NORAD tracks Brandon

You’d think that the US MSM had bigger fish to fry, what with the arrival of the dreaded and deadly ZOMG OMICRON mutant of C-19 and all sorts of economic problems in America.

But no.

No, it’s far more important that they rally around their designated godhead to defend him against the slings and arrows of outraged citizens. Or in this case, an amused citizen who decided to have a bit of fun with “President” Biden.

It’s been the tradition since 1955 for NORAD to use their radar systems to track Santa on his way from the North Pole, and this year the “President” decided to join in the fun as little kids across America called in to find out where Santa was. Then this happened:

BREAKING: Joe Biden was taking calls from the NORAD Santa tracking program and a dad ended the call with "Merry Christmas, and Let's Go Brandon."

Biden replied with: "Let's Go Brandon, I agree" pic.twitter.com/Hc0pLWGRx1

— Benny (@bennyjohnson) December 24, 2021

Oh dear. Over the years we’ve had films and plays centered around the assassinations of Dubya and Trump, and Kathy Griffin posing with Trump’s bloody severed head and a thousand “Fuck Trump” calls from celebrities.

But what this guy did to Biden was far worse; he actually showed that Joe Biden is non compos mentis and in doing so revealed that someone(s) else is running the show. Naked emperor or Frank Morgan behind the curtain. Take your pick.

Or perhaps it’s his wife Jill. You can see the shock register on her face: she knows what the phrase means even if the dementia-ridden old wreck beside her does not. Seriously, do all these people have to keep Soft-Serve Joe insulated from the real world?

The US media promptly had a meltdown and swung into action. Rather than making the lead story about Biden not knowing what the hell is going on, they huffed and puffed about how horrible this was. NBC actually described it as “a Right-wing slur”, which is ironic because it was an NBC reporter who coined the phrase after she claimed she “misheard” chants of “Fuck Joe Biden!” at a NASCAR race, and set the meme in motion.

They were going to find out who this asshole was – and make him pay – and they have. Video of the other end of the call was located on Social Media and the guy was identified as one Jared Schmeck from Oregon:

folks on the left have now used that video to doxx the guy, put a name to the face, and are trying to hurt him at his alleged place of employment. They have his alleged name, the local government job he supposedly has, and that he works for a family business. They’re trying to out him to the government job so that job will take some action against him.
…
[They] have even posted his real address, the name of his wife, and the names of members of his family. Given the way that people fold like cheap suits when faced with the mob, I don’t doubt that they might be able to get this guy punished in some way by his employer or even fired. They’re also talking about trying to hurt the family business.

Actually this is nothing new. Years ago during his Presidential campaign, Obama was doing the usual neighbourhood meet-and-greet and got into a debate with some guy throwing a football around his front yard with his kid. Barack was in full spread-the-wealth-around mode and the guy did not agree. The guy got doxxed to hell.

A couple of years later some rodeo clown wore an Obama mask (as he had with the masks of other Presidents). Obama could have made a public reference to how it’s a fine old American tradition to mock their leaders but he didn’t, letting his worshippers apply “public pressure” to the rodeo and getting the guy fired. Apparently you can unify a nation while “getting in people’s faces” and “punching back twice as hard.”

Schmeck, is now getting death threats:

“At the end of the day, I have nothing against Mr. Biden, but I am frustrated because I think he can be doing a better job,” said Jared Schmeck, who works for an electric company and was previously a Medford police officer for six years until he resigned in July 2018. “I mean no disrespect to him.”

Oh buddy. If you’re going to go on Social Media the first thing you need to understand is that apologies and explanations are just throwing blood in the water to these SJW assholes. Better to go on the attack by telling these people that they’re just pissed because he pulled back the curtain on a truth they deny.

Merry Christmas

I hope all of you, my fellow co-bloggers and readers, have a lovely Christmas Day with friends and family, even in these trying times.

For those of you who are perhaps alone, I hope that you receive the love of others today, even at a distance removed.

And let’s hope that next Christmas, and the next year, will be better.

On that note I’ll add this classic, which first screened on TV in 1965. You can read the backstory to it, and especially how it was almost not made, how the TV executives were opposed to including a Bible reading in it, and that it was doomed for that and many other reasons (Jazz score, children using big words and so forth). It turned out to be a triumph, and the producer of Schultz’s story provides part of the reason, with words that seem very appropriate today:

Schulz’s message of perseverance in the face of dejection always resonated with American audiences, a reminder that we should keep kicking no matter how many times they pull the ball away. If that sentiment happens to be particularly relevant this year, Mendelson is pleased.

“Hopefully,” he says, “this positive program will be soothing at a time of uncertainty.”

I miss this.

Not the bullets obviously.

No, these scenes of beauty that are the result of ordinary people reaching for beauty in times both ordinary and extraordinary.

In downtown Chicago they put this up every year. There are similar ones across other parts of the city.

Believe it or not this is one of the zoos, in this case in one old neighborhood of mine, Lincoln Park.

Having just finished putting up our lights, with only a minimal effort on the trees in our front yard, I can’t imagine how many hours of labour you’re seeing here. I’ve walked through all this with my family.

Which brings me to this last. A YouTube video of a house display in Park Ridge, one of the many suburbs that lie on the boundaries of Chicago and not five minutes drive from where I lived.

The best equivalent you can find in New Zealand is in Franklin Drive in the suburb of Freemans Bay in Auckland.

Sadly it’s been cancelled for the second year in a row, due to guess what.

Christmas

Here’s a beautiful tribute to Christmas in the Polish tradition, and of course it’s Christmas Eve rather than Christmas Day that is celebrated, starting with dinner as soon as the first star appears in the sky – a rather tough call in the midst of a New Zealand summer – to opening presents under the tree later in the evening.

Anyway, enjoy, and feel free to post your own favourite Christmas hymns and songs in the comments, and I may grab one or two to place in this post to accompany this one.

Also, while I’ve never rated eggnog you might consider trying the following. I certainly will since I’m well aware of what drinkers George Washington and the Founders were.

MOUNT VERNON EGGNOG RECIPE 
We do have another homemade eggnog recipe kindly shared by Mount Vernon, as eggnog was indeed a popular drink in the latter half of the 18th century. 

We’ve slightly adapted this recipe to make the ingredient amounts clear. We recommend preparing the mixture a day in advance so it’s well chilled. It’s well worth it! The grocery store stuff isn’t even the same animal.

Ingredients:

12 eggs (pasteurized if possible), room temperature
½ cup sugar
One-fifth bourbon (750ml bottle)*
½ teaspoon salt
1 quart whipping cream
Optional: 1 cup milk
1 to 2 teaspoons nutmeg, freshly grated (not ground)
*Note: You can adjust the amount of alcohol in this recipe or omit it altogether. Or, use a different alchohol on hand; common choices include brandy, rum, bourbon, or whisky. One eggnog recipe we enjoy (from the 1950s) uses “1 cup bourbon and 1 cup Cognac” in place of the one-fifth bourbon.

Directions:

Separate the egg whites and egg yolks very carefully, making sure there is absolutely no yolk in the whites. Cover the egg whites and store in the refrigerator.
Whisk egg yolks and sugar in a large bowl. (Or, use an electric or stand mixture with a whisk attachment.) Whip until thick and smooth; it should be lemon yellow in color, 5 to 7 minutes.
Slowly add the alcohol desired to large bowl while beating at slow speed. Scrape down side of bowl. Chill mixture for several hours or overnight.
In separate bowl, beat the egg whites and salt until almost stiff. 
Whip the cream until stiff. 
Fold the whipped cream into the yolk mixture, then fold in the beaten egg whites. Chill 1 hour.
When ready to serve, sprinkle the top with freshly grated nutmeg. Serve in punch cups with a spoon.

And then there’s this…

Japan still trying to figure out Christmas

Back in the early 90’s when I subscribed to The Economist magazine there was a farewell article by a retiring reporter that mentioned a stint he had in Japan in the 1970’s.

He was well-travelled so rarely suffered from Culture Shock and instead enjoyed the wierd and wonderful differences from his English upbringing.

However, one anecdote I found highly amusing, as did he. Walking past some massive department store street-front windows at Christmas time he noted one display in particular featuring Santa Claus. The Japanese store had almost everything correct; the fake snow, reindeer, the jolly grin and white beard, Rubenesque figure, red suit and so forth. Except for one very prominent thing.

He was nailed to a large cross!

I know that there are not a lot of Christians in Japan but surely the store managers and workers might have known even one with whom they could check the details.

I thought of this story when I saw the following recent photograph of another Japanese Christmas display, that shows they’re no closer to figuring out the event.

A heart warming Christmas story from long ago

The article actually had two or three such stories, focusing on the writer’s kids talking to their great-grandfather a decade ago about what his Christmas had been like in the Great Depression.

Her husband had got a little annoyed with their kids seeming to be a little ungrateful about all their Christmas treats and presents, so had “assigned” them a project to ask the old guy ten questions about his experiences in early 30’s America.

That afternoon, while the rest of the family was out, each kid took a turn calling Gramps to interview him, then they wrote up his answers. When we got back, both somberly read us their summaries — how when Gramps was their age, he received a Christmas stocking with an orange at the bottom and it was the only orange he got to eat all year, how he and his brother had to share a single present of a model car. “I hated Christmas,” Gramps told our daughter.

Ouch! I don’t recall my parents having Depression Christmas’s that were that bad, even if they did have other stories of being poor.

But it was the following part, almost an aside, that I picked up on:

After Saigon fell to communism in 1975, my parents fled here with their five children, ages 4-9, and our refugee family was sponsored by the Mount of Olives Lutheran Church in Phoenix. That first Christmas, church members rang the doorbell one night and brought in Christmas. All of Christmas — a tree they taught my siblings and me to decorate right then, presents to put under it, cookies and eggnog. In the middle of all this, the pastor’s wife suddenly asked where my mom had gone. When we found her, she was in her bedroom crying. It scared me because she never used to cry. She just couldn’t believe that people who looked absolutely nothing like us and who weren’t connected to us by blood could be so kind. 

In my experience that’s what most Americans are like.

Merry Christmas

and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all our readers.

(We sang these in our Christmas concert.)

Straight, No Chaser at Christmas

Well stuff all this politics nonsense on Christmas Eve.

Being it’s the big Polish day of feasting and celebration, I have to get busy!
😳

Here’s a mens a cappella group, Straight No Chaser, singing their version of The Twelve Days of Christmas.

They were formed in the mid-90’s at Indiana University in Bloomington, Indiana.

I hope you all have a great Christmas and New Year – and be careful if you’re on our roads at this time.

Enjoy these musically clever buggers.

A Sell Out

Adolf’s debut with the South West Opera Co took place on Sunday afternoon at the Anglican Cathedral which is possessed of excellent acoustics.  Family members who asked whether they could buy tickets were told, don’t worry, you can buy them at the door.  Just as well they arrived early.  It was sold out.

The event wasn’t recorded so I’m unable to inflict it on readers, however by comments related to me second hand, it was pretty good for a bunch of amateur singers.  (First hand comments are always positive.  People are far too polite.)

My recollection is that we practiced for about fifty hours during the preceding two months.  The nineteen piece orchestra sounded pretty ropy at times during practice, especially the violins, but on the day they all got it together and performed superbly.

All in all, a pleasant experience.  It’s over twenty years since I was part of a big choir.  Is forty-eight voices big?  I think so. 

The programme included:-

Hodeo Christus Natus Est                 Owalabi
Pleni Sunt Coeli                                Liebergen
Jesu Joy of Man’s Desiring               Bach
For Unto Us A Child Is Born           Handel
Angels From The Realms                Forrest
Western European Carol Suite         Hayes
He watching Over Israel                  Mendellsohn
Hark The Herald Angel                   Forrest
Little Drummer Boy                        Hayes
Eastern European Carol Suite         Hayes
Do You Hear What I hear               Simeone
O Holy Night                                  Clausen
Hallelujah Chorus                           Handel

Too bad for all the fundamentalist atheists.  They don’t know not what they are missing out on.

Just The Very Bestest

Number two daughter gave Adolf an MP3 player for Christmas.   The idea is that it might accompany Adolf on his morning walks.  This gadget beats all the chocolate almonds and bottles of single malt.

So far I’ve managed to load some British and American marches (an excellent combined US and UK military band) and Mozart arias sung by Domingo and Te Kanawa.

This morning was the first outing, with Sousa and his British friends.  I recognise many of the tunes but don’t recall the names.

For those who like statistics, I’ve started again after some leg issues (mainly worn shoes, as it turns out) and am back up to 4,800m.   Two days ago that took 52 minutes.  Today, it was down to 49 minutes.

Now I know why armies used bands to accompany marching troops.