Gratitude:
Thank God, I am an Akicistani.
This is the best thing in the world to be
Acknowledgement:
I hate confrontation
and I shirk confrontation, but sometimes it is better to be slapped
on one cheek and then another, whether it is deserved or not.
Request(s):
I wish that
brain dead liberals, and by that I mean liberals, would smarten the f
up.
What
is Akicistan? It isn't a
place. It is more a state of mind that places cutting-edge
state-of-the-art sticks in mud. The word Akicistan is formed from
the initials AKIC
and the root stan.
Akicistan
news in brief: The past week
or so, I discovered that I could order Crown Royal Whiskey, hitherto
hard for me to get in China, on Taobao, a major Chinese inter
shopping site. I feel that this was the biggest milestone in my life
in China since the birth of my son Tony. As well, I feel that the
purchase marks a new era or age in my life in China. Now that I can
bathe in Crown Royal, I will certainly take on new airs at work. It
is the dawning of a classical or golden age in Akicistan.
Important
Akicistan Links:
In
Akicistan:
Some
of us can speak Chinese!
My wife's Chinese is very good. I think my son's Chinese is very
good. Everyone
knows my Chinese is poo. 因为我的发音不不不好！
我想买我孩子很多圣诞节的玩具！
We
sometimes pay attention to China. I
have confessions to make. I never read any other blogs written by
foreigners who are living in China. I rarely visit sites dedicated
to China. I never read the English language China Daily.
I
regularly listen to one podcast about China: Laslzo Montgomery's
China History Podcast. I sometimes listen to the Sinica Podcast but
I get turned off by its cast of know-it-all journalists from main
stream western news outlets.
Other
then the two podcasts, my interest in matters Chinese is confined to
reading Learn Chinese textbooks designed for foreigners and Chinese
histories that I can snag for free off the Internet.
I
have to agree with David Warren's distrust of most modern Chinese
experts. Despite its opening up to the world, people who study China
for a living have to make a bargain with the devil to get visas to
come to China. The opening up of China and thus our increased
knowledge of it is an illusion.
We
are fond of Canada!
I have to admit though that it was after the fact that I heard about
the Saskatchewan Roughriders (or is it Rough Riders?) winning the
Grey Cup on their home field. I only learned about it when my Mother
phoned. Had I known two days earlier, I would have listened to the
game on the Internet.
For
some reason, I thought that the Grey Cup was the fifth won by the
Green Riders. It was in fact their fourth.
We
are fond of Latvia! Because
Arnis and Aina Kaulins were born there.
It
was with sadness that I
heard about the shopping centre roof collapse in Riga. It was
interesting to see that the Latvian Prime Minister resigned because
of it – which goes to show you that Latvians have more integrity
that the Clintons. Hilary, if she had any decency or balls, should
have resigned after Benghazi.
The
Politics are Conservative and Reactionary!
Are Leftists/Liberals/Progressives capable of intelligent thought?
I know there are some clever ones, who use their brains to try to
spite common sense and the truth, but is that really intelligence.
Reason
#1 (of many) that Hilary shouldn't be President: She is a cuckoldess
who because of political ambition let her husband publicly humiliate
her. If she had the balls to President, she would have strung up
Bill by his balls at the entrance to the White House, and shown the
world that she was not a women to be trifled with. If she, as a
woman, cannot control her husband, how can she be expected to control
a nation and intimidate its opponents – many of whom like to engage
in hanky panky? And besides staying married to a rapist, she is
still attached to a fraudulent ideology.
English
is taught! If you want to
learn a second language, you really
have to slog at it. There aren't any short cuts. Students must be
very self-directed. Teachers can help students with their attempts
at using the language, but if you can't persist in your individual
efforts to learn the language, the teachers can't help you.
Citizens
aren't freaks! Akicistanis are
eccentric in the old-school way of just being naturally eccentric,
not the deliberate in-your-face statement of crazy that people like
to present to the world these days.
Reading
is the #1 Pastime! Here
is what I had been working my way through the past week:
Don
Colacho's (Nicolas Gomez Davilla) Aphorisms. There are
2,988 of them in this book that I compiled for myself. I try to
read at least one aphorism a day. I cut and paste the better
ones -- they are all profound actually -- and I put them in the AKIC
Weekly. (See below)
The
Niomachean Ethics of Aristotle.
Now that I have finished the Catechism, I will read this and then
begin to read the Summa.
Ulysses
by James Joyce. I am following along with Frank
Delaney as he slowly guides podcast listeners through
Joyce's hard-to-read novel. Delaney figures he will have the
whole novel covered in about 22 years. Delaney completed
episode #182 this week and is working his way through the chapter
that introduces Leopold Bloom. I am getting ahead of Delaney as far
as reading the book. I will be finished my reading of it, I
figure, in a year. I read the novel despite its many blasphemies.
It is best to be aware of this stuff because the world is full of it,
and the world will always find a way of slapping you in the face with
it
The
Holy Bible (RSV-C2E version, aka the Ignatius Bible, and
Douay-Rheims version). I will read the two versions in
conjunction. Last week, I was reading the Book of Genesis.
Is
Life Worth Living? by WH Mallock Mallock
is attempting to show that the contention, made by the positivists of
the 19th
century, that a moral and happy life can be lived without religion is
illogical.
Everything
That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor. Someone
in s Vatican Radio podcast said that she could be the greatest 20th
Catholic writer.
Reclaiming
History：The
Assassination of John F. Kennedy by Vincent Bugliosi. This
book is over 4,000 pages long. Being a Kennedy assassination buff I
find the book engrossing.
Memorable
quotes are presented and discussed!
Nicholas
Gomez Davilla:
550
Serenity is the fruit of uncertainty freely accepted.
[Uncertainty
instills fear in most people.]
556
In a century where the media publish endless stupidities, the
cultured man is defined not by what he knows but what he does not
know. [Now to visit news sites
or read newspapers is the way
I try to be cultured.]
559
God is not the object of my reason, nor of my sensibility,
but of my being. God exists for me in the same act in which I exist.
[Right now, God is the object of my sensibility. I must change
this.]
560
Happiness is a moment of silence between two of life's noises.
[Happiness for me is seeing my
son Tony asleep.]
568
The barbarian either totally mocks or totally worships.
Civilization is a smile that discretely combines irony and respect.
[Jon Stewart, by this definition, is a barbarian.]
569
Individualism degenerates into the beatification of caprice.
[I completely agree with this. I wish I had thought of this myself.]
David
Warren:
It
is as senseless to “buy into anger,” as to buy into money as an
end in itself. And equally it is senseless to neglect the information
each supplies. These are only guides to what is currently possible
and impossible; messengers not to be killed, but watched carefully.
My
own wrestle with anger has been, over the years, partly a struggle to
understand it. Part of this struggle, in turn, is against the
reductionism of our post-Christian culture, in which the glib and
plausible substitute for intelligent thought. For instance, the
notion that “anger is always a response to fear” is among the
glib and plausible ideas that lead us, usually, astray.
Think,
for a few moments, and it will be seen that this reductionist account
eliminates the possibility of a righteous indignation – something
our very Christ was not ashamed to exhibit, on one memorable
occasion. Too, it narrows the field of perception, presenting man as
merely animal, reacting to environment by instinct alone. Anger has
more significance, in humans.
[I
am always feeling spasms of anger. Sometimes thinking about some
vexing matter, I get so wound up that I briefly imagine myself taking
out my anger in a violent way. The feeling lasts a few seconds
before I realize that I have gotten a little too carried away. This
anger is never a response to fear. It may sometimes occur because of
a blow to my pride, but a lot of times it is righteous indignation at
the tardiness, the hypocrisy, the retardediness, the blind high
self-regard, the lack of self-critical awareness, the glib
psychoanalysis of others, and the lack of traditional morals of
others.
Be
that as it may, what does my anger tell me? I live in a corrupt
society where I feel powerless to do anything about it.]
Lists
are made:
Here
is a list of the most popular movies in Akcistan:
- Lawrence of Arabia [They don't make movies like this anymore: serious, artsy, intellectual and having a big production budget.]
- The Royal Tannenbaums [I saw this movie two times in the cinema and bought the DVD.]
- The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance [A Western starring my two favourite actors: Jimmy Stewart and John Wayne.]
- The Keys to the Kingdom [I just saw this movie last week. It is about a Catholic Priest in China.]
- Oklahoma! [A rousing musical.]
- Kiss Me Kate! [Cole Porter writes a musical based on a play of Shakespeare.]
- Top Hat [I wish I could be like Fred Astaire!]
- The Dambusters [This movie shows Englishman at their finest. With the exception of one, the Englishmen I have meet in real life don't come close to the ideal. Too many Englishmen have been defiled by Socialism.]
- Wizard of Oz [I have seen this movie fifty times at least.]
- A Man for All Seasons [Well acted. It seems like it was filmed in another age on another planet.]
- The Country Girl [There is a scene in this movie starring Grace Kelley, Bing Crosby, and William Holden that brings tears to my eyes.]
- Black Sunday [The one thriller on my list was made in the 1970s. I remember seeing it in the cinema at the time.]
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail [Saturday Night Fever spawned a lot of cliched spoofery. And in an analagous manner, this film spawned at lot of horrible nerdish humour that makes normal people and me cringe. Be that as it may, it is still a very funny movie.]
- The Long Voyage Home. [This film has John Wayne playing a Swedish sailor. It is my favourite John Ford directed film. As well, it is the best film on seafaring life that I have ever seen.]
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