Wednesday, September 10, 2014

This, That, a Bit of Madness, and a Night at the Beach

My heart has not been in the blogging business. I have been playing with my dogs and taking care of our new digs.

The whole political scene in this country has gone mad, and it is a madness that was clearly foreseeable. As I said before, one did not need to be Nostradamus to see what was going to happen to the United States and the West when the ultimate fraud became President, January 2009.

The haters of Western civilization and the low information public services-consuming munchkins got what they wanted: a President just like them. The results are everywhere to be seen from the streets of Missouri to the shores of the Black Sea; from our southern border to the arc of murderous insanity that now rules the fates of millions from Nigeria to Pakistan; from decaying blue California to rising Red China. We have a post-USA world, nay, a post-West world, and it is a miserable place.

We have a President with no concept of leadership. The world watches as he throws away our victories in Iraq and Afghanistan while he blithely, oozing bored condescension, tells that same world that--Surprise!--the USA has no strategy for dealing with the madmen of ISIS, but that--yawn--it is "a manageable problem." The real threat, of course, comes from global warming, er, uh global climate change . . . and the Washington Redskins need to change their name.

So, what did I do to keep my sanity? I escaped.

The wife and I went to a dinner on the beach in Malibu to hang for a bit with the hated "one percent." Nice party at a private club on the Pacific. Beautiful night, clear sky, zillions of stars, and steak and lobster and shrimp and oysters and, and . . . The party, given by our stockbroker, was attended by a few dozen evil rich white people. I was the only ex-government employee; the others, apparently, had had real jobs and created real wealth--I think, but I don't really know for sure.

They seemed mildly amused on hearing that I had spent some 34 years in the State Department; not very interested, but amused. One asked if that meant I knew which fork to use with the lobster. They never asked how I had gotten an invite to the party. There was even a slightly faded, with a lot of plastic surgery, Hollywood actress who had been "A-List" in the 1970s and 1980s, but was now a B-lister --although she still works regularly on a daytime soap pretending to be a doctor. She had zero interest in foreign affairs but expressed some passing confused "interest" in the environment--I couldn't make heads or tails of it. I didn't have the heart to say I had never seen her show.

The rich are different. Almost nobody talked about money or what they do now or had done in the past. We generally talked about cars, dogs, the weather, and the hoax of "rehab." A pleasant few hours in an apolitical Gatsby bubble. At  the end, they squeezed into exotic cars and sped off to Beverly Hills and Pacific Palisades; the Diplowife and I clambered into our 2010 Chevy Tahoe and rumbled off to a more modest zip code. It reminded us a bit of the three thousand or so diplomatic receptions we had attended while overseas, except the people on the beach in Malibu were much less pretentious.

That's my story and I am sticking to it.

38 comments:

  1. It was a long time between posts but it was worth the wait. Please keep blogging. I'm in Albania...I need the laughs.

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  2. Beauty!

    - reader #1482

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  3. Sometimes it's a necessary thing to just sit in a corner, cover the ears and say lah, lah, lah, lah,lah.
    Reader129

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  4. Why not take the Corvette? Diplowife no like the Vette? My wife does not like my car, and the car/mistress reciprocates by doing things like refusing to open the door for her, or blowing air in her face.

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    1. You nailed it. She hates the Vette and before that she hated the Mustang.

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  5. Funny you should mention that, Dip-ster. My friends and I shall be gathering around my old crystal set radio this evening for a good old-fashioned drinking game. No, crustaceans, just some chicken wings and some beer. Every time the Dear Reader says "Me", "My", or "I" we all guzzle the remains of our beer. It's great fun. Except the hangover is getting much harder with each passing speech.

    After the fist couple of minutes the listener doesn't even hear the nonsensical drivel that makes it over the air through all the shouts of "drink", "drink", "drink". Ah, great fun.

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    1. Wow, that sounds like a rough drinking game, Godspeed to you on that one. I've come to the point where I simply cannot listen to the man speak anymore, my blood boils and I start to yell at the tv or radio. I think while President Asshat is speaking I will do something productive with my time by taking the dog for a nice walk.

      Nick
      From the Penal Colony formerly known as New York

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    2. If I have a mass communications device of any sort on when Obama starts to speak, SwampMan is liable to smash it on the floor. Our house is 100% Obama free.

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    3. I call it discernment--that literal shudder you feel when obola speaks his lies. We "disappeared" our cable when things were being thrown at the TV because pundits were calling obola elegant and brilliant. Now in what photos we do see of him he looks more and more like he cannot hide his true self--a shrinking soulless ghoul of a man. We see a Muslim Nazgul (LOTR) hideous and malignant, bent on destroying the USA.

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  6. Stick to your story Diplomad even if (or course you'll not be saying) it might be this;

    http://www.blogtalkradio.com/midrats/2014/09/07/episode-244-long-war-update-with-bill-roggio

    and go from ... well ... wherever.

    But whenever Anyone speaks of the "Low Information Whatever" I do ask, Have they a clue what they're asking about, which Region, if it's the One and the Same - Or ... Somehow Different Places"?

    It's easy enough to type into Google

    Obama = Bad. That's simple arithmetic.

    Easy enough to deal with even.

    But then ... there's the Republicans. I can handle quadratic equations, maybe a little Quantum Mechanics ( smidgen of "O" Level Algebraics) but then, there's also Nuclear Physics figuring out how A) we "Irradiate" Hamas & Hezbollah [maybe some few Iranians]

    But as I was saying, there is the Washington DC Branch (works well with Dianne Feinstein & Mike Rogers to screw us all algebraically and can't even say it on C-Span how they did it

    Meanwhile Michelle Bachmann appears on FOX' Greta Van Susteran saying "It's classified and so I can't speak to why all them Somalis in my own District was only released yesterday! (9/08?14)

    Even though anybody else could Google - Up the Minneapolis St Paul Newspapers from YIKES 2005! and "maybe misunderstanding how Tea-Party Bachmann didn't know she had a fucking SOMALI CONSTITUENCY voting her in because ...

    Y'all can for yourselves date how an ignurn't Arkie (who might just as a matter of pure coincidence have previously commented on Diplomad's site - posted "this" over on D&N even BEFORE Drudge picked it up
    ____________

    David, I suppose I mostly agree with that "just want to keep their heads down" - but only insofar as for lack of an agreed upon label I'll term, 'the founder immigrant generation.'

    Over here I've an easy to hand example being the US' escapades in Somalia. During the mid to latter years of the Clinton Administration the US received a sizeable influx of Somalian refugees wanting merely to breathe free as the saying goes.

    And that new demographic mainly settled in our Minneapolis/St Paul region of Minnesota where, what with all that free breathing produced a new generation a sizeable number of whom listening to the 'Dreams of the Father' up and (along with their US passports) took holiday with al Shabaab back in Somalia.

    I would submit, al Shabaab never held out much attractiveness to yours and the EUs would-be jihadis however, the ME is another planet.
    _________________

    Michael Adams I know reads here, some few others I think might *verify* I beat "everybody but Diplomad"

    But, I'd submit, there's where we get in very big trouble

    It isn't just the Democrats - it's the Establishment Republicans too

    McConnell Peace Be Upon Him and His Prophets McCain and Lindsey Graham who could talk an Idiot President [FuckHimTwoToo] The "Libyan Freedom Fighters of LIFG" were just as "moderate" as the later Syrian FSA moderates.
    ____________________

    Yeah I know.

    Some "Y'all might take me to task" for what I'm posting - maybe ask Diplomad to delete it.

    But Diplomad, waaay more than me speaks

    Truth To Power (& that's why Diplomad won't do the other thing more complicated than just highlighting my comment and clicking 'Delete')

    Arkie

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  7. I'm with Tim above. I live in Ukraine which is ground zero for Obama's failures (at least in this part of the world.) No laughs around here right now.

    Do keep blogging. I blogged for a few years from here and it began to feel like i was saying the same things over and over. The fact that I was seeing the same things over and over didn't make any difference. I just got tired and quit.

    So just relax and take it easy and come back when you've got something to say. You're too important a voice to lose.

    Scott (someone who was with you the first time around.)

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  8. You have no doubt heard of the banality of evil. You now know about the banality of wealth.

    Scott Fitzgerald: ‘You know, the rich are different from you and me.’
    Ernest Hemingway: ‘Yes. They've got more money.’

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  9. So happy to have you back, DM. So you had dinner with Helen Slater, et al. It's gotta be her since she was "Supergirl" in the 80s and recently signed on to play the OB-GYN on The Young and the Restless.
    I enjoy forwarding selections from your writings to various friends. You have a gift; as well as rich experience; and I am glad you choose to share it with us.
    Since you are in So Cal, I hope our paths may cross one day.

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    1. I had to look Helen Slater up, and still don't recognize her. I was thinking more Donna Mills (G.H.) although she is in soap opera prison right now. (Can't find what she did for a living, but her sister (on the soap) is a Doctor. Abby Ewing was A-List...supergirl- ????? (The other A-Lister I can think of is Catherine Bach, although she is definitely not a doctor on Y & R)

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    2. "Helen Slater" was "A-list" ca. 1980? I've never heard of her.

      It says on her IMDB profile that her acting debut was in 1982 and she only appeared in two other episodes of Young and the Restless. She appears to have been in about a half-dozen teen flicks between 1981 and 1990, starring in all but one.

      It's sort of disconcerting that someone described as having had an excess of cosmetic surgery is a contemporary.

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    3. Never heard of her, either. Since she's 74, I do not have to feel I've entered the age group for cosmetic surgery, which pleases me.

      Looking at IMDB, I see she was a regular on the program Knot's Landing, which I never saw but recall as one of the stable of weekly prime time analogues to soap operas (along with Dallas, Dynasty, Falcon Crest, &c), that she worked consistently from 1970 to 2000 and then was out of circulation for about six years, that over 60% of her acting credits are attributable to that series (which was on the air for 13 years), and that she's made over 100 appearances on talk shows, award shows, game shows &c since 1971.

      Do not know that I'd say A-List. Lily Tomlin was A-List (among actresses about that age).

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    4. I hope it was Helen Slater. When I was in college in the mid-80s, a friend of mine was obsessed with the movie "Secret of My Success." I must have seen that thing 30 times. She was the main female lead in the movie. And a looker back then, like all of us were.

      Glad to see that she's still getting work. 92M Americans are still out there without decent jobs, thanks to Commander Zero and his clueless economic policies.

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  10. “The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.”
    ― Plato

    Indeed, it is impolite to bring up politics at social gatherings these day. Doing so with a B-list actress is asking for trouble.

    But then, I've always considered a low turnout in an election a sign that government is neither being too invasive nor screwing up too badly. Unfortunately, the damage can be delayed in coming to the attention of the voters who are not prescient.

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    1. I've always considered a low turnout in an election a sign that government is neither being too invasive nor screwing up too badly.

      Or that people have given up. The inertia of the political system and the Groundhog Day quality of many controversies is what gets you. The things which have improved (the performance of local motor vehicle bureaux) did so without much public discussion. The things which have gotten worse (the arrogance of the appellate judiciary) seem immune to public action.

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  11. How can we start getting our civilization back? The lefties can afford to run for office because that's where their money comes from whereas the hard-working middle and lower class whose earnings support them are too busy making money to invest themselves fully in political races.

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    1. We cannot do much about 'civilization', but we might be able to repair political institutions. There's a subterranean movement for a constitutional convention right now. I can think of about a dozen amendments which might help some. The trouble with starboard thought on such questions is that it tends to be sterile and antiquarian in character. I keep running into people in these fora who think our problem is rooted in the direct election of U.S. Senators or in the income tax.

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    2. Thanks to the miracles of telephone surveys, computers, and redistricting Congressmen choose their constituents. At least our Senators can be voted for directly.

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    3. No, the state legislatures choose them. The system is bad, but keep in mind that congressional seats turn over now much more than they did 30 years ago.

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    4. Europe cannot teach the USA much, but in this case maybe their solution to over-weening bureaucracy is worth following. Starve the beast-work for cash, under-the-table, barter your expertise. Of course in these days of trilllion dolar deficits even that is not successful, so perhaps the good men and women of colonial America had the best idea-violence or at least the threat of it.
      Gun ownership being necessary and desirable, it was the only thing that worked in the recent standoff in Arizona.
      When nobody-and I mean nobody -feels bound by their oath of allegiance to the constitution then anarchy by definition exists.

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  12. The diplomad is on par with a B-list actress? Talk about tragedy and comedy....

    -Blake

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  13. Interesting that you went to a stock broker's soiree.. I just had the interesting experience of attending my stock brokers 100th anniversary "party" at one of our local Art museum. My brokers are really nice people, not at all pretentious. Since I have retired, I am not at all social; I generally don't like people and suffer fools badly. I did really enjoy the experience because almost all the guys were real people. Nobody talked money.You only knew the financially best off by the clothes of their wives or others. We were generally all just a bunch of OCBs. My son and DIL did wait outside after it was over and watched and commented on the cars they drove. He drives a super Denali, and none of their cars came up to his expectations. He was amazed that these "rich" folk would drive an old Chevy or Toyota. He couldn't figure out why, if those people had all that money they drove such crummy cars? Oh, the new generation!

    Glad to see you back and hopefully in good health. Way back when, ad a defense contractor, I posted your AGW motto on my office wall -- "Help fight global warming. Open all your windows and turn up the air conditioner." We did not have many libruls, but those that were, tended to lose it over that sign.

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  14. Ah, Mr. Mad, that was the best story yet. I'm sure they were very nice people.
    "The rich are different. Almost nobody talked about money or what they do now or had done in the past. We generally talked about cars, dogs, the weather, and the hoax of "rehab." A pleasant few hours in an apolitical Gatsby bubble."
    And yet the earth still moves and real life is out there refusing to go away.

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  15. The point of blogging for us readers is for us to hear your thoughts; for confirmation that the whole of Government foreign policy has not been totally incompetent for the last thirty years. And a little bit of despair that you left leaving the incompetents still in charge - hopefully with enough patriots left to do the best for their country, instead of what is right for everyone else except the USA.

    I personally admire your pragmatism and practical approach to life. You may think that your blogging is a self-indulgent thing, but for us is wonderful thing.

    "We sleep safe in our beds because rough men stand ready in the night to visit violence on those who would do us harm." - George Orwell
    I wonder how many people at the party your and your wife attended realise how close to chaos we really are day to day, and that it is due to your career contributions that this chaos was kept at bay for at least one more day. The guilt that some have for even existing ("sustainability", "carbon footprint", "environment") has been foisted upon all of society through most of our lives by people with a vested interest in ensuring they are never significantly affected by the rules they wish all others to be bound by.

    A side effect of your blogging should to realise that you always have people who will offer you a beer or two and maybe a place to stay wherever you go in the world, that is, beyond the contacts you have made in the service of your country.

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  16. I suspect the number of Obama votes at your party were close to the census of attendees. They are interested in how they feel and voting for him makes some people feel good, especially if they live in California in a zip code that is safe.

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  17. A "2010 Chevy Tahoe"?!
    But ... but ... I thought everybody in climate-caring California drove Teslas. I'm shocked, I tell you, shocked!

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    1. David, the Tahoes tow the Teslas so as to impress any doubters.

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    2. I am amazed at the number of Teslas that I see on the freeway. They must be used for commuting. I doubt they would make it to San Francisco, for example. That may be why the lefties are for a bullet train.

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  18. Alright Mr. Mad, all this cake, confetti, and party favors the State Dept. sent me is going bad, and State says that since you're alive they won't take it back or pay for it! I'm beginning to think they don't like you. You must have been running around doing unacceptable things like telling the truth, which they don't seem to appreciate. Well maybe I can use this at the "Victory over ISIL" party that's just around the corner.

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  19. Dipster, I am so glad you're back, even if it's not your wildest desire to share more of your wisdom right now. I am not sure you know how many of us out here cling to your blogs out of hope that America is still out there, somewhere, just waiting for this storm to pass.

    Blessings to you and yours. Rest up and take care.

    LibertyGrace'sGrandma

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  20. A wonderful opportunity they missed to discuss important things of this world. Wish I could have been there. It would have been fun to sit on the beach with our dogs and have a real conversation. Yes, I know, dogs are not allowed on the beaches of Malibu, but I know a place!

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  21. Dip, I understand your reluctance to get yourself wound up about whats going on right now. It was obvious it was coming, as crazy as it seemed, and now we have to go thru the grist mill, whatever the outcome...slow burn, or black swan, to be seen.

    I will be watching for anything you post, and wonder what your thoughts are on some of the places you have been that have some tips to offer, Argentina, or close by, or those you know who have been there.

    As to the 1400 year war, yep, sadly we will have to see another 9/11 before the LIVs wake up, again. In the meantime I suppose we are waiting on the Isrealis to do what must be done, again. And I suspect they are waiting for 2016.

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