My, my, yesterday I had to race home from a walk to beat a lightning storm. Today, Saturday morning, I woke up to the sound of pounding rain. Well, it’s approaching the ‘crack of dawn’ and my Coffee is ready. This means I too am ready to beginning this Rambling.

Breaking News – well, at least news that is not that old: MUFON has set up Permanent Headquarters in Cincinnati.

So what is MUFON you ask? At a time when our little town is struggling as much as any other city we grabbed MUFON. With more than 600 trained investigators and 4,200 members across the world to investigate UFO sightings all UFO sighting photographs will be ‘smudged’ into faintly visible, black & white, grainy pictures; each made ready for distribution right here in Cin-City. See, MUFON stands for the Mutual UFO Network. Welcome to town boys, things are looking up (pun). 

The Corner of Calm & Mundane – had stayed this way for three complete weeks; till Thursday that is. Returning from some exercise I noticed a wall of large ‘Cherry-picker’ style trucks surrounding our building.

The first thing that came through my mind was a mental image of people seeing the arrival of Hannibal (the ancient Carthaginian general), as he crossed the Alps using Elephants. His was to lay siege on Sagunto, Spain, but what I saw was a ‘siege’ on our unsuspecting home.

In reality it was any number of orange traffic cones moving the traffic lanes into confusing swirls. Then, there were five of the truck on the side and in front of our place (these the modern day ‘elephants’). It was something with the underground telephone system further down the road. Why ‘Cherry pickers’ I still don’t know. By rush hour they had disappeared – I guess the ‘battle’ had been won.

Our Climate – This week I came across a quote by climate panic ‘wunderkind’ Greta Thunberg, still the most prominent face of the hysterical climate-change bunch (man controlled of course). What made her latest quote cause my ‘antenna’ (staying with the MUFON theme) to twitch was the less than subtle change in the Climate alarmism drum beat:

” The climate crisis is not just about the environment. It is a crisis of human rights, of justice and of political will. Colonial, racist and patriarchal systems of oppression have created and fueled it. We need to dismantle them all.” ~ Greta Thunberg

It’s moved beyond the ‘nothing-burger’ of the “12-years to the end” climate nonsense into a pure Marxist trope. As has been said better than I could; “None of that is morally or rationally coherent. But it is very emotionally satisfying.”

Using the title from Jimmy Buffet’s: A Love Song (From A Different Point Of View), these are the earnest words from actor Leonard Nimoy spoken a mere handful of years ago. How quickly we forget:

Shock – well not really so much; I was wondering when I’d receive the notification. Let me back up. September 2019 was the last time I saw Northern Comfort. Everything was tucked in its regular winter hiatus. The dock was cantilevered out of the lake, the pontoon and little Sea Nymph stored and ‘tarped’ securely. Mentally we were already preparing for the 2020 season.

Then the Wuhan virus hit. Panic struck, and governments across the world made one horrific decision after another.

Worst was the turning over of life as we knew it to a handful of friendly ‘health’ professionals; while simultaneously shutting down all other voices. Couple that with the emergence of a breed of dictatorial potentates; these emerged in a stealth manner akin to the Cicadas we saw this spring. And they absolutely worshiped themselves in their new ‘power’ roles.

Quickly the border leading to our Northern Comfort was closed (‘sealed’ is the better word). And now for two seasons we’ve been, by force, prevented from even checking up on the place. So what’s the “shock”? It was the receipt of the twice yearly Property Tax bill. These Dictators across nations, States, Provinces, and Cities, have shut everything not to their liking, and kept anything they wanted in use and viable. They’ve killed economies, they’ve killed off lifetimes of toil and effort, they’ve killed off minimally a year’s worth of learning from our youths, and killed off thousands upon thousands of elderly by horrible edicts (all because of a virus which by the way, has a 95% – 99% survivability especially if there are no underlying issues).

Yet, they and their cronies live almost better than prior to the Wuhan thing as their personal revenue stream never slowed. But those continuing paychecks cost real money. Hence, receiving this Property Tax bill has become another “slap in the face”. Worst of all, we’re almost powerless to react.

The latest whim (none of this has been based on ‘science’) is that sometime after mid-August the border ‘could’ open. Maybe if we all kneel and curtsey while screaming “THANK YOU” in unison it will really happen; prostrate.

Missing “Vinyl Tap” – After approaching nearly a decade of me listening for two hours most Saturday evenings it’s come to the end of “Vinyl Tap,” the radio show hosted by guitarist Randy Bachman.

Bachman was a founding member of the Guess Who and Bachman-Turner Overdrive bands and played with virtually every musician of note since.

Every Saturday evening was filled with ‘bits’ on classic rock, jazz and contemporary pop alongside reflections on the ‘insides’ of the music industry.

Until the ‘plug’ was pulled on this hugely popular Canadian Broadcasting (CBC) show, the mainstay of their weekend lineup. But, some desk jockey at the government funded CBC thought the better and canned to show. Now I’m waiting to see where Randy re-emerges, ‘cause he will.

Fini –
• Just thought you’d want to know that Tim Hale, an Army reservist, walked through an open door into the halls of Congress on January 6; he did no harm, he chanted. Hale has been incarcerated for six months. Transported to 6 different jails before arriving in DC Jail. Now the DOJ wants him to cop to the one felony count of obstruction. At hearing, Judge: “Pretty old case for defendant to be sitting in jail.” Really? Effin right!

• MLB, Major League Baseball’s All-Star game numbers were horrible. Why?

• NFL, why is the TV viewership declining?

• NBA, TV ratings continue to decline, why?

• As noted, professional sports ratings seem to be quickly heading for a ratings ‘cliff’. Possibly, just possibly, could it be that people refuse to be politically lectured by multimillionaire sports figures and be subjected to all sorts of Woke visuals by team management? Possibly even a companies such as Nike publicly declaring themselves as “Chinese”, are they playing a part?

• What’s a “Smoot”? Were you aware it’s a measurement? By way of a prank a fellow by the name of Oliver Smoot, as a lark by his MIT Fraternity, in October 1958 lay down repeatedly on the Harvard Bridge (between Boston and Cambridge, Massachusetts) so that his fraternity brothers could use his height to measure the length of the bridge. At 5’7” the 2,035 ft bridge was measured to be 364.4 smoots (+ 1 ear).

Best seen For Sale sign  this week while on a walk:

Daylight is here. The rain has stopped. Next post this epistle and then some breakfast. Make it great week people, keep the peace, be happy, stay safe, and head outdoors into the fresh air (the best way to stave of the Wuhan)!

Dirk