Dear Fellow Alumni:

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Between the pill and age of the internet, there was the death of John F. Kennedy.

I have been gainfully employed since I was nine years old. By the time I was sixteen, I had amassed enough experience, alongside a reputation for reliability, that I was hired to do jobs that are not typical for the average sixteen-year-old. I’m not bragging, I’m just explaining. At sixteen I worked for a local bank, where I had the job of training local retail businesses in how to properly process credit cards. In those days, you couldn’t get a digital terminal and just swipe your customer’s card. You had to use those old machines that mashed a carbon triplicate onto the raised numbers of the card.

Not too long after that, point-of-sale terminals became a thing, and entire businesses emerged solely devoted to the local installation of, and education surrounding, those terminals. What changed with the introduction of point-of-sale devices was far more revolutionary than merely the mechanics of processing cards. What was irrevocably changed was the insight the retailer was now able to acquire into his own business, especially regarding his engagement with his customers.

I don’t think there are many people on this planet who have thought about the perfect hot dog chili more than I. I am not proud of this but that is the way I am wired. I enjoy small pleasures in life and try to figure out how to reproduce them, and then maybe (maybe) make them better.

I understand the dynamics of creating a great chili. It is the mixture of heat, flavorful ingredients and texture. Great chilis can be served in many ways. The best chili, in my opinion, should be served alone in a large bowl by itself. It has large chunks of meat and other great ingredients. The next best way to serve it is as a topping for spaghetti Cincinnati-style, with cheese, onions and whatever else piled on top. The least appreciated way, but a very common one, is as a topping for a chili dog. I think this is mostly in the Carolinas. There if you order a hot dog you need to decide if you want chili, slaw and mustard on it, or chili, onions and mustard. It is a binary decision. Pickles, ketchup or, G-d forgive, mayonnaise are maybe things you can squirt out of a packet, if you wish. But on a chili dog the only choice is between slaw or onions, though you can always embrace the power of “and.”

Everything changed for me when American cities were burning in 2020. It wasn’t the burning so much as the hypocrisy of the experts. For months, Americans had been subjected to the unlawful suspension of their civil liberties and we were continually lectured that it was due to “the science,” “expert opinion” and the need to protect poor ol’ grandma. But as soon as there was an opportunity to exploit a tragic death to throw a grenade into race relations, all in support of progressive political interests, the supposed “science” changed and the “experts” were suddenly transformed, like lizard people, into apparatchiks, brazenly working in service to the progressive cause. Magically, racism was declared a greater risk than Covid. So long as your protesting and burning and looting were useful to progressives, the prior suspension of your civil liberties was lifted. Not so much for anyone else.

I made good time. According to the clock on the dashboard, it’s only three hours since I left home. And that’s including the time I took stopping at McDonald’s for a breakfast biscuit, and the slow traffic in Charlotte that seemed to have no discernible cause.

And yet the drive has taken me the distance of an entire lifetime. I turn the corner onto the street where I grew up, and everything looks exactly the same as it has looked for the last fifty years. Nothing ever changes here. But for the first time ever, I have a feeling I’ve never had before: I don’t really recognize this place anymore. How can that be, when it hasn’t changed?

On February 7, 2020 I posted Coronavirus 2019n-CoV: Are You Paying Attention? Little did I know then how our world would change and would continue to be affected. I am posting today about coronal mass ejections (CMEs) and the present magnetic storm that is invisible to us except in its effects. And those effects at the moment seem regionally inconvenient, just as did coronavirus in early 2020. And had it stayed there it would have been of little moment. But it did not, and CMEs have civilization-ending potential as much or more than a disease. Before you tune out, let me assure you that if this was just some “prepper” concern, entertaining as it would be for a niche audience, I would not bother to post. My intention, as it was in 2020, is to put something on your radar for consideration and thought.

There probably isn’t a better starting point than this tweet from Bret Weinstein:

We were paged out yesterday evening for a huge live oak tree limb that had fallen into the road.  It was only a little way from our home so I got the chain saw out while a couple of other firefighters went to the station to get more equipment.  I was at it for maybe fifteen minutes when a guy stopped and said his excavator was being hauled to his nearby home/business and asked if we wanted some help. The excavator cleaned up the debris in about 20 minutes versus the couple of hours it would have taken us.   We have our big annual fundraiser tonight so I’m inviting this guy and his crew to come and eat on our dime.   During the work a half dozen people passing by offered help, and this is a fairly quiet country road.  You can see another large limb that has been worrisome for a long time – our road and bridge crews are coming out soon to take these big limbs down as they give almost no warning before they come down.  The base of that limb was so heavy it lifted one track off the ground a few times while he was pushing it.

Mass protests have become popular with the radical Left because they work. They can achieve results unattainable through the political process or the courts by producing chaos and intimidating the cowardly leaders of our universities and government.

When the antisemitic, pro-Islamist demonstrations broke out on multiple university campuses this spring, most Americans assumed it was just naïve, ill-educated kids doing their thing. Why wouldn’t they? Protesting is a hoot. You’re showered with attention. You may even see yourself on the evening news. The gold star goes for being arrested and thrown in jail, where you are sure to be released the next morning.

Two elderly activists attempted to shatter the glass case housing the Magna Carta because the world has refused to stop using petroleum.  The logic of this gesture has apparently escaped almost everyone but me.

The Magna Carta embodies the notion that there are natural rights that no central power may infringe, not even one enthroned by God.  Minor nobles, clergy, guilds, et al have rights that the king may not arbitrarily supersede.  The notion of limited government is simply a corollary of the idea that there are natural rights held by individuals and other social entities that must be respected.