One year ago today: May 13, 2018, to Miami in the rain.
Five years ago today: May 13, 2014, to Winter Haven by train.
Nine years ago today: May 13, 2010, THE ORIGINAL GUITARITIS DEFINITION.
Random years ago today: May 13, 2008, translators, & Miami translators.
Where am I? I finally got to sleep at 4:00AM by watching another Chinese movie. “The Assassin” is another spectacular of western-invented cinematics, but by the first half-hour I’d lost track of who was betraying who. They whole lot of them were black belts, I’m certain of it. And the good assassins could fly, just not like Superman. The scenery was great if you are into impossibly eroded landscapes or Utah. The way they go at each other it is probably a good thing they never figured out how to use the gunpowder they discovered. That’s right, I’m convinced the Chinese never invented gunpowder or paper. They discovered it, and you can check on the facts, along the lines of, “Hey, Chin, you know them rags your honorable ancestors threw in the back yard and pissed on them? Well you know, they just caught fire.”
The true value of that country is maybe a quarter of what is claimed, because they keep counting aspects of business and production that are of absolutely no value to the rest of the world. You can only copy so much, and already we’ve seen [their] abandoned cities and 160-mile traffic jams. Because you can’t copycat the logic or restless inspiration that propels invention or innovation. America is slipping, but the Yankee marketplace is still very much determined by the invisible hand. With the exception of Orlando and Seattle, we don’t built million-dollar roads to nowhere and call them assets.
That’s where this picture of an analog lawn mower comes in. This human-operated device sells at Wal*Mart for $88. It’s made in China. When the trade barriers go up, the will undoubtedly raise the price of such items to levels competitive with what is made in America. What’s scary is what it would cost to pay American labor to make such a product. My guess is somewhere in the neighborhood of $300. There’s overtime, dental, vacation, coffee breaks, retirement plans,and now Obama medical that has to be covered by the price tag. Building or assembling any type of mechanical device is a lost art in America.
The decline is likely not reversible, yet that’s what most people seem to want. Once the skills have been lost, you can’t suddenly backtrack. It’s like the movies. You know the real reason people quit going to movies? Because of ugly actresses, that’s why. This nonsense that pudgy non-blonde assertive broads with green hair and black lips need love too is fine for the feel-good years of high school. But in the real world, expecting people to pay $12 admission to look at them is mudbrain. Those who want an environment where equality means everybody gets clubbed down to the level of the most paranoid, maladjusted, psychotic female within laughing distance should go apply at the DMV. Or move to Canada.
Trump is on the right track in reversing the trend, but he cannot undo 40 years of bad policy in a single term. Americans are not going to flock back at the current minimum wage factories are geared to pay for labor. Not when on-line scams, telemarketing, and cell phone contracts pay more. The education system does not teach how to read blueprints, or to read at all, it would seem. (Other than obvious spots like the library, I don’t recall ever having seen another person reading technical material in public during the past ten years.) Unionizing is a risky option when the age of A.I. combined with robotics lurks just around the 2020 corner. There could be a return to semi-skilled labor in the interim, except that’s only possible by redefining what comprises a skill. The old system is an outdated system
What’s dangerous is that America did not just lose the jobs, they lost the innovative spirit, the entrepreneurialism that drove the economy to the top. I’ve mourned for decades now these millennial and hipsters have never invented a damn thing, but I was a lonely voice in the Internet wilderness. It may all be coming home to roost in short order. Once American goods become competitive, it also means that they will be so expensive that more and more good will have to be sold on credit. And credit is already a precarious and out of control monster for what’s left of the middle class. We are in for a rough ride, and as long as the platoons of mall cops think they’ll get their 1980s jobs back, this country will continue along that path. But it’s a better direction than we were headed without Trump.
Tuberculosis hut, seriously.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
But I’m all right, Jack. That’s the Brit version of “Crisis? What crisis?” Or let them bail faster because the hole is in their end of the boat. Ah, but I have a life preserver and I’m ready to jump ship any time. The way this yard is growing things, I might just plant me a victory garden, I mean, growing your own lettuce and potatoes may become an attractive option once more. Here’s a tricky picture, but it shows the latest in yardscaping as I’ve learned it. There are three plants in the front row, but the one on the left is hard to see. It’s the backbone plant that will eventually grow the bright green shrub-looking leaves on the right side. The plant in the middle is a bulb that won’t flower until 2020.
The extra room, except for a couple hours trim work, is ready. I’m putting in finishing touches and clearing the space for furniture. The rooms here are not large, and they are square shaped. This means any double bed arrangement means most other furniture needs to be crammed around the remaining walls. I’ve a plan for overhead shelving but maybe some other year. These days, a work area is mandatory in every room, so that leaves even less dresser space. Hey, it’s a cabin, not a villa.
That the next phase is that bathroom plumbing brings JZ back into the picture. He wants to get here to meet all the pretty farm gals wearing cowgirl jeans. I promised him if he finds even one, I’ll be first to congratulate him. The reality is the few single women in central Florida over 30 are unattached is because they’ve just been dumped for good reason. Never mind the rotten personalities and delirious expectations, these are women operating in a hamster cage of debt, relationship-killing prior commitments, and be it hourly, daily, or weekly and not too much further ahead (because they can’t plan that far), the life decisions they make are about 70% seriously defective.
ADDENDUM
A noon rainstorm found me in the church thrift where I picked up a DVD set that re-hashes the events of Iwo Jima. An island of “vital interest” to the USA that has not been much heard of before or since. It’s a four-mile long lava flow 600 miles from anywhere. By 1944, the US was heavily into bombing German and Japanese civilians, a measure that was only brutal and inhumane when it was “Nazi” bombs. Damaged B-29s were ditching in the ocean on the return leg and this was getting expensive. And look, there is a photo of my sort-of-painted sawhorses. Come on, be fair, how many dedicated long-term blogs will show you pictures of sawhorses in the back yard? You know supreme confidence when you see it.
The US fleet would park old battleships a couple miles off shore and blast anything above ground. He also knew the Americans had unlimited cannon shells and spotter airplanes. So he dug in. His plan was never to win, but to inflict casualties. He had reviewed the American radio transmission from previous island operations and opted a defense based on caves and tunnels.
The US knew better than to throw conscripts at such a place, so they called in the Marines. That force had some experience with tropical atolls, but Iwo Jima is nothing like they’d seen. You could not even dig a foxhole because the ground got too hot. The Japanese allowed the first waves to land. The US military has never divulged how many of the Marine dead were shot between the eyes. They had convinced the Marines that the Japanese were primitive and could not properly handle modern arms.
