Daily Life, Government, woke

Now What?

Susan looked down at the desk. Three different color highlight markers were lined up precisely on the right hand corner. The book was centered on the desk, propped up at a slight angle. She had a notebook just to the side for jotting down important things to reference later. Susan loved studying in the library. The quiet. The purposefulness of being there. Her roommates were too loud and not always the most studious, so the library was her refuge. In truth, she’d always been a good student and spent more time in the library than with friends or playing sports. She didn’t mind. This was where she was comfortable.

Feeling the light haptic buzz on the wrist from her smartwatch, she glanced down at it. She saw the partial title from the new email and breathed in a quick involuntary gasp. “From: Columbia School….” This was it. She’d been waiting for this moment ever since pushing the application submit button yesterday. Well, truthfully ever since starting high school she’d wanted to be a journalist. She worked with singleminded focus ever since. Joining a few carefully selected clubs. Writing for the school paper. An internship at a human rights organization. She been very careful with social media from the beginning. Always adding a like to the important social issues of the moment. Making sure to have the correct flags and symbols in her profile at all times. She prided herself in properly honoring peoples pronouns when emailing them. While she didn’t have many friends, she did have several acquaintances who were people of color. She’d made sure her photos with them were prominent on her social media feed.

Susan pulled out her phone to read the message. Her hands trembled as she opened up the email. “Thank you for your interest in The Columbia School of Journalism. Unfortunately, we are unable to offer you a spot in the next cohort. Our Admissions Team found several things in your record that did not meet Columbia’s high standards of admission…”

She felt the hot tears starting to fall down her cheeks. How could this be? She’d done everything right. She’d sacrificed. She had straight A’s. She’d stayed off social media other than the carefully curated time she planned out so she’d have the exact right online presence. Only to have her fate decided by an AI engine in less than a day. An AI engine that took her name and national ID number, which is all the “application” consisted of, and instantly scanned her entire on-line history. An algorithm designed to evaluate if she fit the current DEI profile Columbia needed in order to maintain their federal journalism license.

The wave of despair she felt was paralyzing. Now what? She hadn’t applied anywhere else. It wouldn’t matter at this point. A rejection is now in the system and no other school was going to take her with that on her record. The reality of a lifetime of blue collar work began to set in. She struggled to catch her breath.

Matt’s finger hovered over the submit button. Was this going to work? His parents had been smart, purchasing a second ID as soon as he’d been born. His entire life, he used that ID to surf the internet, log into online games, and shit post on X and various counter culture forums. His real ID had been cultivated like a rare flower. Even though it was illegal to use one of the dark web ID coaches, his parents thought it was worth the risk. Everything his real ID did online was carefully calculated for maximum effect. His online self was a perfect being.

Like Susan, Matt didn’t apply anywhere else. A few years ago he’d briefly thought about simply applying to one of the merit based schools, but those were mostly in the midwest flyover part of the country. Graduating with a bunch of deplorables only to be some sort of materials engineer wasn’t going to make his parents happy. It had been important to them from the moment he was born that he be a lawyer and part of the East Coast establishment. That was only real path to power and money.

The second ID had been a risk for sure. The AI engines were smart and able to collate and cross-reference millions of online interactions he or his parents had and look for irregularities. Even with spoofed IP addresses, was there a chance the fake ID could be somehow linked to him? Matt hoped not. His parents had paid a lot of money over the years to the ID coaches to ensure his real persona was squeaky clean.

Like Susan, he didn’t have a backup plan if he didn’t get accepted. The thought of having no other options other than being a blue collar drone or autonomous vehicle operator was not something he wanted to think about.

His finger hovered over the submit button a little longer before he pushed it.

Cool

I’ve Lost The Edge

For those of you old enough to remember, there’s a scene in the original Top Gun movie in which Cougar visits Cmdr. Stinger after crash landing his plane. He’s covered in sweat and tells the Commander “I’m holding on too tight. I’ve lost the edge”, and turns in his wings. This is how I feel every spring when I start riding the motorcycle again.

In my part of the world we have this thing called winter. Being that I live in a mountainous region, my winter is full of snow. This is a good thing since I like to ski, but it’s not so good for riding a motorcycle. Every fall the bike(s) get put away and every spring I wait for a day or two when the snow is mostly melted off the road and the temps are above freezing. I drag out my riding gear and pray the battery is still good. I roll the bike out of the garage and wonder if it was this heavy last year?

It’s hard to describe what it feels like to ride a motorcycle after riding all summer. Everything just feels… in balance. You don’t have to think about anything, it just happens. Riding is a smooth, flowing experience. Muscle memory takes over and you shift and brake without realizing you’re doing it. Balance feels effortless. A slight drop of a heel, a small push of the handlebars, and the bike does exactly what you want it to do. Most importantly it feels like your vision slows down. It’s hard to describe. You see and anticipate everything. You notice holes, ruts, and sand long before you get there. It’s magic.

The first rides in spring are not that. Everything is just… awkward. I couldn’t remember some of the controls for electronics. I killed the engine because I put the kickstand down without being in neutral. I leaned a little too far in a corner and had to do a panic correction. It seems like I lost all sense of balance. Acceleration from a stop is jerky and uncoordinated. I forget to cancel my turn signal.

And the oddest sensation is that everything feels like it’s happening at 3x speed. Corners and ruts came up before I could see them. Traffic seems like it’s going way too fast. I never had the feeling that I could safely look around while I was riding because something would happen faster than I could react.

I made things worse because I’d taken a class towards the end of last summer that had us change the position of brake pedals, levers, and handlebars. I’d barely gotten used to the changes before fall, so now nothing feels right. On top of that I switched to a very heavy, stiff motocross boot and I can no longer feel the rear brake pedal with my foot. The result is that I mash the pedal too hard and slowing down is an ugly lurching thing – too hard, too soft, too hard again.

The end result is the worst thing you can have as a motorcycle rider – I got tentative and a little nervous. Rather than standing up and comfortably powering through gravel and soft dirt, I slowed way down and sat down on the seat. At one point I completely drifted to the wrong side of the (dirt) road because I was so worried about the gravel and sliding. I was panic grabbing the front brake which is the exact opposite of what you should do.

Just like Cougar, I’ve lost the edge. I’m holding on too tight. The difference is – I know I’ll get past this. I have to go through it every year. It’s a matter of time and practice. Somewhere around June I’ll realize that the flow is back and it’s hard to remember why this was so hard?

If you’re new at something, especially something scary, just know that we’ve all been there. Everyone had the exact same feelings you have. For some of us, we have to go through it every single year. It does get easier, I promise.

I refuse to turn in my wings.

Daily Life, Motivation

It Really Is A Drug

This is going to be a little embarrassing. But I suppose, like any good twelve step program, the first step is admitting you are powerless over your addiction. My morning routine every morning, day in and day out, 365 days a year is as follows; Up at 4:30-6, make coffee, surf news sites and X/Twitter until 8-9:30am. At that point I start my day. Why is this embarrassing? That routine means that I average 1,095 hours a year mindlessly scrolling through news sites. I give up six and a half weeks of my life every year to an algorithm designed to keep me scrolling.

But it’s worse than that. I’ve noticed lately that I can’t stop checking in on my phone. Sit down for a few minutes and I compulsively find myself quickly scrolling through X/Twitter to see if anything new happened. During commercial breaks or pausing a TV show to let the dog out, I’m instantly on the phone flipping through stupid Instagram reels of funny animals, car crashes, and people doing stupid shit. Waiting in line at the grocery store, boom, out comes the phone. It truly is a drug.

What a waste. I suppose on the other hand, it’s not like I was going to invent an amazing new chemical compound that solves the problem of plastics in our landfills during that extra six weeks a year. But still, there must be something more productive I could be doing with that time. Watching cat videos and reading three sentence “news” blurbs is not exactly making me more informed. Sure, I can chat casually with someone at a cocktail party about current events (if I was to actually go to a cocktail party) but that doesn’t mean I actually know anything about the subject. X/Twitter has given me the back of the milk carton condensed version of the news. Which is usually just enough to make me angry and/or to start a fight at the holiday dinner table.

I believe it’s time for a detox. We’ll start with the phone. First step, put it away. I’m going to keep it on my dresser in the bedroom all day. Sure I’ll make a point of glancing at it occasionally to see if there was a missed call or text message, but I don’t need to obsessively carry it around with me in the house. I’m not a doctor on call 24×7 who needs instant access. There is literally nothing so important that it couldn’t wait the 45 minutes I was in the backyard working on the garden. Sure I might miss out on that hilarious meme I came across during a commercial break while watching Seinfeld reruns, but I’m sure I’ll survive.

Now for the harder one – the morning computer screen time. I’m not changing my wake up time or the time I start my day. I’m a slug, I admit it. I need several hours before I can get moving. The question is, what to do with those hours? I’m not going to give up the news entirely. I am a news junkie after all. I think the recovery approach will be twofold. First, limit the amount of scrolling through X/Twitter. Anything major or newsworthy that’s happened will show up in the feed within about five minutes. So let give ourselves a thirty minute budget to flip through some news sites and scroll through tweets. Done, I know now roughly what’s happening in the world. Now what?

I think the remaining time will be spent on reading long-form essays. Probably going to have to be subscription based. In reality anything worth reading takes a writer days to weeks to compose. A banger tweet, or paragraph posted on CNN.com, probably didn’t have a whole lot of thought put behind it. I’m at the age where I’m better off reading quality over quantity.

I’d also be much better served by spending my morning time working on creative pursuits than reading speculation about the latest celebrity gossip. Writing, maybe editing a photo or video. Anything to get the brain juices flowing. At my age I don’t have many brain cells left so I may as well exercise them.

So there you go. The confession of a news/phone/Twitter junkie. The first step is to admit you have a problem. Now let’s make a change. If you see more frequent posts here, you know it’s working. If I’m radio silent, you’ll know that I’m still mired in the addictive world of Russian dash-cam crash videos and reading pithy one-liners about how evil the other political party is.

Wish me luck. The algorithms are powerful, fueled by AI, and designed to prevent you from breaking out of the matrix. It’s time to take that red pill.

Daily Life, Health, Motivation

Anticipation

It was quiet. Birds chirping. A light breeze blowing through the tops of the trees. The occasional whoomph as a clump of snow fell somewhere off in the distance. Most importantly, it was warm. I had to stop several times and simply stand with my face turned towards the sun, soaking in the rays. It was glorious. I was out skate skiing with my dog and had been looking forward to this for several days. That epic blue sky ski outing was the perfect antidote to a long gray winter.

The spring like weather continued over the weekend, and we took full advantage. Gardening, spring cleaning, taking the storm windows off. Yesterday I napped in the sun for an hour and sat in the backyard reading a book late into the afternoon. As I lay in the sun, my mind continuously went over things I could do this week with this window of perfect weather. I’ll get the motorcycle out. The trails are probably dry enough to go for a mountain bike ride. I can hike the dog without the trails being a muddy, sloppy mess. I might dust off the drone and go flying. So many possibilities.

As I lay there sunning skin that is pasty white from a long winter of coats and pants and flannel, I had a bit of an epiphany. It wasn’t just the sun that was putting me in a good mood. It was anticipation of all the things I wanted to do. I was starting to plan and look forward to the future again.

People always say that as you transition into retirement it’s important to stay busy. To maintain a schedule. They say that to be happy you need to have a purpose. I think that’s only partially true. What we really need is anticipation.

With that warm weather ski, I decided to drag out my camera gear and make a little video of the hound running around with me. Editing that video got me thinking about what I wanted to film this summer. That turned into several hours of organizing camera gear and ordering some parts for the drone. I watched some videos of tips for filming different camera angles and it really got me excited to try them out soon. The anticipation – the feeling of looking forward to something gave me that little dopamine hit that put me in a good mood.

Similarly, I was chatting with a buddy that I ride motorcycles with. He said that he really wanted to do more motorcycle camping this summer. That led to hours of researching which campgrounds will be snow free the soonest. It gave me a good feeling to think about the trips we might take, planning routes, and getting gear ready. Anticipation.

We have a trip to Mexico coming up. Another trip to see some family we don’t see often enough. Friends are driving across country in their motorhome to see us this summer, ride motorcycles and explore the area. I’m looking forward to all these things. I want more of that feeling of “looking forward to”.

If you think about it, anticipation is everything. The restaurant you’ve been wanting to try that you made reservations for. A concert you’ve been wanting to see. A tee time at a new golf course. Meeting friends for lunch that you haven’t seen in a while. It doesn’t matter what it is, the key is having that sense of pleasant anticipation.

That’s what keeps us moving forward.

Lose that and it’s over. If you’ve got nothing to look forward to, then what’s the point?

This winter was harsh. Bad snow, limited ski days, gray, storms, and cold. With, what felt like limited options to do anything, I found myself I found myself more and more frequently retreating to my comfy chair to read and nap. More napping than reading realistically. The more napping I did, the less inclined I was to go plan something to do. Sloth begets sloth, as the saying goes. I now realize that the prescription for next year is pre-planning things. A sprinkling of quick trips to explore cities we haven’t been to. Scheduling ski lessons to improve skills and keep me motivated. It doesn’t matter what it is. What’s important is to have a steady diet of anticipation for something.

I think this is why spring feels like such a joyous time. After a long winter, warm sun brings out the feeling of possibility. You can bust out the shorts and bathing suits. Think about swimming in the lake, riding your bike, or heading out on that summer vacation. It’s the anticipation that makes us feel good.

I’m going to spend the next few weeks planning activities. I think I’ll overcompensate this summer and try to have non-stop activities. I want to be in never ending planning mode. Upcoming motorcycle trips, camping trips, road trips, day outings, and activities. I want so much god damn anticipation I’ll be begging for some down time.

The dopamine rush from a warm day and looking forward to possibilities is addicting. I want more of that feeling. I don’t want to go back to the monotone feeling of sitting in the comfy chair and napping.

Now excuse me, I’m going to go get my dog a hike. He’s been looking forward all day for his run and chasing birds.

Anticipation.

Daily Life, Government, Solving the wrong problem

The Future Is Information Mining

Way back in the horse and buggy days when I went to school, the focus was still on the three “R’s”. Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic. The learning methodology was still based upon the Prussian public school system. Be quiet and obedient. Listen to the lesson. Do the homework. Rote memorization. Take a test to prove you’ve memorized the material. I don’t think we’ve evolved much beyond that. Oh sure there’s been technological advances and challenges, but that’s nothing new. I’m old enough to remember when the pocket calculator became affordable. Teachers were petrified that students would “cheat” by using a calculator. We were admonished to not use one at home because you won’t really learn and you won’t get to use one for the test.

Smart phones and the internet brought new challenges for teachers. The answers to everything are a click away. How do you keep kids from cheating? A number of years ago I went back to school and had a number of online classes. The teachers solution to test taking in that environment was to have timed tests. You were given just enough time to answer all the questions, assuming you understood the material. If you tried to look things up you’d run out of time.

And now we have AI, smart watches, and the new Apple Vision Pro spatial computer. The challenge for teachers today to ensure the student is learning and not cheating is almost insurmountable. The question is, should they even bother any more? Is rote memorization still the appropriate way to teach and learn?

With the entirety of human knowledge a click away, why do I need to memorize the times tables or what the names of the generals in the civil war were? I can get an AI-generated summary of any subject or question I might have, instantly. I can find a video to teach anything I might want to know for free. There’s entire catalogs of free courses on just about anything. I learned more from the online Khan Academy videos teaching chemistry than the college professor I paid $$$ to sit in front of for months. What role does school play now that all knowledge is instantly available to everyone?

I’d argue that the future is not learning information – it’s learning how to find information. And perhaps more importantly, how to evaluate and present information. As we saw with Google’s disastrous Gemini image generation roll-out, machine learning is still influenced by humans with bias. Teaching kids to evaluate and think about what they see is probably the most valuable skill we could give them. And we’re failing miserably at it.

If you weren’t already aware, the CIA and NSA have been conducting massive disinformation campaigns here in the US, as well as across the world. The monitor every word written in social media and build machine learning heat maps of trending topics and words. They work with the big social media companies to suppress topics they don’t want to give voice to. They then plant stories with news agencies and bot farms to trend more favorable topics.

The vast majority of the public is not terribly tech savvy and we seem to have lost the ability to think critically. We simply consume whatever information is in front of us and take it as the gospel truth. We mindlessly scroll through our social media, taking our “knowledge” in one or two sentence chunks. Our TV news consists of 30 second “hits” crafted to fit the bias of whatever your cable news channel of choice is. I don’t think most people really understand how curated the information they consume has become. The days of watching Walter Cronkite tell us what happened in the world today are long gone.

Perhaps scarier is our loss of attention span. There’s a reason Facebook/Instagram Reels and YouTube shorts are the most popular formats out there. It’s like crack. 10-20 second videos designed to keep you scrolling like a zombie. How many of you know that that Facebook/Instagram tracks exactly how long you spend looking at a post? They know how fast or slow you’re scrolling through the feed and serve up the content that you linger the longest over. The algorithm is constantly learning how best to keep feeding you content that keeps you scrolling.

The things you like, the products you buy, and the political views you have are all now driven by machine learning artificial intelligence. The older generation, the byproducts of traditional learning, are simply not equipped to evaluate the information they consume in a critical way. If we’re to survive the AI revolution, we need a new generation of kids who are taught how to navigate information warfare. Young adults who know how to find information, think critically, and navigate the brave new world without becoming digital slaves.

Right now our tech overlords are winning. Our school system is hopelessly outdated and is being kept that way on purpose. A new generation of kids with 15 second attention spans, incapable of human conversation and lacking any curiosity or sense of adventure are the future. They have no sense of history and assume whatever MSNBC tells them is true. DEI ensures that mediocrity is the norm. The CIA/NSA/Facebook/Google/Media cabal are shaping them into whatever they want. They are being turned into obedient little soldiers who will become the future leaders of the country. It’s pretty bleak if you think about it.

I’m not sure what the answer is. We need more Elon Musks in the world. Twitter/X is one of the last bastions of free speech and we need to ensure it survives. We need someone to create a school system/curriculum that teaches kids how to think, not what to think. A system that teaches them how to mine for information and fight back against the establishment.

Rather than the old Prussian system, perhaps we’ll call it… The Contrarian School. A nationwide group of homeschools, networked and sharing a common set of values towards learning. I can already see the conversation. Two moms at a playground. One mom asks the other, “So which school does your child go to?” The other mom replies, “Well, we’re Contrarians so we homeschool.” The first mom gathers up her kids and tells them to stay away from the Contrarian kids. They’re dangerous.

Hmmm. That has the makings of a novel. If only people still read books. Sigh.

Motivation, Solving the wrong problem

Uncomfortable Truths

As a forewarning, I’m ’bout to lay down some uncomfortable truths that might make you a little squeamish. Ready? The nature of man is violence. Always has been, always will be. I know you don’t want to hear that, but it’s true. The problem is that the “civilized” West has forgotten this and I fear we’re going to be reminded of it at some point.

I can already hear the pink haired liberal arts students and latte sipping soccer moms denouncing me as a Neanderthal who probably lives in one of those fly-over states (I bet he owns guns too, they whisper). To not think that violence is at the very core of our being, ignores history. I suppose it’s understandable. Roughly three quarters of the population is under 60. World War Two, Vietnam, Korea, the Ku Klux Klan… are already ancient issues in history books. Almost fifty percent of the population is under 40, which means they were likely brought up in the modern, woke education system. A system that tells children that our most pressing issue is climate change and that white colonizers are the most dangerous people on the planet.

I get it. We have been blessed with a level of security unimaginable in most of the world for the last fifty years. When you’re blessed with financial and physical security it’s easy to make the plight of the spotted owl your top priority. I don’t think that’s going to last much longer.

Man is a violent and brutal animal. The history of the world is built on conquest. From the Romans to the Vikings, and up to our own settlement of the nation – it was done through violent conquering of existing people. Mankind has always understood this and knew that violence was kept at bay by… violence. If you tolerate criminals, you’re going to get more crime. If you don’t prepare for invasion, you’re going to get invaded. These are not hard concepts to grasp.

But apparently they are. Somewhere along the line we decided that prioritizing clean energy electric buses was more important than having cops on the street. We decided that prosecuting criminals and keeping them in jail was bad for their self-esteem. And the results have been predictable. I guess we’re not allowed to talk about it because of race or DEI or something. But hey, if nothing else the New York City police department now has a killer new dance team. All cities should follow their lead. Just imagine, we can have a nationwide police dance-off!

And while police departments are dancing and criminals are looting stores at will, we have a literal invasion happening at our border. We don’t even pretend anymore. I guess as a nation we simply decided that everyone on the planet is welcome to come. No worries, we’ll just print more money to take care of all our wonderful new residents. What could possibly go wrong?

Well clearly there’s about a thousand things on the list that could go wrong, but number one… October 7th. You know, that little incident in Israel. The savage, barbaric nature of that attack IS the true nature of man. That is what historically happened when towns were invaded. Do you think the Romans took care to spare civilians when they conquered a city? What do you think the aftermath of the various crusades looked like? When one group hates another, or needs resources, all bets are off. Mankind will do some truly horrible things to one another.

I know that here in the West we don’t want to think of such things. We’re more civilized than that. We’ve evolved. Besides, those are problems for over there. We’re untouchable.

Lest we forget, 19 people carried out 9/11. We’re currently at 7.5 million people who have streamed across our border in the last three years. You don’t think out of all those people there are another 19, or a thousand, or ten thousand who wish us harm? You’re a fool if you don’t.

The Islamic Caliphate is real. They hate us and Israel with a passion. Do you think that went away when we left Afghanistan? Silly rabbit. October 7th? It’s going to happen here, mark my words. Meanwhile, there’s nothing to stop the cartels from simply moving in and taking over US cities mob-style.

Mankind hasn’t changed. Weakness begets violence. Israel got complacent and worried about left-wing public opinion. Hamas, prompted by the Islamic State, took advantage. And given a chance, they’ll do it again. And because of that, Israel is doing the right thing in their response.

Historically when you invaded a city, you killed all the fighting age males, kept the children, and sold off the women as slaves. Why? Because if you didn’t, they’d come back and invade you in retaliation. Do you really think things are different today? Wars and conflicts end when the enemy has lost the ability to continue. It’s not pretty, but if Israel doesn’t end Hamas completely… they’ll be right back at the same place in a few years.

And the same holds true for us. If we don’t end the nonsense at the border and sort out who’s here, we’ll be right back in the Global War on Terror. We’re going to suffer a 9/11 on steroids, we’ll respond with a bombardment of Iran, and then we’re off to the races.

I know it’s not fashionable to say, but man is violent. Roman Emperor Hadrian first said “peace through strength or, failing that, peace through threat.” Reagan repeated it in the 1980’s. It was true then and it’s true today. It holds true for crime in the streets as well as keeping the Mongol hordes at bay. The latte sipping leftists are going to learn it one way or another.

History is a bitch, ’cause it just keeps repeating.

Cool, Daily Life

It Seems Obvious

I’ve determined that the answer to all self-improvement is to video yourself. You’d think I’d be smart enough to remember this, but yet again, I had to have it illustrated to me by the power of video. Let me explain. Way back when dinosaurs roamed the earth I thought I was a pretty good skier. I skied on a long pair of race skis a buddy sold to me. 213’s with zero sidecut and extremely stiff. I’m sure I bought them to look cool vs being actual decent skis. Since the damn things didn’t turn worth crap, my only choice was long swooping turns at ludicrous speed. I got pretty good on those rockets. Ankles locked together, flow and balance were the ticket to looking fly and graceful. Throw in a mullet haircut and I thought I was the bomb.

Over the years the amount of skiing I did ebbed and flowed. I didn’t get serious about it again until about four years ago. Last year I made some big improvements in confidence as I spent more time in the trees and ‘off-piste’ as the fancy Europeans say. This year I finally splurged on actual decent ski pants so I wouldn’t look like a garage sale reject. All-in-all for most of this season I’ve been convinced that, not only am I stylish, but I’m approaching expert status on the slopes.

A week ago I decided to make a short ski video to practice filming in the snow. Mostly I wanted to see what camera angles worked and what didn’t. As I reviewed the footage, a flicker of doubt crept into my head. My skiing didn’t seem quite as graceful as I would have expected. It was hard to tell since I was filming myself, but it planted an uneasy feeling that maybe I wasn’t as good as I thought.

And then a few days ago, a friend filmed me skiing down a long run. When he showed it to me I was horrified. That person I saw skiing bore no resemblance to what I thought I was doing. I was convinced I was making beautiful, high speed carving turns. What I saw was a bunch of short, ugly, skidding turns with chattering skis. My balance was horrible and I looked distinctly uncomfortable. How could this be?

It drove home something I discovered with golf. What you think you’re doing has nothing to do with what you’re really doing. Video is the truth teller.

The reality is that what I saw was a mediocre (at best) intermediate skier working way too hard to get down the hill. I’m not sure how or when that happened. Have I always skied that way and just didn’t realize it, or have my skills simply declined with age? I’m not sure, but at least now I know the cold hard truth. I’ve spent much of the day watching lessons on YouTube and comparing my footage. I now at least understand what I’m doing wrong. The question is can I fix it myself or will it require lessons? The answer is probably lessons, but it’s so late in the season is it worth it? That’s a question for another blog I suspect.

What’s important is that with golf, skiing, and even some speaking mannerisms – I wouldn’t have known what I was doing without seeing myself on video. It’s hard because I cringe when I see myself, which is why I tend to avoid the camera as much as possible. But I’m now realizing how valuable that feedback is.

I am now convinced that we should all see ourselves frequently on film. How we dress, walk, talk, and do sports will benefit from a reality check. I guarantee that what you think is happening is not real. If you want to improve at anything, you need to see visual proof.

Find a decent coach. Take lessons. Get video feedback.

It seems obvious, but most of us don’t do it. And then we wonder why it takes us so long to get better at something. Or maybe that’s just me…

Government, Politics

I’ll Take Chaos For $200, Alex

I don’t know what the next couple of years will look like exactly, but I am sure of one thing. It’s going to be a bit… spicy. When the Deep State and DNC managed to secure the win during the last presidential election I was disappointed. Yes, I voted for the bad orange man over the dementia patient in the basement. What’s funny is that although I preferred team elephant, I honestly didn’t think it would make that much difference. It’s a uni-party after all. I figured a bit more spending on climate change, maybe a tax hike here and there. Bad, but not the end of the world. Never in a million years would I have thought things would go downhill so fast. We’re now a bit more than half a year away from the next election purchasing event and it feels like this one is going to be a doozy.

We are going to see some serious chaos no matter what the outcome is. At the moment the bad orange man looks to be the RNC nominee. That’s not a guarantee however – he has some serious fundraising and legal issues to overcome between now and then. If he’s taken out by some Trumped up charge (see what I did there?), expect the MAGA crowd to lose their mind. Nothing healthy for the country will come out of that.

Over on team donkey, the basement dwelling dementia patient now has full blow Alzheimer’s. It’s weekend at Bernies every day. I’m sure team Obama thought they’d be able to keep him propped up for another four years, but that looks unlikely now. So now the DNC needs to figure out how to replace him and not piss off the woke progressive crowd when they bypass Kamala. That ain’t gunna be pretty.

On November 6th, when the dust settles and the lawyers and consultants have all been paid off, we’ll see who was able to purchase the most votes. Regardless of who wins, 2025 is going to be challenging. If Trump wins, whoooo boy hold on to your hat. Trump was a walking, talking chaos factory his first term. The left hates him with the power of a thousand suns. Lest you not forget, there were riots in the streets when he won the first time. Women in pussy hats marched and Madonna talked about blowing up the White House. How do you think it’s going to go this time? You think the left was apoplectic when Trump asked why more people from “shithole countries” should be allowed into the U.S… just wait until he starts talking about mass deportations.

And if the left wins, MAGA going to be big time mad. I’m not sure they’ll take it very well this time ’round. The DNC will control the House, Senate, and the executive office. With slick Gavin Newsom as president (or better yet, Michelle), you’re going to see team Obama’s strategy for destroying America on steroids. I predict job one will be to pull a Jeffery Epstein on Elon and X in the name of preserving our democracy. The Bureau of Misinformation will be out in full force, ready to shut down the bank accounts of any of you silly rednecks who post unflattering comments about the regime.

And if all that wasn’t adventure enough, the experts and adults in the room have managed to foster a level of global instability that’s downright frightening. The odds of a world wide shooting war seem to go up daily. For reasons known only to the Military Industrial Complex, we seem hellbent on provoking a nuclear exchange with Russia. China is sitting by, licking its chops as it waits to see what stupidity we can demonstrate. Meanwhile, the Middle East is poised for even more instability (if that’s even possible). Fun times!

I’m not sure we’re in a position to step back from all this even if we wanted to. I’m not sure a presidential candidate exists that could mollify both the left and the right, while simultaneously being able to fight back against the Deep State and the war mongers. We find ourselves in a pickle. A sticky wicket. A circular firing squad of our own making.

It feels like the crisis portion of the Fourth Turning is going to come to a head next year one way or another.

So what to do about it? I’m inclined to say nothing. Get some popcorn, sit back, and wait for the fireworks. At this point the mechanisms are in motion and the train has left the station. Shit is going down one way or another. The Deep State. The Military Industrial Complex. The Enterprise. Whatever you want to call it, they’re in the drivers seat. You and I are just along for the ride.

Personally, I’d like to see President Orange Man along with VP Vivek doing some serious battle against the forces of evil. Trump is kinda of hilarious and if we’re going to witness Ragnarök, we might as well have some humor.

Only one thing is guaranteed… it’s going to get spicy.

Government, Motivation

A Look Back At How It Started

Just like the ‘shot heard around the world’ that ostensibly kicked off the revolutionary war on a bridge just outside of Concord, nobody is sure who fired the first shot. Some say it was a Texas National Guard MP. There’s even speculation that it came from across the border. Regardless, the dozen Border Patrol agents and four US marshals quickly returned fire. Six national guard solders were killed and several more wounded. The dead and wounded soldiers were all unarmed – members of an engineering group installing fencing, who attempted to stop the Border Patrol group from entering their staging area.

The Major overseeing the local deployment of the Texas Tactical Border Force assumed from the panicked radio chatter that a large armed force was attacking his troopers. He quickly surged all available MP’s and Texas state troopers to the area. Word passed down that the soldiers killed were unarmed, fueling revenge and anger.

When the first humvees rolled into the staging area and saw the carnage… the Border Patrol agents and Marshals milling about never stood a chance. They made the fatal mistake of pointing service weapons at the rage filled incoming troops. All Border Patrol agents and Marshals were killed almost immediately.

Hindsight, as they say, is 20-20. Most pundits claim that the decision by Texas governor Abbot to secure the scene and declare Texas jurisdiction was the gasoline that sparked the fire. Abbot sealed off a roughly ten mile area and refused to allow any federal officials into the vicinity. By not allowing federal officials to participate in the incident investigation, he sparked a flurry of state sovereignty vs federal power discussions throughout DHS and the White House. Both sides immediately appealed to the Supreme Court.

Chief of the Border Patrol, Jason Owens, was furious. After fuming for days at not being allowed access to the crime scene and his dead agents, he made a fateful decision. He directed several BORTAC teams to infiltrate and secure the staging area that had been initial point of battle. He authorized use of deadly force to reclaim what felt was a federal government controlled area of operation.

BORTAC teams are elite, SWAT-like units, that rival military special forces in their selection process, training, and skills. The BORTAC teams infiltrated under cover of darkness. Unfortunately no amount of skill or training can overcome overwhelming numbers without air support. Texas national guard, state troopers, even Texas Rangers, all took part in the multi-day battle that ensued.

The BORTAC teams were cut off by hundreds of soldiers, unable to retreat. They fought valiantly, but were no match for the rage-fueled Guard units. Memories of Sam Houston and ‘Remember the Alamo’ revenge are still a very real thing in Texas. In all, 48 BORTAC agents were killed, along with 7 Guard soldiers, and 2 state troopers.

So that’s how we got to this sorry state of affairs. Texas has seceded. The fifteen Texas military bases continue to be a mess of Federal and State battle for control. New Mexico is vowing to stay neutral. With the cartels now locked out of Texas, they began surging drug and human trafficking to Arizona. In response Arizona was forced to take control of their border, pushing out Federal units, similar to Texas. The Western Forces states are now beginning to coalesce around the idea that they will be eventually attacked by the remaining loyalist states.

History will tell if this new President can pull the nation back together. Will he be a Lincoln, or something else? Ultimately, the wise Benjamin Franklin’s words have come back to haunt us.

His response after the September 17th, 1787 constitutional convention, in reply to Elizabeth Willing Powel’s question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”

“A republic, if you can keep it.”

Government

Are You Paying Attention?

I hate to say I told you so… but I did warn you. Let’s see, what’s that old saying? “It’s not a Conspiracy Theory if it comes true”. I’ve been babbling about social credit scores and government domestic spying for quite some time. Here’s yet another example of where we’re headed. It came out yesterday that the FBI has been encouraging banks and credit card companies to flag transactions with terms like MAGA or Trump. You also got flagged if you shopped at sporting goods stores or purchased religious materials. Uhm, yeah. This is not ok.

Germany had the Sicherheitsdienst des Reichsführers, or the SS as its intelligence service to spy on its citizens. East Germany in the Cold War had the Stasi. Russia had the KGB. And thanks to the Patriot Act, we now have the FBI.

In the name of security and terrorism, the FBI is now a full fledged state security agency tasked with spying on the citizens. Are you ok with that? I’m not. I don’t think the agency can be saved at this point. It needs to be disbanded. But that won’t happen and we all know it. So what do we do?

I’m not sure what can be done. A rogue agency like that exists because we no longer have a press interested in asking questions. There are a handful of members of congress that will attempt to hold a hearing here and there, but nothing will come of it. If it wasn’t for Elon Musk and twitter, you’d never even hear of the FBI’s misdeeds. How do you hold an agency accountable when the watchdogs either don’t care or actively support their actions?

When the FBI is flagging transactions because you fit the profile of an evil white nationalist on the basis that you support Trump and shop at Cabelas… it’s over. We’re rapidly sliding into Orwell’s 1984 territory. When you’re guilty of wrongspeak, you’re going to have trouble finding a job, getting credit, or renting a car or hotel room. Is it really all that crazy to think that’s where we’re rapidly headed?

The DOJ has an entire web page dedicated to their pursuit of J6 evil doers. They’ve arrested 1,265 people so far and the FBI continues to show up at peoples houses daily. Grandmas and people wandering around taking selfies. Antifa burned cities across the country for an entire summer… where’s their DOJ dedicated page and mass arrests? Crickets.

The people don’t have the power to resist or complain. Say or do something and your life will be ruined. You’ll spend your life savings in lawyer fees trying to defend yourself. This is not who we were supposed to be as a country. The founding fathers are rolling over in their graves.

The scariest part is that the only hope we have rests on one person. The President of the United States is the only one with the power to effect actual change. The odds of our electing someone with the courage to do something is very low. I’d go so far as to say impossible. The deep state will ensure someone with that level of commitment to do the right thing never gets close to the office.

Vivek Ramaswamy was the only candidate who at least voiced the right answers and seemed to have an actual plan to make changes. I guess all we can do at this point is hope he can whisper in Trumps ear enough to convince him to do something. That is assuming he can win, which is far from a guarantee at this point.

But even if he does win, Trump has already said he wants to build the FBI a magnificent, shiny, new building in D.C. (with his son-in-law Jared already bidding for the construction contract). Trump kept Comey and then gave us Wray, so I don’t have high hopes for a complete shift in thinking.

Parents, it’s time to educate your kids on how to stay safe and away from the watchful eye of the state security service. Just like in East Germany with the Stasi, be careful of what you say and who you talk to. Don’t post anything controversial. Be wary of that new friend who encourages you to go to a rally or join a protest group. Go along to get along. Like only pictures of puppy dogs and recipes on Facebook.

It’s the new normal.

“Surveillance breeds conformity”
– Glenn Greenwald