“Just as it is laughable that the CIA and GCHQ care about social justice, feminism, and racial diversity as they bomb and subvert the rest of the world in ways that contradict all of those professed values, the idea that corporate giants who use sweatshops, slave labor, mass layoffs and abuse of their workforce care about any of these causes would make any rational person suffocate on the stench of their insincerity.”
— Glenn Greenwald, 4/13/21
April 14th, 2021
March Ex(plosion) under way!
March 20th, 2021Follow my art-each-day ritual at The Collage Miniaturist.
The Need to Take Sides
collage miniature by J A Dixon
6.75 x 8.75 inches
from my Series of Rock
February 27th, 2021
“There is no reason to suppose that they [central bankers] understand the modern financial system and economy to any greater extent than they did in 2007 (that is to say, not at all). Nevertheless, they plow ahead, expressing total confidence that what they are saying and doing is wise and not dangerous drivel.
“It is unlikely that these unprecedented and experimental government policies of such gargantuan scope will actually create the desired result and allow themselves to be able to be unwound without great shock and disruption to the global financial system.”— Paul Singer, 2014
February 6th, 2021
Earlier this week, Dana and I traveled to Ohio with Terie to pay tribute to her grandmother, Jane. I like to point out that Dana found only one satisfactory mate in life, but she was blessed to have two first-class mothers-in-law. Saints, like all human beings, have imperfections, although they best emulate the only perfect example known to us, and show us how to live. Jane was that kind of person.
It was an emotional trip for another reason. Jane’s street-level funeral procession, from Moraine to North Dixie Highway, will stick with me for a long time. I can’t recall ever having seen such a disturbing progression of urban blight than what I witnessed from the back seat as Dana drove. We were all acutely aware of our surroundings. Every red light was bypassed within the supervision of local police. The steady, harrowing vision outside was that of a sad wreck — a city that I knew so well in the ’80s as Dayton, Ohio.
“Oh, the humanity . . .” (in the true spirit of the original lament)
February 3rd, 2021
Jane Lou Hovis Willoughby Booton
1 9 2 5 – 2 0 2 1
a life of faith, kindness, strength, and dignity
R
I
P
January 19th, 2021
“Now, as I leave the White House, I have been reflecting on the dangers that threaten the priceless inheritance we all share. The greatest danger we face is a loss of confidence in ourselves, a loss of confidence in our national greatness. No nation can long thrive that loses faith in its own values, history, and heroes, for these are the very sources of our unity and our vitality. At the center of this heritage is also a robust belief in free expression, free speech, and open debate. Only if we forget who we are and how we got here could we ever allow political censorship and blacklisting to take place in America. Shutting down free and open debate violates our core values and most enduring traditions. In America, we don’t insist on absolute conformity or enforce rigid orthodoxy and punitive speech codes. We just don’t do that. America is not a timid nation of tame souls who need to be sheltered and protected from those with whom we disagree.”
— Donald J Trump, Farewell Address
January 8th, 2021
“What China actually is (and where the USA is headed or has already arrived) is a form of oligarchic fascism. The capitalist market’s fine as long as it’s my capitalistic market and you’re a member of my party. Communist Party, Democratic Party, what difference does it make? As long as it’s one party and we’re in charge.”
— Roger L Simon, The Epoch Times
December 20th, 2020
“I of course am thoroughly convinced of the value of self-knowledge, but is there any use in recommending such insight, when the wisest of men throughout the ages have preached the need of it without success?”
— C G Jung, 1949
December 15th, 2020
“You are not making us live in fear, but you are really starting to piss us off.”
A successful venison harvest at the farm
November 23rd, 2020I arrived at the Valley on Saturday, opening day of modern gun, but one thing led to another, including a satisfying visit with old chum “Bilbo,” and I was still puzzling my way through scope adjustments into Sunday. With the help of a spare box of factory .44 magnum from James, I didn’t finish getting Dadbo’s Marlin sighted in to a level of satisfaction until late Monday morning. I admit to feeling like I had already botched the whole process to some degree. I went out in the afternoon to a couple of different spots that had concealed observation points facing hay fields, including Joan’s expanse where we had held our “safari.” No luck with either one before sundown. Did not see a single deer. For me, it seemed like being “in the right place at the right time” would rule my hunting time, because I gave up tree stands a while ago to adopt a more primitive, admittedly random approach.
The next morning I had the success for which I’d hoped. I went back to the same area before daybreak and chose a high point underneath a bushy cedar tree. By around 9:30am, I was stiff and a bit numb in the ankles and feet. I was ready to give up that location, find another for a spell, or try to flush something from cover. It was sunny now, but cold and breezy. I was standing up from my hiding place, getting ready to sling my rifle over my shoulder, and a medium-size buck came out of the brush near Robin Lick. I was right out in the open, but he didn’t spook. I couldn’t tell if he saw me. He was moving slowly across the field, left to right, up toward the road and wooded knob. It was about as slowly as a deer moves with any kind of deliberateness. For some reason, I was immediately convinced he wasn’t going to pause, so I got iron sights on him and shifted up to the telescopic cross-hairs. He was moving gently enough that my instinct was to take a shot, even though I had a corresponding doubt about it being wrong, or in bad form. All of this without really thinking. Ka-pow.
I had matched my motion to his pace, aiming just a bit in front of his fore-shoulder. He bolted for the road and leaped into the woods. A voice in my head cried, “Blew it. You blew it! Why weren’t you more patient?” Instantly dejected, I knew I’d better check the area at least. It was 75 to 80 yards away. I levered another cartridge and took a moment to pick up and pocket the empty one, putting everything back into safe status. I found what might have been a few spots of blood in the field. When I got up to the road, I saw more clearly a blood trail across the crushed stone. Needless to say, my attitude was transformed. And then I saw him in the woods, looking at me. There were multiple limbs and saplings between us, but the deer wasn’t that far away, certainly less than 50 yards. I had no idea how wounded he was. Should I try to shoot again or finally be patient?
For a second time I had the hammer back, safety off, and trigger in contact. He snorted loudly and took off up the knob, still apparently strong. 
I lost sight of him. There was significant blood when I examined his standing ground. Well, I had no choice but to begin tracking now. “Dadburnit, the Sweeneys have their dwelling site up there” was the next thing in my mind. I set off up the hillside, looking for more sign. I didn’t find it. I was pretty far up when I heard some thrashing behind me, off to my left side. There he was, less than the distance I had seen him climb. He must have collapsed and slid downhill, before or after I made the decision to follow up the knob. Or perhaps I just hadn’t heard it when I made my own noise clambering up off the road through the dried leaves. At any rate, I’d misjudged the trajectory. When I descended to his location, the rib cage was still heaving, with a bullet entry past the shoulder and heart zone, but it was now evident that the blood had come from the mouth and nose, not the body. 
Presently, the animal expired before I needed to end it for him. It seemed like barely a minute since practically giving up on the outing, but now I was looking down during the customary prayerful moment. Ever so quickly, the next two days were unfolding in my mind. I had pulled it off. My hunt was over for the season.
November 1st, 2020
“You can see that this person has certain obnoxious characteristics and certain skill sets that bring results, and you can guarantee that after we are the beneficiaries of the results, that he’s not going to be on PBS in ten years with ex-presidents shooting the breeze. It’s just not going to happen. He’s going to be persona non grata.”
— Victor Davis Hanson, 2/13/20
August 5th, 2020
“To straddle that fundamental duality is to be balanced: to have one foot firmly planted in order and security, and the other in chaos, possibility, growth and adventure. When life suddenly reveals itself as intense, gripping and meaningful; when time passes and you’re so engrossed in what you’re doing you don’t notice — it is there and then that you are located precisely on the border between order and chaos… Order is not enough. You can’t just be stable, and secure, and unchanging, because there are still vital and important new things to be learned. Nonetheless, chaos can be too much. You can’t long tolerate being swamped and overwhelmed beyond your capacity to cope, while you are learning what you still need to know. Thus, you need to place one foot in what you have mastered and understood and the other in what you are currently exploring and mastering. Then you have positioned yourself where the terror of existence is under control and you are secure, but where you are also alert and engaged. That is where there is something new to master and some way that you can be improved. That is where meaning is to be found.”
— Jordan B Peterson — 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos
Glaser’s “Ten Things I Have Learned”
June 28th, 2020You can only work for people whom you like.
If you have a choice, never have a job.
Some people are toxic.
Avoid them.
The good is the enemy
of the great.
Less is not necessarily more.
Style is not to be trusted.
How you live changes
your brain.
Doubt is better than
certainty.
On aging: It doesn’t matter.
Tell the truth.
Milton Glaser
1929 – 2020
June 11th, 2020
“This growing sense of injustice and unfairness will hit across economies. As the virus bites harder in less developed economies, the pressure and unrest is likely to escalate. As the global economy deteriorates, unemployment rises and inequalities widen, the pressure on governments will mount. Economies in crisis and rising unrest are going to prove a fertile ground for political agitation and populism.”
— Bill Blain — The Morning Porridge
May 31st, 2020
“But at the same time, it is as necessary for me to be as vigorous in condemning the conditions which cause persons to feel that they must engage in riotous activities as it is for me to condemn riots. I think America must see that riots do not develop out of thin air. Certain conditions continue to exist in our society which must be condemned as vigorously as we condemn riots. But in the final analysis, a riot is the language of the unheard.”
— M L King, Jr — Stanford University, April 14, 1967
May 8th, 2020
“No one has ever taken this kind of jackhammer to the economy in such a brief time and shut it down. We just don’t understand whether this is going to take a year or ten years to work out of. Therefore, the prudent thing right now is to hunker down, minimize discretionary spending, build up liquidity, get into cash, and buy gold. There’s no playbook that will tell you where we’re going. We’ve violated all the rules of economic life and monetary rationality that have ever been created over the last centuries.”
— David Stockman — InternationalMan.com
April 21st, 2020
“He had a strong sense of his life being upon the turn, between two seasons, as it were, with the certainties of the one no longer valid for the other. He was not a fanciful man, but for some time now he had had an indefinable sense of chaos following order, of impending disaster; and it oppressed his mind.”
— the thoughts of Captain J Aubrey
Treason’s Harbour by Patrick O’Brian