Fortunately – for me, at any rate — for the purpose of this discussion no further mention the above needs to be made, since it would require far more time and effort than I am willing to commit, and would likely resemble hard work far too much for my personal inclination. Whether “hard work” as a thing in itself is a complete anathema to me or not I’ll have to plead the Fifth. But hard work that would solve nothing, prove nothing, and generally be as pointless as male nipples; that I will admit I have no interest in. Either making such an effort myself, or witnessing the results of others who have done such things.

Amusing how right from the get-go the circumlocutions begin, why can’t I simply make my damn point and be done with it? Because I can’t. It is not in my nature to build gleaming skyscrapers, cathedrals that raise the eyes of the believer toward thoughts of heaven, or even functional chicken coops that keep the idiot birds penned up, safe from weasels, and the surroundings safe from their unending stream of shit. No, what I build are junk piles. Refuse, discards, utterly useless items thrown against each other and piled higher and higher in an unstable edifice that teeters in the slightest breeze and comes crashing down around me as I attempt to throw one last kitchen sink or broken toaster into the mix.  So, dems da berries.

And, most amusing off all, I’ve not even gotten around to stating my thesis yet. But I’m so utterly bored with this whole exercise I’ll simply post this abortion in tennis shoes onto the blog, doubtless forget about it, and if I should stumbles across it down the line perhaps proceed. Or not.  Like MC 900 ft. Jesus said…

So I’ll get there when I get there….

And, apropos of nothing, I do remember the first time I thought of an “abortion in tennis shoes.”  It was the first time I viewed the mascot for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Never ceases to amaze me the things people get paid to do. And always depresses me how I never seem to find my way onto that particular gravy train reserved for talentless morons. (I think my credentials are otherwise in order to qualify.)

I actually accomplished a fair amount yesterday, nothing earth shattering, certainly, but I’ll take what I can get. Curiously, the one area in which I fell down completely was in actually tracking the time I spent doing whatever it was I happened to be doing at the moment. In any event, I swept and vacuumed, and will hopefully clean the floors and bathrooms today. (The bathroom…uummm, ewww.) And whether the floors merely get the swiffer treatment or a full blown mopping is yet to be determined. It really needs a heavy duty cleaning, the question is what I am and am not up to. I saw psychologist yesterday. Didn’t feel like it was a particularly productive session, but I’ve certainly had worse ones. I’m not even honestly sure what we really talked about, other than that I need a job.

I may be the only person on Planet Earth who now has the ability to make a grocery list via MS Access. Took me a while to set up, and I actually managed to fall asleep in my chair in front of the computer while doing it. But it seems to work, and I’m cautiously optimistic it will be something other than a complete waste of time. My biggest problem with grocery shopping is not actually doing it – hell I live on the cheapest frozen dinners and peanut butter sandwiches – but forgetting to pick up items not needed on a weekly basis (razor blades, coffee filters, toilet paper, etc.). But now I’ve got a list I can run my eyes down and check boxes for what’s needed. I’m pretty sure seeing it in black and white in front of me will be enough of a reminder. And spit out a report that splits things tolerably well into categories.  Well, we shall see. I’m certainly no Access expert, and that’s putting it mildly, but it seemed easier to do it there than in Excel.

I’m practicing a sort of tunnel vision when it comes to getting this apartment set up better. It didn’t turn into this disorganized mess overnight (well, except for the stuff I dropped in various places when I moved in and haven’t really looked at since) and when I look at the place as a whole, I get overwhelmed and basically just say eff it. But I can hack off a piece at a time and focus on something or other for 20 minutes or so. Yesterday, I put all office supply type stuff and tools in separate bins, and swept and vacuumed. Today will be the bathroom and (in some form) floor cleaning.

TFC

I am, without a doubt, the world’s slowest writer. This is proving a huge handicap as I fumble my way, slouching toward Gomorrah. It just takes me too damn long to say what I would like to say, even when I’m clearly noting what is being written is a “draft.” And the clock is ticking on that deadline. Quite frankly, I know which way I’d prefer to head, and I see no incontrovertible evidence (yet) that that is the wrong path. But I’ve also not been giving it a fair shot. I’m certainly not committed to the idea of suicide, but I’m certainly not committed to the idea continuing to live, either. But as things currently stand? I know which way I’m leaning, and that’s the left hand path.

I’ve been a bit better about reading up on the topic of late, but what I have not been better about is recording sources, or dividing the topic into smaller chunks, each phrased as a rebuttable or defensible hypothesis. With the sorts of questions I should be asking myself, I doubt there is any final answer in the sense of a final proof or complete rejection, but only tentative conclusions with both sides of a particular issue having at least a degree of validity. But I think I’ve resigned myself to that as simply part of the human condition. What decisions have I ever made where I felt I had all the facts, and a sense of unimpeachable logic in reaching the conclusion that this or that action was the absolutely correct one? Very few, he responded rhetorically. But this fact does NOT excuse me from making the attempt.  And that “attempt” is exactly what I have not been making.

I’ve picked up a couple of books by everyone’s favorite heretical psychiatrist, Thomas Szasz, and am currently plodding my way through some of them. He’s saying a great deal that is music to my ears, but the fact that he takes money from the Church of Scientology bugs me a great deal. I’ll have to go into my thoughts on the man in greater detail at some point; whether he is an iconoclast Jeremiah howling valid criticism at the groupthink mentality  of the current medical establishment, or a publicity seeking charlatan, or an out and out nutcase I’ve not been able to conclude. But I’m a bit inclined to think of him as a combination of all three, at least at present. I’m certainly not going to base any conclusions reached upon him alone, but there’s just so much regurgitation and marching in lockstep among his critics…ya know, I kinda smell a rat there, too.

Eh, I could go on about this and other topics like a sewer pipe emptying endlessly into a treatment plant, but I must draw the line somewhere. But overall I want this journal to work as a mirror, reflecting back an image and helping me correct course as needed. And I think I’m getting there, if I can keep up in this vein. (The irony here, of course, is how much I despise looking at myself in real mirrors, loathe having my picture taken, and do all I can to avoid ever be voluntarily recorded on a video camera. As Bo Diddley would put it,  were he to gaze upon my toad-like visage, “You look like you bin whupped with a ugly stick!”)

Essentially I’m going to try to hold my feet to the fire and do all the crap I’ve kept promising myself I would do, but have not done. The fact that a good chunk of the “promising” is vaguely worded mush floating and bobbing like turds in the back of my mind being part of the issue, but far from all of it. Obviously I’ve not been keeping timesheets or checklists or doing writing or looking seriously for work, and that’s just the stuff I’ve defined. The ill-defined mush ranges from setting up a list of specific tasks, prioritizing them, and then doing them. I mean if I am going to take  this whole Final Countdown business with any degree of seriousness, I gotta walk the walk as well as talk the talk and cliché the cliché so I’ll be making a reasonable judgment when the time comes.

No timesheet today, there actually would not have been any point. I spent the whole day watching the kid, as he was off from school and ex- was obviously working. I had a decent time, actually. He’s a good kid, one who deserves a helluva lot better father than I seem to be capable of being. I must admit that being treated as a playmate by a six year old loses it flavor after a while…especially when said six year old seemingly has boundless energy when he topic is Star Wars in all its various incarnations. I wonder if this is the first of the “special interests” HFAs and Aspies have? After about two hours of farting around with his “action figures” I told him, that, lookit, I need a break, a cup of coffee and some time to read quietly. He did get upset, but did not turn into the unholy terror some kids on the spectrum apparently become when thwarted in their “special interest.”

I left here at 7:10, got  there at 7:45 AM and left to come back about 8;30 or so. Honestly not sure when I walked in the front door, but I’m guessing it was slightly after 9 PM. Not much to show on a timesheet, unless I wanted to break out time spent playing Angry Birds vs. Legos vs. Star Wars Action figures vs. a trip to his therapist.

Well, here’s hoping the new boss will NOT be the same as the old boss…as unlikely as that might be.

Presuming the “i”s are dotted and “t”s crossed this link above will bring anyone clicking on it to three mp3 files, each of which is nothing but me babbling into a portable voice recorder as I drive around prior to visiting with my psychologist.

• The sound quality is atrocious, all three files have this background “snap, snap, snap” sound throughout.
• I was not shocked that I spent so much time babbling away about nothing in particular in no particular order, but was shocked at how much racist commentary flowed or perhaps spewed out of my mouth.  I can’t account for it, as it is not what I really believe. A real headscratcher, that one is. I candidly wouldn’t mind being called a racist if I actually were one, but I don’t think I am…but what I said is what I said, and I can’t defend, explain it, or, hell, even rationalize it away.
• The portable recorder I’ve got transfers each file to my HD in WMA format, which candidly pisses me off. Before loading them I renamed each to a slightly more descriptive name, and converted them into MP3. Whether that will affect the sound quality, I have no idea.
• The files are of varying length. The second of the three is the longest, coming in at just under an hour, the third of the three is about five minutes.

I guess I’m feeling a bit guilty about not doing more here, and figure, why not post this garbage? I think I’ve offered enough in the way of disclosure to keep anyone who does not want to listen to them from every having to.

Note this is no “pity party,” simply an objective view of my situation, prospects and in all honesty, also an admission of the sort of individual I am. I can’t be bothered to be too specific, as it would just be another tedious rehash of the same errors done in the same fashion, this nauseating carousel that never seems to stop spinning, nor change itself in any way. I suppose I should update the chart that shows how much closer I’m moving toward the end of my self-imposed restriction upon taking direct action to rectify this situation. But as I have also not been doing the writing and reading I’d planned, I’m currently forced to acknowledge that I can’t make as solid claim of rationality in this matter as I’d hoped. Faugh.

Ah, well. I guess I should end this post with what I’ve come to think of as THE Sinatra tune.

Back to the nothing that had no name
Back to the nowhere from where I came
Don’t worry of me, I know what I am
Where I’m goin’ and where I’ve been

I’m not afraid!
I’m not afraid!
No, I’m not afraid!

Note: much to my personal disgust,  the lyrics were written in part by the worst poet in the English language in all of history, Rod McKuen. In addition, one could excuse his overall degeneracy if he had happened to have written decent poetry, but, alas, his poetry is so awful that it contributes rather than reduces the overall picture of a degenerate half-wit capering like a monkey, splattering globs of phlegm on the page.

As best I recall he is dead, from AIDS. Given how the tentacles of the homocracy have wormed their way into every aspect of expression in the Western world, I’ll simply note that I for one don’t particularly miss him, and leave the matter at that.

Eh, hopefully his collaborator wrote the damn thing, since in spite of my preceding commentary I’m stuck on the damn song. Or perhaps I must buck up and admit that even a blind pig will find an acorn from time to time.

And I am going to be getting back into the timesheet/checkoff thing. Just a check off for today.

Since I am at present without a hobby, I’ve decided to plunge headfirst into the vast sea of ignorance I have concerning the Civil War. Of course, I am not going to refer to it that way, since I believe I’ve invented a better, far more accurate, moniker: The War of Southern Suicide. I suppose an even more accurate descriptive would be The War of Southern Attempted Suicide, but one must draw the line somewhere with neologisms, even if a bit of accuracy is sacrificed thereby. To give credit where credit is due, a rather large portion of the South’s population did in fact take their suicide attempt seriously, but on balance most who attempted were foiled by the overwhelming mercy  the victor showed the vanquished.

But like a teenage girl denied her third tongue piercing or some such thing, the puling whining of the descendants of those whose ancestors suicide attempts were foiled must be read to be believed. The white southerner has raised the art of the crybaby from momentary sob to something approaching a lifetime career. I shall have to be on the lookout for the more amusing of such quotes as I come across them, I’ve certainly seen enough in the past and should have no trouble locating a bountiful harvest once I start looking.

I suppose I’ve chosen a rather odd text to kick off this new venture, but there is a great deal that is apropos to the WSS in it. As Mr. Grant points out, doubtless the best portion of the Southern gene pool was killed off during the war, leaving behind a rather sorry collection of the dregs of humanity, though that last perhaps goes too far.  But perhaps not, as such a position would make sense of the constant whining. Whether his claim of the prevalence of “genius” in Massachusetts vs. Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia is justified is difficult to say, as no source is cited. But as he as often directs his criticism against the North as against the South (see the first two quotes following), I am presuming his claim is based upon some sort of research, and not simply pulled out of the air.

In any event, I  shall turn to this topic from time to time as a change of pace as I otherwise record my own life collapsing from within. I do not accept Grant’s thesis in toto, but nor do I reject it. Such an admission of course puts me so far “beyond the Pale” of what one is allowed to speak of in public in this sorry entity known as Massachusetts, but, also, of course, I shall do no such thing.

Note: The Internet Archive has the text I’ve linked to posted in several different formats. Rather curiously, they differ depending upon the format chosen. The plain text versions contain gobs of gibberish, contain some text that may in fact be incorrect (what the “plain text” version refers to as the preface to the “Fourth Edition,” others call the “Second Edition), but there even appeared to be some differences between the PDF and EPub versions, as though they were also different editions. I cannot account for this, but do wish to put any reader on notice regarding these inconsistencies.

All Quotes from: "The Passing of the Great Race; Or, The Racial Basis of European History"

INTRODUCTION TO FOURTH(?*) EDITION xxxiii

The days of the Civil War and the provincial sentimentalism which governed or misgoverned our public opinion are past, and this generation must completely repudiate the proud boast of our fathers that they acknowledged no distinction in ”race, creed, or color/’ or else the native American must turn the page of history and write: "FINIS AMERICiE"

l6 RACE, LANGUAGE AND NATIONALITY

There exists to-day a widespread and fatuous belief in the power of environment, as well as of education and opportunity to alter heredity, which arises from the dogma of the brotherhood of man, derived in its turn from the loose thinkers of the French Revolution and their American mimics. Such beliefs have done much damage in the past and if allowed to go uncontradicted, may do even more serious damage in the future. Thus the view that the Negro slave was an unfortunate cousin of the white man, deeply tanned by the tropic sun and denied the blessings of Christianity and civilization, played no small part with the sentimentalists of the Civil War period and it has taken us fifty years to learn that speaking English, wearing good clothes and going to school and to church do not transform a Negro into a white man. Nor was a Syrian or Egyptian freedman transformed into a Roman by wearing a toga and applauding his favorite gladiator in the amphitheatre. Americans will have a similar experience with the Polish Jew, whose dwarf stature, peculiar mentality and ruthless concentration on self-interest are being engrafted upon the stock of the nation.

RACE AND HABITAT 43

The same thing happened in our South before the Civil War. There the white men did not work in the fields or in the factory. The heavy work under the blazing sun was carried on by Negro slaves and the planter was spared exposure to an unfavorable environment. Under these conditions he was able to retain much of his vigor. When slavery was abolished and the white man had to plough his own fields or work in the factory deterioration began. The change in type of the men who are now sent by the Southern States to represent them in the Federal Government from their predecessors in ante-bellum times is partly due to these causes, but in greater degree it is to be attributed to the fact that a large portion of the best racial strains in the South were killed off during the Civil War. In addition the war shattered the aristocratic traditions which formerly secured the selection of the best men as rulers. The new democratic ideals, with universal suffrage in free operation among the whites, result in the choice of representatives who lack the distinction and ability of the leaders of the Old South.

RACE AND HABITAT 39

Where the environment is too soft and luxurious and no strife is required for survival, not only are weak strains and individuals allowed to survive and encouraged to breed but the strong types also grow fat mentally and physically, like overfed Indians on reservations or wingless birds on oceanic islands, which have lost the power of flight as a result of prolonged protective conditions. Men of the Nordic race may not enjoy the fogs and snows of the North, the endless changes of weather and the violent fluctuations of the thermometer and they may seek the sunny southern isles, but under the former conditions they flourish, do their work and raise their families. In the south they grow listless and cease to breed. In the lower classes in the Southern States of America the increasing proportion of "poor whites” and ”crackers” are symptoms of lack of climatic adjustment. The whites in Georgia, in the Bahamas and, above all, in Barbadoes are excellent examples of the deleterious effects of residence outside the natural habitat of the Nordic race. The poor whites of the Cumberland Mountains in Kentucky and Tennessee present a more difficult problem, because here the altitude, even though moderate, should modify the effects of latitude and the climate of these mountains cannot be particularly unfavorable to men of Nordic breed. There are probably other hereditary forces at work there as yet little understood.

THE EUROPEAN RACES IN COLONIES 77

Where two distinct species are located side by side history and biology teach that but one of two things can happen; either one race drives the other out, as the Americans exterminated the Indians and as the Negroes are now replacing the whites in various parts of the South; or else they amalgamate and form a population of race bastards in which the lower type ultimately preponderates. This is a disagreeable alternative with which to confront sentimentalists but nature is only concerned with results and neither makes nor takes excuses. The chief failing of the day with some of our well meaning philanthropists is their absolute refusal to face inevitable facts, if such facts appear cruel.

THE EUROPEAN RACES IN COLONIES 83

New England during Colonial times and long afterward was far more Nordic than old England; that is, it contained a smaller percentage of small, Pre-Nordic brunets. Any one familiar with the native New Englander knows the clean cut face, the high stature and the prevalence of gray and blue eyes and light brown hair and recognizes that the brunet element is less noticeable there than in the South

The Southern States were populated also by Englishmen of the purest Nordic type but there is to-day, except among the mountains^ an appreciably larger amount of brunet types than in the North. Virginia is in the same latitude as North Africa and south of this line no blonds have ever been able to survive in full vigor, chiefly because the actinic rays of the sun are the same regardless of other climatic conditions. These rays beat heavily on the Nordic race and disturb their nervous system, wherever the white man ventures too far from the cold and foggy North.

EOLITHIC MAN 99

This genius producing type is slow breeding and there is real danger of its loss to mankind. Some idea of the value of these small strains can be gained from the recent statistics which demonstrate that Massachusetts produces more than fifty times as much genius per hundred thousand whites as does Georgia, Alabama or Mississippi, although apparently the race, religion and environment, other than climatic conditions, are much the same, except for the numbing presence in the South of a large stationary Negro population.

However, take the same MS Word document and convert it into a PDF. And guess what? Upload that sucker and you got yerself a document with honest to goodness links.

Why one way and not the other? I dunno. In fact, I find the whole thing utterly unfathomable. But I get the result I want, and I know what to do moving forward. I suppose I should be thankful they don’t demand I do the hokey-pokey or toss a virgin into a volcano or (shudder) read Twilight before allowing me to do the upload thing with actual, working links. But, yea, the gods of Mount Olympus Redmond are beneficent deities and demand only minor sacrifices from their acolytes, so I need not worry. Too much.

I’m guessing this only works via saving it as a PDF through “save as” inside Word and not one of those utilities that makes whatever program you’re using think creating a PDF is the same thing as printing. But I could be wrong, and have no immediate plans to investigate going such a route.

I think I should make this my personal theme song, even though there’s that icky Linda Rondstadt cover version out there somewhere. Well, I’ll bet ol’ Warren cashed the royalty checks, so what the hey.

FWIW, I am going to finish it at some point but I cannot honestly say precisely when. Hopefully sooner rather than later since I feel compelled to do it, and am  angry I have not already done so. A sort of mental tug of war is going on, this strange sense of compulsion on one end of the rope, and my natural inclination to procrastinate on the other. Aided by wishful thinking that my personality is other than I suspect it is, and that an honest exposition to present the story from the perspective of my reactions will blow the wishful thinking out of the water.

A bit like the two horse and the charioteer in Platonic dialogue Phaedrus, I’d say. Pity there’s such nonsense leading up to that wonderful image, and I can’t even remember if scholars consider this dialog as close to what Socrates believed, or if it was one of the ones where they consider Plato merely using Socrates as a mouthpiece.

Edit: Wow, did I screw up that top link. And then keep screwing it up. Amazing.