Charlie's Blog: 2026

6.14.2026

Some Recent Reflections On Thrive/Survive Mode

The seven beautiful kine, and the seven full ears, are seven years of plenty: and both contain the same meaning of the dream. And the seven lean and thin kine that came up after them, and the seven thin ears that were blasted with the burning wind, are seven years of famine to come: Which shall be fulfilled in this order: Behold, there shall come seven years of great plenty in the whole land of Egypt: After which shall follow other seven years of so great scarcity, that all the abundance before shall be forgotten: for the famine shall consume all the land,
GENESIS 41:26-30 DOUAY-RHEIMS

My thoughts have turned once again to things of an economic nature. My wife and I have read and watched various bits of content of people complaining about the affordability crisis, the respective fortunes of the various generations, and examples of people doing incredibly stupid things with their money. My perspective on these things comes from my evolution in my thinking about thrive and survive mode. I will now try to capture these thoughts and collect them into something coherent.

Thrive/Survive Mode

I have written about thrive mode and survive mode before. I no longer believe in thrive mode. Thrive mode is a fantasy and a fiction. Thrive mode is believing that the seven fat years will continue indefinitely into the future, and the lean years will never come. Yet, those who know the lean years are coming prepare for that inevitability by storing up from the fat years of plenty. That preparation is survive mode.

The smart strategy is to always live in survive mode. You should never be a grasshopper and always be an ant. You can't go wrong with this strategy. The people who claim otherwise will discuss opportunity costs. By being frugal, you might miss out on winning the lottery of life. To make it sting worse is that there are people who win the lottery of life. Their example represents the cheese in the mousetrap luring in the suckers who follow the example but end up with the mistake. The Roaring Twenties is a prime example of this folly as suckers piled in until the Crash of 1929. This yielded the Great Depression when the whole country found itself in survive mode. The smart ones never left survive mode.

Boomers

Survive mode ended with the Baby Boom generation. Post-World War II America was a time of prosperity and plenty when the generation forgot survival. The 1960s were a boom time which gave us the 1970s which were a bust time. We can point to Nixon taking us off the gold standard and the Vietnam War as catalysts for the hard times of the 1970s. Those ended with the Reagan/Volcker era of the 1980s. That was when the Boomers killed it financially. It was a good time to be alive, buy a house, and start a family. Because of those good times that ended sometime during the term of George W. Bush, subsequent generations have envy and spite for those prosperous Boomers. Today, many wealthy Boomers are enjoying lavish end of life vacations in Florida on pensions, retirement, and stock market returns goosed along with a fresh round of debt on new homes that they will never pay off in what is left of their lifetimes.

I don't share this resentment of these Boomers because I know that much of your good fortune depends on circumstances beyond your control. They were lucky and got to live in thrive mode for most of their lives. This is how you get the phenomenon of rich people who are stupid. I used to hear people say, "If you're so smart, why aren't you rich?" Today, I turn that around and ask the obvious question. If you're so rich, why aren't you smart?

The fastest route to poverty today is to take the advice of out of touch Boomers. They believe the fantasy that they made their prosperous lives by some act of will or genius on their part. The reality is they were lucky fools in the right place at the right time. Their run of luck is unrepeatable. This is why you should not listen to these people.

Gen X

Gen Xers like myself know the truth about Boomer prosperity. Ours was the first generation to know they were not going to be better off than their parents. I don't know of any Gen Xers that whine about this fact of life. My generation just accepted that life was going to be a bit tougher and grittier than our parents had it. This was also goosed along by the utter neglect of our parents who let their kids free range their way through life beginning in elementary school. I will say that I thought those years of neglect and freedom were awesome. People don't realize the blessings that come from having free range parents.

When life is tough, you learn to survive. I didn't have it as bad as my Great Depression surviving grandparents, but I am grateful to have lived in the time that I did which was a sort of halfway house between prosperity and adversity.

Millennials

The Millennials were the first generation to audibly begin whining. This whining resulted in "economic outpatient assistance" from their Boomer parents. Where Gen X suffered neglect, Millennials suffered from too much help. I call them "Generation Whine."

It feels weird to be sandwiched between Boomers and Millennials. As a Gen Xer, I don't lay the guilt trip on the Boomers. I just don't take their "wisdom" and advice. At the end of the day, those who aren't lucky have to be smart. That is Generation X.

Gen Z

Generation Z are the children of the Xers. All I can say is that Generation X has utterly failed at parenting. Where Boomers left their X children to roam the streets until the streetlights came on, Xers left their Z children to the world of tech and social media with the disastrous results you see today. The next time you see a gender confused Zillennial with a nose ring at the grocery store, know that X and Millennials had a hand in birthing that madness.

Gen Z is the first generation to be utterly detached from reality. They aspire to become "influencers" on social media and to be paid wages and salaries that are insane. They are a damned and doomed generation. If you doubt this, just look up from your smartphone and witness the other idiots glued to their smartphones. Generation Z lives entirely online and has done so for their entire lives. They see thrive mode as their birthright and cannot comprehend why no one wants to pay them big money.

The Thing That Cuts Across All The Generations

What all the generations after the Great Depression have in common is an over reliance on credit. The Depressioners learned that credit and debt was what got them into trouble in the first place. Consequently, they eschewed accumulating debt and learned to live within their means. They were fortunate in this regard while their children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren were unfortunate. But within these foolish generations are those who did get a clue and imitate those folks who survived the Great Depression. These are the ants.

My old man was the first one to clue me in on the grasshoppers and ants as he derided his peers for buying new cars and trucks on credit while he drove used vehicles he paid for in cash. That was in the 1980s. Fast forward to the 2000s, and I found myself deriding my peers for the same foolishness. I have always been mocked for driving the oldest and rattiest vehicle in the company parking lot, but that ride was never in danger of repossession.

The Great Depression survivors were smart. The Baby Boomers were lucky. Generations X-Z are neither smart nor lucky. The result is three generations without prosperity and saddled with debts. Yet, this is a fate that was and remains entirely avoidable with some common sense. This common sense means eschewing consumerism.

Credit means never having to say no to your desires. It means living in a perpetual state of thrive mode. This thrive mode has been the state of things since the 1950s. We have had recessions, but those downturns were papered over with more credit. When a bubble popped, the Fed printed up another bubble. The government spends with no end in sight as we now have a $39T national debt being paid for with more debt. It is insanity.

People can decry the insanity except they participate in the madness by their own individual choices as borrowers and consumers. It is the rare person who is debt free today. The ones with debt and toys mock the ones without debt and toys. For the thrive mode people, survive mode is a needless and avoidable hardship.

When does the bill come due for this economic madness? I don't know. The sky never falls. Despite inflation not seen since the 1970s, people are still living their best lives. They are going on cruises and vacations to Disney World. They still eat out and get their meals delivered to them as they mindlessly scroll on their devices. The one thing I don't do is worry or concern myself with what is going to happen to these people. Whatever happens to them will be deserved when it comes.

6.07.2026

Love And Hate: The Kindle

If you drop a book into the toilet, you can fish it out... But if you drop your Kindle in the toilet, you're pretty well done.
STEPHEN KING


This post is a response to the news in this article:

Your Old Kindle Still Works Perfectly. Amazon Is Killing It Anyway

I recommend reading the whole thing. Meanwhile, here are my two cents on the matter.

The Love

I bought my Kindle sometime back in 2007 or 08. I can't remember, but my device is close to 20 years old now. I still have the original battery in the thing, and it still works. It is certainly one of the devices that Amazon wants to brick now.

I bought the Kindle because of all the free books in the public domain you could download on the thing. I downloaded many of them. I liked the fact that you could carry around a library on the device that was the size of a paperback, and it has been in my backpack many times when I have had to travel. There is no clutter with the Kindle.

The Kindle really shined for me after my accident. My eyes cataracted over from the smashing of my head, and my vision began dimming to a point that I could no longer read a regular book. With the Kindle, I was able to enlarge the font to a gigantic size which allowed me to read the text. I chose to read the Douay-Rheims Bible, and I finished it on the Kindle. I could have never done that with my dead tree version of the Bible.

I had an iPod Touch once upon a time, and I read books on the Kindle app. But my eyes felt like someone had scrubbed them with sandpaper after reading on the thing. I discovered that I was not blinking when I was reading on the iPod screen. I don't know why I did that or what caused it. My eyes were drying out from not blinking. I have never had this problem with the e-ink display of the Kindle. They got that part exactly right, and it is why I preferred the Kindle over a tablet device like the Fire or the iPad.

The other great thing about the Kindle is that it allowed rapid delivery of a book. I didn't have to wait for the days that it takes to get a physical book through the mail from Amazon. And there are no late fees or return trips like you have with library books. That is the perk of "ownership" which brings me to the hate portion of this post.

The Hate

The argument that I heard from the beginning about the Kindle is that you don't really own the books on the thing. The fact that Amazon is going to brick my device supports that argument. The other thing is that Amazon had the ability to retroedit the ebook after the fact for whatever woke agenda they might want to push. You can't do this with a physical book. This is why it behooves you, Gentle Reader, to own and collect physical media.

The other thing about the Kindle is that it isn't the same experience as reading a physical book. My wife hates the Kindle and prefers a book she can hold in her hand. She can flip the pages and put bookmarks where she needs them. My wife is not a book vandal and does not make notes or underline things. But some people want that vandalism option which only a physical book provides. I can say for myself that I prefer reading a physical book over the electronic version. Since my eye surgeries, I have gone back to reading the Bible in its physical form.

They have tools and tricks on the Kindle to make it more like a physical book, but it was too aggravating to use them. A real book is the ultimate form factor for reading, and this is why physical books haven't died. This is why bookstores like Barnes and Noble have been making a comeback. Books are never going away.

This brings me to another criticism from my wife. Many of the books you would buy for the Kindle cost almost as much as the physical book. It costs virtually nothing to "print" and "deliver" an ebook. It is just electrons on a device. You could sell a book on the thing for a dollar and still make a profit. Instead, they demand full price for the thing that you never really own.

The Future

I know that Amazon got the idea for this unplanned but forced obsolescence from Apple who is famous for bricking older devices to churn the base of their cult of customers to get more money out of them. This was the fate of my iPod Touch. I appreciate that Amazon relented for almost 20 years on this move unlike Apple, but they are going to be the losers on this. I will never buy a new Kindle. I will never buy another ebook for the Kindle. They have shot themselves in the foot on this.

Would you be a fool to buy a Kindle or an ebook now? Absolutely. This digital crap is merely the illusion of ownership. That illusion is over. The only positive note on this is that you can still access your ebooks on the app on your other devices. I don't care. I am going back to physical books 100% now.

As for my current device, it still works and will continue to work until I reset it or whatever. I will hang on to it for now, but I am sorely tempted to eat the loss and trash the thing. I can't look at the thing without getting mad about it. You tricked me, Amazon. You won't trick me again.

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KINDLE NEWS and not the good kind 😨

Amazon’s Ending Support for Older Kindles… And That’s Not The Worst Part

I Tried Reading On A Kindle Instead Of "Real" Books... Here's The Truth

Kindle has a big problem, so I'm leaving it behind.

Ebooks, Kindle and the Erosion of Ownership

5.31.2026

Van Neistat Falls To The Dark Side

All about this video screams "just unsubscribe" but I'm going to wait for strike 3.
FROM THE COMBOX

I can't remember when I discovered Van Neistat on YouTube, but I was an instant fan. I thought his videos were the best thing on YouTube. I loved his quirkiness, eccentricity, and love for all things analog and blue collar. When a Van Neistat video dropped, it was an event. Then, the quality began to decline. Finally, Van dropped this video:

Does AI Finally Work?

This one did not go over well with me or with the fans as evidenced by the pointed remarks in the comments section. The video amounts to simping for AI and a commercial for the paid content on Van's Patreon channel and his wife's AI project. I remember a combox commenter who said that a channel goes downhill whenever the creator starts a Patreon account. This is certainly the case with Van Neistat.

Van is the last guy you would think would become an AI fanboy. The guy uses a manual typewriter to type his scripts. His favorite tool is a mechanical pencil. The name of his channel is "The Spirited Man." Going over to AI just cuts the spirit out of a man.

I haven't unsubscribed from Van Neistat's channel, but I am definitely in the "pre-unsubscribe" zone. I am learning the lesson that a creator is done when he starts a Patreon account. He is definitely done when he starts flirting with AI slop. Meanwhile, Van's brother Casey does not have a Patreon account. When you have over 12 million subscribers, you don't need a Patreon to pay the bills.

I don't expect Van to change the path he is on. What I can say is that the red flag for a YouTube channel is the Patreon thing. Once you go down the Patreon path, your channel is done. My advice to creators is to keep working that day job. This advice won't go over well with those who want to make a living from their fun creative endeavors. The irony is that the ones who work a day job for a living make better content than those who play for a living.

UPDATE #1: Van Neistat posted another vid that went over about as well as the AI video:

$100 For What?

Van's wife has taken to running interference in the combox. This commenter nailed the problem:

he's working for his Patreon subscribers because they’re the people who pay his bills. YouTube monetization sucks

Apparently, YouTube changed the rules on how creators get paid and get selected by the algorithm. Van isn't making money anymore from making his videos.

For myself, I've decided to unsubscribe from any channel that uses Patreon.  I'm never going to pay for the content, but the Patreon thing is a sure sign that the quality of the content will be diminished to the point of being a commercial for the paid content.

UPDATE #2: Van pulled out the promised long form of the short videos he was making and posting:

This Is My Computer: Long-Form Ep. 1

I hesitate to say that Van redeemed himself, but I watched every minute of this long form video and enjoyed it. Fundamentally, Van used AI to create an analog solution to a digital problem. I am mystified as to why he was making the chopped up shorter videos or where he is going with all of this long term. I am also not happy about the AI stuff. But the video was entertaining. That's about all you can ask from the guy. I remain subscribed to the content. I am still not paying for Patreon. Van is on probation for the time being.

5.24.2026

Keep Your Pleasures Small

Find joy in the simplest of pleasures and you’ll never feel deprived.
UNKNOWN

I may have told this story here before, but I will tell it again. When I met my wife, I made a promise to her. If she married me, she would be materially better off, but no one would envy us. This was based on the simple mathematics of me paying rent and utilities and also my recently found love for minimalism. I offered her the simple life, and she took it. The women I dated before her were not interested in that offer. And that, Gentle Reader, is one of the tips you need to remember when finding a good woman. But I digress. . .

The misconception I want to dispel about our voluntary poverty lifestyle is that we live in a state of adversity and deprivation. This isn't true. We actually enjoy our lives very much. We have learned that God provides for your need and not your greed. We don't want much, and that is the secret of contentment. Some people have not discovered that secret which is why they are never satisfied. That is also why no one envies us. I don't care to provoke that envy either.

I have a lot of pleasures in my life. They are small pleasures. I like to point to the year 1985 as a marker because that is when I believe my life was as good then as it is today. I was a teenager, but I remember enjoying a good book, a movie, a TV show, and listening to music on my ghetto blaster boom box. Those things represented the icing on the cake, and I still enjoy them to the present day. In the pleasure category, my life has never gotten better or worse than it was in 1985. VCR tapes turned into DVDs. Cassettes turned into CDs. The phones got mobile. Ultimately, the pleasures remained the same. I love a good story and a good tune. The only variation has been in cost and delivery.

I wish all things were as good today as they were in 1985, but they aren't. We had Star Wars in 1985. Today, we have woke Star Wars. Special effects have gotten better, but the stories have gotten worse. My wife and I have taken to watching old TV shows from the old days when sanity still existed. The same goes for music. Our favorite radio station is an oldies terrestrial station that streams on the internet out of Jamestown, New York. They play Sinatra and Perry Como. If we ever lose the old stuff, it would greatly diminish the enjoyment of life for us. I don't think we are alone on this as people have taken to collecting and storing physical media again.

I have a philosophy about pleasure. I don't think pleasures increase when they get bigger. The best example I can give on this is fishing. I don't fish for pleasure because I don't eat fish. I am just an observer, and I have observed that there are three kinds of fishermen where I live. The first type is a humble fellow who fishes off a bridge, a dock, or a riverbank equipped with a bucket and a cane pole. The second type goes out on the water with an old jon boat and a rod and reel. The third type goes out on the water in a shiny $40K bass boat. I don't think the fish care. I also don't think the guy in the bass boat enjoys his fishing anymore than the fellow with the cane pole. So, why buy that expensive bass boat?

There are some who will take issue with my observations and argue that the bass boat enhances the pleasure of the activity. I know this is utter bullshit. The argument comes from the desire of these fools to convince themselves that they are somehow enjoying an elevated level of experience over the poor man with the cane pole. $40K has to buy something. Yet, when the bass boat idiot passes the cane pole fisherman, he grinds his teeth and cusses under his breath. The pleasures of fishing should be off limits to those poor fellows and restricted to those with mean$.

There is a kernel of pleasure that represents the essence of the thing. This could possibly be enhanced, but it rarely isn't. When pleasures become big, they become less pleasurable. The bass boater knows this as he goes through all the aggravation of maintaining the boat, paying his property taxes on the thing, and making those monthly payments. It isn't fair that the cane pole fellow has escaped this misery completely. This is where the status thing comes into play.

Most of the enjoyment of these elevated pleasures comes from being seen enjoying them. This is why golf has eclipsed bowling in participation. Golf is a game for snobs. Similarly, the bass boat is for the fellow who wants to display to the world that he has the means to afford a boat he doesn't really need. It isn't enough to enjoy activities or possess things. One must also be envied for enjoying them and possessing them.

I like to tell people that the best Mexican restaurant I have eaten at is Taco Bell. This causes all sorts of fits of apoplexy with people arguing that Taco Bell isn't actual Mexican food. I don't care. I'd rather eat a bean burrito from Taco Bell than from the fancy Casa de Diarrhea place. That observation torpedoes people's overblown conceptions of living the good life. I remember when the Motorola Razr flip phone was the premium phone to have. Try flipping one of those out today in the iPhone world. What was once the object of envy is now the object of derision.

This vanity is what kills the enjoyment of life. I enjoy life more today than I did in 1985 because I don't care what other people think. If anything, I take a perverse glee in offending their sensibilities on these things. I don't know if that is a sin or not. I just think people need to get over this nonsense. They would be happier if they did.

My enemies on this unofficial crusade are the marketers who go around creating a sense of deprivation in consumers. This is when the cane pole guy decides he can't fish without the $40K bass boat. He has to have the status object. This does happen. Consequently, our modern American society has so much stuff accompanied with so much dissatisfaction.

Keep your pleasures small. You will know when they have stopped being small when they stop being as pleasurable. I am an accidental birdwatcher as I started watching birds while sitting outside or on a walk. To enhance the pleasure, I got out my $20 monocular telescope that I bought for some other purpose from Amazon. Then, I dropped $10 on a laminated bird guide from Tractor Supply in order to identify the birds in my state. That is as far as I care to go on this activity. Getting a better looking glass would not enhance the experience for me as those things are pricey. I also don't care for a camera with a telephoto lens. I don't log these things or belong to some stupid birdwatching club because that brings status into the game. I just look at birds and other critters as I enjoy sitting in the outdoors.

I play the kazoo for ten minutes a day to scratch my musical itch. Playing the guitar became painful for me because of a pinched nerve in my left arm. I only played the six string for ten minutes a day. I am not a serious musician. Likewise, I play checkers because I find chess to be too complicated. These are simple pleasures that I keep simple on purpose. I can enjoy them because I don't take them or myself seriously.

I doubt the rest of the world will get a clue about small pleasures. We are outgunned by the marketers and by society. But for those who do get the clue, life is really sweet for them. If money can't buy happiness, the lack of money doesn't preclude happiness either. What is in your wallet matters less than what is between your ears. Go and enjoy the simple pleasures of life, Gentle Reader.

5.17.2026

The Problem Of New Solutions

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
AGE OLD WISDOM

There is an old adage that every solution breeds new problems. For example, electricity brought us lights and appliances along with electrocution hazards. We accept those hazards because we like those electric lights and appliances. This is not an essay about those new problems that come with new solutions. This is about old problems that were solved but were brought back with new solutions that don't solve anything except satisfying some company's desire to make a buck.

A great example of the problem of new solutions is this article from Fortune about the cognitive decline among the young relative to their parents as a consequence of technology in the classrooms:

The U.S. spent $30 billion to ditch textbooks for laptops and tablets: The result is the first generation less cognitively capable than their parents

Our society already had solutions. These solutions were physical textbooks, paper, pencils, and the blackboard. Those things worked for generations. When something works, you don't need to replace it. And whatever replaces it must be as good or better than what it replaced. This is common sense. Yet, those computers were forced into classrooms to solve one problem. This is the problem of lazy teachers who didn't want to do the hard work of teaching anymore. The consequence is that good parents have taken to homeschooling their kids with the old methods while bad parents allow their delinquents to go to the state supported babysitting service with the new technology. The computers, tablets, and smartphones keep the brats entertained. The problem is that entertainment is not education.

AI promises to take the lunacy to a new level. What is the problem that AI is trying to solve? This would be the problem of human beings. AI never calls out sick. It never asks for a raise. It never asks for a vacation. It doesn't need to take a random drug test. AI is always clean and sober. You can see why businesses want AI and robots now. This will certainly breed new problems, but that is the topic for another essay.

It is easy to castigate the culture, but I prefer to bring it down to the personal level. What can you do as an individual to stick with the old solutions that work in opposition to the new solutions that don't work? What can you do as a human being to resist the stupidity of a technophilic culture?

The first and most basic thing you can do is to read old fashioned books. When the codex replaced the scroll as the preferred physical form of the book, it became one of the killer apps of human history. It still works today and will always work. The new solution is the electronic scroll of the smartphone and the tablet. People doom scroll themselves into a stupor and wonder what they have to show for it. More time is spent looking for stuff than actually consuming stuff. Books don't have this problem. Books require deep focus and is very rewarding for those who do that deep reading.

The second and most basic thing you can do is pick up a pencil or a pen and write something. It is even better if the writing is in cursive. I like using a keyboard, but that is the end of my writing process. These posts begin with writing by hand the notes that form the backbone of what I write about here. Writing by hand helps you think.

The third and most basic thing you can do is get a dumbphone or dumb down your smartphone. The phone is a communication device. The computer is an information device. The smartphone is an entertainment device. We would laugh if schools handed out Nintendo videogames to the kids, but this is essentially what they did with the iPads and smartphones. Entertainment has replaced education, and kids are now stupid. That generation has now been lost.

Technology has conditioned our culture to seek the new solutions. This is why they want to sell you kitchen appliances connected to the internet. Everything has to be a "smart" thing with the smartwatch being one of the dumbest examples that I see on a daily basis. They tell time until it is time to recharge the things. They tell you other things like your heart rate and step count. But if you forget to charge it, what then? I just use a dumb watch that tells the time. If I need to know my heart rate, I will put two fingers on my neck and count.

The simple fact is that we have solved many of our problems. It is only now that we see the old solutions as problematic. Their only problem is that they are old. The tech revolution amounts to digital euthanasia of old solutions as we are forced to adapt and upgrade and ignore the decline of our culture and civilization. We are losing our minds over this crap along with our dignity and freedom. Today, the answer is to not keep pressing forward because the way forward is headed over a cliff. We need to turn 180 degrees and go backward. That is the answer. Return to the things that weren't broken and don't need fixing.

************

Parents say: Bring back pencil and paper

Back to textbooks: Denmark rolls back digital learning • FRANCE 24 English

A Day in the Life of an Ensh*ttificator

SURPRISE: Study shows break from smartphone improves cognitive functioning (the internet has thoughts)

5.10.2026

The Package Deal Of Hard Work And Simple Living

If you look at what you have in life, you'll always have more. If you look at what you don't have in life, you'll never have enough.
OPRAH WINFREY

I am not a fan of Oprah Winfrey, but I find myself agreeing with her in the quotation above. I recently came across these two items that have been on my mind the last couple of days:

18 Statistics That Reveal How Consumeristic Our Culture Has Become

Something Is Happening in America… The Cost of Living Is Pushing People Too Far

The first comes from Joshua Becker and is a condemnation of our consumerist society and its excesses with telling stats to back up what he's saying. According to Becker, we have too much stuff. The second is a video that is a collection of people whining that they don't have enough. Which is the true story? Are we drowning in abundance and excess? Or, are we barely getting by?

The reality is that our society works too little and consumes too much. Most of the whining in the video amounts to lamenting the need to work more hours and take on second jobs while tightening the belt on expenses. Implied in that whining is that older generations never had to do this sort of thing, but this isn't true.

My greatest generation grandfather worked two jobs in his day to support his family of five children. Additionally, all five of those kids had to work even before they left high school. I don't recall my grandparents living lavish lifestyles. I can't say the same for the Boomers that came later. There was a real contrast between Great Depression survivors and Baby Boomers. The Great Depression generation looked at what they had. The Baby Boomers looked at what they didn't have and went after it. Since people adjust more readily to luxury than adversity, this has set up an expectation in our society of living a Boomer lifestyle instead of a Great Depression lifestyle. Since the economics can no longer support this insanity, our present culture lives larger and more indebted than the preceding generations.

My wife points out that despite the inflation, sky high rents and mortgage payments, student loan debts, and whatnot that nobody is actually hurting. We see people going on cruises and vacationing at Disneyworld while driving brand new cars that cost a fortune along with various toys like boats, motorcycles, and campers parked outside their McMansions. We had a time like this once before in American history. It was called the Roaring 20s. People lived large until the bottom fell out. This led to the Great Depression. This country needs a second Great Depression to relearn the lessons.

The first and most basic lesson is that people need to reject the 40 hour work week. This was based on the flawed idea that a man needs 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, and 8 hours of leisure and recreation each day. 8 hours of goof off time each day can only lead to poverty as this leads to less income and greater consumption. Much of this consumption comes in the form of drinking alcoholic beverages. The simple fact is that idleness leads to consumption and vice as people try to alleviate their boredom.

It's hard to be bored if you're working all the time. This is why I believe in the biblical pattern of 12/6 in opposition to 8/5 and 24/7. Basically, if you are able bodied, you should aim for a maximum of working 12 hours a day for 6 days per week. The seventh day is a day for rest and worship. As for leisure, you still get 4 hours per day and can still sleep eight hours per night. The idea of working 72 hours per week is outrageous and extreme to many people, but I believe this was the historic norm for farmers and laborers going back for centuries.

Our culture has become conditioned to having both the time and the money for a life of leisure. This has become unsustainable, so people have resorted to credit to keep buying things they can't afford and don't need. This drives up the prices on everything. This is why private equity firms charge so much because our self-indulgent society has sent the signal to them that it can and will pay for these excesses.

The second most basic lesson is that people need to get back to a balanced and more common sense view of the purpose of leisure. Leisure and days of rest are when we take our break from our labors to reconnect with the Lord through prayer and worship and spending time with our families. Under the 12/6 program, the working man has a total of 40 hours each week not devoted to work or sleep. That is plenty of time to go to church, eat a family meal, go for a walk, read a book, watch a TV program, and on and on.

Leisure becomes unbalanced when people think that free time requires expensive toys and past times. The most notorious of these would be the game of golf which seems designed for no greater purpose than to separate men from their families and their faith and the cash from their wallets. That is one of the things that separated Great Depression survivors from the Boomers. I don't recall my grandfather ever playing golf or even desiring to play the game.

Excessive leisure is the genesis of our consumerist culture. Most leisure is nearly free. It costs so little to have so much pleasure and fun. But people reject playing catch with their kids in favor of paying for golf. They reject a day in the park for the week at Disney. They reject the book from the library in favor of the various subscription streaming services and the $1000+ flagship smartphone. The irony is that all of these costly forms of leisure leave people more dissatisfied than ever. Yet, to suggest that these people go back to simpler forms of leisure and entertainment is to be met with howls of indignation over the "suffering" that would entail.

The antidote for our times is a return to hard work and simple living. This sounds quaint and even unbelievable to people who are "struggling" today. You have to remember how we got to this place. If people saw the lifestyles of the Great Depression survivors instead of the Boomers as the historical norm, they wouldn't have any problems getting by today. The lie is that this present generation has it tougher than our forebears. The reality is that it is self-inflicted. As Oprah put it, people look at what they don't have in life and feel that it is never enough.

I can make a lot of points about high taxes and the Federal Reserve debasing our currency with money printing. Yet, all of this becomes a moot point when you consider how people borrow that money for their consumerism and repay it with double digit interest. People risk homelessness because they insist on living in a McMansion. For every economic malady, there is a personal dimension that comes with it. Often, the malady gets cured when people decide they are not going to play the game anymore. You can call it minimalism, voluntary poverty, or simple living. The consumerist game ends when you stop playing it.

Most people don't and won't stop playing the game until they are forced out of it. I know people who lost homes in the 2007 housing collapse who are back in the same situation again. That is the saddest tale which is the simple fact that people don't learn the lessons of hard work and simple living.

5.03.2026

The Bishop Voodoo Appeal

I offer my prayers daily for those whose lives have been hurt or devastated by the actions of a member of the clergy or by any other persons, especially all abused children and other vulnerable persons. It is particularly tragic when the abuse is at the hands of a priest in whom their spiritual care and wellbeing has been entrusted.
BISHOP GAYMONE

People may object to my use of nicknames for bishops and priests, but our Lord used nicknames for the "den of vipers" in His day. I use the nicknames to actually spare the reputations of these men as the use of proper names would lead people directly from a Google search to this place. I do not believe that priests, prelates, and politicians are entitled to the same level of privacy as ordinary citizens. I even spare celebrities and refrain from gossip about famous people because they never forfeited their rights to privacy. But our leaders need to recognize that they are held to a higher standard. This is why I have never aspired to public office.

I begin with the quote from Bishop Gaymone because I see the cynicism in it now. People have accused Gaymone of sexual abuse, but the Vatican cleared him of all these charges and allegations. Additionally, when he came to our diocese, he had the task of dealing with the sexual abuse issues here. I believed that Gaymone was one of the good guys. Then, he allowed a pervert priest to come from another diocese where he had gotten into some trouble there. His move to our diocese amounted to giving cover to this guy until the heat blew over. Unfortunately, that priest got into trouble here propositioning a teenager on the Grindr app and was looking at jail. He got off on the technicality that Grindr demands that all users be 18 years or older.

Why would a bishop do this after all of the crap that had happened preceding this? Clearly, this priest is unfit for the priesthood. I came to the conclusion that Gaymone was doing a favor for the "network" by taking this guy into his diocese. From that day forward, he earned the nickname I use to identify him, and I ceased giving another penny to his Bishop's Appeal. Gaymone is now in forced retirement.

Pope Francis appointed our current bishop who I refer to as "Bishop Voodoo" after watching him preside over an "encultured" irreverent Mass at his parish. The video of that got scrubbed, but I recall some dancing and raucous music. I suspect Bishop Voodoo was selected because he would help aid and abet the illegal immigration efforts requested by the Democrat Party. Regardless, I consider Bishop Voodoo to be one of the bad guys.

One of the first things Voodoo did was change the name of the Bishop's Appeal to the Catholic Appeal. This little marketing move is the hierarchy bowing to the reality that the reputation of the bishops has diminished the giving. Somehow, changing the name is supposed to fool us into giving. It hasn't. From what I heard, the participation rate for the appeal in the diocese is only 14%.

Ever since Gaymone, my plan for giving has been to employ the Blue Envelope Strategy. This is where I put the bulk of my donation to the parish in the blue envelopes provided for the building and maintenance fund. I put "building fund only" on my checks. I give to nothing else especially those dreadful second collections. I give a dollar to the weekly collection to cover the expense of the host and the power bill. We also give to Christmas and Easter flower collections. That's it.

If the diocese decides to embezzle from the building fund, I can't do anything about that except cease all giving. So far, I have heard nothing to indicate this is going on. The secret to ending this corruption is to stop paying for it. The easiest way is to not give to the Bishop Voodoo Appeal.

***

Complicit Clergy

4.26.2026

END DISTRACTED DRIVING

Arrive alive. Don't text and drive.
A SLOGAN AGAINST DISTRACTED DRIVING

Recently, my state enacted a law mandating hands free driving. It began with warning tickets but now will cost people fines and points off of their licenses. I wholeheartedly support this law and pray that the cops enforce it vigorously. I thought most people would share my opinion on this, but I was wrong. A glance through the combox comments on articles and videos announcing the new law shows a litany of idiots crying and whining about the "injustice" of the law. These fools believe they have a God given right to play on their phones behind the wheel and endanger everyone else on the road including themselves. It truly boggles the mind.

This country has a serious problem with smartphone addiction. Before my accident, I drove a truck for my day job. From that perch, I could see down into the interior of every vehicle that passed me on the left side. I calculated that every third driver had a phone in his or her hand texting and driving. I would blow the horn at these people, but it made no difference. They just keep tapping away at the screens at 70+ miles per hour.

I remember driving to work one day and glancing in the rear view mirror at the driver behind me on her iPhone. It was directly in front of her face. All I saw was that Apple logo and prayed that God would spare me my life. She never dropped the phone, and I was thankful to get away from her.

The idiot who hit me and put me in the hospital was almost certainly playing on his phone. I suspect he was in a rush to score some opioids from his drug contact that he was texting with on Facebook messenger. He used his Facebook page to declare me at fault despite the testimony of the two witnesses he almost killed before he hit me. I estimate he was flying along at 90 mph while texting and eating Chick-fil-A. A year or so later, he posted a meme on his Facebook account making fun of his distracted driving habit. Gentle Reader, these are the sorts of idiots who are sharing the road with you and your family members. Somehow, we are supposed to respect their "freedom."

You can Google the stats but distracted driving has been blamed for 8% of all traffic fatalities last year. I suspect the actual number is higher because people lie, and it is difficult to prove distracted driving especially when law enforcement doesn't care to investigate. Additionally, law enforcement are some of the worst offenders when it comes to distracted driving. I remember reading a story recently of a cop that ran over a woman on the beach and killed her while playing on his phone. His life is ruined.

I consider distracted driving to be worse than driving under the influence. The drunk driver still has his eyes on the road and is trying not to get caught. I don't know what it is going to take to make this country embrace common sense on this matter. We are at the point where stupidity has taken on deadly consequences. The smartphone needs to find a place alongside alcohol and tobacco as a dangerous thing. Until then, I do my part to raise awareness on this. My life has already been ruined by one of these idiots. I pray that the idiocy stops.

End Distracted Driving

4.19.2026

Q & A 2

I am a musician. My passion for music has obliterated everything in its path for my entire life.
BARRY MANILOW

I like the Q & A format because it allows me to write on things that aren't big enough for a dedicated blog post. Most of my posts come from asking myself a question which the post will answer. I just delete the question except here where I keep the questions. That is a small window into my creative process. Here is my second edition of Q & A.

Q: Do you think there will be a widespread return to dumbphones?

A: I have reluctantly had to admit that smartphones are here to stay. The real question is whether or not dumbphones are here to stay. The pressure to conform to the smartphone cult is immense, but I think dumbphone users like me represent a stubborn minority. We refuse to die.

Q: Is it still possible to buy quality?

A: I think it is possible to buy quality, but I think it is much harder today. The two things that kill quality today are debasement of the currency and women's addiction to fashion. Why make a quality product when the women will want it in a different color or flavor next season? This is how you get our current disposable culture.

You can find quality if you're willing to go to the thrift store and buy old stuff from better times. You can also buy quality if you invest the time and energy into researching the things you buy before you buy them.

Q: Should they completely privatize the post office?

A: I have always considered the US Postal Service to be a branch of the federal government like the park service, the FAA, and the FBI. The idea that the post office is a private enterprise is a fiction, and it needs to be dropped. Yes, the postal service operates at a loss on a yearly basis, but the American public has had no problem with this. They just get mad when the cost of stamps goes up.

There are some things I don't think can or should ever be privatized. Prisons would be one of those things. Roads and highways are another. I think they should drop the idea of privatizing the post office like they have done in Denmark. That looks like a disaster.

Q: What happened to Eddie Bauer and Harley-Davidson?

A: I identify those two brands as Baby Boomer brands. The Boomers are now dying off in what I call the "Boomer Bust." I expect to see many more brands go down as the demographics change. Red Lobster is one of those brands. I think steakhouses like Longhorn and Outback will also suffer because steak is mostly a boomer thing. Omaha Steaks has already been hit. Wine is getting hit hard as well. Gen Xers and Millennials prefer cheeseburgers, Mexican food, and beer. I don't think they will ever develop a taste for steak and lobster.

Q: What went wrong with Star Wars?

A: George Lucas is what went wrong with Star Wars. He had a good idea that was boosted by others until he decided that selling toys was better than making movies. From then on, he proceeded to immolate the franchise before selling it to Disney to finish it off. The amazing thing was that he had some good ideas in the first place.

Q: Which are better as pets--dogs or cats?

A: I don't own pets because I can't afford them. If I did own a pet, I prefer a cat because cats will poop in a box and bury it. Dogs don't do this. Cats have their issues, but I think they take less effort than dogs.

Q: Why have Nike's sales fallen while sales of New Balance have increased?

A: This question comes from this video from CNBC on YouTube:

Why New Balance sales are soaring while Nike falls

The talking head on the video totally blew her analysis on the reason for the decline of Nike and the resurgence of New Balance. You get a better idea from the comments section that tells the real story. I will give my two cents on the matter.

Gen X and Millennials got old. These were the folks who used to buy Nike products, but they are now middle aged. When you hit middle age, the "dad shoe" becomes more appealing than the LeBron James shoe. I was one of those Gen Xers.

I used to wear the Nike Air Pegasus shoe when I was pretending to be a runner. I hated those shoes because they were uncomfortable as hell, but I thought those were the shoes you had to wear to be a runner. I ended up donating my last pair to Goodwill unworn in a virtually brand new condition. I will never go back to Nike.

I started wearing New Balance on accident. The lady who managed my apartment complex had bought some New Balance shoes for her husband who complained that she had bought him the wrong size. The reality was they were not flashy enough for him. She gifted me the shoes, and I made a face when I saw them. They were uncool dad shoes that seemed more fitting for geriatrics. But I already had a brain injury by then and was pushing 50. I swallowed my pride and put them on. They were the most comfortable sneaker I had ever worn and were perfect for fitness walking. I regret that I had not discovered them sooner, and I consider it divine intervention. I have bought many pairs of that same exact shoe since that day and keep some on standby in my closet.

I doubt New Balance will ever eclipse Nike in sales. I just think you are seeing demographics in action. Old people want comfortable and non-flashy shoes. New Balance delivers on that desire. The younger folks will keep buying Nikes.

Q: What is your opinion of third orders?

A: I like to tell people that I am a third order Trappist. I like to go around keeping my mouth shut. Fortunately, I have this blog where I can say what I really think.

I think third orders serve to scratch the itch of spiritual pride that some laypeople have. Everybody wants to be a special snowflake and not just some layperson living an ordinary life. I discovered this impulse in myself when I had a desire to be involved with Opus Dei. Now, I see them as a cult that needs to be deactivated in the Catholic Church. One can only hope and pray that happens.

There is a third order Carmelite in my parish that is always recruiting for the third order. I have always declined the invitation. I am a nobody, and I intend to remain that way. It is all I can do to pray the Rosary each day, so I know I am not up to the demands of a religious order and the Divine Office.

The only religious order that I have an affinity for are the Franciscans and the Poor Clares. I think this comes from watching Mother Angelica on EWTN and living a voluntary poverty lifestyle. I have never desired to be a Secular Franciscan. The appeal to me of the Franciscan orders is their desire to be humble and small. You can't be humbler or smaller than being a nobody.

Q: What is your opinion of spec ops?

A: I think these special operations units amount to ordinary men brainwashed into doing suicide missions. To achieve this brainwashing, these guys go through a process to weed out the quitters until they get a group of guys who would rather die than abandon the mission. Then, they sling them into those suicide missions. These men are not superhuman, but they are led to believe that they are. That hubris gets them killed sometimes. Other times, it makes them throw shade on each other as you witness Navy SEALS talk smack about other SEALS. Humility is not a hallmark of spec ops.

I came to this conclusion at the end of the 1990s watching some Navy SEALS lose the Eco-Challenge to some middle aged hippies from New Zealand. I had picked the SEALS to win the ultra endurance event and worried that the woman ultrarunner forced to compete with them would hamstring them. The opposite happened. She ended up dragging them through the event until they washed out in humiliation on the water.

Navy SEALS are not athletes in the same way that athletes are not special operators. If you put the SEALS in a game with the Los Angeles Lakers, the Lakers are going to win every time.  Likewise, if you send the Lakers into a war zone, they are going to come back dead.

I have always agreed with the Marine Corps mentality when it comes to spec ops. They hated spec ops because they considered it bad for morale. Witnessing the SEALS today with their books, movies, and podcasts only confirms what the USMC already knew. Unfortunately, the Pentagon forced the Marines to turn their Force Recon personnel into special operators to create a spec ops force known today as the MARSOC Raiders. I suspect the Marines would like to undo that, but they have to follow their orders.

Should spec ops exist? I can't answer that question. The simple fact is that we will always need men to go in harm's way. Would they still do it knowing they were just ordinary men likely to die? I can't answer that either.

Q: Why do people run marathons?

A: Less than 1% of the world's population has ever completed a marathon. This still puts the number of marathon finishers in the millions. The reason these people run marathons is because they want to feel they have achieved something special and rare. As I said, people want to feel that they are special snowflakes. A finisher's medal from a marathon scratches that itch.

I don't think running a marathon is that big of a deal. I think many others in that community agree with me which is how you got the Ironman Triathlon and the Badwater Ultramarathon. At some point, it changes from a sport to a stunt. I stick with walking. I am not a special snowflake.

Q: What do you think of Barry Manilow?

A: I won't get into the particulars of Barry Manilow's private life as I believe even celebrities are entitled to their privacy and should not be the subject of gossip, detraction, and calumny. I will stick to the music.

I think Barry Manilow is an awesome songwriter and performer who had a real ear for melody. For some reason, it became fashionable to hold Manilow in scorn and derision. This happened sometime in the 1980s, and I was one of those snarky types who loved to take a crap on Manilow.

My derision ended when I encountered a Manilow fan in high school. Mr. P. (name withheld) was the special education teacher, and I remember our journalism class going to his section of the campus to help his students with their volunteer labor for the school newspaper. While we were working there, Mr. P. was playing a vinyl record on an old record player. When I looked at the sleeve for the record, it was Barry Manilow.

"Barry Manilow?!" I exclaimed in my warm up to take a huge crap on it.

"Oh, yes! I just love Barry," Mr. P. said.

I felt bad, and I checked myself. Mr. P. is deceased now, but he was one of the finest human beings you could ever meet in life. There was no smartass snark or derision in this man. He was the real deal, and his love for Manilow came from a place of sincere appreciation for good music. I share that appreciation now.

That snarkiness and smartassery became a thing in the 80s, and I blame Chevy Chase and David Letterman for this. I don't really like their comedy where somebody has to be the butt of the humor. I think Jay Leno was better than David Letterman because he didn't do the snarkiness. I think the American public agreed which is why Leno consistently beat Letterman in the ratings. Leno could come back right now and be the king of late night all over again. But I digress. . .

I like Barry Manilow's music. I like disco music and the Bee Gees. I even like lounge music and Lawrence Welk. I don't care whether it is "cool." Cool is garbage to me. I love a good tune, and I think everyone else does, too. I think it is a tragedy to allow cynicism and fashion to keep you from experiencing good things in life.

Q: Do you think someone murdered Kurt Cobain?

A: No, I don't. I think Cobain suicided himself in accord with Occam's razor that holds that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. The guy was on a self-destructive path for a long time, and I think his atheism and nihilism undid him. The people with the murder conjectures want to rewrite Cobain's story much like others want to claim that Jim Morrison faked his death and is still alive somewhere. I am waiting for people to make the same claims about Cobain one day. It is all nonsense.

That's all for this second edition of Q & A. I am already working on the third edition.

4.12.2026

Stay In The Boat: The Siren Song Of Sedevacantism And The SSPX

For there shall be then great tribulation, such as hath not been from the beginning of the world until now, neither shall be. And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened. Then if any man shall say to you: Lo here is Christ, or there, do not believe him. For there shall arise false Christs and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders, insomuch as to deceive (if possible) even the elect. Behold I have told it to you, beforehand.
MATTHEW 24:21-25 DOUAY-RHEIMS

And when he entered into the boat, his disciples followed him: And behold a great tempest arose in the sea, so that the boat was covered with waves, but he was asleep. And they came to him, and awaked him, saying: Lord, save us, we perish. And Jesus saith to them: Why are you fearful, O ye of little faith? Then rising up he commanded the winds, and the sea, and there came a great calm.
MATTHEW 8:23-26 DOUAY-RHEIMS

I am off the Ann Barnhardt train. I have deleted her feeds from my Inoreader. My first deletion was her memes blog that began to resemble the Nazi trash you see on Gab. I recently downloaded her podcast but decided I didn't care to listen to her anymore. This stems from her Benevacantist errors that have blossomed into what I consider a variation of sedevacantism. I also include her compatriots Dr. Mazza and Non Veni Mark Docherty in my purge. They all suffer from the inability to admit they got it wrong. I don't suffer from that inability.

There are two ways you can fall out of a boat. You can fall out of the boat on the port side (the left) or the starboard side (the right.) Similarly, one can fall out of the Barque of Peter on both the left with modernism or the right with traditionalism. It doesn't matter which side you pick because they both end up with you outside of the boat and losing the faith. You must stay in the boat. No matter what confusion may come, STAY IN THE BOAT!

It is important to remember this elementary advice because confusion is going to come. Confusion comes from the Devil, and he is really good at stirring it up. The ultimate goal of the sinister forces is to make you abandon the faith, die in a state of mortal sin, and burn in Hell with them for eternity. The remedy for confusion is simplicity. When you don't know what is going on, stay in the boat. Your patience will do you better than resorting to your own "wisdom" on these things.

1. Vatican II and the modernist heretics

Modernism blossomed as a thing all the way back in the 19th century. The one thing you have to understand about the left wing heretics is that they never leave the Church unless they are thrown out. They already have churches to their liking that they can join, but this does not interest them whatsoever. Their aim is to stay as long as possible in the Catholic Church making a mess of things. This mess reached its apex with Vatican II.

Vatican II was originally supposed to be a condemnation of communism and a declaration of Mary as Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces. The modernists derailed that because they are fundamentally communists and push ecumenism at the cost of doctrine. Vatican II was ambiguous, and the modernists weaponized that ambiguity. The goal is to turn Roman Catholicism into something like the Lutheran or Anglican churches. When Pope Leo recently declared unity with the Anglicans and their new woman Archbishop of Canterbury, he wasn't wrong. The error is thinking he was speaking as a Catholic when he was actually speaking as a modernist.

What does a Roman Catholic do when the Pope says and does things that contradict the dogmas of the Roman Catholic Church? Some opt to popesplain and argue that the Pope didn't say or do what he said and did. This violence to one's common sense is to maintain allegiance to the error of hyperpapalism which argues that the pope can never err on these things. Wanting to keep common sense and the hyperpapalist error, the sedevacantists argue that these popes are not valid popes. Somewhere, the Lord Jesus Christ let everything fall to pieces. God failed. You can see how this line of logic can lead someone to schism, heresy, and outright apostasy.

You will not find anything explicitly heretical in the documents of Vatican II. The errors come with how they are interpreted and applied. If you are familiar with how progressives have warped the US Constitution, you can see how easily modernists can do the same with church teachings. The key aim is to propagate the idea that church teachings are mutable. If they can be changed, they will be changed. This is the essence of the modernist heresy.

2. Sedevacantism

The sedes believe we haven't had a valid Pope since Pius XII. Those in the Benevacantist camp claim Benedict XVI as the last valid Pope. It doesn't matter where you draw the line because you end up in the same place. The original sedes already fight with each other, so it is no surprise that they will now add another camp to their numbers.

Once you go down the road of sedevacantism, you will lose the faith. You will doubt the validity of all the sacraments including ordinations. Inevitably, the Roman Catholic Church succumbs to the Gates of Hell with no way out. You are left with believing in a God that failed. It behooves a Catholic to ignore these schismatic heretics and keep the faith by staying in the boat. God can never fail and never will.

3. The SSPX

The SSPX and Marcel Lefebvre were the original schismatics. They make pains to say they are not sedevacantists except that is exactly what they are in practice. I think Archbishop Lefebvre was the good guy up to the moment he did the illicit consecrations and incurred an automatic excommunication. I won't get into the arguments about the "state of emergency" that the SSPX argue necessitated this disobedience. As I write this, the SSPX has doubled down with another threat to illicitly consecrate more bishops without papal mandate.

I think the SSPX will settle in a definitive way for all to see that they are schismatics. When they tell you to not go to any Masses except those at an SSPX chapel, they are schismatics. They even include the TLMs of the FSSP, the ICKSP, diocesan Latin Masses, and the rest. Essentially, if you are in communion with Rome and the Pope, this makes you a heretic in the eyes of the SSPX. I don't believe this.

I have never gone to any of the SSPX chapels for my obligation, and I don't listen to the apologists for the Society anymore. They are sedevacantists except in name in my opinion. I choose to err on the side of caution and refuse to cross the line into the territory of the RadTrads. Lefebvre should have been obedient and trusted God for the outcome.

Conclusion

I do believe the Roman Catholic Church is in crisis, but we have been here before. The answer remains the same. Stay in the boat. I am watching people jump out of the boat, and I know that this ends in the loss of the faith. It is sad to witness, but my only advice is to get deep into the history of the Church. As for tradition, I am on the side of those who cling to the timeless faith and love the Latin Mass. You can never go wrong promoting reverence for our Lord in the eucharist. I don't know what the future will bring, but I trust that God is still steering the ship. I oppose the modernist heretics, but I do this from the inside of the boat. God will bring a renewal in His good time. My job is to remain faithful to the Lord.

*****************

The Sedevacantist Dead End

From Hyperpapalism to Catholicism. Guest: Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

Lefebvre's biggest mistake: Disobeying the Pope w/ John Salza

Schismatics, the SSPX, and Sedes (John Salza) | Ep. 383

Tradition, Canonical Authority & the SSPX: A Conversation with a Canon Lawyer

Godsplaining Reacts: What's the deal with the SSPX? A Catholic priest explains

Apostasy: Rome or the SSPX? | FORWARD BOLDLY

4.05.2026

Things I Had To Let Go

Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.
UNKNOWN

As I have gotten older, I have learned to let go of some things that I saw were holding me back. You can call these ideas or prejudices or what have you. But like the monkey who has been trapped by the nut in the bottle, escape comes when you let it go. Holding on to the thing can only lead to your demise. Here are some of those things I had to let go.

1. One size fits all. (One size fits most.)

The first thing I let go was the idea of "one size fits all." This came when I had my watch dilemma. I always wore a Timex Ironman for everything until the thing was gummed up with so much grime that it was no longer functional. I made the switch to the Casio F91W which became my beater watch. It covered 80% of what I needed in a watch, but I bought a G-Shock as my fitness watch because it had a better light for walking at night and a countdown timer. I bought another metal bracelet style watch to be my dress watch. Today, I own four of these watches that I trade out depending upon my needs for that day. None of them are gummed up with grime.

The secret to my problem was "one size fits most." 80% is the most that you should ever expect from a solution. Beyond that 80% is the breeding ground for new problems. We live in the smartphone era where people carry around a one size fits all product in their pockets. These things are a camera, internet browser, music player, game machine, a telephone and a texting device. Naturally, all of that utility is lost when the device hits the concrete really hard or when the software becomes dated turning the device into a brick. This is why people are now slowly adding back old school dedicated devices they used before smartphones. One of the most popular is an old fashioned paper notebook.

2. All you can eat. (Pay as you go.)

The buffet restaurant is a popular thing because it promises satisfaction for one's gluttony. If you actually pay attention, the trick is getting people to pay more to eat the same amount or slightly more than they would have eaten at a regular restaurant. This now extends to something like the streaming subscription service which was how Netflix put Blockbuster out of business. For one monthly fee, you can have all you can watch. No one logs how much they are actually watching. They just want the option of unlimited choices. Unfortunately, the content is lousy, and you end up subscribing to additional services for their unlimited choices. The result is that people spend more on streaming today ($126 billion) than they did on Blockbuster ($5 billion.)

I had Netflix for awhile when you got DVDs in the mail. It beat having to return a movie to Blockbuster and pay those dreaded late fees. Then, I saw the dust covered Netflix video that had turned into a coaster on the coffee table that I was paying for each month. That was a very expensive coaster. The reality was that I was not very interested in the content offerings on Netflix, but I was still paying for the option to watch their unlimited crap. I returned that unwatched DVD and cancelled the service. This is because I found that it was cheaper for me to buy the DVDs of the movies I was actually watching than renting the lousy movies I could potentially watch. I pay as I go now. I think I buy one DVD per year because they only make one good movie per year now. Everything else is available for free on Tubi, Pluto, and YouTube.

Paying as you go requires a certain level of self-awareness which most people lack. When my wife convinced me to cut cable TV, she simply pointed out that I barely watched TV. I was paying for the option instead of what I was actually watching. Many other people figured it out, too.

Gluttony in all its forms is expensive and wasteful. The better way is to learn your limits and then pay only for what you consume instead of what you potentially can consume.

3. Buy it for life. (Buy it for a long time.)

There is a reddit forum called "Buy It For Life." Someone quipped that it should be called "Buy It For A Long Time." The reality is that virtually nothing you buy can be expected to last for your entire life. That is an unreasonable expectation, but I have found that you can buy stuff that lasts for a decade or longer. My 30 year old clock radio is one of those items. My 20 year old Walkman is another. I have lots of clothes that are now old enough to go to college. I can't say that I am not satisfied with those purchases.

With inflation, it has gotten harder to buy quality stuff as companies cheap out on what they are making. Yet, my current flip phone is now fixing to eclipse my previous flip phone in the longevity department. My phones have to be upgraded when the network upgrades. If it wasn't for that, I could keep a phone for decades with a few battery swaps. I can't say that I am not satisfied with those purchases.

One of the things I have discovered by accident is that the cheaper products actually last longer. My Amana washing machine is still going five years later. It might finish out the decade. People who bought the pricey Samsung washing machines are not as happy. I can say the same thing for our decade old Magic Chef microwave. I have found that buying basic stuff is the key to buying it for a long time.

4. You get what you pay for. (You get what you research.)

Many people try to skip the research by paying a bunch of money for stuff thinking that quality automatically comes with a higher price tag. I have fallen into that trap a few times, and I have learned my lesson. Before you buy something, read the reviews first on the internet. Know what you are buying. I have found that quality stuff only costs a bit more than the cheap crap version.

5. New and improved. (Not always.)

Another trap people fall into is thinking that the newer version of a product is automatically better than the older version. The reality is that new and improved means they found a new way to make it cheaper by compromising on quality and covering it up with a slick package and marketing hype. iPhone devotees are discovering this now as the new and improved version is not worth the additional money they will have to spend on it. A few software upgrades can remedy this by making older devices slower forcing the upgrade. It makes me glad to own a flip phone.

6. Older is better. (Not always.)

When people get disgusted with new and improved, they go hard in the other direction by trying to replace everything with an older analog version. This would be replacing your laptop with a manual typewriter. The problem with this approach is that I have no way of publishing from the typewriter to this blog without having to type it over again on a computer. The reality is the typewriter thing has become a fetish for LARPers wanting to pretend they are Mickey Spillane or something.

Older is sometimes better like a physical book or a notebook. Other times, it isn't like with vinyl records or a paper map. It pays to know when an improvement is an improvement and when it isn't. I recommend reading the The Mid-Tech Manifesto to get an idea of how to navigate the old vs. new thing.

Conclusion

These are the things I had to let go. My life is better for letting them go. I will probably have to let go of some other things before I am done with this life. I will keep you posted when they happen.

3.29.2026

How We Got The Extreme Path Of Fitness

Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace.
HORACE

The genesis of this post comes from the opening credits of Murder, She Wrote when Jessica Fletcher goes by riding her old school upright bicycle with the basket on the front. She is also seen jogging in old gray sweats. The show is from the 1980s and straddles the divide I see between fitness in the 1950s and the 1970s. This is when fitness evolved into the extreme path that I see today. This is in opposition to The Gentle Path I recommend. How did we get to the extreme path? And what has been the result of that extreme path?

1950s Fitness

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lady_on_a_bike_(Unsplash).jpg

Fitness in the 1950s was a basic affair. It was mostly people riding upright style bicycles as seen in the picture above with baskets, fenders, and a chain guard. Those bikes were utilitarian, practical, and comfortable. With a comfortable bicycle, you end up riding it more. It is a no-brainer. Similarly, people would go hiking or for long walks in the park. They built strength with mostly calisthenics in the style and philosophy of Jack LaLanne. Running was mostly for 2 miles or less to qualify for US Army fitness standards. People used canoes instead of kayaks. They gardened and did manual labor. Exercise and fitness were not taken as seriously as today.

The irony of those times was that the average fitness of the population was higher than today. The evidence for this were those US Army fitness standards that few recruits had trouble meeting in those days. Fast forward to our time, and you see those recruits struggling to meet the standards even after they have been dumbed down. How did we get here? I think we got here because fitness turned extreme.

1970s Fitness

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robin_Hood_10-speed_bike.jpg

I remember as a kid in middle school upgrading from my Huffy BMX bike to my old man's old school upright bike. It had the fenders, the chain guard, the 3 speed hub, and normal handlebars. I was too short for the thing at the time, but I still managed to ride it. It was embarrassing because it was an old man's bike. In hindsight, I realize that bike was simply awesome. I was too young and dumb to appreciate it at the time.

I got a department store 10 speed bike later, and it was cooler than the old man bike. I could count on my hands going numb and my shoulders aching as I rode hunched over the drop handlebars. My pants would get caught in the chain and the gear because it didn't have a guard on it. All of the dirt and mud would fly up on me from the lack of fenders. Riding the thing was miserable, but it was OK because I had a "real" bicycle. When I got a mountain bike in my 20s, it was no better than that 10 speed bike. Both bikes were uncomfortable and impractical. As a consequence, I rode them hardly at all and got rid of them.

The change in popular bikes is the best example I have of the change in the mindset of people from the 1950s to the 1970s. The 10 speed was sportier and more athletic. The average Joe could pretend to be a Tour de France rider. When the fantasy wore off, he was stuck with a bike unfit to ride on a daily basis. Unfortunately, the new mindset stuck. This was the extreme path of fitness.

The 1970s was when the bodybuilding craze got going along with the running boom. People like Frank Shorter, Bill Rodgers, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Lee entered the popular imagination and became fitness icons to a generation. Marathon training replaced walking. Bench pressing replaced push ups. And being lean took a backseat to getting ripped. For those willing to take this new extreme path, there were results. For everyone else, they threw in the towel and chose to watch the athletes on TV while eating chips on the couch.

The extreme path continued after the 1970s with the Ironman Triathlon, the ultramarathon, and CrossFit. The average fitness of people today in the USA is dismally low as the extremity of fitness has increased. Compare this to the average fitness of people in Denmark which is very high. People blame technology, but I think the cause is cultural. Denmark didn't embrace extreme fitness like the USA did. Those Danes still ride their upright bikes and do other sorts of common physical activities like the USA did in the 1950s.

When you take something that is fun and feels good and turn it into something like torture, people don't want to do it anymore. so they don't. It's popular to castigate these people as lazy fat asses, but that ignores the obvious cause of the fitness decline. People have lost the common sense that comes from moderation. Why must gain always come with pain?

The Way Back

I don't care to ride a bike now because of my brain injury. My balance is poor, and I would probably smash my head again. But if I did ride a bike again, it would be one of those old school upright bikes I mentioned. Comfort is key. The same is also true of a canoe versus a kayak. I remember wanting to get into sea kayaking at one time in my twenties. That was stupid. I would have flipped over in the water and drowned. But I could paddle a canoe.

I think the way back requires a change in the mindset of the general public. The extreme path appeals to a person's vanity. The gentle path requires humility. You have to desire modesty in your fitness. You have to actually want to enjoy your physical activities as opposed to punishing yourself.

One of the things that has helped me is to see the extreme fitness people as complete idiots.  I remember an iconic photo that I won't post here of a distance runner who had massive diarrhea during his race, but he completed the race with fecal matter covering his leg. For some people, they admired his dedication to completing the event. For me, I think it was utterly stupid.

One of the things I miss is seeing the senior citizens walking the mall. Many had scheduled walks early in the morning before the stores opened where these folks could get in their steps without battling the weather. I don't know if that exists now as malls have been overtaken by hood rats. But the mall walkers epitomized the gentle path I recommend.

The other thing I miss seeing is old school calisthenics like we did in PE class back in school. For some reason, people think they need heavy weights and a gym membership to build strength. With calisthenics, you can get strong at a price you can afford-->FREE! And they work. I've seen senior citizens go from being crippled to being mobile again with simple bodyweight exercises. Many of them are done while sitting in a chair.

The last thing I applaud is people doing manual labor like cleaning their homes, mowing their lawns, or tending their gardens without paying professionals to do this work for them. It has been lost on people that physical labor is good exercise. Instead, they pay someone to do their labor while they pay a gym to go be a gerbil on their wheels. This is crazy.

I think the gentle path has the added benefit of being something someone can actually stick to doing. I have walked more miles as a fitness walker than I ever ran as a jogger. The secret was that I enjoyed those walks. I don't recall ever enjoying a run. The only pleasure in running is stopping.

The last thing I want to include is a warning. The extreme path mindset creeps back in if you are not aware of it. I call this "Failed Runner Syndrome." This is when you compulsively log your steps on your fitness tracker and upload it to Strava. This is vanity. With it comes the compulsion to walk a certain number of steps each day and to increase those steps. It becomes a game of more more MORE. The secret to the gentle path of fitness is knowing when to quit. Those extremists didn't know when to quit.

Conclusion

I don't know of anyone who is pushing back on the extreme path of fitness culture. There are people who walk for fitness and do calisthenics, but they never speak out against the extremism. Maybe they don't want to be negative, but I think it would help if more people sounded off about this topic. It is always the folks on the extreme ends of a topic who speak with the loudest voices. I think those on the middle path of moderation need to speak up more in defense of common sense. 

*********

Fitness In The 1950s Was...Different

Get Physical in 1950s - Getting Ready Physically (1951) - CharlieDeanArchives / Archival Footage

1974: MUSCLE MANIA - Inside a '70s Gym | Open Door | Voice of the People | BBC Archive

The unexpected benefits of an upright Dutch bike

UPDATE #1: I saw this article recently and had to chuckle:

LA Marathon Runners Given Option to Receive Medals Before Finishing the Race: ‘If They’ve Had a Tough Day’

I thought about scouring the combox for the juicy comments, but they are redundant. This dumbing down of the marathon is a symptom of the extreme path of fitness. People want the trophy and the medal, but they don't want the suffering that goes with it. Most of the derisive comments are directed towards the "weakness" and "softness" of the people that just want the participation reward. I am actually on the side of those people who don't want to run a full marathon or even run at all. I think marathon running is utterly stupid. Go for a walk instead and forget about trying to get recognition for your efforts or pretend to be a competitive athlete. This is vanity.

Our culture has trained entire generations to do this stupid stuff. I suspect that most of these people will return to their couches regardless of what they did in the marathon. You are either a masochist or a slug. There is nothing in between those extremes.

The combox comments castigate the people that don't finish the entire distance, but I save my derision for the 90% of the participants who filled out the entry form and paid the fee who will take 3 to 5 hours to cover the distance. The reason they hand out the participation trophies is to get these slowpokes off of the race course. Otherwise, these idiots will just keep tying everything up in desperation to not be labelled as quitters. This is also why I am against fitness walkers participating in the local 5K to satisfy their failed runner syndrome. YOU ARE NOT AN ATHLETE! Get over it.

UPDATE #2: In 1960, President John F. Kennedy issued a warning to Americans:

“A single look at the packed parking lot of the average high school will tell us what has happened to the traditional hike to school that helped to build young bodies. The television set, the movies and the myriad conveniences and distractions of modern life all lure our young people away from the strenuous physical activity that is the basis of fitness in youth and in later life,” wrote Kennedy.

Inspired by a challenge from Teddy Roosevelt to his Marines to cover 50 miles in less than 20 hours over three days, JFK issued a similar challenge in 1963, and this became the genesis of the JFK 50 Miler. It was essentially a hike or march with a military bearing in mind. The president's brother Robert took up the challenge, did the 50 miles wearing Oxford dress shoes, and completed the challenge in 17 hours and 50 minutes.

The 50 miler began as a walking event. Somewhere, it morphed from being a hike in the spirit of fitness from the 1950s to a foot race in the extreme fitness spirit of the 1970s. Today, the JFK 50 Miler is a running event and not a walking event and is considered the oldest ultramarathon in America. The original aim of the event was lost.

There are some walkers who have taken back the original spirit of the 50 mile challenge with events that are aimed at walkers and not runners. These videos show the contrast between walking and running this distance.

Kennedy 50 Mile Walk - 2023

Either PR or ER

These two videos show the contrast that I am talking about. I find the walking version more pleasant and appealing.

UPDATE #3: I would be remiss if I didn't include this video of bodybuilders versus a construction worker on a strength test:

Construction Worker Vs Bodybuilders

Muscles for working beat steroid fueled muscles for aesthetics. How do you get those work muscles? You get them from old fashioned work. Physical labor is something else we lost since the 1950s. We need to bring that back, too.

UPDATE #4: This article is a great example of Failed Runner Syndrome:

Nike Pulls ‘Walkers Tolerated’ ad Amid Accusations of ‘Pace Shaming’ Ahead of Boston Marathon

As a fitness walker, I was not offended at all by this Nike ad. I think marathons are stupid, but I agree that they should be open to runners only. I am an elitist even if I am not elite.