Random Confusion
Well, boys and girls, I’m in a feisty mood so I’ll try to level this out with some good news, some observation and some criticism.
Last week, I was (GASP!) without a cellphone for 5, count ‘em, 5 days! It was pretty bad. I did have many people say to me that ‘isn’t it wonderful to have that interlude of quiet…?’
No, it wasn’t. I felt detached and unhooked and incomplete and off balance too. And I still had my IPad and my laptop. For someone as inept as I am when it comes to technology, I certainly must be one of Steve Job’s original ‘Love Children’. All these electronics have become part of me and while I, like everybody else, get aggravated with some or all of it from time to time, the enjoyment of use they give me far outpaces any major negative. I missed being able to talk to people and being able to communicate on the fly. An addiction? To some degree but I’m also addicted to Chapel Hill, good books, writing and lots of other fun things. So, try it for 4 or 5 days voluntarily (mine was not-had to set up new email on a new phone and get a whole lot of data transferred over in a very careful fashion). Maybe you’ll like it but I bet you won’t
Speaking of good books, here are some Recommended Reads that pleased me enormously.
-Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham-Wonderful, elegant look at a young man’s evolution from inward to outward.
-East of Eden by John Steinbeck-A Classic, two California families, fascinating characters including a titan of pure Evil, the importance of ‘choice’…This one was Steinbeck’s favorite.
-The Last One Hundred Days by John Toland-The end of World War Two in the West, a giant jigsaw puzzle of combat and politics, deceit, cruelty and salvation. Loved it.
-Robert E. Lee, A Life by Allen Guelzo-This is ‘Put on Your Big Boy Pants’ history. Have just started it and it’s a gem. No hagiography here. Treason and Saintliness. A complete work.
Have you noticed the creeping de-personalization and automation of day to day life…More and more businesses just open with what a waggish friend of mine calls ‘Voice Mail Jail’. More and more grocery stores and others funnel more and more of us into the bleep and blip of self check out. And my bank no longer has tellers or a night depository. It’s dark and virtually boarded up inside. Almost all transactions are with the ATM in the parking lot. To me, this is a sad thing. I understand. Economic Efficiencies. And the ongoing culling of the people herd. So it goes…
Note: Next Blog will be a Murdaugh summation. There’s enough meat on the bone now to really start gnawing-though I’m certain there is plenty more to come. I have strong thoughts on all of thibody f train wreck and too, it’s going to help me tee up my next book which will be some of this and that and also incorporate a strange true story suicide of a fallen once a rock star money prodigy ‘found in a residence in Charleston’. ‘In a residence…?’ Hmmmmm….this has been reported nationally but has not been mentioned anywhere in our local Charleston papers. Odd I think. So, will be starting the birddogging on that soon. It has a trashy feel to it, I think…
The ever-inflating hypocrisy of the Woke media continues to amuse and alarm me. Now, don’t get me wrong. I detested and do detest Trump. I’ve often wondered who in his family bothered to teach him anything approximating ‘nice manners’. And the New Yorker and The New York Times and the Washington Post and the 3 major networks do hate and bash him so. And they are all so in the tank for Pelosi and Schumer and Biden, it really is breathtaking. And the New Yorker, well, it seems like a long time ago but she had wonderful cartoons all the time; no more. Every now and then there would be one or two each week that were really funny; now it’s almost all so P.C., it hurts. And all the articles are about fairness and social justice and equity and yet, all their ads are for big rich money and dalliances such as Tiffany, Neutrogena, Private Equity Investment Banks, Hermes, thousand dollar watches and private clubs in the islands-just to name a few among many.
There’s such a disconnect here. The Limousine Liberals keep riding. But remember what The Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher once reminded us: ‘The problem with socialism is that after a while, they run out of your money.’
I’m writing and sending this on Election Tuesday before the results come in tonight. Will be interesting to see what happens in Virginia and New Jersey and Minnesota this evening. Tea leaves? Smoke signals? Politics as VooDoo? The tossing and reading of the ancient bones?
Now just a bit more.
Explain to me what the Pope and Biden talked about for 75 minutes. Biden comes out and says His Holiness says I’m a good catholic and I should keep taking communion. This looks like pre-arranged papal pap to me