Disclaimer: I do not and never have believed in a life after death. I do not and never have believed in the concept of ‘duality,’ as in there being some magical ‘me’ that exists aside from the physical me and that will somehow last beyond death. But years ago, when I had the idea for this story, the idea of going on just a few moments past that moment was essential to the ending, so… well, enjoy.
***
Paul Frasier was an old man.
He knew he was an old man. At eighty-eight, he could hardly have considered himself anything else. He knew he was in good shape for a man of eighty-eight, but that qualifier made all the difference.
At least he could still fish. That was something.
A pretty stretch of trout water spread out before him today. A beaver pond, it was, on a small stream high in the Lost River Mountains above Challis, Idaho, where Paul had lived for almost seventy years. The pond lay in a meadow, a pool of grass in the center of a big drainage between two pine and spruce-covered ridges. A stand of aspens glittered on the south-facing slope behind where Paul stood, casting his spinner repeatedly to the unseen trout.
He looked downstream to see his grandson, Matthew George, teaching Paul’s great-grandson Jacob to fly-fish. The boy was doing well for a twelve-year old.
Paul smiled a sardonic smile. Fly-fishing looked too much like work to him. He liked his old spinning rig. He had been catching trout with it since before Matt’s mother was born, and he would keep using it. Let’s face it, he told himself, it won’t be for much longer anyway, really.
Matthew looked upstream at the old man. “Any luck up there, Grandpa?” he called.
“Slow day,” Paul called back. He was tired. They had only walked about half a mile up a cow path from Matt’s truck, but Paul was an old man. Only a few years earlier he would not have been so tired after such a short walk, but things like that had a way of changing.
Melospiza melodia, the Song Sparrow.
“Let it be,” Paul whispered to himself, remembering a song that had been popular when he was a young man. “Let it be.” Somewhere off to his left, upstream, he heard a song sparrow singing.
It bothered Paul that his family wouldn’t let him come up here by himself anymore. He looked downstream. Matt and his wife and children were now, for all intents and purposes, all the family Paul had left; Matt was the only son of Paul’s only daughter. Paul’s wife Jean had died ten years earlier of a stroke, and their daughter Jennifer had followed her mother two years later – liver cancer.
Jenny’s widowed husband still lived in Challis, and Paul was on friendly terms with him, but he was not family. Not anymore. The connection was lost.
Matt was family. Little Jacob was family. Matt’s wife, a pretty young girl named Janice, she was family too. The family, they did not like Grandpa driving into the cold dark early-morning mountains alone, just to catch fish.
Fortunately, Matt and his son liked to fish, too.
Paul had made sure of that. He had taught Matt to fish, just as Paul’s grandfather had taught him to fish. That was a lifetime ago now on the Upper Iowa River, where he had been a boy. The song sparrow singing somewhere upstream brought back vivid memories of those times. Song sparrows sang all along the Upper Iowa every spring and summer, but they were not common in the Lost River Range.
There had been trout on the streams near the Upper Iowa, too, and in the river itself, smallmouth bass. With the distance of time, Paul remembered only the good days fishing in Iowa with his grandfather; he doubted today would be as productive as he remembered those days as being. The trout were not cooperating.
He reeled in his spinner, hooked it on the bottom guide on his rod, and sat down in the grass. He laid the rod in the grass next to him and shrugged off his fishing vest. It was enough to be out by the water, in the mountains, on a nice warm July day. He did not need many fish.
After a while, his great-grandson came to sit in the grass beside him. “It’s about lunchtime, Papa,” the boy said.
“I suppose so.”
The boy looked around. “I think Dad went back to the truck for the cooler.”
Paul frowned a little. He would not have wanted to make that brisk walk in the thin mountain air just now, a half-mile to the truck, carry the heavy cooler a half-mile back. Knowing his grandson would cover the distance easily, even lugging the cooler, did not make him feel any better.
Upstream, the song sparrow let out another burst of song.
“That always reminds me of when I was a boy,” Paul said.
“What’s that, Papa?”
“That bird singing up the creek.”
Jacob inclined his head, listening. “I don’t hear it.”
“Wait a bit,” Paul told him. “It’s a song sparrow. You don’t get many of them around here, but they sure were thick when I was a kid in Iowa.” He thought about that for a moment. “I can’t remember the last time I heard one. I didn’t think there were any this far west.”
Mountain Trout water.
“Did you fish streams like this?” Jacob had never been back east. The boy had spent his entire life in Idaho.
“No,” Paul said. “Not like this. My grandfather and I used to fish for smallmouth bass on the Upper Iowa River, near the town where I grew up.” He smiled at the memory. “Kendallville, the town was called. I haven’t been there in thirty years or so. There were trout streams around, too, bigger than this one. We caught rainbow and brown trout, not cutthroats.”
“We catch rainbows in the lakes sometimes,” Jacob observed with all the sagacity a twelve-year-old can muster.
“Yes,” Paul agreed. “They have German browns in the bigger streams sometimes, too. Rainbows and browns were pretty much the only trout we caught in Iowa, though. We would catch catfish in the bigger rivers, down in the Cedar or even over at the Mississippi. In the spring we would fish for white suckers when they would run up from the big rivers to spawn.”
Paul sat for a moment, not quite realizing how lost he was in the memory, not quite understanding how long it had been since he had thought of those places, those times, so long past now. “The Upper Iowa,” he went on, “it was different than these streams. There were not very many pines or firs, mostly oaks and hickories. The hills were lower, and there were these beautiful white limestone bluffs along the river in places. Not far from where we lived there were these big white limestone columns over the river, they called them chimney rocks.”
“Sounds neat, Papa. Do you think we could go there sometime? I’d like to see where you grew up.”
“I haven’t been there in forty years or so,” Paul said. “I wouldn’t mind seeing it one more time. We’ll have to talk about it with your folks.”
“Here comes Dad,” Jacob said.
Matthew plopped the plastic cooler in the grass a moment later and sat down next to it. He opened the cooler, rummaged inside. “You want ham and Swiss, Grandpa?”
“Sure, that’s fine.”
“Hannah put some tea in here for you too.” He handed Paul a wrapped sandwich and a bottle of cold tea.
“Thanks,” Paul said. He cocked his head, listening upstream. “There goes that song sparrow again. He’s sure staking out his ground.”
“Song sparrow?” Matthew asked. “I didn’t hear anything.”
Paul unwrapped his sandwich. “He’ll sing here again in a bit.”
“So, what were you two sitting here talking about?”
“Papa was telling me about fishing when he was little,” Jacob offered.
“The old Upper Iowa, eh?” Matthew smiled at his grandfather.
“And the Mississippi, and Bear Creek, Waterloo Creek, Paint Creek – I probably couldn’t remember them all if I tried.”
Upper Iowa Chimney Rocks.
“You met Grandma there, right?”
“I did.” He took a bite of his sandwich, chewed, and swallowed. “There was a little town, Highlandville, over east towards the Mississippi. There was an old one-room schoolhouse there, and they used to have local bands come play for dances. I met your Grandma at one of those.”
What a long time ago that was, he realized suddenly. Seventy years this fall. Seventy years. Where did the time go? It doesn’t seem like it has been seventy years.
“I was nineteen,” he went on, talking mostly to himself now. “Those dances, they started with a big potluck supper, and then the band would play until nobody had the steam to dance any more. That first time I saw your Grandma, she was wearing this big white frilly blouse and blue jeans. I thought she looked like a million bucks, and apparently, she didn’t think I looked too bad either, even if I was just a raggedy farm boy with cow shit on his boots. We danced until we were the only ones left dancing. I didn’t ever want to let her go. And I guess I never did.”
Until the stroke. Then I didn’t have any choice. Two weeks short of our sixtieth anniversary, too.
I wonder if there was a song sparrow singing that day, too?
He listened. As though on cue, the song sparrow upstream spilled out another torrent of notes.
“What was your grandfather like, Papa?” Jacob wanted to know.
Paul smiled. “He was everything a grandfather could be for a boy, I expect. Grandpa always wore these old hickory overalls, with a big silver pocket watch in the bib pocket. I can still see him standing on the riverbank with his old casting rod, an old engineer’s cap stuck on his head, grinning at me. He knew all the good spots along the river, knew where to go to catch bass, but he always said that it wasn’t just about catching fish – it was getting outside, out along the river, being out there. That was enough for Grandpa.”
He reached out and ruffled Jacob’s hair. “It’s enough for me, too.”
They sat silently then, as they slowly finished their lunch. Paul was lost in a haze of memory, as he reviewed places, events, times long lost. He wondered, what was making him think of all these things now, after so many years? His great-grandson’s questions had no doubt prompted his memory – or was it the song sparrow that even now sang just upstream, somewhere upstream?
Matthew brushed breadcrumbs from his hands. He stood up and picked up his fly rod. “Come on, Jake; let’s try that next pool downstream. Grandpa, do you want to walk along?”
“I’ll wait just here,” Paul said.
He watched as his grandson and great-grandson walked away down the cow path that paralleled the creek, finally disappearing around a rock outcrop where the creek turned to the west. Paul yawned. He really was tired; a nap in the grass, here in the warm sunshine, seemed a better idea than more fishing. He lay back in the grass and closed his eyes.
Some time later he awoke with a start.
It seemed no later in the afternoon; the sun still stood overhead. The song sparrow was still singing, even as Paul sat up, he heard it again, closer, it seemed.
He turned his head and looked upstream towards the source of the birdsong. He thought he saw wings fluttering in the streamside willows. The willows looked taller than he had remembered them.
Paul stood up and stretched. The nap had done him good; he no longer felt so tired, not like he had after the brief walk up from Matthew’s truck. He started to walk upstream, towards the call of the song sparrow.
Memory.
As he walked, it seemed like the landscape before him was changing, somehow. The willows at streamside seemed taller than he remembered; the little mountain stream seemed larger, smoother. The mountainside seemed lower, and the trees looked more like oaks and hickories than pines.
Odd, he thought. I don’t remember trees like this along here.
Off in the distance, where the snow-capped peaks of the Lost River Range should have stood, it seemed like Paul could see instead tall, gray-white columns of limestone. Up ahead, where a bank of gravel came down to the water, he saw another old man casting into the shallows. He was wearing old hickory overalls. A battered old engineer’s cap sat on his head. As Paul stopped, watching, the old man looked downstream at him. He smiled at Paul and waved.
Paul turned once and looked back. Downstream, the landscape looked as he had left it: the mountains, the pines, they were all there as they should be. He could even see himself, lying in the grass on the bank near the beaver pond.
He smiled again and turned to walk on upstream towards the old man, towards the sound of the song sparrow.
Disclaimer – stop to be sure-ing
Lost River Mountains – that is a real place. I googled. It did not sound like a real place
All I am saying is in Europe we would not lose a whole river.
That’s because you’ve been made poor, you can’t afford to misplace any. We’re so rich we can afford to misplace whole rivers and not notice.
Old and Lost Rivers.
Pretty good piece to listen to while reading this story, come to think of it.
nice story but was kind of sad… or it’s just me
Just wonderful, Animal. Shouldn’t be so dusty in here, dammit.
Strikes a real chord with me, since Pater Dean is in his early 80s, and our annual fishing trip with him has had some subtle changes to reflect that. He doesn’t go out on the boat any more – too tippy, his balance isn’t what it used to be. We take chairs with us now so he can take a break from standing. He doesn’t really wade much any more, either – too easy to get stuck or slip and fall. Fortunately, the fishing from the bank is plenty good enough.
Of course, I always fish with him, since its more fun that way and the whole point of the trip is to share time together.
I hear you. These days I’m the Old Man, although I’ve yet to have any of the kids feel like they have to make any allowances for me – if they did, I’d smack ’em, just to show ’em I still have it.
That last photo, by the way, is me and my Grandpa Baty, who was the model for Paul’s grandfather in the story. That photo is marked “July 1968” on the back.
Cool.
Thanks for sharing the story.
Its mostly things he has chosen to do, after a couple of close calls. If you fall into deep ice cold water wearing waders, your odds are not great. He came very close to drowning close to shore several years ago.
The chairs just kinda showed up in the back of my vehicle a few years ago.
Disclaimer: I do not and never have believed in a life after death.
I don’t either, not really. In my optimistic moments, I hope there is. Much more often, I hope there is not, because I have a fair idea that if there is, I won’t be on the escalator going up.
I feel like it’s almost arrogant or selfish to claim there is life after death. Is this not enough? Is it an excuse to waste the small precious thing we’ve been so fortunate to have?
I like Jordan Peterson’s answer that he conducts himself as if there is. No way of knowing, but living your life like there is certainly does have the potential for making this one more fulfilling.
I forgot which modern Protestant theologian said it, but he said there is a Heaven for those who follow Christ and Eternal Oblivion for those who don’t.
Can you upgrade that to Eternal Skyrim?
The after-life may be the memories we carry with us – heaven for some, hell for others.
“,,,I won’t be on the escalator going up.”
https://andywrasman.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/highway-vs-stairway.jpg?w=471&h=471
**sorry to go OT** I never watched the new Borat, I didn’t find the first one that funny, but the little I’ve seen from the Guliani scene, I agree with this analcyst.
I’m not crying. You’re crying.
Damn. This is the best one you’ve shared.
Thanks, Animal. Tomorrow is 22 years since I lost my gramps. Miss him every day. I still have the shotgun he gave me, although it’s gonna go to the boy soon.
Time goes too fast.
Agreed. Great short story Animal.
I envy those with that continuity. I never knew either grandfather, and my son only vaguely knew one of his (and not the better one).
I only knew my grandfather on my mom’s side. He was an avid hunter, not so much for fishing. That man taught me a lot.
Thanks for this. I’ve been feeling very nostalgic lately and this really matches my mood. There are two reasons.
First, some people from my high school class started a Facebook group and are having zoom meetings. Recently the put up a picture of one of my old classmates. She died of cancer when she was around 30, and everyone posted their memories of her.
Second, we have become close friends of my youngest kid’s birth mother (all my kids were adopted). Birth mom was supposed to have a baby right about now, but a few weeks ago that baby girl was stillborn. As we finished up the services in that very sad corner of the cemetery where they bury children, I noticed I was within site of my dad’s family plot. His mom and dad and siblings are all buried there. I still don’t know exactly where, but the place looked very familiar and dad verified that was the place. 40 years after we buried my grandfather and there I was in the same place, with a completely different family.
Great story, well told. I have some good memories of my grandpa, some of fishing with him. He loved fishing (mostly in the lakes around the home town from his little aluminum boat), and took me with him a few times. I wish it had been more. We also got to fish in the Atlantic, and in calmer coastal waters as well. I never really picked up the fishing hobby. Some day I hope to try it again and see how I like it.
https://www.oann.com/biden-plans-to-meet-with-governors-to-initiate-nationwide-mask-mandates/
Kung flu ain’t over yet. Gropey wants to drag out it through 2021 and beyond.
Power is a hell of a drug.
YOU CAN PROTEST!
YOU CAN’T PROTEST!
—-
WALMART MUST STAY OPEN!
ALL SMALL SHOPS MUST CLOSE!
Good story.
I like the pictures. It’s tough to pick a favorite: The old timey-picture of you and your grandfather, or the chimney rocks picture.
I sure wish there were an afterlife of some sort. Being raised Roman Catholic, of course, I was taught to believe in one. Having seen no evidence that I can credit, unfortunately, I don’t much, anymore.
But the thought can be comforting. Shortly after I lost my long-time best buddy cat, I dreamed that I saw my parents together, and my cat wandered up to them and mewed “hi,” and they welcomed him and gave him attention.
“You die twice” is an interesting point of view on it.
Even that I disagree with. I prefer:
“Children is the closest thing we have to immortality.”
We’re all parts and pieces of our ancestors. We’re also parts and pieces of the environments we’re exposed to. I like to think that we all start out as ingot, the metal made from our bloodlines. You don’t get to choose the first strikes of the hammer but after a while you can start choosing what shape you’ll take.
I sure wish there were an afterlife of some sort.
When I’m being all gloomy and introspective, I tend to land on “I wouldn’t respect any heaven that would have me.”
I guess that assumes that there is some measure of judgment involved in determining whether there is a heaven or hell or whatever. What if there were duality, and nothing else? A separable consciousness that can roam the universe, or not, at will? Subject not to hunger or disease, or fear, but simply able to see the universe as it is, and to understand.
Of course, I suppose that would require that thermodynamics be refuted, so, I guess there’s not much hope. But then, it’s still possibly comforting. More so than the void.
I know some people might think they prefer the void, but I can’t see the draw.
As Bokonon reminds us:
Tiger got to hunt,
Bird got to fly;
Man got to sit and wonder, “Why, why, why?”
Tiger got to sleep,
Bird got to land;
Man got to tell himself he understand.
Funny how we equate an afterlife with judgement about our lives in this plane. Even karma, to a lesser degree.
It is, isn’t it? No particular reason why afterlife and judgment should go hand in hand, but I guess all that early exposure to Heaven/Purgatory/Hell set my “thinking” on it. Which mostly occurs late at night when I’m nursing one scotch too many and cataloguing my errors and regrets, again.
I remember once having a conversation on this topic with someone who asked me, absent any belief in an afterlife, “how anything can have any meaning?”
I didn’t answer with my first inclination, “what a stupid question,” but instead gave a more thoughtful answer, basically “Are you kidding? Every day is precious. Every hour is golden. This is all I get, so I’m making the most of it. Every moment has meaning.”
I think the question is apt.
If “meaning” only comes from people, then meaning is temporally limited which is counter to the connotation of “meaning.”
Existentialism is for cowards who can’t handle Nihilism.
Existentialism is for cowards who can’t handle Nihilism.-
Nihilism got a bad rap from the big Lebowski. It’s a very liberating idea.
Answer by stabbing him in the arm with a pencil. Pain aversion gives a lot of meaning to life.
I think it has to do with the stark contrast between the perfection that the afterlife is perceived as and the woefully imperfect people sent on to the afterlife. To paraphrase a contemporary political thought, hopefully all of the
CaliforniansFuckups that are moving toTexasHeaven don’t bring theirshitty votingimmoral ways here.I’m banking on immortality myself
We were discussing college rankings a week or so ago and UCS suggested his idea.
Here is ROI: https://cew.georgetown.edu/cew-reports/collegeroi/
I selected 4 year and Bachelor’s. On the additional filter, Doctoral – very high. This gets you to the schools you would expect, gets rid of the pharmacy schools. I sort by 40 year NPV.
Interesting is to notice the difference between 10 year ranking and 40 year ranking. Some very expensive schools take some time to get going.
Reading through that, I never realized just how much of a difference it makes to have a degree in engineering vs. the median. I mean, of course I knew, but seeing it in that data format makes it really clear that there are college educations, and there are college educations.
Sometimes I struggle with the discussions of “is a college degree really worth it?” because from my perspective, of course it is. But earning an engineering degree really does pay off, far more than some other majors. There really is a major split between various majors.
I do have friends and family who make lots more than I do, even with liberal arts degrees, but it seems that their degrees only opened the first doors for them, and everything since them has been their ability to perform or navigate the structure of the businesses they are in. Over time, what really pays off is advancement, either through hard work, or less palatable practices.
In terms of the job market, a bachelors degree is a signal that this person
1. Can show up on time, can be trusted to work without constant supervision, has rudimentary time management and organizational prowess, can interact with others in a professional manner, etc.
2. Can be trusted to perform knowledge work to a consistent standard (if you can write a paper to a professor’s rubric, you can write a presentation to your bosses expectations.)
Duke Power is probably one of the most damaging things to ever happen to the country in terms of social mobility. If I could only strike down five Supreme Court cases, it would probably be one of them.
I don’t have an overabundance of respect for Burger, though he was at least marginally better than the pinko Warren, but he didn’t say in Griggs v. Duke Power that college degrees were the end-all, be-all of race-neutral hiring criteria. In fact, he said the exact opposite of how that case has been interpreted:
The words he wrote there don’t override the actual legal precedent he set in practice. Yes, in theory a company could still use a company aptitude test, or a standardized test of some kind. But in reality the shield you have is to take the SAT, launder it in a 4 year degree, and use that as an intelligence proxy.
Kind of like qualified immunity growing out of Harlow.
Yeah, as it turns out, high-minded naive optimism doesn’t work out well in practice. You get more of what you reward and less of what you punish is an Iron Law, after all. Punish general aptitude tests of one sort, and people will find those of another sort. Fail to reward “better” alternatives (because you can’t really find them) and you end up where we are, arguably more racially disparate than before.
Primarily STEM schools are at the top. The degree program matters more than school, in most cases.
It’s more correct to say there is ‘vocational training’ and there is ‘college education’. Think about what the word ‘liberal’ means in the phrase ‘liberal arts’. (No, it has nothing to do with politics.)
Weren’t most of the early universities set up to train ministers?
The phrase ‘early universities’ could refer to any number of places and points in history, but the question still would make sense.
Yes, theology was always the king of academic disciplines. However, you also saw jurisprudence and medicine as contemporary disciplines, the study of all 3 having a prerequisite of a solid grounding in the original liberal arts.
The phrase ‘early universities’ could refer to any number of places and points in history – the first ever was the ENgineeing School of Sarmizegetusa in 62 BC. the standardizes the curvature of the falx
Nalanda has it beat by around 450 years.
I read that as Wakanda at first.
If you’re referring to the British North American colonies, then yes.
Absolutely.
That’s where the self-perpetuating stereotype of the rowdy student/ town v. gown conflict came about.
Students were clergy and as such not subject to civil law.
Of course, you are correct here. I guess I mean to say, like robc above, that the program matters. Some see engineering programs as more like vocational training than the liberal arts, and that is true to a degree. However, what many people miss is the fact that engineering curricula, even the best ones, aren’t job training in the sense that they teach you the procedures and tools to do a narrow range of tasks. They teach a broad range of concepts and techniques, and a little bit of how to apply them, but it’s up to the graduate to make the real application and complete their engineering wisdom through practice and continuing learning.
Few people outside of engineering realize how green and inexperienced engineers right out of school are. In fact, knowing it scares me a bit when considering medical interns and residents!
I think (hope) medical school is a bit more vocational than engineering school was.
You should be worried. I have several medical doctors in the family and the overriding message from them is never let anyone take you to a teaching hospital in an emergency.
“never let anyone take you to a teaching hospital in an emergency.”
What a basket of puss.
I say – only go to teaching hospitals – it’s the only way they can learn.
Again, I say, ass, gass, or grass – I don’t ‘teach’ for free.
There’s two kinds of teaching hospitals – academic medical centers affiliated with medical schools, and hospitals that have residency programs, which can range from a handful of new docs to dozens of them.
As far as hospitals with residency programs go, the mantra is “avoid like the plague in July, because that’s when most of the first year residents show up.”
An on-call resident nearly killed me. Wouldn’t answer the page from the nurses when I was dying of septic shock, which caused a delay in getting me to the ICU and emergency care. Septic shock was from a fucked up surgery that she participated in. I’m positive she was dismissed from the attending’s service immediately following that because I never saw her again.
she was dismissed from the attending’s service immediately – I blame misogyny
Yes, newly minted “engineers” are generally worthless for a year or two. Industry experience is irreplaceable.
We had an engineering major from Brown(?) in California as a deck hand a couple of years ago. She seemed very bright. Had an excellent resume. She was looking to apply practical applications of engineering to what she’d learned. She could recite formulas and theorems all day long. She was bat shit crazy, couldn’t fill the gap between a theory and reality, had to argue with EVERYONE (especially about SJW bullshit) and had possibly the WORST work ethic ever.
It was amusing watching her try to talk down to 2 Vietnam vets (Captain and cook) about politics and engineering. One was a former Seabee and the other was a former Army Captain, both with long careers in engineering and maintenance. What an idiot. We had to kick her off the boat mid-season.
Good engineers are all about identifying problems and finding the resources to solve them. The capability to track down and implement new things you’ve never heard of before and effectively utilize the existing knowledge of others is invaluable.
Bad engineers already know the answers to everything.
“Bad engineers already know the answers to everything.”
I know a PE who owns his own firm who is one of the dumbest people alive. And that is not an exaggeration. He is shockingly dumb.
You waited until you were in port, hopefully.
Yes. I wanted to kick her off early season in Seattle, but the Captain was a softy. he later told me he’ll never make that mistake again.
Yes. I wanted to kick her off early season in Seattle, but the Captain was a softy. he later told me he’ll never make that mistake again.
What happened to the liberal arts? It has gotten to the point that calling them the illiberal arts would be more than just a not-very-clever pun.
No Greek, no Latin, no classics, no trivium, and of the quadrivium maybe only music remains, and even then at a simplistic level. The average graduate of a state college liberal arts curriculum would be outcompeted on say grammar or mathematics by someone who received a high school diploma in 1950.
This might sound trite, but it’s true – Progressives. Of course, I’m talking about the early 20th Century eugenics ones. Read the “Saber-Tooth Curriculum,” which was the first stabwound into bodies of the 7 Muses.
Interesting. In the longer scrapped version of what I wrote above, making the curriculum more approachable for a wider audience and contemporary so as to not scare them away was part of my theory of causation.
The analogy to paleolithic hunting is quite inapt. Grammar never ceases to matter, though it does change over time. Failing to study arithmetic because you have a computer to do it for you is a great folly; the computer is only as good as its operator and programmer.
making the curriculum more approachable for a wider audience
The paradox of standards (by which eliteness is defined) and access (broadness by which eliteness is destroyed). Lasch talks about that.
The Trivium is alive and well, just updated and relevant.
Grammar: Grammar is racist
Rhetoric: How to Identify Hate Speech 101
Logic: Why Argument From Authority is the only SCIENCE-based logic
Why Argument From Authority is the only SCIENCE-based logic and this is irrelevant anyways caus feelings matter not “arguments” which are a form of patriarchy
Somewhat like the unholy merger of capitalists and social conservatives decades ago, the merger of the IFLS and BLM types today raises interesting questions that nobody inside the system has any curiosity about or freedom to answer. How two fundamentally opposed epistemologies can coexist in a single mind, I do not know.
Lysenko has some answers for you.
fundamentally opposed epistemologies – are they though?
fundamentally opposed epistemologies – are they though?
That is an interesting question. On the face of it, yes. Science is based on empiricism, i.e. using observation and manipulation of the natural world to discern truth. “Anti-racism” is based on received knowledge, i.e. using anecdote, narrative, and personal experience to discern truth.
Both of these systems have their faults. Empiricism requires the thing being studied to operate on consistent rules, and for the method of experimentation to isolate a single rule to test at a time. It is a poor assessor and predictor of human behavior because humans have free will. Received knowledge, on the other hand, requires a universality of experience, or else it descends into factionalism. It is a poor assessor and predictor of the natural world because natural laws don’t care about feelings.
In practice, however, the IFLS types infuse plenty of received knowledge into their worldview, and the BLM types appeal to plenty of empirical-sounding arguments, whether testable/tested or not (and both of these labels are broad and somewhat inaccurate, but I think the gist of the argument remains). The prevailing epistemology seems to be a function of the moment. When COVID hit, quasi-empiricism took over, then when Floyd was shot, it was thrown out the window temporarily in favor of but this is just so important.
IFLS types have nothing to do with science. They like pretty pictures on the internet and social signaling. Actual hard science got very few shares by the IFLS crowd.
People engaged day-to-day in hard science don’t make up enough voters to matter. IFLS, which as I said is a bit inaccurate anyway, encompasses a lot more people and is a significant chunk of, for example, the Democratic Party’s support.
yes but they don’t follow a science epistemology so they not so different from blm imo
Well, fair point. For them, it’s about doing what “smart people” say. So, you’re right, they are the same: mostly received knowledge, in its degenerate form with lots of factionalism, with a sprinkling of cherry-picked empirical statements included for effect.
Not really.
BLM = If you disagree with me, you need to be shut up because you’re racist.
IFLS = If you disagree with me, you need to be shut up because you’re anti-science.
My kids’ school goes from 193 at the 10 year NPV to 19 at the 40 year ranking. Pretty good, all the way around.
Thanks! This is really interesting.
Mine is the top public school after my filters. The top 10 are all private and we come in at #11. Or in the wider rankings #96 at 10 year and #27 at 40 years. Of course, that is assuming you were in state. Paying out-of-state tuition, my numbers arent as good.
True. My kids are paying out of state, so that will impact.
But it suggests, nevertheless, that this particular engineering school wasn’t a retarded choice!
If we do end up moving to Colorado some day, my daughter may get pushed towards there (assuming lots of things)!
United States Merchant Marine Academy NY 4-year Bachelor’s Public 20 28 $298,000
DAAAAAAAMN! That’s a lot of loot. Granted, you’re stuck out at sea a lot.
Imagine what the earnings will be for interplanetary freight captains.
I don’t think it’s going to be horrible. I’m leaning more on a mix of cold/living arks. The movie “Passengers” wasn’t the greatest but the SCIFI idea behind the ark they were on seems more probable. Rotating crews in and out of sleep. “Pandorum” did an interesting twist on that type of ark. But, you never know. Superluminal flight may be just a few break throughs away.
Cal State Maritime is just ahead of Cal Tech the whole way. Its hard to overcome that private school tuition cost.
Which means you won’t have a ton of opportunities to spend it until you’re ready to retire.
Really really great. My grandfather fished too. I never really liked fishing, but I always liked going fishing with him. He would get up early, drive deep into the mountains, get out and start walking up trails. He retired I guess it would have been the late 70s and he fished every single trout stream in a 100 mile radius of Harrisonburg VA. He knew every single spot. He’d go to the hatchery with donuts or a couple pizzas, bring them into the office, and they’d let him run a Xerox copy of the stocking schedule so he could be the first one onto the new batch.
As he got older, he couldn’t see as well, and so he had to stick closer at home. That really sucked, because he was a trout guy all the way. He didn’t really care for dropping a line in the ponds and lakes as much. When we were really little, that’s what we did but as soon as we were old enough we’d go with him up the mountains.
Looks like they’ll be tapping good old Mittens for the maybe yes maybe no incoming administration:
https://buffalochronicle.com/2020/11/07/mitt-romney-has-been-asked-to-lead-health-and-human-services-in-biden-administration/
Good, get that dickhead out of the senate.
Yeah that’s actually absolutely wonderful news. You don’t want “Mitt Romney crosses the aisle to advance Green New Deal” headlines, you want “Secretary of HHS Romney gives press conference.” headlines.
Utah was the only state where Evan McMullin got significant support. If they replace Romney, I would expect an equally squishy Republican.
But then Trump got massive support this time. I’d argue that a large part of the McMuffin appeal in 2016 was the attack line that Trump was a New York liberal pretending to be a Republican. Where as McMuffin was an establishment conservative with impeccable manners and demeanor.
In 2016
515,231 310,676 243,690
In 2020
685,707 440,012
Maybe. But, I suspect that both McMullin’s and Romney’s success in Utah has more to do with faith than politics.
People fail to realize how big the name Romney is in Utah. They are one of the Patrician Families in Utah Politics, and Mitt is the Golden Boy.
That being said, his currency has collapsed in value over the last 2 years since his election.
Huh, I never knew McMullin was a Mormon until now. That makes some sense. Though, given that, it is odd that he’s not married.
Back when I was still a practicing Mormon, one of my friends was a Temple Recommend toting Mormon who appeared to me to be just about the gayest thing since gay came to gaytown. Not sure if he was deep in denial, or just closeted enough that he didn’t feel comfortable coming out to me, instead of giving me just a hint here and there. Like how he moved to Hawaii because he really really wasn’t fitting in in Utah.
I have a friend who was a Baptist preacher with two kids. He tells me that he honestly didn’t know he was gay.
He’s still a Baptist, though no longer a preacher or married.
Similar story with an old friend of mine — went through college together, and even roomed together for one summer prior to going to graduate studies in Vancouver. Was always pissing and moaning about how every girl he dated ultimately dumped him. Years later, came out as gay (though I suspect he was actually bi). Unfortunately, he came out as gay and lived the lifestyle in Vancouver’s West End during the mid-to-late-80s, which was possibly the worst place and time in Canada to do so if you didn’t want to get AIDS.
He got AIDS. Died of an AIDS-related illness in the early Oughts.
AFAIK, Mike Lee isn’t a RINO.
Mitt Romney got elected due to name recognition, and stuff he’s done like organizing a Winter Olympics in Utah.
Evan McMullin happened because Mormons were uncomfortable with Trump not being a social conservative.
Pretty much. A lot of suspicion of Trump, and there is a very large urge in Utah culture to feel “Acceptable” to the rest of the country. I’m fine if they look at us like we are freaks, if it keeps the Californians away.
I’ve heard SLC is getting Blue enough that the rest of the state might eventually join CO, NM, NV, and now AZ. It happens quicker than you might think – 45% Democrats appears Deep Red, 55% appears Deep Blue. I’m in a new housing development, and about half the cars that first show up in a new build’s driveway are from Blue states.
Pretty much. SLC is a shitshow, and While UT will remain Red for an election cycle or two… I could see it becoming very purple in 10 more years.
Granted it’s still a small state electoral wise, so maybe the Dems will overlook it. After the next census we _might_ have 5 reps.
Ah yes, the Pennsylvania strategy.
My father turned 86 last week. My mother is also 86. The inevitable is coming.
My grandfather was 89 when he passed away in 1975 (yes he was born in 1886). His father was born in the 1840’s. And his father (grandfather’s grandfather) was born in the 1810s. So they spanned 120 years over the three generations between grandfather’s grandfather and my father.
Great story Animal. I love all of your stuff.
Similar to me, Grandfather born in 1892, his father in 1852, his father 1803.
I’ve been on a media blackout (other than you guys) for the past few days. Watching Cavuto on Fox over lunch – WTF happened with this network – it’s like they have gone full-tilt anti-Trump and are behaving as though Biden is already President.
Cavuto has been anti-Trump for a while. He’s been on full COVID freakout, particularly ever since his “YOU WILL DIE IF YOUTAKE HCQ” spiel.
Animal, that was lovely. Thank you.
It is interesting that you felt a need to disclaim believing in an afterlife before a piece of fiction. I find that the most poignant part of it.
I guess the point I was (awkwardly) making was that I didn’t necessarily have to believe in an afterlife to make a good story that depends on it.
But you shouldn’t feel compelled to tell your readers. 😉
Normally I wouldn’t. But this is different; I’m presenting not to the general public but to a group of friends.
Good move. I would’ve hated the story and you if you wrote it while believing in the afterlife. ?
Really?
really?
I would have preferred you not have the disclaimer. It kind of was a spoiler. I knew from the first paragraph the old man was going to die. Still a great story. Thank you for continuing contributing so much for us to read gratis.
Question:
Do you believe in life after love?
That information is too personal for me to cher.
So you are not strong enough now?
Not since I lost my sonny disposition.
Must be because you haven’t given all man a chance.
These puns are gypping me. I feel tramped and thieved from.
…like your chastity has been stolen?
Yes, and all that other chaz.
😀
/taps out
Swiss, his eyes reduced to slits.
Tim Dillon continues to slap.
Shaquille O’atmeal on that thread is the best avatar ever. Bravo to that guy.
Tim Dillon is the best right now.
he needs some glibfit
He’s keto.
Speaking of keto, buy Magic Spoon!
So, for all the haranguing about shenanigans in PA, this is informative.
Just to focus on my county, York, Trump underperformed relative to 2016. And turnout this year was way above that year. I have to think that at least SOME of the Trump ’16 vote was vehement anti-Hillary, and voters this year were nowhere near as anti-Biden. Oddly enough, Trump has done better this year in Philadelphia county.
Hmmm… FWIW, I was, as you say, more anti-Hilary than I am anti-Biden. However, I’ve never been more anti-Democrat in my life, and I’ve been very much purple until this election. 2020 is the most motivated I’ve ever been as a voter.
?
2020 is the most motivated I’ve ever been as a voter. – so it is your fault you jinxed it
When is your preview of the upcoming Romanian elections?
Aint no time to write that till then
Can’t be. It’s my fault.
If the “Pick Mitt Romney” and “Dick Chenny” rumors are true, then the DNC didn’t win the election, the Never Trumpers did.
Bill Krystol will make a fine Secretary of State won’t he?
So we get GWB’s fifth term / Barry’s third term.
Yup. Antifa should be rioting still, but they have been duped
Footage of Azerbaijan shooting down a Russian helo over Armenia proper:
https://twitter.com/Zinvor/status/1325853102709334017
The Russians tend to be pretty measured but this could get interesting.
So where does Biden first get us into conflict? NK? Armenia? or do we boots on ground in Syria, and then hit Iran?
Syria, no doubt. The Dems have had a murder Assad hard on for eight years now.
See, i’m split between NK and Syria. Syria seems like mostly the Dems want to forget about it, and NK would be a way to “show up Trump” and saber rattle against China.
But Syria would be a poke in the eye of Russia, something that might play off to the base.
It will be Syria. Lower perceived risk for them, high domestic value as a “spreading peace” and “saving brown people” by bombing them.
Even the Dems aren’t stupid enough to kick the NK hornets nest.
Yes, but Biden’s tone during the debates towards NK was worrisome.
If I thought Biden was actually in charge of anything, I’d be terrified.
If that really does happen the blowback will not be pretty and the Russians will be sitting in Kiev within two weeks.
Oh, absolutely.
If this is what destroys NATO, then so be it.
I’d rather keep NATO around myself
In my opinion, the addition of former Warsaw Pact countries into NATO is a primary cause of soured relations between the US and the Russian Federation.
Well that would not have been a problem had Russian been nuked when it should have.
“Russia, too big to ignore, too big to occupy.”
Hey… Are we the baddies?
There’s not any serious student of history who could suggest otherwise with a straight face. NATO extends past both the Vistula, and the Danube, which has been for literally hundreds of years the strategic sphere of the Russians. The attempt by the foreign policy elite in DC to try to keep pushing east, to move Ukraine into NATO, is too stupid for words.
Does the Black Sea count?
The Black sea is innumerate
That got a LOL
But without NATO, who will make it so ammo is in Metric?
Now that would be ironic – NATO dying on the Biden watch.
Oops! Tragedy Strikes As Kamala Throws Biden A Surprise Victory Party
LoL Spot on.
that part captures her perfectly.
https://babylonbee.com/news/republicans-nervous-roe-v-wade-could-be-overturned-eliminating-any-reason-to-vote-for-them
the Bee isn’t really doing satire very well anymore.
Sometimes the point really is beyond parody.
But no one could hear him when he announced it.
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben Carson tested positive for the coronavirus, his office announced Monday.
The news was confirmed by Carson’s chief of staff, Coalter Baker in a statement to ABC News.
“He is in good spirits and feels fortunate to have access to effective therapeutics which aid and markedly speed his recovery,” Baker said.
My new monitors arrived.
Why do they keep making monitors wider and wider? They don’t appear to be sufficiently tall
At least one works, I hooked up my bluray/dvd player to it to test the video. Now I have to move the computers, but that requires waiting until after work and my walk.
take the computer on the walk with you
More
PIXELSHIGHER DEF!!!!1111!11111*Starts video nerd rant about how most ‘pixelation’ of online videos isn’t about resolution, but about bitrate and that a 4K doesn’t really matter at the viewing distance of a PC monitor*
These are cheap(er) monitors, they’re only 2K.
Turn it on its side.
Because Trump brewed it himself…
@NYGovCuomo says it’s “bad news” Pfizer’s Covid vaccine came during the Trump Admin; says he’s going to work w/ other governors to “stop” distribution “before it does damage”
If I were Pfizer, I might be placing a few phone calls to the governor’s office about now. Cuomo is a fucking idiot.
https://www.pfizer.com/science/research-development/centers/ny_pearl_river
He doesn’t strike me as stupid. Just Pernicious.
He is nakedly corrupt. Unfortunately, after ten generations of Tammany Hall, NY’ers don’t see anything wrong or abnormal about corruption.
Example: Cuomo went to the tribes htat have casinos and said “give us x% of your slots revenues, or we’ll legalize gambling… but only in locations where you have yours” The Injun accountants said that the protectio money was worth it.
Not only does Cuomo not deny this extortion, he celebrates it as a major accomplishment and a great example of “partnership.”
He also gives out an award every year to the region of the state that spends all of their tax money first. I am not making this up.
He’d just turn his idiot brother loose on them.
Listening to his bullshit, he’s saying that the vaccination effort should be federalized and not use private medical channels to vaccinate “330,000,000” people.
That would imply that he intends to use police and or military to forcibly vaccinate potentially unwilling participants.
I think that’s worse than the “stop vaccine distribution” interpretation.
We all know, that if the military can be trusted about anything, it’s about forcibly vaccinating people.
Regardless, what’s he’s trying to do is assume control of the vaccine distribution so the Democrats can claim credit for it. The Trump distribution plan obviously would have killed people.
This may be one of the most cynical political stunts of all time.
Something, something, Bastiat.
“Wait til I get going. Now, where was I?”
Wait until you see 2021’s version of the little Jewish boy with his hands up in the Warsaw Ghetto as the NYPD holds him at gunpoint while being vaxxed.
Thanks Animal. AS I walked to my deer stand this morning I was lagging behind my partner, I couldn’t keep up. As I read your article it was like looking in a mirror. Things I don’t necessarily want to be reminded of are becoming more evident, even as I try to pretend. I didn’t get my boat in the water this year, between Covid and fewer friends these days. We quit the annual Canadian trips 2 years ago, I was watching my friends and I knew they were watching me. Accidents waiting to happen.
Great story, reminding me of my own mortality and I still have some things that need being done.
https://pjmedia.com/election/rick-moran/2020/11/08/media-cheered-on-stacey-abrams-for-challenging-election-but-trashes-trump-for-same-thing-n1131435
I have a hard time with conservatives that still insist on pointing out “double standards” with the media. Yeah they aren’t fair. And your never going to brow-beat them into being fair. rather than that, just use the double standard to point out that the Media are liars, not hypocrites.
Republicans : voter fraud :: Democrats : voter suppression
At the end of the day, if appealing to apparent hypocrisy doesn’t work (and it almost never does), then you’re better off setting up parallel infrastructure. The AP, the foreign press, and the mainstream media are all in the tank for one side. They’re too far gone to convince to change their minds, and they’re unlikely to let someone else in to skinsuit them in reverse.
You have to press the offensive somewhere, just where though? ABC is claiming that no modern day president had never not conceded on election night and people gobble it up. Just 2 years ago Abrams was doing what is highlighted here. All the democratic machine and media are telling 70+ million Americans they are racist and will be put on lists if they don’t accept this election right now, no questions asked.
“ABC is claiming that no modern day president had never not conceded on election night and people gobble it up”
Al Gore didn’t end up winning, so this is of course, technically true.
No modern day President has ever killed it in the bellwether counties and states, gained House seats, state legislatures, and governors, and somehow lost either.
They really need him to concede to complete the coup.
Or, hell, just disengage. If TM is TE, there’s no level of engagement that fixes the issue. They’ll drown out any attempts to mass boycott. They’ll never change no matter how browbeat. They have no shame to feel. Short of skinsuiting them, the only option is to ignore them and anybody who is caught up in their narrative.
It is strange how we ended up here. TMITE and yet why? Because they claim to know, to answer, to say definitively what the truth is. But where did they get this arrogance from? This is the country of William Randolph Hearst and tabloids and yellow journalism and muckracking. When did the media become so utterly boring, uniform, and trite?
Whenever it was, the trend took off at light speed when social media started displacing traditional outlets. They all rushed to be the news outlet with the most likes.
That is an interesting paradox. At the same time news media could be infinitely more diverse in opinion, activity, and information content, instead they consolidated.