Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Thoughts on a Grey Day

If I were to add, "by Mrs. Scarrott," do I have a single reader who'd get the reference? Probably not. Or perhaps one. I'm lookin' at you, Ted. At any rate, one would have to be familiar with the 1972 album by a "Fleetwood Mac" that was quite distinct from both the early blues band led by the great Peter Green, and the later bland mega-pop outfit.  

The final track on Bare Trees is -- of course -- called Thoughts on a Grey Day. It isn't a song, but rather, "a recorded poem written and supposedly read by an elderly woman, Mrs. Scarrott, who lived near the band's communal home in southern England" (Prof. Wiki).  If I remember correctly, they stumbled upon an old tape Mrs. Scarrott must have left in the house, and appended it to the album as a kind of Pythonesque gag. 

Yes, they had good hash back then.

You can google the poem. Mrs. Scarrott seems to have been some kind of visionary mystic. Then again, they did have good hash back then:

Love; love. So great, so divine
Trees -- the grey day has changed everything
It's beautiful, just beautiful, so beautiful
This first grey day is ours

My loving child
By grace of God we live, my child,
And love...

God bless our perfect, perfect grey day
With trees so bare, so bare!
But O so beautiful, so beautiful!
The grey-blue sky
The world is here!
Ours, just, just ours
Our own

Hold us tight
I am yours, just a dream
And go on dreaming
May this joy of ours
Never, ever cease

But this isn't a grey day. Rather, slightly hazy and humid. Nor do I know why Mrs. Scarrott's poem popped into my head. Wait -- now I remember -- I had some random thoughts to offload on this... hazy and humid day:

A feminist is any woman who is emotionally fragile and ignorant of the facts of life. Any confrontation with these facts exposes and aggravates the fragility.

Today, transcendence is displaced to the political plane and called "liberation." Naturally, this cannot be attained via politics, which further fuels both the frustration and the hope for political amelioration. The vicious circle of liberalism -- and death cycle of the soul.

Ideology denies and drives out wrongthink, but the bad thoughts don't just vanish. Rather, a conservative is someone whose unwitting role is to harbor these bad progressive thoughts on behalf of the left. It's why we are seen by them as racists, fascists, misogynists, insurrectionists, greedy, etc.  

A relentless search for imaginary oppressors to explain one's real failings. A seductive program! 

When did the left become a revolt against math and literacy? Trick question!

Servitude to the progressive narrative is freedom. Liberation from it is slavery. In California, Larry Elder wants to put y'all back in chains! 

I don't object to teaching CRT to kids. So long as children are taught all the repulsive things about other races.

The free-floating boredom of the left is a consequence of hatred of reality. Unreality may not be true, but at least it's... interesting

Not to promulgate more oogily-boogily, but the relationship between conscious and unconscious, or ego and self, is not a duality but a complementarity.  I is to AM (being) as is particle to wave. We always live and have our being on no fewer than two planes.

Relativism, the sum of all heresies.

You can't buy IQ. Only its markers. The purpose of attending an elite university is to advertise intelligence without having to undergo the formality of possessing it. 

Hard work can compensate for a modest IQ, but the proper credential obviates the need for either. Cf. Obama, Biden, John Kerry, et al.

Of course they censor the controversy. The science won't just settle itself!

Eroding merit or undermining freedom is a false choice. The left is perfectly capable walking and chewing gum at the same time.

There's no IQ in equity. Oh, wait. 

Standardized testing was implemented to diversify the student body. Naturally, the left opposes it.

If you can't be happy here, you can't be happy.

Victimology is an inverse meritocracy; it fuels a race to the bottom. The last shall be first, good and hard.

Of course our privileged white elites are against standardized testing. It would both expose them and pose a barrier to the attainment and maintenance of their unearned privilege.

Low IQ imperialism: the conquest of the right side of the Bell Curve by the left. 

Universities are seminaries of evangelical stupidity. Our citizens are more educated but and therefore more stupid than ever.

Islam is one of two religious cults not content to be left alone. The other is progressivism.

Men are much greater and much worse than the left realizes. Our range runs from the diabolical to the saintly; the left's from who to whom, or from useless to useful idiots. "The poor" are simultaneously worthless and indispensable to the left's will to power.

Me? My talents are wasted on useful pursuits. 

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

The high priest of anons, who speaks for all anons, don't you know, should have a field day with this one. I expect he'll be preening upon the comment section stage any minute now. Can't wait.

Anonymous said...

I have arrived to preen.

I loved the post with the reference to Mrs. Scarrott's poem and that magical 1970s' hash.

Have you noticed how few poems are talked about anymore? Mrs. Scarrots Thoughts on a Grey Day, put forth in blank-verse, would not be of the highest-caliber UNLESS it was read by someone with the husky and emotive vocal timbre required, which I am guessing it was.

And have you noticed there is no hash being made today? Instead we have "shatter, budder, Rick Simpson oil, live resin sugar, honeycomb, and crumble" for sale. Why? What we have done wrong? Why does no one make hash anymore?



Anyway, hazy and humid weather squats over Southern California, and another sun-blasted summer unfolds.

Much as I enjoyed the post, it pains me to have to remind the blog author that the culture war officially ended on Monday, 08/16/2021.

Much of the content of the post is therefore no longer germane. To wit the question "When did the left become a revolt against math and literacy?" has only one correct response -"Trick question. It never did."

It will not be easy for Gagdad to adjust to the new reality. We will all need to be patient.

Anonymous said...

A troll re-hash. How novel.

ted said...

You talking to me?!

Yup. I had a childhood friend who loved these obscure tracks that were a bit out there. I recall he played this one. He had an older brother that keyed him in to the cool stuff. I was always a laggard in this regard. But alas, no weeds were used in the making of that wonderful moment in time.

P.S. He was a big ELO fan too. Which I never was. But I could appreciate Jeff Lynn's love for replicating Beatle like harmonies on a symphonic level.

Gagdad Bob said...

Bob Welch, during those in-between years of Fleetwood Mac, wrote some good songs, for example, Lay it All Down, Sentimental Lady, and Hypnotized.

julie said...

I don't object to teaching CRT to kids. So long as children are taught all the repulsive things about other races.

Heh - just share with the kids those handy infographics the Smithsonian put out last year, where they listed all the traits of varying racial groups and tried to make it sound like "white" characteristics are somehow bad, when they were literally all the positive traits of a successful civilization.

julie said...

We always live and have our being on no fewer than two planes.

Discussing with the girl last night, we were talking about the mysteries of how our bodies do so many things without our conscious minds having any idea, but those same processes can have an effect on the way we think, and yet often the thoughts we have don't reflect the core of who we are. Mysteries upon mysteries upon mysteries, all so two people can share a moment with each other in thoughtful conversation in the course of an extra-ordinary day.

Anonymous said...

So I just did a rundown of the top 20 nations with the highest IQ.
https://www.worlddata.info/iq-by-country.php

All of them have their predominant national politics occupying that range from some progressive-socialist policies (such as national health care) to outright authoritarian communism (DPRK).

Now, maybe I should exclaim “Oy veh!”. But Israel isn’t even on that list.

Anonymous said...

I just perused the commentary following PJ Medias “Left Behind: Billions in U.S. Equipment for the Afghanistan Taliban to Use Against... Us.” post. Good god, the stupid burns. Everything in that world is either Bidens or Trumps fault.

General POTUS CIC incompetencies aside, the only question worth asking is: Why the hell didn’t Afghan forces use these expensive weapons against the Taliban, after 20 years of training?

It's almost like our masses have been conditioned into mindless bickering, so that our powers that be can be as incompetent as they want to be. Now all we have left is venting frustrations onto the other "bad team".

Gagdad Bob said...

"How long the multicultural collapse of America will take is the only question left.

"And as every poll for decades showed, no one wanted this third world importation but the elites of both parties."

Gagdad Bob said...

"If we’ve learned any lesson from the last year and a half, it’s the empty fatuity of our leadership class. Hollow men and women, borne aloft by the weak breeze of credentials and connections, reinforced by institutions that have neglected their foundations in favor of lubricating their weathervanes."

Anonymous said...

Bob included in the comment
"And as every poll for decades showed, no one wanted this third world importation but the elites of both parties."

WTF is that supposed to mean? What third world importation?

Anonymous said...

I don't think there's anything wrong with our leadership. Trump led well, but I doubt his administration fully understood the dire hidden situation in Afghanistan. The Afghanis were paying lip service and no real change had ever been accomplished.

Biden has been blind-sided, sucker punched hard. The Afghanis bent over for the Taliban without offering any resistance. He did not see that coming; nobody did.

Wait, what? Why? Don't they hate the Taliban?

Not enough to die for that hatred, I guess.

Parallels in Vietnam: The ARVN hated and feared the NVA and VC, yet they did kind of melt away during the final offensive. They were already beaten psychologically.

It is a matter of commitment, I think. Bushido if you will.

The Taliban, the NVA, and the VC are and were all fired up about their cause and willing to get in harm's way for it.

The Afghan armed forces, like the ARVN, are and were not fired about their cause. They are soft. They want video games, couches, fast food. Yes they want the Taliban to go away, but get someone else to make them go away.

The US Armed Forces are very professional and tend to fight well out of pride. The Afghans apparently do not have a comparable esprit de corps. Americans have a martial history and culture. We don't like getting whipped. Not at all.

Make no mistake the Taliban did not whip us. They did wait until we went away and then they whipped their countrymen. Not the same thing.

Anonymous said...

The supernatural goes unnoticed because it uses natural laws.

julie said...

Going back to the title and opening of this post, it was a surprisingly grey and very English-weatherish day out in my neck of the woods. 70, cloudy, and looks to be much the same for the next few days. Very lovely, and somewhat surprising for desert terrain where it's more common to have triple digits than anything below 90 in August.

In some places, grey can get oppressive because it's the norm. In others, it is almost miraculous.

Anonymous said...

In Afghanistan, shades of grey are considered as beautiful as are shades of brown. I suspect the garish chamo paint on their new humvees will be revised to reflect this.

Or maybe the humvees will be officially declared far too provocatively sexy for paint and be covered with a large blue burkas. Blue in Afghanistan is of course, considered a dull and neutral color.

Regardless of what they choose, we'll be blaming the left because they ruin everything.

Anonymous said...

"... we'll be blaming the left because they ruin everything" - including comment sections.

Anonymous said...

The latest on the Taliban is they want legitimacy bad enough to behave in a civilized manner. Perhaps they did learn something in the past 20 years.

After coming into power back in 1996 they converted Kabul's soccer stadium into a venue for amputations and beheadings. Probably their true colors.

In 2021 I doubt they will reprise all of that violence and coercion. No, they need aid and support. They need legitimacy. They need to play ball with the big boys. They will probably sheath the long knives for now. Although they probably still want to behead lots of people.

So we shall see. We shall just see.

Cousin Dupree said...

No more barbaric executions in soccer stadiums. Rather, cricket stadiums.

Anonymous said...

Leftist here, have arrived to ruin the comment section, and I see a good start on this has already commenced. Spasibo Komeradaten!

I am a true Communist, a Soviet Union hard-liner. Dyed-in-the-wool Soviet. Communist Party member. Card carrier. The real deal.

"Gotta little dacha down in the Urals, getta big vacation with lotsa pretty girls." That is how we roll as you Amerikans say.

It is good to be the Commisar. I drink tea from a Samovar.

OK, I've ruined it enough. Vse, devolno.

Anonymous said...

Dupree, thank you for the story on the cricket stadium.

No, the Taliban has not renounced their murderous ways. Next they will be after the ladies for not wearing the burka. I think they got one already. Supposedly turned in by her own husband.

Who are these people. I want them brought in for questioning.

Van Harvey said...

"The purpose of attending an elite university is to advertise intelligence without having to undergo the formality of possessing it."

Bwa-Ha-Hahahah!

Theme Song

Theme Song