October 2, 2024

Yesteryear
One year ago today: October 2, 2023, ain’t nothing like nothing.
Five years ago today: October 2, 2019, ID twice a year.
Nine years ago today: October 2, 2015, my scribbler’s faster.
Random years ago today: October 2, 2006, the Arizona wall.

           Lots of editorial today. Those who support a cashless society don’t live in North Carolina. One the ATMS went down, they got a taste of their own medicine. Nothing worked, the hotels no longer had anyone who could confirm reservations or even make the key cards. Grocery stores could not accept credit. No taxis, no water, nothing. Rumors of people getting laughed at trying to buy gasoline with bitcoin on a thumb drive. But no such complaints from people who had good old cash. This just in, the bank we warned you about, Bank of America, is down worldwide, showing all balances as $0.00.

           Next news that the Democrat agencies are blocking rescue attempts in the hurricane zones. Shutting down restaurants that feed victims, grounding aircraft, and threatening to arrest volunteer rescue workers. These woketards are so done-for they don’t know it. The Red Cross/FEMA agents have been confiscating donations from high schools and turning away volunteers “unless they are trained by United Way.”
FEMA/TEMA has reportedly gone door to door telling people not to help their neighbors and to donate money directly to the government only. This could hardly come at a worse time for the Democrats, as now is the time they must begin their long-planned media assault and fake prosecutions on Trump. These traditional attacks depend on a slow turnaround of facts which is probably not going to be the case here.

           In a move that could hardly piss the Arabs off more, the US has dispatched some armed robo-dogs to the Middle East. The Arabs consider themselves the ultimate in manhood and to be killed by a drone or robot is their worst nightmare. More research into rogue waves confirms they can be much larger than thought possible. I’ve always believed these waves exist and are responsible for most ships that disappear. I watched a couple minutes of the Vance-Walz debate and that was enough. My spider sense says Vance can be trusted, just not too much, but that Walz is totally insincere.
           Walz did so badly, CNN tried to cover for him by claiming he was “over-prepared”. That’s the same failing CNN that is resorting to pay-per-view. They’ve only last this long due to mystery financing. It was disgusting, Walz trying to steer the conversation toward his rehearsed talking points. And NPR is finally under fire. Somebody asked why, if only 8% of people listen to their leftist propaganda, do 100% have to pay for it?

           Decent camcorders are getting hard to find because people are taking more videos with their phones. Outside of the security issue, I find the phone videos are not up to par and I don’t have that high expectations. On-line seems to be a better option as stores that once had many models how display old stock. I’m more comfortable and self-trained on camcorders.

           You probably never heard of Spruce Pine or HPC, but 70% of the world’s supply of High Purity Quartz comes from this single location in North Carolina. While quartz is everywhere, it’s not pure like this chunk near Asheville that is 16 miles long and 9 miles wide. Everything you own with a chip in it probably has quartz from Spruce Pine, and it was just shut down by Hurricane Helene. It was expected big A.I. demand would step up production, but it now seems the only thing that will happen is a tripling of prices. You’ll get a breather because the crystals don’t come directly from the mine, they are shipped overseas to places like Norway to be refined.
           If you have time, here’s a video I found fascinating. It’s this guy who makes videos of science stuff and here he is his making hydrogen. About 20 minutes.

           Don’t ask me why, but I’m re-reading that story of the guy who became a successful real estate agent in Ft. Lauderdale in the early 1900s. He talks of the cost of living, how his room and board was $5 per month and how he was always able to find laboring work. While I doubt his tales how whenever somebody had property for sale half-price, they traveled hundred of miles to find him, nor how every time he got on a train, he wound up seated next to a New York millionaire, he does describe a different America. My copy is signed by the author, I will accept any cash offer.

           Until the third generation after WWII, it was possible to find a job just about anywhere. That much is true, but by 1970 it became increasingly harder to survive on it. On paper, the pay went up but in reality the world was quickly splitting into two factions. Those who got a head start and all the others. I found this out early enough. Two teenagers show up for work for the same pay, but one of them has a car with gas, oil, insurance, and tags. He has the cash for a damage deposit and money to last until he has five or six paychecks in the bank. Nice work clothes, his own tools, and money to get a phone connected. I know that seems laughable to some, but you can guess where these two kids stood a year later.

           That’s what I get from this book “Gold Coast Pioneer”, by M.A. Hortt. His explanations are realistic enough, but there are too many gaps where he must have survived on something that he is conspicuously avoiding to mention. He relates things I remember were still part of the market when I dropped out and took my first laboring jobs. You got questioned about your religion by the company and by the landlady, even whether you drank coffee or tea. You went hungry until you got at least two paychecks. Hortt tells but doesn’t explain how he claims to show up with nothing like the rest of us, yet he miraculously always gets the supervisor or lead hand job despite having zero experience. He’s lying and it makes the book more amusing, the way he has to backpedal every few pages to remind the reader there is nothing out of balance about his recollections. Nothing at all.
           He wound up in areas of town (Ft. Lauderdale) where I regularly played or partied. But unlike Hortt, I never once met any senators, or congressmen, and certainly no presidents anywhere the places he was always bumping into them. I’ll pay attention to his early life in Utah, from 1875 onward. In my option, mind you, anyone who got there that early was very well off by 1900. He mentions things like fuller’s earth that I had to look up.
One part of the story I solidly identify with. He grew up on a Mormon communal farm, but it began to break up quickly after fifteen or twenty years for the same reasons I cleared the hell out of Texas. A disproportionate level of work as always forced upon single young men, the ones who benefited least—and it creates a permanent sub-class of lazy do-nothings bleeding off the system. I’ve always believed that the skilled or harder working should be allowed to keep more of what they produce.
           Some are quick to point out that is like saying to hell with the people who cannot work harder. Yet, unless they are starving to death, because that is exactly what the lazy are saying to the workers. Who is right? Well, when I turned 60, I drove through the old place. Nothing was left there, no sign it had ever been a town, and not one of the illustrious elders who lived there is remembered today. As for me, if it is true that anything on the Internet will be stored forever, I guess I’m immortal. I don’t have to remember what I did twenty years ago, I can look it up.

Picture of the day.
Inside a Mexican cenote.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.

           The day is gone. I lied down with the book intending to deep-read the first half for insight into his situation, a man raised on a religious colony who told misleading tales. But I fell back asleep until 6:14PM. The book is today’s main event. He publishes in full a letter from the Mormon counsel about how to deal with the problem that when they sent their sons off to Brigham Young [Academy], they returned “in fine raiment and soft shoes”. Ah, the old religion versus education struggle. The religious are extremely quick to blame the educated, this I have seen first hand.
           It’s the same old story, when the town started, they did so with community organization and thus quickly outstripped other nearby towns in cash and industry, always dividing the returns equally. But without realizing it, such operations begin to attract the lazy like a welfare office. As they took in outsiders, they carefully screened them for their morals and even whether there was money owed on anything they possessed. They asked if applicants were willing to obey instructions, but never developed any mechanism to enforce that provision.

           As always, the elders favored fellowship over incentive, going to far as to state those who felt a skilled worker should be paid more than a laborer, or the able-bodied paid more than the infirm were “the beginning of selfishness”. After that it was all downhill, never any rules that requited everyone pull at least his own weight, but plenty of rules barring anyone from even using community tools after hours for his own projects. This is a stone collar that gets heavier over time. I do agree invalids should be helped, but out of charity, not political compulsion.
           When I say pull his own weight, I also said “at least”, which is the only way such organizations can survive. Each must pull his weight plus a little more—but that is the opposite of what a growingly wealthy order of any stripe is going to attract. It spells doom, and the colony disbanded after only eleven years of operation. The church is quick to blame greed on the individuals, never the slothful greed of the much larger group.
           Here’s another distinction. Many feel the only people who support equal division are those who stand to gain by it. But it could be argued those who disagree also seek to gain by lack of division. Who is right? I don’t know. But I cannot side with people who think they can vote themselves a part of your paycheck, while at the same time recognizing their argument that others could only have gotten rich by stealing a little from each poor person. The issue is complicated.

           As proof, you’ll never see these colonies forming amongst the idle or the unmotivated. Sure, I’ve seen a few group homes, but they are insignificant operations bankrolled by handouts or taxpayers. They produce very little in return. Their main activity appears to be requiring adherents eat meals together. But expand that even to small village size and the shirkers rapidly outnumber the workers.
           Of course, some will point at the Amish and say their collectives produce amazing wealth. Ah, but one of the primary requirements to “join” the Amish is to have a productive livelihood. Usually they require you to live a year with a Amish family and watch close for any hint of laziness or co-dependency. Normally outsiders are men who fall in love with an Amish women. During my entire upbringing (I am not Amish) did I ever once see a woman join the nearby colony. And most of the men who fail to be admitted was because they thought the move was a “quick fix” to the mess they’d made of their lives. And I happen to know a lot about people whose so-called disabilities always, always have one simple thing in common.
           Put another way, everybody has disabilities. I cannot lift heavy objects or see very far. There are people who would parlay that into an inability to do any kind of work at all and they are a majority. Religion allows such people to gain the upper hand. By contrast, I sought out and pursued gainful occupations that did not require my weaknesses. In the process, I learned to despise the “good for you” clowns. That’s how I know all that most disabled people need is a good swift kick in the ass. Such therapy also does wonders for the mentally disabled.

ADDENDUM
           Some trivia from on-line 6:00AM today. The caption says no hurricane has ever crossed the equator, but it looks like at least a couple have made it over the Arctic Circle. Actually, the way hurricanes occur, they can’t cross the equator or they would have to reverse spin.

           Last for today, beware of strangers wearing sunglasses. On a variety of test runs, Metas latest smart glasses show how easy it is to walk up to strangers and pretend they are old friends. As always, it is technology based on vast amounts of personal information that people willingly post on-line and couples it with database files.

Last Laugh