So and aside from the outage at Chicagoboyz which deep-sixed the site for the best part of a week, I myself was also sidelined at about the same time by another issue: the completion of a project. That is, the eight months-long project to brew up another human being; this one being my Grandson Unit, currently known as Wee Jamie. He had to be delivered a week ago Thursday, through the medium of a hastily scheduled C-section, as an intermittent constriction of the umbilical cord, which delivered all nourishment and oxygen to him in the womb-without-a-view had occurred yet again. The perinatal experts at the clinic where the Daughter Unit was being seen decided that better deliver now than risk problems later. This was six days short of the day that the Daughter Unit’s OB-Gyn had initially decided should be Wee Jamie’s Date of Delivery (again somewhat short of her 40-week human gestational period, which would have been at the end of the first week in June) … well, all of that was rescheduled because of that concern. The Daughter Unit is 41, so a degree of concern was justifiably merited.
Sgt. Mom
Rise of the Modern American Zampolit
The political commissar (also politruk, Russ: political officer), is the supervisory political officer responsible for the political education (ideology) and organisation, and loyalty to the government of the military…
So it seems that the Biden* administration is going all woke in inflicting Critical Race Theory on the armed forces, with Sec Def Austin’s chosen expert on all matters racial, the somewhat ironically named Bishop Garrison, who appears to see white supremacy under every bunk, now making plans for a cats’ paw contractor to stringently screen the social media accounts of active duty military members on an Ahab-like quest for the elusive Great White Racist.
Poison
It’s a special kind of poison, the sudden primacy and popularity of CRT critical race theory now hanging in the air like a particularly malignant smog in our workplaces, schools, and universities. It wouldn’t be so malignant, damaging, and counter-productive if it was truly the anti-racism awareness training that it pretends to be, or if it were completely even-handed in being critical of racism across all the spectrum of human colors and backgrounds. But it’s not: as CRT is practiced currently and apparently profitably by race-hustlers of all colors on the rest of us has one focus and one focus only to blame those whose’ ancestors originated in Northern Europe for the woes and considerable shortcomings of everyone else, without the barest hint of acknowledgement that many of those woes and shortcomings in the African-American communities are self-inflicted. (It would be nice if this would be acknowledged by the CRT warriors, but there will be hundreds of pigs flying in tight combat-box formation overhead before that ever happens.)
Ferdinand and Hermann’s Excellent Frontier Adventure
(As promised during the Zoom meet-up this afternoon, the absolutely true story of the first cataract surgery in Texas.)
The practice of medicine in these United States for most of the 19th century was a pretty hit or miss proposition. Such was the truly dreadful state of affairs generally when it came to medicine in most places and in all but the last quarter of the 19th century that patients may have been better off having a go with the D-I-Y approach. Doctors trained as apprentices to a doctor with a current practice or studied some books and hung out a shingle. Successful surgeons possessed two basic skill sets; speed and a couple of strong assistants to hold the patient down, until he was done cutting and stitching.
But in South Texas from 1850 on, there was doctor-surgeon who became a legend, for his skill, advanced ideas, and willingness to go to any patient, anywhere and operate under any conditions and most usually with a great deal of success. Doctor Ferdinand Ludwig von Herff, who dropped the aristocratic ‘von’ almost immediately upon arriving in Texas, was also an idealist, and prepared to live in accordance with his publicly espoused principles. He came to Texas in 1847 as part of a circle of young men called the “Forty,” who had a plan to establish a utopian commune along ideas fashionable at the time.
Road Trip
The Daughter Unit and I did a moderately-lengthy road trip this past week. Probably the last until she is delivered by C-section of the Grandson Unit, which momentous event is likely to be scheduled for the last week of this month or the first in June after the neighborhood baby shower, and before the Memorial Day weekend of the Texas Book Festival in Seguin, at which I have a table. (The festival was cancelled last year, all of us who had bought a place at it were carried over to this year, when hopefully, all festival events will return to something resembling pre-Commie Crud normality.)
We drove the trusty Montero Sport to suburban Austin, to the Daiso store; Daiso might be described as the Japanese version of the Dollar Tree, Family Dollar or 99 Cent Store; all kinds of relatively inexpensive Japanese tchotchkes for hobby, household, and kitchen. We both have rather a soft spot for Japanese items of this kind, since both of us served military tours at US bases in Japan. There are no Daiso stores anywhere closer than Austin, although there are a number of them in Los Angeles. So Austin it was, and after Daiso, to Pflugerville for the Aldi grocery store. We both rather like Aldi, home of the quarter-to-get-a-grocery-cart and pack-your-own-bags. They offer a reasonable selection of quality goods at very reasonable prices. It’s just that there is no Aldi closer to San Antonio than Pflugerville, and another in Victoria; a mite too far to go, unless we were in the area for another purpose.