Adaptive Curmudgeon

Our sweet lovable cat is dead. Shit happens.

I’m bummed out. Tardo was the dumbest mammal in North America but I liked the lovable fool.

Tardo’s wellbeing has always been a concern. He was extraordinarily nice so I wanted him to thrive and do well… which he did in his oafish way. But he was just so darn clueless. If you want to be unobservant and stupid there are environments where that’ll work, universities and woke coffee shops come to mind, but not my homestead. Here we are free, nature is close, and life entails risk. Tardo was sweet and kind and cuddly… but as dumb as a tree stump. I always knew he’d Forest Gump his ass into an early grave.

He’d hang around the farm, always friendly and laughably aimless. Every time we fed the cats, which is done daily like clockwork, he’d be surprised. Often he’d miss out on dinner, simply because he was sleeping. Our other cat keeps a watchful eye on the food bowls. Tardo would “discover” the bowl and figure it was random good fortune. The very next day he might discover it again… or he might forget and be wandering around the fields.

He didn’t hunt. He was as sneaky as a rattling trash can. Any mouse dumb enough to wind up in his slow claws would be there due to suicide.

He had many ways to make me nervous. Climbing on the woodsplitter while it was running. Getting stuck in outbuildings. Falling asleep under an idling truck. It’s a miracle he lasted this long.

He’d disappear for days or weeks at a time. After the first few days I’d start fretting until he returned. Sometimes he went on a happy hike. He’d come back fat and happy. Sometimes he’d get himself into trouble. He’d show up skinny and battered. Sometimes he was stuck in my garage, not 50 feet from the food bowl he never seemed to remember.

In the winter, I made him a nice little heated hay-bale “cat hut”. He lived in there for a while… until he vanished, possibly he forgot it existed. Sometimes (I suspect) his absence was because he simply got lost; when he finally returned it might have been a whole new experience to him: “wow, this place is cool… I think I’ll stay here”. I have no idea if any neighbors fed him but he certainly was friendly. He once climbed into a visitor’s car. They drove a few miles before they noticed him, did a U-turn, and deposited him back on our lawn.

One time he wandered off just before a blizzard. He was gone several weeks. The logical assumption was that he’d become a cat-sicle. When the snowpack faded, he showed up, skinny but happy. I think the snow got too deep to return so he just hung out wherever he was until it melted. He was probably lost in a deer yard, or maybe he slept for a month on some hay stacks in a cattle lot. Who knows?

He always came back and I always welcomed him.

Not this time. I found him on a main road a mile from my house… and that’s that. He got squished. He lived like he died… stupid.

I’m gonna’ miss him. Tonight I shall drink a toast to my departed critter. All that lives will someday die and he did pretty well. He was always pleasant, purred loudly and often, and never did anything mean or cruel. That’s a pretty good epitaph.

Then I’ll eat an appropriate feast of celebration; possibly crayons.

Links where I’ve mentioned my lovable dumbass of a cat:

When showed up a couple years ago. Mrs. Curmudgeon talked me out of naming him OwlBait. I used this as an object lesson to some kids.

“When someone gives you free food and a place to stay, even if they do it out of kindness as I’m doing right now, sooner or later they’ll cut your balls off. Remember that.”

Tardo briefly ran away when I went a bridge too far. I suggested he was as stupid as Paul Krugman.

In a 2020 Critter Update, I watched him and our other cat (who is an absolute asshole) interact. The asshole cat acted all “Game of Thrones” but big lovable Tardo was just too dumb to know he was being threatened. Looking at that post now, I’ve lost a stupid cat and the best dog I ever had… but the fuckin’ evil cat is still going strong. So much for karma.
Unlike my beloved dog, Tardo was still around in August of last year. While I was watching the miracle of a hatching monarch butterfly, Tardo got in a battle of wits with a lawnchair.
The dumbass is gone and will be missed.

I mentioned earlier that I was on the prowl for a monarch caterpillar. While working in a field I found a large milkweed with two large monarch caterpillars. I abandoned work, scooped up the pair and stashed them in a big jug.

Since this is the modern era, I solicited for names. I got three; Felix (a CATerpillar), Philip (in honor of the late prince), and Rupert (related to The Longest Day, a movie I haven’t seen).

I named one Philip and the other Bob (in recognition of a commenter who “released almost 10,000 [monarch butterflies] over 50 yrs”… that’s some legendary shit right there!).

Caterpillars prefer young leaves to old (and they eat like pigs) so I tossed in a nice succulent young milkweed, added some water (it’s not like it rains inside a jug), and put a loose screen on top. Then, I got back to work.

Two days later I checked and the screen was offset. Philip (I guess) was a foot away. The other caterpillar was… gone.

What the fuck!?!? How can a two inch brightly colored caterpillar… vanish?

It was in a cluttered office. I looked carefully and he just wasn’t there. I panicked. Who wants a two inch caterpillar wandering around your HDMI cables and old papers? I looked everywhere but there’s no a sign of him. I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed but I damn well know the little bastard didn’t open the door and walk away. This means, sooner or later, I’m going to be reaching for a backup mouse or digging for my taxes from 2005 and I’m going to find a dead yucky bug. DAMMIT!

Mrs. Curmudgeon thinks there’s a chrysalis somewhere deep under a table leg or something. She figures I’ll be sitting at my desk and suddenly have a butterfly in my hair.

God, I hope so!

I assumed the escape artist was in the jug somewhere so I took it outside and dumped it. Mrs. Curmudgeon patiently waited while I hunkered down in the driveway picking through caterpillar shit and half eaten leaves.

No sign of him.

But wait… there’s more!

Remember the young succulent milkweed I stuffed in there for food? Two more caterpillars… very very small ones. One is the smallest I’ve ever seen.

It’s pretty weird, we’ve all seen a full sized monarch caterpillar but how often have you seen the exact same thing in miniature? Oh sure, you know it exists; but have you seen it?

So I cleaned out the jug, stuffed Philip back in there, added the other two micro-caterpillars, added more food and water, and drilled proper holes so the damn screen doesn’t screw me over again. The silly things a man does when he’s playing around with nature. I was deeply thankful that Mrs. Curmudgeon refrained from mocking me while I unironically crawled around in the dirt like a six year old.

A few hours later Philip was like “fuck these new kids in my habitat” and cocooned up. The other caterpillars probably have weeks of growing left. (Who am I kidding? They have weeks of eating and shitting little green dots… that’s all they do.)

Anyway, that’s the update. Two are the smallest thing this side of an egg (I assume they were eggs when I stuffed them in the jar), Bob was an escape artist that’s clearly smarter than me, and Philip is now a chrysalis.

What? Childish hobbies have childish updates. Anyway, my news is both more relevant and more truthful than anything on TV.

Through no fault of my own, I had five dead blasted skunks scattered around my barnyard. What can I say? Shit happens.

Usually I clean them up ASAP. This time I let ’em sit while I pondered what kind of “sin” is attached to shooting a being that looks like a kitten.

Letting the situation “mellow” was an experiment. When I move fast (as I usually do), their chemical weaponry is still hanging in the air and I risk my clothes picking up a bit of it. This time it had been blistering hot and they all sorta’ mummified. It wasn’t daisies and roses but it could have been worse.

New technique evaluated and approved! If it’s very hot out and reasonably dry and the skunk wasn’t big, just come back a day later. Also, this is why I don’t live in a covenant controlled community.

(I’m a marketing genius! In order to build my blog audience I’ll discuss comparative experiences with dead skunks. What can go wrong?)

So I scooped up each one, with a generous portion of my raggedy ass lawn too… leaving a divot but hoping to remove contaminated soil while I was at it. I toss them all in the tractor bucket and…

and what?

I didn’t have an actual plan. Usually I bag ’em and truck ’em to the landfill. I had a bunch of stuff in Dodge’s truck bed so I’d switched to tractor without an end game. Lacking a designated skunk containment facility I just drove randomly into my swamp.

Eventually, I was in waist deep swamp grass growing out of dried muck. It’s a place I don’t expect to be walking anytime soon. I extended the bucket’s as far as I could get over deep impassible brush and dumped the bucket.

WHOOSH!

Out of nowhere a turkey flew up and it headed for the next county. You can’t blame it for fleeing. Some lunatic just attacked it with a tractor and skunks. Whoops!

Hassling turkeys is a solid “no” on my land. I encourage wild turkeys to stay in the hopes that they’ll multiply. (In fact I encourage any edible wildlife!) Turkeys pass through my land from time to time but don’t seem to hang around. There’s never enough to support good hunting odds for yours truly. I always hope they’ll breed up a bigger population so I can hunt up a Thanksgiving dinner.

Yet I just found a rare example of the breed and sent it running in terror. Dammit! I hope it wasn’t on an nest! If I dropped 5 dead skunks on a now abandoned turkey’s nest it’s going to seriously impact my wild turkey yelp reviews.

Curmudgeon’s Swamp: One Review: rating 2 stars out of 5

Plentiful water, decent tree cover nearby. Not a lot of human activity. No grazing livestock. Berry patch seems to be expanding. That one asshole ruffed grouse drums all night but the rest of the neighborhood is chill. Not many turkeys already here so it’s a bit lonely. Overall good cover and food but if you settle here you’ll have to deal with loneliness, coyotes, and the climate (it’s perhaps a bit too far north for winter survival). Good potential but not the greatest.

UPDATE: Rating reduced to 0 stars out of 5

The owner is a lunatic who drove a big mechanical beast into the swamp and dropped five dead skunks on my head! Avoid this place at all costs. I’m moving to Texas. Fuck that guy!

So I’d blasted a “teenaged” skunk to smithereens. 24 hours later I blasted 2 kits at the same location. Presumably they weren’t weaned, and I’d spared them a lingering death… but I felt like shit about it.

The next evening, same time and only about 30 yards away from the first three. I saw another skunk in the lawn. This one a kit too but it seemed a bit larger and older than the two tiny ones of the day before. WTF? Is there a skunk condo somewhere in the adjacent forest?

Bang. Situation handled.

I shrugged and started unloading some feed from my truck and yet another one popped up. Goddamnit!

This one, also a kit but also older the tiny ones from 24 hours ago, was rooting around in the gore where “mom” and “the twins” had met their maker the day before. I set down the feed, shucked in another shell, BAM.

Five skunks taken out with four shots in three days. I don’t have anything against skunks if they stay the hell out of my buildings and stuff. I’ve got a whole forest and swamp where they can hang out and have a skunky life of peace. But noooo…. they have to get into trouble!

Little fuckers would move into my house and raid the fridge if I let ’em.

Disgusted, I drove my truck out of the skunk-stink area and fumed all night.

Am I done with them? Sorta. One follow up remains

So one day I’m on my way to the chicken coop around sunset and there’s a skunk. I blast it to a unit that I seldom use, but which is appropriate at this time… smitherines.

End of story right? Nope.

The next day I go out to feed the chickens; once again around sunset. I’m dreading it but I’ll have to shovel up the remaining molecules of the teenage skunk I blasted 24 hours ago.

MORE SKUNKS!

This time two little baby skunks (called kits) are hanging out on the divot that used to be, apparently, mom. Oh crap…

Kits are the cutest beings on earth. They’re cuter than kittens or puppies. They’re just absolutely the sweetest most innocent looking things you’ll ever see. I know what I’ve got to do… they have to die. I tried “coexisting” with them; using loud radios to discourage them from moving into my outbuildings, improving fences to keep them out, etc…

It didn’t work. I live on a homestead. Certain things are true. A skunk in the vicinity of the outbuildings or livestock food has to die. The sooner the better.

I know this to be true but I hate shooting kits anyway.

The two little kits were only slightly bigger than chipmunks. They were crawling around on the dead carcass of what I’d thought was a “teenage” skunk. It was probably… actually certainly the mother. The little ones might well have been too young to have been weaned. They were doomed anyway.

Sigh…

I aimed very carefully and took out both with one shot.

Damn. I felt like I’d clubbed a hundred baby seals.

It was plenty skunky though. I backed away, fed the chickens, and sulked back to the house.

End of story right? Nope. Stay tuned.

One of the greatest things about life (my life… your life is none of my business) is that I chose to live in the hinterland. YMMV but I love it. I’m hundreds of miles from the nearest major bullshit centers and have a decent buffer from even the minor bullshit centers.

Distance gives perspective. Perspective gives peace. Without peace (inner and hopefully external as well), all is chaos; instability that’s prone to madness. Notice, the nexus of insanity. People freaking out in 2020 and 2021 aren’t based in Amish farms and quiet fishing villages… it’s coming from people crammed together with a smartphone pasted over one eye and the other nervously watching distortions on the artificial fishbowl that surrounds them. They’re slowly eating each other’s brains.

Meanwhile, I’ve got nature. I love me some nature!

Lacking light pollution, my night sky is a wonder to behold. Last year I finally wired a switch into my pole light. Awesome move! On a clear moonless night I can flip that switch and witness a sky that bursts forth with the glory of creation. Try that from your Miami condo.

Sometimes, if I’ve got visitors that haven’t seen such things, I’ll invite them to try it. If it’s moonless and clear it’s a sky like they’ve never seen. If’ it’s cloudy and moonless they experience darkness the likes of which they’ve never imagined.

What’s the market value of a gorgeous night sky? I’ve no idea. Priceless doesn’t mean worthless. Also, it’s a reminder how much the electric light revolution rearranged the world of homo sapiens and set them on edge.

Another of my favorite things is the season of the monarchs. A few years back I was reminiscing about how I wanted to have a caterpillar in a jar as a kid. I wanted to watch it become a butterfly. It never happened.

In 2018, like a dope slap from reality, a blog reminded me that the dream could still happen. I was a grown ass man and if I wanted to stick a bug in a jar it was nobody’s business but mine. I’d simply forgotten I could do such a thing. So I did.

I relived (for the first time) a fun thing my eight year old self coveted. One of the smartest things I’ve ever done.

It made me feel like a kid again! Simple pleasures eh? Here’s a photo from 2018.

I did the same thing in 2020. Here’s a photo from of a butterfly’s birth. (Sorry that it’s blurry, I only had one hand free.) It was taken in the middle of a world shitting itself in panic over a 99.95% survivable illness while self-inflicting “peaceful protests” spread arson and murder. Yet, that was a moment of peace. We could all die tomorrow and the butterfly would never know. Society would benefit from a bit more humility.

In 2019 I must have forgot? Meh, it’s a thing I do… not a job.

Anyway, I’ve been on the prowl for this year’s monarch caterpillar. A harmless and free enterprise but you do have to spend a bit of time looking. Oddly, there are fewer milkweed than usual this year. Before y’all freak out about Roundup or GMO corn or (Lord help us we’ve been trained to do it) global warming; just chill. All things ebb and flow, and that includes milkweed.

Here are a few relevant links.

2018: Phenology Report: Monarchs: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

2020: The Cycle Of Life Births A Monarch.

It’s not all starshine and butterflies though. Nature periodically gets up in my grill and offers a throwdown. Shit happens. You need to handle it right quick or you don’t belong here. Soyboys need not apply.

I was heading for the chicken coop when I damn near stepped on a skunk. I approached with the wind in my favor and got closer that I’d like! The critter seemed a little out of synch with the season. I’d expect ones born this season to be small and kittenish. This one seemed only a little less than adult sized but it was still clueless and stupid… a teenager of the species? It must have been born just as the snow melted.

I beat a hasty retreat, returned with my boomstick, and nailed it so hard there was a divot where the little bugger formerly stood. Skunks, like any terrorists, are best killed hard. They’re less likely to spray their god-awful stink all over if you eliminate the situation fast. I’ve had good luck with a .22 but better with a 20 gauge. An ounce of lead shot at 1,400 FPS through he skull is a sweet spot. First goal was to keep the chickens safe but the second was an instantly dead skunk (you don’t want it thrashing about both suffering and dispensing stink). Shortly after that I went canoeing and tragically lost my shotgun in a lake. Whoops.

Back to the practical side of things, take my word on this; when you want to kill a skunk don’t dick around. Either place the bullet perfectly or nuke it from orbit… ideally both.

I’d prefer my evenings without hastily going to DEFCON IV to slay a furry terrorist. So that kinda’ sucked. Also, it was sunset but still blistering hot and very humid. Humidity seems to let the stink hold on longer. Rather than getting my jeans and body in the area I just backed off, left the mess there, and will try an experiment in letting things ride overnight. Is that a good solution or will it rot and get vastly worse? Who knows? Life is filled with experiments.

Update: If I raise it, it gets a name. The first butterfly was Sebastian. The second was Colin. Any suggestions for the 2021 butterfly (assuming I find a caterpillar)?

A couple days ago I wrote this:

What happens next? I’ve no fucking idea. You don’t either. Nobody does. It’s a black swan situation because the normal options just aren’t working.

One future event I didn’t think to add was “maybe people will get their head out of their ass and see to it this level of fuckery doesn’t happen again“. It’s a distinct possibility.

If I’d said that innocuous statement on November 4th 2020, it would have been unlikely. The press would assume I’m a FOX watching Orange Man dittohead and desperately search for a Twitter account (which I don’t have) to censor. If I’d said the same innocuous statement on January 6th 2021, I’d be unfairly painted as a shithead terrorist who should be beaten by a big rubber Karl Marx dildo. The press would desperately search for a Facebook account (which I don’t use) to censor. Now it’s June 2021. The innocuous yet heretical idea is not even “goofy” in June. It’s how things are going in 2021.

We’re watching one press dismissed “conspiracy theory” after another turning into reality. Things which were always reasonable and potentially true are now drifting past the hyperventilating gatekeepers. They’re becoming publicly discussed even as the press screams “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”. (Witness the formerly heretical idea that the Wuhan Virus might be related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology. A year ago it was “You’re a nutcase who should be censored”. Right now it’s edging into “gosh, that’s a thing we should at least consider”.)

In terms of voting reform, Ace of Spades recently served up an article that’s pretty positive. Go read Closing the Barn Door – Changes in Voting Laws. Ace lays out likely and/or impending voting law changes in:

• Arizona
• Florida
• Texas
• Georgia
• New Hampshire
• Pennsylvania

Ace is referring to attempts to make vote counts more representative of actual votes cast by actual Americans. In short, it’s the People of the States trying to fix the mess inflicted on them. It’s not DC trying to shore up the Republic; it’s the States. Swamps don’t drain themselves.

It comes with an excellent punchline. Ready?

Seven months!

Isn’t that hilarious? November 3rd, 2020 was only seven months ago. Biden was sworn in as Potato in Chief just five months ago. The interregnum is less than 200 days old.

That’s fast! People all over the nation are taking action. Our nation spent decades not approving a single oil pipeline. Compare that to voting. In less than 200 days, 12% of the States are composing “repair it” ideas. When everyone knows the house is about to fall down, whatever adults are left will rush to fix it.

In short. This is happening.

It’s why I have hope. A large, unexpected, weird black swan event is probably unavoidable but it doesn’t have to be a bloodbath. Would a sweeping reform movement in most of the 50 states be a black swan event? Sure.

It might be a best case scenaro; one that doesn’t hurt a single person, fire a single shot, or burn a single building. Is that the form of the upcoming Sta Puft Marshmallow Man? Why not? It’s a fledging movement of honest people doing honest things as best they can within an imperfect system; they have the noble goal of keeping elections honest… or at least transparent… and they’re not running around in the streets breaking shit like fucking nitwits. It’s a potential miracle, politicians in States acting like responsible adult citizens who care about America.

Such a thing was treated as “impossible” right until it became “happening”. Enjoy that warm fuzzy thought.

Once the ball gets rolling, perhaps it will gather momentum. It wasn’t going to happen otherwise. Lacking a big disgusting black swan cheat (or appearance of cheat) everything would have stayed the same forever. Once we saw a big disgusting black swan cheat the issue became unavoidable. As sometimes happens, karma did it’s thing. Cheaters may have forced a reform movement into being. Such was their hubris and their massively obvious behavior. A few votes in Chicago is almost quaint. The biggest vote count in history is a kick to the balls. It may have made us to get off our fat ass and address long standing problems.

If, a few years hence, we’ve had good solid vote audits in a big portion of the states wouldn’t that be good for everyone? Regardless of party, citizens ought to want fair honest votes. People who don’t want “every legal vote counted, no illegal votes counted” are mot citizens; they’re assholes and tyrants. Fuck ’em.

If we get good solid voting procedures that don’t reek of shenanigans I’ll be pleased. Maybe this ugly season of distrust will have been worthwhile.

In fact, I’ll call it right now. I’d love it! A true audit and multi-state reform is well worth the price already extracted. Trump getting dicked over in a statistically unlikely shitstorm of weird in 2020 was gross, but if it leads to a squeaky clean 2022 or 2024 election cycle and more in the future… I’ll take it. (That does assume Biden doesn’t somehow shove the world up his ass in the meantime. It might be OK. I lived through Carter it looks like I get to see it again.) Re-establishing “consent of the governed” is more important than anything else. If getting shafted by cheaters made the reform happen, it’ll be the biggest and most important thing Trump’s ever done.

I said the opportunities caused by this mess were greater than we’re currently considering. True reform is one (still unrealized) possibility. A vital and long overdue reformation would otherwise never have happened. We might get it at the cost of one screwed over Cheeto Jesus. I know it sucks right now, but things might very well get better. If they resolve in a positive manner I’ll rejoice. Of course, we wont know for a few years.

Or we might get invaded by UFOs and sent to racist re-education camps in Siberia… who the fuck knows?

A.C.

Every post I write about the interregnum du jour was intended to be the last. In posting such terrible ruminations I’ve unwisely flown my freak flag. There’s nothing more to do but wait for the inevitable top-down forcible correction. Sycophants in the press / social media propaganda complex will continue to broadcast that no sentient being on planet earth would agree with me until even my dog believes it. They’ll prove their journalistic mettle by grilling the Potato in Chief about important issues like the flavor of ice cream he just bought. Meanwhile, jackbooted thugs will have the proper address at which to curbstomp me for wrongthink. In a fortnight I’ll be found in a cubicle, wearing a tie, freshly rehabilitated and bitching about that pesky war with Eastasia. But then another article pops up that gives me hope. Hope is dangerous dammit!

Please click to The Coma Before The Storm. It’s a homerun!

Here are a few tasty thoughts:

“This epoch is the interregnum, a caretaker presidency presided over by a human asterisk…”

Couldn’t have said it better myself!

“The progs were so close, just a vote or two away, to the unrestrained power they thought they could flex and thereby secure their control forever. But * is no Franklin Roosevelt. Nor is he Teddy Roosevelt. Nor Eleanor Roosevelt…”

The election of 2020 unquestionably appears like a “more votes than have ever before counted” cheat. If it’s not a cheat, they did a galactically bad job of selling an epic win! The truth is likely worse and we all know it. Facts are coming out in drips and drabs day by day, week by week, month by month. It’s not over. They can’t stop the signal.

That’s why “shut up and eat your talking points” isn’t getting traction. They went a bridge too far and we all saw it happen. They won a battle that may, should, and possibly will lose the war. There’s a word for this. Allow me to indulge in a bit of history:

In 279 BC King Pyrrhus of Epirus (Greek) set out to fuck up Rome. The Romans could not defeat Pyrrhus but they sure as hell tried. They fought like madmen. After a two day battle, what remained of the combatants parted. King Pyrrhus’ army was toast. Depending on who you asked, the Greeks won. But Pyrrhus’ once mighty army had been gutted and Pyrrhus wasn’t a dumbass. He knew he’d blown it. He was miserable.

He’s famously quoted as saying: “If I achieve such a victory again, I shall return to Epirus without any soldier.”

That’s a Pyrrhic victory, a battlefield “win” that’s so costly that you lose the war. 2,300 years later, Pyrrhus is remembered for “winning” so bad he lost. That’s his legacy. Ouch!

Incidentally, Pyrrhus really did “lose” the war with Rome. He left the Italian peninsula in search of a weaker foe. Notice the lack of a third option? Pyrrhus couldn’t or wouldn’t return to Greece and live like a peaceful man. So he went to Sicily and spent the next three years killing soldiers from Carthage. When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Let’s return from Pyrrhus’ colossal face plant to the fuse that was lit at 3:00 am EST November 4th 2020. In their reckless haste to unseat Orange Man Bad, there was no “turnback point”. Nobody was capable of (or willing to) say “ok folks, this isn’t working, two record vote counts at once is going to stink to high heaven”. If the cheat was a tightly run ship managed by reasonable adults they might have said “fuck it, we’ll try again in four years with that human brick Pence.” They didn’t. Plans that might have crunched a weak contender like Bush Jr. weren’t calibrated to Trump’s massive support. Maybe nothing could have been big enough. Trump could create an instantaneous boat parade by raising an eyebrow and pack a stadium with a wink. That’s not a guy you can defeat with backroom deals and a few profoundly influential votes stolen her or there.

So, they threw the kitchen sink at it; all of which leaves tracks later. A broken water main in Georgia. Sketchy midnight truck deliveries in Michigan. Simultaneous stopped counts for no reason. Counts that continued after the staff was sent home. Strange goings on with numbers; negative votes, oddly balanced binomial distributions, non-integer votes, manual adjudication of hundreds of thousands of votes, visual barriers on windows, a shitload of IT traffic from machines that are supposedly not on-line, the list is long. According to the press, only a terrorist motherfucker would complain but nobody’s that blind.

Would we accept that kind of crap elsewhere in life? Would we let the IRS pull strange numeric shenanigans when deciding a tax rate? Would we let a babysitter watching our children tape up the windows so you couldn’t see? Would you ignore a strange truck pulling up to your garage at 3:00am? Would you ignore your computer making unknown connections to unknown entities for unknown reasons? Of course not. We’re not idiots. We expect certain behavior and if we don’t see it we know we’re getting shafted.

Nobody on planet earth would buy a used car sold under the same appearances as the 2020 election.

Insisting we shut up and accept the unbelievable is unwise. It’s creating tension. There is the true thing that happened. There is the thing we’re told. The further apart they get… the worse it feels. The worse it feels, the more unstable everything gets. The more unstable it gets, the more I think the rush to unseat Orange Man and replace him with Mr. Potatohead was a bad decision. I think it’s going to go down as a Pyrrhic victory. Biden’s ignored by virtually everyone, nobody likes Harris, nobody believes the vote tallies, Trump isn’t gone, and overall… it doesn’t feel “over”.

“You can feel the tension beneath the surface, the sense that something is coming, a great changing.”

Yep.

“You can see the signs and hear rumblings out there. You can feel the growing anger. … It’s not clear what’s going to happen, but this mess is unsustainable… So, enjoy this coma before the storm, because the storm is coming.”

Bingo! Incidentally, I’m not tying some secret meaning to the word “storm”. Q isn’t coming out of his spaceship to fix everything. It’s going to be something we haven’t yet defined. Something big and unexpected and weird and ideally sourced from the people. I’ve got no idea what the fuck will happen. You don’t either.

All that’s sure is “suck it up buttercup” isn’t a long term strategy. It was a bad idea and it’s working less every day. Nor is stomping on opponents going to smooth things over. You cannot beat a man enough to make him love you.

Something unexpected is around the corner. Everyone predicts the worst. Oddly, I don’t.  I’m hopeful it’s not going to suck too bad. Right now is the time of foreboding. It’s that vague rumbling your gut you feel after washing down a bad burrito with half a bottle of tequila. Something’s going to happen. Maybe it’ll come up, maybe it’ll go down… but it’s not staying where it is now.

A.C.

P.S. A personal note: I’ve been getting in lots of “outdoor recreation” time. 2020 had me in stasis but COVID is now a chain that only binds the woke. I’m camping and sailing and fishing with great joy. I’m loving every minute but it’s not all smiles. It has the bittersweet feel of “take this vacation before the next situation hits like a whirlwind”. I’m not alone. Lots of fellow outdoorsmen have the same attitude. We’re all gleefully chasing trout or whatever but there’s an almost universal understanding that we just don’t know what the future holds. Get out and have fun. The fuse is already lit. You didn’t light it, it’s not your fault, and there’s no stopping what comes next anyway, so get in some fishing while you can.

Forgive me. I just inflicted a 5 part, zillion word, thesis on y’all; complete with historical analogies far fewer fart jokes than desirable. Now, when I should call it a day, I’m going to write more.

That last set of posts was counter-indicated for maintaining a popular blog. In a world where people bitch about 280 character, bumper sticker level, Twitter-nuggets I might as well be stapling chapters of War and Peace on telephone poles. But… I gotta’ be me.

Shockingly, folks periodically voice opinions not unlike mine. I’ve mentioned that something has to happen. I think it has to be “unusual”. Why? We’ve been so mistreated and propagandized that the people simply cannot digest and pass the truckload of stupid that was 2020 using normal methods. Resignation, endurance, and cynicism only go so far.

Each of us, individually and in our own way, must squat over the throne of self-analysis, pass the turd of untrusted elections, and flush it down the tubes of “that wasn’t fun”. It’s going to happen, and it’s going to happen in an unusual manner. I don’t say it necessarily has to suck, only that the “winner” shouting “suck it up buttercup” isn’t working. If it was going to work, it would have. Screaming at the sky amid the smoking ashes of civilization isn’t going to bend reality to anyone’s goals.

So, what will happen? Nobody yet knows. But there are a few good ideas!

American Greatness shines a light on one path. Federalism.

America was meant to be States managed locally by people with local interests and local knowledge. That’s long gone. Ditching it was a disaster.

Maybe it had to go this far to have gone too far? An urbanite condo dwelling Boomer vegan cat lady in Atlanta controlling the size of my rural homestead’s toilet flush is fuckin’ nuts! I have a different life with a different situation. I have deeply rural, far northern, seemingly Neanderthal, needs. A condo dwelling person will never know what it is like. For one thing, conserving water is absolutely a bad idea in my situation. Each January, I must keep the septic lines thawed during -30 degree blizzards. It’s an environment that would strike dead an Atlantean dilettante the instant zer emerged from them’s leased Prius.

A person who’s never been off city water ruling over a man who digs trenches with a shovel is madness. So too, it would be unwise if I ruled over her. “New rule promulgated by Commander in Chief and Head National Asshole Curmudgeon! All cats must be fully clawed and encouraged to kill every mouse in the nearest chicken coop.” Certainly our hypothetical citified cat lady has no idea why mice in a chicken coop is a “thing”. Why should I control her beloved herd of seventeen cats who never leave the house?

Here’s how American Greatness gets the ball rolling:

One of the difficulties with human nature is our tendency to remain frozen in a familiar construct. Right now, many Americans are still living in a construct that is no longer germane to the present. They have failed to detect the significant changes in our society’s institutions.

Here, I’d like to elaborate on “frozen in a familiar construct”. Have you noticed discussion of “fixing” whatever the hell happened on November 3rd 2020 come in two flavors? One side says; “Biden won fuckheads! If statistical and other evidence to the contrary gives you concern, you’re a terrorist. If we had enough power we’d put you up against the wall.” The other size says “Trump was robbed, he should be put in charge. I want the cheaters tried for treason.”

Both sides see no alternatives. They just want more fights about the choice between two suit wearing jackasses! They’re locked into a two sided shit sandwich. They can see no third option.

We’ve gone beyond “pick one of two”. Other people have seen this situation in their world and tried to adapt accordingly. Roman Emperor Diocletian killed his way to stable governance but realized things couldn’t go on that way. Civil war was the national pastime. Rome had become a never ending shuffle of corrupt incompetent Emperors getting stabbed by the incoming flavor of the week. Each usurper less stable than the last. When Diocletian died they’d be back at each others throat before his corpse was cold. So, he tried a new idea. He divided the Roman Empire into a Tetrarchy and retired to his cabbage patch.

Brilliant or stupid, it was at least a good attempt. It had never before been tried in human history. Results were mixed. Maybe he was the last Emperor who had his shit together. Maybe he kept the decrepit shambling husk of Rome toddling along a few more centuries. Maybe he wisely kept Eastern Rome’s lights on for nearly a thousand years… long after the Goths fucked the Western side into the Medieval period. Maybe he should have just kept killing, Game of Thrones style, until he croaked.  It depends on your point of view.

Diocletian was a bad ass but he couldn’t bend reality to his whim. Evil or not, he did what he could to create a new way. Folks thinking about the last election as merely a “wrong pick” haven’t yet sized up the enormity of the thing. Diocletian would be administering dope slaps en masse by now. But I digress…

American Greatness continues:

The founders were constantly concerned about governments’ trend towards tyranny, and they sought tangible methods of ensuring America would be secure from that threat. The result of their hard work was the republican concept of federalism.

. . .

No nation, divided as we currently are, can be governed effectively by a central government that does not represent the entirety of the people. One only needs to read and listen to the proclamations of the current regime in Washington, D.C. to know that it represents much less than the entirety of the citizenry.

. . .

The regime in Washington, D.C. cannot effectively lead America. Neither can it rule it by the heel of the boot. Its fantastical ideas of doing so will only lead to civil unrest of massive proportions and, potentially, to the dissolution of the republic. So, instead of waiting for this train wreck of governmental malpractice to ruin America, perhaps it’s time to decentralize our system of government and rely on the concept of federalism to maintain our union until a time when we are less divided.

It should not matter to a Californian what a Texan does in Texas—just as there is no benefit to Texans to impose their way of life onto Californians. Likewise, a regime in Washington, D.C. composed of bureaucrats whose belief system and way of life do not represent that of the majority—or even a plurality—of Americans does not have the moral authority to impose its version of America onto those who see that version as anathema to their way of life.

All this is a good point. A big deal to me is that a rebirth in Federalism can happen without things getting bloody. We have the framework and the historical tradition. All we need is a willingness to see that the dumbassery of right now ‘aint working. (State representatives with the balls to do the job wouldn’t hurt either.)

As I’ve said before, things went too far in 2020. It’s no longer about one particular party or politician. It’s about whether we’ll have elections or “elections”. America needs to choose a solution to what went wrong or it will get one imposed by outside forces; good and hard. Federalism is a great way to get past the spastic interregnum we’re enduring.

My last post listed three instances of unexpectedly weird American elections. Each one resulted in a unique solution. Why? Because an election that fails to secure the will of the people must have a resolution and a good resolution to a unique situation is usually unique itself. Forcing a bad faith situation “suck it up buttercup, we got the power and you don’t” only works for the normal give and take of average events. It fails when applied to big scale problems.

Resolution to Exhibit 1: Dour Nixon “lost” in a sketchy squeaker to photogenic Kennedy. Historians still don’t know who “really” won. The expected path was that Nixon would eat shit. Meanwhile, Kennedy would soar. To the victor go the spoils. (The same solution offered to Trump in 2020.) Nixon was doomed to limp back to California, hang out with his dog Checkers, and grow old while whining about Kennedy’s “unusual luck” in Mayor Daley’s Chicago. Unexpected twist #1: Kennedy wound up dead; assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, a man so nutty he’d defected to the USSR. (Substitute any grassy knoll theory you want… Kennedy had gotten in under sketchy circumstances and whether it’s fate or chance, he he didn’t last long.) Unexpected twist #2: Eight years after he did or did not get hosed by cheating, Nixon was back. He edged a narrow win over Republican Humphrey in 1968. By 1972, the people had made up their minds. Nixon’s second term campaign utterly vaporized George McGovern. It wasn’t a normal win; McGovern got curb stomped like a butterfly under a jackhammer. The historic 96% of electoral college votes was decisive. No hijinks from Chicago would’ve made any difference. Unexpected twist #3: Not long after beating his competition like a red headed stepchild, Nixon was forced to resign. His controversial behavior is quaintly innocent by modern standards but journalists have had erections about his dénouement ever since.

Resolution to Exhibit 2: Lincoln was elected in a horribly divided country. He did what he said he’d do; maintaining a unified America even at the cost of a devastating war. Unexpected twist #1: Following the war, Lincoln was re-elected in a landslide. The people had spoken; a man who’s disputed election led to war, was now a hero. Unexpected twist #2: An infuriated politically active stage actor shot Lincoln dead.

Resolution to Exhibit 3: On the heels of a bloody civil war and the shock of a bullet in Lincoln’s chest, the weary nation faced another unexpected tragedy. The election of 1876 went full clusterfuck! Democrat Tilden’s lead was sketchy as shit. Republican Hayes appeared to have actually followed the rules. He likely would have won had the vote been proper; which it wasn’t. You can read history and make your own judgement but here’s my analysis. Politicians put “Wag the Dog”, “The Prince”, and “Game of Thrones for Idiots” into a blender. They mixed this bullshit slurry with a gallon of Tequila, two pints of gasoline, and a bucket of dogshit. When it was time for America to drink their shit cocktail it dawned on them that the voters weren’t particularly thirsty. Congress realized the disaster about to happen just in time! Unexpected twist #1: The entire shitstorm was contained and defused by… wait for it… Congress! No kidding! They hammered out a mishmash of ideas called the Compromise of 1877 and everyone involved held back from further shenanigans. I suspect people who’d seen Civil War weren’t as dumb as the hyper-partisan window licking modern counterparts we see today. Men who’d buried friends and relatives wisely rejected the “we’re in power and everyone else can eat shit” approach used by Kennedy in 1960 (and presumably Biden in 2020). Unexpected twist #2: The story of President Rutherford B. Hayes is delightfully boring. An ugly but rational compromise that stopped things before they went from bad to worse. There was no war. There was no assassination. There was no impeachment. Adults were in the room and they averted further stupidity. Inspiring!

What’s all this got to do with the election of 2020? Everything.

Nobody has managed to “fix” the 2020 election. It had one job; obtain the consent of the governed. It failed. Lacking the intelligence to compromise everyone dug their heels in and stuck with the “make the people eat shit and like it” approach. It might have worked for a normal situation or even a mildly weird one; but you cannot bludgeon a black swan event out of existence. It’s here. We all see it. It must be handled in a manner appropriate to what is and not what we’re used to.

It has been eight months:

• If “the losers can eat shit” was going to work; as it did in 1960. It would be taking root by now. It doesn’t seem to be happening.
• If “fuck you… war” was going to happen; as it did in 1860. It would be going hot right about now. It doesn’t seem to be happening.
• If “Congress grew a pair and managed the situation” was going to happen; as it did in 1876. It would have happened, possibly on January 6th, 2021. It hasn’t happened either. (I feel like our Congress would’ve liked to manage the situation but they’re just not as intelligent or pragmatic as Congress in 1876. Probably because they haven’t seen horrors like Gettysburg in recently.)

What happens next? I’ve no fucking idea. You don’t either. Nobody does. It’s a black swan situation because the normal options just aren’t working.

My guess is we’ll finish one audit and then have more audits. It’s a thing that’s not going to stop. Kennedy’s supporters could put the lid on Mayor Daley in one city but Biden’s can’t ignore a multi state record vote count in a nation already jaded.

If audits found everything squeaky clean it would be the best possible option! It would establish “the consent of the governed” and calm the people. Biden wouldn’t look so much like a walking insult to those that voted against him. Trump voters would be mollified and could be safely ignored.

As it’s playing out… I doubt that’ll happen. For one thing, honest and transparent audits can only uncover what actually happened. For another, spoliation and lawfare clearly indicate that Democrats aren’t willing to shore up their solid and clean record breaking win. Lacking a time machine to go back and make November 2020 squeaky clean, I doubt audits will discover a squeaky clean result. Where there’s smoke, there’s a high probability of fire.

I’d love to be proven wrong. If Biden was really as popular as the vote counts say, it would have done him well to lock in the solid proof of clean transparent audits ASAP. The appearance of impropriety is almost as bad as the fact. (Ask Nixon about the crime versus the cover up.) As it stands, even if Biden really won the greatest number of votes in history, everything that’s happened for months looks exactly like cheating.

What comes after the audits? More audits probably. Maybe months and years of audits? The people won’t shut up about it. I’m not sure Stalin could rivet the lid down on this kettle… much less weak and geriatric Biden. The nation is not about to let this Epstein kill himself.

After the audits? Who knows? One party is locked in with “suck it, we have power” and they have so far lacked the ability to adjust. I’m waiting for the first press article that says “yes, the election was a cheat but it was justified because Orange Man Bad“. I figure that’ll be broadcast by August? Autumn at the least? If I’m right I expect a big tip! Regardless, it won’t do a damn thing to release the building pressure.

Nobody yet knows how to remedy the situation after (or if) everyone gives up on “Biden earned a record vote count”. One side is saying Trump can’t be restored because such a thing has never happened before. I’m saying things that never happened before occurred every week in 2020 but I’m not sure a simple reversal will “fix” what was “broken”.

Here’s the funny part. I suspect neither Trump nor Biden knows what’s coming.

Something that hasn’t happened before is about to happen. Well eventually choose the form of something new; Stay-Puft marshmallow man? New election? The Illimani take over? Some sort of political compromise? Free chicken sandwiches? A re-animated Steve Jobs hands out free iPhones? Sasquatch? Fucking UFOs? It’s going to be weird for sure. We’ll know it when we see it.

Unlike the “eat shit and like it” approach that’s failing, this doesn’t have to suck. Bad things can resolve peacefully. The Berlin Wall fell without a shot fired. The Compromise of 1877 really happened. New Coke was phased out. Everyone got together at a ballpark to burn disco records. When things are “wrong” they can be made “right” without burning the place down… but only if it (whatever “it” is) overcomes the human wrecking balls that made the mess in the first place.

Don’t despair. We live in interesting times but it’s not the end. We know that some swans are black. We know that bears still shit in the woods. Doom, chaos, and mayhem are mostly the currency of people who cannot see other options. In other words, idiots. In the end, they’re still just idiots.