Big V's Thoughts for King George (and a few others too...)
As usual, this will be random but surely of substance.
-I want to come out of the blocks with this wonderful rip against all the namby pamby tree hugging Chicken Littles out there.
It’s taken in great part from a letter to Barron’s that was posted back in early October of last year.
I dare anyone to tell me the author is misguided or wrong.
‘Petroleum products are so much more than fuels. Practically everything we buy contains plastic, vinyl, acrylic, paint, glue, etc., all of which are derived from oil and gas. Pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, fertilizer and elastomers are also created from oil and gas derivatives. Modern transportation is dependent on fossil fuels and will continue to be for decades. Most electricity is dependent upon hydrocarbons. Wind turbines are made of fiberglass and rosins that come from fossil fuels; ditto solar panels. All of the metals and glass to make electric vehicles are produced using fossil fuels. Global food production and distribution is dependent on fossil fuels.
The global economy would crash and there would be famine if we “end fossil fuels now.”
s/Steve K./transmitted by email to Barron’s
Now, all you dreamers and pollyannas can go back to your ostrich holes.
-The current Small Business Administration estimates that more than $200 Billion, at least 17%of the $1.2 trillion in pandemic loans the agency doled out, was disbursed to “potentially fraudulent actors.”
Uh, is anyone responsible…? Pitiful and Infuriating.
-New York City’s streets are lined with about three million parking spaces. It has more than 800,00 residential buildings that produce about 24 million pounds of waste a day. Commercial businesses produce another 20 million pounds daily.
And competition for curb space is soaring from entirely new sources: bike lanes, bikeshare docks, dining sheds, rideshare pickups, Amazon deliveries, electric car charging stations, cargo bike loading zones and more.
In other words, it’s a Blivet. Three pounds of shit stuff shoved into a one pound bag.
Welcome to the Rats’ Paradise. UGH. I’ll take Manhattan-maybe…
-Is this just me or am I onto something? Grocery stores are usually, even in the early morning hours, pretty cheerful, even lively. Drug stores are depressing and draggy. Why is this?
-Did you know that Dr. Suess-yes, that beloved Cat In The Hat Dr. Suess, had a wife with a debilitating illness so in the midst of his fame and adoration, he divorced the wife and married her best friend. Nice.
-I have grown to basically hate lawyer ads. I cannot get away from the picture of maggots climbing all over piles of injured flesh. They all say the same things, over and over again and they are always trying top the crowd. We’re the biggest. We’re the most experienced. We get our clients lots of money. By the way, do any of these people who are getting all this moola look the least bit hurt or injured. The sums flashed up on the screen just do not jibe with the happy faced recipients. And now, the trend now is that because they got ‘big money’, they were able to pay their ‘old’ bills-the idea of course being have a wreck, get hurt, get money and pay off old debt. Some inducement!
Recently I saw one lawyer ad up in North Carolina that floored me and another down here that made me laugh out loud because of its incomplete stupidity.
The North Carolina ad was shot from floor level in a men’s room. All you saw was pants down around socks and shoes. There was was-no I’m not making this up-a big roll of toilet paper on the tiles that had been partially unrolled. Tasteful. And the door swung open, the lawyer, obviously satisfied with whatever, grinned as he cinched his belt up. He began to speak and I reflexively clicked it off. Wonder what the come-on punch line was…”I can get the job done for you too.”…Sweet Jesus!
The ad being shown down here is well, stupid. There’s been a wreck, the lawyer on a voice over is asked if he can meet the folks at the hospital. He says he’ll be right there and hangs up.
Uhhhhhhh….Oh, just by the way-what hospital? Pitiful.
-Truer words never spoken- “Nobody on their death bed even said ‘I wish I’d spent more time at the office.’
-I love National Geographic magazine. I’m happy to admit I only read an article or two every now and then. But Lord! The photography! Spectacular! You travel and thus think and imagine with every page.
By the way and also, National Geographic puts out a huge, magnificent Atlas Of The World. Get one, open to any page, dig around. It’s good for your mind. You’ll treasure it forever.
And get some books with great art in them. Collections of The Louvre, the Museum of Modern Art, The Guggenheim, Monet, Van Gogh, wonderful photography, whatever…Make a good drink, sit down in a quiet place and slowly, thoughtfully, turn the pages and enjoy. It’s a great therapy.
Now, on the other hand I believe I am about done with the New Yorker. I have subscribed to it for years and years-primarily because of the wonderful cartoons and way back when, lots of interesting articles and writing.
Looks to me like school’s out on the sagging, all-too-woke, leaning tower of left rag. The cartoons are no longer funny-they’re all politically correct or inside joke not funny and the writing has become boring and obscure. So, don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out.
Now, a few book reviews of recently completed reading.
-CRIME NOVELS OF THE 1960s/2 Volume Box Set
Nine Novels in all. Put out by Library of America.
Finished the second volume. As I said about the first volume, the small print is well-worth the squint.
This is great, classic stuff.
-Also from Library of America, JIMMY BRESLIN-ESSENTIAL WRITINGS
A great columnist. Prolific. He always found the angles that got to the guts of it.
Always observant, always empathetic, often funny.
I’ve since ordered lots more Breslin.
-WATERGATE-A NEW HISTORY by Garrett M. Graff
Spectacular, All-Encompassing, Reads like a true-crime novel and a damn good one.
Mr. Graff goes to the head of the class
-Richard Russo’s ‘Sorta Next to Saratoga’ Trilogy.
NOBODY’S FOOL, 1993
EVERYBODY’S FOOL, 2016
SOMEBODY’S FOOL, 2023
The first two are wonderful. The protagonist Sully is a marvelous good guy-not so good guy. The third falls flat. Sully has died. He was the central pivot. Reminds me of the three Godfather movies. The first two were classics. The last was a dog.
-THE BURNING OF THE WORLD by Scott W. Berg
The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 and its aftermath.
A fascinating book-the Fire is horrible and huge, the aftermath (the sort of thing that never really got explained until now) full of political intrigue, power playing and tectonic shifting that spurred Chicago to become what she is now. And if anyone seeks a real tutorial on how to and how not to play politics, this is spot on. A fine read.
And lastly, an admission of ennui and thus, defeat.
Every now and then, I get into more rarified air than I have any business seeking.
Recently, I was inspired (ETOH help?) to get Edward Gibbon’s DECLINE AND FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE.
Six Volumes, totaling over 3,000 pages in miniscule print and English prose of the most tortured variety.
I tried. I swear I tried. I promised I would read 10-15 pages a day. After about two weeks, I began to flag and so thereafter I just put it down and did not want to pick it up again. And I’m not. I guess somebody’s going to get a nice ‘show off’ set to put on a shelf on their house and thus maybe impress their fiends and neighbors. I just want to get it out of here.
Getting back to normal now. Got a good one on Israel’s renown intelligence service MOSSAD infiltrating Iran’s nuclear secrets (which came out before Israel’s disastrous failure of six months ago-Hmmmm…what the Hell happened?) and also another on one of the giants of the ‘modern’ Arab world, Gamal Abdel Nasser who reshaped just about everything.
So, enough! Off and running, chasing Spring. Everyone please stay safe and keep reading and thinking!
My very best,
Vernon