AFTERTHOUGHTS ABOUT LOUISIANA

It strikes me that Mike Johnson, congressman from a failed state high on the federal funds, AND epa superfund site list, with more illiteracy, syphilis, incest, and Texans, than the national average, should shut the F up about any conditions.
We subsidize his craphole of a state.

Also, with a shockingly high rate of STDs, Mike Johnson's home state can ill afford RFK Jr.'s attack on modern medicine. This as an irrelevant side note, because my ire is not at him and his kind's filthy personal habits, but at the idea of blackmailing us over disaster aid.



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THINKING ABOUT LOUISIANA

House speaker Mike Johnson wishes to attach conditions to any fire disaster aid given to California. He represents a state which is heavily dependent on Federal funds far greater than their contribution, so perhaps the beggar needs to reconsider what comes out of his mouth. The same can be said for a large number of other red hosebag states.

Please explain to me again why staying with that bunch of mostly Southern dirt bag impoverished religious nut territories is a benefit to California.

I'll even give you a freebie: Ted Cruz bailing out to Cancun when that big freeze hit back in 2021 was very good for all of us, and everyone wishes he would do it again. That sort of counts in favour of those places. Can you make Marjorie Taylor Greene do the same?
Say, isn't Louisiana staggeringly high in EPA superfund sites?
As well as horrible cancer clusters.

Another fact about the state that sent that dirt bag Johnson to Washington is their extremely poor literacy, with some of the worst figures for reading, writing, 'rithmetic, and graduating grammar school in the country. Probably accounts for their high incarceration rate.

SOMEWHERE VERY MUCH NOT LOUISIANA

It strikes me that a congressman from a state that shares extraordinarily high syphilis and incest rates with its neighbors might want to be quieter, seeing as the question isn't why California should stay in the union but rather why don't we kick those trogs out?

Yeah, okay, they gave us Cajun dirty rice.
That really ain't good enough.



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PURSUING FLIGHTY DREAMS

A thought crossed my mind that perhaps I should check to see if some of the people who gravitate to my workplace are on Facebook, and if so, what else is going on in their minds. As soon as it came, I chased it out. I would rather not know. There has been quite enough exposure already. I do not need to know what goes on in the heads of Little White Nipple Dude, the Self-admitted Space Alien, R the Subcontinetal, or Starship Captain.
At least not more than I already do.

It's like watching flies buzzing around the garbage can.
There is tonnes of yummy stuff there.
For the flies.

Little White Nipple Dude exposed me to another neurotic facet recently which in its own way makes perfect sense. Twelve cigars. A perfect number. If you smoke one you have to replace it before you forget, or there will be less perfection in your life. An emptiness, a void, a flaw.

After thoughtlessly revealing that, he lectured me on his habits regarding smoking his meerschaum pipe, which involve aromatic tobaccos late in the evening.

This may be fascinating stuff.

There are times when he has spoken of Gandalf and Sherlock Holmes. In regards to pipe smoking. Those came up again several times this past weekend.

If I were to identify with a fictional pipe smoker, it might be Captain Haddock.
Or maybe not. Maigret is another possibility.

Having a fictional avatar is not an important part of my pipe smoking persona.
And I've already got enough neurotic facets in any case.
No need to widen the rabbit holes.



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TOSCANO MAESTRO PUCCINI REVIEW

Because of a bit of luck and good timing, I got to sample Maestro Puccini by Cornell & Diehl made for Toscano Cigars, a symphony in Kentucky Firecureds from different areas and crops, steam-pressed into a loose dark flake. Which is very pleasing.

No, I do not smoke Italian cheroots with a claven of elderly Italian men in Philadelphia after eating cheese steak sandwiches, nor do I sing operas in a high tremulous falsetto, which would be far more likely.

To quote the Laudisi website blurb: "Made in Italy from fermented American and Italian Dark-Fired Kentucky tobaccos, Toscano cigars are referred to as dry cigars or "cheroots." Toscanos possess a distinct, robust flavor that is favored by countless cigars smokers, and now pipe smokers can enjoy the famous boldness of Toscano cigars as well. In collaboration with Cornell & Diehl, Toscano presents the Maestro series, a series of pipe tobaccos that capture and recontextualize the piquant profiles of Toscano cigars. Toscano's Maestro Puccini is the first limited-edition blend in the Toscano Portfolio. Puccini showcases Toscano's signature bold and spicy flavor, a flake-cut blend combining the finest Kentucky leaf from both the United States and Italy with the signature spice, pepper, and woody characteristics that define Toscano's legendary cigars."

It is crucial to maintain a healthy gut biome with all the necessary flora and fauna. Yogurt is of great value, and improves the digestive processes. Vegans are hosed in that regard, and consequently their company is often fraught.

You know, I am actually a bit of a barbarian; my familiarity with Puccini's music is below average. To the best of my knowledge he never did Country and Western.
I think he recontextualized musicals or something.
As well as inventing grappa.

This tobacco is beautiful to look at. After rubbing it out and letting it dry a little bit I loaded up and lit. Smoother than I had presumed based on the description, and quite enjoyable on the way down -- an old fashioned taste, low on sweetness, mellow but not bland by any means. Rounded. The tin fragrance had been slightly reminiscent of barbecue or beef jerky, which was far less present in the smoke, translating instead to a flavour which might go well with either single malt or Bourbon.

It was around ten in the morning, after a breakfast pastry, two cups of coffee, and on my first cup of tea. Halfway through the bowl I realized that I really should eat better breakfasts, and by the end it was on the cusp of being the type of tobacco which turns me into an unpleasant person for several hours. Not exactly a light weight puffer. And I will probably have several more bowls from that tin. But it may take a while.

This could be a desert island smoke. If it were a desert island with a buffet. Bacon at one end, lobster at the other. Who is staffing this place? Must be robots. The tobacco is somewhat of an anomaly, but far less so than the sumptuous buffet.

If one had several bowls of this, accompanied by espresso and shots of liquour, it would be a splendid evening, which one could remember fondly or not at all the next day.
Upon waking up in the hospital.

So yes, for me this is a carefully approached smoke.
But that's because I'm normally a milder man.
Nevertheless, I highly recommend it.

TOBACCO INDEX


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THE FAMILY PORTRAIT

As you know Facebook often helpfully suggests possible friends based on similarities of interest, mutual acquaintances, memberships in various groups, shared highschools, and whether you were born in Outer Mongolia or Buratkent. And sometimes people volunteer for that. Ah, they think, this person also collects widgets. Surely we have much in common.

So I habitually examine their profiles. Is the candidate perhaps a kitten murdering bastard?
A voter for the filled orange diaper? Someone whose entire posting history suggests love, butterflies, and smiling hippos? A fervent believer in Jesus?
All the warning signs, in other words.

Friends are added gradually, after careful examination and thought.

Kittens and tea-drinking rabbits are okay. Jesus isn't.

It's a curated environment.

Over the past half decade I've been rather lucky. Only a few Christians, who behave very well and are socially responsible. No Trumpites and other kitten slaughtering deviants.
No people whose entire life revolves around pick-up trucks, gonzo conspiracies, and science-denying slope browed outbursts.

Several people who are quite familiar with Rashi, the Rambam, and the Ramban.
Plus thoughtful chaps (of either gender) who have interesting habits.
Sane past-life coworkers, and people into pipes.

Oh, and several sensible co-conspirators, but they were alread vetted in the real world, so there was really scant need to cyber stalk them first.

My own profile is not an open window. If you don't already know me, the only thing visible is two suspicious eyes glaring with malevolence through a crack in the blinds.

No spouse, significant other of any gender, or kids.
Only two actual relatives, mostly inactive.
No religious affiliation.


So I can claim that I am eccentric uncle Bertie at family gatherings, hiding in the library with the bottle of rum and tending to my lizard collection. Won't come out until everyone has left.
Please have a tea tray sent up at four o'clock.
Thank you.


Scoped out a dozen profiles today. All were rejected. Not enough lizards. Or too many.



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SPARKY THINGS

So my apartment mate wonders if you could runny nose so bad that you dehydrate. I may have mentioned that being a Cantonese American she sometimes is overly dramatic to the point of cheesy theatrics and wailing fake heartache, yes? I have assured her that there have been no recorded instances of that happening ever. Now she says it's a challenge, and she accepts. This in between giddy cheerfulness about mangoes and oranges and no longer getting internet bra commercials. All of this is a testament to coffee and tea.
Which can powerfully prevent drying out.
If employed judiciously.

In my mind I have my own bra commercial, involving the best bra ever! Three cups, in case you need an extra one at times. Or feel bloated during that time of the month.
Just stretch, stuff, and fold.

Or use the extra space for that pack of ciggies you're hiding from your parents.
And your car keys and spare change.

It is possible that both of us may have swilled too much hot beverage today.
This may have overly sparked lobes and cortexes.
Frontal and neo.

FLUFFY THOUGHTS

That first flush of caffeine in the morning starts the process whereby the mind rights intself from nighttime stumbling. I had woken from a dream in which I was researching the use of tak and takat as noun-forming postfixes for the enactant or representative concept of a preceding word -- with tuuk or tukut as the feminine -- in an unknown and probably entirely imagined language. For instance kom, area, becoming komtak (native person, male), komtakat as originality or nativeness, komtuuk for a native woman, komtuluk for the concept of being native or aboriginal to an area. Which simultaneously had me decribing a friend's dog as a fluffy wuwu. From which we can deduce that it's actually a chihuahua and male.

You can see why the mind needs waking up.
It does weird things when still asleep.
And that I dislike that dog.
Unimaginative of me.

Most dreams do not involve blackboards and chalk.
Or neurotic linguistics.

Linguisttak = linguist. Linguisttalak = linguistics.
Linguisttuuk = a female linguist. Linguisttuluk = descriptive linguistics.

The dog of my friend comes into it because one person assumed it was an adorable German Shepherd puppy and another thought it was a cute dachshund. I had to correct them.
It's actually a fluffy wuwu, and it's effing repulsive.


Don't ask me why there's a loathsome yippy critter in my language class. It's completely a mystery, more so as the owner of the fuzzy beast was off getting coffee somewhere.
Bad student. Inattentive. Absent.



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INSPIRED BY GREATNESS

My co-worker recaulked the bathroom because senescent old farts are destructive to the fixtures. As it turns out. Which is probably why their nearest and dearest tend to drop them off. One of the reasons. Sanity (destruction of) is another. I now know that the fires in the Los Angeles area were caused by liberal elites. It's a plot to bring down regular Americans, and space age technology was involved. They didn't mention Jewish space lasers or the Rothmans, but I'm sure they would have if they had remembered.
And if two or three of them hadn't been Jewish.

Senile rightwing assholeism doesn't discriminate when it strikes.
It neither respects nor distinguishes among ethnicities.
If you're not sure, it's always "their" fault.
Whichever "them" of the moment it is.

You know, I'm rather glad the great Dutch United East Indies Company no longer exists. Two centuries ago all English speakers were convinced that we were behind everything wrong in the world.

Which in many cases we were.

Amongst our many achievements was the occasional and highly justified slaughter of English traders in the Spice Islands. Also the brutal expulsion of the Portuguese from several areas. Regrettably, our siege of Manila to expunge the Spanish blight there was unsuccesful, and attacks on Macao did not result in a cleansing of the place as they should have -- June 24 is consequently a black anniversary -- but I'm still mighty proud of our activities in Asia, Africa, and America.

The V.O.C. and the Dutch Republic demonstrated that unrestrained Dutch mercantile plotting and monopoly imposition can bring immeasurable benefits. At least for us.
Admittedly, Pacific Palisades has no spices of note.
But it's probably still worth burning.
Symbolically Portuguese.

And the locals will benefit enormously from the imposition of enlightened Dutch rule. They always do. Just look at Ceylon, the conquest of Banda, and the benefits of teaching native Americans about scalping for fun and profit, as we did, four centuries ago. Jan Pieterszoon Coen famously said: "Dispereert niet, ontsiet uwe vijanden niet, daer en is ter werelt niet dat ons kan hinderen".

And even though the currently burning "Millionaires' Coast" is in Southern California instead of the Far East, I'm sure that there is a great deal to exploit there. Suffering and profit are always intertwined.



Errm, I mean it's horrific what's happening there, and I feel for those people.
How sad to see your home going up in flames!
A tragedy. Monumental.

Horrific.

That stuff about great Netherlandish rapine and slaughter was just inspired by too much caffeine and a fervent dislike of the repulsive old coots at work. And I may have had too much sugar, too. It does stuff to the head. Sorry.

The suffering is hard to imagine.

Liberal elites.

Horrific.



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STRIVE FOR LEGIBILITY

The other day someone posted a question about scripts, left to right, right to left, top to bottom. And illustrated his query with a bit of calligraphy lifted from the internet, which perked my eye. The calligraphy shown was a Tang dynasty era imitation of the 'ti huang soup letter' or rehmania decoction letter (地黃湯帖) by Wang Xianzhi (王献之 344 CE to 386 CE). One interesting thing is the collector seals all over, showing a considerably older script which is still used for sealcarving. In the letter Mr. Wang mentions that his new wife (or concubine) had taken rehmania decoction, which seemed to have cured her ailment (not detailed), but was still having problems sleeping.

Last night I too had problems sleeping.
Which is the only thing we have in common.


Wang Xianzhi is known for his excellence in semi-cursive script, which is more legible than cursive, and quite elegant to the eye. His father Wang Xizhi (王羲之) was also famous for that. Together both Wangs form a peak of the style.

And of course reading up on all this inevitably provided a rabbit hole down which I tumbled, exploring the many side tunnels, which continue over the next few days as time permits.

No, the painting above has nothing to do with either Wang or the semi-cursive forms of calligraphy. It merely overlaps in time reading about those. The first computerized brushstrokes were laid on Monday, the last early yesterday evening.
Most of it was done on Wednesday and Thursday.
It's a jungle in here.



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A FAVOURITE CEREAL BOWL

A person over on the East Coast postulated that people who did not have a favourite cereal bowl were weird. An extraordinary opinion, with which I must disagree. It is absurd. I do not eat cereal, considering it a vile substance that reflects a severe North American Protestant upbringing and set of cultural biases, plus reminiscent about strange beliefs about the digestive system from over a century ago.

The opinionator in question is a nice orthodox Jewish person. But obviously he has been infected with all of that. And American cereals, being for the most part kosher, were probably happily absorbed in his milieu. Obviously in lieu of the warm toasted bacon, egg, and cheese muffin or breakfast burrito that all the heathen Irishmen around them ate, which didn't exist a century ago when they were surrounded by heathen Irishmen instead of New Jersey.


A friend in that same East Coast environement commented: "They probably don’t even care which coffee cup they use!"

What?!?


"They probably don’t even care which coffee cup they use!"


I am offended to the limits of outrage at that remark.
I am vibrating in my seat. The nerve!
How dare you!

Ma'am, I will have you know that the ancestral coffee cup, which I've had forever since I found it one day at a local grocery and kitchen supplies store over fifteen years ago, has been selected over all others regularly. And it will be passed down to my descendants.

Having a favourite coffee cup is a mark of mental stability and a sound intellect.
Whereas a cereal bowl marks one as neurotic and unstable.
A doubtful person, to say the least.


There have been several favourite coffee cups over the years. The one made by Hsin-chuen Lin unfortunately ended up with a cracked handle (probably a minor clump in the clay which destabilized because of heat-stress over the years), the pale avocado green glazed match to the one pictured above collided with the bathroom floor one day a few months after a hospital visit (for a procedure which gave me a brand new lease on life) six years ago, the lovely big broad brilliant grass green cup developed a crack down to the bottom, and my actual current cup is like the one above but narrower, sort of a semi-matte tomato red hue.

These are important details. I repeat: mental stability.
And a sound intellect, very active and sparky.


Cereal bowls can never be thus.



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THE GEESE HAVE SPOKEN!

According to the internet, source of all that is true and goldarn beautiful in the world, Mark Zuckerberg, recipient of a rat penis transplant, and eater of fluffy kittens, died of the horrific complications of syphilis and covid, after lining up all the fact checkers and shooting them, then moving his head quarters to a space alien whorehouse in Texas.

They couldn't write it if it wasn't true.

Texas is doing away with all laws against pedophelia and child labour, because these are Biblical and Jesus approves. And Louisiana has outlawed vegans.
Deportations to Oregon start immediately.


And by the way, Mexico will soon be Southern Texas, and there will be farms for egg-laying reptiles everywhere. They taste just like chicken if you don't need the eggs -- and who, really, needs eggs? They're just a liberal plot -- they're pettable, and they always vote the solid Christian ticket. Unlike the natives, who need to go back to Guatamala.

Also, we should take over Venezuela. They're sitting on our oil and they invaded Kuwait!

There is one distinct advantage to taking over Canada and Greenland: no more Republican power in the government ever again. Admittedly they're all variations of Alaskan up there, so probably bigly stupid and inbred, and crazy as loons, but as I understand it liberals are all over the place, and some of them speak French so those are probably the rabid socialists. And they have poutine! That's a plus, right? We can overlook that they invented Hawaiian pizza. Just give us all the poutine and we'll say no more about that.


I've really got to do my laundry today. Everything smells like pipe tobacco.
It is impossible to score the ladies reeking of pipe weed.
And it frightens the little children.

Think of the children.



By the way: That painting shows what the street outside my apartment building looked like two nights ago, when everything was foggy. It's just one of the many reasons people live in San Francisco instead of Texas. That and beer.



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THE IMAGINARY WOMBAT

By now I should know better than to unnecessarily delay my meals. I turn more "emotional" when the blood sugar is low. So when I left the house after shilly shallying all afternoon I was not quite by my right self. Lunch in Chinatown corrected that state, and while heading down Beckett Street I noticed Tat Yee at a nearby tavern, already in his cups. Stuff was being erected on Grant, so I stayed in the alleys until I got to Portsmouth Square, where the wildlife was starting to forage for their evening meal and the elderly card players were diminishing.

A few hours later I returned to Chinatown. The erection on Grant had grown. And because of the warmish nighttime breeze there were more people about, some of them normal, some possibly zombies, and a few shlepping their bedding. Like my father I look more foxy and likeable at this age, which is not entirely a good thing. It attracts unstable people, like zombies and bed-schleps.

My father was lucky in that regard. I still remember the time a very attractive young lady leaned over and asked me "is he your handsomer older brother?"

Umm, no. No, he isn't.

In this city, random people attracted to foxes may be entirely screwy. So after the strange white woman on Grant Avenue had tried to engage me in conversation about Republicans, Libertarians, Democrats, and Rand Paul, I calmly informed her that I was a wombat, and craved roots and tubers. Which sadly none of the major parties were promising me and what is this world coming to? The trick is to outcrazy the nutballs, and disquiet them enough that they leave one alone. Which, after my sharing that datum with her, she did, muttering to no one in particular that maybe she should smoke a pipe so that people would listen.

This wombat was at the time that this conversation took place waiting for the bookseller, so that the weekly night time jaunting could commence. Burgers, caffeinated beverages, and a visit to two agreeable drinking holes.

The preambular pipe smoked during the wait takes forty minutes.
Several unstable people approached in that time.
I am a rabid wombat, oh yes.
So, not a fox.

Look, I would not mind in the slightest if a completely sane and likable young lady university graduate shyly approached, to strike up an intelligent conversation with a fox smoking his pipe, but in this city that's hideously unlikely.

Wherefore I am the walrus, I am the eggman, I am a wombat.


Per Wikipedia, Wombats are short-legged, muscular marsupials. Wombats leave distinctive cubic faeces. Wombat teeth lack roots and are ever-growing, like the incisors of rodents. Their diets consist mostly of grasses, sedges, herbs, bark, and roots.


No, I am not going to draw a wombat smoking a pipe. That would be absurd. Pipe tobacco is horribly expensive in Australia, they probably can't afford it.



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FOREST, TREES, NATURE MAN

Quoting the fellow that the Red States voted for two months ago, talking earlier today: "Gas heater is much less expensive. The heat is much better, it’s a much better heat. Uh, as the expression goes, ‘You don’t itch.’ Does anybody have a heater, where you go and you’re scratching? That’s what they want you to have, they don’t want you to have the gas where you don’t have the problems of the electric", and "And they want to do ‘no water comes out of the shower.’ It goes drip … drip … drip. So what happens? You’re in the shower 10 times as long, you know?" [End cite] These are very deep waters indeed, Donald. Bigly deep. I fully expect masses of well-thought out commentary from your devotees.

By the way, windmills are a great invention.
Just thought I'd throw that in.

"With regard to the forest: When trees fall down, after a short period of time — about 18 months — they become very dry. They become, really, like a matchstick. And they get up — you know, there’s no more water pouring through, and they become very, very — well, they just explode. They can explode."

"Also, leaves — when you have years of leaves — dried leaves — on the ground, it just sets it up. It’s really a fuel for a fire. So they have to do something about it."

"They also have to do cuts. I mean, people don’t like to do cuts, but they have to do cuts in between. So if you do have a fire and it gets away, you’ll have a 50-yard cut in between so it won’t be able to catch to the other side."

"I love California."

------Donald Trump, September 2020


Covfefe.



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DESCRIBING BREAKFAST

From the kitchen came the sound of breakfast being prepared by a voracious one hundred pound scrawny behemoth (five feet four inches, and no banana for scale) at an early hour. Cantonese folks, as is well known, are keenly into food. What better way to wake up than to a feast? Dutch people are not quite so enthusiastic about eating at that hour (taking myself as the paradigm and perfect example of the type, you understand) and would far rather spend time early in the day contemplating the bleakness of existence, man's inhumanity to man, and whether there are any more tropical paradises to brutally exploit with our finely honed imperialist mechanisms.

Where can we establish sugar cane plantations?
Do they have any foods we can claim?
Ancient artifacts?

My apartment mate, a femal person of Cantonese ancestry born in San Francisco, has a commendable appetite at an ungodly hour of the day. Whereas I, descended from several generations of Anglo-Dutch Americans, and raised in the Netherlands between the ages of two and eighteen, have a much bleaker almost puritanical imperative at that hour.
A cup of strong coffee, then a pipe outside in the freezing cold.

Neither of us are British or Hobbits. So that half-witted approach toward the first sustenance of the day, furthering the cause of diabetes, acid reflux, and an increased incidence of both gout and arterial destruction, is not part of the programme. Which is why I suspect that her breakfast consisted of a toasted something with butter and jam, plus a cup of milky tea.

Mine was coffee with milk and sugar followed by forty minutes with a briar pipe and some delightful aged Virginia as the fog dissipated on the crest of Nob Hill, outside temperature around fifty degrees, with bleakness all around and distantly pet dogs pooing next to their owners standing at ready with plastic baggies.

Hector, with whom I work two or three days a month, tends toward either a Don Pepin or an Oliva Connecticut Reserve (Nicaraguan filler) as breakfast. He's from Central America, they do weird things there.

Years ago I would occasionally have the typical American breakfast plate late in the day. Hash browns, sausages, egg, steaming pile of rice, with lots of hotsauce, or fresh chilies, or salsa picante. Sometimes nowadays if I'm in Chinatown early enough a bowl of congee and a fried dough stick. Congee is almost never available at typical Anglo establishments or restaurants catering to the generic crowd. Sad.



Absolutely the perfect "second breakfast" is heading over to a teahouse for dimsum two or three hours after coffee and a smoke, for three to five lovely items and a pot of tea shared with friends. Which should, of course, be followed by a Dutch cigar or a pipe and a stroll.

The Ashton Half Corona would be splendid.
They are Dutch style, made in the EU.
Not too far from where I lived.
Very traditional.



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ZOMBIE FINGER

My apartment mate is at times theatrical, given to hyperbole and exaggeration. A tendency which I presume is extremely Cantonese of her. One that I have observed a number of times in Chinatown. My barber wails disconsolately at times that "there is nothing good to eat here (unlike HK, where he is from), we shall all starve on this inedible muck" (which explains why he is scrawny I guess). The old guys at the bakery are likely to declaim that things are not as they used to be, and then Yorkshiremen each other with ever more eloquent details of how it is not. The elderly coathanger one table over at the chachanteng kept up a string of overloud commentary after he noticed an acquaintance, which sounded for all the world like he wanted to rile up the masses to revolt against our lizard overlords.

My apartment mate stubbed a finger yesterday. Which is now gangrenous, tell my brothers how I died, maybe it's becoming zombiefied, good lord, if it falls off I can throw it at people (giving them the finger), you are heartless, heartless, no it doesn't hurt anymore.
But look at it, look at it! It's TWICE normal size! Three times!

Being quite phlegmatic, and rational, like most Dutchmen, I informed her that no, it didn't look huge, just a fraction thicker than it used to. And would probably be quite well again by tomorrow evening.

Apparently I don't know beans, medically, and should just hushy.
I am unreceptive and cold in her hour of peril.
Heartless! Oh!

Famous Scandinavian art-dude Edvard Munch was so startled by a dramatic Chinese fellow on a bridge in Oslo one day that he immortalized the scene. Capturing the very essence of a Cantonese person, and also the expressive quality of Cantonese Opera. Which explains much. Norwegians are even less given to emotionalism than us Netherlanders.
By comparison, we are practically Mediterranean.
Despite being cold fish.


Also, being calm and polite, sometimes I can't get in a word edgeways.
Really, I should try to get out of my shell.
Express myself.



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WHAT WE DON'T SEE HERE

The East Coast and large parts of the centre are blanketed in snow, transportation is grinding to a halt, and people are burning old folks and couches in a desperate attempt to stay warm. Or at least alive. There are rumours that Ted Cruz has fled to Cancun again, and the ceremonial gallows at Bedminster are sagging under the weight of icicles.

Oh, the humanity.

And Marjorie Taylor Greene is panicking. There may not be enough drooges in Washington to certify the second coming. Because the Jews who control the weather have sabotaged it.


All of which makes one wonder what Ellen Lee Zhou is doing here in San Francisco. Four years ago she flew to Washington to giddily cheer on the baying mobs, but with flights all up and down the country being cancelled and delayed this time, because of the Jewish Space Lasers, she might be stuck in Desmoines or Pittsburg with thousands of other Republican snooks. The airport Boo King is running out of food, there are long lines to the multigender bathroom, Bible sellers are working the crowd, and over in the corners little Republican infants are throwing up because they ate eggs and got sick. As one does.

When I stepped out for my first pipe much earlier today, visibility was scarcely three blocks. Dense fog verging on drizzle. No breeze, no dogwalkers out walking their pets, no joggers. Perhaps some drug addicted Republican tourists pooing theatrically on the sidewalk in the Tenderloin several blocks away, as they are wont to do -- it's a statement, and looks good on Fox News -- and not even the lone coyote that lives in this neighborhood trotting past.
Quiet and peaceful, sheer heaven.

I miss the coyote, though. Nice beast. Calm, not a Republican.
Almost certainly not a Christian.

Look, in precisely the same manner that Dan and Jeff over in Marin refer to all terrorists as Democrats, and everybody who disagrees with them as degenerate liberals, I tend to think of all sidewalk pooing people as Midwesterners and Republicans. Okay?

Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ellen Lee Zhou poo on the sidewalk all the time.
Sidewalk Defecator Zhou got two percent of the vote.
Poo apparently has a voice.


It is unlikely the Marin Dan and Jeff poo on sidewalks here in San Francisco, or even San Rafael where they live. They've been constipated for four solid years. Just full of it. I asked Jeff the other day if everything at home was okay, and he said that it must be, as his wife had not killed him yet. She's a remarkably patient woman. And very likely medicated.

That Dan is still alive is inexplicable, however.
Probably the work of the devil.



During my work week I have to hear those whingeing people for several hours each day. Their kinfolk get some peace and quite during those times, which I begrudge them. I am considering the purchase a cattle prod. Much like several years ago I acquired a riding crop to chastise an obstreperous Patel at another job. Which I have since gotten rid of.
The problem was that he ended up enjoying it too much.



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SUBURBAN FOG

Yesterday I made reference to the Rambam (Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, Maimonides) in discussion with a Jewish person, and got the distinct impression that he hadn't a clue who or what I was mentioning. On the other hand, it turned out that I had no clue that San Jose had an ice hockey team. It might be that we inhabit different worlds. Not the same planet.

This is a feeling that I often get.

Much of popular culture goes right by me. Earlier, talking with someone else entirely, James Joyce and Marcel Proust were discussed. This was not in relation to mustaches, by the way. It was a good conversation. And quite rewarding.

I strongly suspect that the person who didn't know who the Rambam was would not have known who the two mustached persons were either.


And by the way, I'm still not interested in ice hockey.
It appears to be theatrical yobbo drunkenness.
I've looked at youtube clips.

What naturally comes to mind now is the Monty Python sketch about the Philosopher's Football Match. Here's a quote to refresh your memory:


"Hegel is arguing that reality is merely an a priori adjunct of non-naturalistic ethics, Kant via the categorical imperative is holding that ontologically, it exists only in the imagination and Marx is claiming it was offside."


Something else that I think of is the person or multiple persons (there are different sources given) who stated "I have ADHD, an internet connection, really good research skills, and zero self-regulatory mechanisms", as well as the questionaire which showed that one specific respondent was multi-tentacled and looking for library books.
Both of these things really speak to me.



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TRUE CHRISTIANS GLEE CLUB

If you ever read about a Dutch American getting arrested for committing a capital punishment offense on senile rightwingers in a Bay Area suburb, that might be me. In my defense, I must point out that my ancestors came from Brabant, the natives of which were, per a mediaeval French author, "rapists, brigands, and incendiarists". So it would be more or less my native tradition. Generations of "conditioning".

We moved to the Netherlands when I was two, and ended up in the province from whence we had come over three centuries before. Which reinforced all the civilizationally corrective instincts that hereditarily we already had.

Trust me, there are at least a dozen elderly danglefudgers in Marin County whose lives would be immeasurably improved by being over. One of whom used to a member of the judicial field up till his retirement, and was mercifully never appointed judge.
Although if this were the Deep South, he would have been.

The problem is that anything drive-by would be too quick and merciful.

Dumping them into the swamp with life vests, and cinderblocks tied to their feet, would be so much better. Somewhere that even nature lovers don't frequent. Perhaps near the putrifying cadavers of other rightwingers whose relatives finally got sick and tired of hearing, and creatively silenced. Even though fresh-festering corpse might excite them.

"At last, a worthy conversational partner!"

These are people with the morals of Matt Gaetz, the intellect of Marjorie Taylor Green, and the sheer buggery repulsiveness of both Elon Musk and Kash Patel.


The life vests would make it slow, the cinderblocks would make it certain.


Whenever any of these loathesome codswallopers croaks, something which doesn't happen often enough, I never attend their funerals or memorials, as it would be unseemly to do so grinning from ear to ear and giggling. That's something I can do elsewhere anyhow.

Their single redeeming feature is that they are at least sixty percent water, and the rest is easily composted. We need water in California.

Good lord yes.



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