Newest Big-Priced Toy?

 I sat and read through a sales brochure that I got this week....the big-ticket item?

A Lego set over the Hogwarts Castle from Harry Potter.  Price?  341 Euro or $413 (with tax included in the price).

Something for a kid?  I kinda doubt it.

It's the kind of thing that you'd give to some geeky 18-year old kid.

I should note here....the Disney Castle is also being sold via Lego....same price. 

Who would buy it?  Probably an engineer who wants attention and brings it to the office to sit on backside of his work-bench.  

The Shocker 2024 Scenario

 This came up in the last couple of days....where President Trump said if he doesn't resolve this election issue, and Biden takes over in January....Trump intends to run in 2024.

Where this goes?  I would suggest five observations:

1.  Biden would have someone on his tail....24 hours a day, and don't worry about Twitter censoring Trump....he'll vacate and get to a platform that has zero censorship capability.  So you can figure 70-odd million folks are going to log in, and latch onto Trump-the-candidate-for-2024.

Biden having to defend himself daily?  Absolutely.  

2.  The odds of a dozen-odd Republican Senators being removed in 2022 and 2024....who are anti-Trump?  More than likely.  

3.  The power of CNN or any of the pro-Biden platforms carrying the weight of this?  No.  They would not be financially capable if Trump-supporters don't view their news or their 'gimmick'.  Can CNN keep up a anti-Trump lecture for four more years, while trying to be pro-Biden every single day?

4.  A signal to the international community that Trump will return?  This is the harsh part of the scenario....whatever Biden 'gives' this community....will be taken away.

5.  Finally, to the pro-Bush crowd, who hoped to retake the Republican community and go back to the old way of business?  Well....they are basically screwed.

Trump's health?  That's really the question-mark.  Can he still be in great shape in four years?

Kindness Story

 UCLA (the California university) has decided to offer up a unique college class....called: “Discourses of Kindness as Resistance to Trump’s Rhetoric of Division.” 

Basically, some professor is going to tell you how to be 'kind'....while in the presence of Trump enthusiasts.

I sat and pondered over this yesterday, for a good bit.  I eventually came to three observations:

1.  It just seems odd that you'd go out and pay some college $1,500 for a course, and the key element is 'kindness'.  

Growing up on a farm in rural Alabama.....you got daily doses of kindness and it was basically free.  To me, it's hard to imagine that you'd need to pay someone to get you into a kindness mode.

2.  The gimmick seems to be here that you'd instruct some dumbass to flip a switch and suddenly act kind....when they weren't really genuinely kind.  

Fake kindness?  Yeah....more or less.  

So you'd walk around for 23 hours a day, and then suddenly at the airport....find yourself next to some 'loser-Trump-enthusiast' and you'd flip the switch to use fake kindness upon them?  

3.  Finally,  it's possible that while you were in this weakened state of mind....doing fake-kindness...that the 'loser-Trump-enthusiast' might return the kindness, and then two hours into this....you were locked-on, full-up, KIND.  It's bad enough....that you couldn't turn the kindness off, and suddenly....yep, you were a Trump-enthusiast for the rest of your life. 

I have no idea what the college is charging for this, or how much this professor is making....but if you laid out two or three Whiskey Sours....I'd give you the one-hour lecture on kindness for free.  But I would imagine my kindness instruction would soften your attitude a good bit.  

The Division of Culture and Society in America

 There is a great book written by Joanne B. Freeman, entitled 'The Field of Blood' (2018).  $12 on Amazon as a e-read book.

Freeman discusses at length the thirty-year period prior to the Civil War (1860)....centering primarily upon Washington D.C.  

On my list of 100 must-read books by age 40....this book lays out the fundamental differences in people, and how technology (the telegraph, of all things) radically changed the news cycle, affected people in taking sides, and triggered a great part of the Civil War to occur.  

Once the smoke cleared in 1865....we were not the same nation.  It was not just slavery that fundamentally disappeared....it was a 'binding' (rope) that took disagreeable folks and dragged them toward a national center-point.

One can argue that as the 1990s and past twenty years came into play....cable TV  news arrived....the internet delivered the Huff-Post/Drudge....radio re-developed itself into talk-radio....social media arrived, and skepticism has attached itself to every corner of our humble life.

We are a divided people.  

Some of us can't attend family Thanksgiving dinners because the 'enemy' will be there.  

Some of us can't firmly plant ourselves at the local church anymore because we can't handle peer pressure or dramatic arguments over politics, the environment, or social causes (frankly, we just wanted dramatic talk about Moses, or some Jesus-chatter on reckless lifestyles when we attended church).

Some of us have found ourselves in dental chairs, with serious work about to start....with the dentist suddenly dragging up his pro-Hillary feelings and he's hoping you don't mind him letting you know his anguish. (that was me in 2002 in the dental chair, reassuring the dentist I was fake-fine with his chatter....it's hard to find a good dentist these days....you know)

Some of us long for the old days where idle chatter went to most UFO reports, the latest ZZ Top album, or the six essential problems of 'Return of the Jedi (1983).  Instead, these days....sitting at the local breakfast diner....your associate might bring up their fed-up nature of Fox News, their personal feelings over General Flynn, their frustration with ex-VP Cheney, their passion for Senator Chuck Schumer of NY state, or their belief that the Chinese are behind the election chaos of 2020.

Resolving this mess?  Next to impossible.  Antifa and BLM are ready to set fire to half the nation.  Destruction of the news media is currently underway.  And no one is that fired-up to say the next four years (either with Biden or Trump)....is going to be that great.

In simple terms, we are reaching the epic point where five or six mini-Americas need to exist, and regionalized governments make more sense.  

Folks in northern California will argue that they'd rather be separate from southern California, but they can't seem to find that dividing line or get the numbers to reach a second state.

Folks in Oregon see a fantasy idea now of sixty-percent of the state breaking off....joining Idaho.  

At least three additional states are in this break-off fantasy mode.  

Urban America?  It can't live any longer with rural America.

Covid-19 arriving to intensify this division?  No doubt.  

So I go back to this book (Field of Blood) and recommend a read.  It's a pretty harsh story laid out and literally hundreds of little stories bound into one book....how we logically needed a civil war to end the chaos of Washington D.C. in 1860.  

It's stupid to see this talk as accomplishing much of anything, but we seem to have a dividing line, and there's a serious division of society in the country.  And our skeptical nature has reached a point of no return.  

Farm Chatter

 Senator Booker (NJ) brought up a legislative action (basically for this session only)....to grant out of some government 'free deal'.....where farms that came up on the market would be procured by the government and 'handed' out to black farmers (new farmers, I assume, but he wasn't clear on this).  Odds of passing in the 2020 session?  ZERO.  Odds in 2021?  ZERO.  

But this brings up this entire topic of farms, expectations, costs, and misunderstandings.

First, farms don't readily come up daily for sale.  In most cases, one of two things occurred....a bankruptcy, or a farm family generation coming to an end.  

Top states with farm bankruptcies?  Georgia, California, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, Penn, and Kansas.

Bottom states with farm bankruptcies?  Wyoming, Colorado, Alabama, Mississippi, Oregon, Washington, Florida, and all of the New England states.

What makes a farm bankruptcy?  It tends to go down three paths: (1) stupid loans with banks that have crazy interest rates, (2) repeat drought years (farmers don't survive 3 consecutive years of drought), (3) simply bad luck that repeats (buying equipment that fails in the field and consumes valuable time on repairs).  

Handing a start-up farm over to a brand new farmer?  Even if the land deal was 'free'....then comes the reality of equipment/vehicles required.  To reach a basic start-up level with purely a cattle operation (say 150 to 300 head)...you need to figure $100,000 required.  

If this were a crop-production property, then you'd step up to the next level and figure $150k to $200k (maybe less, if you went to entirely used equipment, but then you'd take the risk of breakdowns and time consumed on repairs).

For a real 500 acre situation, with multiple ways of production/profit, you might be talking about $300k to $500k of equipment.

The tool shed?  Go and assume that $5k of tools and equipment will be required.

The harsh reality of going into Wisconsin, Nebraska or Minnesota for farming?  No one relishes getting up at 5:30 on a January morning, and having 12 hours of outdoor activities on the must-do list.  

No one wants to go and spend three hours with a cow trying to deliver a calf in a barn stall with the temperature near 30 degrees F.  

No one wants to go spend six hours to repair a piece of equipment that is essential for daily operations....in a cold damp shed.

Dealing with modern tractors that require a computer system to diagnose the maintenance issue, and a $300 visit by an official mechanic for the tractor company?  

No one understands the comradery of a farmer....where he hangs out for 45 minutes each Tuesday with five other farmers at the local grill....sipping coffee and eating 400 calorie donuts....while getting dismal updates from his associates about their woes.  Each pats the other on the back, and they exit the grill....to find some patience, understanding, and willpower to overcome the negatives in front of them.

No one wants to go and add up the number of hours wasted as such-and-such repair part isn't available locally, and the farm supply store is talking about four days to get such a part, or suggesting you drive 400 miles to the Ozarks (the mystery parts dealer who has a warehouse of parts but no sign on the front of the building, who wants cash for the deal) to get your part.

No one wants to go and replace an entire fence line for their beef cattle operation....that is 4,000 feet long and over 30 years old (rusting to a great extent).  They know for a two-man effort, this could consume ten work days minimum.  But they know that Marvin (the favorite bull), and his associate Wendy (that wild cow you bought last year)....are plotting up a storm to bring the fence down and escape the big woods.

No one wants to think about peer pressure to not work on Sundays (the Lords day), and they simply tell the ministers and neighbors that the Lord isn't working miracles on their farm.  So they work the 7th day.

No one enjoys cattle round-up situations where two-percent of their 300 cows are a bit crazed, and fully capable of stomping you into the ground. 

To say that things since 1920....have improved drastically on farms across the nation...misses several key points.  

For every improvement, we invented a new way of making farming miserable.  

For each man-hour we cut on production or operations, we added another hour somewhere else.  The repair manuals?  When you can find them (the tractor folks would prefer you not have such information in your hands)....you tend to shake your head because there's 42 procedures required over a 3-hour job, to replace one single item on the tractor.  

To be a farmer today, you need to be 50-percent engineer, 50-percent repairman, 50-percent animal expert, 50-percent financial wizard, 50-percent weatherman, 50-percent historian, and 50-percent animal healer.  

For each piece of new and modern technology, we invented a path to engineers and higher cost for what ought to be a simple piece of working equipment.

Farmers now sit there at 5:30 AM....watching for 'Weatherman-Dan' from Channel 19 to stage the next three days.  A light shower here, a 98-temperature reading for tomorrow, or a week of showers coming up?  They all flip and rotate the farm calendar and taskings.  

A farmer might be in shock to making 180-percent of his profit expectations for three years straight....taking the wife off to Aruba for five days in the spring, or buying a $40k new pick-up.  The same guy tends to get into severe depression when he achieve two consecutive years of 60-percent of his profit expectation.

For some reason, I don't think Booker has ever spent a single day on a farm, and these idiots advising him....probably haven't done so either.  

The Big Hour

 At some point between 30 November and 13 December....the Supreme Court is going to review the issues presented and come to a decision over several states, and the election.  

I imagine that it's going to throw out the results of at least three to four states....leaving it for the few days left between then and the 14th....the day of the Electoral College for the state legislatures to resolve this mess.

But it's that hour after the announcement that matters.

All of you....will sit there and view friends, co-workers and relatives who 'rise' and 'fall'.  Everyone, for the next forty years, will remember where they were and how it felt.

News journalists will go into some emotional breakdown....unable to comprehend the situation.

If the results are thrown out....I expect the Antifa and BLM people to stage immediate riots...burning fifty-odd cities across the nation.  People will be shot on the street.  Schools will shut down for several days.  Some business operations will shut down for the day.

I would suggest you sit and prepare yourself....it will be like 9-11 or the JFK shooting....ten times over.  

A 1803-2020 Discussion

 In the early morning hours of 31 August 1803....a crew of roughly forty-five men started what would be the 'Lewis and Clark Expedition'....traveling across the US, reaching the west coast, and traveling back....arriving back into civilization on 25 September 1806.  

I came to observe Covid-19 and the aspects of the expedition in a special way.  

To complete this three-year journey....the amazing thing here, with over a thousand different 'threats'....not a single person dies on this journey.  With snakes, bears and wolves as a threat?  Nothing.  With potential Indian attacks?  Nothing.  Pneumonia? Nothing.  

If you had been standing there in August of 1803 (beginning)....you would have gazed over the aspects of safety....written a serious letter of concern, and using 2020 logic....halted the aspect of performing this walk to the Pacific coast.

Every single day, if these forty-five men, if they were 2020 type individuals....they would have gotten up and discussed the fear of the day...the threat of death possibly coming up, and how to resolve the safety aspects.  Instead, those 1803 type individuals got up....had a sip of coffee, and simply went in search of adventure and the unknown.

It is a remarkable difference between the 1803 folks and the 2020 folks.  They aren't of the same breed.