Author: David

Over-educated Curmudgeon, Bit-Bucket Tuner and Budding Brewmeister.
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It’s All Lagniappe

Given my youth (what the ‘rents and sibs never knew didn’t hurt ’em *heh*), I had no expectations of reaching 40, and once I did, I had NO idea what I’d do with the extra years. . . Everything—all the decades since—past then has been a gift.

Then I awoke to the reality: it’s ALL been a gift. All of it. I wake every day knowing I have not deserved or earned the blessing of life I now have. At my current age, paying the physical price of some of my youthful, *urm-cough*, misadventures, mishaps, and outright “oopsies” is a daily thing, but a price well worth paying if only for a cuddle with my Wonder Woman.

It’s 0830 and I’m still waiting, Holy Brew in hand, for my joints to wake up, though I have gotten a wee bit of yard work in anyway. Small price the aches, pains, and [innumerable other] just to be able to sit a few minutes and be blessed by The Holy Brew.

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Faux-Literacy Example #8,759,356

“Paper mâché” #gagamaggot. Seriously, if one uses a French term adopted into English, use it correctly, not butchered half-anglicized and just wrong. Papier-mâché. Heck, if one is going to get the accent marks correct and flub the rest, why even use the term at all?

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Change the Terms but Keep the Substance

IOW, lie. That is what the forces occupying our communities under the cover of government do day in and day out.

Sovereign immunity? Qualified immunity? Anathema to the Founders and Framers.

Among the “long train of abuses” cited in the Declaration of Independence, one stands as a model for our INjustice system’s practices of both Sovereign Immunity and Qualified Immunity, that all too often protect government actors from the consequences of their crimes. The Declaration cites the king’s acts:

“. . . protecting them [occupying troops, similar n almost every regard to LEOs, persecutors, urm, prosecutors, judges, bureaucraps and the like “occupying” our communities] by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States . . ”

And then there is the fact that BOTH the federal system AND the states are barred from creating classes of nobility, so what do they do instead? They create privileged classes that are in no substantial way different to nobility, in that they have protections from the laws they more and more often use to suppress and oppress citizens.

Our contemporary law enFARCEment and INjustice systems (along with just about every government bureaucrappy) can be held accountable for their persecutions of citizens (and in many cases, more and more often nowadays, actual encouragement of real criminal behavior) only with great difficulty, and with barely any effect on the lives of bad actors in government. At most? Maybe a slap on the wrist. More usual? “Attaboys” and promotions.

Thus, for example, the murderer, Lom Horiuchi, stands as a “hero” and inspiration to law enFACEment and other government bad actors everywhere. BATF’s (and other agencies’) brutal murder of children at Waco? *meh* No consequences (except for the BATF agents killed by “friendly fire”–a minor karmic justice).

And then there are those fake “protectors” training sheeple in serfdom. I would modify the George Bernard Shaw quote, “When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he will always declare that it is his duty,” for today’s Thugs Standing Around (TSA and all such security Kabuki personnel operating under cover of law), because most such persons have no sense of shame, nowadays, and no sense of right and wrong, either. They seem proud of doing things that any reasonable and decent person would be ashamed of.

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Practice Does Not Make Perfect

At most, practice makes permanent. Only perfect practice can make “perfect,” and that ain’t gonna happen this side of the Jordan. . .

Still, practicing a musical piece. . . so many different methods, and choices/successes depend largely on skill level and preferences, but I always preferred reading through a piece and listening to it “between my ears” as much as possible before setting hand (and mouth, depending on instrument) or voice to the music. *shrugs* During a quick read-through, I could generally identify places that might need special attention, and could often iron them out, at least a bit during the scan. Then it was mostly discerning and effecting the teleos of the piece, as I inferred it from the leading of the tune and harmonies, as well as the composer’s directions on the page (notes and signs and etc.). When leading a group through a sight–reading. I came to appreciate the STARS method for young/inexperienced/amateur performers. For a group with more developed music literacy, just walking through a piece and noting to the group where I thought the different sections (or the group or the piece or both) might require a bit of attention. That was usually enough to get that attention paid during the first sigh reading session. Usually. *heh*

With volunteer choral groups, I preferred handing out an abbreviated rehearsal schedule, with bullet points derived from my much more detailed outline for each piece in the schedule for that rehearsal. Kept things moving and saved time. Of course, I had to remain flexible and touch on unanticipated issues though those were usually rare. A fav book on choral conducting informed the time I spent doing that. . . I occasionally had voices like those referred to below, and I celebrated their inclusion:

“I have never paid much attention to the ‘quality’ of a choral candidate’s voice. I am much more influenced by the extent of his desire to sing, and by his interest in music. . . May I offer an extreme example of this indifference to vocal endowment. I once had, as members of a chorus, two monotones. It would be impossible to exaggerate the delight they experienced in having a part in the rehearsal of great music, and had I denied them one of the real resources of life, I should always have regretted it. They were not the least sensitive over their deficiency and made no protest at being seated together a little apart from the chorus. Fortunately, their voices were not strong ones. They sang, without deleterious effect, not less than four major choral works with the Boston Symphony Orchestra and its conductor.” —
_Choral Conducting_, Archibald T. Davison ©1940, sixth edition: 1950,pp. 27-28.

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Unnecessary Duplication

I used to subscribe to “news” from the American Association for the Advancement of Science, but I realized that subscribing to “CACA* Accolyte News” for opposition research wasn’t necessary, since CACA* dogma is endemnic in Mass MEdia Podpeople Hivemind propaganda, so. . .
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*CACA = Cult of Anthropogenic Climate Alarmism; also, just plain old everyday caca.

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Ortega’s “Mass-Man” Leading the Way to. . .

Even just a glance at the passing scene leads one to observe that the Internet’s empowerment of Ortega’s “mass-man” and the attendant massive explosion of the growth and influence of “Dunning-Krugerands,” has only exacerbated the downward spiral toward Kornbluth’s “Marching Morons.”

The Marching Morons

Setting: Far future (less far, now, by a LOT, if today’s society is any indication). “The human population is now 3 million highbred elite and 5 billion morons, and the “average” IQ is 45 (whereas today an IQ score of 100 is average, by definition).” (? Wikipedia)

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So, Musk Wants Governments and Businesses to Pay for Twitter Use?

This is a Good Idea. Of course. And, also of course, companies and governments (and agents of governments), including such leftard-cowed/pwned Hivemind sources as PC Mag (which has already published multiple denigrations of and dire warnings about the Musk-Twitter takeover) are. . . uncomfortable with paying for a bully pulpit. Screw ’em with a rusty chainsaw.

Charge Companies, Governments to Use Twitter? It is long since past time to do so.

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Rational Tightwaddery

My paternal grandfather had a tendency toward tightwaddery that I suppose he would rather have called frugality. One of his tightwad practices simply spread the cost of a moderately good watch out over decades, rather than using up cash flow in one big lump. I wondered about how that worked for years, but finally embraced the principle a few decades ago.

Every now and then, the cheap Timex watch Granddaddy wore daily would fail, likely for similar reasons to why wristwatches fail on me: no matter what the mechanizm or claims of being waterproof or being impervious to this, that, or t’other I “eat” wristwatches. A really nice all stainless steel case “waterproof” watch? Eaten in a couple of years’ use, corroded away. WHen one of his cheap Timex watches failed, it went in a box for grandkids to play with, and he bought another, usually at a local “fell off the back of a truck” store (salvage, overstock, reclaimed, etc.) for quite a bit less than retail.

So, cheap plastic watches for me, the cheaper the better (and oh what a blessing when I discovered “salvage: watches in the $1 bins at my fav “fell off the back of a truck” store!). But when applied as a principle, Granddaddy’s “watch box” can be useful for other items. Take Wayfarer sunglasses (PLEASE!) for example. . .

$200 for a pair of Rayban Wayfarers OR $1 for a pair of knock-offs at my fav “fell off the back of a truck” salvage/reclaimed/overstock/returns store. Hmmm, I think I’ll purchase a few pair while they have them in stock. Should last me a few years. Sweet! They even fit over my glasses!

And now I have 5 pairs of “Stylin’ Sunglasses­™” and $195 left over for other uses.

*heh*

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Well, American Spectator “Snuck” (#gagamaggot) in Another Moronic Headline

Ukrainian Leadership Claims Drone Sunk [sic] Two Russian Patrol Vessels

The headline is more telling than the actual article. If a Ukranian drone SANK a couple of Russian patrol vessels, good, but that R. Emmett Tyrell is willing to put his name on a mag that so grossly abuses the English language in a headline says pretty disgusting things about R. Emmett Tyrell’s lack of literacy, and poor literacy inevitably leads to sub-par communication of ideas (something I have had against American Spectator for some time, now, anyway).

Note: the PRETERITE (A.K.A., simple past tense) of “sink” is in no way, shape, fashion, or form “sunk.” “Sunk” is for perfect tenses (had/have sunk). Any headline writer that keeps his job after stupidly, illiterately, writing the headline proffered here does so only because editorial eyes are also pseudoliterate or just stupid.

OK, OK, maybe the problem is just that American Spectator is staffed with editors and headline writers who pattern themseves after lobotomized Bonobo Chimpanzees or Cooter from Gunsmoke.

American Spectator: promoting the destruction of literacy one headline at a time?

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Reason #5,689

“Snuck” is an example of one of the MANY reasons I have such a deep distrust of democracy.

That is all. For now.