Regular Programming Will Continue Soon

And that's a promise.  I have been busy preparing for the Montana State Chess Championship, which is invitation-only and will feature some rather difficult competition.  Win, lose, or draw, I am overjoyed at this opportunity.  My decision to move to Montana two years ago was meant to achieve precisely this -- explore my interests outside of work, which was consuming my life.  Lo and behold, a reservoir of chess potential had lain dormant within me for years, and now I am playing better than I ever imagined possible.

Do not fret.  There are many posts in the pipeline that are sure to enrich those of you who yearn for truth and are equally sure to infuriate everybody else.  But if you're not infuriating someone -- especially in a perverse historical moment such as ours -- then you have no soul.

The Olympics Are Over, Literally And Figuratively

I've never been much of a sports fan; I was always a sports participant, and I competed in soccer, track, and volleyball at high levels until I injured my back.  Fans strike me as inherently passive.  Modern sports are lavishly funded with taxpayer money precisely for this reason, since a population kept fat, dumb, and happy is easy to control.  The pathetic image of a man glued to his television to watch other men compete while he gorges on food and drink -- and likely demands that nobody interrupt the sacred ritual until it is over -- constitutes yet another stereotype that is all too accurate.

But I always enjoyed watching the Olympics because they struck me as different.  Here we have a tradition dating back to ancient Greece, supposedly founded by Heracles himself, where all political agendas and even wars ceased so that homage could be paid to what is best in the human spirit.  For a brief moment, men could be like the gods (i.e., the Olympians) whose image they were fashioned in.  When the modern version of the games began in 1896, there was an active effort to preserve the noble aspects of athletic competition.  Only amateurs could compete, for the goal was beauty and camaraderie, not victory at all costs.  The professional is a monomaniacal mercenary rather than a well-rounded gentleman, so he was excluded from the proceedings as entirely inconsistent with them.  

Like all ideals, the Olympic one has faded over time.  The London Olympics have shown me conclusively that the ideal has vanished, another oasis of honor and beauty swallowed in the desert of arid modernity.

First, the entire spectacle was political, starting with the opening ceremony.  Great Britain and the Olympics have a rich history worthy of commemorating, but what do we get instead?  Condemnation of the Industrial Revolution; celebration of socialized medicine; a paean to British multiculturalism; and everything swaddled in youth pop-culture as if to thumb a collective nose at the past.  Politics locked out triple-jumper Voula Papachristou  because she dares to support the preservation of Greece's national and cultural identity, a view at odds with the globalistic and de-racinated utopia that the modern Olympics appears designed to foster.  And politics infiltrated almost all of the sportscasting; I've had enough vignettes about athletes' struggles with racism, sexism, ageism, and suspected hermaphroditism to last me a lifetime. 

Second, the professional mercenary rules the day. Gone is the humble amateur who led a complete life and practiced in his spare time, often scraping money together to book passage to the venue.  What we have now are highly compensated monomaniacs who do almost nothing but their chosen sport or event week after week, year after year.  These are not balanced people.  And victory is what matters most to these people and the governments who sponsor or even train them (often both).  The Chinese government in particular has destroyed the Olympic spirit by whisking children away from their parents and brutally whipping them into shape, like animals, to achieve the objective of gold medals.  China today is both communist (politically) and capitalist (economically), so it has blended the grotesque materialism of both systems.  But at least the Chinese refrain from the trash talking, fist pumping, chest thumping, and vulgar scenes of self-congratulation offered by most other competitors.

I will continue to watch the Olympics to admire the skill and grace of the competitors, but it saddens me to know that in this endeavor, as in so many others, we no longer attempt to emulate the gods.          

Pithy Observation On Tattoos

Here's a news story from my old stomping ground of South Florida.  Apparently, various police departments are tightening the employee restrictions on tattoos, either barring them outright or requiring that they be covered.  It's refreshing to see the thin blue line preserve some standards of decorum like this, albeit on life support.  The article quotes a local tattoo artist who defends the modern popularity of tattoos as follows: "It's not just for whores, bikers and sailors anymore."  Pretty frank language for a newspaper, and I'm sure someone will be upset that I quoted it.  I beg to differ with the artist's conclusion, though, since pretty much everyone these days acts like those particular subsets of the population.  It's not that tattoos crept out of the ghetto; it's just that everyone else crept in.        

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Economic Meltdown

I used to worry about a lot of things, but recently I came to understand there is no need to worry because everything balances out.  Take the economic meltdown, which has everyone scrambling to find if there are any laws or principles left to destroy in order to prop up the almighty GDP.  My old self would argue with people in a vain attempt to explain the utter ineffectiveness and depravity of what they are doing.  The new me, however, sits back and laughs because I see silver linings in these gathering clouds.  (Besides, as a firm believer in the acronym MPAI, I see no point in arguing with most people anyway.) 

• As the economy continues imploding and the central banks keep counterfeiting money to stave it off, one of two things will happen:  hyperinflation, or massive deflation.  If the former occurs, none of the Soviet-style caps on interest rates will hold, and I'll rake in higher returns on my savings.  If the latter occurs, I'll snap up assets at bargain-basement prices.  It's a win-win.

• The "best and the brightest" with their Ivy-league pedigrees, their governmental and academic sinecures, and their sick Keynesian delusions will be shown as utterly wrong about everything they've been spouting for the past three generations.  They are the ones defining and setting public policy; "extremists" like me who quote the Constitution and the Founding Fathers are not allowed a seat at the table, so when the walls come tumbling down, our hands will be absolutely clean.  (I'm sure, however, that the powers-that-be will still try to blame the collapse on the few remnants of morality and sanity.)

• Bankrupt governments will have far less means with which to pervert society, and the virtues that stem from personal responsibility will flourish once again.  People will have to exercise frugality to plan for their retirements and to take care of their own relatives; the young will have to revere and respect the old; spouses cannot be blithely jettisoned and replaced with food stamps or welfare checks; "free" birth control and healthcare will have to be replaced with modesty and caution; education in general will have to be passed down within the family and from generation to generation, not dictated by a government commissar according to the latest ideological fad; and charity will be real once again, for it will have to come voluntarily from the givers, not artificially engineered and mandated by the takers.

• If people are too broke to buy gadgets, take vacations, or generally chase after novel or decadent experiences, they are more likely to remember that happiness comes from within.

• On a related note, if Hollywood takes a major hit and can't churn out its cultural rot on a regular basis, people will be better equipped to base their opinions on their interactions with each other on reality, not on leftist fantasies.

• Environmentalists will have to STFU because when people are poor or hungry, they're not in the mood to hear that their needs are less important than a snail's, or how they are interfering with the planet's supposed harmony.

• If the federal government defaults on the debt, it will be very difficult if not impossible to attract lenders in the future, so government spending (and activity) will be mercifully curtailed even further.

• Responsible people will once again be respected, not ridiculed.  The irresponsible, brash, profligate, and sleazy will not seem very cute or entertaining anymore.