Author: Kim du Toit

Third World Adventure

Behind Enemy Lines, Gummint

I once knew a German professional photographer (let’s call him Georg) who, along with a fellow German photographer (“Klaus”), decided to do one of those photo safaris — driving from Cairo to Cape Town, snapping pics along the way — that sounds so good back in Hamburg, but is completely foolish in reality.  Anyway, driving a mil-surp G-Wagen (not a bad choice, BTW), they set off and made it through Egypt without incident.  At the border, they had to get a “passing through” visa to get across the Sudan, which essentially allowed them to be in the country for three days.  When they got to Sudan’s southern border, however, the sole guard at the border post (just a hut) wouldn’t let them leave the country because they had the “wrong visa” — and they’d have to drive back to Khartoum (a two-day drive) to get the right one.  When Georg pointed out that their existing visa would expire en route and they would, in essence, be in the country illegally and imprisoned if caught, the guard just shrugged.  Not his problem.

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.  Last week, faced with a looming legal deadline, I had to fly up to Chicago to get a legal document out of the Cook County Court archives.  (Why I was unable to access the document online, or even manage to talk to someone in the County Clerk’s office to send me the document is a story all by itself.)  Anyway, after having had my 5am flight canceled (thank you, American), I made the 7am flight only by dint of paying the full fare (don’t ask) and arrived at the Cook County courthouse (2nd District in Skokie) at about 11am, with all the data needed for the request on my trusty laptop..

Of course, there’s TSA-type security at all these places these days, which is where I had a Sudan-type encounter of my own.  Reason?  No laptops allowed in the courthouse by members of the public.  I know, it’s inexplicable but hey, Cook County.  I looked around for any storage lockers:  none.

“So where can I store my laptop?”
“You’ll just have to take it back to your car.”
“I don’t have a car;  I just flew in from Dallas.  So what can I do?”
Like the Sudanese border guard, the fucking security guard just shrugged.  “Not my problem.”

At this juncture, I should point out that every single glass window and door at the courthouse has one of those idiotic little “No Handgun” stickers displayed.

I’m not saying that I would have shot someone — in fact, I absolutely would not have, even if I’d been able to bring the 1911 with me — but let me tell you, after a day which had begun at 3am, experienced a canceled flight and a massive fare surcharge along with all the other hassles of modern-day travel (full flight, idiots with too-large bags, crowded train from the airport into the city etc.), only to be faced with indifferent bovine officialdom at the end of it, I can quite believe that some other guy  might  have dropped the hammer.

Which, by the way, is what Klaus did at the Sudanese border.  He told the guard that he had the correct visa back in the car, fetched his gun instead and shot the guard dead.  Then he and Georg got in their G-Wagen and raced off into Uganda.  A real African tale, that one.

And now, the rest of my  story. Read more

News Roundup

Bad News, Funny Stuff

1)  Chicago: 75% of Murdered Are Black, 71% of Murderers Are Black  — …and the accusations of “RAYCISSS!!!” will begin in 5… 4… 3… 2…

2)  Round 2 of Democrat Socialist candidate debates ends —  all around the same theme:  “We’re going to give stuff to undeserving people and make other people pay for it, or else distill the money from unicorn droppings.”

 

3)  Getting Tough On Crime In Britain from one of Boris’s Babes  — and about damn time, too, although we’ll have to wait and see how effective it is.

4) Beaten up for wearing a MAGA hat — my advice is that if you’re going to wear a MAGA hat, you need to wear a .45 as well, just in case.  Tough shit if you live in New York Fucking City, like this poor guy does.

5)  That asshole Moore wants Michelle Obama to run against Trump in 2020 — my suspicion is that Black Hillary won’t do any better than White Hillary did.

6)  “What’s Killing Office Romances?” — rabid feministicals, lawyers and Human Resources [considerable overlap].  Next stupid question?

7)  Mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton — not gonna comment until we get some facts in (unlike this asshole).  But just for the sake of balance (amid the press hysteria):  29 people dead in these two incidents equates to half the average monthly shooting deaths (63) in Chicago in 2016 .  Just sayin’.

It Started With “Gay”

Grammar Nazism

…or maybe it was “grass”, but either way, the result was the same:  a perfectly good word was hijacked by bastards in order to make something socially unsavory become more acceptable.   Hence “gay” for homosexual — deeply ironic considering that homosexuals in general are the gloomiest and most unhappy people on the planet.

Now, of course, we have a similar situation, only now it’s words hijacked by Big Tech:

According to a study by the University of Leeds, which looked at datasets of informal conversations, all mentions of the word ‘tweet’ in the Nineties referred to birdsong, while one in 100 do now.
We need not despair that, in future, our children will think of a remote data-storage system when they hear the word ‘cloud’. But we should offset it by teaching them the names of clouds.
We need not despair that, in future, our children will think of a remote data-storage system when they hear the word ‘cloud’.  But we should offset it by teaching them the names of clouds.
Seven in ten uses of ‘web’ in the same period referred to spiders: this has become one in ten.
‘Field’, ‘fibre’, ‘cloud’, ‘branch’ and ‘net’ have all changed meanings, too, co-opted for commercial or technological ends.
This is the living mutability of language, the way it shifts to keep tight its embrace with the world. But there is an edge of loss to this change.
Now, the speaker is not contemplating a sky or the running twists of water, the slender might of a spider’s web, or pasture, trees or the music of birds. He or she refers to a ‘virtual’ world, conjured in pixels.
What the tech firms call ‘disruption’, when they destroy old trading networks, is one of the forces of our time. Populist politicians disrupt electoral tribes*; the Leeds study shows that technology [is] disrupting language itself.

I have a very dear lady friend with the ancient and lovely name of “Alexa”.  She’s considering renaming herself as “Lexie” (a nickname), simply because Amazon’s electronic Stasi toy has become ubiquitous in ordinary conversation — and that’s not to mention all the jokes made when people get introduced to her.   (As she puts it, you can only hear “Alexa?  Turn on the coffeemaker” so many times before it starts getting really  old.)

And it’s all quite unnecessary.  Tech firms should actually create names for their products instead of lazily co-opting existing words or names.

We can talk about homosexuals and hippies some other time.

*Actually, no.  All  politicians create electoral tribes;  “populist politicians” (e.g. Nigel Farage and Donald Trump) simply create new electoral tribes out of elements of those electoral tribes made by establishment politicians.

Public Morals

Men & Women

South Korea has banned the importation of sex dolls.  From the article:

While sex dolls are not illegal in South Korea, government customs agencies had blocked their import under a law that restricts materials that “corrupt public morals.”

And:

However, the Seoul High Court said in January that sex dolls were for personal use and should be treated differently than pornography, which is heavily restricted under South Korean law. That decision was upheld by the supreme court in June.
The ruling has sparked a backlash, with one petition filed with the presidential Blue House gathering more than 237,000 signatures. The unidentified author of the petition argued that an influx of imported sex dolls could lead to an increase in sex crimes.

I’d love to see the supporting statistics for that last statement.  Except, of course, there aren’t any.  Someone just had a hunch.

What really surprises me is that pornography is “heavily restricted” in Korea.  That doesn’t seem to jibe with conversations I’ve had with people who’ve been there.

Dog Ate My Homework

Gratuitous Gun Pics, The Gun Thing

A little while ago, my website’s server had a hiccup (confirmed by Tech Support II) and ate the post that was supposed to be here.

Of course, this happened mid-writing, so it all went bye-bye into the Great Digital Black Hole (no relation to Maxine Waters).

When I get my temper under control, you can read all about my trip to the Third World this past Wednesday.  In the meantime, here’s a gratuitous gun pic of a Mauser C96:

Other than as an historical artifact (e.g. as used by Winston Churchill against various fuzzy-wuzzies), I don’t know why people have a thing for this gun.  I’ve fired fired one in its original 7.63 Mauser chambering, and it’s almost uncontrollable:  that “broomhandle” grip turns in your hand even in when shooting two-handed;  gawd knows what it’s like when shooting it old-style:

 

I bet you couldn’t hit the inside of a barn with the thing, let alone a deserving fuzzy-wuzzy.