Author: Kim du Toit

Trying Out

While I Was Gone

When I quit blogging back in 2008, Loyal Readers from the time may recall that the Son&Heir was trying his best to make TeamUSA in the 10-meter Air Pistol and 50-meter Free Pistol events.

For the benefit of New Readers, however, I need to digress for a moment so I can explain what all the above means.

My son is unquestionably one of the finest shots I’ve ever seen — far, far better than I ever was. This is not Dad-bragging; he was heavily recruited by the Army to enlist so that he could join their Marksmanship Unit, and had he not had a small health issue, he could have walked into the Fort Bragg sniper school (once again, not bragging: one of the Army’s sniper instructors wanted to recruit him, until I told him about the health issue). Apart from his pistol shooting, about which I will speak later, he s an astounding rifle shot, capable of shooting minute-of-angle (MOA) at 400 meters (i.e. shooting and hitting a 4″-square target at 400 meters distance) without a scope. He’s done it, in fact, using my old 1906-manufactured bolt-action Swedish Mauser, using 6.5x55mm surplus (not target) cartridges.

Now for his pistol shooting: as a junior, he was many-times Texas state champion. As a senior (over 18) at the National Champs at Fort Bragg in 2009, he was ranked at #13 at Air Pistol, and #17 at Free Pistol, and subsequently improved his rankings to #7 and #13 respectively. This was enough to get him onto Team USA’s “development” squad. (They like people who can shoot in two events; saves on travel costs.)

This meant that the Son&Heir had a shot [sic] at making the team for the 2010 London Olympics. (Only the top 5 make the actual team, and he was competing against the kids from the Army Marksmanship Unit, so it really was only an outside chance.) So off he went to Trials at the USOC range in Colorado Springs, but sadly, he was unable to improve his ranking, so the Olympic dream ended.

Life then intervened in the form of his college commitment, and he stopped practicing three times a week. Brazil came up, but it would have screwed him up scholastically so he didn’t bother. He entered a few [Texas] collegiate Air Pistol events, and won all of them, against (admittedly) poor competition. Now he just shoots for recreation, “…when I need to hang out with old friends.”

By the way, he graduated cum laude so that, at least, wasn’t a waste of his time. Now he’s taken up indoor rock climbing, both for recreation and to help with that little health issue I referred to earlier (something to do with his lungs; nothing critical).

He also has a pretty girlfriend, whom we all love. She’s from Canada, but we’re a very inclusive family. (Comment from Daughter: “She’s far too nice; what’s she doing with him?” Ahhh… siblings.)

The Son&Heir will be 28 on his next birthday.

An Old Chestnut, Revisited

General

Many years ago, this little piece made the rounds on the Internet, and as often happens, I got it again in my Inbox a couple weeks or so ago.

To the citizens of the United States of America from Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II:

In light of your failure in recent years to nominate competent candidates for President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective immediately. (You should look up ‘revocation’ in the Oxford English Dictionary.)

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths, and territories (except North Dakota, which she does not fancy).

Your new Prime Minister, Theresa May, will appoint a Governor for America without the need for further elections.

Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire may be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. The letter ‘U’ will be reinstated in words such as ‘colour,’ ‘favour,’ ‘labour’ and ‘neighbour.’ Likewise, you will learn to spell ‘doughnut’ without skipping half the letters, and the suffix ‘-ize’ will be replaced by the suffix ‘-ise.’ Generally, you will be expected to raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. (look up ‘vocabulary’).

2. Using the same twenty-seven words interspersed with filler noises such as ”like’ and ‘you know’ is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. There is no such thing as U.S. English. We will let Microsoft know on your behalf. The Microsoft spell-checker will be adjusted to take into account the reinstated letter ‘u” and the elimination of ‘-ize.’

3. July 4th will no longer be celebrated as a holiday.

4. You will learn to resolve personal issues without using guns, lawyers, or therapists. The fact that you need so many lawyers and therapists shows that you’re not quite ready to be independent. Guns should only be used for shooting grouse. If you can’t sort things out without suing someone or speaking to a therapist, then you’re not ready to shoot grouse.

5. Therefore, you will no longer be allowed to own or carry anything more dangerous than a vegetable peeler. Although a permit will be required if you wish to carry a vegetable peeler in public.

6. All intersections will be replaced with roundabouts, and you will start driving on the left side with immediate effect. At the same time, you will go metric with immediate effect and without the benefit of conversion tables. Both roundabouts and metrication will help you understand the British sense of humour.

7. The former USA will adopt UK prices on petrol (which you have been calling gasoline) of roughly $10/US gallon. Get used to it.

8. You will learn to make real chips. Those things you call French fries are not real chips, and those things you insist on calling potato chips are properly called crisps. Real chips are thick cut, fried in animal fat, and dressed not with catsup or ketchup, but with vinegar.

9. The cold, tasteless stuff you insist on calling beer is not actually beer at all. Henceforth, only proper British Bitter will be referred to as beer, and European brews of known and accepted provenance will be referred to as Lager. South African beer is also acceptable, as they are pound for pound the greatest sporting nation on earth and it can only be due to the beer. They are also part of the British Commonwealth – see what it did for them. American brands will be referred to as Near-Frozen Gnat’s Urine, so that all can be sold without risk of further confusion.

10. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as good guys. Hollywood will also be required to cast English actors to play English characters. Watching Andie Macdowell attempt English dialect in Four Weddings and a Funeral was an experience akin to having one’s ears removed with a cheese grater.

11. You will cease playing American football. There is only one kind of proper football; you call it soccer. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which has some similarities to American football, but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like a bunch of nancies).

12. Further, you will stop playing baseball. It is not reasonable to host an event called the World Series for a game which is not played outside of America. Since only 2.1% of you are aware there is a world beyond your borders, your error is understandable. You will learn cricket, and we will let you face the South Africans first to take the sting out of their deliveries.

13.. You must tell us who killed JFK. It’s been driving us mad.

14. An internal revenue agent (i.e. tax collector) from Her Majesty’s Government will be with you shortly to ensure the acquisition of all monies due (backdated to 1776).

15. Daily Tea Time begins promptly at 4 p.m. with proper cups, with saucers, and never mugs, with high quality biscuits (cookies) and cakes; plus strawberries (with cream) when in season.

God Save the Queen!

Well, the hell with that, I thought, and penned a “reply” (below the fold):

Read more

Random Partners

Men & Women

So during my absence from this here Intarwebz thingy, apparently there came into being an application (“app”) called “Tinder”, which allows men and women in close proximity to each other to “hook up” (i.e. have casual sex — quit laughing, I’m trying to keep up here). “Swipe Left” (on one’s phone screen) means “get lost” and “Swipe Right” means “I allow you access to my genitalia”. (I’m using as many euphemisms as I can dream up, but I’m running out pretty quickly.)

Back in the Olde Tymes, right after we discovered fire (or maybe it was the wheel, I forget), the equivalent to this was walking up to your object of desire and saying the immortal words, “Your place or mine?” without so much as an introduction, and was almost always uttered by a man to a woman. Needless to say, this approach was generally met with scorn, horror and/or a slap in the face — unless the speaker was a Bad Boy, a Handsome Man, a Wealthy Man,a Celebrity or some other type which seems to make women lose their modesty, loosen their panty-elastic and turn their legs into margarine.

Now, with Tinder, the approachee can look at the photo of the approacher and make a snap judgement as to whether a more intimate encounter can occur (swipe right) or not (swipe left). As this decision is made based purely on a photograph, the outcome can often be dire, and there have been many right-swiping stories with tragic outcomes. I imagine that Jack The Ripper would have wept tears of joy had he had Tinder available in late-Victorian London, for example.

Even as little as a few years ago, I would have been shocked / disgusted / appalled at this situation, but now I look on the whole thing with a more jaundiced eye. If there is a way to fuck your life up — in this case, exposing yourself to venereal disease, danger and worse for a quick, empty thrill — then people are going to find it. That this process can now be facilitated with the aid of technology occasions from me no more than a shrug. It’s just the same as “Your place or mine?” but with less intimacy (in that the approacher / approachee are never actually close to each other until the right-swiping outcome), and there’s also less chance of hurt feelings and a sore cheek. In other words, it’s a perfect Millennial-snowflake encounter.

I can understand why a man would use Tinder, because generally speaking, we’re assholes looking for an easy lay. Why any woman would use Tinder is quite beyond me;  but then again, as any fule kno, I am rather old-fashioned about this kind of thing in that I actually prefer a little romance before penetration, as it were, and I persist in thinking that women are the gentler sex, despite all evidence to the contrary in today’s world.

So flirting has been replaced by an impersonal mechanism. Whatever. Just as I prefer my battered old 1911 to a modern gun loaded with plastic doodads, I prefer old-fashioned romance to soulless coupling.  To put it in artistic terms:

Eugene De Blaas

over Felicien Rops

Your opinion may vary, but I’m not really interested in hearing it.

 

You Ask, We Provide

General

We’ve had a million complaints (from one or two people) complaining about the inability to edit their comments. I understand completely; maybe you want to reconsider that intemperate “Kim you filthy rotten bastard” comment and change it into “Oh Kim, I want to bear your children!”*

Well, worry no more: Tech Support v.2 has fixed it so that you can now edit your comment up to 30 minutes after posting it.

BobbyK and the future Mrs. BobbyK are registered at Cabela’s; no wait, I mean at amazon.com.

*Sorry, I done been fixed. The ol’ production pole has been turned into a joystick.

Our National Schism

Politics

Responding to the Dr. Kim post below, Reader Tom G makes this thoughtful comment:

“Hi Kim, while judging people as stupid is easy, there are many things Trump has said that are problematic.
…
“The point is that, if Trump is NOT Hitler, this will become more clear over time. Just as a huge part of the Trump supporters were actually more anti-Hillary, many Dems are more anti-Trump than pro-socialist.

“For the Trump-haters, “this, too, shall pass”. So better to pause the friendship for a couple of months, rather  than ending it.”

Tom, the problem is that the schism in our body politic long predates Trump — he’s just the reaction to the fact that the Left has persisted in its Long March through all our public institutions, making the schism all the greater. The Trump Derangement Effect is largely because up until now, the Left has hardly ever been challenged by the likes of the GOP establishment (GOPe) and near-Republicans like Bush 41 and 43. The Left’s hysteria is nothing new — they said the same stuff about Goldwater, Reagan, GWB and all the Republican presidential candidates to one degree or another. Now it’s just at boiling-point, because, maybe for the first time, they’ve encountered serious resistance to their so-called “progressivism”, and the depth of that resistance (Trump: 2,626 counties won, Hillary: 487 counties) has frightened them (hence their screaming about “popular votes”). It’s also frightened the GOPe almost as much. As Instapundit commenter Lars from Centerville put it:

“The Left has been at war with American citizens for several decades. They are attacking culturally, socially, politically, financially, and with weaponized government institutions. The GOP has proved unworthy and unwilling to fight back. A major reason why Trump was elected. It is time to crush the Left decisively. That means crushing the GOP if they stand in the way. Ryan, McConnell, McCain, and Graham ought to pay attention. The clock is running and the dates on their packaging has expired.”

I don’t think this conflict is going to die down. When two irreconcilable philosophies clash, the result is war — not always literal war (e.g. civil war), but a bitter war nevertheless, fought in the media, on campuses, in the streets sometimes, and in social gatherings. This war will not end, and the couple months’ pause in friendship that you suggest may well turn out to be permanent.

And I’m sorry, but when people fail to see that their socio-political philosophy is worthless and venal despite all the evidence thereof, then I think they’re stupid. The only other alternative is “evil”, but that’s what they’re calling Trump (without foundation), so I’ll just go with stupid. For now.

Not So Silly

Grief & Loss

A week or so ago, I went over to the funeral home to pick up Connie’s ashes and get her death certificate. The funeral director, a lovely young lady named Amanda, had been wonderful throughout this whole grisly process — dealing with the hospital, the doctors and the state of Texas as part of their service.

Once all the talking was done, I said to the container of ashes, “Come on, sweetheart; let me take you home.” Whereupon Amanda gave a little sob, and ran out of the room.

All the way home, I talked to Connie’s ashes, telling her what I’d been doing in her absence, how the kids were doing, and in general keeping her up to date an everything that had happened since she died.

Stupid, huh?

I’ve always wondered at people who kept Mom’s ashes in an urn on the mantle like some sad reminder or token. Of course, it’s been a staple of black humor in stage productions and movies (the scattering of the ashes scene in The Big Lebowski comes to mind), and yes, it’s all good fun, but silly.

I don’t think it’s so silly anymore. Actually, it’s kind of peaceful and reassuring to have them around even though, let’s be honest, they’re ashes.

She’s not going to stay here, though. In fact, later in the year she’s going to be laid to rest in a long barrow in Wiltshire, built on the farm which belongs to an old family friend (pictured in the article). The irony is strong: Connie was always severely claustrophobic, but as another friend said, “She’ll get over it. Besides, she’s going to be among friends, now.”

What I do know is that Connie loved the place; she called it “home”, and when we visited the farm, she would sit for hours at the kitchen window looking out over the Vale of Pewsey. When I asked her what she was doing, she replied, “Looking at one of Constable’s paintings,” because that’s exactly what it looked like. Here’s what she was talking about:

It is even more beautiful than the photo suggests. And when it’s my time to go, guess where my ashes will end up? Yup… right next to hers.

Together again at last. And I’m not claustrophobic.