Halloween With The Addams Family

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From back in the day (1964-1966), and based on The Addams Family, created by cartoonist Charles Addams back in 1938:

On the serious side, below is a video of John Astin many years later (2004), when he presented "The Raven" in the one-man Poe show, Once Upon A Midnight. I had the pleasure and privilege of seeing John Astin in person as he transformed himself into Edgar Allan Poe.

Disrupted Supply Lines?

A personal story....

So, way back in May, Warren ordered a La-Z-Boy reclining chair and a half so as to accommodate him and his large dog Smokie. The recliner that Warren has now is all broken down. Unbelievably so! And in less than five years!  We aren't bothering moving that pitiful chair from Warren's old house to this house where we are now.  And, fortunately, I saved my parents' full size sofa from all those years ago.  Otherwise, we'd have a real paucity of living-room furniture!

But...

The huge living room in our house needs that recliner so that I have one recliner (a La-Z-Boy lift chair, bought in 2010 for Mr. AOW and still going strong all these years later, mostly because Mr. AOW never got well enough to use it consistently) for me and one for Warren.

Warren is still waiting for the chair he ordered back in July and prepaid at the time of ordering. When he contacted the store a few weeks ago, they shrugged and said, "It won't be ready until February." 

 HUH?

"Lower Your Expectations"

I know that many of you don't care to watch Tucker Carlson regularly.  You and I disagree there: I try to watch every night — especially the opening segment.  In my view, Tucker Carlson offers some matters to consider or offers a different insights about certain matters you have already considered.

I admit that I myself admire the biting sarcasm in the video clip below:

Extremely brief précis for the above: War is peace, freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength (George Orwell, 1984).  

The referenced Washington Post opinion piece, dated October 18, 2021, is reproduced in full below the fold, along with my brief commentary:

Musical Interlude

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Antonio Vivaldi's "Autumn," a portion of The Four Seasons (published, 1725) — this portion perhaps the most underrated of Vivaldi's "seasons":

Farewell, General

Silverfiddle Rant!

A great man has passed on...

WASHINGTON — Colin Powell, the retired four-star general who became the country's first Black secretary of state and chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, died Monday due to complications from Covid-19, his family said in a statement on Facebook. (NBC News)

I remain a life-long admirer of Colin Powell. The man's record of bravery and patriotic service to his nation in many roles is unquestionable.  Getting caught up in the Cheney-Bush gang's WMD jiggery pokery brought an ignominious end to his national service, culminating in unindicted coconspirator Andy Card demanding his resignation after Powell told congress the truth about Cheney-Bush's manufactured Iraq intelligence.

He went on to reject the GOP establishment and endorse Barack Obama for president.  This, combined with his death from covid despite being vaccinated has goaded some low-level dingbats and high-profile vulgar blowhards on the right into making snide, stupid and low-class comments. Fie on them all.    

Mission accomplished, General Powell.  May you rest in God's peace.

Vaccine Error — And Possible Tragedy

Not one error, but four errors. FOUR! 

Dateline: Evansville, Indiana.  All four members of the Price family pictured below were given adult-strength COVID vaccines instead of the flu vaccine:

Photo credit

The Prices say their children [four-year-old Lucas and five-year-old Sophia] have been exhibiting side effects since getting the adult doses, including fever, coughs, hypertension and heart issues.

Read the rest HERE.

How in the world does such an error happen in the first place?

I tell you this....When I go to get my annual flu shot — should my primary care doctor recommend that I do so — I will demand to see the vial or other package to make sure that there is no "mix up"!  I cannot afford to have another reaction to another COVID vaccine!

Addendum, dated October 15, 2021: 16 more coronavirus/flu shot mixups reported.

Musical Interlude

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Long-playing, easy-listening music, accompanied by gorgeous images, performed by the Henry Mancini Orchestra:

"Quit Lying about Natural Immunity"

Silverfiddle Rant!

Senator Rand Paul lambasted HHS Secretary Becerra:

"This is an arrogance coupled with an authoritarianism that is unseemly and un-American."

"You, sir, are the one ignoring the science."

"Quit lying to people about naturally acquired immunity."

Why isn't acquired immunity part of the vaccination conversation?  Is public safety just a disguise for dictatorial decrees?  Rand Paul seems to be on that trail...

"You, sir, are the one ignoring the science."

"The vast preponderance of scientific studies, dozens and dozens, show robust, long-lasting immunity after Covid infection. Even the CDC does not recommend measles vaccine if you have measles immunity. The same was true for smallpox. But you ignore history and science to shame the flat earthers, as you call them. You should be ashamed of yourself and apologize to the American people for being dishonest about naturally acquired immunity."

Related:

NBA Player Jonathan Isaac: I Didn't Come To My Current Vaccination Status By Studying Black History Or Watching Donald Trump

COVID ICU Doctor Quits Over Vaccine Mandate: "Hospitals Have An Absolute Commitment To Follow The Data"

Fake News

Silverfiddle Rant!

From Gallup...

* 9% in U.S. trust mass media "a great deal" and 31% "a fair amount"

* 27% have "not very much" trust and 33% "none at all"

* The percentage with no trust at all is a record high, up five points since 2019

Complaints of "the lying news media" are common, but the purveyors of propaganda are much more subtle that that.  Most of the press does not outright lie, they instead rely upon artistic use of tone, tenor and shading to sculpt key sentences in a story for maximum propaganda value.  

Here is an excellent example:  One sentence from a CNN article designed not to convey the news that Tennessee has passed an anti-CRT bill, but rather to ridicule the conservatives who passed the bill: 

Section 51, part 6 of the Tennessee law makes lesson plans illegal if students "feel discomfort, guilt, or anguish."

That Tennessee law sounds idiotic and legally unsound, doesn't it?  

Here is the actual text from the law:

(a) An LEA or public charter school shall not include or promote the following concepts as part of a course of instruction or in a curriculum or instructional program, or allow teachers or other employees of the LEA or public charter school to use supplemental instructional materials that include or promote the following concepts:

(6) An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual's race or sex;

So, rightly stated, the law says...

Tennessee public schools are banned from teaching that "An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or another form of psychological distress solely because of the individual’s race or sex."

See the difference?

If dragged into a court of law, CNN could defend every word of their deliberate misstatement, because it has all been vetted by their lawyers.  So, CNN is broadcasting fact-checked, legally parsed propaganda designed to inflame, outrage and ridicule.  

CNN--and most of the rest of our Infotainment Media Complex--is only a hair's breadth better than sensationalist tabloids full of Elvis sightings, Gordon Ramsey's sex dwarf, 500 pound house cats and Dick Cheny is a Robot headlines.

But is that really what we want?  We deserve better than barely-legal propaganda disguised as news.

Musical Interlude

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The Presto from Sonata in D Minor, composed by Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757):

About the composer Domenico Scarlatti (emphases mine):

...Notable admirers, including Béla Bartók, Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli, Pieter-Jan Belder, Johann Sebastian Bach, Muzio Clementi, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Ludwig van Beethoven, Carl Czerny, Franz Liszt, Johannes Brahms, Frédéric Chopin, Claude Debussy, Emil Gilels, Francis Poulenc, Olivier Messiaen, Enrique Granados, Marc-André Hamelin, Vladimir Horowitz, Ivo Pogorelić, Scott Ross (the first performer to record all 555 sonatas), Heinrich Schenker, András Schiff and Dmitri Shostakovich.

Read about the accomplished American pianist Anthony di Bonaventura (1929–2012), the pianist performing in the above video, HERE. What creds!

A Dangerous Escalation

Silverfiddle Rant!

The Department of Justice said it was creating a task force to determine how federal enforcement tools could be used to prosecute criminal conduct toward teachers, and how to assist state and local authorities investigate such threats where such instances may not constitute federal crimes. (The Hill)

What does a progressive totalitarian do when her ideology is challenged by people demanding facts?  Refuse to debate, obfuscate, deploy shifty taxonomy and strain to reframe the issue. 

Most those who have heard of critical race theory and think they have a good idea of what it is believe that teaching it in schools is bad for America (55%). More than one-third of this group (37%) thinks that it is good for America. (YouGov Poll)

What if she still can't convince normal people?  Call them racists.

What if shouting "Racist" doesn't work?  

Get the bureaucratic police state to declare your enemies terrorists.  

So now we are in a nation where "parading" inside the Capitol building wearing a horned helmet makes you a terrorist.  Oath Keepers are now terrorists, despite being members of an above-board organization that states its mission publicly and has never planned or carried out a terrorist attack.  Same for the Proud Boys, who at best are a street-fighting reactionary opposite of the Antifa anarcho-fascists.

George Bush took a giant step towards building a totalitarian police state after 9/11, and the bureaucracies have been building it out ever since, yearning to replicate communist Eastern Europe or 1950's Latin American dictatorships.  Yes, the US Postal Service carries out a domestic spying operation on US citizens residing in the nation we once thought was ours.

Someone shouting at a school board meeting is not terrorism.  Threatening violence is not terrorism--It is a crime that local police departments and local prosecutors know how to handle.  This is way over the top. Our federal government is out of control and I don't know how we stop it.

America has seen terrorism.  Bubba threatening to kick a school board member's ass ain't it. Please read this short article for a dose of reality:  A History of Attacks at the US Capitol

Biden's Big Mess

Silverfiddle Rant!

Biden ran and won as Not Trump:

According to a Morning Consult exit poll, 44 percent of Biden voters said they were primarily voting against Trump (only 22 percent of Trump’s voters said they were voting mainly against Biden). Just 54 percent of Biden’s voters said they cast their ballots primarily as a vote for him. (James Antle)

He was supposed to be the soothing, caring antidote to the vulgar blowhard inhabiting the White House. He was the grandfather figure who would move in, restore sanity and calm everything down.  Instead, chaos has increased, and the bratty leftwing children are running with scissors and demanding a bank-breaking trip to progressive Disney World.

Eight months in, Joe Biden’s presidency is collapsing on every front.

Joblessness has been rising for weeks, inflation remains high, his own border chief is warning of a record-breaking migrant surge in October, and the president’s planned private-sector vaccine mandate is still MIA.

Biden put all his (limited) energy into legislation to transform the nation into Bernie Sanders’ dream welfare state — and that scheme’s imploding too, as Democrats descend into infighting. (NY Post)

What's Going On?

I'm an Occam's Razor guy, so I go for the straightforward analysis:  Joe Biden is a Trojan Horse.  Once they wheeled him inside the gate, leftwing activists and pointy-headed progressives spilled out and took over every corner of the Executive branch, encouraging the far left rabble in Congress to go for the whole enchilada.

Biden is not up to the task.  This is not an insult, we all grow old, but I think his faculties are declining rapidly, and were during the campaign where the press guarded him like it was the 1940's. The kids are running roughshod over him, and We The People will pay the price.

What say you?

See Also... Biden Misread His Moderate Mandate, and Missed His Moment

Musical Interlude

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As of September 11, my husband Warren and I began moving into our Evansville home. 

The house and yard are lovely!  We have almost 2600 square of living space, plus an oversized two-car attached garage.  I finally have a place large enough so that I can display all the beautiful antiques I inherited, as well as some treasures I bought over the past fifty years.  Warren, too, has treasures to display. 

We're having a major problem with the unpacking, however. I paid for "full pack," and the packers mislabeled so many boxes! For example, and only one example of many, a box labeled "Office" actually contains china from the piano room. Strange! The office was upstairs, and the piano room downstairs in my Virginia home. Ugh. 

Unpacking is quite a nightmare! Especially for two people who have never before moved. Thank God that my Virginia cousins, who transported my kitties Amber and Minxy in a non-stop overland trip on September 17, came for a few days to help us.  Nevertheless, finishing here is still a nightmarish work-in-progress.  My dog Callie rode overland with Warren and me, in the U-Haul truck.

Speaking of "nightmare" and "nightmarish," here is an appropriate musical selection for this moving project (Edvard Grieg's In the Hall of the Mountain King):

PS; Many thanks to my good friend Silverfiddle, who kept this blog running so well in my absence.