Random Observations on the Passing Scene
(This space intentionally left blank)
It turns out, some dispatches don’t require any intro text or even a sub-headline.
One of my favorite introductory writer phrases is “It turns out.”
***
It takes me about four minutes to determine if the producers of a film or TV show are imposing the requisite 40-percent casting quotas for characters who belong to the LGBTQ+ community.
It takes me four minutes to stop watching these shows.
***
Dr. Phillip McMillan posted an article showing that 610,000 Japanese citizens died 90 to 120 days after receiving their Covid vaccines. The thesis of Dr. McMillan’s dispatch is that the reach of important studies like this one is being intentionally suppressed.
Four hours after he posted this dispatch, 12 people had made comments about this dispatch. It turns out that Dr. McMillan has 12,000 Substack subscribers. In my opinion, Dr. McMillan’s thesis is a good one.
The greatest gift one Contrarian Substack author can give to another Contrarian Substack author is to cross-post one of his or her articles.
***
I haven’t checked my Local Meteorologist yet to confirm this, but - per my observations - it’s rained in Troy, Alabama for 40 of the past 45 days, which I think is a record for my 59 years.
This might mean that Global Warming is causing daily thunder storms. However, temperatures in Troy aren’t any warmer than they were 30 years ago in June and July.
Not a scientist, I haven’t observed what microscopic substances might be in all of these copious rain drops. I also don’t know if chem-trail-seeding might explain why we have thunder storms almost every day.
I will say my grass and weeds are much greener.
I won’t be posting a dispatch tomorrow because I have to cut the grass to keep the neighbors from giving me the “stink eye.”
(I’d never heard of a “stink eye” until I started watching some of those “Real Housewives” shows with my wife and characters are always giving each other the stink eye. )
Pro Parenting Tip: Don’t let any children under age 20 watch those shows.
‘Na-na-na, na-na,na, hey, hey, hey, Good bye …”
According to the massive army of my new liberal Substack colleagues, Stephen Colbert had 2.4 million nightly viewers on his now-cancelled “Late Night” Show. Tucker Carlson had 4 to 5 million nightly viewers on his show that Fox cancelled.
One can observe/deduce that all of Colbert’s viewers were liberal and supported all of the Covid protocols and mandatory “vaccines.” Conversely, one can deduce that all of Tucker’s previous viewers were “conservative” and skeptical of the truisms spouted by the experts.
One can, thus, observe that significantly more TV viewers enjoyed Tucker’s show than Colbert’s show. But Tucker’s former conservative viewers are not flooding Substack, which is …. “curious.”
***
If Jeffrey Epstein turned up alive, our trusted officials would have some ‘splainin’ to do.
Steve Kirsch would defeat Grok in a Covid debate, but that debate could not take place at the building named for Kirsch at his alma mater, MIT.
Garry Kasparov is another new Substack author, but I’ve read a few of his dispatches and he’s still only playing 1-D chess.
***
I think most families with kids are like our own; They spend 60 minutes every other night fighting about which movies or TV shows the family can all watch together. I always get out-voted, but I’m the “film buff” in the family because I used to watch all the “good old goodies” that my own father used to make me watch. (I listened to my Daddy).
We belatedly banned our 9-year-old son, Jack, from playing with the Meta “alternate reality” goggles he got for Christmas. It’s very possible we just saved Jack’s life.
Anyone still follow sports?
Former Alabama quarterback Jalen Milroe had one year of college eligibility left but entered the NFL draft, where he was selected in the third round. Milroe would have made more money from his NIL deals playing “amateur” college football.
As far as I can ascertain, no current college or pro athletes died from Covid. Aaron Rodgers was right. He didn’t need any “life-saving” shot.
As I add these random observations, thunder is now reverberating and lightning is flashing. As Johnny Cash once sang in one of his hits, “Looks like we’ll be blessed with a little more rain.”
I better type fast; don’t want my computer to be zapped, which would hurt my Substack reach.
***
It occurs to me that every one of these random observations could be converted into a random Substack Note.
Our next door neighbor’s house that’s been empty and on the market for 10 months finally sold. The asking price was $330,000, but I doubt the new owners paid that much. Still, the same house sold in California or Florida would have been purchased with cash for $1 million in 24 hours.
A clever meme I recently saw: “U-Haul congratulates its Salesman of the Year, Gov. Gavin Newsom.”
On Notes, memes get 1,000 more shares than my random notes … Yes, “Teach your children to code.” … Also, teach them to meme.
The world, circa 2025, is a “Battle of the Memes.”
*** (But one can share Substack Dispatches Proper as well) ***
Gut instincts and Amish observations …
IMO people or natural medicine practitioners who are focussing on “gut biome” issues have the right gut instincts.
Random question: Do the Amish have gut biome issues?
Most of what I know about the Amish I learned from the Harrison Ford movie, “Witness.”
Harrison Ford is now 83, but he’s great in the “Yellow Stone” prequel series “1923.”
The hero in that series is the nephew of Harrison Ford’s rancher character. It’s been one adventure after another, but the nephew and his new wife are trying to come back from Africa where he was a lion hunter. The Bad Guy, Timothy Dalton, has ordered his goons to kill this character before he gets back to his family and helps them defeat the story’s villain.
This plot point confirms one of my Substack Maxims: Bad Guys always target the Good Guys who pose the greatest threat to them.
That’s why the Nazi major in “Casablanca” was determined to stop Victor Lazlo. That’s also why Steve Kirsch, Alex Berenson and RFK, Jr. were labeled “Covid Disinformation Super Spreaders” and all the world’s Bad Guys mobilized to shut them up and teach them a lesson.
***
Two of the word’s best-known real investigative journalists are Seymour Hersh, 87, and Jon Rapport, 83. I don’t know who is following in their footsteps in MSM newsrooms. Check that; yes I do: Nobody.
Woodward and Bernstein are also getting up there in age and are still filing a few stories. However, they took a pass on the Covid non-scandals (and the Epstein non-scandal and the “Biden-has-dementia” non-scandal).
***
Thank goodness, Ron Paul is still alive but he’s been out of Congress for more than a decade now. Paul’s ever-skeptical, libertarian successor is Cong. Thomas Massie, who President Trump now calls a “total loser.”
President Trump is going to campaign for Massie’s primary opponent. That is, if Massie runs for re-election. Some stories say Massie might run for U.S. Senate. If Massie won, Kentucky would have produced two of America’s sane and courageous U.S. senators, joining Ron Johnson in a fraternity of three. (3-against-97 is better than 1-against-99.)
Random prediction: The Israel Lobby and Big Pharma Lobby will continue to pull out all stops to get Massie out of Washington D.C. “Don’t go wobbly, voters of Kentucky.”
***
After I wrote about them a couple of weeks ago, I see that new Substack authors Mayor Pete and Terry Moran have both added more than 40,000 new subscribers. 99.999 percent of these subscribers are pulling for Thomas Massie to become a private citizen again.
Before his show goes off the air, Stephen Colbert ought to invite his hero, Joe Biden, to be a guest and chit-chat and reminisce for 30 minutes. That way all 2.4 millions of his viewers could see that Biden is as “sharp as ever.”
***
While I’m currently trying to master Notes, I haven’t yet figured out how to do one of those “Substack polls” (that my friend Jenna McCarthy uses often). Once my wife figures this out for me, this will be my first poll question:
How likely do you think it is that a thermonuclear Truth Bomb will actually detonate?
About as likely as Woodward and Bernstein writing a story that says the Covid shots might not be “safe and effective.”
About as likely as woman track star signing an NIL deal as lucrative as her college’s quarterback.
About as likely as Bill Rice, Jr. adding 40,000 new subscribers like Terry Moran recently did.
If a little farm girl from Kansas and a scarecrow who didn’t even have a brain can slay the Wicked Witch of the West, anything can happen, especially in the “land of the free.”
***
Recently, my daughter Maggie randomly asked me to pick a song that describes me and she then produced a cool Tik-Tok video with me in that song. See below for song reveal …
It turns out that with Random Observation Columns, you can randomly stop making observations anywhere you want.
*** (If I got two random new paid subscribers or one or two random writer gratuities, this newsletter, like its author, would be “Bad to the Bone!”)
P.S.
Subscribers, including those who are not paid subscribers, are welcome to make their own Random Observations in a Random Reader Comment(s).
Treading Water Observation/Bonus Content:
I randomly checked my email and see where I've just gotten an email from Substack telling me I'd added "11 new subscribers" and I also got another email telling me that 11 current subscribers have "disabled" my emails and apparently unsubscribed.
11 steps up ... 11 steps back.
Now this is really curious. About two hours after I posted this story, I've gotten a grand total of five reader comments (from my 8,000 subscribers) ... not counting my own copious comments.
Even more curious, all five of these comments got only one "like."
Even more curious, I was the person who hit all five of these comments with a "like."
Take-away/pet theory: I don't think my stories are REACHING as many readers as they once did.