Our World

We have all been turned into cloud-serfs

I once heard an elderly Friedrich von Hayek begin a tirade against socialist planning with a charming personal tale. “The other day,” he said playfully, “I went into a shop. I left with an item that, previously, I had no idea I wanted!” Like all the smartest defenders of capitalism, he thought of the market as a benevolent creator whose job no human-made system could replicate. Hayek’s point here was that we, ourselves, do not know what we want until we enter the market. So how could a government official, or indeed anyone, know what society wants.

There was a time when disputes between intellectuals made headlines and provoked editorials.

One of our young staff, Luther Ray Abel, raised an interesting point the other day in one of our subscriber-only letters about the kinds of issues that divide conservative intellectuals, causing long-time friends to turn on each other and become ex-friends.

Always one for comity and all hands on deck, it occurred to me: Is the quarrel Abel referred to, between one of our contributing editors and a fella at National Review Oliver Anthony, critical to our survival as a free society? Or is it of the academic politics variety, wherein intensity and stakes are inversely proportional?

… The gay rights movement succeeded in realizing its goal of removing the stigma of being a gay man. For this, I am ever grateful. I am mindful of the past–not to dwell on and wallow in emotion–but to remember it is crucial to be vigilant in the present.

This marks the return of Pongo, the Gay Gun Toting Hunting & Fishing Librarian and one of this blog’s earliest readers who offers us his take on the state of play in the LGB world.

The United States continues to set records under the Biden administration, but few if any of them are anything you’d want to brag about. We’ve broken records in terms of illegal immigration and gas prices. But an even more depressing statistic emerged this week. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more Americans died by suicide in 2022 than at any previous time in the nation’s history.

A TikTok depicting the downsides of wedlock has gone viral

A viral TikTok video doesn’t pull any punches in depicting the so-called negatives of marriage and motherhood for young women.
The video, that has been racking up millions of views, shows a Generation Z woman seeming to accept a marriage proposal before switching to a series of shorts showing the same woman toiling away in domestic drudgery — washing dishes, caring for a newborn baby, and cleaning the house. The clip ends with the woman rejecting the proposal, daunted by the future life of domestic servitude that just flashed before her eyes.

The world has moved too far to the left and the liberal politics endorsed by many mainstream politicians only work to serve the elite and undermine working-class values, John Lydon, the former lead vocalist of the English punk band Sex Pistols, has claimed.

In a damning indictment of the current political landscape across Europe, Lydon, who fronted the band that many consider to have been the forefathers of punk, took aim at the “condescending” symbolic politics employed by self-proclaimed progressives.

When Watership Down was first released in 1978, the film’s director, Martin Rosen, insisted the image featured on its promotional poster should warn viewers that this was no cutesy cartoon about some bunnies.

“I reckoned a mother with a sensitive child would see a rabbit in a snare with blood coming out its mouth and reckon, ‘Well, maybe this isn’t for Charlie – it’s a little too tough,’” he has said.

Someone told me of Charlottes Web.

… The Bopeas are a new paradigm in culture and consumption. They are the descendants of other post-war consumer groups: the Hippies, the Yuppies, and the Bobos of Soho House. However, unlike their predecessors, who grew from the boom of generational upward mobility and urbanisation in the 80 years after the Second World War, the Bopeas are responding to something else: a crisis of what Peter Turchin calls “elite overproduction” — and a diminishing need for everyone to be an urban creative.

The Fridge arrived earlier than expected but thankfully I was able to reschedule the elevator booking.

As instructed I let it sit for 2 hours to allow “the gas” to settle before plugging it in and went shopping for some groceries. (No I never heard of the gas thing before either.)

It looks a little barren inside and frankly Xavier has more food on hand than I do.

What I found immediately off putting was having to bend down to look into the fridge, a forgotten advantage of the old bottom freezer model.

The crispers and deli tray are made of what seems to be very brittle plastic and everything is just a little less solid looking than the old one.

You get what you pay for and this was on the low end of current fridge pricing.

Everything seems to be working so I can’t complain.

This is my third fridge in these digs and the first I purchased online.

I miss the whole process of “shopping” as it was, the back and forth of pros and cons and the tire kicking that took place when a ‘major appliance’ was purchased.

Fridge cat has yet to hop inside his new habitat. It’s a different world.

Well the old fridge gave up the ghost completely yesterday.

The freezer had been working so I had hoped to save all the food packed in there.

Not to be, something seized up and it began to emit an awful sound, like a dinosaur dying.

So everything is defrosting and will be heading for the garbage … except

My building’s compactor broke down and we’ve been advised to hold on to our waste until further notice.

Any way here’s a pic of my new Frigidaire fridge due for delivery Saturday. Of course mine will never look as neat and tidy. Hope Fridge Cat likes his new digs.

Woke up to a lightning strike around 5:30 am.

Everything in the joint turned on due to a power surge.

Now I have power in half my unit.

Waiting for Hydro to do their stuff.

This happened once before and we lost K’s Apple computer and the TV, we had a surge protector installed in the breaker box after that episode.

So far everything that has power is working.

And now for a fridge update …

Thanks to everyone for their help.

In the end it seemed prudent to write the fridge off.

Not only had the fresh food section ceased to work but the door seals are also failing and I just couldn’t justify spending more on a unit we had paid around 1200 bucks for over a decade ago.

11 years seems a long lifespan for an appliance these days. Right now it doesn’t have power.

I hope the replacement lasts longer, I opted for a basic top freezer model from Frigidaire, one they’ve been making for years, lots of good reviews and I’m sure the internet never lies.

Cost is reasonable after a discount with taxes and delivery charges it’s just under $1100.00 Bucks

Delivery is Saturday. That was a motivator, other models I looked at had an August delivery “estimate.”

“It’s just a stunning social change”

The decline and fall of a society can be measured in statistics like these. The decline of marriage has long since been paired with a decline in relationships in general. Pregnancy and even abortion rates are falling. Families are breaking up or not even forming. More and more Americans are living on their own.

So last time I checked in my dishwasher was made normal by a simple reset process.

Of course appliance happiness is not made to last.

It was way back in 2012 that Kath and I had a fridge give up the ghost on us.

Replacing the compressor cost near as much as a new fridge.

Overnight the replacement we purchased just over a decade ago began working improperly.

The freezer works great, the fresh food section is no longer maintaining a cool temp.

This could be due to a number of reasons, coils need cleaning, fan failure or vent blockage.

It was a major effort to pull the fridge out from the counter.

It was stuck fast. This is what happens when you live like an 8 year old.

I had to rely on an incantation to K for inspiration.

Kathy Kathy come real quick

There’s a problem that needs a fix.

Damn but they work. I freed the stuck fast fridge in a heavenly hurry.

I have an incantation for lost items as well and to date it has only failed me once.

It seems that each appliance repair runs about 400 bucks. Both the washer and dryer have needed fixing and that has been the cost for each visit. Next time I will just replace them if possible.

Now I am wondering if 11 years is good lifespan for a fridge in this day and age.

Maybe it’s time for a new one or maybe a reader has an idea to fix my current one.

Let me know if you have a fix or a recommendation for a new one.

It was just four weeks ago today, I bled until I went unconscious. I’ll spare you (and myself) a repetition of the disgusting details; suffice it to say that the physician who was operating the “guided” biopsy machine on that fateful Friday afternoon got a little carried away. He poked a few too many holes in my prostate and, in his enthusiasm, jubilantly nicked an artery in the process. It was apparently just a nick at first so I had what was described as “not an unusual amount” of bleeding at first. Maybe the artery had been weakened but not entirely broken open just then; so they put me up on my feet and walked me out to my waiting angel of a wife and told her to take me home and put me to bed for the weekend with a warning to not lift anything or pretty much do anything at all.

From our friend Yaacov ben Moshe.