Monday Maunderings: The Cheap Psychologizing Edition

     Okay, so Sunday is the “day of rest” for the rest of you. I prefer to rest on Monday. I find the irony delicious.

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     Sunday remains an exceptional day for several reasons. One of them is the expense of having something delivered on a Sunday. Yes, it can be done...but you must expect to pay extra.

     Yesterday being Mother’s Day, I decided to arrange for a gift to the C.S.O. to arrive on that day. The price of the gift: $33.98. The shipping charge? $31.98. Oy!

     But that’s only half the story. Beth was out of the house when the box arrived. So I left it where she would see it as she returned. She did...and walked right past it. When I drew her attention to it, she asked me to open it for her. Mega-Oy!

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     No, I haven’t yet put the Corvette on the road. Insurance and license plates are required, don’t y’know. That stuff should happen today and tomorrow, at which point I’ll be able to enjoy it as it deserves.

     However, in a gesture of reassurance to my Gentle Readers, allow me to state:

• I haven’t gone out of my mind;
• Yes, I am aware that I’m 65 years old;
• No, I don’t plan to drive Joy – thank you, JWM – like a drunken fool;
• Neither do I have my eye on a young blonde replacement for the C.S.O.;
• As Joy is plainly a good-weather-only car, Milla the Mercedes will remain part of my stable of mounts.

     I’m hoping for good weather sometime soon. Long Islanders will know exactly what I mean.

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     It’s been said that “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Well, sometimes. Today the Web’s favorite Bookworm presents a juicy collection. Get over there and enjoy!

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     I have seldom laughed at another person’s unhappiness or dismay...but I laughed like a hyena at this. Give it a look. I think you’ll enjoy it, too.

     It is notable that:

• AntiFa promotes itself as “fighting fascism,” but it relies exclusively on fascist methods.
• The masks its adherents wear suggest that they’re ashamed of their affiliation.
• When decent persons meet AntiFa’s violence in kind, that’s “unfair;”
• This Quinn person – any bets on whether that’s her actual name? – cannot accept defeat.
• Despite the pattern of police noninterference when AntiFa and Black Bloc start roughing people up, they believe that the police are “on the Nazis’ side.”
• AntiFa takes no actual positions. It exists to suppress the gatherings and speech of non-Leftists. That is its entire raison d’etre.
• None of the Left’s luminaries have dared to condemn AntiFa’s violence or denounce its methods –afraid of being the next target, perhaps? – but the Dishonorable John Lewis has indirectly expressed encouragement for them.

     Draw your own conclusions.

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     A number of people have written to ask “what you had in mind” when I wrote this little story. In fact, it’s based on someone I once knew well. He liked to attend left-liberal events specifically for the sexual opportunities. He got quite a lot of action that way, which makes it hard to criticize his methods. I merely brought that variety of behavior “up to date.”

     It’s not exclusively a young man’s behavior pattern, either. Quite a number of plain-looking young women do much the same, though they normally avoid gatherings expected to eventuate in violence. As long as they can “do their part” without getting hurt or arrested, they’re susceptible to the same motivations.

     I’ve never heard anything comparable said about a right- leaning conference or other event. Perhaps I’ve been listening to the wrong people.

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     As many of my old favorites in Blogdom seem to be slowly running out of steam, I’d like to make special mention of two blogs I recently added to the blogroll: Double Plus Undead and Never Yet Melted. These sites have provided me with a surprising amount of information and entertainment. If you haven’t yet done so, give them a look.

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     I can’t leave off without revisiting one of my favorite subjects: our propensity toward wishful thinking. Wishful thinking isn’t just about achieving things we find desirable. It’s also about things we claim to dread.

     The Marquis de la Fontaine once said that “We believe easily what we fear or what we desire.” How true. Humans are especially vulnerable to that failing when “what we fear or what we desire” has a direct bearing on our personal worth – in contemporary jargon, our “self-esteem.” Much of the hysteria about this or that Cause isn’t genuinely about the Cause itself, but about the hysterics’ need to believe they’re engaged in something important. Something that, having involved themselves in it, will imply a greater significance to their own wretched existences. After all, if you’re engaged in “saving the world,” how important is it that you’re thirty years old, unemployed, unmarried, and living in your parents’ basement?

     Economic explanations, like philosophical ones, are always partial and unverifiable. Correlation is not cause. However, I’ll be watching as the Trump Economic Resurgence takes hold, both regionally and nationally. Add a little tough love from some longsuffering parents who’ve tired of doing Junior’s laundry and want their basements back, and who knows what might happen?

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     That’s all for today, Gentle Reader. I have a lot of errands and chores before me today. Once again, the pileup has me thinking that I had more free time and got more rest when I was still working for a salary. So stay cool, calm, and collected, until either the morrow or Colonel Bunny’s next emission.