Last Warning to My Liberal Friends

I love you all, I really do, so I will but as blunt as possible at this very late hour.

FIND A WAY TO SEPARATE YOUR PSYCHE AND WELL-BEING FROM BLIND ALLEGIANCE TO THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY AND TO THE CLINTONS. YOUR SANITY IN THE COMING DAYS MAY WELL DEPEND ON THIS.

This Year, Ohio Comes to Me

The Carew Tower in downtown Cincinnati (source)

One of the biggest changes for me in this election cycle has been the lack of an epic road trip.

For the first time in sixteen years, I have not undertaken an epic cross-country multi-state voyage by automobile, specifically geared toward taking the political pulse of the nation.

It began in 2004, when I left New York City after five years, having split with my now ex-wife. It was September, and I first went up to Massachusetts to stay with my sister and her family for a week before heading west in my car.

My destination was Oregon, a state to which I was relocating in part because it was considered a swing state, and I wanted to help sway it to the Democrats (John Kerry).

But I was no hurry. I took six weeks to cross the country, and along the way I detoured through as many battleground states as possible, traveling almost exclusively on the back roads through small towns and suburbs, into the cores of the great cities along the way.

I made it part of my trip to take a census of the yard signs for the political candidates. Even though I was heading west, I first went up to Maine, which was considered a big battleground that year. I was encouraged by what I saw for John Kerry.  Likewise in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota. When I got to Oregon, I toured the suburbs of Portland and saw strong support for Kerry too, which encouraged me.

But I had noticed in Ohio, where I made a swing through the northern part of the state, that Bush support seemed strong. I think I knew Kerry was in trouble when I was driving through Holmes County, which is Amish County. For some reason I just felt it.

And indeed that is the way the election turned out. Kerry won the states I mentioned above, and Oregon as well, but he lost Ohio, which doomed him. I wound up watching the election returns that year in the Melody Ballroom in East Portland. When they made the call for Ohio on television, I knew it was over. Bush had won. It felt disgusting and awful.

Four years later, during the monumental election of 2008, I took another epic road trip, this time in the Bimmer, and this time heading east from Colorado to Washington, D.C. In that year, I was passionately for Obama. As in 2004, I camped almost exclusively, but this time I drove up the Ohio River, tracking it as closely as possible from its mouth to the forks at Pittsburgh.

I was determined to truly understand Ohio this time, as my own understanding of it would actually help Obama somehow.  Southern Ohio was well-known as the the Republican area of the state, the part of the state that had tipped it to Bush in 2004. I knew I had to experience it directly, so I was going right into the "belly of the beast" so to speak.

I was in Cincinnati on the day that Obama held a rally there, in Ault Park. While he was there, I went to the top of the Carew Tower during his speech, and later found out later that his rally had set a record of massive attendance.

A couple days later, having progressed up the river, I was in a small town in the southernmost part of the state. As I often did, I parked and walked around the downtown. I saw the office of the county Democratic Party headquarters. It was hopping with volunteers. I ducked inside and said a friendly hello. There was so much enthusiasm. That was the moment I knew that Obama was going to win Ohio, and would win the election quite handily.

Four years later, in 2012, it was a bit different. I made an epic swing through the country during the summer, but by the time the fall arrived, I was in California and spent the next four months there, moving around the state. I watched the election returns from a motel in Fresno. It all seemed appropriate, to spend the entire fall in a Democratic Party stronghold during what will undoubtedly go down as the apogee of the Millennial Progressive Era.

This year, the only road trip I have made was the five-day journey that Red and I made down from Portland to Scottsdale in July in her Ford Focus, stopping along the way at Redding, Yosemite, Fresno, Lake Arrowhead, and Rancho Mirage. It was too early for election signs in any of the states. And all during the way I have barely stirred from my home here in Fountain Hills, just on the other side of the mountains from Scottsdale. I see the yard signs when we drive to a restaurant, or go to Costco. Definitely a Trump stronghold around here.

But as it happens, I don't feel as if I've missed any reconnaisance about the election. Whenever I go onto Reddit, I can get daily updates from people on the ground in battleground states who now spend there time doing what I did in 2004---driving around counting yard signs. Folks are reporting their keen observations from all the states I would have driven through, were I to have undertaken my road trip. They report on the enthusiasm level at local rallies and campaign offices. So I can now gather all the same information by remote observation.

This all makes me feel as if I've been promoted, from a company captain out in the field to a general behind the lines. I guess that comes with age. But like any soldier, I often miss the battlefield itself, and the road. It is a cleansing experience, in many ways, t

But the battleground has found me.  It happens that Red's parents lived many years living in southern Ohio along the river outside Cincinnati, right smack along the route I took in 2008. In fact, Red tells me I would have driven past their driveway that year.

But just last month they put their home up for sale. They have purchased a large RV and have set up to see America. Two weeks ago they arrived in the Phoenix area after their own road trip across the country, where they set up for the winter in a trailer park in nearby Mesa.

When we went to visit them after their arrival, and were driving down the street of the trailer park, I noticed all the license plates on the cars---from Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, and other states that I would have visited were I to take my customary trip this year.

Of course their own vehicle had Ohio plates. As we sat inside their marvelous 41-foot RV, with its ample living room, we chatted about the election. They had already requested their Ohio absentee ballots, which arrived a week later.

I won't tell you the candidate for whom they voted, but I will say that their opinions have certainly factored into my observations and conclusions regarding the election this year.

These are the Days

It has become quite fashionable to bemoan the tide of political events lately, and the state of the nation, proclaiming things would be better if a giant meteor struck the Earth. At the very least, it seems de rigeur to announce that one cannot wait until the election is over.

Not yours truly. As I've told several friends, I pretty much live for these times. I feel like I was born for them.

Yes, I admit it is a little distracting, given that I have other things I want to do, and other projects to pursue. Since my youth I have felt compelled to absorb as much election news as possible, in order to be a witness to it all, if nothing else. This obsession goes back to 1972, and I feel it is one of the reasons I can approach the current time with a perspective of history that many of my cohort do not have, since they may not have been so obsessed as I was.

Newspapers and television were my staple in the early days. In the Fall of 1996, in graduate school in Austin, I used to come into the lab in the Statistical Mechanics Center in the physics building and boot up USENET to peruse the newsgroups where people posted the latest polls between Dole and Clinton (Note if I ever meet Bob Dole I would shake his hand and apologize for not voting for him).

In 2012, four years ago, I came as close to not caring and tuning out as I ever have done. In 2008, I was passionate for Obama, as much as I had been for any candidate in my life. By 2012 I had come to change my opinion about him drastically, and Romney was abhorrent to me.

But all that seems ancient history now. I love this election. I don't see how Hillary has a chance at all, personally, but even if she did pull it off, I would still consider this the greatest election my lifetime. At this point, I can live with the aftermath, no matter what.

I will miss this time. I am savoring every hour of it. How about you?

Hillary's Slogan: "Stronger Together---as Bullies"

The attack on the homeless woman protecting Donald Trump's Hollywood star could be chalked up as sad were it not so typical of many incidents in which Trump supporters have faced violence from the Left during this election cycle, ranging from the mowing down election signs by cars to outright gang violence against Trump supporters at rallies (some of it paid for by the Clinton campaign).

One theme that emerges is how proud and shameless the attackers and criminals are in these cases. They feel quite righteous in what they are doing. They expect praise for what they do. This is very telling of the state of liberalism right now.

Bullies need the support of others. Would any of these thugs have the guts do perform their assaults if they did not inherently expect applause from the crowd around them, or from the digital mob on Facebook and Youtube?

The person who shot the video of the woman getting assaulted in Los Angeles proudly stated in the original Youtube description that the woman was getting her deserved "beatdown from a Latina."

Likewise I have seen multiple instances of liberals who have undertaken sign stealing expeditions, removing Trump signs from front yards, or mowing them down with their cars, while video taping the whole thing and uploading it to Youtube. They naively expectedonly praise and honor. Classic "virtue signaling."

But is that irrational of them? Why shouldn't they expect praise? They have the media cheering them on, telling them "Drumpf" is an abomination who must be stopped, and that Trump supporters are downright evil. Imagine their astonishment when it turned out to be they who wound up in handcuffs! The injustice of it all! WTF?

Hillary Clinton's slogan, "Stronger Together," is thus a perfect reflection of the mentality of the Left. Whenever I hear it, I imagine the old symbol of that the Socialists adopted in Sicily a hundred years ago to represent their movement, of a bundle of together by a cord. This was the fasces of ancient Roman, and this precisely why, as the Socialists emerged into power in Italy, they kept the symbol and proudly called themselves Fascists.

"Stronger together" is thus the motto that Mussolini's henchmen marked under. Like so many thuggish things, it started as a Leftist symbol, but when it became awkward for them, the Left abandoned it and turned it into weapon that they, and only they, are allowed to slap on their opponents, even if the comparison is ridiculous.

Today, "Stronger Together" means that liberals, in the herd mentality, can pat themselves on the back as being righteous, proclaiming themselves to be the persecuted descendants of the lunch counter protests of the 1960s and the civil rights marches, even as their tactics more resemble Bull Connor. In their minds, this gives them license to do whatever it takes to fight the "hate" of their opponents.

But this wouldn't work in isolation. No individual could sustain such an ideology over time and get away it. But when they are "bundled together," they become strong. They become a weapon. They reinforce the idea of their righteousness with each other, and when they gather in crowds, they feel perfectly justified in using their fists to get their way.

This is one reason why Hillary needs not only to lose the election but to get blown out in a landslide.  The only thing bullies respect is when they know they are outnumbered.

Hillary and the Golden Age of Liberal Bullies

Not a day seems to go by lately without some disgusting incident of liberals asserting their will through violence.

Check out this video. After Donald Trump's star was destroyed, the task guarding the star was taken on by a black homelesss woman veteran (yes you read that right). She made the national news, camping out beside the star with her homemade pro-Trump signs.

Of course this was beyond the pale for liberal bullies. They could not tolerate such a thing. They cannot abide this kind of dissent. This woman thus had to be roughed up and taught a lesson.

Check out the big-bellied Hillary thug in the video above, pushing around the woman. Check out the people ripping up her signs and kicking her, while laughing. Notice how they just gang up on her. Bullies always find safety in their numbers.

Are you a liberal and have ever found yourself thinking, "I hope those Trump supporters don't try to come into my town/neighborhood. We'll show them something..." You ever felt a twinge of happiness seeing the attendees at the Trump rallyi in San Jose "get their due'" while being hunted down like prey on the street, while the cops stood by and did nothing?

Then your fists after that big-bellied thug are your fists. His feet are your feet.

Hopefully Hillary is her way to going down in flames. The country will be well-served not only by her defeat but by having her get destroyed on election day. I can hope this is what happens.

If not, and she somehow makes it into office, then we are surely in store for a Golden Age of Liberal Bullying. Emboldened by her victory, her street thugs will take it upon themselves to act out her thuggishness by expunging all resistance throughout the areas of the country where they hold sway.

They will do it with fists and feet, and pushing their fat bellies into others, knocking them down, as in this video. They will do with sledgehammers. They will do it with theirs automobiles.

But of course it will all be non-violent.

In the videos, men can be seen shouting and cursing at the woman before taking things from her cart. One man accuses the woman of “spewing hate.”

“You spewed hate and you got hate,” one man tells the woman as she lies on the ground, with bystanders ripping up her signs. “You got exactly what you were dishing out. I told you. I warned you.”

The Bullying License that Liberals Grant to Themselves

Are you a liberal and think of yourself as a non-violent person, who advocates only peace? Good for you.

So was the guy in Los Angeles who destroyed Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

"I had to do it – to make myself feel whole and to be part of the democratic process, I had to do the nonviolent action," Otis said.

In the warped calculus of many liberals, so long the are on the correct side, then anything destructive that they do is by nature, "nonviolent."  After all, they know their own hearts, and they know themselves to be meek little lambs.

Of course this is the way all bullies have thought throughout the history of the world.  I have the moral right to do this.

If only this were an isolated incident, but the incidents of violence from Hillary supporters throughout this election shows how prevalent this type of thinking has become among liberals.

Of course the poor man is obviously oppressed, so let's forgive him.

An heir to the Otis Elevator Company fortune, Otis' great-great grandfather invented Listerine, he said. He owns the world's largest collection of Dr. Seuss's original art. (source).

Liberals Will Soon Feast on Hillary's Political Corpse

Are you a Democrat looking to release your anger and frustration at the impending disaster?

Basically the entire party may go down in historical flames. Who's to blame?

Hillary Clinton is the one that led you to this place.
Hillary Clinton is the one that lied to you, over and over.
Hillary Clinton is the criminal who manipulated you.

I know many liberals truly seek a world of justice, peace, and fairness.

Hillary Clinton is the one who exploited all those aspirations in you for power and monetary gain.

She has done so repeatedly over and over.

Sooner or later, Democrats will figure this out. I feel no joy of gloating over this, only sadness. I have spent the last half decade or more reaching out to everyone I know, to warn them about this. I knew this day would come. Please know I understand what you are going through. There is life beyond this.

In response, you don't need to become the "asshole conservative" that you imagine in your head. There are petty assholes in every movement and party, ones who disgrace the others, but that image you have in your head of your opponents says way more about you than it does anyone else.

Let it go.  There is no future in Martin O'Malley, Tim Kaine, Cory Booker, etc. And unfortunately Bernie and Liz sold you out too. You will find new champions for your causes.

Donald Trump destroyed the Republican Party for you---the party you so hated for so long. All you could do was hate him for it, because he made some people upset with his rhetoric. You wanted Hillary to win in part so that Trump could be destroyed and then the Bushes, Romney, and Paul Ryan could take it back and rebuild it? What the fuck was wrong with you!?

Historically, the Democratic Party may survive, or perhaps it may have served out its purpose. Something new will arise, rather quickly, and with the destruction of the Clintons, the last great champions of the Establishment, you will have a chance to build something that actually reflects the will of the People, and not the will of the Elite.

It will be glorious. You will love it.

Hillary Clinton Needs Her Giant Pile of Skulls to Become Great

Hillary perphas prefers that the majority of her pile of skull be male skulls, but she probably doesn't mind if some female skulls make into the pile as well. The more the merrier. It just adds to her eventual greatness as a leader.

The big revealing tell about Hillary's plans as a Mega-Bully is how much she talks about nuclear weapons. Based on the principle that death merchants usually pre-emptively criticize in others what they want to do themsleves, this should give you a clue of what kind of war she has in store for us.

Remember how Obama mocked Romney for saying Russia was our enemy? A big LOL, as they say. That's a good example of the kind of switcheroo tell that I am talking about. Now the rhetoric under Hillary has gone nuclear.

Like all great death merchants, Hillary Clinton needs to make her part among her fellow Mega-Bullies by creating a large pile of human skulls in her wake. Her extensive experience as Secretary of State built up a nice pile through her destruction of Libya and Syria, but this is hardly enough to enshrine her among the Greatest of All Times.

In the calculus of Hillary's world, the more death you create, the better. This is because being a great leader means effecting great change. The easiest and most effective way to accomplish great change, and be remembered for it, is by creating a giant pile of human skulls. That's the way the Mega-Bullies of the world like Hillary think.

Every "enlightened" leader knows that, but so few have the stomach for it, which is why there are so few great leaders.

But as we all know by now, Hillary has a cast iron stomach for death. She can laugh away the biggest pile of skulls imaginable. She's the perfect leader for the transition to world corporate government, while is huge change.

Mega-bullies like Hillary are always supported by an Army of Petty Bullies. Hillary is no exception.. Provided that her supporters (who like low-level violence against Trump supporters and tacitly approve of it) can show up on election day, Hillary could well be on her way to be among the greatest death merchants of all time.

This is the new Millennium after all. In the end perhaps he could stand shoulder to shoulder with Henry Kissinger, George Soros, and any of the Bush family members. They would have to give her props. She will have made her mark in history to be sure, just as they have.

Her post-administration statues can feature her likeness with her giant smiling laugh, while the monuments to the dead she left in her wake across the world will never be large enough to list the names of those sacrificed so that future generations can know of her greatness.

Let's all applaud the great woman.

The Swarming Antics of the Hillbullies

Chances are that if you're a liberal, and a Hillary supporter, you've never experienced anything close to what I am about to describe.

Imagine going on Facebook right now, and in the midst of your friends' feeds so that everyone can see you, you make a wall post declaring that you have changed your mind and are voting for Donald Trump instead of the criminal Hillary. Imagine you expressed yourself earnestly, perhaps over several posts, so that they could tell it wasn't a joke but a real change of heart and mindset on your part.

Imagine what would happen. How do think your friends would respond? Would they respond with understanding? Puzzlement, perhaps?

More likely, once they recognized you were actual dealing it straight, you would experience something nearly every non-Leftist or Trump supporter has experienced, who has ever spoken up on Facebook defending an opinion which is against Leftist Dogma. You would face a Wall of Hate.

Although some of your closest allies might give you a pass, and look the other way, you would find that most of the people whom you once considered friendly acquaintances, even friends, would suddenly treat you like scum, and hurl upon you the most viscous insults.

It is often said that hate is prevalent on the Internet because people can hide behind anonymity, but you would soon find out that this is a lie, that many people who have known you for decades, who have shared childhood memories with you, and who have never said an unkind word to you, would all of sudden start acting like bloody-fanged zombies scrambling for a piece of your skull. They would be outdoing each other to see who could exhibit the most hate for you.

I've had this happen to me, when I dared criticize the untouchable Obama. Among the broadsides was a soft spoken, mild-mannered guy who was on the high school newspaper with me, who runs a small business in my hometown, whom I had visited at his work a couple years back, and conversed with a friendly way.  Suddenly he was hurling the vilest comments at me. It was as if a switch were flipped and he became a different person.


In this case, I didn't waste any time. I deleted his comment and unfriended him immediately. I don't ever plan on speaking to him again. If I ever see him on the street of my hometown, I will nod pleasantly and walk onward. No loss to me.

But he wasn't the only one who came at me. The haters will come in waves to assault you. Once you dispatch one, another will arise with even more viscous insults. Along these lines, one big takeaway I had from the experience was the way the Leftist Bully Squad uses swarming as a tactic on Facebook to attack their opponents. That is, when one sees your thought crime posted, they will attack you and call explicitly on others in their Hate Posse to come attack you as well. There was something downright demonic in their dark energy of tag-team hate. They reminded me of zombies calling other diseased souls to their feast.

The experience last year was very eye-opening and stressful, but I'm glad it happened, actually. It radically changed my view not only of the particular individuals involved, but of my entire high school class. Once upon a time, in my idealistic and romantic youth, I saw us all as a quaint and harmonious version of Our Town, a play in which I met some of the very people involved in the incident, way back in the Fall of 1980.

They were sweet innocent kids back then. Now they are nasty adults, a clique of bullies looking for their next target. I see my high school and many of my former classmates as small-minded sad souls, feeding off each others' ignorance and hate, all the while pretending to be intelligent, kind, cosmopolitan, and fair. The revelation made it very easy to leave my hometown behind at last. In that way it was quite a gift. I don't miss any of that, or any of them, at all anymore. I'll never go back. They are dead to me, like zombies.

I recently peeked in on the Facebook wall of a high school friend who is still on my friend list, and with whom I would like to maintain a cordial friendship. He's a liberal, but he is fair minded in many ways, so I know I could talk to him (so rare). But in a political thread, many of the comments were from the same zombie posse that had attacked me. They were squirming and writhing about the election, attacking a lone dissenter, and of course they were all voting for Hillary, their Zombie Queen.

Like I said, if you're a Lefty, you've surely never experienced this zombie swarm on Facebook. When you post your opinions, you get applause, and encouragement.If anyone challenges you, it will a lone dissenter, and many of your friends will come to your aid. Got to stick together against the haters, right?

Hillary Clinton Pays to Have People Beaten Up

What a filthy, nasty disgusting bully she is. One of the nastiest women in American history.  Can't be said enough.  She is a bully at the head of an army of bullies. I would have a hard time talking to anyone who is planning on voting for her at this point.

A Vote for Hillary Clinton is a Vote for Bullying

This morning when news broke that overnight, Donald Trump's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame has been destroyed by a vandal with a a sledgehammer was no doubt greeted with pride and satisfaction by many liberals, including people in my former Facebook feed. Based on my observations over the last six months, I have no doubt that at least one of them probably "liked" an article about it, quite unironically, in the spirit of "ha, ha, the fascist deserved it. Wish I would have done it."

But I'm just speculating on that last part. I don't know for certain, because I don't check these folks' Facebook walls anymore. I don't want to be more disgusted with these folks than I already am, so I turn away from them when they are cheering on the bullies like this. I've already seen enough cheering on of bullying by them already, so I try to remember the reason I liked these people to begin with, and why we were once friends. I don't want to see them in their ugliness as Clinton supporters and bullying endorsers.

Of course this particular incident in Hollywood is just a minor property destruction, one that will be repaired. It doesn't compare to the actual physical attacks on Trumps supporters that have been cheered on by some of these same folks,  and which we now know were in part organized (illegally) by the Clinton campaign.

But I think the Hollywood incident reflects the ugly bullying spirit of the Democratic Party right now. Many people I know would not care one whit even if Hillary's bully squad broke federal laws (which it is almost certainly did) in organizing violence and bloodshed at Trump rallies.

Yes, this is actually happening in America in 2016, and anyone voting for Hillary Clinton is tacitly endorsing this in my opinion.

The Leftists like this about her, that she is a "badass" and can act like a banana republic thug dictator, even to the point of murder (like this). It gives them satisfaction to know they can actually inflict violent damage and pain on their hated opponents.
 
One would think that if the Democrats were so confident in there candidate and the impeding election, that they would hardly need to resort to such things. But I've come to learn over time that bullying is a feature of the Leftist movement, and by extension the Clinton campaign, that they enjoy using, and which they consider their prerogative to use in order to achieve whatever means they deem are necessary to achieve.

It's not just about winning elections for them. It's about silencing the opponents. With each of bullying violent episode by Clinton supporters comes the implicit message: SHUT THE FUCK UP!

So fragile are Leftists in their thinking, so vacuous are they in their reasoning powers. They know in their souls that they cannot build reasoned arguments for what they believe, so they can only destroy, and thus they become bullies with glee, excusing their behavior in their mind with the idea that they are, of course, "beating up the bullies themselves." Anything challenging their opinion must be greeted by the loudest roar of rage, and yes, with fists and hammers. Such is the sick rationale for all forms of mass violence.

And they want to bring this bullying campaign to Oval Office, and enshrine Hillary as their bully commander, stomping on the voices and faces of those who dared oppose them. Trump supporters must "cleansed" from the country. in the words of one over-rated Hollywood ham, whose movies I will certainly never watch again. Just one more supporter of bullying.

What a dark time for America if she gets in the White House. I can't bare to think that people I love actually might be voting for this.

Hillary Clinton has Turned the Democratic Party into a Gang of Bullies

The modus operandi of the Democrats right now is violence against their opponents.

Anyone who is a Trump supporter, and who has been following the campaign, knows that to openly support Trump means that in many areas of the country, even in "red states,", the safety and security of one's person and possessions will be put into jeopardy. One's car will be damaged perhaps. One can be attacked for attending rallies. Now we have the open attacks on Trump offices which are by and large ignored by the media. (see here).

At this stage, we basically have two types of Democratic bullying (1) the type actually organized and paid for by Hillary's campaign, (2) the spontaneous type undertaken by individuals and groups of liberals around the country. At this point, thanks to Wikileaks, we are beginning to sort out which is which.

Disgustingly, many Democrats are perfectly fine with all this. After all, Donald Trump is "literally Hitler," so why wouldn't you use violence and even criminality to stop him? Those assholes need to be stopped!

Of course, being that Liberals live mostly inside the phony canon of Pop Culture, when they say Donald Trump is Hitler, they don't mean the actual historical Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945. They mean the Pop Culture version of Hitler, who is mostly a creation of liberals themselves.

The Pop Culture version of Hitler is somewhat loosely based on the historical German one, of whom most Americans have little memory of knowledge, unless they have done actual research. Conveniently the Pop Culture version of Hitler has been formulated to be as close as possible to reflect the Liberal criticism of American nationalism, which ironically was the motivating force behind much of the effort against the real Adolf Hitler during the Second World War.

Thus convincing liberals that Donald Trump was "literally Hitler" was quite easy, since such a thing had been in the planning stages via Pop Culture for decades. Brainwashing is easy if done over a long enough time scale. You can even convince people they are "intelligent" and "intellectual" as they buy into the lies.

Donald Trump is Coming with Many Fremen Warriors

I have a message from the American People...

I'm having a great time today working form home while listening to the Donald Trump rallies on the Youtube feed of RSBN. Right now he is in Tallahassee, his second of the day. The one in Sanford, Florida earlier today was out-of-this-world amazing. Amazing speech. Amazing man. I would hardly have had him say anything else, but what he did say. Amazing.

I've decided to tune into every one of his rallies until the election. I am enjoying this too much right now not to keep the feed of the rallies open.  Win or lose, this goes on, but there will not be rallies such as this again for a long time---if ever. It's so awesome.

Two years ago, in the midst of my internal exile, I felt like I was all alone. Now I feel part of a great movement of people who share exactly the same kinds of passion I do, about the same issues. We are all cheering the same thing. There is no going back to feeling alone. No matter what happens, there will be tens of millions of people behind the new movement.

Perhaps it will happen through elections. Perhaps it will take an actual revolution to overthrow the Establishment. Maybe America has to experience the bitter ashes of the Criminal Hillary as their overlord, until every last Leftist has their eyes opened to the truth.

But I hope not. I pray not. And I don't think it will be that way. But in any case, we are on the right side of history. We have destroyed the corrupt and thuggish Republican Party, and we are going to destroy the corrupt thuggish Democratic Party.  

We are going to destroy their wicked dynasties. 

We are going overthrow the tyranny of Millennium-Nazi Anti-Human Fourth Reich Globalism. 

I know this for absolute certain, as I know the sun will rise tomorrow.

This is not about Donald Trump, the man---the flawed man. As I've said to many, he is simply a battering ram to blow down the gates of the wicked corrupt Establishment. He just happened to be the only guy who could fit this role. But that's how history tends to work, in my observation.

Sooner or later you will know the truth, if you don't know, and hopefully you will join us.

The Leftist Rebuke

If any of my Leftist (i.e. liberal) friends were to read any of my recent comments (which is unlikely at this point), no doubt their reply to me would be something along the lines of "F@@@ YOU!"

Yes, I get it. But I would tell them: you're repeating yourself. Don't you have anything else to say?

Oh, yes. Let's not forget the parade of -IST insults they will always hurl, as if they are saying something that has any meaning at all.

"You disgust me for supporting RACIST, MISOGYNIST, FASCIST, BIGOTED, etc. ideologies and candidates."


Excuse me while I yawn. Heard it all before, and have left closer friendships than you over it. I've gotten used to it. Doesn't bother much anymore. It's your loss.

You really think your ""killing words" have any power anymore? Bwa ha ha ha ha.

All they do is convince me (and many, many others) how deeply in denial you are about your own ideology and candidates. All of those words are your projections of the things you believe, onto others.

Leftists are the racists. They think black people and Hispanics are inferior to white people and not capable of competing with white people. Of course they also hate their own whiteness too. But they think they own minorities and are entitled to their support for liberal causes. Woe betide the black person who strays from their dogma. He or she is hunted down with a pack of Leftist slavecatcher dogs and returned ASAP to the thought plantation.

Leftists are the misogynists. They hate women and femininity, and seek to destroy it. They think of women as children who need coddling and special treatment at every turn. They want to turn all women into pseudo-men. They honor only masculine traits and want women to ape men as much as possible out of sense of historical "fairness." They don't care if it makes women miserable doing that, so long as it satisfies their warped sense of equality.

Leftists are the fascists. They want jackbooted government to enforce their will and make others obey them. They are quite open about this. But as long as they are doing it in any "nationalistic" way, then they can be as brutally thuggish as they want in their minds, because to them nationalism has been defined as fascism (by the globalists, of course).

Leftists are the hateful bigots. They pretty much hate everyone who doesn't agree with them, and brook no dissent. Their response to disagreement is "F@@@ YOU" (see first paragraph).

You want to see a REALLY ANGRY person? YOU WANT TO SEE ABSOLUTE RAGE? Tell a Leftist you disagree with them. Then watch the fireworks. Watch how easily they will throw out decades of friendship over it. Learn how little you care to them, in the end. They hate themselves so deeply, so how could it be otherwise?

I've spent years holding my tongue around so many Leftists, out of a sense of preserving friendships and keeping the peace. But I realize it is all for nought in the end. The miserable soul of most Leftists means they are a big black hole, and nothing is ever going to change. You can agree with everything they say for ten years running, but disagree once, and you will hear those magic words of rebuke: "F@@@ YOU." You will hear them even before you open your mouth, because they will announce pre-emptively that anyone who holds certain opinions is beyond the pale, and deserves only contempt.

OK. Contempt away. I don't care anymore. I'm done caring about the reaction. There's nothing I can do for them, except to deliver my own rebuke back at them.

Thank God that others rebuked me in my Leftist foolishness once upon a time. But for that Grace, I might still be trapped in the ideology of ignorance and misery.

Bless you all. I mean that.

Come over to our side, the side of LOVE FOR YOURSELF AND FOR HUMANITY. You'll feel much better. And you'll have sooooooo much fun skewering Leftists, knowing exactly what is going on in their head.

New York Times: Liberal Brain Rot Central

Is there a better example of the intellectual rot of the Left than the New York Times Review of Books, and especially Elizabeth Drew?

I especially love this article linked above because it shows just how clueless the "informed literati" are about what is actually happening around them. The fact that she can only see Donald Trump as being in this for his own ego fame is exactly how liberals see everything being about fame. It's the only reason that anyone does anything---to gain more "popularity" in the pantheon of Pop Culture, or possibly, also, to make a buck.

I actually keep the NYT Review of Books in Facebook feed for now because it reminds me how stupid the Left has become, gazing at their own navels and throwing tantrums and insults and anything outside their tiny little circle of understanding about what is going on out there.

No matter what the election, Donald Trump is going to be more popular than ever. This fact alone probably makes liberals go berserk, because they need him destroyed.

It is one of many reasons why even they pulled they out, liberals will still be absolutely miserable about everything, experiencing satisfaction only so far as they can imagine the humiliation of people that they hate. Nothing else can give them pleasure. But I don't think they are going to get even that.

Liberals Worship Thuggery

The bullying and corruption of Hillary Clinton are not something that bothers liberals at all. For most of them, this is a feature, not a bug. They like that Clinton is a thug. They want their champions to act that way. Hillary broke the law? Awesome! That just makes her more of a badass.

Whatever it takes.

The fact that they see themselves as morally superior on all counts, without question, means the ends always justify the means.

Sure, let's mock the idea of vote fraud, but if it happens, then who cares, so long it results in the Democrat being elected, right?

This worship of thuggery puts American liberals squarely in the tradition of all Leftist goon squad movements. Being a thug to get your way is something Communists aspire to do. They make it a goal, because it all about achieving power to do what you want, and change society the way it needs to be changed.

Of course this is why they must spew the parade of lies, to themselves and others, about their opposition being "fascist, racist, misogynist, etc." This has always been the critique of Communists against America, and now it is being mouthed by an entire generation of liberal dupes of my cohort.

Liberals are Obsessed with Defecation and Sexual Humiliation

The misery that most liberals feel, at least the ones my age, is reflected in the topics they choose to discuss. Talk to any of them for any length of time, and surely quite soon they will likely discuss shitting and pissing---the bodily function. Urine and feces are among their favorite topics.

The most sexually oriented ones will likely bring up discussion of some form of sexual humiliation. Many liberals are obsessed with anal sex, for example, which combines sexual humiliation with feces, making it all the better.

Liberal Pop Culture comedies seem invariably to include some form of sexual humiliation. They especially love seeing straight men forced to suck other men's cocks, or get fucked up the ass as a form of domination. Before I quit seeing new movies in theaters, I noticed this so much that it became a trope.

Liberals are so miserable, it seems, that the only satisfaction they get is seeing others dragged into some form of humiliation and domination as well.

Liberals are Miserable

Most liberals I know are miserable, as in the sense that they are very unhappy people who hate most of the things about their lives, and about the world. Not infrequently does one hear a desire to wipe the whole thing out, or least to nuke humanity and leave the world for the plants and animals.

I have Bernard Chapin to thank for this insight (as well as the one about liberals being obsessed with Pop Culture). Chapin has been one of my favorite Anti-Marxist commentators for several years running now.

Chapin recently pointed out that liberals just had a great run with Obama, and should be crowing and celebrating. Instead they are the unhappiest of people around. Why? Because it is in their nature to be unhappy.

The miserable state of the souls of liberals is probably why most of Pop Culture these days is about the experiences of miserable people inflicting pain upon each other. The enlightened path is to cynically just "hate it all" and wish for the giant meteor.

I pity them, all the while knowing there is nothing I can do for them. They are black holes, consuming all attention while never being satisfied.

I suspect this is partly due to the fact that the liberal religion, being all about Pop Culture, exalts its own version fame above all else. Only famous people are truly alive. Only famous people really count.

To be a liberal and to not be famous is the worst hell, and the worst sin. Since most people are not famous, and never will be, then they are condemned to a life of misery.

The Peaceful Unfriending

As I unfriend each additional name in my Facebook list, I do so without malice. Sometimes I even still like the person. But it is not natural that we are privy to each other's opinions and lives like this. So I always say a peaceful good-bye to them, and wish them a blessing on their lives going forward, knowing that I will most likely never interact with them again. I do this even if there has been rancor between us, because my faith demands that I do this.

I happen to know that many of them don't want my blessing. Some of them would throw it back in my face with a "fuck you." I'm fine with that. My faith demands that I be fine with that, and calls me to understand that this is inevitable.

Leaving the Facebook Sewer

I've been defriending people on Facebook lately at a glorious clip, and it feels great. What began for six years ago as a fun way to reconnect with folks I once knew, over the various epochs of my life, somehow turned into a filthy nightware of being beholden to the attention of opinions of people I left behind a long time ago, but somehow came back into my life and dragged me back into a morass of serpentine collectivism and liberal opinion thuggery.

At some point a couple years ago, I came to compare Facebook to a high school (and college) reunion in which they had locked the doors of the auditorium and not allowed anyone to leave, like a horror movie.

Or---to perhaps build a more comprehensive analogy---Facebook as a phenomenon is a giant digital refugee camp into which we have all been herded at the Zombiepocalypse End of Civilization. We are crammed together inside the digital fence, next to all the people we have ever known, yelling at each other and screaming for the one commodity which is values above all else---attention from other people. 

I've been going along with all for a while, all the while planning my escape.  Part of this escape involves a mass defriending of anyone who is not a family member or a very close friend. That's just stage one. I don't want to ever back go, and this is a good way of burning bridges. I've also desubscribed from almost everyone in my feed, but I don't want them seeing my posts either. I don't want them thinking about me at all. I want to recede away in their consciousness as a dim memory of someone they remember from a long time ago. That's the way it is supposed to happen. That's the world we have lost.

I'm taking my digital bolt cutters and heading towards the wire soon. See you in St. Louie.

At this point, I can't imagine ever going to another real high school or college reunion. As it stands now, I've had my fill of reunions. I'm declaring my independence from all of that. There are tiny group of people I plan to stay in contact with, whom I still count as friends.

But I will leave the rest of the liberals thugs to argue in their posts as if it is still 1983, and they are deciding who is cool and who isn't next to their lockers by the landing. You are ghosts to me now, and I will be a ghost to you.

The Götterdämmerung of Pop Culture

As the thug Hillary Clinton is paraded around on her last tour, scaring the kids like a deflated Macy's Thanksgiving Day balloon, barely recognizable from the cuddly features it was supposed to represent, my favorite part of the whole process is the braying line of celebrities---musicians, actors, directors, etc.---who have come forth to express their contempt of anyone voting for Donald Trump.

I love this part in particular because it demonstrates two things

1. How much the Establishment is tied up with Pop Culture, such that the two are one and the same at this point.

2. How Pop Culture is going down in flames with the Establishment.

I thank Bernard Chapin for pointing out how much Liberalism is completely tied up with Pop Culture. Liberals are obsessed with Pop Culture references. Everything that has meaning to them must ultimately be tied to something from Pop Music, Television, or the Movies. Everything.

Liberals remind me much of the race of people from the Star Trek: The Next Generation, the ones who can only talk in mythological references. Since that itself is a Pop Culture reference, liberals should well know what I am talking about.

Pop Culture is to liberals what the Bible is too hard-core Evangelical conservatives (I had hard-core, because unlike what liberals will tell you, most Evangelical Christians have succumbed to the Pop Culture Uber Alles mentality as well. The Christians just remain the convenient whipping boy so that liberals can feel familiar, while the Christians plead for understanding that they just need a little more time to get used to the things liberals want to do).

In other words, Pop Culture is the canon of liberalism. The values of Pop Culture on television reflect, and must always reflect, the values of liberalism.

But it's ending. Pop Culture has been disintegrating in America for decades. It came to dominate the world, but it dominates now mainly because of the past. That past is receding, and it has not been renewed. In ten years no one is going to give a damn about Miley Cyrus of Beyonce. But they will still remember Marilyn Monroe, and still be talking about her. There is no one from today who will be remembered over time.

Such is the futile sand foundation upon which Pop Culture as a canon of liberal religion is built. The advantage of the Bible was that no matter what you think of it, it was formed and hones over centuries into a coherent message that has stood the test of time over centuries.

Pop Culture is an incoherent mess of violence and lewdness that offers nothing but confusion and misery to its adherents over, and which is collapsing itself as we speak.

So go ahead, celebrities. I love it when I see another come out, step forward, and tell the world how they are going use their bully pulpit to put a stop to Donald Trump. They just mark themselves as one more asshole I'll never have to pay attention to, forever.

Hillary Clinton is a Disgusting Thug

And so are her followers.

I'm tired of the bullshit. I've lost friends because of this. and I don't care. I'm ready to turn my back and leave behind anyone who can't handle my opinion this.

I'm done with my high school and college friends who endorse the bullying and thuggery of the modern Democratic Party cult, who see nothing wrong with bending the rules to suit their whim, because it is just too important. I'm ready to "graduate" from all that, at last.

Feels good. Are you offended? Good. 

Almost all the rhetoric coming from liberals is a form of projection. They are the racists. They are the fascists. They are the bullies. They are the misogynists. They are the black and white thinkers who spout nonsense and proclaim it to be knowledge.

I used to be a liberal Democrat. I even voted for Hillary Clinton once, in 2000, in the U.S. Senate race. I'm disgusted at myself for that.

In a way I can't blame my friends. They are where I once was. They are stuck in that mindset, that trap. I wish them a way out, but I know for most of them, I will probably never talk to them again. It was a good ride. I miss many of them, but it is time to move on.

The Embittered Hour Has Come

And I will friend you, if I may, 
In the dark and cloudy day.

--A.E. Housman

I haven't blogged much about politics lately. In part I took August off, thinking there would be ups and downs after the conventions, as there always are. Then in September I watched things unfold, and nothing that happened changed my views and predictions of how things would play out in the election.


But now it is time to give an update. My prediction for the election remains the same: Trump in a landslide. I know hearing this will anger many of my friends, if they are reading this, but that is what I see.

In normal times, that's all there would be to the story---a simple election prediction. But we are not in normal times. We are approaching, and indeed have entered, one of the most extraordinary episodes in the history of civilization. What is going to happen over the course of the next 26 days and beyond is going to be unprecedented in its scale of overturning and smashing the thought paradigms in which most of Americans have lived for most of their lives.

It is going to be very chaotic. The prediction I have repeatedly made---that "many are going to lose their minds." Well, this is what I was talking about. We're at the threshold of that moment. Many people, including people I know, are going to have an extremely difficult time coping with what is about to unfold.

Perhaps I'm fooling myself to think I am emotionally prepared as well, but I feel I have been preparing for this moment for at least 11 years, and perhaps much longer.

If I'm wrong about all this---that the election plays out as a normal one, with maybe some ribald scandals to sauce it up---then I'll eat my words on November 9th, no matter who wins the election. But that 'is not what I see happening, so I share the message with you, my dear friend. One last warning of the approaching maelstrom in the era of Normal Times.

Historical Fiction Notes: The Beggar's Opera

Painting based on The Beggar's Opera, scene 5, William Hogarth, c. 1728, in the Tate Britain (source)

 "The Beggar's Opera premiered at the Lincoln's Inn Fields Theatre on 29 January 1728 and ran for 62 consecutive performances, the longest run in theatre history up to that time. The work became Gay's greatest success and has been played ever since; it has been called "the most popular play of the eighteenth century." In 1920, The Beggar's Opera began an astonishing revival run of 1,463 performances at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith, London, which was one of the longest runs in history for any piece of musical theatre at that time." (Wikipedia)

John Gay (1685-1732) "Gay was born in Barnstaple, England, and was educated at the town's grammar school. On leaving school he was apprenticed to a silk mercer in London, but being weary, according to Samuel Johnson, "of either the restraint or the servility of his occupation", he soon returned to Barnstaple, where he was educated by his uncle, the Rev. John Hanmer, the Nonconformist minister of the town. He then returned to London" (Wikipedia)

"The Scriblerus Club was an informal association of authors, based in London, that came together in the early 18th century. They were prominent figures in the Augustan Age of English letters. The nucleus of the club included the satirists Jonathan Swift and Alexander Pope. Other members were John Gay, John Arbuthnot, Henry St. John and Thomas Parnell. The group was founded in 1714 and lasted until the death of the founders, finally ending in 1745.  Working collaboratively, the group created the persona of Martinus Scriblerus, through whose writings they accomplished their satirical aims. Very little of this material, however, was published until the 1740s. The club began as an effort to satirize the abuses of learning wherever they might be found, which led to The Memoirs of Martinus Scriblerus." (Wikipedia)

While I was in the area of 18th century comedic drama with Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer, I decided it would worthwhile to make a brief detour back half a century to the Augustan era, and to read The Beggar's Opera, by John Gay.

This work, the most famous by the author, is considered the quintessential English ballad opera.  As such, there is no classical operatic recitative to expose the dialogue, and the musical works are original lyrics adapted to popular tunes of the day. It was intended a comedic satire of Italian operatic styles of the day, which had become popular in London in that era.

I wanted to read this work, even though it was a little before the time period of my interest, simply because it was by far the most popular stage production of that era. The actors in the lead roles became famous among Londoners, and the portrait of the leading lady was widely circulated, anticipating our modern fandom of 20th century Pop Culture.

But even though the play was very popular in its day, and even as a revival in the early 20th century in London, it is now largely eclipsed in reptutation by the 1928 adaptation, Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), which was written by Bertolt Brecht, along with Elisabeth Hauptmann and Kurt Weill. This debuted right at the dawn of modern Pop Culture (the origin of which I often take somewhat arbitrarily to be 192 ). Even more familiar than the Brecht play itself is the song "The Ballad of Mack the Knife", made famous to Americans by recordings by Louis Armstrong and later by Bobby Darin.

Poster for Die Dreigroschenoper by Brecht.

Bobby Darin, show here in 1959. "Mack the Knife" was introduced to the United States hit parade by Louis Armstrong in 1956, but the song is most closely associated with Bobby Darin, who recorded his version at Fulton Studios on West 40th Street, New York City, on December 19, 1958.

Knowing that the play was very popular, it is probably not surprising to learn that it concerns the lives of miscreants, criminals, and corrupted public officials. The hero and most charming character, Captain Macheath, is a notorious and unrepentant thief.  His male and female companions are part of his extended criminal network, with the women portrayed mostly as having very easy virtue.  I can testify to the enduring popular of this last topic from personal experience, as my own blogs stats tell me that by far the most popular post I have ever made on this site is the one I wrote in the autumn of 2012 about being hassled by the prostitutes and pimps outside my motel in Fresno. From the title of that post, I can well guess what it is that brings folks from search engines to land on my blog.

In any case, the subject matter and style of The Beggar's Opera greatly overlaps the later chapters of Moll Flanders, which dates from around the same time period. Like parts of Defoe's novel, much of the action takes place inside Newgate Prison, and we learn of the treatment of prisoners and the corruption of the penal system of England, where money could buy everything, even perjured testimony to gain release of convicts who might otherwise be hanged or transported to the New World as slaves.

The takeaways here for my own research project were not in the way of things that struck me as being obvious information I needed for parts of the story. But that was fine by me. There was some juicy information about how the gaming houses of Marybone (Marylebone) worked, and also the how highwaymen operated in gangs. Details about the reputation of various London locales in that era are always welcome, for example when Macheath states that Drury Lane would be empty of pleasure women (enjoyed by all classes of men) were it not for criminals like himself, who furnished by far the most important demand for such services.

Also it was interesting satirical insight to learn that just as a man might marry for a woman's inherited fortune, a woman might marry purposely to become a widow and gain a man's money.

But most of this is just background side information at this point, perhaps to be useful at some point. Nevertheless as "the most popular play of the eighteenth century," The Beggar's Opera, its characters, and even actors, would have been very familiar to all the characters in my own story, especially ones familiar with the theater, so that makes it important on its own.

As a ribald comedy, the play necessarily has a Hollywood-like happy ending, even though the characters deserve execution, as stated plainly in the epilogue of the play. Comparing it to American cinema, it definitely has a pre-code feel, and its not surprising that its most famous modern adaptation came out of Weimar Germany. Captain Macheath---not only a notorious criminal, but a bigamist and cad----certainly deserves to go to the gallows, but he is just too lovable. He is too charming a rogue for condemnation, and the targets of his crimes (gentleman gamblers) make his robbery akin to that of  Robin Hood in a way. Like all roguish outlaws in fiction, he is an embodiment of the life force, a criminal in a society that elevates criminals to public office. As the audience, we want him to survive, so he must.

Historical Fiction Notes: She Stoops to Conquer

Scene from a 1905 product of She Stoops to Conquer (source)

The Vicar of Wakefield read so quickly and was so satisfying that I decided to proceed immediately to the other well-known work by Oliver Goldsmith, namely his comedic play She Stoops to Conquer.

The play was first performed in London in 1773,  seven years after the publication of The Vicar of Wakefield, and a year before Goldsmith's death at age 46. It is probably more well-known today than the novel, and from my personal observation it lingers on reading lists in high schools and colleges more so than his novel does. Walking through a college bookstore, one might easily find a stack of cpies of it on the shelves as assignment in a theater class.

One reason is that as a play, it is shorter and more accessible, and has a timeless romantic aspect that would be appealing to modern audiences. The preposterous conditions of the story are designed to create exactly the universal awkwardness of young courtship that nearly everyone has felt at one time or another, by the time they reached the age of sixteen.

Moreover, despite many similarities in style and content between the two works, the subject matter of the play is both lighter and tighter than the novel. It has the same comedic trajectory, but takes place over the course of one evening instead of over years (i.e. Aristotelian Unity of Time), and it does not include at all any of the philosophic discussions of the novel.

Instead it is mostly a ribald romp through among characters at a country inn, with only one other major location, which occurs in the first act (cf. Unity of Place).  One can easily why it would make for good classroom discussion among high school students learning drama.

As in the Vicar of Wakefield, the story of She Stoops to Conquer includes multiple episodes in which characters utterly misinterpret the motivations and even the identities of other people. Here it is played for purposes of romance, and in this it invokes no small amount of comparison with Shakespeare's deceptions in As You Like It.

The title itself refers to a young woman, of wealthy middle class background and good manners, who attempts to evoke the more assertive side of a diffident young bachelor by pretending to be a bar maid. This allows him to drop his plaguing shyness around "nice" women and become the kind of man that she is actually attracted to (this motivation is stated really clearly by the young woman herself).

The resolution of the romance of course will see the synthesis of the two sides of the gentleman's character into a whole self with a healthy masculine balance of both deference and assertiveness.

For purposes of my research, the play was among the most fruitful in answering some burning questions I had formed regarding such issues as the process of acquiring lodging at roadside inns in Georgian England.

It's one thing to say "people stayed at inns." It's another thing entirely to recreate the process, step by step, in a way that is historically accurate. What did one do, after one walked into the door? What would one expect to find exactly?

It's the kind of thing one would want to know, say, in case one were a time traveler to that era, and wanted to blend in without giving oneself away. One would need a guidebook, exactly as if one were in a foreign country where the customs were strange.

In She Stoops to Conquer, Goldsmith furnishes the process of checking into a roadside inn in step-by-step daily through the dialog and action of the characters. From the way they interact, one gains a tremendous amount of insight into what guests and hosts expected of each other.  In this way, the play comes as close to being the time traveler guidebook I mentioned as anything one could want.

I read novels slowly, but I normally read plays in one day. Doing so is usually rather easy, and lets the entire action flow in one's mind without interruption (as it is meant to). At the end of the play, I was able to see a pattern in Goldsmith's comedies that is easy to describe: things start of merrily and the characters are all somewhat happy. Then a series of cascading misfortunes occur, partly driven by misapprehension among the characters (in The Vicar of Wakefield, there are actual villains causing evil, but in the play, there are not any).

Things get really bleak and all seems lost. The "black moment" arrives when it seems like tragic consequences will overwhelm the story and leave the characters all in sorrow. Then, by proactive actions of certain characters, and the revealing of the true motivations of various characters, the situation is rescued in dramatic fashion. Order and merriment are restored to the universe.

And they say Hollywood invented such endings! Pschaw!

Portrait of Oliver Goldsmith (1728-1774) by the famous Georgian portrait painter Sir Joshua Reynolds.

Wikipedia: "Goldsmith settled in London in 1756, where he briefly held various jobs, including an apothecary's assistant and an usher of a school. Perennially in debt and addicted to gambling, Goldsmith produced a massive output as a hack writer for the publishers of London, but his few painstaking works earned him the company of Samuel Johnson, with whom he was a founding member of "The Club". There, through fellow Club member Edmund Burke, he made the acquaintance of Sir George Savile, who would later arrange a job for him at Thornhill Grammar School. The combination of his literary work and his dissolute lifestyle led Horace Walpole to give him the epithet inspired idiot. During this period he used the pseudonym "James Willington" (the name of a fellow student at Trinity) to publish his 1758 translation of the autobiography of the Huguenot Jean Marteilhe."

Goldsmith was described by contemporaries as prone to envy, a congenial but impetuous and disorganised personality who once planned to emigrate to America but failed because he missed his ship. At some point around this time he worked at Thornhill Grammar School, later basing Squire Thornhill (in the Vicar of Wakefield) on his benefactor Sir George Savile and certainly spending time with eminent scientist Rev. John Mitchell, who he probably knew from London. Mitchell, sorely missed good company, which Goldsmith naturally provided in spades.Thomas De Quincey wrote of him 'All the motion of Goldsmith's nature moved in the direction of the true, the natural, the sweet, the gentle.

His premature death in 1774 may have been partly due to his own misdiagnosis of his kidney infection. Goldsmith was buried in Temple Church in London. The inscription reads; "HERE LIES/OLIVER GOLDSMITH". There is a monument to him in the centre of Ballymahon, also in Westminster Abbey with an epitaph written by Samuel Johnson."

Historical Fiction Notes: The Vicar of Wakefield

"Now the possessor of accumulated wealth, when furnished with the necessaries and pleasures of life, has no other method to employ the superfluity of his fortune but in purchasing power." (Chapter 19)

"Liberty, Sir, liberty is the Briton's boast, and by all the mines in Cornwall, I reverence its guardians."

The two volumes of the 1766 edition of The Vicar of Wakefield with title page inset. (source)

 

William Powell Frith: Measuring Heights, 1863 (A scene from Chapter 16: Olivia Primrose and Squire Thornhill standing back to back, so that Mrs. Primrose can determine who is taller.) (source)

Sense and Sensibility had been such a rich and rewarding read that I was tempted to proceed onward to Austen's second novel, and thus finally get my "Mr. Darcy lessons" down a tee. Such is the typical trajectory of a teenage girl who discovers Austen's works, and devours them one after another (in the old days before video games, when young men still read books, the male equivalent was probably Kurt Vonnegut).

So I delayed reading Pride and Prejudice for now and decided to jump back slightly in time to a earlier decade of the Georgian era, and to the most famous short novel written by author who was widely read throughout the 19th Century but who is not very well known today, namely Oliver Goldsmith.

The Vicar of Wakefield was written in 1761, the year that Frances Holmes was born, and published in 1766. Except for narrations of events by characters within story, it takes place mostly out in the English countryside. One can almost imagine the characters intersecting with the Holmes family of Hertfordshire on the roadways of that era.

The novel itself has a very interesting story of how it came to published, especially in how the famous Dr. Samuel Johnson came to Goldsmith's aid.  I highly recommend checking out the Wikipedia article on it.

The entire work is short and reads very quickly. The percentage indicator on my Kindle increased rapidly as I flipped the pages, I could have plowed through the book in several days but once I got into it, and recognized it as a work of great genius and literary art, I purposely slowed down, and read it generously over the course of a week.

This reminds me of something Vonnegut said, if I recall, when someone asked him if he would ever want to take a speed reading course. He replied that he wanted to learn to read slower, not faster (the source of this quote escapes me).

Since most modern folks haven't read this book, I'll give a little summary of the story. As the title suggests, the protagonist is a country clergyman, in middle age, with a large happy family and a comfortable modest living and a tidy savings after many years at the pulpit.  As a man of the cloth, he is an idealist, earnest but slightly pompous, and full of a comic self-importance about his influence over others, much like a man who writes a little blog and expect that anyone actually reads it.

The story opens with an hour of happiness at the impending marriage of one of his sons. Immediately in the story, and then over the course of time, almost everything goes wrong in his life.  He loses all his savings, his living, and eventually much more.  In this way, the story has the feel of the Book of Job. Just when you think things couldn't get worse for him, they do.

But this is a comedy, not a tragedy, and as we experience the calamities of the protagonist and his family one by one, we are guided through them by the vicar's unshakeable optimism and faith, despite his comic egoism. As a testimony of faith through difficulties, told in comedic perspective, it ironically feels a bit like Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, now that I think about.  The protagonist's philosophy of life can be summed up in his observation of "how much kinder heaven was to us, than we to each other." (cf. Jaques' "Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind" in As You Like It).

Likewise, it is always in the power of individual to persevere with the help of Providence. "Man little knows what calamities are beyond his patience to bear till he tries them." (highlighted by 38 people in the Kindle edition).

Although Goldsmith can't compare to Austen when it comes to a feminine insight into the candid nuances of character motivation, he makes up for it with a masculine energy in weaving a compelling multi-stage narrative propelling the story through one episode to another over the course of years.

As such, he was even better than Austen at providing some of the meaty details of life in the countryside in Georgian England, in regard to my favorite topics: residences and lodging, food and meals, and (what is rapidly becoming my favorite bit of research) transportation by horse. I made many highlights in the Kindle whenever the protagonist stopped for the night at a inn. I loved finding the small details in these scenes, e.g "But the night was coming on, I put up by a little public-house by the roadside, and asked the landlord's company over a pint of wine."

I was especially deligthed to see some juicy scenes involving discussion of contemporary theater, and theater-going (see below). The most Austen had given me in that regard, besides an insight that Shakepear was popular reading, was a fleeting mention of two characters in London having encountered each other in the lobby of the Drury Lane Theatre.

Here are some of my specific takeovers for my own research purposes:

1. Do you know it was possible to rent a horse and ride it to another place, and leave it there? One simply dropped it off at the appropriate inn down the road. The stage inns were part of a system this way. This seemed rather odd to me until I realized it was pretty close to today's model of car rental. In any case, it is something that most middle and upper class people wouldn't have done, because they would have ridden in a post-chaise, which was the most common vehicle of that day. The most common way that it was driven was by a postillion.

WP: "The post-chaise was a fast carriage for traveling post in the 18th and early 19th centuries. It usually had a closed body on four wheels, sat two to four persons, and was drawn by two or four horses. The driver, especially when there was no coachman, rode postillion on the near horse of a pair or of one of the pairs attached to the post-chaise."

This crops up in Jane Austen as well. We also learn of a smaller vehicle, called the curicle, which like the sports car of its day.

2. People sold their horses at fairs,and sometimes got conned by con men.

3. Walking thirty miles a day for several days in a row was not out of the question for a middle aged man in that era. Again this would have only have been necessary if you couldn't afford any other means of transportation.

4. Traveling theater companies toured the countryside giving performances in barns. This is one way that someone out in the countryside might have seen a Shakespeare play without going into "town." There is a great description of such a "strolling company" in in the story, which carried their "scenes and other theatrical furniture" from village to village in a cart, "where they were to exhibit."

"By the time the equipage of the strolling company was arrived at the village, which, it seems had been apprised of our approach, and as come out to gaze at us; for my companion observed, that strollers always have more spectators without doors than within. I did not consider the impropriety of my being in such company till I saw a mob gather about me. I therefore took shelter, as fast as possible, in the first ale-house that offered, and being shown to the common room, was accosted by a well-drest gentleman, who demanded whether I was the real chaplain of the company, or whether it was only my masquerade character in the play."

5. Shakespeare was very popular in that era and well-known among all classes of people, with an enduring appeal despite being a century and half after the fact. Dryden is mentioned often as well, but considered a bit old fashioned.

"'Dryden and Row's manner, Sir, are quite out of fashion; our taste has gone back a whole century, Fletcher, Ben Johnson, and all the plays of Shakespear (sic), are the only things that go down."--'How', cried I, 'is it possible the present age can be pleased with that antiquated dialect, that obsolete humour, those overcharged characters, which abound in the works you mention?'---'Sir', returned my companion, 'the public think nothing about dialect, or humour, or character; for that is none of the business, they only go to be amused, and find themselves happy when they can enjoy a pantomime, under the sanction of Johnson's or Shakespear's name.'"

6. 'Squire was a common appellation given to someone with property.

7. People moved between the country and the town (London) a lot. Poor people of the countryside sometimes sent there children to work in town. "London was the mart where abilities of every kind were sure of meeting distinction and reward."  Being an usher at a boy's school was considered a terrible job. One could make a meager living being a writer who churned out prose on philosophical topics (like a paid blogger today) and sold booklets in the City near St. Paul's Cathedral. Young women of poor families were often sent to work in the City to look for husbands (cf. Austen).

"...a single winter in town would make her little Sophia quite another thing. My wife warmly assented...; adding that there was nothing she more ardently wished than to give her girls a single winter's polishing."

8. Money was a huge reason why people chose their marriage partners. A man might marry for love, without regard to the property or inheritance his wife might bring to him, but this was considered wildly romantic, and privilege of men who already possessed money themselves.

9. When people went to ale-houses, they typically had their own small roomlet that was open and within earshot of other people.

10. Butlers could pretend to be masters of the house and fool people.

11. Something the vicar does, which sheds light on the meal process: "As soon as dinner was over, according to my old custom, I requested that the table might be taken away, to have the pleasure of seeing all my family assembled once more by a cheerful fire."

12. Sitting for family portraits was common even among the lower classes.

13. Someone might attempt to learn to play the French horn as a hobby.

14. Over dinner, gentleman might engage in lengthy and contentious discussion of politics, based on what he read in newspapers. "Now, I read all the politics that come. The Daily, the Public, the Ledger, the Chronicle, the London Evening, the Whitehall Evening, the seventeen magazines, and though they hate each other, I love them all." Chapter 19 of the book is an especially good example of this, and provides a marvelous debate on the concept of liberty, culminating in a defense of the monarchy as a protection of the people against the powerful. Contemporary readers will find much in there that pertains to the present era of American politics, including such issues as Free Trade and its affect on the rich versus the poor.

15. The Dutch were as eager to learn English back then as they are now, and an English person in Holland might make a living giving lessons.

16. One could insult someone by calling them a "reptile."

17. Educated people could make a living buying paintings in Paris, and do so without much knowledge of art by adopting simple rules of criticism of paintings. "The whole secret consisted in a strict adherence to two rules: the one always to observe, that the picture might have been better if the painter had taken more pains; and the other, to praise the works of Pietro Perugino."

18. Even if you weren't a criminal sentenced by the court, if you were really hard up in England, you could essentially sell yourself into slavery into the New World. "In this office Mr Cripse kindly offers all his majesty's subjects a generous promise of 30 pounds a year, for which promise all they give in return is their liberty for life, and permission to let him transport them to America as slaves...Here I found a number of poor creatures, all in circumstances like myself..."

19. Rich people always had people asking them for favor and money, like paparazzi.  "As the doors of nobility are almost ever beset with beggars, all ready to thrust in some sly petition, I found it no easy to matter to gain admittance."

20. People often drank punch.

21. Playhouses were a place where people traded fashionable opinions, and trendy people scooped up conversational topics there in they way that people now share videos from their favorite television comedic pundits: "He could repeat all the observations that were retailed in the atmosphere of the playhouses, and had all the good things of the high wits by rote long before they made their into jest-books."

22. One could express contempt and disdain by the exclamation "FUDGE!"

23. Children played blind man's bluff.

24. Michaelmas was a much more important holiday in that era. "...we were invited to burn nuts and play tricks at neighbor Flamborough's."

25. Fortune-telling gypies toured the countryside, typically charging a shilling of silver.

26. Dancing was common among country folk. "...though the Miss Flamboroughs were reckoned the very best dancers in the parish, and understood the jig and the round-about to perfection."

27. The West Indies is mentioned a lot as a place where people made a lot of money. A respectable young man of modest means might, with the right recommendations, receive a commission in a regiment sent there.