft and nice.
I padded to the window and stuck my head out.
“Okay, space-pirates! Motors off!”
“Hey!” shouted Ralph Priory. “We just heard, there’s a new schedule today! The Moon Job, the one with the new XL3 motor, is cutting gravity in an hour!”
“Buddha, Muhammad, Allah, and other real and semi-mythological figures,” I said, and went away from the window so fast the concussion laid all the boys out on my lawn.
I zippered myself into a jumper, yanked on my boots, clipped my food-capsules to my hip-pocket, for I knew there’d be no food or even thought of food today, we’d just stuff with pills when our stomachs barked, and fell down the two-story vacuum elevator.
On the lawn, all five of the guys were chewing their lips, bouncing around, scowling.
“Last one,” said I, passing them at 5000 mph, “to the monorail is a bug-eyed Martian!”
On the monorail, with the cylinder hissing us along to Rocket Port, twenty miles from town — a few minutes ride — I had bugs in my stomach. A guy fifteen doesn’t get to see the big stuff often enough, mostly every week it was the small continental cargo rockets coming and going on schedule. But this was big, among the biggest . . . the Moon and beyond. . . .
“I’m sick,” said Priory, and hit me on the arm.
I hit him back. “Me, too. Boy, ain’t Saturday the best day in the week!?”
Priory and I traded wide, understanding grins. We got along all Condition Go. The other pirates were okay. Sid Rossen, Mac Leslyn, Earl Marnee, they knew how to jump around like all the kids, and they loved the rockets, too, but I had the feeling they wouldn’t be doing what Ralph and I would do some day. Ralph and I wanted the stars for each of us, more than we would want a fistful of clear-cut blue-white diamonds.
We yelled with the yellers, we laughed with the laughers, but at the middle of it all, we were still, Ralph and I, and the cylinder whispered to a stop and we were outside yelling, laughing, running, but quiet and almost in slow motion, Ralph ahead of me, and all of us pointed one way, at the observation fence and grabbing hold, yelling for the slowpokes to catch up, but not looking back for them, and then we were all there together and the big rocket came out of its plastic work canopy like a great interstellar circus tent and moved along its gleaming track out toward the fire point, accompanied by the gigantic gantry like a gathering of prehistoric reptile birds which kept and preened and fed this one big fire monster and led it toward its seizure and birth into a suddenly blast-furnace sky.
I quit breathing. I didn’t even suck another breath it seemed until the rocket was way out on the concrete meadow, followed by water-beetle tractors and great cylinders bearing hidden men, and all around, in asbestos suits, praying-mantis mechanics fiddled with machines and buzzed and cawwed and gibbered to each other on invisible, unhearable radiophones, but we could hear it all, in our heads, our minds, our hearts.
“Lord,” I said at last.
“The very good Lord,” said Ralph Priory at my elbow.
The others said this, too, over and over.
It was something to “good Lord” about. It was a hundred years of dreaming all sorted out and chosen and put together Ito make the hardest, prettiest, swiftest dream of all. Every line was fire solidified and made perfect, it was flame frozen, and lice waiting to thaw there in the middle of a concrete prairie, ready to wake with a roar, jump high and knock its silly fine great head against the Milky Way and knock the stars down in a full return of firefall meteors. You felt it could kick the Coal Sack Nebula square in the midriff and make it stand out of the way.
It got me in the midriff, too — it gripped me in such a way I knew the special sickness of longing and envy and grief for lack of accomplishment. And when the astronauts patrolled the field in the final silent mobile-van, my body went with them in their strange white armor, in their bubble-helmets and insouciant pride, looking as if they were team-parading to a magnetic football game at one of the local mag-fields, for mere practice. But they were going to the Moon, they went every month now, and the crowds that used to come to watch were no longer there, there was just us kids to worry them up and worry them off.
“Gosh,” I said. “What wouldn’t I give to go with them. What wouldn’t I give.”
“Me,” said Mac, “I’d give my one-year monorail privileges.”
“Yeah. Oh, very much yeah.”
It was a big feeling for us kids caught half between this morning’s toys and this afternoon’s very real and powerful fireworks.
And then the preliminaries got over with. The fuel was in the rocket and the men ran away from it on the ground like ants running lickety from a metal god — and the Dream woke up and gave a yell and jumped into the sky. And then it was gone, all the vacuum shouting of it, leaving nothing but a hot trembling in the air, through the ground, and up our legs to our hearts. Where it had been was a blazed, seared pock and a fog of rocket smoke like a cumulus cloud banked low.
“It’s gone!” yelled Priory.
And we all began to breathe fast again, frozen there on the ground as if stunned by the passing of a gigantic paralysis gun.
“I want to grow up quick,” I said, then. “I want to grow up quick so I can take that rocket.”
I bit my lips. I was so darned young, and you cannot apply for space work. You have to be chosen. Chosen.
Finally somebody, I guess it was Sidney, said:
“Let’s go to the tele-show now.”
Everyone said yeah, except Priory and myself. We said no, and the other kids went off laughing breathlessly, talking, and left Priory and me there to look at the spot where the ship had been.
It spoiled everything else for us — that takeoff.
Because of it, I flunked my semantics test on Monday.
I didn’t care.
At times like that I thanked Providence for concentrates. When your stomach is nothing but a coiled mass of excitement, you hardly feel like drawing a chair to a full hot dinner. A few concen-tabs swallowed, did wonderfully well as substitution, without the urge of appetite.
I got to thinking about it, tough and hard, all day long and late at night. It got so bad I had to use sleep-massage mechs every night, coupled with some of Tschaikovsky’s quieter music to get my eyes shut.
“Good Lord, young man,” said my teacher, that Monday at class. “If this keeps up I’ll have you reclassified at the next psych-board meeting.”
“I’m sorry,” I replied.
He looked hard at me. “What sort of block have you got? I It must be a very simple, and also a conscious, one.”
I winced. “It’s conscious, sir; but it’s not simple. It’s multi-tentacular. In brief, though — it’s rockets.”
He smiled. “R is for Rocket, eh?”
“I guess that’s it, sir.”
“We can’t let it interfere with your scholastic record, though, young man.”
“Do you think I need hypnotic suggestion, sir?”
“No, no.” He flipped through a small tab of records with my name blocked on it. I had a funny stone in my stomach, just lying there. He looked at me. “You know, Christopher, you’re king-of-the-hill here; head of the class.” He closed his eyes and mused over it. “We’ll have to see about a lot of other things,” he concluded. Then he patted me on the shoulder.
“Well — get on with your work. Nothing to worry about.”
He walked away.
I tried to get back to work, but I couldn’t. During the rest of the day the teacher kept watching me and looking at my tab-record and chewing his lip. About two in the afternoon he dialed a number on his desk-audio and discussed something with somebody for about five minutes.
I couldn’t hear what was said.
But when he set the audio into its cradle, he stared straight at me with the funniest light in his eyes.
It was envy and admiration and pity all in one. It was a little sad and it was much of happiness. It had a lot in it, just in his eyes. The rest of his face said nothing.
It made me feel like a saint and a devil sitting there.
Ralph Priory and I slid home from formula-school together early that afternoon. I told Ralph what had happened and he frowned in the dark way he always frowns.
I began to worry. And between the two of us we doubled and tripled the worry.
“You don’t think you’ll be sent away, do you, Chris?”
Our monorail car hissed. We stopped at our station. We got out. We walked slow. “I don’t know,” I said.
“That would be plain dirty,” said Ralph.
“Maybe I need a good psychiatric laundering, Ralph. I can’t go on flubbing my studies this way.”
We stopped outside my house and looked at the sky for a long moment. Ralph said something funny.
“The stars aren’t out in the daytime, but we can see ’em, can’t we, Chris?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Darn rights.”
“Well stick it together, huh, Chris? Blast them, they can’t take you away now. We’re pals. It wouldn’t be fair.”
I didn’t say anything because there was no room in my throat for anything but a hectagonal lump.
“What’s the matter with your eyes?” asked Priory.
“Aw, I looked at the sun too long. Come on inside, Ralph.”
We yelled under the shower spray in the bath-cubicle, but our yells weren’t especially convincing, even when we turned on the ice-water.
While we were standing in the warm-air dryer, I did a lot of thinking. Literature, I figured, was full of people who fought battles against hard, razor-edged opponents. They pitted brain and muscle against obstacles until they won out or were themselves defeated. But here I was with hardly a sign of any outward conflict. It was all running around in spiked boots inside my head, making cuts and bruises where no one could see them except me and a psychologist. But it was just as bad.
“Ralph,” I said, as we dressed, “I got a war on.”
“All by yourself?” he asked.
“I can’t include you,” I said. “Because this is personal. How many times has my mother said, ‘Don’t eat so much, Chris, your eyes are bigger than your stomach?'”
“A million times.”
“Two million. Well, paraphrase it, Ralph. Change it to ‘Don’t see so much, Chris, your mind is too big for your body.’ I got a war on between a mind that wants things my body can’t give it.”
Priory nodded quietly. “I see what you mean about its being a personal war. In that case, Christopher, I’m at war, too.”
“I knew you were,” I said. “Somehow I think the other kids’ll grow out of it. But I don’t think we will, Ralph. I think we’ll keep waiting.”
We sat down in the middle of the sunlit upper deck of the house, and started checking over some homework on our formula-pads. Priory couldn’t get his. Neither could I. Priory put into words the very thing I didn’t dare say out loud.
“Chris, the Astronaut Board selects. You can’t apply for it. You wait.”
“I know.”
“You wait from the time you’re old enough to turn cold in the stomach when you see a Moon rocket, until all the years go by, and every month that passes you hope that one morning a blue Astronaut helicopter will come down out of the sky, land on your lawn, and that a neat-looking engineer will ease out, walk up the rampway briskly, and touch the bell.
“You keep waiting for that helicopter until you’re twenty-one. And then, on the last day of your twentieth year you drink and laugh a lot and say what the heck, you didn’t really care about it, anyway.”
We both just sat there, deep in the middle of his words. We both just sat there. Then:
“I don’t want that disappointment, Chris. I’m fifteen, just like you. But if I reach my twenty-first year without an Astronaut ringing the bell where I live at the ortho-station, I — “
“I know,” I said. “I know. I’ve talked to men who’ve waited, all for nothing. And if it happens that way to us, Ralph, well — we’ll get good and drunk together and then go out and take jobs loading cargo on a Europe-bound freighter.”
Ralph stiffened and his face went pale. “Loading cargo.”
There was a soft, quick step on the ramp and my mother was there. I smiled. “Hi, lady!”
“Hello. Hello, Ralph.”
“Hello, Jhene.”
She didn’t look much older than twenty-five, in spite of having birthed and raised me and worked at the Government Statistics House. She was light and graceful and smiled a lot, and I could see how father must have loved her very much when he was alive. One parent is better than none. Poor Priory, now, raised in one of those orthopedical stations. . . .
Jhene walked over and put her hand on Ralph’s face. “You look ill,” she said. “What’s wrong?”
Ralph managed a fairly good smile. “Nothing — at all.”
Jhene didn’t need prompting. She said, “You can stay here I tonight, Priory. We want you. Don’t we, Chris?”
“Heck, yes.”
“I should get back to the station,” said Ralph, rather feebly, I observed. “But since you asked and Chris here needs help on his semantics for tomorrow, I’ll stick and help him.”
“Very generous,” I observed.
“First, though, I’ve a few errands. I’ll take the ‘rail and be back in an hour, people.”
When Ralph was gone my mother looked at me intently, then brushed my hair back with a nice little move of her fingers.
“Something’s happening, Chris.”
My heart stopped talking because it didn’t want to talk any more for a while. It waited.
I opened my mouth, but Jhene went on:
“Something’s up somewhere. I had two calls at work today. One from your teacher. One from — I can’t say. I don’t want to say until things happen — “
My heart started talking again, slow and warm.
“Don’t tell me, then, Jhene. Those calls — “
She just looked at me. She took my hand between her two soft warm ones. “You’re so young, Chris. You’re so awfully young.”
I didn’t speak.
Her eyes brightened. “You never knew your father. I wish you had. You know what he was, Chris?”
I said, “Yeah. He worked in a Chemistry Lab, deep underground most of the time.”
And, my mother added, strangely, “He worked deep under the ground, Chris, and never saw the stars.”
My heart yelled in my chest. Yelled loud and hard.
“Oh, Mother. Mother — “
It was the first time in years I had called her mother.
When I woke the next morning there was a lot of sunlight in the room, but the cushion where Priory slept when he stayed over, was vacant. I listened. I didn’t hear him splashing in the shower-cube, and the dryer wasn’t humming. He was gone.
I found his note pinned on the sliding door.
“See you at formula at noon. Your mother wanted me to do some work for her. She got a call this morning, and said she needed me to help. So long. Priory.”
Priory out running errands for Jhene. Strange. A call in the early morning to Jhene. I went back and sat down on the cushion.
While I was sitting there a bunch of the kids yelled down on the lawn-court. “Hey, Chris! You’re late!”
I stuck my head out the window. “Be right down!”
“No, Chris.”
My mother’s voice. It was quiet and it had something funny in it. I turned around. She was standing in the doorway behind me, her face pale, drawn, full of some small pain. “No, Chris,” she said again, softly. “Tell them to go on to formula without you — today.”
The kids were still making noise downstairs, I guess, but I didn’t hear them. I just felt myself and my mother, slim and pale and restrained in my room. Far off, the weather-control vibrators started to hum and throb.
I turned slowly and looked down at the kids. The three of them were looking up, lips parted casually, half-smiling, semantic-tabs in their knotty fingers. “Hey — ” one of them said. Sidney, it was.
“Sorry, Sid. Sorry, gang. Go on without me. I can’t go to formula today. See you later, huh?”
“Aw, Chris!”
“Sick?”
“No. Just — Just go on without me, gang. I’ll see you.”
I felt numb. I turned away from their upturned, questioning faces and glanced at the door. Mother wasn’t there. She had gone downstairs, quietly. I heard the kids moving off, not quite as boisterously, toward the monorail station.
Instead of using the vac-elevator, I walked slowly downstairs. “Jhene,” I said, “where’s Ralph?”
Jhene pretended to be interested in combing her long light hair with a vibro-toothed comb. “I sent him off. I didn’t want him here this morning.”
“Why am I staying home from formula, Jhene?”
“Chris, please don’t ask.”
Before I could say anything else, there was a sound in the air. It cut through the very soundproofed wall of the house, and hummed in my marrow, quick and high as an arrow of glittering music.
I swallowed. All the fear and uncertainty and doubt went away, instantly.
When I heard that note, I thought of Ralph Priory. Oh Ralph, if you could be here now. I couldn’t believe the truth of it. Hearing that note and hearing it with my whole body and soul as well as with my ears.
It came closer, that sound. I was afraid it would go away. But it didn’t go away. It lowered its pitch and came down outside the house in great whirling petals of light and shadow and I knew it was a helicopter the color of the sky. It stopped humming, and in the silence my mother tensed forward, dropped the vibro-comb and took in her breath.
In that silence, too, I heard booted footsteps walking up the ramp below. Footsteps that I had waited for a long time.
Footsteps I was afraid would never come.
Somebody touched the bell.
And I knew who it was.
And all I could think was, Ralph, why in heck did you have to go away now, when all this is happening? Blast it, Ralph, why did you?
The man looked as if he had been born in his uniform. It fitted like a second layer of salt-colored skin, touched here and there with a line, a dot of blue. As simple and perfect a uniform as could be made, but with all the muscled power of the universe behind it.
His name was Trent. He spoke firmly, with a natural round perfection, directly to the subject.
I stood there, and my mother was on the far side of the room, looking like a bewildered little girl. I stood listening.
Out of all the talking I remember some of the snatches:
“. . . highest grades, high IQ. Perception A-1, curiosity Triple-A. Enthusiasm necessary to the long, eight-year educational grind. . . .”
“Yes, sir.”
“. . . talks with your semantics and psychology teachers — “
“Yes, sir.”
“. . . and don’t forget, Mr. Christopher . . .”
Mister Christopher!
“. . . and don’t forget, Mr. Christopher, nobody is to know you have been selected by the Astronaut Board.”
“No one?”
“Your mother and teacher know, naturally. But no other person must know. Is that perfectly understood?”
“Yes, sir.”
Trent smiled quietly, standing there with his big hands at his sides. “You want to ask why, don’t you? Why you can’t tell your friends? I’ll explain.
“It’s a form of psychological protection. We select about ten thousand young men each year from the earth’s billions. Out of that number three thousand wind up, eight years later, as spacemen of one sort or another. The others must return to society. They’ve flunked out, but there’s no reason for everyone to know. They usually flunk out, if they’re going to flunk, in the first six months. And it’s tough to go back and face your friends and say you couldn’t make the grade at the biggest job in the world. So we make it easy to go back.
“But there’s still another reason. It’s psychological, too. Half the fun of being a kid is being able to lord it over the other guys, by being superior in some way. We take half the fun out of Astronaut selection by strictly forbidding you to tell your pals. Then, we’ll know if you wanted to go into space for frivolous reasons, or for space itself. If you’re in it for personal conceit — you’re damned.
If you’re in it because you can’t help being in it and have to be in it — you’re blessed.”
He nodded to my mother. “Thank you, Mrs. Christopher.”
“Sir,” I said. “A question. I have a friend. Ralph Priory. He lives at an ortho-station — “
Trent nodded. “I can’t tell you his rating, of course, but he’s on our list. He’s your buddy? You want him along, of course. I’ll check his record. Station-bred, you say? That’s not good. But — we’ll see.”
“If you would, please, thanks.”
“Report to me at the Rocket Station Saturday afternoon at five, Mr. Christopher. Meantime: silence.”
He saluted. He walked off. He went away in the helicopter into the sky, and Mother was beside me quickly, saying, “Oh, Chris, Chris,” over and over, and we held to each other and whispered and talked and she said many things, how good this was going to be for us, but especially for me, how fine, what an honor it was, like the old old days when men fasted and took vows and joined churches and stopped up their tongues and were silent and prayed to be worthy and to live well as monks and priests of many churches in far places, and came forth and moved in the world and lived as examples and taught well. It was no different now, this was a greater priesthood, in a way, she said, she inferred, she knew, and I was to be some small part of it, I would not be hers any more, I would belong to all the worlds, I would be all the things my father wanted to be and never lived or had a chance to be. . . .
“Darn rights, darn rights,” I murmured. “I will, I promise I will . . .”
I caught my voice. “Jhene — how — how will we tell Ralph? What about him?”
“You’re going away, that’s all, Chris. Tell him that. Very simply. Tell him no more. He’ll understand.”
“But, Jhene, you —”
She smiled softly. “Yes, I’ll be lonely, Chris. But I’ll have my work and I’ll have Ralph.”
“You mean . . .”
“I’m taking him from the ortho-station. He’ll live here, when you’re gone. That’s what you wanted me to say, isn’t it, Chris?”
I nodded, all paralyzed and strange inside.
“That’s exactly what I wanted you to say.”
“He’ll be a good son, Chris. Almost as good as you.”
“He’ll be fine!”
We told Ralph Priory. How I was going away maybe to school in Europe for a year and how Mother wanted him to come live as her son, now, until such time as I came back. We said it quick and fast, as if it burned our tongues. And when we finished, Ralph came and shook my hand and kissed my mother on the cheek and he said:
“I’ll be proud. I’ll be very proud.”
It was funny, but Ralph didn’t even ask any more about why I was going, or where, or how long I would be away. All he would say was, “We had a lot of fun, didn’t we?” and let it go at that, as if he didn’t dare say any more.
It was Friday night, after a concert at the amphitheater in the center of our public circle, and Priory and Jhene and I came home, laughing, ready to go to bed.
I hadn’t packed anything. Priory noted this briefly, and let it go. All of my personal supplies for the next eight years would be supplied by someone else. No need for packing.
My semantics teacher called on the audio, smiling and saying a very brief, pleasant good-bye.
Then, we went to bed, and I kept thinking in the hour before I lolled off, about how this was the last night with Jhene and Ralph. The very last night.
Only a kid of fifteen — me.
And then, in the darkness, just before I went to sleep, Priory twisted softly on his cushion, turned his solemn face to me, and whispered, “Chris?” A pause. “Chris. You still awake?” It was like a faint echo.
“Yes,” I said.
“Thinking?”
A pause.
“Yes.”
He said, “You’re — You’re not waiting any more, are you, Chris?”
I knew what he meant. I couldn’t answer.
I said, “I’m awfully tired, Ralph.”
He twisted back and settled down and said, “That’s what I thought. You’re not waiting any more. Gosh, but that’s good, Chris. That’s good.”
He reached out and punched me in the arm-muscle, lightly.
Then we both went to sleep.
It was Saturday morning. The kids were yelling outside. Their voices filled the seven o’clock fog. I heard Old Man Wickard’s ventilator flip open and the zip of his para-gun, playfully touching around the kids.
“Shut up!” I heard him cry, but he didn’t sound grouchy. It was a regular Saturday game with him. And I heard the kids giggle.
Priory woke up and said, “Shall I tell them, Chris, you’re not going with them today?”
“Tell them nothing of the sort.” Jhene moved from the door. She bent out the window, her hair all light against a ribbon of fog. “Hi, gang! Ralph and Chris will be right down. Hold gravity!”
“Jhene!” I cried.
She came over to both of us. “You’re going to spend your Saturday the way you always spend it — with the gang!”
“I planned on sticking with you, Jhene.”
“What sort of holiday would that be, now?”
She ran us through our breakfast, kissed us on the cheeks, and forced us out the door into the gang’s arms.
“Let’s not go out to the Rocket Port today, guys.”
“Aw, Chris — why not?”
Their faces did a lot of changes. This was the first time in history I hadn’t wanted to go. “You’re kidding, Chris.”
“Sure he is.”
“No, he’s not. He means it,” said Priory. “And I don’t want to go either. We go every Saturday. It gets tiresome. We can go next week instead.”
“Aw . . .”
They didn’t like it, but they didn’t go off by themselves. It was no fun, they said, without us.
“What the heck— we’ll go next week.”
“Sure we will. What do you want to do, Chris?”
I told them.
We spent the morning playing Kick the Can and some games we’d given up a long time ago, and we hiked out along some old rusty and abandoned railroad tracks and walked in a small woods outside town and photographed some birds and went swimming raw, and all the time I kept thinking — this is the last day.
We did everything we had ever done before on Saturday. All the silly crazy things, and nobody knew I was going away except Ralph, and five o’clock kept getting nearer and nearer.
At four, I said good-bye to the kids.
“Leaving so soon, Chris? What about tonight?”
“Call for me at eight,” I said. “We’ll go see the new Sally Gibberts picturel”
“Swell.”
“Cut gravity!”
And Ralph and I went home.
Mother wasn’t there, but she had left part of herself, her smile and her voice and her words on a spool of audio-film on my bed. I inserted it in the viewer and threw the picture on the wall. Soft yellow hair, her white face and her quiet words:
“I hate good-byes, Chris. I’ve gone to the laboratory to do some extra work. Good luck. All of my love. When I see you again — you’ll be a man.”
That was all.
Priory waited outside while I saw it over four times. “I hate good-byes, Chris. I’ve gone . . . work. . . . luck. All . . . my love. . . .”
I had made a film-spool myself the night before. I spotted it in the viewer and left it there. It only said good-bye.
Priory walked halfway with me. I wouldn’t let him get on the Rocket Port monorail with me. I
just shook his hand, tight, and said, “It was fun today, Ralph.”
“Yeah. Well, see you next Saturday, huh, Chris?”
“I wish I could say yes.”
“Say yes anyway. Next Saturday — the woods, the gang, the rockets, and Old Man Wickard and his trusty para-gun.”
We laughed. “Sure. Next Saturday, early. Take — Take care of our mother, will you, Priory?”
“That’s a silly question, you nut,” he said.
“It is, isn’t it?”
He swallowed. “Chris.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ll be waiting. Just like you waited and don’t have to wait any more. I’ll wait.”
“Maybe it won’t be long, Priory. I hope not.”
I jabbed him, once, in the arm. He jabbed back.
The monorail door sealed. The car hurled itself away, and Priory was left behind.
I stepped out at the Port. It was a five-hundred-yard walk down to the Administration building. It took me ten years to walk it.
“Next time I see you you’ll be a man — “
“Don’t tell anybody — “
“I’ll wait, Chris — “
It was all choked in my heart and it wouldn’t go away and it swam around in my eyes.
I thought about my dreams. The Moon Rocket. It won’t be part of me, part of my dream any longer. I’ll be part of it.
I felt small there, walking, walking, walking.
The afternoon rocket to London was just taking off as I went down the ramp to the office. It shivered the ground and it shivered and thrilled my heart.
I was beginning to grow up awfully fast.
I stood watching the rocket until someone snapped their heels, cracked me a quick salute.
I was numb.
“C. M. Christopher?”
“Yes, sir. Reporting, sir.”
“This way, Christopher. Through that gate.”
Through that gate and beyond the fence . . .
This fence where we had pressed our faces and felt the wind turn warm and held to the fence and forgot who we were or where we came from but dreamed of who we might be and where we might go . . .
This fence where had stood the boys who liked being boys who lived in a town and liked the town
and fairly liked school and liked football and liked their fathers and mothers . . .
The boys who some time every hour of every day of every week thought on fire and stars and the fence beyond which they waited. . . . The boys who liked the rockets more.
Mother, Ralph, I’ll see you. I’ll be back.
Mother!
Ralph!
And, walking, I went beyond the fence.
The End
What an absolutely wonderful story.
It means a lot to me.
And people, that's exactly how it was like for me to leave university as an Aerospace Engineer and enter NAS, NASC Pensacola Florida as an AOCS Aviation Office Candidate.
I well remember arrival at the airport and proceeding to the lobby where there was this enormously huge arrow pointing to this ridiculously tiny phone set in the wall. Telling me to pick up the phone and call the base.
Fictional Story Related Index
This is an index of full text reprints of stories that I have
read that influenced me when I was young. They are rather difficult to
come by today, as where I live they are nearly impossible to find. Yes,
you can find them on the internet, behind paywalls. Ah, that’s why all
those software engineers in California make all that money. Well, here
they are FOR FREE. Enjoy reading them.
Movies that Inspired Me
Here are some movies that I consider noteworthy and worth a view. Enjoy.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are
reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly
impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal
library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come
and enjoy a read or two as well.
My Poetry
Art that Moves Me
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Thank you for continuing with me in the adventure.
But first, let me explain the photo splash at the top of the page. That picture is of two of the band members from the 1980’s hit rock/pop group “Tears for Fears”.
The Seeds of Love is the third studio album by the British rock/pop band Tears for Fears, released on 25 September 1989.. The album, which reportedly cost over £1 million (GBP) to produce, retained the band's epic sound while incorporating influences ranging from jazz and blues to The Beatles, of which the latter is most evident on the hit single "Sowing the Seeds of Love".
-Wikipedia
Tears for Fears – Sowing the Seeds of Love
Sometimes I really wonder about what is going on in the Western world these days. Back in the 1980’s, yes things weren’t perfect, but at least you knew that there were two genders, that a water fountain was GMO free, and that the English Queen was not transgender.
Now, today, you haven’t a clue. The news media completely and absolutely lies about everything and changes the narrative left and right. For instance, consider the latest mass-murdering shooter…
The Liberal Progressive socialists in charge of the American mainstream media and the software giants have rewritten the narrative of the events that transpired.
He was a Obama-following Antifa member, and now his history was changed to a crazed Trump QANAON.
There’s only one thing…
Real Conservatives, if pushed to violence, would not strike out at innocents. They would attack the instigators, the leaders, and those that finance what ever problems that they are dealing with. This fellow attacked innocents. Ergo – not a conservative.
Leftists Change Shooter Patrick Crusius’s MyLife Page
No kidding!
You have this Antifa progressive Obama follower who shoots up a ton load of people in a Walmart. Immediately the news media is blaming Trump for “Right Wing” Violence. When it was no such thing. Now, plastered all over the internet is the rewritten narrative that he was a Right-Wing Trump following kook and guns must be banned.
Perhaps, a little peek at what the news media did and handled this is in order, eh?
Some history…
A Walmart in Texas was shot up in August 2019 when a gunman rampaged through the store using an AK-47 clone. The event is known as the Cielo Vista Mall shooting in El Paso, Texas. He left a manifesto where he claimed to be a follower of Trump and wanted to kill all the illegal aliens in Texas.
Sounds pretty damning. Why it fits exactly the mainstream press narrative of a typical Trump supporter.
Then they got the guy.
Washington Examiner reporter Anna Giaritelli posted the name and a photos of the alleged shooter, sourced to law enforcement. “A law enforcement official in El Paso told me the Walmart shooter is in custody. His name is Patrick Crusius of Allen, a town in Texas outside of Dallas. He is pretty young, having just turned 21 years old this week.
A law enforcement official in El Paso told me the Walmart shooter is in custody. Patrick Crusius of Dallas. Just turned 21 years old this week. pic.twitter.com/CEJh6rYij1
— Anna Giaritelli (@Anna_Giaritelli) August 3, 2019
But don’t ya know, Patrick Crusius has a profile on MyLife.com.
MyLife is an American information brokerage founded in 2002 as Reunion.com.
MyLife gathers personal information through public records and other sources to automatically generate a “MyLife Public Page” for each person, described by MyLife as a “complete Wikipedia-like biography on every American.”
While people can edit their data, the software organization MyLife can change and rewrite a person's profile at will.
So, you would think that the American mainstream news media would take this information and disseminate it to the public? Nope…
On 3AUG19, at 2:46 PM the website MyLife had this profile for the deranged killer Patrick Crusius. It was quite clear. His original profile at 2:46 said he was a registered Democrat.
Look for yourself…
The deranged killer Patrick Crusius is a progressive democrat.
While he was in jail, right after the police caught him, there were some changes made to his profile. How? I do not know. What I do know is that his political affiliation was changed from Democrat to Republican on the day of the mass shooting.
Here is the changed profile. Check the dates and times. Notice what they wrote on the Summary…
Mall shooter has had his past history rewritten.
Yes. The leftists wrote;
"Before becoming a mass shooter / murderer, Patrick was a registered Republican, and Evangelical Christian. A former campaign worker for Donald Trump, he was also a QANON conspiracy theorist, and INCEL. "
Ethnicity was changed to African American, as well. WTF?
Now, if that wasn’t bad enough, it was changed yet again…
Leftists rewriting history yet again.
By Saturday night it continued to be revised. Now including anti-Jewish racial slurs and all sorts of the things that fit the CNN black & White narrative of what a Conservative is.
Progressive Democrat Socialists rewriting the MyLife profile for a mass murdering Antifa member.
Now what can we take from all this nonsense? Well…
Do Not Believe What You Read on the Internet
As far as his political leanings are concerned… traditional conservatives do not harm innocents. Only progressive leftists do. Don’t believe me? Crack open a fucking history book won’t ya?
Last minute commentary…
It seems strange to me that all of a sudden this push for gun bans and Red Flag laws, and "Alt Right" violence. It is almost like the time-table for the Hillary / Socialist take over of the country never reset after the election of Trump.
It's like everything is just following the same timetable that was put in place under Obama.
Here are six posts that discuss this matter in detail…
OK. That being said, let’s move on out of the 1980’s and into contemporaneous Asia…
Bring back the Summer, lover…
I really like this.
I haven’t figured out what it is. Is it a movie? A cartoon? A music video? A narrative? Or what. Whatever it is, I like it.
Imagine this in the USA… not!
You would NEVER see this in the United States. It would be considered cultural misappropriation.
Remember, boys and girls, China is a meritocracy. You must strive to be the best that you can be, or go begging in the streets. There is no room for sloth, welfare moms, and freeloaders.
Remember everyone…
Universities in the United States have been discriminating against Asian students because their success makes racial minorities look and feel bad. Do not think that there will not be some kind of blow-back to their social re-engineering efforts. Ah. You do not mess around with the Chinese. Fools.
As we used to say in Pennsylvania…
You can put on lipstick, curl the hair, wear eyelashes, and put on a nice dress… but a pig is still a pig.
Diversity quotas are like putting lipstick on a pig. It might sound good, it might make the pigs happy, but very few people will actually find the pig beautiful.
Welcome to YiChang…
China has so many cities. Many (so called) towns would pass as large cities in the United States. Here’s an example of the small town of YiChang. Check it out why don’t ya…
Religious girls in Thailand
Just look at these beauties. They are so very yummy.
You know as I get older I really realize that it is our actions that complement our inherent attractiveness. It is how we behave, and how we interact with others that define our overall appearance.
Chinese Aviation
Aviation. I love it whether it is my very own background in American Naval Aviation, or aviation elsewhere, it is an interest and a passion of mine. Yes it is. Sort of like cats, dogs, and pizza. It’s like how I feel about pretty girls and red wine. I love it all.
Here we have a nice video (micro-video natch) concerning Chinese aviation.
Moving up… stay up
The Chinese culture is one of merit. That permeates the entire society. Anyone who tries to cheat, or get special privileges is pretty much shunned. They are known as “Fu er di” and pretty much considered the rich spoiled kinds of society.
Oh yes. The wealthy buy spots for their children in (the easy to bribe) American colleges, but the vast bulk of Chinese society is based upon merit. Every movie, and every song reinforces this notion.
Here is just a small snippet of how this all manifests within the Chinese society.
Yeah. You show that gal that you moved way past her…
Hong Kong Protests
Yeah. There are these “wanna have democracy” protests in Hong Kong. The American media promotes it as a some sort of a “proof” that China is gonna fall apart any day now. Yah right.
Don’t hold your breath.
China and Hong Kong are totally separate entities. Sort of like how Pago Pago in American Samoa is different from Kokomo, Indiana. (Bet ya didn’t know that Pago Pago is a part of an American territory.)
Yup. Hong Kong has their own government and their own laws, and pretty much Beijing allows them autonomy in their affairs. If it didn’t, you would see many changes in Hong Kong that would better fit the traditional Chinese social model. Hong Kong is NOT run in the way Beijing prefers.
Of course, you would never know this, or even have a clue to this situation by only reading American news media. Their role is to keep Americans ignorant of the true situation, huddled and fearful, and easily manipulated to follow heard and group behaviors.
Screen shot of Drudge Report American news aggregator, taken Sunday 4AUG19. What a load of nonsense.
Now, that being said, here’s a video from the Hong Kong government about the situation.
You’d NEVER see this on American mainstream media. It doesn’t fit inside the narrative.
Actually there is so much information regarding this, that I am afraid that I will need to post 4 or 5 videos about the protests to help put things in context. This is done in the next part – part 13…
I have many more videos, but I just cannot put them into a single
post. It will bog down your computer terribly. So to watch the rest of
the videos in this post, please continue…
If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.
Links about China
Here are
some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader,
might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.
China and America Comparisons
As an
American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United
States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is
the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the
British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal
press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Who
doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what
China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in
China.
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a
series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It
is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I
am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series
of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and
enjoyment.
Parks in China
The parks
in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very
mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.
Really Strange China
Here are
some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem
odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events,
while others are just representative of the differences in culture.
What is China like?
The
purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world,
outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they
might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank
you.
And while
America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources,
and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has
done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and
you can see this in their day-to-day lives.
Summer in Asia
Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
You can start reading the articles sequentially by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
Here we continue on our video exploration of Asia. But first, before we begin, let’s take a look at the picture splash at the top of the page. It is from the movie called “The Patriot”. It’s a great movie, and a large degree of effort went into making it as accurate as possible.
ThejumbleofeventsinThe Patriot, forexample, werecreatedby making Gibson’s character a composite ofnolessthan 4 realpeople! Somanyoftheeventsofthe film wereverylooselyinspiredbytruefacts, butthenchangedandalteredtofittheneedsofthedramaticstorythescreenwriterwaslookingtotell.
-Quora
Screen shot from the movie The Patriot. There are those that claim that this fictional movie is not accurate enough for their tastes. Well of course not! It’s a fiction for Pete’s sake. Then as all progressive liberals, they point out one inaccuracy and then claim the entire film is inaccurate. It’s the black and white, the all or nothing. The need to ban peanut butter because less than 0.0005% of children have an allergy. All or nothing. It’s the Marxist way, don’t you know.
Accuracy. Though you would never realize that if you used the internet to research the making of the movie. The “accuracy” of the movie is then put into question because it is a fictional work, when people are actually asking questions about such period events as…
Tying the boyfriend into a sack when he slept overnight.
Young boys being able to shoot guns.
The role of the Loyalists in the colonies.
The role of the German mercenaries during the war.
If you read the internet you will discover that this fictional movie is not accurate. The main characters, aside from one or two historical figures never existed. You will discover that all the more conservative elements were all nonsense, and that the American colonies lived in peace and the Revolutionary War was a mistake made by tax dodgers and swindlers. Well, that is the impression you will get if you used the internet to get your information from. It is thus no question why so many millennial youth hate the United States.
However, you would never get that impression by reading all the anti-accuracy posts on Google and Bing. In fact, you can plot the opinions on the accuracy of the film on two axes. One by political leaning / ideology, and two degree of accuracy. When you do so you get a chart that sort of looks like this…
Plot of opinionated accuracy relative to the movie “The Patriot” by political ideology of the writer of the article.
Of course, to see the “Right Wing” opinions, you need to go to pages 50+ in both Google and Bing. The highest rated opinions are found on liberal platforms, of which are moved to the very front of the search results.
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
Two year old Crawls onto porch
This is another sad video.
This happened in my city of Zhuhai in July 2019. The mother checked on the baby, and he was asleep. So she went next door to buy some vegetables. Apparently the two-year old got up and thought it was a good idea to crawl onto the porch on the 6th floor in the high rise.
He reached up and climbed over and above the glass balustrade rail, then got on the outside and slipped…
People watched in horror and filmed it in real time as people rushed up to the apartment and tried to break in to rescue the baby. But they were too late.
Now a happy ending…
As shocking as that is, it is not uncommon.
Many parents absolutely MUST put fencing on their balconies or run the risk of a child getting into trouble. Here we see what happens when a child tries to crawl through the protective bars…
A happy ending.
Donald Trump visits NK
It’s hard to imagine that the news media in the USA would make a bigger deal than what came out of China. China was ecstatic when Donald Trump was in Korea. Though the American mainstream media picked it apart and made fun of it.
They thought it was dangerous, risky and unpresidential.
The American conservative press thought of it as a good thing, however…
American conservative reaction to Trump visiting North Korea. In general, it was viewed very positively.
Of course, that is in the balkanized United States.
In China, when Donald Trump visited North Korea, he was loudly promoted as a man who was going to bring calm reason and stability to Asia.
Indeed, it’s a mjor big change from the jokes and laughable behavior of the Obama’s and Clinton’s.
Archery in China
Yeah, this is how it’s done Chinese style. I also like the eight-point buck on the wall in the background.
Oh, and by the way, in many parts of China you don’t need a permit to hunt. You just go forth and hunt to your heart’s content. However, if you do abuse that privilege, like trying to round up 300 does (female deer) and instigate some kind of mass slaughter, the police will find a reason to arrest you.
And, getting arrested will be the least of your problems…
American Awesomeness in China
The Air Force bomber B2 is an amazing piece of equipment. For decades it was kept secret and hidden from the public. Even when it was announced publicly, all photos of it, and it’s operation were kept secret and hidden.
That was the case up until Obama became President, and he immediately removed the shroud and cloak of secrecy around many of America’s weapon systems. One of which was the B2 bomber.
Now, today, the Chinese people are well acquainted with this amazing plane as all sorts of videos can attest to.
Snail Races
Yup. It’s a thing. Who’d figure?
I don’t where this is. I do not think it is in China, but the video does come from Asia. Looks like English or Russians enjoying the race.
I have many more videos, but I just cannot put them into a single
post. It will bog down your computer terribly. So to watch the rest of
the videos in this post, please continue…
If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.
Links about China
Here are
some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader,
might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.
China and America Comparisons
As an
American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United
States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is
the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the
British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal
press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Who
doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what
China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in
China.
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a
series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It
is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I
am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series
of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and
enjoyment.
Parks in China
The parks
in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very
mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.
Really Strange China
Here are
some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem
odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events,
while others are just representative of the differences in culture.
What is China like?
The
purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world,
outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they
might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank
you.
And while
America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources,
and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has
done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and
you can see this in their day-to-day lives.
Summer in Asia
Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
You can start reading the articles sequentially by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
Now about the image in the post splash above. This is a scene from the most excellent movie “Unbreakable”. I really love this movie because it is about a man who needs to find his purpose in life. It turns out that he must be the super hero.
Elijah Price: Why is it, do you think, that of all the professions in the world you chose protection?
David Dunn: You are a very strange man.
Elijah Price: You could have been a tax accountant. You could have owned your own gym. You could have opened a chain of restaurants. You could've done of ten thousand things, but in the end, you chose to protect people. *You* made that decision, and I find that very, very interesting.
With regards to the story, Mr. Shyamalan and his crew have constructed something so rich in visual texture while managing to keep the story subdued and character development full of deep-seated anticipation. Every plot point came perfectly without any extra connotations that usually creep into a story such as this (super heroes?). Without any melodrama both Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson give very authentic performances that help the film keep its “Any Town USA” and “Average Joe Six-pack” feel very much alive.
This is a brilliant movie, and it asks many of the very same questions that many men ask themselves when they hit their middle to late 30’s. You can call it the “male menopause” or something else, but what it is rather a reflection of life’s purpose.
Joseph Dunn: I thought maybe because you're my dad... I thought I might be like you... I'm not like you...
David Dunn: You are like me. We can both get hurt. I'm just an ordinary man.
Joseph Dunn: No, you're not... Why do you keep saying that?
No man is ordinary.
Moving on…
Hey! Look what I found in my e-mail today!
Ah. It’s not going away. I received this e-mail on 5AUG19.
Yup! It’s a social justice warrior that is so proud of her censorship efforts. She censors art. She makes the determination of what is good or bad art by way of political ideology. Imagine that.
Read her email to me…
I am so very sure that Idi Amin, Heir Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Chairman Mao would be so proud of her censorship. But then again, this “virtue signalling” isn’t likely to do much aside from landing her a job in a liberal institution where, of course, she would have to endure the casting couch job interview. It’s the Marxist technique. (Just being historical, ya all.)
Of course, I am revolted by this.
Nazi book and art burning. They believed that you needed to purify thought and only have ideologically pure art and literature. Just like all Marxists.
So she judges art.
yes.
She JUDGES art.
It’s difficult to be an artist in the new progressive reality where the Marxist’s all control the levels of power, and the gateways for success. This is a work by conservative Dan F. Gerhartz. Not a progressive darling. Unfortunately his works will fade into obscurity while nonsensical works like oil stained Christian statues will be given priority in modern progressive metropolitan areas.
That is her profession and that is what she studies. However, she does not understand art. Instead she understands Marxist ideology. Nothing else.
In her mind, you are either a sunny and happy progressive, or you are a cockroach that needs to be exterminated. Don’t believe me? Reread her email above.
In her mind, you are either a good little communist, or you are nothing. You become vermin that must be eradicated from the planet.
These people are dangerous.
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
Rufus the good Samaritan
This little video takes place in China.
I named the fellow here Rufus. Why? Because that was the name of the man that helped Jesus carry the cross up the side of the mountain. Rufus.
Rufus. red, the son of Simon the Cyrenian ( Mark 15:21), whom the Roman soldiers compelled to carry the cross on which our Lord was crucified. Probably it is the same person who is again mentioned in Romans 16:13 as a disciple at Rome, whose mother also was a Christian held in esteem by the apostle. Mark mentions him along with his brother Alexander as persons well known to his readers.
-Bible Dictionary
Of course, in today’s hyper politically correct internet, you won’t find any of this information if you look up the name of Rufus. Instead you will find something like this…
The meaning of the word Rufus as found on the Internet.
Detailed, supposedly factual, but devoid of useful content. Rufus is the name of the man that helped Jesus carry the cross. The English forms that were present in 1909 has exactly zero relevance in 2019.
You need to know and understand just how serious the rewriting of history is being colored by the tyranny of California software mega-corporations.
Here, let’s watch a micro-video about another Rufus in China. You go man. Rufus, you are my hero.
Cool Flooring
In China, the technology is mature that permits large scale moving videos of anything placed anywhere. You can see it on the sides of buildings, on ceilings, on walls and on the floors. Here’s a really great application of one such LED display showing moving waves and beach sand on a KTV or restaurant floor.
Now, something terribly sad…
This happened in Shenzhen. It shocks me to my core.
Here is the map of Shenzhen and Hong Kong. Shenzhen has 14 million citizens, and Hong Kong only has 8 million people. To put that into perspective, New York city has 6 million people. There is a constant flow of people in and out of HK though SZ. As many people who live and work in Hong Kong, actually have homes and residences inside Shenzhen.
A mother is walking her son home through a market. High above them, in one of the skyscrapers, a window pops out of the wall, and falls at least 20 floors below. That’s a long… long… long… fall.
Crash!
One minute you are alive. The next minute you are dead.
One minute you are alive.
The next minute you are dead.
Do not take your life for granted. Enjoy every minute as if it is a full treasure. Cherish it. Enjoy it. Savor everything about your life.
Do not take your life for granted. Enjoy every minute as if it is a full treasure. Cherish it. Enjoy it. Savor everything about your life.
Savor everything about your life.
Please don’t take things, and people for granted. They are special. When your dog wants to kiss you on the lips, give him a big hug and rub his tummy. When your kitty wants you to pick him up… come on do so. What’s the problem?
They just want some loving…from YOU.
Viking kitty just wants to spend some time with you. What are you going to do? Watch CNN instead? Mow the lawn instead? Nah. People and creatures are important. They enrich our life. Treasure them.
Live life well…
Live. It. Well.
Well.
Life is too short not to enjoy some fine BBQ. Enjoy it with some friends. And don’t forget the icy cold beer to share with it. Life is far too short not to spend it with friends and loved ones.
Live life well. Live it like it is your last.
Live it like it will be your last.
Treasure the time now.
Smile at those loved ones around you.
Life is short. Live it well.
Life is short. Often too short. Please, live it well.
Public Transport – Japan
Yeah. I guess the monorail is popular in Japan.
It seemed to me that I once saw a Simpson’s episode regarding the monorail. It depicted it as some kind of scam that investors used to fleece the tax-paying public with.
His evil plan.
"Marge vs. the Monorail" is the twelfth episode in the fourth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 14, 1993. The plot revolves around Springfield's impulse purchase of a faulty monorail from a conman. The episode was written by Conan O'Brien and directed by Rich Moore.
-Wikipedia
Anyways, in Japan they use monorails quite readily.
Pretty good rule of thumb: the best episodes usually show a flagrant contempt for the town's citizens (a lot like South Park). In this case, the use of a $3 million windfall a mass transit boondoggle rather than much-needed street repairs. On the other hand, don't you wish town halls can be settled so easily with Phil Hartman and a big musical number? The jokes are hopelessly cynical (read: hysterical) and even Leonard Nimoy gets in on the fun. The whole thing's a treat.
Box Recognition Technology
Ah. I think it’s cool. I like this. I do not think that it is being used in the USA today though it is pretty commonly used all over China. I guess that the USA has some catching up to do.
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The Chinese Business KTV Experience
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Summer in Asia
Let’s take a moment to explore Asia. That includes China, but also includes such places as Vietnam, Thailand, Japan and others…
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Here we look at a wonderful, much under-appreciated, movie with special effects by Ray Harryhausen. It’s title is “Jason and The Argonauts” and it is simply beyond awesome. Words cannot describe what an impact that this move had on me as a young boy in the 1960’s.
But I will try…
There is a spectacular sequence in Harryhausen's most popular picture "Jason and the Argonauts" in which Jason and his crew do battle with seven sword fighting skeletons.
This is surely one of the greatest special effects sequences in motion picture history. There are shots in which the screen is filled with the men fighting all seven skeletons.
This means that Harryhausen would have to move each of the seven skeletons such that they match the chaotic live action footage of the men mock-fighting, shoot a frame, move them again one by one, shoot a frame, and so on. 24 frames make one second of action.
It is hard to imagine how Harryhausen did all the special effects on his films solo (save for his first and last films, on which he had help). And it is not surprising that the skeleton sequence from "Jason" took him four months to complete.
-Great Movies of my Childhood
This was one of those films I always remember seeing as a child and I will absolutely never forgot those skeletons which I think is Ray Harryhausen’s best work.
Ah. The skeletons…
Summary
It’s Greek mythology placed on screen; larger than life.
(Well-known & quite famous) Greek hero Jason takes a group by ship to search for the Golden Fleece. It’s not an easy sail. He uses the latest in nautical technology for the time, including a high-tech ship complete with magical navigational aides. However the crew has to encounter several dangers on the way.
The dangers start to raise their ugly heads when they lay anchor at an island to obtain provisions. You see this island is filled with bronze statues. In case you are unaware, bronze statues at that time was equivalent to swarm drones, and Mach-3 jet fighters.
Since these bronze statues are so valuable, the crew starts to get some funny and crazy ideas. One of the crew decides to go into one of the bronze statue guarded tombs. You know, to “look around”. He sees a beautiful gold sword, and of course… he just has to have it. So he takes it….
Big mistake.
This act wakes up Talos. Talos is the guardian of all the tombs. Thus, Talos comes to life and attacks the crew. Now, Talos is this big terminator bronze statue. It goes on an absolute rampage killing, crushing and destroying everything.
The good news is that eventually Talos is destroyed. Though, not without a cost. For during their escape from Talos, their ship is destroyed.
So, here they are trapped on the island. They start to explore it. They search for food water, and (perhaps) loot. While on the search of the island, they come across a blind man. This poor fella is being attacked by two cheeky Harpies who keep eating his food.
Eventually, they all get captured.
They continue their journey and encounter Neptune (he’s a major player; a God of that time) and arrive at their ultimate destination. Which is the island where the Golden Fleece is.
Before getting the Golden Fleece, Jason must fight and kill a Hydra. A Hydra is a many headed beast that likes to eat humans. Well, (spoiler alert) he does manage to kill it. The best part of the movie is of course those skeletons near the end. Jason manages to defeat them when they fall off a cliff into the sea. Hooray!
This has to be one of, if not the best, of Harryhausen’s movies. And, Bernard Herrmann was responsible for the excellent music.
The Movie
Jason and the Argonauts battles it out with The 7th Voyage of Sinbad as the most popular Ray Harryhausen epic. I know that I have a difficult time deciding which movie is better. (Though, Ray Harryhausen has indicated that Jason and the Argonauts his very own personal favorite. )
They certainly must have had fun filming it.
The crew filmed many of the scenes on beautify sunny Italian locations. These locations gave the movie special significance, and I’m sure the jealously of the rest of Hollywood. For at that time (when the picture was produced) most “sword ‘n’ sandal” movies were shot on Hollywood stages, or barring that, in the California desert a mere few hours drive away.
This movie is chock full of testosterone-filled animation interspersed with actors engaged in theatrical dramatic scenes. The colors, the story line, the visuals, and the novelty all play a significant role in the success of this movie.
In the wake of computer generated graphics, Harryhausen's work may strike some as dated, but this is actually part of its charm, for we will never see its like on screen again; it has a certain visual appeal not found in contemporary films, and Harryhausen's creations always have remarkable personality.
Topping the cake is an absolutely superb score by Bernard Herrmann. This guy is so good, and the music so powerful, that it’s mentally difficult to separate his music from Harryhausen’s amazing images. (This is my plug for this artist.)
At the time, this movie was the F/X dream, for that time period. Much like how the movie The Matrix revolutionized movies and scripts. This movie set a pace and a high bar for other adventures to follow. And, I am sad to say, it was so high that few movies did actually follow.
Jason on board his ship. The film as a whole is very much like a superior sword-and-sandal epic of the 1950s and 1960s, very colorful and over-run with manly men and beautiful dancing girls. A bit slow to start, once the story line is established the pace leaps forward–and we are treated to some of Harryhausen’s most enjoyable creations, including Talos, the bronze statue; two of the most evil looking harpies you can imagine; a really nasty hydra; and Harryhausen’s most famous (and his own personal favorite) bit of work: an attack by skeleton warriors.
This movie is an adaptation of the Greek story about Jason and the Golden Fleece.
Most people will find this film an excellent choice as a “family night” film. As for Harryhausen fans–the film is a must-see, must-own, and must-watch as often as possible!
In Greek mythology, the Golden Fleece is the fleece of the golden-woolled, winged ram, which was heldin Colchis. The fleece is a symbol of authority and kingship. It figures in the tale of the hero Jason and his crew of Argonauts, who set out on a quest for the fleece by order of King Pelias, in order to place Jason rightfully on the throne of Iolcus in Thessaly. Through the help of Medea, they acquire the Golden Fleece. The story is of great antiquity and was current in the time of Homer.
-Wilipedia
Luckily, the movie adaptation doesn’t take too many liberties with the root mythological tale. Though purists would argue that it actually does go off the deep end (This opinion varies considerably depending on which source is consulted.).
In this movie, we have the interplay of the Greek Gods, and their role over the lives of men. The movie places the Gods in a gilded Olympus paradise. The well-paired Zeus and Hera, are husband & wife deities that work out their domestic squabbles by playing chess games. Only the chess games use ambitious mortals like Jason.
All in all, they manage to keep tabs on Jason’s adventures by viewing a kind of celestial television. (!)
Jason and The Argonauts. Jason was an ancient Greek mythological hero who was the leader of the Argonauts whose quest for the Golden Fleece featured in Greek literature. He was the son of Aeson, the rightful king of Iolcos. He was married to the sorceress Medea. He was also the great-grandson of the messenger god Hermes, through his mother’s side.
The Olympian interludes add a wry humor to the proceedings. Though, myself, I found life on Olympias rather dull and boring.
Jason shows up as the “man with one sandal” to fulfill a curse placed on the venal King Pelias. I know, I know… It’s difficult to translate. I just figure that it’s a matter of identity politics and leave it at that.
The wild quest to bring back the prize of the Golden Fleece gets a thumbs-up from the collected deities. I figure that this is mainly because Pelias wants Jason out of the way.
Thus, the King sends along his son Acastus to make sure that everything goes as planned.
With a crack crew of athletes and warriors, including the popular Hercules , Jason sets sail in a proud ship built by Argos. After tangling with various fantastic obstacles (after all, that is what heroes do) put in his path by Zeus, Jason reaches the far-off land of Colchis.
Oh Jason. He falls in love with the sorceress Medea. But what do you expect. He falls victim to treachery. It turns out that Medea’s father King Aeëtes has absolutely no intention of allowing the Argonauts steal his nation’s most prized possession.
A great deal could be written about the numerous choices made in reconstructing the story for a modern movie-going audience, but for our purposes, we are going to zero in on one of the film’s most memorable components. No, not Jason. Not Argonauts, either. I’m talking, of course, about the mountainous man of bronze, Talos.
There’s a wealth of reasons why Jason and the Argonauts continues to entertain over half a century later, and Talos is most certainly one of the biggest.
Literally. Brought to life through the inimitable stop motion effects of the late, great Ray Harryhausen,the towering Talos appears early in the film to give the Argonauts a considerable thrashing after Heracles unwittingly disturbs his slumber.
It’s generally unwise to steal broach pins from the gods for use as a javelin, but Heracles evidently didn’t get that particular memo.
-GRST 202 Blog
Of all of Ray Harryhausen’s movies, Jason and the Argonauts is closest to his heart. In life, he found mythological fantasies more exciting than science fiction monsters. As such, he wanted very much to tell the story of the Golden Fleece in classic terms.
It shouldn’t take much brain power to reason why Columbia Pictures produced Jason and the Argonauts as a fantasy epic in the early 1960s. As one of the oldest known hero tales, Jason’s quest is chock full of what we would nowadays consider archetypal elements of the genre: the stoic protagonist, the repulsive villain, a dangerous romance, a clearly defined objective, impossible odds, and of course, a series of treacherous obstacles that provide the spectacle. In short, it’s an easy sell.
The film is of course now a legend unto itself and contains some of Harryhausen’s most difficult animation and classiest designs.
The bronze giant Talos creates an intimidating sense of scale as it stalks Jason’s men on a beach.
The harpies scream and claw as they’re captured, apparently animated while under a net.
The seven-headed Hydra is Harryhausen’s most successful mythological creation, a beast so well designed that it seems biologically credible.
The skeletal “Children of the Hydra’s Teeth” do much more than top the single skeleton warrior in 7th Voyage. Soldiers battling armies of the dead recur in classical paintings, giving the combat a macabre edge. The sight of Jason and his swordsmen fighting them en masse is also a brilliant substitute for the lame battle scenes of other sword ‘n’ sandal epics.
Indeed, those skeletal beings were a triumph of Harryhausen’s F/X technique. Truthfully, the sequence must have required more animation work than the rest of the movie put together. You can easily see this, as the seven skeletons fight in so many individual camera setups.
Unlike most Harryhausen set pieces, the skeleton battle constantly cuts to new angles. With so much happening simultaneously in each shot, it’s hard to keep up — which prompts the use of words like, “breathtaking”.
Talos, of course, has a history deeply rooted in classical Greek myth. Often considered the earliest conceptualization of a robot, Talos is usually found associated with the gods Hephaestus and Zeus. Sometimes he’s a leftover of the Zeus-created bronze generation, other times he’s the offspring or father of Hephaestus, sometimes he’s a gift from Zeus to King Minos, other times a gift from Hephaestus to Zeus – the permutations are endless.
Regardless of the myth, however, one connection remains consistent: the Cretan word from which Talos derives his name – talios, meaning “sun” – was frequently used by those islanders as a name for the king of the gods himself. Not only does this shared use of the term allude to the giant’s immense power, but it also hints at his role as a somewhat paternal figure. Indeed, Talos was known as the tireless guardian of Crete, a sentinel who would circumambulate the island three times daily to moderate the behavior and livelihood of its citizens.
Moreover, he would vigorously defend his land from any intruders, and in keeping with his solar-derived name, his preferred method of executing perceived threats was, by all accounts, incineration. Depending on who you ask, the giant would either snatch up poor souls and leap with them into a flaming vat, or he would heat up his own metallic body to incredible degrees and scorch his opponents through mere physical interaction.
His love of turning folks to ash was unfortunately excised from his on-screen debut, but that does not make his appearance in the film any less memorable.
Though traditionally depicted as Crete’s conservator, Jason and the Argonauts finds Talos holding watch over the aptly named (and movie-created) “Isle of Bronze,” placed there by Hephaestus to guard Zeus’s armory.
-GRST 202 Blog
Kids back in 1963 reacted strongly to almost everything in the picture.
Tipped off by Famous Monsters magazine, many of us waited anxiously for the next jolting effects scene to begin. We were also thrilled by Nigel Green’s hale & hearty Hercules and cheered the announcement of his name. We fully accepted the idea that a strong man shouldn’t have to be so buff that he couldn’t walk through a normal door.
Tipped off by Famous Monsters magazine, many of us waited anxiously for the next jolting effects scene to begin. We were also thrilled by Nigel Green’s hale & hearty Hercules and cheered the announcement of his name. We fully accepted the idea that a strong man shouldn’t have to be so buff that he couldn’t walk through a normal door.
As in The Magnificent Seven, the assembling of Jason’s all-star collection of sailors / assault troops primed us for what we hoped would be the greatest sword & spear battle of all time. And… and we were not disappointed.
One of the most legendary adventures in all mythology is brought to life in Jason and the Argonauts, an epic saga of good and evil. As a mere boy Jason, the heir to the kingdom of Ancient Greece, witnesses the murder of his father at the hands of his ruthless uncle, Pelias.
The film’s smoothly professional acting impressed me.
With all of those classy English accents flying about, Jason and the Argonauts had a credibility that the various Sons of Hercules lacked. Even the middle-aged Laurence Naismith looked righteously rugged, dressed only in a loincloth and clinging to the prow of the Argo: “Pull ’til your hearts burst and your backs break!”
You see, Talos might be made of bronze, but he draws his life force from a single vein flowing down his back to his heel, where it is stopped by some sort of large plug. Whether described as a nail or a pin, that plug naturally gets pulled at some point by one of the heroes, thus draining Talos of life. In many cases that hero is Medea, who uses trickery to deceive the living statue, while in others it is the Argonaut Poeas who knocks out the stopper with his trusty bow and arrow.
Seeing as how the adventurers have yet to encounter Medea at this point in the film and that Poeas is absent entirely, the eponymous hero himself takes up the deed, acting under the guidance of Hera. Even disregarding the aforementioned characters’ absences, it makes sense to thrust this duty upon Jason in this context. As his first act of true heroism, the defeat of the Talos establishes Jason as a courageous leader and a man fit for this epic quest – someone capable of navigating the many challenges that lie ahead.
-GRST 202 Blog
In his old “Film Fantasy Scrapbook” Harryhausen mentioned that he was impressed by the fact that the hero Jason’s big quest is really a raid for loot. He believed that the Argonauts are little more than thieves.
Those foreigners beyond the clashing rocks have exactly what Greece needs, a magic charm that brings peace, plenty and prosperity.
Jason as a nice-guy hero doesn’t get in the way of the colorful supporting actors and the giant monsters. However, it’s quite odd to see Medea as virtuous. After all, she sells out her father, her country and her religion for a fling with the new boy in town.
Obviously, there’s a reason why the movie doesn’t dig into the psychology behind the myths. And it shouldn’t. For Jason and the Argonauts is a splendid fantasy of spectacular adventure no more and no less.
Jason has been prophesied to take the throne of Thessaly. When he saves Pelias from drowning, but does not recognize him as the man who had earlier killed his father, Pelias tells Jason to travel to Colchis to find the Golden Fleece. Jason follows his advice and assembles a sailing crew of the finest men in Greece, including Hercules. They are under the protection of Hera, queen of the gods. Their voyage is replete with battles against harpies, a giant bronze Talos, a hydra, and an animated skeleton army, all brought to life by the special effects wizardry of Ray Harryhausen.
It’s been a long time since I last watched this movie. It was on a blistery “school day” when all the roads were iced over, and I was around ten years old at the time. Never the less, the torrent that I watched was spectacular, clear and colorful.
The legendary Greek hero leads a team of intrepid adventurers in a perilous quest for the legendary Golden Fleece. Jason has been prophesied to take the throne of Thessaly. When he saves Pelias from drowning, but does not recognize him as the man who had earlier killed his father, Pelias tells Jason to travel to Colchis to find the Golden Fleece. Jason follows his advice and assembles a sailing crew of the finest men in Greece, including Hercules. They are under the protection of Hera, queen of the gods. Their voyage is replete with battles against harpies, a giant bronze Talos, a hydra, and an animated skeleton army.
I have read reports that there were alterations to the original film.
For years, 16mm copies of Jason placed Medea's temple dance way out of sequence, before the Argonauts reach Colchis. The Blu-ray of course fixes this while improving on all earlier home video releases. Grover Crisp of Sony wisely chose a slightly taller 1:66 aspect ratio, which adds image to the top and bottom of the frame while placing narrow pillars at the sides of the HD image. Harryhausen purists will be pleased to see less cropping of the effects. The added color detail of Blu-ray brings out hidden character in the main title artwork, and gives the green highlights on Talos' bronze skin more definition. Likewise, the Golden Fleece is returned to its impressive sparkly-but-organic look -- the golden glow effect has been toned down quite a bit.
What kind of adventure would Jason and the Argonauts be if there wasn’t a beautiful woman to lead and inspire? That’s what tradition, history and legends all say. And what about this lass. Such a lovely and attractive woman.
I do like the movie, and it’s an absolute fact that the movie uses clever camera tricks and some well made miniatures. Yes, of course the effects all look out dated now but they still surprisingly, look convincing enough and at times they are even still simply breathtaking and spectacular to look at.
Especially of course the legendary, fantastic end fight against the skeleton warriors. The story is like good entertainment should be; Adventurous, exciting and simple to follow. The movie truly is non stop fun entertainment to watch with lots of spectacular moments with the legendary skeleton fight as the ultimate highlight.
You don’t have to be a fan of ‘classic’ movies in order to enjoy this movie, everyone should be able to appreciate this movie and be entertained by it, especially when you are a fan of ancient Greek tales.
Something that is not praised enough of this movie is the musical score by Bernard Herrmann. The movie is not exactly filled with impressive and memorable actors. As many movies as I have seen in my life, I don’t think I have ever seen any actors from this movie in any other movie, with the exception of course of Honor Blackman who will always be remembered for playing the Bond girl Pussy Galore in “Goldfinger”.
But this movie clearly isn’t a character-adventure movie, it’s a special effect adventure movie. The special effects are really the most important element of the movie. So for the fans of special effects this is especially most definitely a must see. A movie that should be fun and enjoyable to everyone, of all ages.
The Gods do like to play. Here is a scene where two Gods conspire to have some fun, and create some hurtles for Jason and the Argonauts to overcome. Ah, such is Greek myth.
Heracles is presented, not as a young ripped body builder, but as one would expect a middle-aged strong man to be: Formidable, a little grey and a little swaggering. It’s a perfect imagery.
Argos, the ship builder, is tan and fat, as one would expect the veteran of many sea voyages to be.
The crew looks like what one would expect a crew of ancient Greeks to look like. The acting is not spectacular, but sincere. No one looks embarrassed to be in this movie. It is tight with great special effects…
It’s wonderful for children…
As entertainment this movie is perfect. The movie is a fun adventurous one, with lots of spectacular moments and fights. From a technical point of view this movie is even a masterpiece. The stop-motion scene’s created by special effects pioneer Ray Harryhausen is simply brilliant and makes this movie one of the most influential and important one’s, when it comes to special effects.
The seven-headed Hydra is another technical marvel.
Talos. There are some other nifty creatures for Jason and his crew to battle, but for me, the most impressive of them all turns up first: the gigantic Talos, the Man of Bronze.
I was a kid when this came out, and I don’t think I’ll ever forget that moment when the huge, crouched statue came to life, turned his head towards the two men below him (his bronze head screeching with the tear of metal), climbed off of his pedestal, and proceeded to chase Jason and his men.
What do I like about this movie…besides Harryhausin’s special effects? Besides the frenetic battle with the skeletons and the seemingly hopeless fight against the statue of Talos? I like the way the people are presented, I suppose…
Talos was giant like Godzilla, but as single-minded as the Terminator: all he wants to do is track Jason’s crew down until he kills them all. This gave me nightmares.
Tom Hanks, who was also a kid when this came out, has said: "Everybody thinks that 'Citizen Kane' was the greatest movie ever made. But if you were young in 1963, you know the real answer is: 'Jason and the Argonauts.'"
This is his finest movie. Possibly. His first “Sinbad” film in 1958 had one moving skeleton for the hero to fight; this one has a whole platoon of them, each part painstakingly moved one tiny distance at a time personally by Harryhausen through stop-motion techniques.
In today’s world it may seem below standard compared to computer effects, but for those of us growing up in that time period, the Harryhausen style of special effects will continue to bring back warm memories of those years. With computer graphics, you see it and like it the first time you see it, but then many movies of today have the same and it becomes moot.
Jason and the Argonauts was one of those few movies at the time along with the Sinbad saga that lives on in your heart. The pace of the film is perfectly put together along with the many creatures, 7-headed hydra, huge fish-man, huge metal man and skeletons fighting is what makes it a classic which lives on in the hearts of those growing up in the sixties.
Back in 1963 I was only 5 at the time, but I can still remember seeing and watching the movie and being totally awed with the effects created by Ray Harryhausen. Flying and attacking harpies! My goodness!
I enjoyed this as a kid, but now I look at it with different eyes.
Consider the subsequent misery of Jason and Medea, a gory tragedy of domestic abuse and revenge. It’s sad. No wonder there was no sequel to Jason, as the official follow-up is a timeless lesson. Perhaps it’s a lesson on what happens to women who love ambitious and unscrupulous glory-hunters.
Never the less, even with this glimpse of foreboding, I still enjoy the movie.
Greek myths are coded chronicles of human weakness, vice and crimes. I think that smart schoolteachers, politically restrained from addressing real-life issues, can use the Greek original tales to make kids think about the harsh facts of life.
Jason and The Argonauts is a great film to watch and escape reality. This is one of those movies that you know is not real but you just enjoy it and have fun watching it anyways. I think this film is underrated because it was not given one Oscar nomination. For certain, I think this film should have been nominated for Best Art Direction and Set Decoration, at the bare minimum. Not to mention, Cinematography, Bernard Herrmann’s Original Score and Film Editing.
As I have already mentioned, the scene that I remember the most (and pershpas what everyone else remembers as well) is the Skeleton Fight at the end which took Ray Harryhausen and special effects crew three months to create that entire sequence.
Talos had me frozen with fear and the Hydra and the skeletons were sights my eyes could not believe. I think that for first-time viewers, you might be somewhat primed for something similar to other movies of this kind of adventure, but Jason and the Argonauts will definitely be anything but what you are expecting.
This is a Great movie and I encourage all of “The Lord of The Rings” fans to watch this and see a great masterpiece of classic fantasy and old fashioned special effects.
The fascinating odyssey of Jason in search of the Golden Fleece. This is an adventure movie in the old style, with no pretensions, no pomposity… The genius and pioneer of the special effects Ray Harryhaussen gave us a handful of superhuman creatures who make things quite difficult for the brave Jason.
Some may think this special effects or the movie itself are obsolete. OK, now read this: the movie was made 43 years ago, Harryhaussen made them without computers or digital effects… so, show some respect!! In short: the movie is just fantastic.
Most, if not all, children love the film.
And for all one’s intellectual talk about the vulgarising of mythology and the crudity of the screenplay, there is no denying that this movie is spectacular on many levels.
It is blatantly obvious to all viewers that Harryhausen contrived to bring a lot of sparkle, excitement and fun into the world of fantastic cinema. At this he absolutely succeeded.
To regain his rightful place as the King of Thessaly, Jason must traverse deadly seas to the land of Colchis where a Golden Fleece of magical powers is housed. Assembling a crew of the toughest men around, and aided by the Goddess Hera, Jason and his Argonauts set sail unbeknown that perils await at every port.
For sure it’s got a “B” movie heart, and no film in this genre is without a high cheese quota, but it’s technically one of the genres best and for daring do shenanigans it has no peers.
The gorgeous Mediterranean photography courtesy of Wilkie Cooper (Dynamation 90) goes hand in hand with the boisterously mythical score from Bernard Hermann, while Chaffrey's direction of the human aspects is solid and safe in preparation for Harryhausen's magic to move in and take over. The cast may not cover themselves in glory, and yes at times some of them are a touch wooden, with only Honor Blackman (Hera) and Nigel Green (Hercules) seemingly able to grasp the sense of fun that is meant to be had.
Here, in this movie, we have a big quest adventure containing harpies, a hydra, a giant bronze statue intent on destroying all, clashing rocks, angry gods and a brilliant Harryhausen skeleton army – well it’s all good, really isn’t it!
Here’s an interesting review, but I forgot from whence I dug it up from…
'Jason and the Argonauts' is a truly family fantasy-adventure film, directed with wit and excitement... Beverley Cross's fine script is both imaginative and literate, and Bernard Herrmann's score is stirring...
The word "Argonaut" comes from a tale sung of the strongest and bravest band of heroes ever assembled in Greek Mythology... This myth chronicles Jason's quest for the 'gift of the gods,' and the restoration of his family's throne...
There is an interesting theme that runs through the entire motion picture: man must manage alone without the help of the gods whether they exist or not...
In times past, fate ruled men's lives completely... The gods often amused themselves with the puny mortal men below... Fate is still an important factor in Jason's time (He has been prophesied to overthrow King Pelias...), but man chooses his own life's course... Jason lost his believe in the gods, and Zeus questions what has taken the place of man's faith in the gods... Jason replies: "The hearts of men. "
Jason rejects Zeus' offer to supply him with 'a ship and a crew,' and assembles dozen of Greece's greatest heroes, including the legendary Hercules... Nevertheless he accepts Hera's pledge to help him with the information and advice...
Jason has learned that prayers to the gods are not always answered... "The gods are best served by those who want their help least," Zeus alibis... When humans obtain the help of the gods, they know they must push forward... For instance, when Triton holds the quaking mountains, the Argonauts still must navigate their ship away from the dangerous rocks that continue to fall...
Jason dared to speak of the end of the gods, and challenges Zeus when he eliminates Talos, who guards Zeus' treasures... And when the Argonauts imprison the evil harpies whom Zeus sent to torment a desperate sinner, Zeus admits: "If I were to punish every blasphemy, I would soon loose all loyalty and respect."
Of the gods, Jason says, "In time all men will have to do without them." Such words alarm Zeus, and he recognizes as much to Hera, whom he considers "almost human" for staying with him despite such weakness... But the gods still have enough power to do their will... At the picture's end Zeus tells Hera that he will allow Jason and his pretty Medea to enjoy 'each other,' but he adds, "I have not yet finished with Jason... Let us continue with the game another day."
Todd Armstrong is the young and hot blooded Jason who schemes to seize the Golden Fleece from King Aeetes, and saves Pelias from drowning one day, losing his sandal in the river...
Nancy Kovack is Medea, the provocative high priestess of Colchis who is charmed with love for Jason and aid him in his quest...
Gary Raymond is Acastus, the son of Pelias sent to disrupt the voyage by causing dissension in the crew...
Niall MacGinnis is Zeus who decides to challenge Jason and the Argonauts with many trials...
Honor Blackman is the cunning Hera, the queen of the gods, who outmaneuvered Zeus, and intervened on several occasions to facilitate Jason's tasks... Hera wishes to destroy Pelias because he was treacherous and her temple was profane...
Michael Gwynn is Hermes who transports Jason to Olympus to speak with the gods...
Jack Gwillim is King Aeetes who collects the hydra's teeth from its seven heads, and confronts Jason high on a cliff...
John Cairney is the clever Hylas who uses his intelligence to beat Hercules in a test of skill...
Douglas Wilmer is the nefarious Pelias, who plots a devious plan to send Jason on an impossible quest, in a faraway land, to fetch the magical Golden Fleece...
Nigel Green is Hercules, the bravest and strongest warrior who vows to search the Isle of Bronze until he finds his friend Hylos...
Patrick Troughton is the old and weak Phineas cursed with an insatiable appetite and the flying harpies left enough putrid morsels for him to survive his torment...
'Jason and the Argonauts' is a tale of love and betrayal, friendship and fortune... It is nearly 40 years old but it still holds up as one of the semi-classic mythological fantasy which provides a framework for some splendid stop-frame animation...
Jason and the Argonauts is a fun movie.
The open ended nature of the story does hurt the film, but just come for the classic effects. Fans of mythology will enjoy the adventure, and it could introduce kids to classic stories. Jason and the Argonauts is definitely worth revisiting or seeking out if you’ve never seen it.
It’s also perfect fare for those lazy dog-day afternoons, or snowed-in weekends. It entertains on numerous levels. It is visually appealing, and wondrous overall.
Links
Here’s some links that you all might find of interest.
You can watch it for free if you don’t mind waiting a half an hour to half a day to download the torrent.
For those of you who are unaware. Torrents are parts of files that are spread out in tiny packets all over the internet. You use a "Bit Torrent" client to vacuum up all those little bits and pieces of the file. It then assembles the file into a movie that you can watch. The time that this takes can vary from a few minutes to weeks depending on how popular or obscure your searched file is.
You will need an application to manage the download. I recommend the free application VUZE. To download the video is thus easy. Install VUZE, and then click on one of the following torrent links.
Depending on where you live, you might not have the freedom to access these sites and the ISP might block them from access, or the search engines might black out their search results. Americans, in particular, might have some real problems. Therefore, I listed the most accessible torrent sites available to Americans. Pirate Bay and 1337X. I think that Kick Ass Torrents is still blocked for all Americans.
Movies that Inspired Me
Here are some movies that I consider noteworthy and worth a view. Enjoy.
Stories that Inspired Me
Here are
reprints in full text of stories that inspired me, but that are nearly
impossible to find in China. I place them here as sort of a personal
library that I can use for inspiration. The reader is welcome to come
and enjoy a read or two as well.
My Poetry
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
Small Town China.
Everyone knows about Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Shenzhen. But what about the smaller towns and cities? There are hundreds, if not thousands, of them. Here’s a typical fly through.
War Movies – China.
China is a nation with an enormous and complex history. If you think that the history of Europe, and all the wars and conflicts there were complex, you haven’t seen anything. The history of China if far older, with a far greater number of conflicts, battles and strife.
Not to mention, completely and positively, horrific.
Most people perceive China as a monolith that existed peacefully since its inception until today. That is far from being true. Back when Europe was enjoying relative stability under Roman rule, the Celestial Empire confronted one of the most prolonged crisis.
Between 184 and 280 AD China was divided in three empires – Wei, Shu, and Wu. The three emerged after the breakdown of the Han dynasty and would be again reunited by the Jin monarchs.
All historians base their life loss estimates on two national censuses that give a difference of 38 million. Whether the calculations were accurate will remain a mystery. Nevertheless, one thing is clear. China has a formidable capacity of regenerating its population.
It seems that the Chinese were so happy once the century-long conflict ended that they celebrated mostly in their beds.
-Unknown but not hidden
As such, popular shows, television series, and movies all discuss the history of China from various perspectives. For comparison, in the United States, we have war-themed movies as well. They generally consist of…
World War II
The Vietnam conflict
Cowboys and Indians
Certainly there are a rare handful of outliers, however, most of the movies fit within the top three main groups.
Well, while the USA might have three main groups, the Chinese have around 200-300 sub-groups. All of which may, or may not, involve magic, powers, and God-like beings. To understand China is to understand that they are historically, a culture that has been immersed in war for 5000 years. They are TIRED of it, and want no part of the glories of war.
The Taiping Civil War, the conflict lasted between 1850 and 1864 and produced the most dramatic death toll in history at that time. The rebellion started with the millenarian movement of the Heavenly Kingdom of Peace, which tried to overthrow the Qing dynasty.
As you seen saw far on the list, every significant political change in the history of China came with savagery. The Taiping Rebellion counts as the bloodiest civil war in history and makes the American equivalent look like a banquet.
-Unknown but not hidden
Here’s a video taken from a popular Chinese television show.
Between 1618 and 1683, China completed a full transition from its southern Ming emperors to the new ruling elite coming all they from northern Manchuria. You could say that in this fragment of history the Starks were victorious.
As you suspect, the Ming did not leave without a fight. The Manchu (Qing) retaliation was unprecedented. More than 25,000,000 lost their lives in a conflict that spread across the entire land.
Whole provinces like Sichuan and Jiangnan were completely depopulated, and chronicles mention massacres like the one of Yangzhou where 800,000 innocent souls perished. The expression “women and children first” had a terrifyingly different meaning for the Qing generals.
At this point, we need to stress the fact that Qing Manchurians were foreigners who managed to conquer China mostly through betrayal and manipulation. Their savagery will be avenged similarly just three centuries later.
-Unknown but not hidden
In comparison, while the United States has been in a near state of fighting wars for much of the years since 1776, most of the population has been sheltered from war. They never had to flee their homes, suffer through periods of starvation, or experienced being rounded up by armed forces and killed in large groups.
The only two exceptions were the Revolutionary War, and the American Civil War.
Now, since many Americans haven’t experienced the horrific violence that war can bring, they are easily manipulated by an evil self-serving oligarchy to rant and rave about wars in far-off lands. Like Iran. Like Yemen. Like Libya. Like Syria. Like the Ukraine. Like China.
Sigh.
At first glance, the An Lushan Rebellion seems to deserve just a footnote.
That’s the error most historians make when they fail to check the numbers. More than 21 million perished as a result of an attempted coup that was close to overthrowing one of the most influential dynasties of the time.
Take a good look at the man who can be held responsible for the mess. General An Lushan detonated order and peace once he proclaimed himself emperor of Northern China in 755 AD. Seven years of turmoil followed, during which China lost one-third of its population.
-Unknown but not hidden
Rural Holidays…
In China, the government has specifically designated the use of certain communities for travel, tourism and recreation. In these areas, large amounts of funding pours into the community to render that area especially attractive to visit.
Part of the reason is to generate tourist revenue to non-industrial areas, but also another part of the reason is based on the Chinese concept of tradition. They believe that it is duty as conservative traditional Chinese to take care of their environment, their habitat and their environment.
This belief is top down straight from Beijing, and is still meeting strong resistance from (now very old) progressives. These people were very active SJW in the day and followed Mr. Mao with a fine revolutionary fever. Luckily they are dying out, though the “Dancing Grandmothers” are still a royal pain in the ass.
Progressives, of every age, think only of one thing; ME! All they care about is themselves.
Thank God that Beijing follows a traditional Chinese conservative model.
Bike Paths
China believes that the purpose of government is to serve the people. It’s not a slogan like it is used in the United States. They actually believe it.
In fact, they have enforcement police that constantly reviews budgets and the behaviors of government officials to prevent crime and corruption. And you do not want to get into trouble with the “enforcement arm” of the “corruption police”. That little bribe, or way-sided amount of money, could cost you your eyes, your liver, a kidney or even worse. Not to mention hard time in the Chinese mines cracking rocks for a spell.
Now, one of the things that the local Chinese government does is to increase the livability index of the various cities and regions that they control. This is most commonly handled by planting flowers, creating parks, planting trees, adding ponds, and walking paths. As well as providing bike paths.
Here is a typical two-lane bike path in a smaller third-tier city.
You will see things like this throughout Europe, and maybe one or two places in the USA. In China is mandated to be everywhere. Everywhere.
Let’s continue on…
If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.
Links about China
Here are
some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader,
might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.
China and America Comparisons
As an
American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United
States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is
the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the
British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal
press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Who
doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what
China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in
China.
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a
series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It
is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I
am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series
of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and
enjoyment.
Parks in China
The parks
in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very
mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.
Really Strange China
Here are
some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem
odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events,
while others are just representative of the differences in culture.
What is China like?
The
purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world,
outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they
might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank
you.
And while
America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources,
and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has
done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and
you can see this in their day-to-day lives.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
You can start reading the articles sequentially by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
This is the second page of a multi-post that provides various micro-videos and photos (with narrative) that describe modern contemporaneous Asia. That includes China, Japan, Korea, and Thailand.
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
Summer Festivals
Festivals are conducted all over the world. China, being such a large nation, with such a large diversity of people, have many, many festivals in the summer. They are held everywhere, and the smaller the town (it seems) the more festivals that they like to have.
Funny thing that.
Anyways, in China, the color red is associated with joy and happiness. Thus we can see this little local parade with bright and happy red colors. Not to mention a cute and pretty local Chinese lass.
Having Fun at a Park
Now, who doesn’t like to have fun? I’ve run into a few of them. They troll comments and posting boards. They have a mental illness. Anyone who does not know how to have fun lives a sorry, sorry life. That’s a fact Jack.
In China, many parks have incorporated all sorts of passive and active enjoyments. From glass floored bridges, to swing sets, monkey bars (for adults) and such things as long-duration mountain slides. Like this. Swoosh!
Now, who wouldn’t want to go down off a mountain by speedy sling-ride? Hum?
J-Pop at Night
Ah, here we have beautiful Japan, and one of the local J-pop dance troupes giving it a go to the delight of the attracted audience.
This is a common sight all over Asia. These groups of dancers offer free presentations in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and China dancing to C-pop and other numbers. They dance in Korea, of course, with very famous dancers to K-pop dancing alongside wanna-be dancers. They dance in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand as well.
This particular group is dancing J-pop in Japan to a Japanese audience. You would never see this in the United States. I do not know why, though I do have a pretty good idea. Personally, it might be due to the various regulations you have to meet, the graft that you must pay, and the various fees and surcharges that will crop up the moment you suggest such a thing. Oh, and if you are in a blue state, you will need to pay off the local union boss as well, and make sure that the police are paid for extra duty and the like…
In Asia, they just do it.
It’s usually just a matter of setting aside a folding chair or two and running tape around it to designate an area that you want to reserve. Sort of like this…
And, as viewed from a different angle…
Public Pools
Here’s a typical pool in China. They tend to be open late into the night, as most Chinese swim at night. They do not like to swim in the daylight. I suppose that that makes them “Vampire Swimmers”. The real reason is that the Chinese do not really like to have their skin turn dark.
There are many reasons for that. There is the belief, an inherited one, no doubt that says that only poor laborers have dark skin, while the rich live a pampered life inside the cool mansions and temples. Other reasons include the fear of getting terrible and deep wrinkles. What I do know is that skin-whiting cremes can be bought everywhere as can be UV sunblock with an SPF of no less than 10,000.
What do you think, you think Chinese pools look like this all the time, eh?
Anyways, American media has presented a terribly distorted view of what pools are like. If you Google “China Pools” you will come up with all sorts of pictures depicting very crowded pools just flooded with multitudes of people. So, naturally, that is the impression that anyone would have if they FUCKING ONLY used AMERICAN WEBSITES to research about China. Gosh darn it! Use Chinese websites to research about China , ya ding-bat.
You don’t go into McDonald’s and order a T-Bone steak, done medium raw, eh? Do you?
It’s like how if you search for “China Dog”, you end up with pages after pages of poor dogs being hurt and tortured. Nah. Not even remotely resembling reality. This post is about reality. Not the cardboard cut-out that the American oligarchy uses to keep Americans down and subservient.
Most Chinese only swim at night.
It is rare to find pools, or beaches crowded during the daytime. If you do, you will more than likely see a sea of umbrellas keeping everyone cool and protected from the relentless sun. So if you see a picture of a bunch of Chinese, out in the hot day, all in a crowded pool… chances are that it’s part of a special event (usually hosted by an organization or two). It’s rather unusual.
Sort of like how unusual it is to be eaten by a White Shark off the coast of Cape Cod.
This is what a Chinese pool is like…
And, this is what it is like on a beach…
BTW, did you know that China has an enormous coast line with an enormous network of lakes and rivers. All of which have government mandated recreational facilities. It’s all part of the conservative belief that the duty of the government is to SERVE the people. It is really quite different from the progressive belief where it’s every man for themselves to do “their own thing” what ever it may be.
Anyways, here’s a chick on one of the many, many beaches…
I like this girl. Nice butt.
Here’s another video. This is of a water park. Yuppur they are all over China. Only that they tend to be much, much larger than their American counterparts, and tend to be quite elaborate. As they all need to compete against each other in size and scope. Ah, check it out.
You’ll notice that the one girl is wearing a light shawl around her waist. Well, that is pretty darn common here in China. It’s to prevent the skin from getting dark, don’t you know. And this is how it manifests.
And, while we are at it, here’s yet another gal at a public pool. You know, in all these videos do you see all those hoards and throngs of people that are so very common on a Google Image Search? Nope. I wonder why…
I have been accused of being a propagandist for the Chinese military. Yup, if you can believe that nonsense. I have been called all sorts of names, like a "fifty center", and an "agitprop", whatever the fuck those two pejorative words mean... I haven't a clue.
The only difference between me and the rest of America is that I am out here and reporting on what I see with my own two eyes.
Not mindlessly repeating the power phrases of the oligarchy that runs America and tries to keep them downtrodden and poor.
Anyways, this video…
Too many videos will slow down the loading of this page, so I have
broken this most into multiple pages so that you (the reader) can enjoy.
Please click on the link to go to the next part of this multi-part
post.
If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.
Links about China
Here are some links about my observations on China. I think that you, the reader, might find them to be of interest. Please kindly enjoy.
China and America Comparisons
As an American, I cannot help but compare what my life was in the United States with what it is like living in China. Here we discuss that.
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Who doesn’t like to look at pretty girls? Ugly girls? Here we discuss what China is like by looking at videos of pretty girls doing things in China.
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.
Parks in China
The parks in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.
Really Strange China
Here are some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events, while others are just representative of the differences in culture.
What is China like?
The purpose of this post is to illustrate that the rest of the world, outside of America, has moved on with their lives. That while they might not be as great as America is, they are doing just fine thank you.
And while America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s resources, and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the world has done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day fortunes, and you can see this in their day-to-day lives.
Articles & Links
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
You can start reading the articles sequentially by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
Here, we continue on our exploration of China from the comfort of our
own personal computer, personal laptop, or personal media device. This
is a multi-part post because too many videos will prevent the post from
loading, and also, I tend to get sidetracked on various issues.
Also, please keep in mind that the purpose of this post is to
illustrate that the rest of the world, outside of America, has moved on
with their lives. That while they might not be as great as America is,
they are doing just fine thank you.
And while America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s
resources, and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the
world has done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day
fortunes, and you can see this in their day-to-day lives.
This is why America is currently fighting so many wars.
This is the fifth of a mighty mega-post.
As a quick reminder, to all the new comers here…
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
Enjoying Life (video 25 A&B)
Again, once you are now throwing money away on waste, bribes, corruption, wars in far off nations, and other useless pursuits, you can spend it on yourself. You can spend the money on your friends, and on your nation. They money can go towards “good” causes. Like improving the environment, taking care of sick people, and building the local environment to make it more attractive and livable.
Which is about a vibrant nightlife when everyone walks about and enjoys the night air together.
You can be yourself. You can do the things that have value to you. You can make your own life meaningful, delicious, and worthy of your time. Not only that, but it is cheaper to do so. The value of the paper that we use as money goes up. You can do more things with it!
When America was involved in only one war, not eight, the price of beer was quite low, don’t ya know.
The habit of constantly throwing money away in things that DO NOT ADD VALUE causes a decrease in the worth of the money you have. I will never forget that when I was born, my mother saved up for months to by me a $100 savings bond so that I would have some savings when I would get old. By the time she died, and I discovered the bill, I could barely afford a pizza with it.
The only way the evil oligarchy can control you is to keep you in fear. That is the only way. So they feed a constant fear-based narrative to you 24-7. They want you living as serfs under their control. Do not allow them this.
Take life by the horns and live it, and to heck what anyone else thinks. Live your life on your terms. Do not allow the wealthy and the powerful to control you. Don’t jump when they pull the puppet strings. And of course, don’t react to every news article you read.
Um. Maybe I have been ramming home the idea that money should be spent wisely by the government. This isn’t a very popular opinion.
My opinions are not popular.
But the truth is that Americans have been living like the North Koreans have. In North Korea it’s a never ending threat of war with America. It’s a 24-7 broadcast news about war, and the need to get ready to defend Korea from dangerous aggressors.
Well, it’s the same thing in America.
The mainstream media is all fear-based broadcasting. And the constant need to spend more money on “defense”, and to “protect American interests“. How many time have you heard that phrase, eh?
The United States spends more on national defense than China, Saudi Arabia, India, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and Germany. While the chart above illustrates last year’s defense spending in dollar terms, the United States has historically devoted a larger share of its economy to defense than many of its key allies. Defense spending accounts for 15 percent of all federal spending and roughly half of discretionary spending. Total discretionary spending — for both defense and non-defense purposes — represents only about one-third of the annual federal budget. It is currently below its historical average as a share of GDP and is projected to decline further.
While America has been burning money, the rest of the world hasn’t. Instead, they have been using it to improve the lives of THEIR CITIZENS. They have been building roads, bridges, tunnels, hospitals, infrastructure, and much, much more.
Unless America gets control of the lust-for-war that seems to preoccupy Congress and the mainstream media, the days ahead will be grayer and more sober for Americans. The halcyon days of “riding the gravy train of success” are over.
The game has changed, and America and Americans must step up to the plate and “up our game”.
Dated graph. Note how it constantly updates and redefines the trajectory of the Chinese rise in global dominance. It’s not a mystery that the latest graphs on this subject cannot be found on the internet easily. They hold a message that might cause some gastric distress.
Both the IMF and the World Bank now rate China as the world’s largest economy based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), a measure that adjusts countries’ GDPs for differences in prices. In simple terms, this means that because your money stretches further in China than it would in the US, China’s GDP is adjusted upwards.
And it won’t be too long before China’s economy surpasses the US’s by other measures, too. The Centre for Economics and Business Research (Cebr) predicts it will happen in 2029.
China is well on its way to becoming the world’s leading economy, and is already there in PPP terms. However, in order to surpass the US’s highly diversified, tertiary economy, there’s more to do: China still needs to make the all-important transition from a resource-intensive manufacturing hub to a modern, consumer-driven economy.
-World Economic Forum 2016
All of this, when taken together, points to a very clear picture. That for America to remain the dominant global superpower, it needs to seriously curtail it’s love for war. Otherwise, it will fail to compete.
For America to remain a global leader it must curtail it’s participation in wars.
Who wants us to plunge back into the Middle East, to fight a new and wider war than the ones we fought already this century in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya and Yemen?
Answer: Pompeo and Bolton, Bibi Netanyahu, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and the Sunni kings, princes, emirs, sultans and the other assorted Jeffersonian democrats on the south shore of the Persian Gulf.
And lest we forget, the never-Trumpers and neocons in exile nursing their bruised egos, whose idea of sweet revenge is a U.S. return to the Mideast in a war with Iran, which then brings an end to the Trump presidency.
-Pat Bucanan
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wants America to fight a war with Iran. To this end he is very active in providing financial enticements (bribes) to leading American Senators and Congressmen to support yet another military action, only this time in Iran.
Think about this all for a while. Let it simmer.
In the meantime, let’s just run through some videos and hold back on the narrative for a spell. OK?
Stairs. Lots and lots of stairs. (Video 26)
China is about stairs. Everything always seems to go straight up into the stratosphere. This is true for parks, and buildings, as well as for just about everything else. China is a land that is very friendly to mountain goats.
Amazing Parks (Video 27)
China is also about amazing parks.
I wrote another series of posts on this subject. It might be worth your time to visit them. You can click on the link below, and it will open up in another link. That way you can stay on this thread and keep on reading.
Anyways, parks in China are really quite beautiful. Check out this really nice video to give you a better idea of what I am talking about…
Maybe after seeing this video you might want to go to a park and visit it. You know, you don’t need to book a flight to China and go there to experience the beauty of a park. America is filled with parks all over the place. Why not spend some time and visit one or two yourself locally?
It is time for a nice family vacation. You can just take a day off from work today, and hop in the car and just go out to a local park. It need not be a big issue or adventure. Just do it. Stop on the way for lunch. NOT McDonald’s. Instead go to a local diner. Order a blue-plate-special. Life should be lived. Just enjoy the time that you have.
Swarm Drones (video 28)
China is all about swarm drones.
China has mastered this technology and they have applied it toward public light displays that are nothing sort of amazing. I do believe that eventually it will eventually replace firework displays. This technology has been in Chinese incubation labs for the last five years or so at least.
I am confident that there are military applications of this that the Chinese are exploiting, but of course, it’s not public knowledge. Not in China, and of course, not in the Untied States.
Swarm drones. Check it out.
Robotic Luggage (Video 29)
China is also about robotic luggage. I mean why not. Eh? They make robotic sex dolls, robotic assembly equipment, robotic construction equipment, and robotic patrol boats, why not luggage?
Continued…
OK. At numerous videos for this part, let’s go and move on to the
next part of this post which covers more videos and further commentary
about China.
If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.
Links about China
China and America Comparisons
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is
the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the
British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal
press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a
series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It
is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I
am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series
of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and
enjoyment.
Parks in China
The parks
in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very
mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.
Really Strange China
Here are
some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem
odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events,
while others are just representative of the differences in culture.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
You can start reading the articles sequentially by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
Here, we continue on our exploration of China from the comfort of our
own personal computer, personal laptop, or personal media device. This
is a multi-part post because too many videos will prevent the post from
loading, and also, I tend to get sidetracked on various issues.
Also, please keep in mind that the purpose of this post is to
illustrate that the rest of the world, outside of America, has moved on
with their lives. That while they might not be as great as America is,
they are doing just fine thank you.
And while America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s
resources, and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the
world has done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day
fortunes, and you can see this in their day-to-day lives.
This is the fourth of a mighty mega-post.
As a quick reminder, to all the new comers here…
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
Bubble Hotels (Video 19)
China is about staying is a bubble hotel.
You would think that it would be so very difficult to have anyone to visit a hotel, or park in China. You know, with all the negative publicity about pollution… eating dogs… bird flu sickness, etc. But, China has parks and hotels. While the American media is all rife with anti-Chinese sentiment, the rest of the world (with the exception of the UK, for reasons related to progressive socialism) has a very positive view of China.
High Speed Trains (Video 20)
China is about high speed trains that go just about everywhere.
I’ve covered this in detail elsewhere, actually. If you want to read about what I have to say about this subject, you might want to visit here. (Don’t worry the link opens up into another tab so you won’t lose your place here.)
Anyways, here’s another great micro-video of a speeding Chinese HSR train.
First Day of School (Video 21)
I just cannot help myself. Here’s a screen-shot from one of my all time favorite movies. It starred Rodney Dangerfield, and it’s from 1988. Of course, it’s “Back to School”. I well remember when I first got this movie. I had just got my Beta-MAX player and this video was one of the first that I could watch on it. That and “One Crazy Summer”, and “Better off Dead”. All complete 1980’s classics.
Back to School. Back to School is a 1986 American comedy film starring Rodney Dangerfield, Keith Gordon, Sally Kellerman, Burt Young, Terry Farrell, William Zabka, Ned Beatty, Sam Kinison, Paxton Whitehead and Robert Downey Jr. It was directed by Alan Metter. The plot centers on a wealthy but uneducated father who goes to college to show solidarity with his discouraged son Jason and learns that he cannot buy an education or happiness.
I was in MAJestic training at NAS China Lake, and at the end of the day, I would ride my motorcycle back to the apartment (pick up some take out through KFC) and we would eat chicken and watch Rodney Dangerfield. BTW. Chicken and beer go together quite nicely. They really do.
Chicken and beer go great together. Here are some chicken legs that are very tasty when you dip them in ranch dressing. So are chicken wings, as well. Notice the fine beer. It is fantastic if it is perfectly chilled. I’ll tell you what.
Anyways…
Sorry about digressing so. I do love a great bite of chicken and beer. I love how it smells and how it tastes, and the icy cold beer washes it down just perfectly. Now, back to school…
China is about sending your child off to the first day of school on their own.
Everyone has children, and the parents want the best for them. They take care of them, care for them and try to teach them. This is a major parental role that is part of human nature. While there are extreme variances on the amount of parental supervision between the parenting types, the Chinese do take care of their children.
If you want to explore this subject a little further, you might want to check out these other posts. Don’t worry, by clicking on them, you will discover that they will open up in other links and tabs.
China – a land of traditions (video 22 A&B)
China is a land where traditions are honored, appreciated and emulated.
All traditional conservative nations honor their past. They promote the memories by erecting statues. They hold parades, and children perform skits and reenactments of past events. They learn lore about famous people and recite poems dedicated to them.
In progressive socially liberal nations, the opposite is true. They tear down statues. They rewrite history and disparage heroic individualistic action. Any holidays become bland and are provided generic names, and the celebrations towards them are ridiculed if not banned.
China is a traditional Chinese-conservative nation. America is a progressive-liberal nation.
Chinese factory (video 23)
The American and British tabloids often depict China as the home of “sweat shops” and forced manual labor with “child labor” and other such injustices. In all the years that I have lived in China, and at all the many hundreds of factories that I have visited, toured and worked with, I have never seen anything that even remotely resembles the mainstream media narrative.
Here we have a typical assembly line.
A propagandized narrative that demonizes another group of people, a nation, or a type of person is usually a prelude to eventual war. The only way to prevent war is by diffusing the mainstream media narrative by exposure. Otherwise, the narrative festers than you have such things as the Nazi’s putting Jews in concentration camps, the Rwandan genocide, and the attacks on White People in South Africa.
The NeoCons in the United States rely heavily on the mainstream media to drum up support for a condition of non-stop war.
Quick Commentary (video 23 and 24)
When you are not spending money blowing things up, but rather creating things instead, life takes on an entirely new meaning.
You can enjoy life.
You can have fun. You can dance, and you can be yourself. No matter how strange it may appear. Please, I implore you, don’t be manipulated by the oligarchy to sacrifice your home, your money, your lifestyle, and your very lives for some far off war in a place that (supposedly) has “national security” interests.
Life is far too short not to enjoy yourself.
Continued…
OK. At numerous videos for this part, let’s go and move on to the
next part of this post which covers more videos and further commentary
about China.
If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.
Links about China
China and America Comparisons
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is
the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the
British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal
press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a
series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It
is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I
am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series
of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and
enjoyment.
Parks in China
The parks
in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very
mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.
Really Strange China
Here are
some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem
odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events,
while others are just representative of the differences in culture.
Articles & Links
You’ll not
find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy
notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a
necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money
off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you
because I just don’t care to.
You can start reading the articles sequentially by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
Well, what is China like? Is it a smog filled “hell hole”, or is it a Stalinist storm-trooper stomping dictatorship? Just what the heck is it, and what is it like?
This is a post that I threw together after reading a fellow American justify the eight wars that America is currently fighting all over the globe. As he said “…it our duty to police the world because no one has it better than us.”
Eh? Say what?
Of course he was referring to a United States military presence all over the world. And at this I shake my head. Why is my tax dollars being spent in Timbuktu? Why are we building bridges, bases and helping the Saudi’s fight their wars?
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman wants America to fight a war with Iran. To this end he is very active in providing financial enticements (bribes) to leading American Senators and Congressmen to support yet another military action, only this time in Iran.
Don’t the Saudi Arabians have enough money?
Why do WE have to do it? Why can’t THEY deal with their own issues?
Some background
To best understand what this question and the answers that it garners, we need to have a little background first.
Most non-Americans would be absolutely surprised to discover that the bulk of Americans think that the world is one big garbage dump, and only America is a half-way decent place to live. With this belief, it makes sense that America spread “American-style democracy” all over the world. No matter what the cost.
And so we do. Oh, yeah…
Linda J. Bilmes and Michael D. Intriligator, ask in a recent paper, “How many wars is the US fighting today?”
Today US military operations are involved in scores of countries across all the five continents. The US military is the world’s largest landlord, with significant military facilities in nations around the world, and with a significant presence in Bahrain, Djibouti,Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo, and Kyrgyzstan, in addition to long-established bases in Germany, Japan, South Korea, Italy, and the UK. Some of these are vast, such as the Al Udeid Air Force Base in Qatar, the forward headquarters of the United States Central Command, which has recently been expanded to accommodate up to 10,000 troops and 120 aircraft.
Citing a page at US Central Command’s (CENTCOM) website, they highlight the “areas of responsibility” publicly listed:
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) is active in 20 countries across the Middle Eastern region, and is actively ramping-up military training, counterterrorism programs, logistical support, and funding to the military in various nations. At this point, the US has some kind of military presence in Afghanistan, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, U.A.E., Uzbekistan, and Yemen.
US Africa Command (AFRICOM), according to the paper, “supports military-to-military relationships with 54 African nations.”
[Gosztola points out that the U.S. military is also conducting operations of one kind or another in Syrian, Jordan, South Sudan, Kosovo, Libya, Yemen, the Congo, Uganda, Mali, Niger and other countries.]
Altogether, that makes 74 nations where the US is fighting or “helping” some force in some proxy struggle that has been deemed beneficial by the nation’s masters of war.
-U.S. Currently Fighting 74 Different Wars … That It Will Publicly Admit
Good thing that we are in Turkmenistan. I can see how a farmer in Iowa would trudge down to his Congressman, and demand (by pounding on the desk) that his son goes and fights “the good cause” way off there. Just like you and your relatives have. Just like everyone in Ohio, Kentucky, and Illinois have. </sarcasm>
By the way… where is Turkmenistan? Do you even bloody know?
But those are just the public operations; the public stuff that you might be able to find in a newspaper or two. However, there are many, many secret and covert operations all over the globe, don’t you know.
Beyond that, there are Special Operations forces in countries. Jeremy Scahill in Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, writes, “By mid-2010, the Obama administration had increased the presence of Special Operations forces from sixty countries to seventy-five countries.
Scahill also reports, based on his own “well-placed special operations sources”:
…[A]mong the countries where [Joint Special Operations Command] teams had been deployed under the Obama administration were: Iran, Georgia, Ukraine, Bolivia, Paraguay, Ecuador, Peru, Yemen, Pakistan (including in Baluchistan) and the Philippines. These teams also at times deployed in Turkey, Belgium, France and Spain. JSOC was also supporting US Drug Enforcement Agency operations in Colombia and Mexico…
Ah, yes. His statement stuck to me. I mean, it really did. I thought, you see, that that bunch of ignorance pretty much died off during the Bush years. So I was really taken back to have it repeated again, to my face.
I guess he is just fine throwing away money that is Constitutionally intended to be in our wallets. Hey! Some people don’t care what happens to the money once it is removed from their wallet. They justify it.
Obama was very liberal with the tax monies, as well as the money not yet collected. He gave it away like party favors at a drunk frat party.
However, I for one, do.
It affects MY quality of life. It affects my family. It affects what I do, how I eat, and my general health.
Hey! Dear reader, how much do you manage to save out of each paycheck every month? Not only that, but you and your family (with both working) how much are you able to save? You cannot. That is because of taxes, and you know what? Most of our tax money goes in to wars. War. Endless, endless wars…!
And no amount of bafflegab is going to change that.
Feminist bafflegab.
America is not supposed to be like this.
You have to understand that America, as founded, was the most amazing nation ever to grace this good earth. There are many reasons for this, but nothing can say it better than this…
America's founders embraced a previously unheard-of political philosophy which held that people are "...endowed BY THEIR CREATOR with certain unalienable rights.." This was the statement of guiding principle for the new nation, and, as such, had to be translated into a concrete charter for government. The Constitution of The United States of America became that charter.
Other forms of government, past and present, rely on the state as the grantor of human rights. America's founders, however, believed that a government made up of imperfect people exercising power over other people should possess limited powers. Through their Constitution, they wished to "secure the blessings of liberty" for themselves and for posterity by limiting the powers of government. Through it, they delegated to government only those rights they wanted it to have, holding to themselves all powers not delegated by the Constitution. They even provided the means for controlling those powers they had granted to government.
This was the unique American idea. Many problems we face today result from a departure from this basic concept. Gradually, other "ideas" have influenced legislation which has reversed the roles and given government greater and greater power over individuals. Early generations of Americans pledged their lives to the cause of individual freedom and limited government and warned, over and over again, that eternal vigilance would be required to preserve that freedom for posterity.
-Footnote: "Our Ageless Constitution,"W. David Stedman & La Vaughn G. Lewis, Editors (Asheboro, NC, W. David Stedman Associates, 1987) Part III: ISBN 0-937047-01-5
You see, America today in no way resembles what our Constitution says it is supposed to be. It has turned in to a huge enormous monstrosity.
"Allow me, just now old enough to apprehend the freak show for what it is, to put something radical to my conservative forbearers:
Little about the presentstate of American life is worth conserving. Nothing of what the Founders envisioned remains."
-Andrea Yung
We Americans, living in this mess, move along with the flow and ebb of the political and social winds. Often making the most absurd statements, and rationalizations. Thus this fellow that I was chatting with.
He then went on to say that “We need to police the world. We need to spread democracy... ...the rest of the world is one big shit-hole, seriously.” And then asked me, “Have you ever seen the Mexican side of the border?“
America is very beautiful once you leave many of the urban areas. The sky is often awesome, the roads are wide and often clear of traffic. Many of the houses are large and spacious. When compared to other nations, the United States appears to be (hands down) the most desirable place to live. So it is natural to assume every other place is a hell-hole.
Now this is coming from a guy who doesn’t even has a passport, has never tried to get a visa, and his only experience outside the borders of our country was by watching reruns of Baywatch.
Ah. that old “no one has it better than us Americans” argument. We are so fortunate. Eh. Well, it plays well in Peoria. And it’s a good conversation stopper. As we, as Americans, have all seen the “Save the Children” commercials. That money-generating venture brought images of poverty into the living-rooms of Americans for decades.
So the argument seems to have some validity.
Seems to.
Being older with some experiences…
But, you know, I am from a different generation. I grew up in the 1970’s, and at that time between all the smoking blue haze we came to appreciate the strengths of the American system. We did so cranking Jimmi Hendrix, Robin Trower, Yes, Jefro Tull, Alice Cooper, Boston, Manfred Mann, Traffic, Uriah Heep and Three Dog Night.
"I'd love to change the world... but I don't know what to do.
That 70s show was a television comedy that sort of reflected what it was like living and growing up in the 1970’s.
And…
We knew, since the Vietnam war was still fresh in our minds, that America should be for Americans. We did not need to be off throwing money, and wasting lives in some off-the-beaten track for some globalist oligarch.
We knew that America was wasting money in Vietnam. We knew that people were dying there, and many of them were friends, or relatives. We knew that what ever benefit would come of that war, none of us would ever see that benefit.
We knew that the war was just pissing away American resources.
Americans in Vietnam. We fought and died there for “democracy”. When the truth was that it was an effort with the wealthiest in America to game the situation for their very own personal advantage.
We, almost my entire generation, felt betrayed by those older than us. Those who ended up throwing away lives in far off rice paddy’s, and making laws against marijuana that everyone was obviously breaking. What was the matter with these people? We asked.
Why can’t they just let us be? Why do they have to take too much of our money, regulate too much of our lives, and go off fighting wars that are too far away? Why?
Things were so different the. We weren’t expected to apologize for being born. We weren’t ashamed of our nation. We were American gosh darn it!
Well, that was only the tip of the iceberg.
A few more years passed. Ronald Reagan did put the breaks down to some degree, but he made some other blunders that (sad to say, eventually) set the stage for what was to come…
President Bush Senior spent most of his Presidency trying to undo the good works of Ronald Reagan. In many ways he was very successful.
First, was President Gerald Ford Bush (Senior) who made it his life’s work to undo “Reaganomics”, and implement The New Global Order. Then came a succession of socialist criminals, such as Clinton, Bush Jr and finally Obama.
Each one, in their own way, contributed to the state of affairs that America is enduring today. Each one played a role. Each one created the situation leading to all the complaints that we Americans have about “our” government.
They snipped the brake-lines to the American Constitutional government, and it has been in free-fall ever since.
Free-fall.
Ahhhhhhhhhh.
Those of us, still trapped in a rapidly decaying world try to grasp for straws trying to make out some sense of reason to the hordes of pink-haired ignorance, the black-thugs of Antifa and the BLM that seem to want to put average Americans in concentration camps.
So we listen to the news. Many, well meaning of course, have no idea just how tainted it really is. They believe the news.
They believe CNN when they announce that there are spontaneous protests all over the nation to ban plastic straws.
They believe MSNBC when they announce that President Donald Trump is a full Communist spy on the payroll out of Russia (oh and he likes to pee on bed sheets, too). And they believe FOX when they say that our military isn’t big enough and another “few” trillion dollars would be all that is needed to make the world whole again.
The most dangerous lies are the ones that you WANT to believe. Which is why FOX is just as dangerous as CNN. They both lie. It's just that they focus on different target audiences.
You maybe should open up a window or two and let some fresh air get inside your house. You’ve been cooped up way too long. Maybe since when the Partridge Family, or the Rat Patrol was on television, me thinks.
The world has changed, bub.
Beautiful shanghai at dusk showing the Huangpu river and financial district skyline in sunset. The fellow that I was talking to considered this city, Shanghai to be a “Hell hole” worthy of fighting to “free those imprisoned by the evil communists”.
While you have been sitting there reading American news, American politics, American music, and viewing American-centrist shows, the rest of the world has moved on.
We, as Americans have been boxed in by wealthy and powerful forces. Their objective is for them to achieve “ultimate wealth and power”. As such, they are an evil oligarchy, and they control you, the reader, through media lies, and intentional omissions of news.
Some parts of America has been completely engulfed by this poison. You can see it. It’s not pretty.
Modern Detroit today. At one time Detroit was the automobile capital of the world. It produced products like no other. But successive generations of leadership decided to focus their energies elsewhere, and Detroit fell onto bad times. This is not the only place where this has happened. We have the “rust belt” in the Midwest, and of course, we all know about the crime riddled Seaboard cities.
Luckily, many parts of America has been spared. There are really very nice areas that have not been polluted by this blight. But the dark days are fast approaching.
Beautiful Cleveland, Ohio. This small Mid-West city is typical of what America and is is populated by people that it represents. While there is a major blight in most progressive liberal areas, the rural and smaller cities has so far been spared the progressive influence.
But, why has this blight effected the USA in the first place?
While Bush had the United States fighting in the deserts of Africa, the rest of the world were planting trees, building malls, and rapid mass transit.
While Bush was giving the dictator of some unpronounceable tiny county, trillions of dollars to build up THEIR infrastructure, and build THEIR hospitals, our infrastructure was allowed to decay and fall apart. And when we complained about it, they came after us. Accusing us of tax evasion, or sexual deviance.
While Obama was working on “diversity initiatives” all over the Untied States, the rest of the world were improving their hospitals. While we Americans were being told by Obama to pay more in taxes, to tighten our belts, the rest of the world were having their tax burdens eased, and living under substantially improved lifestyles.
Yes, let me be the first person to tell you, the reader this, while we have been spending bundles and bundles of money in places that you cannot find on a map, the rest of the world has been getting wealthier, better, stronger, and healthier.
Kanye West – Stronger
No longer does the rest of the world look like a “Save the Children” commercial. For the most part, it tends to look like an upscale suburb of Chicago.
“In terms of financial cost, the numbers are staggering. Afghanistan alone has cost a trillion dollars. Just think what we might have accomplished at home if that money had been spent on education, job training, medical research, infrastructure improvements, water purification and sanitation. You can add to this list. It’s all important, but taking a backseat to our military funding.”
-Endless war is bad for America
Scene from the Science Fiction comedy called Idiocracity. It traces the dumbing down of the average American and the resulting effect that it has on society.
So, here’s the slap in the face for you all.
Laugh-In is no longer broadcast on network television, Hugh Hefner is dead, and Playboy magazine is no longer published like it used to be. No one wears “Earth Shoes” anymore, and “love beads” are worn as often as the waitress tells you that your elephant bell-bottom jeans are “groovy”.
Times have changed. The rest of the world has moved on.
The rest of the world has moved on, and I believe that we need to pay attention to what is going on. We need to open our eyes, look around, ask questions and just listen.
We need to look at the world around us.
The American mainstream media has failed us.
Politicized media, from both sides of the spectrum lie and tell partial truths.
There are no “experts” that have all the answers. They are all frauds.
You might need to visit Australia, Germany, Poland, or Thailand. Americans, listen up, the rest of the world does NOT have it worse than America. They have it differently, true.
But, worse… I don’t think so.
The rest of the world could care less about what is going on in the USA. They don’t know what the IRS, who the NSA is, and why the FDA is important. Though, they do have a pretty good idea about the CIA, LOL.
I’m in China, so we are gonna talk about China.
If I were in Australia, I’d talk about that absolutely amazing nation. Indeed, those Aussies have no idea how fortunate they are. Australia is an amazing place. It really, really is. From Kings Cross to Brisbane, it’s awesome from the top to the bottom, and I cannot find anything wrong with it at all.
Beautiful Brisbane, Australia. Australia is a land of wonderful weather, beautiful girls and impressive scenery. Also, you should try their prawns. They are amazing!
And you know, what? The same is true about some other places, like New Zealand. Those Kiwi’s have it good too. I’ll tell you what. The thing is that they don’t go strutting around like a peacock, or like a big cock that is so sure of himself proclaiming “New Zealand is the best!”. They know they are good, and decent. They know that.
Milford sound in New Zealand. Queenstown is known to be the adventure capital of New Zealand, and actually, the world! However, in case you’ve been living under a rock, New Zealand’s beauty is the true draw.
Thailand is in a class by itself and I won’t spend too much time on all the great fun that can be had there. You just need to go out, and experience it yourself. After all, where else in the world will all the pretty ladies call you a “handsome man”, eh?
Getting ready to have some fun in Thailand. It the land of great food, amazing natures, and many, many smiles. This is a photo of a foreigner getting some money out of an ATM. If you are frugal, you will need to husband your money carefully, as Thailand has an enormous tourist industry, and you will need to be careful or else watch your money disappear before your eyes.
Canada has it’s charms, I’ll tell you what. But, it seems too much like a sister-brother nation to the United States. They seem to want to copy whatever progressive pronouncements come out of liberal academia. I know, I know, they speak French, and have politics more in like with the UK than anything resembling America, but it’s a very beautiful nation with some outstanding parks and scenery. Not to mention, just great people.
Still, still, it’s a gorgeous place, with some great fishing. If you ever get a chance to go fishing in Canada go do it. You will not be sorry. Just remember to take some bug-repellent. You will need two or three gallons of it.
Watch out! One of the signs features a large mosquito carrying someone away. Well, maybe they don’t get that big, but you’ve got to be well equipped.
Well, I’m in China. So I am gonna talk about China.
I’m not gonna narrate too much. Just a little wee bit. It will help you, the reader, better understand the context of what is going on in the videos, and that should lead to a better understanding of what you are witnessing. After all, watching Cirque du Soleil without any context would leave anyone confused and disoriented.
So, I’ll just let the micro-videos speak for themselves. You all can come to whatever conclusion you come to. That way the ignorant can’t blame me for “brainwashing” you, the reader.
As they often tend to do.
The following videos describe the China that exists today, and not the “Save the Children” image so rampantly promoted in American media on both sides of the political spectrum. As we used to say in the industry “don’t shoot the messenger”.
They are fun videos. I hope you enjoy them.
Also, please keep in mind that the purpose of this post is to
illustrate that the rest of the world, outside of America, has moved on
with their lives. That while they might not be as great as America is,
they are doing just fine thank you.
And while America has been squandering it’s money, decimating it’s
resources, and just being cavalier with it’s military, the rest of the
world has done the opposite. They have husbanded their day to day
fortunes, and you can see this in their day-to-day lives.
This is a Paleo-conservative response to the hordes of Neocons that argue in favor of global armageddon.
This is what China is. (Video 1)
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
It is rare for a single company to make everything for their products. They buy screws from a screw manufacturer, they get rubber parts from a rubber manufacturer, and get glass from a glass manufacturer. Over the last two decades a system has developed where a company can retain control of it's products, but utilize cheap off-shore labor.
While the rest of the world was “off shoring” their products, China was learning, acquiring, and building. While the rich oligarchy in the USA and Europe were taking their enormous profits and investing in political power, liberal initiatives, and spending the money on lavish entertainments, China was working hard and studying.
It’s paying off.
Scene from the television show “Star Trek”. TOS season 2. It pictured a world where America adopted the way that Rome ruled the world only doing so contemporaneously. I wonder, would Americans recognize the similarities between Ancient Rome and modern Washington DC?
While all this has been going on, some curious trends started to manifest.
Today, many manufacturers all over the world implement “supply-chain management”, which means (in layman’s terms) that they farm out critical sub-assemblies, and parts to other factories in other nations where the manufacturing costs are low. As such, they are able keep their core factories and manufacturing facilities and maintain their local labor rates, social benefits, and environmental controls, but only conduct final manufacture of components.
We know about this every time we call a help line that gets rerouted to India, or when we discover that it will take a month or longer to get a spare part for our American made product.
Many companies do this. Many, that you, the reader, have no idea has so many off-shored components and assemblies. Hey! Surprise!
And now for my first video…
China is about selecting the interior color scheme in your car…
I really love Bentleys. I love everything about them. The primary assembly plant is in Crewe, England. They do a lot of supply-chain management and most of it is with Chinese and local suppliers. One of the things that I admire about Bentley is how they installed solar panels over their parking lot. How’s that for innovation, as well as keeping the parked car cool and out of the hot sun?
Bentley parking lot, all protected from the sun with solar panels.
The point of this is simple. While almost every American company is outsourcing products, parts, and sub-assemblies to China, they are not alone. EVERY developed nation is doing this. America is not the only nation that out sources.
Getting close to nature – Camping Chinese style. (Video 2)
People are people everywhere. We like to eat, talk, and play with our friends. We like to fish, play sports, and just have a good time.
China is about having fun with your friends. Here we talk about camping in the wilds “Chinese style”.
I think that everyone should experience camping with friends and family. In fact, it is the core of some of my greatest memories. Though, for me, putting a tent up often meant getting rained upon. Sigh.
Notice that there are a couple of things that I would like to point out to the reader to take note of and observe.
It is done as a group. The Chinese find strength in friendships. In America, it’s every man for himself, lone-wolf style. So camping in the USA is usually in small groups of two to four people. Camping in China is often a much larger communal experience.
There are different activities to meet the different styles and pleasures of the individuals. Some gals just want to sit at the table, drink wine and watch the guys play. Some want to play around and have a good time, while others want to cook and play some sports. What ever makes your boat float, I say.
Tents are there for passing out, sex, and naps, not to mention spending the night. They are usually the first thing to go up, and the last thing to take down. They serve as the anchor to the campground or camping area. Not the fire-pit, which would be more common in the USA.
They use portable tables, and stoves. It is rare to have open fires in China.
The point of this is that people all over the globe enjoy themselves. They fish. They eat. They get drunk, fall in love, and have a great time. (Maybe not in that exact order.) The rest of the world is not a Brazilian garbage dump or a smog filled desert. It’s not.
New, big and modern. (Video 3)
With two decades of rapid advancement, it should come as no surprise that antiquated infrastructure would be replaced, and new systems put in place. What is surprising is the pace, and the extent at which is is done. The speed, pace, and quantity of new structures is unlike anything seen int he United States.
China is about miles and miles of big, brand new, impressive skyscrapers, modern efficient public transportation, and fun night light shows.
This is not confined to the first top level cities such as Beijing and Shanghai. It permeates the entire Chinese society. It is everywhere. China was not squandering it’s resources fighting eight wars all over the globe, nor policing the Muslim world. They were solving their own domestic issues.
It is evident if you take a gander. Here’s a small town in China. Yes… believe it or not 4 million people is a town in China.
"It's all Chinese propaganda from behind the red-firewall. He's gone full Chicom. All you need to know is to check out his other postings. You shouldn't read or listen to anything he says."
-(Name removed by request)
The point of this is that the money wasted on wars against primitive people in crude terrain for appease the oligarchy could be used on Americans. It could be used on Americans to improve the lives of Americans. Or at the very least to curb the out of control devaluation of the US dollar.
China is all about the party. (Video 4)
Chinese culture is traditional conservative. They follow the model that has been in place in China for 5000 years. They tried the progressive liberal Marxist technique under Mr. Mao and it darn near exterminated 30 million people. Since the 1970's they have implemented a new type of government. They call it "Socialist with Chinese Characteristics".
What it is, using American vernacular, is a Conservative Dictatorship following Reaganomics, and a "Make China Great Today" philosophy.
Being conservative, and traditional, drinking alcohol is part of the culture. All those attempts to cub “vices” stems from progressive and liberal schools of thought.
In past in America, people could drink and smoke and party to the wee hours of the night. This all started to change when progressive liberal values began to “improve” American life, society and culture. One of the first things that they tried to do was ban drinking. It failed, so they started to tax it. Then came smoking. Then came all sorts of restrictions on various other vices. Don’t let the progressive democrat narrative of freedom to “get high” fool you. They only want to control you, and the most effective way is to control access to vices.
If you talk to someone who says that they visited China, but they cannot tell you about the KTV experience, they are either lying or lived a very exclusive life. You know, how Hillary Clinton mingles with the people in Walmart. The Chinese party scene is not like what you have in the United States, where a certain percentage of the population, maybe 20-40% might want to go out and drink and dance. In China, it is ingrained in the Chinese culture.
Everyone, to one extent or the other, parties.
Friends, family and business associates will naturally invite you to dinner and drinks, and if they and you are worthy of friendship, a KTV. If you are not worthy of such an experience then you are, and will forever be, an outsider.
Thus one way that you can determine just how knowledgeable a "Chinese expert" is in the understandings of China, Chinese people, and Chinese culture, is to ask them about their experiences drinking, singing, and hanging out with the Chinese people on a personal basis.
The more experiences they have, the more visceral their understanding is of the Chinese sphere.
China is about going out to the clubs or the KTV’s with tons of pretty girls and getting drunk to the gills…
Most people around the world party and have a great time. This would continue whether or not Americans burn money in wars or not. However, the kinds of parties that you have and the extent of your enjoyment at them are a function of the value of your currency. By devaluing the USD through constant fiscal mismanagement, and endless wars most Americans have to settle for the cheaper kinds of entertainment. It’s beer and Doritos instead of steaks and galas.
China is ENORMOUS. (Video 5)
China is an enormous nation, about the same size as the USA, but with a billion more people.
Yes it is. In fact, it is geographically similar to the size of the United States. That means that it is enormous.
United States is around the same size as China. China is approximately 9,596,960 sq km, while United States is approximately 9,833,517 sq km. Meanwhile, the population of China is ~1 billion people (1 billion fewer people live in United States).Size of United States compared to China - MyLifeElsewhere
A size comparison between the United States and China. They are roughly the same size. Though, I would tend to say that while China has more mountains, the USA has a longer coastline. Also there is a greater difference from the one end of the nation to the other.
China is about amazing parks, scenery that seems like it came from a science fiction movie, and strange and exotic wildlife…
"These videos that you post aren't from China. They are actually from parks in America. You should stop being so deceptive."
-Gonzoberry
The size of the nation does not change whether it is involved in wars or not. However, the quality of the life inside that nation is a function of the amount of money the government spends on it. China has been spending billions of dollars improving China, the infrastructure and the lives of it’s people. America has been squandering it in Yemen, Libya, and Afghanistan, to name of few places.
Diverse range of cultural stratification. (Video 6)
All nations are culturally stratified to one degree or the other. China is no exception. However, the rapid rate of growth over the last two decades has created a melting-pot of social classes, and they all mingle together.
America is stratified. There are the oligarchy that lives in their exclusive areas, and the “upper middle class” which are now almost entirely working for the government, and the rest of us. We are further segregated in where we live. There are the urban liberals, and the rural conservatives, and it is quite a rare thing to fall outside those two groupings.
In China there is a mish-mash of cultures, and social stratification. This can manifest in different ways depending where you are.
China is about getting a $1 haircut on the street…
Social stratification arises through all cultures. The best way to manage it is to provide services based on merit, and ability. The worst way is to provide services based on what group or “tribe” you are a member of, or what your gender is, or some other characteristic based on demographics. China provides services based on merit, and thus the society is homogenized. India and America provides services based on other concerns, and that leads to dangerous social stratification.
Playing with your dog. (Video 7)
Life is about living. have a good time and enjoy yourself. Why not? Eh?
And China is about going for a ride with your dog…
Every nation has people enjoying their time with their pets. This includes China. Where most of China enjoys playing with their beloved dogs. They don’t eat them (at least 99.95% doesn’t). One of the things that aides social stratification is the creation of an “us” vs. “them” mentality. One side demonizes another, and makes them seem inhuman, cruel and evil. Thus the reason for the last five decades of anti-Chinese propaganda originating out of the liberal media outlets in the United States.
Yes, China is many many things.
While America is willing to pour trillions of (taxpayer) dollars into third-world shit-holes all over the globe, China has a different plan. China invests the money for China. In China, it is “Make China First Today”.
In America, you have a percentage of the population that also see the value in this. They voted for Donald Trump, and they wear MAGA hats, which is pretty much an Americanized version of the Chinese slogan.
Here’s to all those people in America that believe that America should be great again, and stand for something.
Here’s to all those people in America that believe that America should be great again, and stand for something. Here’s to a nation that puts God before everything else, and accepts the premise and the promise that Rights are ordained by God, and NOT by man. Here’s to all the people who have fought for and died for this belief.
And…
Looking that the world as it is, first hand, both the good and the bad, gives you a better perspective on your own life. There are good and bad things about the USA, just like there are good and bad things about China.
Continued…
OK. At numerous videos for this part, let’s go and move on to the next part of this post which covers more videos and further commentary about China.
If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.
Links about China
China and America Comparisons
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.
Parks in China
The parks in China are very unique. They are enormous and tend to be very mountainous. Here we take a look at this most interesting of subjects.
Really Strange China
Here are some posts that discuss a number of things about China that might seem odd, or strange to Westerners. Some of the things are everyday events, while others are just representative of the differences in culture.
Articles & Links
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
You can start reading the articles sequentially by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
Let’s continue on exploring China from the point of view of odd, strange and different from that of the “West”.
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
Chinese Malls
Chinese malls are everywhere, and they tend to be enormous. A mall is generally a sign of a healthy and functioning middle class. Before China kicked out the progressive liberal communists, there just weren’t any malls in China at all. Then, when Mr. Deng started to introduce Reaganomics (though under a Chinese-friendly name), the economy flourished, and malls started to pop up everywhere.
Here’s a typical mall. I think this one is in Hong Kong, if I am not mistaken.
Youngsters performing
I personally love this video. It shows some young drummers performing in front of an audience. It’s pretty cool.
Education for the children
In China, every spare moment that a child has seems to be packed into learning. This can be exhausting, and many children want to play some computer games to escape from “the grind”. You cannot blame them, can you?
Well, a number of Chinese parents figure that if you want to play a computer game, how about one where you can actually learn something. Thus, there is a market for business simulation games. This is a small, but growing niche, where you can become a farmer and eventually become a real estate tycoon. Or maybe try your luck moving a factory making widgets into a global enterprise. These simulations help that.
Here, a young elementary student can relax by running a farm and trying to make a profit…
RV Rental
In China you can buy, or rent recreational vehicles. You can do so just like it is done in the USA. Here’s what it looks like…
Chinese Roads
As I have alluded to previously, the Chinese don’t waste their time going up and down hills. They just build over them, and if there is a mountain in the way, they just plow straight through it. They do not mess around.
China is a nation with an enormous population.
Never forget that, eh? There was a reason why China instituted limits on the number of children that you can have. While they have removed this limitation, many Chinese has opted not to have too many children as they are unwilling to take on the increased tax burden.
And that is it. I hope that you enjoyed this posting of the strange and unusual life of China as compared to America.
Thank you for visiting. I hope that you enjoyed this post and maybe learned something new in the process. Have a wonderful rest of the day!
And, may your days and nights be filled with happiness.
If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.
Links about China
China and America Comparisons
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find
in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American
liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music
in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at
that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews.
However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for
investigation and enjoyment.
Parks in China
Articles & Links
You’ll not find any big banners or popups here talking about
cookies and privacy notices. There are no ads on this site (aside from
the hosting ads – a necessary evil). Functionally and fundamentally, I
just don’t make money off of this blog. It is NOT monetized. Finally, I
don’t track you because I just don’t care to.
You can start reading the articles sequentially by going HERE.
You can visit the Index Page HERE to explore by article subject.
You can also ask the author some questions. You can go HERE to find out how to go about this.
I like parks and nature. I like friends, and to share fine wine and song with them. But you can have your own pastimes. Certainly parks are awesome. I love the clean fresh air, and the exercise you get from walking and climbing. I love the new views and the adventures that you can experience.
Each and every park is different. When I used to explore the park in Indiana, back in the USA, I was amazed to discover how each one had their own flavor and “feeling” to it. It wasn’t just the layout, or the types of trees and vegetation. It was the smells in the air, and the humidity. It was the way the sun hit the trees and the care and design of the wooden bridges.
It was the mountains, the rivers, the lakes, the streams and the rocks. It was how the people interacted with each other, and the various little special nooks, crannies and glades that would appear here and there. It was the meadows and the brooks. It was the rustling grass on a perfect croquet playing day, or the dim dark shade of a deep forest tangle.
Each park is special, and each park stands alone. Individually and special.
But for those of you who don’t like to walk or hike, the world has so much to offer. This includes the lights of the big city, and the noisy calliope of people. You see, in my mind, it is the experiences that we have, and who we share those experiences with that defines to what degree we are living life.
A person like Howard Hughes might have been a millionaire, but as a recluse he stopping living life. Ah. That is what mental illness does to you. It affects your ability to function properly.
So whether you wish to go forth and live life in nature, or just want to live it where you are right now, that’s all good. The key is to make the best of what you have right now. That is the key and that is what is important.
Whether it is this…
Notice what they are doing?
That’s right. They are hopping up and down. They are shaking and moving about. Dancing does not have to be done expertly. It’s all about moving about and having fun.
Oh, and by the way, you don’t need to drink alcoholic beverages to have fun. While I love to do so, that’s just me. You need to have fun your way. Do it your way. You do not have to do it my way. And your way can be really different.
It could mean going sled racing with your huskies pulling away, or riding horse. It could mean tromping out though the hills to an isolated brook and fishing for brook trout. It could mean riding quads in and out of mud holes. It could mean going to a friends house and eating nachos and watching Vincent Price movies on their big screen monitor.
Or this…
The important thing to keep in mind is how fleeting life actually is. When you get older, your parents are gone. You find that a number of your close friends are also gone. Some tragically.
You cannot count on anything. All you can do is make your own life count.
Make your life count.
Thank you for visiting. I hope that you enjoyed this post and maybe learned something new in the process. Have a wonderful rest of the day!
And, may your days and nights be filled with happiness.
If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.
Links about China
China and America Comparisons
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
You do not need to live a life like I do. It’s not for everyone…
Indeed…
But there are places that you should see in person; places and life that you should experience. Not through the lens of a camera or a video, but rather with all of your senses… not only your visual and audio senses…
There are amazing places out there. Places that are beyond your comprehension. These places are not found on travel websites listing five-star hotels as approved by California software companies. These are off-the-beaten track adventures.
Yes, they are packaged to appeal. These are fine vacations where you can stay in a five star hotel, or get a “better listed” room in someone’s house. You can travel in style and churn up a month’s wages for the experience. You can bask in the sun on a fantastic beach resort, or go skiing at a famous resort frequented by the perpetually wealthy in the Untied States.
Or, you can just throw darts at a wall map of the globe.
My best and most remembered experiences were those with friends in unremarkable places.
You can go out and have a nice meal and some wine with your loved ones or your friends and just talk about… About what it would be like to just take a chance and go someplace really different. Talk about spending time together with your friends. Talk about the good food, and the things that you might want to do.
Think about all the selfies you all could take.
It doesn’t need much in the way of planning. But it does need shared desire. So, what’s stopping you? What’s stopping you for buying a bottle of cheap wine, a loaf of French crusty bread and a block of cheese? What’s stopping you from dialing your friend right now, this very second and asking them if they want to join you for dinner. What’s stopping you?
They call to you…
Now, let’s go to the next part of this post. (If I throw in too many micro-videos nothing appears and the post takes forever to load.) So to continue, please go follow this arrow…
If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.
Links about China
China and America Comparisons
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.
You can spend the entire day at the park. In fact, if you are up to it, you can go camping, or rent a room at a lodge. You can sleep in your car if need be, rent a hotel room, or just sleep under the stars. And while you are at it…
You all can be enjoying yourselves during a holiday and offer your prayers to God.
A Catholic image of Saint Peter. Do you realize what is going on in this picture? Maybe you should. Think about it.
Prayers are important. Whether you believe in God or not is immaterial. There is a higher force, a higher or finer power that directs everything in this life. You don’t have to take my word on it, but you should at least be circumspect in your actions and decisions towards others. I would advise a more careful appreciation of your actions and your interactions with the people around you.
Say a prayer and ask for guidance.
I personally believe that life should be experienced to the best of your ability. If you have the opportunity, go take it. Explore new things. Go to new places. Do new things. Make new experiences for you, your family and your friends.
Come on!
My best memories are with the people and the pets that I love. Really and seriously. It doesn’t matter if these are childhood friends, or college buddies, or my various friends as I traveled as part of my occupation. My best memories were shared.
Life is meant to be lived. And that does not NOT mean that you do so alone. Your life is to be shared. That is how you obtain adventures and experiences.
It can be on a glass floored bridge…
Or riding down a glass-walled sleuth.
You should spend your time with others. You should value yourself, not by what your occupation is, but by who your friends and family are. For they, their feelings and emotions, are what matters. Not things. Not money. Not a certificate on a wall, or a CV.
People matter.
Not things. Not documents. Not paper.
People are what is important. You need to treasure your chances to make a different in the lives of others. You should appreciate these other people AS THEY ARE and not try to change them. You need to be you… gosh darn it, the best YOU that you can possibly be.
And go forth, and share these trips and adventures with others.
Speaking about your relationships with others…
You know, the real sad thing about all this are the internet trolls and nay-sayers that send me harassment emails and notes. They don’t realize that every time you send or do something hurtful, that goes as a “black mark” in your “soul record”. It’s as if Saint Peter will record everything that you do and take a good hard and long look at your actions.
And no, asking for forgiveness won’t erase your piss-poor actions. It will only put a line through it. It will not erase it.
If you burn your house down, it will not miraculously reappear. If you cut off your arm, it will not grow back. The things that you do in this world will have a direct influence in the quality of your life. Don’t fuck it up.
So, people, make the most of your life. Share it with others. Have a good time. Enjoy it more. Drink some frosty libations and start eating better.
Why have a McDonald’s (fake) burger when you can eat the real thing? Why pay a premium price on a Starbucks packaged coffee and drink it out of a paper cup instead of a proper coffee mug? What’s up with that?
Life is short. Live it well.
This next video is interesting, and it kind of summarizes what I am trying to say.
You don’t need to travel to a different place to make your life fulfilling. It doesn’t have to be a park, or an exciting ride, or a romantic beach. It just needs to be exactly where you are right now… exactly who you are right now, and with the people that are around you exactly as they are right now.
Please, whether it is a park in China, or an Applebees restaurant, go forth and enjoy it with friends, loved ones and any one else you can drag along.
Oh, and by the way, have a wonderful time.
Now, let’s go to the next part of this post. (If I throw in too many micro-videos nothing appears and the post takes forever to load.) So to continue, please go follow this arrow…
If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.
Links about China
China and America Comparisons
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and enjoyment.
Here are some other notes that I have to just throw in… We need to talk about how to get to the park.
When you arrive to the various national parks you will more than likely need to take a train. Busses and cars tend to be slow. You can fly there with a plane, but the bullet trains are everywhere in China, they are reasonably priced, and quick. So most Chinese end up taking a bullet train to the destination and then go to the park from there.
It’s sort of like this…
Riding in a bullet train is a smooth, easy experience.
You have plenty of leg room. The coach is wide and you can easily move forward and backward in the car. There are plenty of bathrooms, with an average of two per car, which means that you typically don’t need to stand outside and wait for the bathroom to be available.
The ride is very, very smooth. It is calm. It is pleasant. It is relaxing.
Chinese High-Speed Rail
China has an extensive network of bullet trains.
China announced that it would implement bullet trains, and a network throughout China at the same time that California announced that it would implement a bullet train that would connect San Francisco to Los Angeles.
China’s announcement was met with laughter.
“China could never pull it off.”
“China only makes junk. It would never work and break down all the time.”
Well, today in 2019, we know that the (American) California bullet train never got off the ground.
It is still billions of dollars in the red. The American engineers couldn’t design it properly, so they had to turn to Japanese assistance. The train route was fraught with problems, and as of today, only 15 miles of track has been laid. No stations are completed. No vehicles are manufactured. And the program has been scrubbed as “unobtainable” by the Governor of California.
Meanwhile, China’s bullet train rail line network look like this…
The Chinese network of high speed rail. This is what it looks like as of 2020. The rail lines are not only more extensive than the California plans, but are actually faster than the trains (that were) planned for California.
The Chinese are proud of their high-speed rail (bullet trains) and they have good reason to be.
I, as a rail enthusiast, admire their efforts and completely enjoy the luxury of rail travel. Yes, I do love to fly, but flying in the United States is more like being herded into cattle cars than anything resembling comfortable travel.
Over the years, the American airlines (of all types) have been dealing with increasing federal regulation, and completely diminishing value of the dollar (thank you Federal Reserve), and so they have been forced to cram more and more people on tinier, and tinier aircraft. Often charging an assortment of extra fees from everything to luggage to snacks and meals on the planes.
Not so in China.
About the Trains
The train stains are all new and China certainly has mastered crowd control. While the slower “old fashioned” trains still exist, and are being used, the bullet trains (high-speed rail) offers a comfortable alternative to those who are willing to pay the extra $5 to ride in roomy comfort.
These trains are fast. There is no denying that. They do slow down when they near a train station, but even then, they are fast. As this video clearly shows…
Once you arrive at the station, you will need to take a car or a bus to the park. That is, of course, unless you don’t have a loved one, a family member or a friend to pick you up.
And, what ever happens, your train experience would typically look a little like this…
Car or Driver Rental
The most common way to achieve this is to use DD or take a taxis.
DD is the Chinese version of Uber. It pretty much works the same as Uber does, except that (it has been my personal experience) that the Chinese driving the cars for DD have to have their cars pre-screened for acceptability, where Uber does not have this requirement (that I am aware of). Thus the DD cars tend to be nice, clean and often new.
However, you will need to navigate through the massive mazes of highways and roads, such as this…
As well as go through all sorts of tunnels. After all, most parks in China are in mountainous regions and the Chinese do love their tunnels.
Tunnels
I’ve got to tell youse guys one thing. Tunnels in China are quite a different experience than tunnels in the United States. It really is. In fact, I could probably write a couple of posts on this subject.
The Chinese are traditional conservative pragmatists.
Government and management obtained their positions through merit.
Public works are to be designed for public use. There must be an element of beauty mixed with functionality.
They are indeed, quite a different experience. Have you ever seen light shows in American tunnels? How about planted shrubbery, trees, or flowers inside the tunnel? How about daily cleanings, sweepings, and washings by the cleaning crews? (China does not have welfare. They have work-fare. You want to eat, you must work.)
Look at how clean these tunnels are…
Now, let’s go to the next part of this post. (If I throw in too many micro-videos nothing appears and the post takes forever to load.) So to continue, please go follow this arrow…
If you want to go to the start of this series of posts, then please click HERE.
Links about China
China and America Comparisons
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is the real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find
in the British tabloids and an occasional write up in the American
liberal press. This is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music
in China. It is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at
that, all that I am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews.
However, this series of posts should serve as a great starting place for
investigation and enjoyment.
Here we spend some time exploring China. In particular some of those outstanding mountains that are just about everywhere.
Please kindly note that this post has multiple embedded videos. It is important to view them. If they fail to load, all you need to do is to reload your browser.
China is a land of some amazing nature and spectacular views. You look at the brochures, and the commercials, and the videos and say “Man oh man, I just have to go there and visit that place!“.
Well, this is what it’s like…
It’s all about the climb.
Every single park in China seems to be located on the top of a mountain. To access it, you need to hike up these endless steps and climb up and up and up. It’s amazing!
You, the reader might think that I am joking, or maybe exaggerating. I am not. All of the parks involve climbing.
I have a theory about this.
I think that over the last 5000 years, as the Chinese population grew and nations came and went, the Chinese people rendered all the land, except for the most difficult to reach, for living and farming. Thus, today, in modern contemporaneous China, the parks are located in the most difficult to reach locations.
It doesn’t matter where you go in China. The parks all require strong legs and a willingness to climb.
Restrooms
Of course, when you go on hikes in China, you will often need to use the restroom. The Chinese will often accommodate this most basic of human needs, and will make a small and easy restroom where you can go to the bathroom in.
China tends to be warm, and thus you will need to keep well hydrated. As you climb, you will sweat. To replenish your precious bodily fluids, you will drink some bottle water, and continue on your way.
Chinese bottled water and prices. Note that in general, 6.3 yuan equals 1 USD.
Eventually, at some point, you will need to stop and take a leak. For many this will require a bathroom or toilet or urinal.
The only problem is that it is often located off to the side and you might need to hike a spell to get to it. It’s sort of like this…
Spectacular Views
The views that one can see once they climb these mountains are often spectacular. In China, for some crazy reason, most of the mountains seem to have nearly perpendicular sides. It’s like a towering cliff face. Yet, once you get to the summit and take a look around, the view can be breathtaking.
Like this…
For some reason all the parks in China seem to be perched up high at the very summit of the mountains. This can be everything from bathrooms to convenience stores. The Chinese do love to climb. It’s almost a national pastime.
Maybe sometime way back in their past they had an affinity for mountain goats. Ugh!
Goats can climb trees and cliff faces. I never could get my “arms” around this concept. As they don’t possess hands, or thumbs to assist in gripping things.
By the way… have you all been as mystified as I have about goats? I mean, really what’s all this stuff about them climbing trees? You know, they don’t have hands capable of gripping or anything like that. Yet they can climb trees.
I boggles the mind, I’ll tell you what.
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tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This
is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a
series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It
is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I
am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series
of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and
enjoyment.
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In America we have RV’s, donut-wheeled motorized trikes, and dirt-bikes. We have jeeps and all sorts of pickups. Well, you know what? So does China. The Chinese love the sport of going “off road” and exploring China.
Here we are doing to have a brief review of this most awesome pastime. Just make sure that your trunk is filled with ice and a fine beverage of your choice. Myself, I prefer a nice icy-cold beer, but wine, VSOP, XO and whiskey are fine alternatives.
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The Chinese love to travel in groups
The Chinese love to travel in groups. They really do not like to travel alone. They view life as something that should be shared. And, I for one, can’t blame them.
Friendships are important and are important when you are involved in shared activities that everyone enjoys. Such things as travel, adventure and exploration are greatly prized by the Chinese. In fact, they form individual clubs and groups around these activities.
This is in many ways like what we in the United States used to do maybe three decades ago. That was before the federal government started to demand open membership in clubs and organizations. First it began with “men’s only” clubs being forced to accept woman, and now we have the Boy Scouts turning into the Queer trans-gendered scouts.
Sigh. America is a progressive utopia today.
Luckily, China doesn’t permit any of this kind of social engineering, so people are free to establish their own clubs and organizations totally independent fro the government. And, so they do…
Outfitting the camper(s)
Many of the Chinese take their four-wheel drive vehicles and outfit them as sleeping quarters. This is the same as what you would see in the United States with “campers” and other rigs of a similar nature. The only difference is that most of these outfitted vehicles are designed for off-road adventures on difficult terrain.
I have seen these vehicles decked out much the same way that the 1970’s van culture would do. They would have carpet inside the vehicles and on the ceilings just like we all used to put shag carpeting in the ceilings and dashboards of our vans and Camaros back in the late 1970’s.
In the 1970’s it was fashionable, for a spell, to outfit the interiors of vans as portable party machines. Then at that time, we would cruse in the van, listening to music, and enjoying our beverages and smokes as we watched the world pass us all by. Many van interiors looked a little like this.
Inside you can find refrigerators (you know, for some frosty beer), as well as high-end stereo and television systems. Some are outfitted with independent air conditioning, power generators, and heaters. It all depends on the owners.
Being China, bathroom necessities are generally taken cared for behind trees or within ravines.
Rather than having one-way tinted or mirrored glass, most Chinese vehicles have insulated glass to keep the UV light out, and a network of curtains that can be closed for privacy when needed. These curtains are often thick and used to help keep the interior of the vehicle at a pleasant temperature.
Many of the vehicles have “pop top” arrangements that open up to a kind of built-in tent. Thus you can have a nice sleeping tent on the top of the vehicle, or one that would fold outwards from the back or side of the vehicle.
Mud Slingin’ on quad bikes
Just like in the American South East, the Chinese have a love for Mud Slingin’. Here, it is often done with quad bikes instead of pickups, the the overall idea is pretty much the same.
No, this is not about calling people names or “digging up dirt” on people.
This is the actual act of throwing mud around – often in a four-wheel-drive vehicle. You can see this kind of activity all over “fly over country” (i.e. outside of the urban centers) in the United States. It doesn’t matter if the soil is red, or if it is black. If there is dirt, and there is water, then you can have loads of fun slinging it around.
Ahhh.
I well remember my first experiencing mud slingin’. It was in the boondocks somewhere between Rock Hill and York South Carolina. We were in this stand of tall pines (in the Carolina’s are there any other kinds of forests?) and a bunch of fellas with huge trucks, with these super massive wheels were tearing up this bog in the middle of a clearing.
This is what American style mud-slinging looks like. It’s a great way to spend the weekend, and hang out with your friends. It’s also a great and wonderful experience when you spend it with friends drinking beer and eating some delicious home-style hamburgers. Hey! Life is too short not to have a good time.
The soil, of course, was red, and so was the mud. As they drove in and out of the bog, the mud would spray over everything. It was a geyser of wet red mud that got into everything. I’ll tell you what. But who cares anyways.
We’d ride around and then of course get some beer from the various trucks. Everyone was really open to sharing some of their fine frosty libations (that’s beer for those of you from Rio Linda), and some fine eating. We later went to a fish fry and I got my first taste of hush puppies. Good eating ya all.
Anyways, the Chinese are the same. They like the same things… fish… beer… motor sports… slinging mud… singing songs. Though they probably never heard of Charlie Daniels, they would certainly be willing to belt out a contemporaneous Country and Western tune or two with me.
You know, like Sam Hunt.
Dirt-Biking up and down the woods
Well, the Chinese also have a real love for dirt-biking.
Here we can see some quad bikes having some fun on some stairs. Of course, they should really be wearing helmets, but they don’t need to. In China, there aren’t laws to protect us from ourselves. They don’t have all these rules to make our life better and safer.
Instead they expect us to take responsibility for ourselves. If we hurt ourselves, then we suffer the consequences, and pay for it out of our own pocket. It’s not the government’s business. It’s ours.
Full Dressers
Here’s a chick on a fully dressed Indian. Don’t ya just love it?
Some cities in China have banned motorcycles, and / or electric scooters. I know that Shenzhen has banned them because so many of the people using them have little regard for the rules of the road and traffic safety. (It’s kind of amazing. You have this super difficult written test and a series of driving tests that you must take, and still people drive like maniacs…)
Heck, it’s like a scene from Momas Family.
Mama’s Family is an American television sitcom starring Vicki Lawrence as Thelma Harper. The series is a spin-off of a recurring series of comedy sketches called “The Family” featured on The Carol Burnett Show and Carol Burnett & Company. The sketches led to the made-for-TV movie Eunice, and finally the television series.
Anyways…
So what the Shenzhen police did was just drive around in big box trucks and collect every parked motorcycle that they could find. They would drive over to the curb and just start loading them up. The Chinese do not mess around.
This, or course, ended up getting many people upset.
Though…
They shouldn’t have gotten upset. The police gave a six months notice that they would do this. But, you know, people being people just never thought that it would actually happen. So they started rounding up all kinds of motorized bicycles.
Anyways, big bikes are popular in China.
When the tariff issues are resolved between Trump and Xi Peng, (and they will most certainly get resolved) you can expect sales of Harley’s to really take off in China. The chicks really love those Harleys.
Caravans into the Hinderlands
Often the Chinese will organize into groups of like-minded folk and go on caravans.
Often they will arrange multi-week long trips and go out exploring the back-roads of China. Often they will communicate with each other by establishing a group video chat on We-chat. You just have the APP run on the dash and carry on with multiple conversations while you drive along.
Here’s another micro-video along these lines.
People, life is about living. If you are not out with your friends, doing the best to provide for your family, and eating well, then you are squandering it. You need to go forth and take the cup of life with both hands and gulp it down in big frosty foam-filled gulps.
Exploring Tibet
The region of Tibet is an enormous geographical area, comprising nearly 25% of all of China. It is mountainous with some absolutely amazing views. Many of my friends have outfitted their vehicles and explored this section of the country with all sorts of adventurous tales.
Conclusion
The Chinese love motor sports just like Americans do. They form clubs and groups and enjoy the pleasures of automobiles and adventure together with their friends. If you, have the same interests, I would suggest that you too go forth and enjoy yourself.
There’s a hill. Out there. Waiting for you.
What’s your excuse?
Links about China
China and America Comparisons
The Chinese Business KTV Experience
This is the
real deal. Forget about all that nonsense that you find in the British
tabloids and an occasional write up in the American liberal press. This
is the reality. Read or not.
Learning About China
Contemporaneous Chinese Music
This is a
series of posts that discuss contemporaneous popular music in China. It
is a wide ranging and broad spectrum of travel, and at that, all that I
am able to provide is the flimsiest of overviews. However, this series
of posts should serve as a great starting place for investigation and
enjoyment.
When I was a youth, in the 1960’s and 1970’s, one of the biggest treats that my father would give us would be a trip to one of the nearby “Army and Navy” stores.
We would hop in the car, and then ride for a spell (depending on the direction) from a half an hour to an hour and a half drive. We would stop along the way to get a soft-serve cone at Dairy Queen, and then spend an hour or so in the store.
They all looked pretty much the same no matter where you went. The nearest ones to us, at that time, were in other towns. We would actually have to cross the country line to get to them. At that time, I frequented a store in Butler, Pa., and another one further up North in Erie, Pa.
I guess that they are a fading American cultural fixture today. They can still be found. However, they are mere shadows of what they used to be. Today, surplus stores can be found in strip malls in the rough part of town or as stand-alone warehouse-style buildings. In the later case, they might be a metal pole building with a huge “Army and Navy” sign in huge letters (often black on yellow) with corrugated metal roofing and very few windows.
For a boy growing up, the world of the Army and Navy store was the first stop and a doorway to adventure. When we entered the building we encountered the world that we dreamed about. here were places with maps, treasures and tools. We loved going through the boxes and exploring the nooks and crannies of the store.
Of course, today they might not advertise themselves so openly. With all the politically correct nonsense, it makes sense to downplay your presence else an army of enraged “water buffalo” BLM females, or black clad SJW types might burn the establishment down.
Anyways, it’s true.
The Big Treat!
When I was a boy, one of the biggest treats that my father would provide for we was a trip to a “Army and Navy Store”. We would drive to the store and park on the street. A quarter would allow us to park the car for the entire day, so usually my father would just put a nickel in the parking meter. That would give us two hours of adventure. That was more than enough time for exploration.
Who knew what surprises awaited us?
Swiss army phone dialer. This was a portable unit, obviously. Don’t ask me how it worked as I haven’t a clue. We can only assume that it was used in conjunction with other gear of some type.
Today, there are still Army and Navy stores, and they still have the same layout and ambience.
When you walk in, your nose is met with that distinct army surplus smell: musty canvas mixed with metal and rubber. Flags hang from the ceiling — an American flag, flags from the different branches of the military, and of course a fine yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flag. There was always a “Confederate” “American Stars and Bars” flag, as well as the mandatory black MIA flag.
There will be racks and racks of clothing. Mostly uniforms and coats. There will be bins of shoes and socks. Webbing and just brick-a-brack that defies description.
Who knows what discoveries that await you at an Army and Navy surplus store/ You can find anything from Vietnam era boots to radio sets fight out of a B-52. It’s all yours for a price. It’s a boyhood adventure.
The Army and Navy Store
Every conceivable space in the store is filled with product. You’ll see bins scattered throughout the floor filled with gas masks, canvas duffle bags, canteens, and nylon combat belts. The shelves are jam-packed with combat boots, cargo pants, and helmets. And the coat racks are stuffed with pea coats and camo as far as the eye can see.
You would find racks upon racks of military clothing. Then, tucked in every imaginable nook and cranny, were boxes of unsorted clothing. Some in disarray, as if they came from a flea market. Others, nicely folded, but never used, as if they came directly from a warehouse or factory inventory.
Near the door would always be a glass counter and a display of the more valuable items. Inside the glass case, you’re likely to find antique military items like Nazi paraphernalia, guns used during WWI, and a plethora of knives. I always liked the “trench knives” that had a built-in set of brass knuckles.
Sometimes the Army and Navy store would be alone in it’s own house, while at other times it would occupy a store front in a seedy section of town. These stores were always quite unique and special.
You could always find compasses, maps, various metals, and all sorts of smaller brick-a-brack in these counters. There also, would be some fine cigarette lighters. Some old. Some new. Many would have military sayings or logos, but Harley Davidson, and the Southern “stars and bars” were always present and popular.
For decades, the army-navy surplus store was the go-to place for individuals looking to find a good deal on products to outfit themselves for camping or hunting. It was the place prepare for the apocalypse on the cheap, or simply pick up a stylish pea coat at a bargain price. For me and my classmates, it was a place of adventure.
For there, we could outfit ourselves for our next big exploratory adventure. Who doesn’t remember how the explorer’s outfitted themselves in the movie “Journey to the Center of the Earth”? For us, the Army and Navy store was THE place to outfit ourselves for our next adventure.
While I don’t recall wheels and piles of hemp rope, they did have rope in smaller quantities. This would include nylon and various other woven types aptly suited for a Naval excursion on the high seas, or perhaps useful for constructing a tree-house ladder. You know, to keep the girls out of the “He Man Woman Haters Club”.
Journey to the Center of the Earth (also called Jules Verne’s Journey to the Center of the Earth) is a 1959 adventure film adapted by Charles Brackett from the novel of the same name by Jules Verne. Göteborg’s widow, Carla (Arlene Dahl), who initially believed Lindenbrook was trying to capitalize on the work of her deceased husband, learns the truth of his secrets from her husband’s diary. She provides the equipment and supplies Göteborg had gathered, including much sought after Ruhmkorff lamps, but only on condition that she go along. Lindenbrook grudgingly agrees, and the four explorers and the pet duck are soon journeying into the Earth.
With the United States fighting in just about every obscure nook and cranny of the world (for reasons unrelated to National Security… but that’s a discussion for another time) there was such a glut of military surplus clothing and gear that Army and Navy stores were everywhere. It almost seemed like you could practically throw a rock in any direction and hit an army surplus store. They were prolific and played a vital role in distributing an over-abundance of government-issued supplies that accumulated during the last ten or so wars.
Outfitters for War!
After World War Two, the extreme excess of government-issued equipment (produced by America’s “arsenal of democracy”) combined to explode the growth and popularity of surplus stores. Indeed, huge amounts of wartime leftovers flooded the market.
Army and Nay surplus stores were filled with all sorts of military gear. You could get everything there. It was a boyhood dream.
Thanks to the United States’ significant involvement in the Vietnam War, army surplus stores were able to restock their dwindling WWII inventory with updated military surplus. If you visited a surplus store as a kid in the 1980s or early ‘90s, a lot of the stuff you saw was probably from Vietnam.
I know that that was the case with what I experienced. There would be a mixture of World War II, Korean War, and Vietnam War gear. In addition there was often a mixture of foreign military gear. I was able to pick up an Africa Korps pith helmet from World War II, and a French paratroop jumper camo cape.
Here is a military surplus desk combo. It includes a chair, a desk writing surface and some fine drawers. All designed for easy transport and quick storage.
To many, the period from after WWII and until the early 1990s could be considered the “Golden Age of Army Surplus Stores.” There was just so much stuff available, and it was so widely dispersed and easily accessible to the public. Instead of ordering something from a catalog, you just had to drive a few miles to one of the many surplus stores in your city.
You could get just about anything there. My brother picked up a World War two Morse code kit in a green canvas carry bag. Who knows the stories that it could tell? Was it dropped behind enemy lines and used by the French resistance? Was it a training device for British Naval saboteurs? Was it used to communicate the successful retaking of the Philippines? Ah, such secrets…
Typical selection of army and nay gear that you could get from a Army and Navy surplus store. One thing, you the reader probably don’t realize, is that these stores are common all over the world. They are available here in Communist China. You can get some great clothes dirt cheap, I’ll tell you what.
My good buddy ended up getting a trench shovel, and a flashlight that had a red lens cover on it. His younger brother picked up this set of dust google that looked like it belonged on the set of the “Rat Patrol” (a television show from the 1960’s). He wore them to the school, and for about a week he wore them every day (supposedly) in class until his teacher had to put his foot down and tell him enough was enough.
Tactical Parachute Shoulder Bag with Latch. Have a fashion-minded daughter? Give her this and see what she might do with it.
Speaking of fashion…
The “Bell Bottom” fad in the late 1960’s came in being precisely due to the popularity of the navy flared (bell bottom) jeans available in the Army and Navy. This was also true for the “Pea Coat” fad that floated up and around in the middle 1970’s.
For the longest time I wore a pair of “aviator glasses that I picked up when I was twelve. My brother, not to be outdone, bought some yellow shooter’s glasses. He still has them. I still go visit the establishments to pick up some cargo pants and gloves with the fingers cut off.
Who knows what vintage discoveries await the boy within the confines of an Army and Navy store. What is there? What elements of history awaits the boy who is ready for discovery?
Yeah. Army surplus stores still exist. You probably have one in your city. But it’s probably not the same kind of army surplus store you may have visited back when you were a kid. It might still have the smells and have the same kind of over all clutter, but something is missing…
If you’ve been to one recently, you likely noticed that fewer of the products they carried were actually “military surplus.” Sure, the stuff might look military-ish, but it was likely bought from a foreign company that manufactures military-ish products instead of from the U.S government, or even a foreign government.
Here is a nice German army shirt. You can tell by the tiny flag on the sleeve as well as the camo pattern. You can find all sorts of military gear in today’s army and navy stores.
Other stuff…
You’ll also see product in the store that you probably wouldn’t consider “military surplus” like work pants and shirts, consumer camping gear, etc. In short, what I am trying to say is that in today’s army surplus stores there’s less army surplus.
Two big factors are contributing to the decline of true military surplus products in the marketplace. These were, or course, [1] the changing nature of war in the late 20th century and [2] the advent of online shopping.
Polish field switchboard. It’s amazing what finds that be discovered when you venture forth into an Army and Navy surplus store.
While the United States is indeed busy fighting all over the world, how we do it has changed. (The US Military is currently fighting seven wars! Thanks to Barrack Obama.) No longer do we throw legions of troops in an engagement. Instead we use selection. We use skilled soldiers. We use drones.
Indeed, war has changed dramatically since Vietnam.
Instead of engaging in large-scale conflicts that require a draft with many millions of soldiers fighting on the ground, the U.S. military (in all branches) has shifted to a much more streamlined and surgical approach to battle — one that involves a smaller, well-trained, all-volunteer force.
Whether you purchase American military surplus gear or foreign military surplus gear, the finds will certainly surprise. Who knows what little jewels can be found amoungst the clutter?
For example, there were over 10 million American soldiers who served in Vietnam, while only 2.5 million served in the most recent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because our most recent conflicts have required fewer soldiers, the military has required less equipment. Because the army requires less equipment, there’s less military surplus to go around to all the army surplus stores around the country.
But there are other reasons…
Companies that make military gear for the various alphabet agencies (IRS, CIA, FDA, FAA, ICE, DHS, etc…) supply Army and Navy stores as well. There, you can outfit your gear to include FBI tactical vests, light jackets emblazoned with the IRS logo, and all sorts of related gear.
That being said, 9-11 was a boon to the militarized police forces, and armed alphabet agencies. Now, every one from the NSA, FAA, FDA, IRS to the DHS and ICE require state of the art uniforms and gear. So while it might look like there as a dearth of “pure” military hardware, and a glut of cheap-Chinese knock-offs, that is just a reflection of the changing nature of the American government.
Today the emphasis is NOT on a large military force fighting in a far off land. Instead it is on a militarized collection of government agencies whose charter is on controlling the American population. It sounds harsh, but it is true. You just need to open up your eyes and take a gander. You can see this emphasis in the Surplus stores.
You can also read about how the United States government is busy stocking up on riot gear. You can read about it HERE.
Much of the gear found in Army and navy stores are representative of urban police forces and crowd control. Obviously all black uniforms are suitable for either the Nazi SS and Gestapo, the American IRS or the DHS. When fighting in a military theater, the best uniforms possess a camouflage pattern.
Compounding the shortage due to smaller, more limited military engagements is that — thanks to the internet — army surplus stores now have to compete with the government itself in selling surplus military inventory.
The U.S. government has an online store where the public can buy military surplus direct, thus cutting out the army surplus middleman and saving the buyer some money. Thanks to competition from the government’s direct-to-consumer sales, army surplus store owners have had to slash retail markups on their products from a plump 100% to a smaller 30-50%.
You can equip yourself and your loved ones with some pretty fine riot-gear. All you need to do is go to your friendly Army and Navy store and get some of their surplus population control gear. There are some great deals in batons, and protective padding.
The New World of Army and Navy Stores
Because of these two changes, the [1] streamlined wars and [2] the internet, the once robust army surplus store industry has taken a hit. There’s just less inventory to go around, and less money to be made in the business.
Who can forget the scene where Bruce Willis is in the Army and Navy store (or was it a pawn shop?) and decides to go after his tormentors. Ah, what a scene. As with the Kill Bill movie, the victor gets the truck (Pussy Wagon), or in this case the chopper.
To keep shelves stocked with military goods, even though there’s less government-issued military surplus available, stores have taken to importing military surplus “knockoff” products — stuff that looks like military surplus, but really isn’t. Instead it is equipment for urban riot control and police force use.
Some stores have shifted their focus from being military surplus dealers to antique military dealers. 20th-century military gear — once considered ordinary surplus — is now considered “vintage,” and collectors are willing to pay top dollar for these antiques. Army surplus stores that have been in business for awhile have used their networks developed over the years to become savvy peddlers of 20th-century military collectibles.
Never the less, if you’ve visited an army surplus store lately, you probably noticed they just aren’t what they used to be — that the quality and quantity of the selection of products isn’t the same.
But still…
These places are just fine for exploration and discovery. This is most especially true if you are a boy in your early teens. It’s an experience that all boys should be exposed to. (That and hardware stores, but that is a discussion for another time.)
Serbian Military Surplus Leather Magazine Pouches, 4 Pack, Used
These stores still exist, and the desire of boys to explore and go on adventures hasn’t at all diminished. I argue that we should feed this latent need of boys. As such, the exposure to an Army and Navy store is a must stop for all young Americans.
Conclusion
Time has a way of changing things. One of the treasures that existed when I was growing up was the presence of Army and Navy stores. I urge everyone to spend some time and enjoy a visit to one of the few remaining stores that exist in the United States. Who knows, maybe you can relive some forgotten boyhood dreams and share the experience with some close friends and relatives.
While today, I have little need for such items, I cannot help but be intrigued by them and coveting of many an odd item or two. I can’t help it. It’s the “pack rat” inside of me, not to mention the “Boy Scout” in me that screams “Be Prepared!” I am sure that one or two plastic mortar round cases might make a nice waterproof storage item for…
…things. I’ll find a use for them. You just wait and see.
Life & Happiness Related Index
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Posts Regarding Life and Contentment
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growing up in America. Often, I like to compare my life in America with
the society within communist China. As there are some really stark
differences between the two.
More Posts about Life
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about ones actions as they contribute to happiness and life. They are a little different, in subtle ways.
Stories that Inspired Me
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