There’s a Person in There

It has only been 4 days since my last report on my son, but he seems to have changed a lot during that time.

When we brought him home, he was a jiggly ball of flesh that pooped and yelled. There was a little more to him than that, but not a whole lot more. He wasn’t totally incapable of thinking. He was smart enough to decide he liked bottles better than his mother. He did have a very limited number of modes, though. Angry mode. Hungry mode.

Actually, I think that covers it.

This month, everything changed. At first, we got glimmers of smiles. Now, he has periods of obvious, overwhelming happiness. This is nice, because in the beginning, he didn’t seem to have much in the way of positive emotions. He has also developed a very strong attachment to his mom.

I guess it makes sense that newborns aren’t the most positive people on Earth. It doesn’t do a newborn a great deal of good to tell the world he’s happy, but if he’s upset, everyone around him will try to fix his problem.

His negativity was a test of our patience. You want to be upbeat with your newborn, but it can be trying when you’re getting somewhere between zero and 4 hours of sleep a night and every time you interact with him, he screams as loud as he can, sometimes for quite a while. When the positivity starts to show up, you feel weight dropping off your shoulders. You realize how hard you were working, contributing virtually everything to the relationship and absorbing the very real pain of loud crying.

He screamed when he was hungry. He screamed when we changed him. He screamed when we bathed him. He screamed while he tried to poop. He screamed for other reasons we never figured out.

When a baby is screaming, you feel pressed to fix him, but often, you don’t succeed. Repeated failure leads to a feeling of powerlessness, like the feeling you get when you try to contact an airline for customer support. It’s discouraging, but you can’t quit.

At least with a baby, you know the problem isn’t that an entire industry is designed to cheat you.

Here’s an interesting thing I never thought about until this week: adults lose their voices, but babies don’t. They keep right on going. If I screamed as much as a baby, I’d lose my voice in an hour. How do they do it?

Earlier this week, we noticed that he was smiling a lot more than he had the week before. Yesterday and the day before, things really ramped up. Now he lights up with joy. His whole face shines with it. And we are finding out how to make it happen.

His favorite thing is the diaper game. You flop him onto the changing pad, and while he’s lying there, you take a new diaper and put it over his face. Then you pull it away. Then you put it back. Then you pull it away. He thinks this is the greatest activity there is. You put the diaper on a face that looks moderately happy, and when you pull it away, the smile is wide, the eyes are shining, and he is wiggling in ecstasy.

It also works with other objects, but right now, the diaper is king.

Yesterday, he started whacking his hanging toys in a much more vigorous, prolonged, and determined way. He must have gone half an hour the last time.

He has started trying to talk. It’s not impressive. He’s not ready to give elocution lessons. But it’s definitely an effort to speak. No words, obviously, but he is trying to express himself.

He thinks his mom is the greatest. She started spending more time with him in order to deal with some feeding issues, so they ended up lying in bed together a lot. He can’t get enough.

His new thing is the mom alarm. He sleeps next to her with one hand against her side to make sure she’s always there. If she breaks contact, he wakes up and and lets her know how he feels about it.

Their closeness has caused a problem. He wants to sleep with her all the time. I don’t always know what’s happening at night, because I conk out and sleep with a recently-developed dogged determination. I learned she has been letting him lie next to her all night.

Babies are not supposed to sleep in their parents’ beds. This is a new rule. New by my standards. They sometimes get crushed and suffocated. Also, adult beds are softer than baby beds, and it is believed the lack of support can cause crib death by making it harder for babies to breathe.

You’re not supposed to let babies sleep on their stomachs. You can’t even let them sleep on their sides. Because our son has been sleeping with Mom, he has gotten used to sleeping on his side. He also rolls onto his stomach to sleep.

I didn’t know this was happening, or I would have done something.

Now he hollers when we put him in the bassinet, and regardless of where he is, he may try to roll over. His mother wants to let him be, because moms spoil their kids. I have to be bad cop parent and put everything right. Now Mom is the parent who makes life cushy and cozy, and Dad is the guy who shows up to ruin everything.

We have to put him in the bassinet from now on, except when everyone is awake, and he is going to yell until he realizes he’s not going to get his way. Mom thinks it’s bad to let him yell. Dad knows it’s important for him to learn that yelling won’t always get him what he wants. He has to learn he can’t have everything his way all the time. Otherwise, he will sleep however he wants, and we could wake up childless one morning.

Mushy thinkers believe babies this young can’t be spoiled, but it’s very obvious they can, so I pay no attention to them. My son can’t be allowed to run the house. He can’t be encouraged in manipulating us.

When my sister was tiny, she used to tell adults off. She would put her hands on her hips and lay into them. The family thought it was funny, and they encouraged her. She became a hopeless brat and manipulator.

She always have to have her way. If you don’t do what she asks, she makes you miserable until you do, even if it’s something unimportant. No one can stand her. She has no real friends. Both of her parents said God should take her if she wasn’t going to change. She lost her law license, and she will never get it back. She has a felony conviction, as well as some felonies that were hushed up. She was disinherited more than once. That’s what can happen when you let your soft heart put your child in charge.

When a baby is very, very young, it’s important to get up and act when there is trouble, and sometimes its cries indicate real problems. This conditions you to get up and bounce around the house like a frantic pinball every time the baby isn’t happy. That mindset has to be recognized and destroyed. It’s not appropriate after the first few weeks. Eventually, your child has to get up and bounce around when YOU make noise. Your child has to fear you.

The “milestone” guidelines are not always helpful. They say a baby should not sleep on his back until he’s a year old. They say he should not sleep on his back until he’s at least 7 months old. They also say he should not sleep on his back until he can roll onto his stomach and back onto his back by himself. Who is right?

I think this kid will be rolling over both ways, at will, within a month. He is extremely strong and vigorous. His neck is like a steel spring. He kicks like a mule. The only thing preventing him from walking is his inability to balance.

He keeps exceeding expectations. I don’t know whether this is normal. I didn’t know it could happen. It must be a big blessing, but here we are, first-child parents, tabula rasa, and it’s one more challenge we have to figure out without much help.

What do we do when he is fully able to decide how he wants to sleep? We can’t stand next to the bassinet from dusk till dawn, turning him over repeatedly. Is it okay to tie his hands? No idea. If he can roll over, and he’s only 4 months old, should we let him do what he wants?

We have to find out.

Personally, I have doubts about the whole crib death approach. My best guess is that demons cause it, and medical science will never admit that. I have seen demons, Yeshua has visited me, and I have received miracles, so my outlook is different.

It’s very common for demons to attack people in their sleep. For some reason, demons love to stand beside beds or at the foot or head. It’s common for people to wake up and see them. I’ve seen a lot of them. My mother saw one. You probably know people who have seen them.

One thing they love is to shut off your air and paralyze you. When they do this, you may not be able to move, speak, or breathe. I have never been unable to breathe during these events, but I have had a very hard time speaking. Sometimes when these attacks occur, you will see demons in your dreams.

Many years ago, in a dream, I saw a beautiful young woman. I asked her who she was, and she said, “I’m a demon.” She pointed her right hand at me, and I could barely speak. I don’t remember how I worked it out. At least she told the truth.

I’ve told about the funniest demon visit I received. It happened here in this house. I woke up and saw a strange shape over the bed. I can’t recall exactly how it looked, and it wasn’t clearly defined, but I could tell it was feminine. It arched over the bed like a crane.

Demons don’t scare me at all, but I really hate them. When I saw this thing, I was furious. Not fully aware of what I was doing, I said, “Get out, BITCH.”

I doubt Yeshua ever said that to a demon.

I think crib death is caused by spirits that overcome weak and/or unprotected babies. I don’t think it could happen here. Since my wife and I have been together physically, spirits have not come to the bed.

This boy is developing fast, so I have to get on top of things. I thought I had a long time to prepare the house. Maybe I don’t. Kitchen knives, chemicals, tools…what if he starts getting into stuff next month?

It’s nice to see his systems come online, even if we’re not ready for all of it. He smiles when we change him. He likes his baths. He can see us and follow motion at least a couple of yards off. We’re getting a much-needed return on our investment. It will be great when everything is operational.

I just heard some squawking. Looks like someone is up and ready to give orders and present demands. Maybe if I stay in here just a little longer and stay really quiet, Mom will change him before I go check on him.

POTUS, not POU

What is more amazing? Seeing an American president and vice president stand up to a parasitic foreigner in the Oval Office, telling it like it is, or seeing half of America condemn them for doing the very thing they are supposed to do?

Ukraine–more accurately, Ukraine’s current government–is not important to American interests, yet it has sucked up something like $350 billion in various forms of aid, depending on whom you believe. Ukraine wants more. Russia, on the other hand, is a necessary partner for the US because of China’s exploding influence. We have done nearly everything we could to anger and disrespect Russia (not just Putin), and we have driven Russia into China’s eager arms.

I keep saying I have never seen anyone explain why we need to put ourselves out for Ukraine. This is still true. I check occasionally, and I have never seen Ukraine supporters provide a good rationale.

I will discuss some arguments I have seen.

1. Helping Ukraine weakens Russia’s war machine.

First of all, why do we need to weaken Russia’s war machine, and why do we call it a war machine? We don’t call the UK’s military a war machine.

Russia has no plans to retake Europe. It has disputes over little bits of territory, but that’s about it. It would have settled for small pieces of Ukraine had it been able to get concessions from Zelenskyy, and I’m sure Putin knows he will never get the entire country, which brings me to my second point.

Russia’s military doesn’t really need to be weakened. We have seen how it performs, and it’s a big relief. Barring the use of nuclear weapons, Russia is a feeble opponent. And if we had made Russia an ally, we would want it to be strong, not weak.

2. A huge percentage of the aid for Ukraine stayed in the US because it went to build arms here.

This one is really stupid. The arms left the country, so wealth left the country. Experts say the arms drain has left us vulnerable. It will take years to replace the stuff we’ve sent, and in the meantime, China is trying to find the best time to go after Taiwan.

No matter how you slice it, we have spent a ton of money that could have been saved or spent on our own citizens, who are the ones who have to work to pay our debt.

3. We need Ukraine’s minerals and helium and so on.

We can buy things from Ukraine regardless of who rules it. If Putin takes over, we ought to be able to outbid the Chinese. He’s not going to refuse to sell to us. Zelenskyy is refusing to give us access without ridiculous concessions that will further destabilize the region and alienate Russia, so it’s not like things are going great under his rule.

It seems to me that cutting Ukraine off would be very helpful in more than one way.

It would teach the warlike Europeans they need to learn how to get along, pay their own bills, and solve their own conflicts. It would save us money. It could save American lives.

We had no business entering World War I. A big inbred family ran Europe, and they had an internal squabble. They fought for childish reasons, and we shouldn’t have enabled them. We had to fight World War II, but that doesn’t mean we need to send men to bleed and die, or that we have to empty our treasury, every time far-off foreigners take the saber-rattling too far.

Germany is rich. Norway is rich. Switzerland is rich. Other European countries are doing well. The Cold War threat is long gone. Still, we send men and money to defend these brat countries which are perfectly capable of looking after themselves. We are increasing our debt in order to balance their budgets. That’s moronic and unfair. Think of all the hours you work every year. How many hours do you work for Germany? France? Italy? How many hours do you think their citizens work for you? Virtually none, in case you’re wondering. The USA receives nearly no aid, and this is considered fair.

We used to pay Europeans to side with us against Russia and China. We had to. Now the USSR and its dream of global domination are dead, and while China is a problem, it’s not planning on ruling the world. Why are we paying these people? They insult and libel America constantly for failing to solve the problems they create, and they don’t even like Americans on a personal level. They’re just not into us, so we need to stop dating. Maybe they’ll appreciate us after we turn off the breast pump.

Europe isn’t Africa. It’s not India. It’s not the pre-Columbian Americas. Europe created civilization, science, and engineering. It’s not populated by people whose grandparents were illiterate savages with a 50% infant mortality rate. It’s reasonable to expect them to look after themselves.

If Russia took Ukraine today, nothing bad would happen to America. In fact, we would be a lot better off. So what is Zelenskyy thinking, going to our White House dressed for a night at Hooters, failing to show any courtesy or gratitude, and lecturing our elected leaders for not doing enough for him?

He’s whining about being excluded from peace talks. Well, he has a point. Ukraine shouldn’t have excluded itself. That’s what happened. Ukraine was so lacking in good faith, Trump had to talk to the Russians ex parte. If you want to sit at the adults’ table, sit up straight and quit throwing food and chewing with your mouth open.

It would be great if the country that excluded Ukraine, which is Ukraine, had behaved better. I think we can all agree on that.

I’ll tell a story about my sister the addict.

After years of abusing my parents, and after secretly getting my dad to fund several deliberately-aborted rehab stints she could easily afford, and after ruining the house he bought her and forcing him to pay the property taxes, and after calling the police to his house and amusing them by claiming she was scared of a man in his mid-80’s, one day she barged into his living room and gave him an ultimatum.

I was there at the time. I was not visible to her, but I heard everything. I stayed hidden because it gave me an edge.

I heard the door open and slam shut. A woman’s heels banged across the hardwood floor. An angry voice yelled, “I’m going to give you ONE more chance!”

Then I heard two sets of footsteps moving in the opposite direction, and I heard her objecting to whatever he was doing. I heard the door open and shut, and then there was quiet. Precious, priceless quiet.

He had taken her by the arm and deposited her on the porch.

At the time, she had a splint on her arm. She had passed out in her kitchen and fallen, landing on a glass that broke in the process. The arm clearly was not broken, although she claimed otherwise, because it bore a simple splint held on with an elastic bandage.

Right away, I got a Bluetooth call from her filthy BMW 335i. She was going to call the Florida Bar and have his license taken. She was sending the police to have him arrested. He had re-broken her arm. She was in terrible pain. She wasn’t going to stand for it.

She had a habit of keeping a McDonald’s Coke in her hand as much of the time as possible. This is what cost her most of her teeth. She used to buy Cokes at the drive-through. She said other Cokes weren’t as good.

While she was yammering, I heard her order a Coke and pay for it. Through the window of her car and a McDonald’s window. After driving herself there.

Some broken arm.

I let her rant so I could gather information, and then she ended the call.

I told my dad she had threatened to send the police, and he said, “They’ll never take me alive.” We had a good chuckle.

My dad disinherited my sister in 2004 and again not long before he died, and she knew he had done it. She could have been reinstated. She just had to smooth things over and show him due respect. She never did it, so I got absolutely everything.

I stayed out of it. My mother threatened to disinherit her in 1997, and I talked her out of it. Biggest mistake of my life. I like money, but it wasn’t the issue. The problem was that the shared inheritance tied my sister to me after my mother’s death and made me miserable. When my dad surprised me by cutting my sister off, I told God I had learned my lesson, and I kept my mouth shut. Not my problem. Not my responsibility.

It has been fantastic, being free of her. I can’t describe the relief and gratitude I feel every day.

Zelenskyy is like my sister. He has no idea how negotiation works, while Donald Trump is the single most famous negotiator in the history of the world. Trump keeps telling him he has no cards, but Zelenskyy keeps treating him as though we need Ukraine.

I would guess he is in contact with a lot of deluded Democrats, and he probably watches left-leaning news shows. He may be under the grossly mistaken impression that Americans are going to rise up in arms if Trump doesn’t do as he’s told. Most of us won’t do it, and if we did, Trump wouldn’t care.

We need to cut Zelenskyy off so he can’t continue to drain us, encourage other countries to abuse us, and expose us to the risk of a needless third world war.

It is remarkable that there are Americans who don’t understand that our president is not supposed to represent the interests of foreigners against us. Imagine running a company that way. What if Ford, or for that matter, Burger King, kept sending employees to Chrysler, demanding subsidies?

Here’s something else I don’t get: Ukrainian “refugees” in other countries, including ours, whining on TV about how Trump is a jerk. If you care about Ukraine, why did you run away? Why aren’t you holding a rifle or sitting in a tank? Ukraine can’t find enough new soldiers. Why are you working at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Atlanta?

I include the women. You can’t be in the infantry? Boo hoo. You can work at a military hospital. You can pump gas into planes and vehicles. You can cook. You can clean. Get your entitled butt back over there. If your heart is still in Ukraine, we need to reunite it with your rear end.

The web says “refugees” are leaving Ukraine to avoid danger and poverty. How is that different from draft-dodging? Can someone explain it to me? If you want to send the kids, the aged, and the disabled out, fine, but why should anyone who can work run off and let others face the danger?

And if you’re an immigrant (which means a person who has abandoned another country in favor of America, not an invader who wasn’t happy with his country’s low-trust economy), you should be on TV pushing Trump to do what’s best for the US, not Ukraine.

When I was a kid, I lived in Israel for 4 months. I was a kibbutz volunteer. The volunteer program started because Israelis were busy fighting a war, and they needed people to pick fruit and shovel chicken manure while the Israelis fought. Americans and Europeans flocked to Israel, exposing themself to the perils of war. Why are Ukrainians fleeing their own country when it needs them the most?

Right now, Zelenskyy appears to face two likely alternatives: surrendering on very bad terms after losing hundreds of thousands more lives or accepting a generous, if not totally satisfactory, peace package from a nation that would be within its rights to cut all aid tomorrow. It’s not our fault he doesn’t want to eat his vegetables. We are doing more than enough. Probably too much.

Who Was She Writing About?

Yesterday I learned that the wife of my first cousin by marriage had died. I didn’t even know her name. I couldn’t pick her out of a lineup. I’m not even sure this is the wife I met. I saw a photo, and the face doesn’t look familiar.

My dad and I took my cousin and his wife fishing in the Bahamas. I guess this would have been 30 years ago. I remember the wife as a chunky lady with a round face, but the lady in the photo I saw has a prominent chin. I wonder if this was my cousin’s second or third wife.

I would guess I have seen the cousin fewer than 10 times in my life. On very rare occasions, our families got together when I was a kid. My cousin’s stepmother, my dad’s sister, died in 2014, and my dad insisted I accompany him to Tennessee for the funeral. I must have seen the cousin and his wife, but I have no memories to prove it.

To me, this underscores the difference between my mother’s family and my dad’s family. When I say “my family,” I mean my mother’s family, although bad behavior involving my grandparents’ estates has led most of them to distance themselves from me. When I discuss my mother’s family without mentioning my dad’s family, I generally don’t give my dad’s family a thought.

My dad picked up on this unintentionally. Often, he referred to my mother’s father as my father.

My cousin’s wife died last year. Cousin or ex-stepcousin? I don’t know how that works. The notice I saw didn’t mention a cause.

No one called me. No one emailed. I wouldn’t expect them to. I’m not offended. If I had stood in line behind this guy at Walmart this week, I would have had no idea who he was.

My dad’s older sister was a cruel sociopath, and my dad also had sociopathic tendencies. She was abusive to him when he was a kid. She stabbed him in the head with a pencil. He was sitting on the floor making noises and pretending his hand was an airplane, and she stabbed him. She must have been trying to murder him.

The pencil didn’t go through his skull, but as an adult, he liked to show people the deep hole it left.

My aunt was obese and brassy. She was not charming. Her first marriage produced one child. I don’t know if she was at my aunt’s funeral. Can’t recall. I was just counting the minutes until I could leave. It was boring, sitting among strangers, facing an ash container that looked like a styrofoam beer cooler, listening to them talk about their abusive parents as though they were wonderful people.

My uncle had 4 kids of his own, so I guess he needed help. I don’t know why else he would have married my aunt. They didn’t seem to feel anything for each other except annoyance.

My aunt’s child was a daughter. Maybe this is why my aunt hated my uncle’s daughter, who was kind, gentle, and honest. She used to beat her for no reason. She used to give her own child candy and let her eat it in front of her husband’s daughter.

I was Googling my cousin when I found out his wife had died. For some reason, I started thinking about his first name, which is a strange one. I wanted to know if anyone else had that name.

I also came across my uncle’s obituary, written by the kids. He died 11 months ago.

I’ll tell you what. I wish I had known the guy in the obituary. But truthfully, I was not worthy.

Scholar. War hero with a Purple Heart. Educator. Beloved dad. I never met that guy!

He was awful. He didn’t have the spine to protect his kids from his wife. I don’t think he cared. They made the kids work and buy their own clothes. They worked them hard. After the kids were grown, they sat their parents down and told them exactly what they thought of them.

I thought about him again today, because norovirus is spreading in America.

My uncle was a big baby who thought only of himself. He loved to travel, fish, and hunt. He loved to freeload in order to make these things happen. His son was a pilot, so when my uncle and his wife flew, they only had to pay the taxes on their tickets. Freeloading. They didn’t care much for my dad, but he had vacation properties and a yacht, so my uncle arranged to visit from time to time.

They came to visit us over Christmas one year. I wanted no part of it. Back then, I was still close to my mother’s family, so I wanted to be with them, as usual. My dad’s two sisters and their entire tribes packed themselves into his three-bedroom house. The nicer sister and her husband were also freeloaders.

We shared common dishes. Christmas. People started throwing up. Turned out my uncle had norovirus, and he didn’t tell anyone. He knew we would have told him to stay home.

Making matters worse, norovirus is only spread via feces. If you’ve had norovirus, you touched someone else’s poop. My uncle hadn’t been washing his hands after using the toilet.

He was a biologist. A professor. It wasn’t like he had no idea how germs worked.

Every single person who was present threw up and had diarrhea for several days, except for my mother, who was spared. Maybe the viruses couldn’t take the nicotine.

When I found out my uncle was making us all sick, I left and slept somewhere else. Didn’t work. I still ended up using the toilet every 20 minutes.

I’m pretty sure my other aunt’s daughter Judy thinks I’m a jerk because I left abruptly. My mother was angry with me. I loved my mother, but common sense was not her long suit. She was overly emotional.

I didn’t care about ruining our puking family Christmas. I knew my aunts and uncles a little. The others were like strangers. It wasn’t like I had any concerns about future resentment or lost connections. There was no possibility we would go on to have relationships.

I don’t owe anyone an apology for isolating myself from a disease. It seems like women put closeness above staying healthy, however.

That might make a little sense in situations where people care about each other and aren’t together simply because relatives want free Florida vacations.

Avoiding days of diarrhea and vomiting is not rude, and even if it were, I would still have done it. If I were sick, I would expect others to avoid me.

Maybe the problem was that I was smarter and more rational than everyone else there, and I had a better conception of the connection between present behavior and future regurgitation. I really hated norovirus. I was familiar with it.

My dad’s older sister never liked it when I stood up for myself. I think this was because it bothered her to see a young relative she couldn’t abuse and boss. She must have felt like a horse that couldn’t reach an apple through a fence.

All around her, in her own home, she had had kids who ran and fetched when she barked, and they were used to feeling her knuckles on their heads. Here I was, out of range. Acting like I had rights.

I suspect she resented my mother, my sister, and me because we stood in the inheritance path. She thought my dad was much richer than he was, and he let her believe it. Even though he didn’t like her, he enjoyed being seen as a financial guru and being asked for advice.

I never understood why he liked spending his time impressing people he didn’t like much.

My dad’s relatives liked inheriting money and stuff. When my grandmother started to decline, my dad sent money and helped arrange to finance her care. When she died, my aunts backed up to her place and emptied it with no notice to us. My mother was incensed on behalf of my sister and me. She was always appalled by my dad’s people’s selfishness and greed.

Of course, she didn’t live to see what her own daughter and sister did with her parents’ estates.

My dad’s bunch picked some heirlooms for my sister and me. A Baccarat angel and a Lladro horse my dad had given my grandmother. Street value about $75, combined.

They’re both gone now. I threw the angel out because it looked like an idol to me, and I accidentally broke the horse after my sister abandoned it. It wasn’t like these were things we had seen on fondly-remembered visits to my grandmother’s apartment. I don’t miss these things. I didn’t know the angel or horse existed until my dad presented me with them and told me to choose one.

Why did he do that? He paid for them.

The thing on my mind today is the contrast between my uncle and the guy in the obituary. He was lazy. He was selfish. He always seemed gutless to me, so the idea of him fighting bravely and competently in Korea befuddles me. Maybe it’s not completely true. He probably got on the other soldiers’ nerves and let them down.

They didn’t write the obituary.

We love praising combat veterans, like they’re Yeshua himself. They can do no wrong. We don’t look after their families well, and we warehouse the crippled ones in substandard facilities, but we tend to act like anyone who has seen combat is an inspiring figure. A lot of vets use their exalted status to shut other people up. “You weren’t in ‘Nam with me and my buddies, face-down, in the muck!”

It’s not true. Lots of combat veterans–even true heroes–are horrible, trashy people. I knew a Korea vet who thought it was funny to steal other soldiers’ helmets. He said that when he got tired of his heavy helmet, he would dump it. Later, when he needed a helmet, he stole someone else’s. Serving in combat doesn’t automatically make you a role model.

There are too many stories about my uncle to tell.

My grandmother hated him, but because they lived near each other, he and my aunt had to drive her around. She used to sit in the backseat and watch the gas gauge. He would refuse to stop and get gas because he didn’t like being told what to do, so more than once, he ran out of gas with her in the car and ended up walking to gas stations. He kept a gas can in the car for this reason. She used to call him a fool.

On a Bahamas trip, his wife fell on our boat and caught her ring on something. It ripped the skin on her finger wide open. We had to go to the nearest island where there was medical help, in very rough seas.

While we were en route, with the seas pounding and things falling on the deck in the saloon, while my aunt held her bleeding hand in a paper towel, he told her to get up and get him a Coors Light.

Why the glowing obituary?

I wonder if Mormonism is the reason.

I don’t know a lot of Mormons, but my impression of them is that they have an inferiority complex about their non-Christian cult. The feeling I get is that they want people to think they’re the real Christians. They want to convey a false image of success and blessings in order to convince actual Christians we’re wrong.

“Look how much money we make.” “Look at our beautiful families.” “Check out our family photos.” They seem to be aggressive about it.

They say you should never fish with fewer than two Mormons, because if you fish with one, he’ll drink all your liquor.

My uncle’s daughter is a Mormon spiritual advisor of some kind. Women listen to her. She seriously believes American Indians are really Jews. She believes every wacky thing Mormonism teaches. Maybe she wrote the obituary.

I said she was honest, but many people who are otherwise honest lie in obituaries.

My aunt and uncle were miserable, and so were their kids. My aunt and uncle were immature. They were not good people. They were sometimes embarrassing. They hurt their children.

They didn’t actually believe in Mormonism. They were both atheists. They went to hell. Their local shaman or whatever told them not to worry about losing their faith, if they had ever had it. He said they should stick around for the social life.

I wrote a nice obituary about my dad. I did not say he was an alcoholic. I did not say he beat his wife when he was younger. I left a lot of stuff out. On the other hand, I did not craft a deceptive blurb intended to make people think he was an exemplary human being everyone should envy. That would have been wrong. The unnecessary damage he did to his family was immense.

Lying about the dead in order to make people admire them is sinful. Other people need to learn from bad examples.

Why should we make each other feel bad about our lives by pumping up the resumes of dead scoundrels?

I sound like I’m calling my dad a scoundrel now, which was not my intention. Well, he was. But he changed. During the last months of his life, he was wonderful, but the past can’t be erased.

When we laud each other unrealistically, we discourage people. We make them feel as though they are particularly wicked or unsuccessful. We destroy their hope. Everybody is a failure. Everybody is despicable. Pretending otherwise is harmful, not helpful.

My uncle was a jerk. My aunt was a wicked stepmother. If they ever did anything good for anyone else, I am not aware of it. If they ever expressed concern for people with problems, I don’t remember it. They didn’t even take us to dinner when they showed up to freeload.

I should make it clear I didn’t hate my aunt and uncle. There were times in my life when I got along well with them. But they were what they were. The person who wrote the obituary erected a monument to an illusion.

Make Silent Movies With Your New $320 Microphones

Time for some practical information that will probably be interesting to about 30 people.

When I got married and we started traveling, I began investing in camera gear. Normal families take pictures and make videos and recordings, unlike my family. They like spending time together. I can’t even guess what that’s like.

Eventually, I realized the microphones that were built into cameras were not intended to be used routinely. They are for times of desperation. When your real microphones aren’t available.

Put a camera 5 feet from a speaker, in a room with normal noise, and you get bad audio. Put both outdoors in a light breeze, and all you hear is the wind. You can put a hairy mike cover (“dead cat”) on the mike to cut the wind sound, but you will still get bad audio because the mike is too far from the speaker.

You’re supposed to use external microphones. Some connect to cameras mechanically. Others send sound to cameras via radio.

You can get a “shotgun” mike, which is a little tube you mount on your camera’s hot shoe. It’s directional. You can point it at your subject, and it will emphasize sounds coming from his direction. You can also buy mikes with long cables.

What you really want is a wireless mike set with at least two remote microphones. And you want lavalier mikes. I mean mikes with wires that connect them to transmitters. Apparently some people think a mike with no wires at all can be a lavalier, but that goes against the definition of the word.

The remote microphones go with your subjects. If you’re a subject, you can attach a remote mike to your collar and capture your speech perfectly when you’re a long way from the camera.

A lavalier mike is a tiny mike with a long cable. You plug it into the remote mike or transmitter, which is larger and more conspicuous. You can put the remote mike in your pocket and clip the lavalier mike to your shirt. This way, you don’t have a big, heavy black thing pulling on your shirt, and the remote mike can’t fall off and land in a toilet or a river.

I got my first remote set in Hong Kong. I wanted DJI, but DJI was hot, and no one had them. I got a Saramonic set. It’s pretty neat. It has two remote mikes you attach to yourself using magnets. It works great.

Problem: it’s very easy to knock the mikes off the magnets. Then they roll down the street. It has happened to us more than once.

Problem: you can’t plug lavaliers into them.

Problem: if you need a part, forget it. Saramonic is an unreliable company. I lost a dead cat for a while, and I could not get a new one. They are still unavailable.

Problem: the magnet in the receiving unit, which sits on your camera, may interfere with your camera’s monitor screen. You have to install a ridiculous spacer on your hot shoe. Saramonic promised me one and never sent it. I had to go aftermarket.

I decided to eat the $250 loss and get a new set. I had to choose between Rode and DJI. Both seemed pretty good. I went with a Rode Wireless Pro set for some reason I don’t remember. Rode is a serious company that makes professional stuff. The set I got is on their low end.

We decided to make a Christmas video with the Rode set and a Sony A7IV camera. Couldn’t do it. There was a horrible buzzing noise that took over most of the audio signal. I could sort of hear words in the background, but that was it.

Rode knows this problem exists with at least one product. The set one step below the one I got. I don’t know how much they know about this issue and the Rode Wireless Pro.

Let’s cut to the chase. There was a short cable that connected the receiver to the camera’s audio jack. Rode claims it’s a shielded cable. Whatever. It passed all sorts of noise and very little audio. It was the problem. When I contacted Rode, they gave me bad advice, like suggesting I crank the gain way up. Yes, so then I’d hear the audio AND the buzz. If I had listened to them, my set would now be in the return pile at an Amazon facility.

I had a similar cable I bought in an electronics shop in Lucerne. I think it was Lucerne. Could have been Singapore, but I don’t think so. I put this cable where the Rode cable had been, and all the noise disappeared.

Either:

1. Rode’s cables are pathetic, or
2. I got a defective one.

Based on Rode’s reputation, I would guess my cable is defective. I certainly hope they’re not sending useless cables out on purpose.

I got a Rode rep to send me a new one so I could find out. In any case, the camera works now. The new cable is longer and more likely to get in the way. I am hoping the replacement cable from Rode will function.

They asked me for my phone number before shipping the replacement. I told them they didn’t need my number, but they insisted. I didn’t want junk calls, so I gave them the number for a local Burger King.

Our relationship needs work.

Other than this, the product seems great. The batteries drained faster than the ad copy suggested, but every company lies about battery life. The audio sounds beautiful

Should you buy a Rode system? No idea. I don’t know whether DJI’s competing products have this problem. I know you should avoid Saramonic. If they can’t supply parts, it almost certainly means they are going out of business slowly. If you have a Saramonic set, guard the dead cats with your life, because you will never get a new one.

A Rode set like mine runs about 40% more than a Saramonic set, but at least it’s from a real company that has real support, and you won’t drop your mikes in the toilet.

The Saramonic mikes are still nice for indoor work. When the subjects aren’t moving around or leaning over deep fryers or anything.

How do you replace the batteries in products like this? That’s a great question. I’m pretty sure the product is finished when the battery quits. They don’t make a point of putting this information in the ads. “DIES PERMANENTLY AFTER 200 SESSIONS! COULD HAPPEN DURING A WEDDING OR EXPENSIVE VACATION!” That wouldn’t help them move merchandise.

I just emailed the Rode rep to find out. Not going to bother with Saramonic. They already owe me a part, and I don’t think I’ll ever get it.

I see some people on the web replacing batteries for a different Rode set, so maybe there is hope.

If you bought a Rode Wireless Pro, and you can’t record anything, maybe this blog post will fix the problem. I recommend trying your set out before your return period expires.

Forget College and Fauxnouns

I just read an interesting article purporting to relay smart advice from old people to young people. The purpose was to help the young avoid the mistakes of the old.

The advice seemed inconsistent. One person said the young shouldn’t work hard to build up their wealth, but another said it was important to invest while young. Some advice was just stupid. One person said people should not rush to marry in their twenties.

I can think of some good advice I wish I had received.

1.Yeshua is mandatory, not optional. He is your God. He is everyone’s God. He is the God of every Jew, regardless of what rabbis say. He is the God of atheists and every sort of pagan. You have to give yourself to him and submit to him. If you reject him, your life will be pointless, and you will eventually be condemned to burn alone forever. There is no reincarnation. You can’t try again. You get one shot.

2. You have to know the Holy Spirit. It seems to be possible to escape damnation without knowing the Holy Spirit, but without him, you will never mature, you will believe all sorts of lies and errors, you will lack the power to help yourselves and others, and you are much less likely to be able to introduce your children to God successfully. You are supposed to pray in tongues every day and experience the gifts and fruit of the Spirit. You need at least three prayer sessions per day.

3. Bless God. I don’t mean thank him. I mean speak blessing to him, like Jacob blessing his sons. “In the name of Yeshua, I bless Yeshua, Yahweh, and the Spirit of Holiness. Their names are honored and made holy, their kingdom is come, their will is done, their children are multiplied, and their enemies are defeated, on Earth as in heaven.” Things like that. God will speak blessing to you, too. Yeshua commanded us to speak blessing to God. He had a reason. Bless yourself, your spouse, and your kids. If you’re a kid, bless your parents and siblings.

4. You should marry early, especially if you’re female. If you are raised to know the Holy Spirit, he will choose someone for you, so you don’t actually have to spend 20 years sorting through applicants in order to protect yourself. You’re not qualified to choose your mate. Only God can do it, and he is willing and eager.

If you’re a woman and you wait till you’re 30, you may have a lot of trouble conceiving, and you will be more likely to lose your baby during gestation. You are also more likely to have children with defects. You will regret not having a family much more than you will regret not having a career.

5. Have children. Paul suggested there were people God had created to remain single, but they are rare, and you’re probably not one of them. If you know the Holy Spirit, he will tell you if you are. We were created to please God and help him reproduce. Our children are really his children. And a big family can be very helpful. Family members look after each other.

6. Don’t live in a city. Satan’s children are concentrated in cities. You will always be at odds with the people around you, and when they rise up and become terrorists, you’ll be right there where they can get at you, and your city’s government will back them up.

7. Keep non-Christians at a distance. Not just unbelievers, but backward Christians who pull you down instead of pulling you forward. Don’t marry them. Don’t have them as close friends. Don’t partner with them in business. Avoid working for them if you can.

8. Give to people in need, as the Holy Spirit tells you. God will bless you and protect you from your enemies, and he will bring you wealth.

9. Cut off everyone who makes you miserable. They came from Satan. Being alone is better than being suppressed and abused by idiots. Before I got close to God, I had a pattern of making friends with overbearing, condescending people who let me down and treated me like a child. I haven’t had a friend like that in maybe 14 years. It’s wonderful that they are not part of my life now. I would never let them rekindle our friendships.

I had a college buddy I thought was a friend. Eventually, God showed me what a liability he was. To be honest, he was a jerk. He lied all the time, mainly by embellishing stories to the point where they became ridiculous. He couldn’t admit fault. He was undependable. He had a bad temper; he couldn’t hold his liquor, and he liked to pick fights when he was drunk. He punched walls and windows. He was a racist. He used racial slurs like “Jew boy” when he was angry at people.

There were good things about him, but on the whole, he was a drag.

One day he contacted me and asked if he could come to Florida and go fishing with my dad and me, and I realized I just didn’t want to be around him any more. I turned him down and let him know I had grown apart from him, and that was that.

I’ve never missed him. We never did anything worthwhile together. We never helped anyone. We never prayed. We drank and amused ourselves with worthless pursuits. I was no asset to him, either. Our friendship didn’t add any value to either of our lives.

If I were still running around with him, it would be a chore, not a pleasure.

9. Never lift anything you don’t have to. Always ask for help with anything that takes serious effort to lift. In one second, you can put yourself in a back brace for life. It has happened to millions of people.

10. Never exert as much force as possible with your muscles. For example, never try to see how much weight you can lift. It’s at the extremes of effort, which are unnecessary, that we hurt ourselves.

11. Invest. You want passive income that multiplies. You will never get rich by working more hours at an hourly rate. You get rich by making people and things work for you.

12. Don’t go to college unless you’re certain you need to. It’s very expensive, and it will cut four productive years out of your life. You will be indoctrinated and surrounded by filthy people. If your college friendships last, it probably means you’re immature and a failure at life.

If you want to be rich, start a business and make investments. The richest people on Earth aren’t doing anything they were taught to do in college. They’re not professionals. They’re investors and businessmen.

Elon Musk doesn’t build rockets or cars. He runs the businesses that build them. He never picks up a tool. He doesn’t design anything.

On the low side, at a college that will not impress anyone, college will cost you over $100,000. On the high side, several times that. If you’re like most people, you will waste 3.5 years memorizing Cliff’s Notes and taking subjects you can learn just as well on the web and at libraries. It’s an unparallelled waste.

I called a guy about landscaping. A young man. He has a truck and a few employees. He told me his net worth was around a million dollars. What’s the average net worth of a 30-year-old English major?

A young guy charged me $7500 for a day of tree cutting. He had several trucks, multiple employees, an enormous crane, and a diesel grapple that probably cost six figures. He probably brought half a million dollars’ worth of equipment to my house, and he had other jobs.

He never had to learn anyone’s fauxnouns (my name for them) or attend orientation lectures about groveling for confused, bigoted, dangerous perverts. He has never had to pay Marxists to lecture him.

13. Keep your kids out of public education, and if you send them to a private Christian school, watch them like hawks. Hold everyone at the school accountable. Look at the textbooks. Go to every meeting. If you see effeminate men and masculine women on the faculty, pull your child out while there is time.

14. Never, ever, EVER trust a man who likes being around other people’s kids. Scoutmasters. Priests. Funny, witty male teachers who wear bowties. Camp counselors. Youth pastors. Your single uncle who keeps an immaculate house. It is not normal for a grown male to want to hang around with children.

15. Read a lot, but don’t waste too much time on fiction. The fiction establishment rewards the children of Satan with money, awards, and wide distribution. Fiction is full of rebellion, sexual sin, and misinformation, and very little of it includes God. You would be wise to avoid reading any fiction written after 1900. You don’t actually need it.

16. Don’t eat a lot of carbohydrates. Don’t listen to the nonsense about whole grains being good for you. They may be less bad, but that’s about it. Carbs cause obesity, diabetes, tooth decay, strokes, heart attacks, arthritis, high blood pressure, dementia, and a whole bunch of other things it is pretty much impossible to get from animal products and non-starchy plant foods.

17. Music, travel, and books are not luxuries. They are necessities for people who want to be fully developed, so don’t be afraid to spend on them. Learn an instrument, and make your kids learn instruments.

18. Buy cameras and learn to use them. Your descendants will be grateful.

I wish I could take advice as well as I give it, and I wish I had had this advice when I was younger. My children will receive all of it, and they will be better off than I have been.

We are Riff Raff

A reader has once again recommended an interesting resource: Nomad Capitalist. This is a company that helps people with assets and income move abroad. Its motto is “Go where you’re treated best.” They help people move to places like Singapore and Malaysia, where successful individuals are not yet considered enemies of humanity.

I can’t resist fantasizing about Singapore. Today I looked at some Nomad Capitalist videos. I was just playing around, but when my wife saw me watching, she said she would not hesitate to move to Singapore.

Why would anyone move from a peaceful red state to a tiny island between two dangerous Muslim nations? Does it sound crazy?

Here is what she said: in Singapore, you can let your child ride the subway alone.

Wow. Imagine doing that in New York, Philadelphia, or any other American city. Unthinkable.

We’ve been to Singapore a couple of times. On one visit, they held some kind of outdoor celebration that featured a planned walk among illuminated works of art. Even though we were in the middle of a big city, the park where the event was held was very dark apart from the exhibits themselves.

Families were everywhere. No worries.

Consider Central Park, the 880-acre oasis in the middle of New York City, created by Frederick Law Olmsted. Would you visit at night? It would be more convenient to invite the rapists and muggers to your apartment and get it over with.

America has a huge population of mostly-minority repeat offenders, and they do whatever they want. A couple of days ago, I saw a sheriff on Youtube saying a recent arrestee had a rap sheet with 102 felonies on it. In Florida, where we are supposedly tough on crime. When you hit a hundred felonies, execution, or at least life without parole, should be on the table.

I live in the reddest county imaginable, but you never see kids here riding bikes by themselves, as I did when I was young. You can’t let your kids walk to school as I did.

My dad’s partner had a young son who was stolen from a school bus stop a short walk from his house. He was raped repeatedly, shot in the back, cut in three pieces, and buried in concrete. You could practically hit his school from his house with a rock.

If your kids survive the violent perverts here, they still have to suffer with the tenured perverts in our public schools. The people who tell them Yeshua is a myth and that their parents are basically Nazis.

What about internal strife? Well, Singapore has had riots. The last one was small, in 2013, and before that, you have to go back to 1969. And no one is putting on black pajamas and attacking conservative groups for praying in public.

What about medical care? I’m no fan of nationalized medicine, but Singapore’s universal system is something I could live with. They force you to have your own medical savings account, an idea Democrats assure us would lead to the end of the world. In the US, medical problems are probably the biggest threat to people who prefer to die with substantial estates. At my age, with a family to think about, I am open to the notion that protecting our assets is more important than getting the doctor I want, when I want him. If we had Singapore protecting our assets, we would be better able to pay for private care on the rare occasions when it was needed.

My belief is that the better a country’s inhabitants are, the easier it is to have government programs that work. Singaporeans are better than Americans. We have huge, entrenched demographics that do nothing but bleed the taxpayer, commit crime, and vote for Democrats. When we try to help them, they take advantage and ruin everything. An entitlement attitude, not entitlements themselves, is the major reason our programs are disasters.

What about drugs? Singaporeans kill drug dealers. It works for them. There are no ghettos in Singapore, and when you walk the streets, you don’t see poop, tents, or used needles. You can park your car without assuming, as you would in many American cities, that a junkie will steal everything in it. Street crime, which is driven by drug use in the US, is extremely rare in Singapore.

What about housing? It’s small and expensive. Rent is sky-high compared to a few years ago. But is small housing a bad thing, in and of itself?

I hate being close to people, so I like big properties, but then I live in the United States. Americans are not the best neighbors. They steal. They’re loud. They form abusive HOA’s. They let their dogs terrorize neighborhoods. I don’t think living close to Singaporeans would be the same, because Singaporeans love boredom. They like peace and quiet. I may be wrong, but I’ll bet they get along better with their neighbors than we do.

Eventually I’m not going to feel like cutting trees and mowing large areas, so maybe a little house among nice people would be acceptable.

What about the Second Amendment? The need for self-defense is not likely to arise in a place like Singapore, and the people are at peace with their government, so I think guns would be less important. Let me think. How many Americans do I know who have been robbed at gunpoint? Three, off the top of my head. How many shooting victims have I known? Two. How many of my relatives have shot or shot at people? Two.

The more I think about it, the more I realize something: Americans are bad people. We really are. Not all of us, but enough of us to make America different from peaceful countries. We’re not Somalis or Brazilians, but we’re not the Swiss, either.

When we decided to visit Singapore the first time around, I thought I would hate it because I hate cities. I also thought Singapore was likely to have a culture of selfishness and callousness, because most Singaporeans are Chinese, and China is horrible. Instead, I liked it a lot. The people were nice. It was safe. It was very prosperous. The food was pretty good. Everything was orderly. They even had wonderful public landscaping. I think socialism is what made the mainland Chinese what they are.

After my wife and I came home, we both had the strange feeling that somehow, part of us belonged to Singapore. It felt like home, and I can’t explain that. I guess it was just nicer than America and Zambia.

What about religion? Surprisingly, Christianity, including charismatic Christianity, is on a dramatic upswing in Singapore, having risen from about 10% to about 20%. That’s bizarre. Shocking.

Isn’t Singapore boring and distant? I don’t care if it’s boring, because I’m boring, too. My wife and I live in a boring place, and we love it. As for distance, well, there are jets. We could travel from time to time. I don’t know how soon we would get around to visiting the US, given what it is.

I like dreaming about leaving the US for a better place. I don’t think Singapore is in our future, though. You can’t just walk in and ask for residency.

They have something called the Global Investor Programme. The idea is that if you have a lot of money to invest, you can put it into a Singapore enterprise, and they may give you permanent residency. It’s very hard to understand the criteria, though. I think you need to invest S$10 million inside Singapore. Let’s see. Did I leave my S$10 million in my other pants today? Must have.

A couple of years ago, the price was S$2.5 million. Singapore has decided to keep the riff raff out, though.

My understanding is that you can move to Singapore if you have a job there. “Job.” The word makes my skin crawl. Never again, I hope.

What is Left to Accomplish?

Based on weather forecasts, I made plans to do nothing today, and I am sticking to my plans. But I think I made a mistake.

Hurricane Helene’s weak outer winds were supposed to produce sustained speeds of about 40 mph here. Far as I know, it never happened. I would say the situation this county ended up with is 10% worse than the aftermath of Debby, which left a few downed trees here and there. We got nearly no rain during the Helene crisis, so that’s a plus.

I have some cleaning up to do. Yesterday I checked the forecast to see when it would dry up, because nothing is worse than doing heavy yard work on a 90-degree day when the air is full of steam. The forecast pretty much said it was going to rain until next Friday. The probability figure for today is 88%.

Of course, it’s dry and breezy without much sun. The temperature is about 82 degrees, or 8 degrees lower than recent days. This would have been a good day to clean up.

I don’t understand precipitation probability, and it turns out neither do meteorologists.

At some point in the distant past, I looked it up, and I read that a certain chance of rain meant that there was that much likelihood rain would fall somewhere in the area the chance applied to. So if you were in an area with a 25% chance of rain, the chance that it would rain somewhere in that area was 25%. How much rain? Whatever I read didn’t say. I assumed it had to be a significant amount, because if not, the figure was useless.

I just checked again. A British site says a figure of x percent means x percent of sources have concluded it will rain in the area. How much? Doesn’t say. An American site says it means x percent of the area will get measurable rain.

Either meteorologists have no idea what their own metric means, or they are letting uninformed people try to explain it to us.

Experience has taught me this: if a forecast says the chance of rain will be 60% or more, expect a nasty, rainy day, nearly every time. That’s more useful than the weird things I’m seeing on the web. Anything over 20% is reason to avoid outdoor activities as far as I’m concerned.

I am sitting here doing nothing. I still feel some covid fatigue, and I’m not sure I can start the tractor, so I am in no rush.

I’m not sure what to do with my life these days. We are done traveling. I doubt we’ll go anywhere until far into next year, and we will not be able to go any place exciting because of the baby. We still need to fix the house up a little, but that’s about it. What should we be doing with ourselves?

The world has turned into an immense toilet. Americans have proven they really are stupid enough to put Kamala Harris in the Oval Office. Wokeness is getting worse, not better. We are giving birth to generations of soft, useless, cruel, incompetent, spoiled, godless perverts who will make the last decade look like the Messianic Age.

I don’t know what we’re supposed to do here. I am spending more and more time in prayer. We think about things like good food, medical appointments, and managing our practical affairs. That’s about it.

Lately I have noticed I am sometimes bored. That’s a problem I thought I had left behind decades ago. It’s strange to see it creeping up on me again. I find myself thinking, “I remember this!”

I think I had started believing I was immune to it. I took not being bored for granted for maybe 35 years.

I have zero enthusiasm about America’s future. I don’t want to live here. I don’t know how I’ll defend myself when my son asks me why we put him here, to face seventy-plus years of hiding out in a world gone insane. I can tell him God wants people to have children. Best I can do.

While we are here, we will have to devote a lot of energy to sheltering him from godless friends, Satanic entertainment, exposure to perverts, and so on. We will really have to have God’s help, because we can’t generate our own safe Christian bubble.

I don’t have any projects in mind. There is nothing I want to do here. I don’t want to start big things in a world which has no future.

I try not to imagine a future under Kamala Harris. Obama was an arrogant homosexual atheist who was hard on the church, the unborn, and Israel. Biden was dumb and without conscience, and he appointed godless nutcases to rule over us. Harris would make us miss Biden. She is a complete zero as a human being.

She’s a wonderful exhibit to use in order to prove democracy doesn’t work. When Biden gave her affirmative action and made her his running mate, she was extremely unpopular even among Democrats. That didn’t change during her time in office. Now she may get a legitimate majority in a presidential election. The people didn’t get to vote for alternatives. She was simply installed, and Democrats could either vote for her or let Trump win.

Imagine the kind of pigs she will appoint to abuse and control us if she wins. The worst choices imaginable. Disgusting, vile, incompetent, corrupt, and stupid.

It seems like there should be something to do other than praying and waiting for Yeshua, but if there is, I can’t see it.

Maybe I should prepare a rapture-ready will. Will it matter? Will the wills of raptured people be triggered when they leave? Will they be respected? Will whatever I could leave people be helpful to them in a world where demons and fallen angels are running amok?

I assume people will run around killing each other, squatting in each other’s houses, and stealing each other’s money, so I don’t think a will would be helpful.

There must be something useful for us to do right now. I just need to be told what it is.

What if the rapture doesn’t come, and I have to age and die in Satan’s America? Terrible thought. But I know from experience that if I pray in the Spirit enough, things will work out for me. I can’t do all that much for others, so it’s a limited blessing.

I can’t wait for this place to be wiped clean and remodeled. I don’t know what it is to live in a world that works. I’ve seen better times than the present, but I have always been surrounded by death, disease, injury, deformity, murder, accidents, poverty, and every type of emotional pain. I have always lived in a world ruled by Satan’s children.

My patience with suffering is gone. A couple of years ago, it didn’t discourage me as much. Now, every time I see someone with a terrible physical problem, or I hear about a terrorist attack or a natural disaster or some other cause of suffering, I think, “I have HAD it with this. Please get us OUT.” Enough. I have seen enough.

A few people can be helped, but almost everyone will continue to suffer and fail. Most of the people we try to help will turn our help into curses. They won’t turn to God. Not really. They won’t pray in tongues. They won’t repent. They won’t be accountable. Things won’t get any better for them.

The blessed will stay blessed, and the people who hold onto them like Titanic survivors holding onto floating planks will continue to hold on. Nearly everyone who leads a cursed life will continue to be cursed.

People who lead cursed lives generally don’t want to know God. They want money. They think money will fix everything and they won’t have to repent. It’s frustrating, because continued abundance comes from a relationship with God. You tell them how to fix their lives, they pretend to agree, and they don’t change.

When someone listens, it’s like you’ve found a big gold nugget in a manure pile the size of an apartment building.

We don’t have enough money or time to buy better lives for the people who won’t repent. We have to watch nearly everyone sink. Elon Musk couldn’t fix them. Look at his son, the pervert.

I like to prophesy, but I keep hearing about how God is going to destroy people who are against his children. That means the vast majority of human beings. I would love to hear about revival and miracles.

The human race is just too crooked to help. We have always been that way. God is always ready to bless, but almost no one is interested.

Guess I’ll go pray and then think about dinner.

Full Price for Half the Show

I am waiting for my wife to get dressed, so I have a lot of time to kill. I think I’ll write about Rome.

Do not go to Rome.

Before we went to Rome, I tried to get advice on the best Italian city for a week’s stay. I figured the only real choices were Rome and Florence. Art, history, and so on.

People said Rome was the best choice, but they were completely wrong. The correct answer is Florence. I will explain.

Next year, Rome has a jubilee celebration. In preparation, they are cleaning things up. A lot of restoration is going on.

If you look at videos about Rome, you’ll see exciting shots of the altar at St. Peter’s, the Senate building, and various other sights. When you go to Rome, you see something very different: sights that have been fenced in or covered with fabric.

The altar is almost completely covered. The Pieta is a fake. The Senate is fenced off. A lot of things you could walk right up to a couple of years ago are off limits.

Don’t go. In fact, don’t go in 2025, either. It will be a madhouse. Everyone who sees the Pope the way teenage girls see Taylor Swift will be there. Believe it or not, there are a lot of people who take the pope and the Vatican seriously. They think the pope is super-holy and not just a cookie-cutter secular leftist who loves attention, and they think the Vatican is a holy place. They will pack Rome to the rooftops, and you don’t want to be there. It’s obscenely crowded right now, a year before the jubilee, so the jubilee will be a nightmare.

You want to go in 2026. Rome will experience a tourism dip because everyone on Earth went in 2025. It will be cheaper and less expensive, and the restored stuff will be accessible again.

Go in winter or early spring, or wait until late fall. You don’t need warm weather to enjoy Rome, and it draws tourists.

Here’s an interesting observation, from someone who has met God: the Vatican doesn’t feel like a church at all. There is no trace of God’s presence. You’re not going to feel awed by the holiness. You’ll feel like you’re in a crowded museum that makes lots of money.

Incidentally, the Catholics have decided forgiveness isn’t something you can get wherever you are, at any time. I learned this from my tour guide. There is some touristy thing or other in St. Peter’s, and the official belief has always been that if you walk by it or under it or something at a certain time–the jubilee year, I think–you get forgiveness for everything. St. Francis, generously, changed the rule. He decided you don’t have to go to the Vatican. You still have to get the time right, however, and you have to go to a church or something. I forget.

Apparently, the Catholics believe there are a bunch of sins God will not ordinarily forgive. No wonder ex-Catholics make the best and angriest atheists. They are recovering abuse victims.

Paul was a murderer of Christians. Moses was a murderer. David was a murderer who killed a man because he had gotten the man’s wife pregnant, and he led violent, thieving raids on towns. He had a man killed for throwing rocks at him. But a woman who got an abortion at 15 goes to hell unless she can walk through a certain door on a certain day.

It’s asinine. It’s sick. Yeshua will forgive you wherever you are, whenever you ask. He will forgive you for nearly anything. He saved a Roman centurion. Think of the things that man had done.

“Wrong day. Sorry. Come back next year.” Imagine Yeshua saying that. “Hope you’re still alive during the jubilee.”

Yeshua let people torture him to death because he was so driven to save sinners. He talked about his burning desire to reach the lost. But somehow he burns repentant Christians who can’t afford a ticket to Rome?

But this is the organization that decorated churches with naked statues, burned people over minor doctrinal disputes, and tortured Jews to death. It took the church until 1965 to stop holding the entire Jewish people responsible for killing Yeshua.

Everyone who has sinned is responsible for the crucifixion. This is obvious. The pope is responsible. Mary is responsible.

Yeshua visited me twice, and he never mentioned the pope or the catechism. He poured love through me and told me nothing bad could possibly happen to me while he was there. He annihilated worry and fear. He didn’t say, “It’s too bad you’re going to hell forever for rejecting the one true church.”

It’s a pretty safe bet that Yeshua has never met the pope.

I wish we had visited Florence. The art is much better. I don’t think they’re covering it up this year. But now I can say I’ve seen Rome. Whoo hoo.

Here Goes Literally Nothing

Today we have to run a medical errand, and both my wife and I almost certainly have covid, so yesterday, I had her call to find out if we should cancel or wear masks or have ourselves encased in carbonite or what. They told us to wear masks, but first they asked if we had any, which says a lot about current attitudes.

There may be one under my car seat.

As I have written, we just got back from Switzerland and Italy, where we were around all sorts of sick people. We flew home sick because there was nothing we could do to protect anyone, and staying in Europe would have been a huge and pointless hardship. The air was full of bugs everywhere, isolation has gone out the window, and our contribution to the airborn virus supply simply was not meaningful.

Yesterday I looked at the current covid stats, and today I’m looking again. According to WHO, the number of known active cases in Europe is about 70 times the number in the Americas. Not the United States. The Americas.

In the past, the case numbers were almost certainly overreported in America because we paid hospitals huge money to claim people had covid, without testing them. Now, the numbers are probably underreported. But is there any reason to think the ratio is affected significantly? I don’t know of one, except that it makes no sense for Europeans to have 70 times our rate.

Even if the data is wrong, it’s probably right enough for a person to safely conclude that coronavirus is extremely common in Europe right now.

There are so many sick people over there, doing nothing at all to isolate themselves, that removing us from the scene would have had no effect whatsoever.

Out of curiosity, I Googled to see if our overlords still want Americans to get tested. Of course they do. Why? So we can get treatment to protect ourselves from severe covid and so we can buy what are now referred to as “quality” masks.

Forgive me for chuckling. They never give up.

There is no treatment. I mean, okay, there are some things that seem to help a fraction of the people who are on death’s door, but for you and me, the mildly ill, no, there is no treatment. Except ivermectin, which does seem to help, especially when taken at the first sign of symptoms. Your GP won’t give it to you, however. You have to go to Tractor Supply. He isn’t going to pump you full of secret drugs developed for Jeff Bezos and Joe Biden just because you have the sniffles. Those drugs probably don’t exist.

If you have severe symptoms, what do you need the test for? Go to the hospital. You already know you’re sick, and it doesn’t matter whether it’s covid. Just go. If you have a fever of 104° but it’s not covid, are you going to stay home and die?

As for the masks, well, they do not work, and people who are at risk of severe covid should not be out in public where you can cough on them.

Look, if I absolutely had to be around someone who was likely to die if infected, I would get super-duper masks and make the best possible use of them. Mainly, I would avoid the person as much as I could, because that’s the only thing that really works, but, yes, in a pinch, I would wear a mask. But this is not the situation I face. I don’t know anyone like that, and if there are strangers in my area who need protection, they should be at home, because even if I put my head in a hermetically-sealed jar, other people will still expose them.

Science now tells us that the best masks made, worn 100% correctly all the time, have some impact, so there are scenarios in which I might use them, but come on. I’m not wearing one to Lee’s Famous Fried Chicken.

So why are Europeans all full of coronavirus while we are not? How can that be? There is plenty of travel both ways. It’s just about impossible to get covid on a plane, but people land eventually and move around.

It seems to defy physics.

Maybe Europeans are getting tested and we are not.

Not much has happened to us. My wife got sick first. She had a mild fever and a sore throat, plus skeletal aches.

My voice got raspy. Then days later, I had a night of chills and skeletal aches. Not bad. My butt really hurt. I never had a sore throat or much of a fever. I had another night of greatly reduced chills. I developed chest congestion, and when I tried to sleep, my breathing sounded like someone sitting on an accordion. My nose ran slightly. On the second leg of our flight home, my left ear got stopped up and would not let go, and it took a couple of days to drain. My appetite was affected, and it’s still not great. Sweet things still don’t taste quite as sweet as they are. I have been going to sleep very early, but that could be jet lag.

That’s about it.

We were able to walk around Rome and keep up with the crowds.

I think I wasted a lot of money on shoes. My Keen hiking shoes developed a leak in Switzerland the night before we left, and I had to do something, so on the morning before we took our train to Italy, I went to an incredibly overpriced sports store in Wengen and bought new hiking shoes. I believe they charged me 229 Euros for Scarpa shoes that can’t hold a light to Keens.

They felt wonderful during our train trip to Rome, but the next day, during a food tour, my feet started to hurt. Very unpleasant. I’m not used to having foot pain, so I was not happy.

They also filled up with water when rain caught us near the Pantheon, but that could have been because I got caught in the rain while wearing shorts. The water may have run down my legs and into the shoes. They were supposed to be waterproof. I always wear waterproof shoes when I can.

The next day, I went out and bought yet more shoes. Again, Scarpa. All I could find. They were much better. Only 199 Euros.

In retrospect, I wonder whether then first new pair was really a problem. Maybe I was having skeletal pain, and it made my feet hurt. Maybe the shoes are okay.

I’m afraid to try them on now. I’m out about $500.

The lesson: always check your shoes before traveling abroad. I thought my Keens were relatively new, but when I checked, Amazon said I had ordered them over two years ago.

Also, don’t wear shorts on cold, rainy days unless you like water in your shoes.

My Keens can be had for right around $100, and you can bet I’ll be getting new ones. I have no idea what to do with my Euro shoes.

I hope we don’t kill anyone at the doctors’ office.

Number One on the List of Stuff for the Messiah to Tear Down

Having returned from Europe, I put up a blog post, and reader Juan Paxety posted a comment about the Arch of Titus. As it happens, this landmark is one of the sights I really wanted to see while visiting Rome. It stands in the forum.

The arch of Titus is a “triumphal arch,” and that means it was built to be used in a triumph. A triumph was a huge victory celebration, and during these celebrations, parades would pass through triumphal arches. I don’t know if all arches were used for parades, and for all I know, there were parades that bypassed arches. I’m writing in generalities.

Titus was the vile pagan who sacked Jerusalem in 70 A.D. He destroyed the temple and took all the gold to Rome. According to Juan, the wealth from the temple was used to build the Colosseum.

The arch was built by his brother Domitian, who was known for tormenting and massacring Christians. Domitian is the idiot who deep-fried John for the amusement of the peasants. Sadly for him, John was not harmed, and the miracle is said to have lead to many conversions. That’s the story, anyway. We know John lived to be very old, and he wrote the Revelation while exiled to Patmos.

The claim about the financing of the Colosseum made so much sense to me, I had to look it up. History is full of fake facts that tie things together very nicely, so you have to be careful. Turns out Juan is right.

The story made sense to me for a very important reason: it was consistent with a supernatural theme that has been with us for millennia: the conflict between worship of the one true God and Hellenism, which is the global system of the spirit of Antichrist, better known as Satan.

The word “Hellenism” more or less refers to Greek customs and beliefs, but to me, it means the Satanic political and social apparatus, in totality. After all, the system we live with now is just a continuation of the Greek system, which was inspired by the Egyptians and stolen by the Romans.

Rome never went away. All over the Western world, it’s still with us. Greco-Roman architecture. Representative government. The mile. We even salute the Roman eagle. We use it. The Nazis used it. Lots of other nations use it. The Nazis called themselves the Third Reich, meaning a continuation of the Holy Roman Empire, which was descended, obviously, from the empire that was based in Rome and then Istanbul.

We still live in Rome, which means we still live in Alexander’s empire.

Hellenism was a big problem for the ancient Jews. The Greeks took over Israel, and they had something resembling our country club system. In the US, if you want to succeed, it can be very helpful to join a golf club and play golf, even if you hate it. Deals and connections are made on courses and in locker rooms. In the Greek world, they had the gymnasium instead.

Greek males (only) competed in sports before adoring crowds. They competed naked. After all, they were perverts. The word “gymnasium” literally means something like “place of nudity.”

Ambitious Jews under the Greeks needed to fit in, so they competed, too. They sinned against God, removing their clothing and making fools of themselves in exchange for social credit. In doing so, they exposed their circumcisions, which they came to see as barriers to acceptance. Instead of doing the right thing, many stopped circumcising their sons, and some resorted to primitive medical procedures intended to make them look as though they had not been circumcised.

Circumcision was very important to God. The Jews had a contract with God, and circumcision was the only way to sign it. No circumcision, no contract. An uncircumcised Jew was not really part of the Jewish people. They must have gone to hell, because salvation was part of the covenant.

Jews caught up in Hellenism celebrated nudity, perversion, pride, greed, and pantheism. They celebrated the fleeting and puny strength of the flesh instead of the lasting help of God.

Hellenism is one of the many reasons Catholicism is worthless and corrupt. Instead of teaching people to love the Holy Spirit, the ancient church held onto the Greeks they revered. You can see this in the stupid books people like Augustine wrote. They held onto pagans like Aristotle and Plato. They clung to pagan art. This is why the Sistine Chapel is full of paintings of hairless nude men waving their penises around.

We are so used to nudity in art, we think nothing of seeing it in churches. How do you think Yeshua feels about it? If he came down today and told you to build and decorate a church, do you think he would be happy if you said you wanted to include 40 paintings of men’s penises?

I saw the chapel last week. I thought it was ridiculous. The quality of the art is not the issue. The issue is the ridiculous notion that it’s okay to fill the walls and ceiling of a church with completely gratuitous nudity.

I get it. Michelangelo thought we would all be naked at the judgment. The Bible doesn’t actually say that. The judgment isn’t going to look like a parade in West Hollywood.

The Colosseum was a triumphal monument to Hellenism. It was Satan’s way of saying, “We won.” The temple was gone. Israel was gone. The church was dispersed. The treasure was in Rome. Time to build a huge outdoor theater devoted to cruelty and murder. A place to celebrate the flesh and honor the false gods. Satan made the Jews pay for it.

Jerusalem was God’s capital. Rome was Satan’s. It was that simple.

Jews don’t like Titus much, and they don’t like the arch. Sculpted into it are depictions of happy Romans carrying the treasures of the temple into Rome, including the lampstand that stood in the Holy of Holies. Pope Paul IV made Jewish leaders go to the arch every year to kiss his feet and swear loyalty. No wonder Jews hate Catholicism nearly as much as former Catholics.

The arch may have been designed by the same man who designed the Colosseum.

Today, we live in a country dotted with colosseums. They are patterned after the architecture of the Colosseum in Rome. We neglect God, our families, and our children to pump money to functional illiterates who run fast for a few years and then go bankrupt and spend the rest of their lives wobbling around on shattered knees, coping with CTE.

A proper Christian invests in eternal things. An idiot invests in things that are soon destroyed. We are a culture of idiots, and that includes every “Christian” who tells children Yeshua loves competitive sports.

We treat athletes with reverence, as though they were making sacrifices for us. Like they were little Yeshuas.

They’re selfish. They’re rich. They are often brutal and violent. Many are too dumb to do their own work in college, even in simpleton majors like English and Public Recreation. They do nothing whatsoever for us at work, they take as much as they can, and we pay for their sweaty jerseys and dirty pants and hang them in our houses. If an athlete with an IQ of 90, and 10 illegitimate children he ignores, touches something, we treat it like a holy relic that cures cancer.

It makes perfect sense that Titus, a son of Satan if ever there was one, would loot the temple and use the wealth to build a stadium used to placate and control the masses. Nothing has changed.

A 50th-percentile dog entering middle age, leading a sedentary life, could run circles (literally) around any athlete who ever lived. No marathon runner could hope to win a race with a dog in good condition. A scared cat has a vertical leap of 8 feet, which no athlete will ever approach. What are we so excited about?

The world is disgusting. As bad as we are, we are now being replaced by generations of people who are even worse. They are soft. They are inept. They love cruelty. They can’t understand why anyone thinks the truth is important. They worship themselves. They live for Internet likes. They think the people who built the world they live in are morons.

They will make things worse. They already are. They are openly calling for the murder of the entire nation of Israel, and they can’t see anything wrong with it.

God needs to wrap things up. This place is finished. There is no reaching these people.

Go Ahead and Fly With Covid

Yesterday, I was reminded of the vast coronivarus-information gulf between conservatives and leftists. Leftists are irrational and hysterical, always advising ridiculous, harmful overreactions, and conservatives are always patiently refuting their hysteria with facts. Then we are accused of ignorance and selfishness, as always.

I just got back from Europe. My wife and I got covid on our trip, as we often do when traveling. Somewhere on the web, I mentioned it, and I said I was glad we were able to fly home sick. In the past, we were often in danger of forced and extremely expensive quarantine.

Some character responded and said I had been “very considerate of” my fellow passengers.

Right away, I had questions about his brainpower. We are considerate TO others, not OF them.

I don’t know if leftists will ever catch up. These are the people who, when polled, said they thought an infected person’s chance of requiring hospitalization was about 40%. The world would have ended. I’m pretty sure the black death is down around 30%.

My wife and I were probably infected in Switzerland, because my voice sounded a little raspy before we left. By the time we left Italy, where we heard sick people coughing all around us, we were getting better. Neither of us is completely well, but we’re fine.

What’s the standard these days when it comes to covid and travel?

In practical terms, there is no standard. Do what you want. There are no tests or travel bans. As recently as ’22, it was easy to find entrepreneurs to do PCR tests on tourists. Now the industry has collapsed, because no one cares.

I have Googled, and while I have seen random sites that have no authority telling people to stay home, actual government sites say it’s best not to fly until you start to feel better, and that’s about it. They don’t say to hide out until you’re completely well.

Why are they saying it’s okay to fly as long as you’re getting better? My guess: no scientific reason at all. They just need to say something in order to look like they’re doing something. It’s like the 6-foot rule, which we now know had no basis in science.

The web says covid is contagious for 8 to 10 days after symptoms start, and if that’s true, then you can be contagious after you start feeling better. So the rule is horse manure.

The travel bans had no basis in science, either, nor did the mask laws. America kept travelers out while half the population was sick, as though flying a few thousand more in would make an important difference. The masks only worked when they were expensive masks, worn properly, changed several times per day. No one did any of that outside of hospitals. Even then, they worked poorly.

Whatever. We were getting better when we flew, so we are good little do-bees.

People can be really thick. Imagine how things would have gone had we decided to stay in Rome.

1. No food. The hotel had no room service. If food delivery is a serious industry in Rome, we saw no sign of it.

2. No laundry. The hotel didn’t do laundry.

3. No hotel room. Our booking would have run out. Where would we have gone? Maybe we could have found a room nearby, but hotels in Rome were really jammed. How would we have moved without exposing lots of people? Two “dangerous” sick persons, dragging luggage up the road and having it thrown into and out of a cab. All the way around, it’s a stupid idea.

4. No tickets. We would have been charged huge change fees. And who knows when we could have gotten flights? We would have had to wait until covid decided to test negative. A week? Ten days? If we had tested negative on a given day, who is to say we could have flown home the next day? Our flights were crammed. This isn’t the month for flying home from Rome on the day of your choice without advance notice.

5. No one to look after our house and business.

6. No place to store Marvin, my parrot. He was staying at a boarding place, and it was busy. He could have been thrown out. What then? Maybe I could have gotten the boarding people to hook me up with some stranger. That would have been irresponsible.

7. No health insurance. Our health insurance, like yours, only works in the US. We had travel insurance, and it would have expired while we were quarantining.

We would have had to go out for meals and laundry. No way around it. We would have exposed people every day.

What about flying home?

Science preexisting the hysteria clearly says the chance of catching covid on a jet, while seated next to a sick person, is about one in half a million. Jets are really good at keeping air clean. So we exposed some people in Italy, then we got on jets where we were no threat to anyone, and since then, we have exposed a few people at a hotel, one restaurant, and a grocery store.

The people we exposed in Italy were already being exposed every day. I’m sure the same is true of the people we encountered here.

Here’s what I told the person who thought I was inconsiderate: if you’re a bubble boy, stay in your bubble. You can’t put a bubble around the world.

On the web, you can find left-wing writers saying that if you fly with covid, you may kill people. No. They may kill themselves. If they’re going out in public, knowing they may be exposed, failing to protect themselves, it’s on them, not me.

My presence doesn’t change anything in a world full of people wandering around with covid. Remove me, and people still get exposed.

They never complain about asymptomatic people–a huge demographic–killing people. They never complain about people with false negatives killing people. They’re not bright enough to understand.

Covid is no big deal to me right now. Maybe that will change as I age. If it does, you better believe I’m not going to put on my Karen hat and run around trying to get other people to wrap themselves in Saran Wrap.

Many sick people don’t know they’re sick. The ones who know they’re sick are not willing to quarantine; no one does that. If I become unable to fight covid, the world will continue to spray me with viruses every time I appear in public. This is an absolute certainty. My only hope, if I start needing help, will be to stay home. Maybe I could get some really good masks and observe mask protocols rigorously while doing necessary shopping, but that’s about it.

I will probably never be in any danger from covid. Age is a risk factor, but there are plenty of old people who never get very sick, and covid has already given me its best shot several times without harming me much. If it isn’t hurting me now, it probably will not hurt me when I’m 90.

Leftists love using their real or imagined health problems to control others. I saw an article the other day about a kook who tried to get everyone on a plane to give up peanuts because her daughter was allergic. No; the world does not work like that. You don’t drag other people down to the lowest common health denominator because you’re hysterical and love attention.

Nut allergies are not triggered by the mere presence of nuts, by the way. I could eat nuts next to an allergic person all day without doing any harm.

Imagine what the news would look like if nut allergies were triggered through the air. “Today’s nut death toll: 300,000! When will we have sensible nut control?”

Time to wrap up. I need food, and there is none here. I’m about to get in the car and take my viruses shopping. If you live near me and you’re a bubble boy, better stay home for a while and play Trivial Pursuit.

Frightened Critics Torch Movie to Protect the Revolution

I am editing photos from our trip to Switzerland and Italy. It’s a real challenge. In the past, my cameras shot JPG files, and after that, I adjusted them to some degree (or not), and that was that. Now I am shooting raw files, and I have to use a program to make them look nice.

My knowledge of digital photography is weak, but if I understand things correctly, a JPG is an edited photo. If your camera shoots JPG’s, it’s editing them before storing them, based on some set of parameters nerds put in there. The photo you end up with doesn’t contain all the data your sensor picked up, because the camera discards it to save space. A JPG is pre-edited to look pretty good, and it usually works.

A raw file is whatever your camera picks up, whether it looks good or not. Your job is to take the file and mess with it until you like it. Because the file is raw, there is a lot more to work with, so you can make much larger adjustments without ruining the shot.

Correct me if I’m wrong.

I’m sitting here being disappointed over and over in the shots I took, because a lot of them look horrid when I open them. But they do clean up well, in many cases.

Editing is slow because I am not used to Photoshop. It’s not like my old copy of Photoshop Elements, which was very easy to use right from the start.

I’ll post a couple of shots. Not life-changing, but good enough to prove we went somewhere.

I’m taking a break right now because I hate Photoshop.

I’m thinking about a movie I saw during the trip. I rarely watch movies because Hollywood is an abcess and I think God does not like fiction, but when you are stuck in a tiny hotel room with covid, and you have three woke-country TV channels in English (they all seem exactly the same), you will be tempted to expand your options.

Somehow I came across a Youtube clip of a film about demonic possession. I don’t like entertainment about the occult, but I found the clip compelling, and my wife wanted to see the movie, so we watched the entire film. Maybe this was hypocritical. Not sure. You have to be careful with bright lines.

The movie is called Nefarious, and it’s about a serial killer who is about to be executed. A psychiatrist is engaged to determine whether he’s sane enough to kill, and the psychiatrist commits suicide. A doctor the psychiatrist mentored replaces him, and the movie consists mostly of his interview with the murderer.

The murderer says he is completely possessed. He rarely speaks as his human self. He says his name is “Nefariamus,” and he tells the second doctor that he, the doctor, will become famous for writing a new book: the dark gospel.

The doctor is an atheist, so you can imagine how impressed he is at first.

The demon tells the doctor all about Satan’s kingdom and the things Satan’s spirit cronies have done to destroy the world. Abortion, every type of immorality Hollywood loves…you name it. He explains why evil spirits hate God and how this hatred is the foundation of their unprovoked cruelty to human beings. It’s really something to hear. It’s pretty accurate.

Most Christian movies are bad or mediocre, but this one features top-notch acting and dialogue. It’s low budget for sure. Almost all of it takes place in one room. But Sean Patrick Flanery, the actor who played the killer, was nothing short of spellbinding. Everyone enjoys a clever, superhuman film villain, and I thought this guy was better than Anthony Hopkins.

The movie has its flaws. Not all of the actors are great, and there were things that could have been improved, but it was very good. Certainly better than much of the garbage that brings people major awards these days. Like I always say, Cher and Marisa Tomei got Oscars.

Those awards seemed remarkable to me, because I did not yet live in a world where a huge man in ladies’ underwear could win a prize for giving a girl brain damage in a volleyball match.

Having seen Nefarious, I wondered why I had never heard of it before.

Of course, the obvious occurred to me. We live in a world where Barack Obama was given a Nobel Peace Prize for winning an election, but Donald Trump, a man known for spreading peace, was ignored after putting the Abraham Accords together. Maybe the critics had killed the movie because it honored God and exposed their industry’s patron spirits.

Well, here is a screenshot for you.

That’s from Rotten Tomatoes, the famous site where critics and actually human beings review films side by side. In case you don’t know, the critics say movies are “fresh” or “rotten,” and actual human beings use a star system. The rating generated by human beings is called the Popcornmeter.

This movie has 21 critic reviews and over a thousand reviews from real movie watchers. Look at the difference. The critics say 33%, which is abysmal, but the audience says 96%, which is about as good as a movie can do.

Wonder why there is such a difference. Hmm.

Let’s quote some critics.

Nefarious has been inaccurately described as a horror movie. It’s a poorly made psychological drama about a death row inmate, with no real scares and too much over-acting. As this dull movie drones on, it becomes preachy propaganda for right-wing beliefs.

I like that one, because that critic really dropped her pants for us. She admits leftists think Christianity is “right-wing.” How long have I been saying leftists hate conservatives because conservatives are associated with Christianity? I doubt she even thought about the way she was exposing herself. There is virtually no political material in the film, but it’s full of religious matter, and that’s what set her off.

As for “preachy propaganda,” wow…should I sit here and try to list all the leftist propaganda films critics have loved? I’d be here for days.

Nefarious advertises itself as a possession thriller but pulls a bait & switch to deliver a Christian and Conservative propaganda piece. Flanery does his best to elevate what is otherwise a 90 minute sermon on abortion, euthanasia, and the death penalty.

If you like your demons on the preachy side, then you may enjoy [this movie]. The rest of us will find [it]…tedious, heavy-handed and indoctrinating.

The film’s heavy-handed and bogus message tells us that Hollywood is immoral because it acts to corrupt its viewer’s minds.

The only thing not covered in this Christo-fascist manifesto of a movie is “guns.”

While there are moments of intensity in Nefarious, there isn’t a moment in the film that feels like cinematic horror unless you’re talking about one of those evangelical haunted houses where demons pop out of the walls to warn of the evils of the world.

Nefarious builds to a howler of a climax that delivers exactly what you’d anticipate from the makers of God’s Not Dead, just in an even more preposterous way. The big scene would be perfect for an Airplane!-style spoof of evangelical-themed films.

Subtlety is not the film’s strong point. Neither is casting.

That’s idiotic. Do critics pan other movies for not being subtle? Not if they push the left’s agenda. And the two central characters in this film did great jobs. It has been years since I’ve seen a performance as good as Flanery’s.

They filmmakers cast Glenn Beck as himself, interviewing the psychiatrist a year after the execution. That was a mistake. For one thing, Beck is not a Christian. For another, he looked like Johnny Depp dressed him. A creepy chin beard and bunch of old-looking and seemingly-unrelated clothes piled on top of each other, as though he found them in a Salvation Army box. And his performance was bad. It was very odd. He leaned toward the psychiatrist and maintained an expression I would ordinarily associate with strong sexual arousal, as though he were talking to an Onlyfans model after a long period of solitary confinement. His lower lip hung loose and swung as though trying to wave at the other actor.

Beck should not have been cast in this or any other movie, but the two leads were excellent.

I don’t know how Beck got in there. Did Mormons back the movie? They are a real problem for ignorant people who think Mormons are Christians. I wonder if Beck invested in the film on the condition they include him.

I have never been a Beck fan. Not for 10 seconds. He’s a kook.

I still remember the nutty video he did, in which he claimed he was nearly killed by a hemorrhoid laser. Try and imagine a scenario in which that is even possible. No, don’t.

By the way, The Passion of the Christ got a whopping 49% from leftist critics at Rotten Tomatoes.

Not subtle enough for them, I guess.

I don’t know if you should see Nefarious or not. Just telling you what I thought about it. But I can confidently say that if you still don’t think Satan controls Hollywood, you need to snap out of it.

Now I can Rest

A longtime reader asked if I was okay. I am definitely okay. It’s nice to know people think about my welfare.

My wife and I were traveling. I don’t like to blog while traveling. At least not in ways that show I’m not home. The reason should be obvious.

I should have continued to blog as though I were home, to obscure things more effectively, but the trip was exhausting. We went to Switzerland and Italy. We went up and down mountains, and then we tromped around the Vatican and sites from imperial Rome. Then, of course, we got covid, as we generally do on our expensive trips. Mexico, where a hotel suite goes for $100 per day? No problem. Lucerne, where they charge you $7 for a glass of tap water? Covid.

The virus seems to lurk in ambush in the very best destinations. Everyone in Italy was coughing, and it wasn’t merely because every Italian over the age of three smokes.

I’ll bet no one is sick in destinations like Miami and Somalia.

I failed to bring ivermectin with us. It always seems to help dramatically, but it doesn’t work from 4500 miles away. I took a big hit when I got home. Can’t hurt, and like I always say, I definitely don’t have worms.

Of course, I felt much, much, much better after about two hours. Anecdotal? Unscientific? Whatever. The difference is like day and night, whether or not it’s the ivermectin. I will keep using it, because maybe it’s actually doing something.

I am not kidding about the tap water. I think I saw it as low as two Swiss Francs in one place, and the maximum was 6.5.

TAP…water. Which is available for nothing, not just in hotel rooms, but also from numerous outdoor fountains, the safety of which is something the Swiss are very proud of.

Hooray. Your tap water isn’t full of dysentery. You’re as sophisticated as Bulgaria.

A bar where I used to hang out when I was 16 sells cheeseburger platters for 28 Swiss Francs without a drink.

I really admire the Swiss, but there is no way to explain a $33 cheeseburger or a $7 glass of tap water without mentioning greed. I don’t care how bad the exchange rate is. I suspect they have realized they will always have more tourists than they can handle well, so they are jacking prices up in order to get people who are more upscale. Maybe they’re trying to thin out the Chinese.

There are many bad tourists among the mainland Chinese. Many are rude and aggressive, they let their kids poop in public, sometimes the adults poop in public, and they do horrific things in public toilets other people have to use. Check out this sign from the train station in Wengen:

I’m not sure, but the bottom row may be for people from places like Greece, where toilet pipes are often too narrow to swallow paper.

The covid isn’t really bad. I prefer it to a cold, because covid doesn’t give me much in the way of throat problems, and I can breathe through my nose most of the time. We did feel some weakness on a day when we needed to climb steps.

My short take: Lucerne is a lot of fun, but you will pay a steep price. Also, the food in Lucern is not very good. We went to the Bernese Oberland after Lucerne, and the food was bad there, too.

I don’t mean it was so bad you wouldn’t want to eat it, although that was sometimes true. I mean it seems like the Swiss have no idea what other people mean when they say food “tastes good.” We got things that were bland, and, in some cases, a little gross.

It’s no fun paying $100 for an unappetizing meal for two. Over and over.

Our hotel in Wengen was generally good, but they priced a smallish load of laundry at 150 Swiss Francs. The owner, a very nice lady, felt sorry for us and reduced our bill to 75. It pays to dress poor. In Rome, a bigger load, in the tourist district, would cost 25 Euros, and a Euro is about the same size as a Swiss Franc right now.

The mountains in Switzerland were spectacular. You look at them and can’t believe they’re real. We went up Pilatus, Rigi, the Schilthorn, and the Jungfrau.

I eventually cut way back on shooting photos and videos. Every 10 minutes, there’s a sight that knocks you off your feet. After a while, you get tired of taking the camera out, removing the lens cover, et cetera et cetera.

If you want to see something amazing, go to Lauterbrunnen, take the train to Wengen, and look back at Lauterbrunnen as you leave. Get ready to pinch yourself.

Here is my message about Rome: go in the winter. We didn’t have that option. There is nothing in Rome you can’t enjoy in cold weather, and the crowds are much smaller. The Vatican was like the subway in Hong Kong in terms of crowding, not to mention covid transmission. The Colosseum was also pretty bad.

Another warning: don’t buy tours from outfits like Viator. We did it because we didn’t know if it was safe not to, and we thought the Swiss, who were handling our Schengen visa request, would want to see booked activities.

Tour companies buy government-issued site tickets and resell them. We paid $333 for Vatican tickets that appear to cost 40 Euros when you get them from the source.

What about the guides? They’re experts! You need a guide!

You really don’t. One of our tours had 22 people. Way too many. The guide kept getting away from us. The audio quality on the earbuds they gave us was terrible. We couldn’t stop and enjoy anything. You can find yourself a guided tour on Youtube and use it with your phone. We did this for the Forum, and it was better than having a guide.

You’re not going to become an expert on anything just by spending three hours with a human being, so don’t worry that you’re missing something by using Youtube. You’re not. Think about this: real scholars put tour videos on Youtube.

We used electronic guides at the Pantheon, and they were great.

No tips expected.

The food was really nice, except for breakfast. I enjoyed Roman-style pizza. But Italian food is all there is. We saw one Italian restaurant after another. We didn’t see much else. Obviously, you can find other kinds of food in Rome, but you have to look. It’s not like New York, where you can find 8 nationalities on one block.

I never thought I could get tired of Italian food until this trip. By the end, I was so put off I went to McDonald’s, which is really bad in Rome, unless covid just made it taste that way.

The beer was disgusting. Like mouthwash. Very harsh. No body or sweetness to balance the hops. No aroma to speak of. No complexity.

More later, I would guess. Right now I am exhausted.

Temptation Reveals Character

I was thinking last night about my mother’s family and how sad it is that some of us decided to trade priceless relationships for money.

I really do mean “sad.” People use the word in a snotty way, to lash out at others. “It’s so sad you think eating meat is cool.” “It’s so sad you have white fragility.” I’m using the word in its proper sense. We lost something of tremendous value, and we will never get it back. I miss the relationships we used to have.

When I was a kid, I lived in a miserable home. My dad drank and chased women. He strangled my mother twice in front of me. He beat her for things like failing to match his socks. My mother, my sister and I were afraid of him. I had a repeating nightmare in which he cut them up and they talked to me while they were dying. We looked forward to his business trips because when he was gone, we had more peace.

My sister was sick and sadistic. My mother was always unhappy. My dad and my sister both abused her. I was not much of a son. I was irresponsible, afraid of people, and unsuccessful. She loved me deeply, which is not surprising, but she was also proud of me, which made no sense.

I loved going to visit my mother’s parents. They had a big custom-built home on a hill with three spare bedrooms plus a basement room and a sewing and gun room that could be used for guests. We visited in both summer and winter.

When Christmas, came, the families of all 4 daughters gathered at the house. The families that didn’t live nearby stayed there. It was wonderful. I treasure the memories.

My branch of the family drove up from Florida, where the air was hot and never smelled quite clean. I remember how things changed when we got to Kentucky. The air was crisp and cold and smelled like coal smoke. If we were lucky, we also smelled snow.

The house would be full of homemade cookies and things like stack cake and fried apple pies. Sometimes there would be a crate of oranges in the foyer. By the time we got there, the tree and decorations were always up, and the house smelled like pine needles.

With the exception of my strange Uncle John, who was cruel to me for no reason, and who was never held accountable by my parents, I looked forward to seeing everyone. When I heard the door to the carport open, it made me happy, because I knew another bunch had finally arrived.

We opened presents on Christmas Eve, which was a mistake, and we generally got in a couple of days of playing with things like race car sets.

I liked all of my aunts. At different times of my life, each one was my favorite. I liked two of my uncles.

In the summers, I got to work on my grandfather’s farms, and he would often put me in his car or truck and take me to one. He let me run his tractor. When I was small, he would set me on the right fender, and I would sit on it while he ran it. Sometimes he would stand on the floorboard to my right and coach me while I steered.

I remember him taking me on a long hike on a farm that bordered the Red River Gorge. He showed me an old moonshining camp by a little branch. He dug up some old bottles and gave them to me, and I cleaned them up. Of course, someone took them from his house later, along with a remarkable chunk of solid mica I found in the Chattooga River in North Carolina, below Potholes Falls.

Sometimes we shot, or shot at, rabbits. Sometimes he would take me to a local restaurant, and after he sat down, a big group of people who knew him would pull up chairs and make the place crowded. To me, he seemed like a king. The boss of three counties.

He was actually a corrupt politician, and he made a lot of money suing insurance companies in front of mountain juries, but I didn’t know those things.

Corruption was considered cute up there. Still is, I suppose.

I used to walk up the road to his brother’s house, and we would sit in his carport and trade pocket knives. I still have one I got from him. He was like an extra grandfather.

All that is behind me now. Two aunts are still alive. My mother is dead. All three uncles are dead. My dad and my grandparents are dead. Estate preparation was poor. There has been division. People have taken advantage.

I still get along with one aunt. The other is in charge of the interminable distribution of my grandparents’ wealth. My grandfather died in 1994, my grandmother died in 2003, and my aunt still resists selling land and closing up the estates. Things will probably wrap up very quickly when she dies, unless the family puts her unsuccessful nonagenarian second husband–not a blood relative or heir–in charge.

I trust God to compensate me for anything I lose, I don’t need money, my life is very peaceful, and my mother always told me not to get into a certain kind of fight with a skunk, so I don’t push things.

The last time she talked to me, she was furious. I told her she needed to sell everything, and I said she had never given any of us a monthly or yearly statement. I asked why she bothered me about prospective land deals. I said she was going to do whatever she wanted anyway. She said, “That’s right!”, without a trace of shame or any concern about civil or criminal liability.

She blurted out, “I HAVE MORE THAN YOU.” She wanted me to know she had more real estate than I did, as though that justified mishandling things. She told me I was trying to get money because I was poor. She started bragging about her kids and grandchildren, and she said all I had was “maybe a sorry dog.”

Very weird. At the time, as now, I was married to a wonderful woman, and I had a parrot. I don’t have a dog. I have no idea whether she has more real estate than I do. God bless her if she does. I don’t claim to be rich. All I know is that I have a wonderful home from which my wife and I have made a lot of foreign trips, all of which were paid for without borrowing. I have no debt.

All of my property is in areas where values have gone insane, very much unlike prices in Eastern Kentucky, so I am grateful for the way things have worked out. I don’t know if I could take the stress of working a real job in a world that has given itself over completely to Satan.

She said I had sponged off others all my life. I did sponge pretty badly in my twenties while I was trying to make it as a writer, and it’s true that I lived with my dad after law school, but that was a choice, and I paid my own way. I worked when I was in law school, I had inherited money from my mother, and I paid half of my tuition from stock market trades.

Our relationship improved tremendously when I was in law school, and afterward, although I was working, I thought a lot about joint families and the way families worked in the Bible. I felt God wanted me to stay. I started thinking the nuclear family was overrated and that it was better to be around older generations. As it turned out, that was correct.

It was strange to hear her sputtering at me in anger. Others had told me about her cursing them out, but I had never seen it. I don’t know how much of it is dementia. Age has a way of exposing people, though.

As personal representative of the estates, she hired her son to do legal work my dad and I offered to do for nothing. In my opinion, her son is not a real lawyer. He’s intelligent enough to practice, but he ended up at the second-worst law school in the US. I guess my aunt’s connections could not get him into the University of Kentucky, but I don’t know. I can’t imagine going to a horrible law school far away when you can go to a better one nearby and pay in-state tuition.

I won’t toot my own horn, but my dad was third in his class, and he made a living beating Ivy League lawyers in federal court. He defended 11 people charged with murder and got 10 off completely. I will say that I kept up with him.

The estates’ legal affairs turned out very badly, but my cousin got paid a lot. He did some shocking things, and his representation seemed completely inept to me. I called him on it, and he was rude and nasty to me. But I didn’t feel God wanted me to file a bar complaint or sue.

These are people I used to love seeing. It’s hard to believe it ended up like this. I thought we would have loving relationships as long as we lived.

I have never done them wrong. I never stole a penny or a paper clip from the estates, but I have been told things were taken by others. I always said I would not charge for helping, but others got paid. Now here we are. My aunt is slowly dying, her husband is in similar shape, and I suppose it would be awkward if I attended their funerals. Not that I plan to return to Eastern Kentucky for any reason. If my other aunt is living there when she dies, I’ll go, but that’s about it. I am going to avoid the whole area as well as I can. It’s a trashy, cursed place full of people who never grow up. A white ghetto.

My wife and I just got back from North Carolina and Tennessee. So different. The houses and businesses were well-kept. We didn’t see a single discarded school bus in a yard; this is a popular Eastern Kentucky decoration. We didn’t see old cars and refrigerators that had been dumped in creeks. The people were much nicer than people in Eastern Kentucky. You don’t have to be white trash to be from Appalachia.

I wish I could go back in time and tell my grandparents about the future of their descendants. Maybe we would still have a family. They could have done something to lock everything up so no one could end up controlling and taking advantage of the others Good fences make good neighbors.

I thought our family, dysfunctional though it was, was great. I thought we had such warmth. We seemed privileged. An illusion. I saw a veneer. Now if I want a blood family, I’ll have to start one, in my old age. And of course, my Spirit-filled friends are my family. God has given me excellent friends and godchildren.

Speaking of dysfunction, I had a startling revelation last night. I realized my wife and I were not dysfunctional. It came home to me, how strange it was to be all right. Most people are dysfunctional.

Out of 8 grandchildren, I think two may have families that are reasonably free of dysfunction. The rest are a mess. Can’t say I’m sure about the other two. I don’t hear from them. Maybe that means things are going well. My suspicion is that one or both deliberately limit contact with the rest of us in order to protect their peace, but I don’t know. Maybe they just outgrew the family.

I don’t beat my wife. I don’t drink much. We don’t take drugs. We don’t argue. I have no interest in other women. She doesn’t sit by herself and contemplate her existence, thinking about how disappointing it is and what a letdown her husband is. We love each other’s company. We treat each other well.

We have long prayer sessions every day. No one has to be coerced. We both want it.

She didn’t marry me hoping to turn me into a status symbol and money fountain. I didn’t marry her hoping for a perfect sex object that never aged. We don’t think about other people’s opinions of us. We don’t social-climb. We won’t be buying cars we think will impress people. Right now, I’m investing a ton in my old Dodge Cummins so I can drive it until I die.

We don’t go on Facebook and try to convince people who know better that we are Prince Rainier and Princess Grace, living in a fantasy world of blissful marital dreams come true. That’s a common affliction. We are not trying to impress people to make them feel inferior; especially people we don’t respect.

I don’t have to worry about cleaning the house myself or doing laundry because my wife is a slob. She doesn’t have to call tradesmen because I’m too sorry to have repairs made.

I don’t wonder if my newborn son should have a DNA test. I will never try to convince people he’s the next Mozart or Newton because I feel bad about myself or him. He will never have to tell people I lied about him or that he’s not what I held him out to be.

I don’t know how smart or talented he will be, but I know he will have a dedicated father who teaches him about the Holy Spirit and passes on as much wisdom as possible.

We don’t have any mental disorders. I was depressed pretty much continuously until I was 30, but it’s gone, and I feel better every year. We’re not neurotic. We don’t have delusions.

It’s so strange, knowing we’re not dysfunctional. I’m used to thinking of myself as dysfunctional, because I was, and I think of dysfunction as normal, because it is. It’s hard for me to think of acquaintances who aren’t dysfunctional.

Childishness is a big problem everywhere, but it’s SOP in Eastern Kentucky. People hold grudges and maintain feuds. I’m sure a lot of them go to hell for it. If the members of a family can learn to be accountable adults, they can spare themselves a lot of unnecessary suffering. A long time ago, I realized I had never seen two people who were not jerks divorce. Not once. At least one person was always a problem. The same thing is true in all relationships.

Prayer in tongues repairs hearts and minds. It also keeps husbands and wives aligned with each other. It aligns you with God, and if you’re aligned with him, it’s not possible to be out of alignment with each other. You can have little speed bumps, but you’re not going to throw plates at each other or hire attorneys.

We both come from dysfunctional homes, but God repaired us and continues to repair us. If we stop doing what he has taught us to do, we’ll be as dysfunctional as anyone.

It would be great if everyone in the family were praying in tongues. I don’t see anything like that happening in the future. Old people are hard to save. I have one cousin who, like me, is recovering. By the grace of God.

I wish the family had not turned out this way. It would have been wonderful if we had continued to be close. The worst thing about succeeding is watching people you care about continue to peel off and fail.

Trading Alligators for Bears

My wife and I did something extraordinary last week. We went on a trip inside the United States.

We went to a bunch of weird countries while we were separated by the State Department, which was busy letting illegals into the US and watching daytime TV because employees were at home waiting for covid to go away. Until this month, however, we never visited another state.

We went to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. A place I loved as a child.

For those who don’t know, Gatlinburg is in the Smokies. The physical location is beautiful. It’s in a valley surrounded by mountains. To get to Gatlinburg, you have to travel scenic two-lane roads. The area is very nice. Appalachia isn’t as staggeringly beautiful as places like Switzerland and Utah, but it certainly beats the rest of the Eastern United States.

I don’t know when Gatlinburg became a tourist town. It happened before I was born. By the time my family started traveling between Florida and Kentucky to see relatives, everything was already established.

When I was a kid, it was considerably less tacky. It had a bunch of fun souvenir shops, including one called the Rebel Corner, which was decorated with huge Confederate flags. There was a place that made and sold candy. There were some okay restaurants. There were hotels built over the Little Pigeon River, which is really just a rocky creek. You could sit on your balcony or by your open window and listen to the soothing sound of the water.

There were trails and sights. I remember walking up Clingman’s Dome, a mountain nearly 7,000 feet high. My grandfather, the guy who taught me tact, was with us on the paved tourist path. He saw a man who looked like he checked in at about 350 shambling up the path with his own family, and he said, “It’s a good thing you’re not big and fat!”

Sometimes we saw bears. Back then, tourists did brilliant things like feeding them by hand through open car windows.

In those days, I enjoyed Gatlinburg and the nearby town of Cherokee, North Carolina, because to me, they were part of the experience of visiting Kentucky, which I wrongly thought was heaven on Earth.

Gatlinburg has gotten seedier with time. It’s a little trashy now. They used to have a tiny Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum, and now there is an array of Ripley’s attractions. They have a big saltwater aquarium where you can see sharks and sawfish. They’ve built a big concrete parking garage.

Watch the video below to see what Gatlinburg has turned into.

There are weird little attractions that don’t seem to make sense. One features a robotic horse in a dress, sitting out front to attract customers. We didn’t see the appeal.

Even though Gatlinburg is a somewhat downscale tourist town, we enjoyed ourselves. We walked in the woods. We had big breakfasts.

We didn’t go to Dollywood, Dolly Parton’s creepy amusement park. It’s in nearby Pigeon Forge.

I don’t like Dolly Parton. I thought she was perfectly okay when I was a kid, but over the years she and her park have worked hard to promote abomination, and all the time, she has pretended to be a Christian. She’s a complete hypocrite, but lots of stubborn, rebellious Southern women, and I don’t just mean lesbians, think she’s almost a co-savior, like the false Catholic version of Mary. Like a white Oprah.

I don’t know if her attitude has something to do with her unmarried brother who died young from an undisclosed disease or what, but I don’t want any part of her act. I never liked her music, either. She is no Patsy Cline.

The main reason we stayed in a tourist spot was to have a base from which we could look at the area. We have both had thoughts of moving to Eastern Tennessee, and if you stay in Gatlinburg, you can have good food and a nice hotel while you look around. Appalachia is not known for quality food and lodging, so to me, finding these things was a blessing.

We looked around Sevier and Blount counties. The geography and the trees and plants made a big impression, as did the sub-95 temperatures.

When you live in Northern Florida, you get used to living on sand that won’t support anything you really want to grow. You can’t grow apples, real peaches, blackberries, cherries, tomatoes, corn, or anything else without a lot of struggle. The grass is something called bahia. It’s thin, and when you walk across it a few times, you leave obvious damage. It’s full of stinging bugs, and nettles are a problem. Lying down in your own yard is not possible.

Once you get far enough north, you get into real soil. You can have apple trees and grow tomatoes. You can have a lawn.

I have been concerned that if we moved, the people might be backward on racial issues. I’m from Eastern Kentucky, and I’ve also spent a lot of time in Western North Carolina, and I know there are parts of Appalachia where you can have problems if you’re in an interracial marriage or even if you’re just black.

My grandfather was a circuit judge over Breathitt County, Kentucky, and during his time, a black woman moved there and tried to practice law. I never thought of him as an enlightened person with regard to race, but he supported her. The people of Jackson, Kentucky eventually burned her house down. And it wasn’t that long ago. He died in the mid-90’s.

On this visit, I was shocked. In Gatlinburg, we saw one interracial family after another. What a relief. And they were definitely Southerners. I also saw many clones of myself. Men in cargo or work shorts, T-shirts, and baseball caps. It was like they were pumping us out of a factory.

We saw two black families in rented Rzrs. A Rzr is a factory dune buggy made by Polaris. It has no windows. Apparently renting them is popular in Gatlinburg.

Maybe things have improved.

Southerners are very, very big on powersports and unnecessary vehicles. If you’re a Southerner, and you don’t have a golf cart, an ATV, a dune buggy, a dirt bike, or a Jeep, there must be something wrong with you. I use a gas-powered EZGO to get my mail.

The people were very nice. I was concerned that if we left our area, the people would not be as pleasant. There are a lot of childish, rude, stingy people in Eastern Kentucky. In Tennessee, just about everyone was great. And there were signs of Christianity everywhere. There were signs advertising help for women who were considering abortions. There were signs telling people Jesus was coming back. I loved it.

I have had the feeling God wanted me to move to Tennessee, as have many other Christians. I don’t know if we’ll do it, but now I am less concerned about the possibility of making a bad decision.

During our trip, we applied for a Schengen visa so we could finally visit Europe. The real Europe, not Ireland or Turkey. Incredibly, they granted our request, so now we have to decide whether we should go. My wife is going through some medical treatment right now–nothing bad or permanent–so we’re thinking it over.

We only saw one bear in Tennessee, but it was a whopper. We were walking down the main drag of Gatlinburg, and we saw a bunch of people staring at the area behind a hotel. I looked and saw a black shape not much smaller than a cow. This thing was enormous. It must have been checking out the bear-resistant dumpsters.

When I think of black bears, I think of animals about the size of a hog. Maybe 150-200 pounds. They sometimes hit 600 however, making them as big as medium-sized grizzlies. The record is over 900. I don’t know what this bear weighed, but it looked a lot more like 600 than 200.

It took my wife a while to spot it, which is bizarre. She finally saw it walking up some stairs.

I knew we might see some bears. I expected typical disappointing bears about my own size. Not this time. This baby could have fed a small town for a day. It would make a beautiful rug.

I enjoyed seeing real trees instead of one water oak after another. We saw hickories, walnuts, sycamores, maples, black oaks, chestnut oaks…serious trees that have practical uses other than fueling smokers. They made me think of the times I had spent with my grandparents in the woods. They seemed to know every plant’s name and purpose.

We saw a lot of people who were obese or had leg problems. Diabetes, maybe. We saw people who clearly weren’t on top of the financial ladder. We saw a lot of tattoos and cigarettes.

I thought about Gatlinburg’s status as a second-tier tourist town, and I felt like God showed me some things. We were there as people who did not have to work. We were able to stay at a very nice hotel. We weren’t going into debt to do anything. Both of us knew God very well and never felt that we were alone or that we might have to handle life’s problems on our own. Our health was good. We were surrounded by unhealthy people who were loading themselves with debt.

Many of the others would have to go home shortly and work at jobs they didn’t like, in order to pay for things they had already received. When you borrow, you get your reward up front, and then while you’re working to pay for it later on, you have no reward to look forward to, and you can’t quit.

It reminded me to keep humility, gratitude, and fear of God in mind. We earned very little of what we have. God gave it to us in spite of our evil natures and deeds. Every good thing we have is part of an inheritance from God. We should never feel superior to anyone. What is uglier than an arrogant heir who has no empathy? I have been that person.

We aren’t sure what we’ll do. Sometimes I think we should go to Utah instead of Europe. It’s a lot less complicated, and it’s a shame for Americans not to see their own enormous country.

In any case, my wife is now in the Schengen visa system, so if we decide to travel in the future, it should be easier.