Books AKIC Read in 2020

2020 was not okay. It was a year with nothing to do. But I did do something. I read and I read and I read. Here's a list of all the books I read in 2020:

The Liturgical Year (Volume 2) Christmas by Abbot Prosper Gueranger

I am Dynamite! A Life of Friedrich Nietzsche by Sue Prideaux

Anonymous Romance by an Acquaintance 

Praying with Mother Angelica by Mother Angelica

Happiness and Contemplation by Josef Pieper

The Chrysanthemum and the Sword by Ruth Bendict

The Case for Trump by Victor David Hanson

The Concept of Sin by Josef Pieper

The Atrocity Exhibition by J.G. Ballard

Roman Honor: The Fire in the Bones by Carlin A. Barton

Phaedrus by Plato

Gravity and Grace by Simone Weil

Enthusiasm and Divine Madness: On the Platonic Dialogue Phaedrus by Josef Pieper

Death and Immortality by Josef Pieper

The Narrows by Michael Connelly

The Soul of the World by Roger Scruton

I Will Find You by Joe Kenda

The Closers by Michael Connelly

Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind by Tom Holland

How Civilizations Die (And Why Islam is Dying Too) by David P. Goldman 

Five Stages of Greek Religion by Gilbert Murray

The Liturgical Year (Volume 3) Christmas by Abbot Prosper Gueranger

Echo Park by Michael Connelly

The Five Great Philosophies of Life by William De Witt Hyde

The Thirty Years War by C.V. Wedgwood

High Windows by Philip Larkin

Bernie Sanders Is Wrong by Tom Woods

Narco-nomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel by Tom Wainwright

The Four Cardinal Virtues by Josef Pieper

The Liturgical Year (Volume 4) Septuagesima by Abbot Prosper Gueranger

The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis

The Last Narco: Inside the Hunt for El Chapo, the World's Most Wanted Druglord by Malcolm Beith

The Overlook by Michael Connelly

Coup D'etat: A Practical Notebook by Edward Luttwak

A Short History of Byzantium by John Julius Norwich

A Brief Reader on the Virtues of the Human Heart by Josef Pieper

The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything by James Martin, SJ

Apropos of Nothing. Autobiography by Woody Allen

The Liturgical Year (Volume 5) Lent by Abbot Prosper Gueranger

Nine Dragons by Michael Connelly

The Liturgical Year (Volume 6) Passiontide and Holy Week by Abbot Prosper Gueranger

A History of France by John Julius Norwich

Maoism: A Global History by Julia Lovell

The Drop by Michael Connelly

The Liturgical Year (Volume 7) Paschal Time by Abbot Prosper Gueranger

Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins edited by Robert Bridges

"Divine Madness" Plato's Case against Secular Humanism by Josef Pieper

The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth

The Silence of Saint Thomas: Three Essays by Josef Pieper

Saint Thomas Aquinas by GK Chesterton

The Best of SJ Perelman

Letters from a Nut by Ted L. Nancy

The Poetry Oracle by Amber Guetabier & Brenda Knight

The Black Box by Michael Connelly

George S. Patton: On Guts, Glory, and Winning by Gary Bloomfield

Metaphysical Poetry edited by Colin Burrow

Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1900 edited by Sir Arthur Thomas Quller-Couch

War as I Knew It by George S. Patton Jr.

The Peloponnesian War 431 – 404 BC by Philip De Souza

Beauty: A Very Short Introduction by Roger Scruton

Metaphysical Lyrics & Poems of The Seventeenth Century edited by Herbert J.C. Grierson

Le Premier Livre by Albert A. Méras, B. Méras

1000 Years of Annoying the French by Stephen Clarke

The Brass Verdict by Michael Connelly

The Jewish Revolutionary Spirit and Its Impact on World History by E. Michael Jones

On Drinking by Charles Bukowski

Selected Poems and Fragments by Friedrich Hölderlin

Scipio Africanus by B.h. Liddell Hart

Foundation by Isaac Asimov

Intellectual Morons: How Ideology Makes Smart People Fall for Stupid Ideas by Daniel J. Flynn

U.S. History for Dummies by Steve Wiegand

Ripostes by Ezra Pound

The Jews by Hilaire Belloc

Browning's Shorter Poems by Robert Browning

A Journey through Persia, Armenia, and Asia Minor, to Constantinople, in the Years 1808 and 1809 by James Morier, Esq.

Personae by Ezra Pound

The Footpath Way: An Anthology for Walkers by Sidney Smith and William Hazlitt and Isaak Walton and Walter Scott ane et al.

Robert E. Lee: The Southerner by Thomas Nielson Page

Zigzag Journeys in Northern Lands by Hezekiah Butterworth

Exultations by Ezra Pound

Going Afoot: A Book on Walking by Bayard Henderson Christy

Zigzag Journeys in the Camel Country by Samuel M. Zwemer and Amy E. Zwemer

The Wild Swans at Coole by W. B. Yeats

God Rides a Yamaha by Kathy Shaidle

Black Mischief by Evelyn Waugh

An Australian in China by George Ernest Morrison

Tishomingo Blues by Elmore Leonard

Now and on Earth by Jim Thompson

Mysteries and Manners: Occasional Prose by Flannery O'Connor

Poems by Christina Georgina Rossetti

A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor

The Great Siege of Malta by Bruce Ware Allen

New Testament (King James Version)

The Oligarchs by David Hoffman

The Reversal by Michael Connelly

Poems on Travel selected by R.M. Leonard

Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia by Samuel Johnson

Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy

The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell Volume 1 An Age Like This

Plagues and Peoples by William H. McNeill

Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

The Manual: A Philosopher's Guide to Life by Epictetus

Andrew Jackson by William Garrot Brown

The Fifth Witness by Michael Connelly

Poems and Prose by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Poems, Series One by Emily Dickinson

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

Sérotonine par Michel Houellebecq

The Pursuit of the Millennium by Norman Cohn

Barrack Room Ballads by Rudyard Kipling

Lee the American by Bradford Gamaliel

Poems of William Blake

Mother Angelica's Private and Pithy Lessons from the Scriptures by Raymond Arroyo

The Life of Lieutenant General T.J. Jackson by James Dabney McCabe

Some Imagist Poetry edited by Richard Aldington

Journey to Turkistan by Sir Eric Teichman

Mother Angelica's Little Book of Life Lessons and Everyday Spirituality by Raymond Arroyo

The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare

The Prayers and Personal Devotions of Mother Angelica edited by Raymond Arroyo

Boswell's Life of Johnson abridged and edited by Charles Grosvenor Osgood

The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Disaster by Douglas Axe, William M. Briggs & Jay W. Richards

Poems Every Child Should Know edited by Mary E. Burt

The Brother Lawrence Collection: Practice and Presence of God, Spiritual Maxims, The Life of Brother Lawrence by Brother Lawrence

The Rambler Volume 1 by Samuel Johnson

Profiles in Corruption by Peter Schweizer

The School of Prayer by Joseph Ratzinger

The Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides with Samuel Johson, LL.D. by James Boswell

Dune by Frank Herbert

Baltimore Catechism, No. 1

Capital as Power: A Study of Order and Creorder by Jonathan Nitzan and Shimshon Bichler

Baltimore Catechism, No. 2

Death in Midsummer & Other Stories by Yukio Mishima

The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway

Madame Bovary (French) by Gustave Flaubert

Madame Bovary translated by Eleanor Marx Aveling

Baltimore Catechism, No. 3

Poems and Songs of Robert Burns

Walking with Mary: A Biblical Journey from Nazareth to the Cross by Edward Sri

The Suicide of the West by James Burnham

A First Spanish Reader by Alfred Remy

Maud, and Other Poems by Alfred Tennyson

Tom Seaver: A Terrific Life by Bill Madden

French Demystified by Annie Heminway

Prayer in Practice by Romano Guardini

Poems 1918-21 by Ezra Pound

Hidden Christmas by Timothy Keller

The Proverbs of Scotland by Alexander Hislop

Learning the Virtues that Lead You to God by Romano Guardini

Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger

Poems You Ought to Know by Elia Wilkinson Peattie

A Year with the Church Fathers: Practical Wisdom for Daily Living by Mike Aquilina

A Year with Mary: Daily Meditations on the Mother of God by Paul Thigpen

Don Colacho Aphorisms by Nicolás Gómez Dávila

I have been keeping track of the books I've read since 2014. Here are the links to previous lists:

2014

2015

2016

2017

2018

2019

Any comments on my reading? Send an email to andiskaulins@protonmail.com.

Also, here's a link to the book of Don Colacho Aphorisms. (Please open it on a desktop computer, because it won't work on a mobile phone. If you don't have μTorrent Web, you'll be asked to install that first. Once you're done installing, it will automatically start downloading the torrent.)

2020 was the Year of:

• Stupidity. The reaction to the Covid situation on the part of the ruling class was overwrought to say the least. Either it was the result of them taking advantage of a crisis to take get more power, or they caught the Chinese hypochondriac bug. Don't attribute to machinations, what you can attribute to stupidity. Also, despite the many phony votes for Biden, there were far too many people who did. Also, AOC, BLM and Antifa.

• Cowardice. Why did so people who knew better, put up with the liberal progressive stupidity. Why didn't Trump have the rioters shot? Why didn't the Churches protest the curtailment of the rights of people to worship?

• Control Freak Absolutism. The premier of Manitoba, Brian Palace Hitler. The Governor of Michigan, whatever the bitch's name is. Care Home Cuomo from New York State. The governor of California (who didn't follow his follow rules. Hypocrite.) The mayor of Los Angeles. The Prime Minister of the UK. All these people should be ashamed of themselves. They should all be buried in a common graveyard, so that it can be an annual event for common people to come spit on their graves. Covid could have been fought reasonably without turning the world into an airport security zone.

• Oggily Boogily. It's another word for systemic racism. Also, it is another word for social distancing protocols. It's also another word for white supremacy. It is what motivated the Karens of the West. (I never saw any in Wuxi.)

• Furrow-browed stupidity. Luckily, I haven't had to deal with many Covid-bedwetters or Liberals this year. But when I have and I have been saying what's what, I see them go all furrow-browed before they use an ad hominiem on me. I have been called racist and a white nationalist by these types.

• China is Asshole. Let's not forget the virus came from China, and that China behaved in a very dishonest manner about it. However, I don't believe the virus came from some lab. What I think happened is that China's reaction to the virus was that of a hypochondriac, and it was the hypochondriac mindset more than the virus itself that infected a West already suffering from complications brought on by snowflakeism.

• Tech censorship. I have had to live with it here in China, but now Facebook and YouTube are practicing it. What they have done to dissident voices, the Hunter Biden story and now the election fraud story is evil.

• Hysteria. A Karen crashes a baptism ceremony at a Catholic Church where they are practicing the covid protocols and shrieks that the people there are killing people.

• Lies. Covid stats were often lies or at the least, presented without context. Trump was slurred as being a bigot. The truth is he is no more a bigot, and probably even less, than Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, BLMers, Antifaers, the Chinese and every redneck-hating progressive.

• Evil. It was a good year for Satan.

What did AKIC do Christmas Day?; Downtown Wuxi; Tony's Three Favorite Bands; Black Ice in Wuxi?

Christmas Day was a bore and was full of melancholy for me.  We, that be my wife Jenny & my son Tony & I, did go out and have a buffet meal on the 64th floor of this hotel in downtown Wuxi, but it really wasn't Christmasy except for some ornamental trees placed on the tables.  The food was as well as could be expected.  After the meal, we wandered around the area of the hotel before driving back home where we hung out the rest of the day.  I watched some old movies with a holiday theme and listened to some Christmas music.  I also sent out Merry Christmas greetings to people I am acquainted with in Canada.

Funny how I was able to exchange greetings with people in North America but not with any expatriates in Wuxi.

The Monday between Christmas and New Year's was spent at a hotel in the downtown of Wuxi.  Jenny had us stay there because the district where we live in Wuxi was doing one of those periodic turning offs of residential water supply.  Our hotel room was on the 50th floor and we were practically on top of the Moresky360 building. (There is a photo at my photo blog of this)  Stunning view but otherwise, I was bored.  Nothing much to see in downtown Wuxi these days.

My son Tony's three favorite musical groups are:  Nirvana, The Beatles and The Jam.  I was surprised by his third choice.  The late seventies modish punk band was not the one I would have expected.

For what's it worth I will tell you that my favorite three musical groups or singers are:  Frank Sinatra, The Beatles and The Smiths.

Snow in Wuxi on the 29th.  In a Wuxi Foreigner WeChat group, there was talk of black ice.  I was tempted, but didn't, to make a comment about "black ice" being a racist term.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to any readers I may have.

Bad as this year has been, you need to know that there is Christ, and so there is no reason to truly despair.

Again, if you do read this blog, send an email to andiskaulins@qq.com or andiskaulins@hotmail.com.

You Are Well Within Your Rights to Have an Angry Christmas, But Christ Will Prevail in the End!

2020 Man of the Year Peter Hitchens wrote of this year's Christmas being an angry one, and he is of course right.

Never have the forces of evil had it so good as 2020.  Not only are they posed to destroy the world, they are making it impossible for Christians to celebrate Christmas in the proper manner.

Satan Claus is sure to put lovely presents under the "holiday" trees of the Doctor Fauci's and the Bill Gates's and the George Soros's and the Joe Bidens and the Globalists and the tin-pot Covid dictators and the Chinese Communists of the world.

But try as they might, this gang will never defeat Christ.  Let us pray they don't destroy souls with their machinations.

Can a General Pinochet Save America? Will a General Pinochet Save America? Is There a General Pinochet that Can Save America?

A great and I think accurate nickname, I came across on the Internet for the maybe coming Biden administration:  The Bidenreich.

I still hold out hope that a Bidenreich can be stopped.  How it could come about I have no idea.  A general insurrection from normal legacy Americans would seem the ideal way currently, now that the powers that be aren't even willing to look at the evidence of voter fraud.  But there is a lot of suggestion that these Americans don't have the courage to do this.

So something drastic might be in order involving loyal members of the military and a General Pinochet type figure.

General Pinochet has a bad reputation.  What is used to condemn him are the brutal things he did to kill the leaders of the would-be Chilean Communist regime.  But what he did was a case of kill or be-killed.  If he didn't do what he did, he would have been purged Stalin style eventually.  As well, the commies he killed would eventually have been killed by other commies; the revolution eventually eating itself.  Pinochet did in fact save a lot of innocents from being killed by the communists.  This is never mentioned.

Anyway, America needs such a figure to prevent a Bidenreich.

Can a General Pinochet Save America? Will a General Pinochet Save America? Is There a General Pinochet that Can Save America?

A great and I think accurate nickname, I came across on the Internet for the maybe coming Biden administration:  The Bidenreich.

I still hold out hope that a Bidenreich can be stopped.  How it could come about I have no idea.  A general insurrection from normal legacy Americans would seem the ideal way currently, now that the powers that be aren't even willing to look at the evidence of voter fraud.  But there is a lot of suggestion that these Americans don't have the courage to do this.

So something drastic might be in order involving loyal members of the military and a General Pinochet type figure.

General Pinochet has a bad reputation.  What is used to condemn him are the brutal things he did to kill the leaders of the would-be Chilean Communist regime.  But what he did was a case of kill or be-killed.  If he didn't do what he did, he would have been purged Stalin style eventually.  As well, the commies he killed would eventually have been killed by other commies; the revolution eventually eating itself.  Pinochet did in fact save a lot of innocents from being killed by the communists.  This is never mentioned.

Anyway, America needs such a figure to prevent a Bidenreich.

Hierarchies and AKIC; Just along for the Ride; Pretentious: that's me!; Rotten Chestnuts; Rush Limbaugh; Names for the New Covid Mutations; AKIC Blog Census

Hierarchies.  Reactionaries say they exist and are necessary.  Liberals are said to not believe in them; and yet they act like they do by always trying to be high on the hierarchy of virtuousness.  

What this this hierarchy talk entail for me?  I have spent most of my life wishing to be up high and thus I have been a status seeker in my life. But I have tried to go about seeking status in a lazy way by hoping to meet the right people who would somehow take me in.  Now that it has dawned on me that I was so stupid in the passive way I tried to go about this search, I find myself stuck in a situation where I am without a hierarchy.  I now am an outsider who is feeling like an untouchable.  An untouchable without other untouchables to be with.  And ultimately, I am without purpose, which is what hierarchies provide to everybody.

The reactionaries are right when they say we have to accept our stations in life and do the best we can within those stations.  Having been so individualistic in my life however, I have sought not my true station but a station where I had these false notions that I could be happy and of higher status than really, I was deserving.  Consequently, I now feel I am without a station of any sort, unless it is being an untouchable without being one of the untouchables.

It boils down to this question:  Where am I am the hierarchy?  In my optimistic and pessimistic moments, I overshot the mark.

I got a personality which does what it wants it whether I, that be the thinking part of me, wants it not.  When it comes to being me, I am just along for the ride.

Oh God, I pray, give me a purpose!

Oh, why pretentious self-absorbed drivel I write!  Who am I trying to be?  Obama without a tan?

A blog, I read religiously, Rotten Chestnuts, begins its latest entry thus:  this time, I got nothing.  It then proceeded to have something.  

Rush Limbaugh.  They say he's racist.  They being the people who have never taken the time to actually listen to him, or the people who do listen to him and yet try to misconstrue everything he says.  What he always has been is anti-White-Liberal, anti-shitlib.  His shtick has to be to mock these supposed self-critical thinkers.

Covid-20 has come quicker than the cynics predicted.  Since it is being classified as a mutation, I will call it instead Divoc-19 or Civod-911.

Blog Census.  Does anyone read this blog?  Email me at andiskaulins@qq.com if you do.  

What Are My Christmas Plans?; War SPC; 2021 = 1914?; In the Navy?; Crazy, Angry and Resentful?; I am a Karen; Bittersweet Revenge; The Title of My Book

How would I react to being questioned about my Christmas Plans?*  I would like to say I am not bothering this year, but that would surely be a sin.  I could instead say "no plans" but that wouldn't be quite true.  I do plan to at least take in some Nativity related media and make contact with my brother and mother in Canada.  I do also look forward to spending some time with my son Tony who will be on a break from school.  But I do want to be bah-humbuggy in some way, so I would say Christmas is unfortunately on a Saturday this year and I am in China.  Restaurants would be extra crowded those days and it would be best to just stay home.

(Oops.  Christmas is on a Friday, not a Saturday.   So, what will I do?  I have no idea.  I'll let my wife Jenny and son Tony decide what to do and I will tag along.  I hope they don't go to some commercial Christmas dinner in a restaurant or hotel.  I have done a few of these in my years in Wuxi, and none of them was satisfying.  Particularly egregious was one I went to in the Kempenski hotel -- when it was the Kempenski hotel.  I had high hopes for it, going to it, but it turned out that I was the only foreigner there and the dinner was basically being in a place overstuffed with Chinese having a semblance of a second-rate Christmas food.  The detail that really annoyed was the extra table being put a part of the room that clearly wasn't meant to have tables usually.  Everyone was herded in like sheep.)

During my Speakers Corner, I asked the attendees if they would join the army, navy or air force.  Surprisingly, all three options were chosen.  Usually, everyone wants to join the air force.  I called one student Fly Boy and another Sailor Sally.  The army person I called a grunt willing to do the dirty work.  And the pair who chose the air force, I called pilot and bombardier.

2021 will be worse than 2020.  Why?  The dumb things done in 2020 will have lingering consequences.  The dumb people who did them are going to double.

The social life I have, or don't have, should make me crazy.  Maybe, it has.  I don't talk to anyone.  I interact only with children in classes.  I only take in podcasts.

(My lack of social life is in fact making angry and resentful.  Part of the problem is me; part of the problem is the people with whom I could socialise if I wasn't so... me.  Thanks to Stalin and Hitler**, I never had a chance to be in my natural ethnic milieu.  I have always been an outsider.  I have never been able to be part of something.  I have never had an identity.  I have failed completely in being able to adapt.  But then the problem also is that I have never have found the right people.  There is a lot of bad in humanity, a lot of bad in Wuxi Expatdom.  I haven't sought out the right people, and I stupidly better of people whom I shouldn't be expecting better from.)

Oh. Woe is me.  Ha ha!  Pathetic I am!

I am a Karen when it comes to Wuxi drivers.  One Sunday,  I pointed out to these people, who had parked their car beside mine, that they had parked in a lane, not an actual parking spot.  I had to wonder what they were thinking.  And later that day, I was coming back to our apartment complex and I honked my horn and gesticulated at this driver who stopped his vehicle right on the lane that cars entering the complex wouldn't normally take.  I was so annoyed at him that I walked back to the entrance after parking my car to see if the vehicle was still there.

Tony & I went to an Expatriate pub on the Sunday before Christmas.  We walked in, and the pub's owner, who I am acquainted with, said an enthusiastic hello, until he saw it was me.  We sat at a table near a big screen showing the NFL network.  I then saw other foreigners come in, and they would walk up to the owner to greet him in a "kiss the ring" manner.  Tony was happy to play on his phone and watch the NFL being shown on the big screen.  I alternated between enjoying his company and feeling really alone.  I couldn't interact with the foreigners and felt I was getting a cold shoulder from the few there with whom I was acquainted.  I also started to feel anger.  When It was time to for us to leave, I should have paid my bill and left.  I instead waved bye to the pub owner.  And he came to wish me a Merry Christmas.  And I couldn't resist the urge to to gripe, so I told it was going to be an angry Christmas this year and babbled in the bad way I do when I am angry-talking.  Then, this other expat who I hadn't interacted with in years, and who I had a issue with because of rudeness to me in the last encounter, shook my hand.  Being already riled up, I said to him: "Who are you.  I don't know you."  He pulled his hand away from me, in a "screw you" way.  And so, I said to him: "Oh I know you!  You're the Pakistani guy!"  I then walked out, babbling some more.

Going home after that, I felt both sheepish and elated.  It's always been my way to feel sheepish after an angry outburst, even if my anger was justified.  I also liked how I had gotten my revenge on him for the last time we had meet.  

One is entitled to use every weapon in one's arsenal to get back at someone who has wronged you.  No matter how long it takes (This was at least a five-year interim with the guy from Pakistan.)  Once you have had your righteous vengeance, you can forgive them.  That is, if you ever see them again.

(I shouldn't be surprised I get the cold shoulder.  I am the king of giving cold shoulders to people.)

The title of the book I should write:  What's Wrong with the World; What's Wrong with Me.

* I use "would" because it is an "if" question with the number of even acquaintances I have these days.

**I am Latvian diaspora thanks to those two men.

Feel free to email me at andiskaulins@hotmail.com or andiskaulins@qq.com.

A Bolshevik Moment?; My Son Disappoints; My Son Surprises Me; NHL 2020-21 Season Not Organized Yet; Locals Only Getting News from CNN and MSNBC; Sweet Home Alabama!; Cleveland Wussdians;

Can solace be taken from the fact that some people, who stupidly are liberal, don't like the BLM Antifa Control Freak nonsense that the progressives did in 2020?  Cuck conservatives seem to be suggesting this.

I think that at this time, this would be like trying to reconcile what was happening in Russia in 1917 with the thought that the Bolsheviks weren't that popular.

I think that America is confronting a potential Bolshevik moment and it is time for the cucks to join the fight instead of being so passive.

My son Tony!  The guy disappoints me at times.  He got all hot and bothered about an infraction report saying that he hadn't completed some project.  I told him to talk to the teacher about why he thought it was unfair.  He said he would.  The next time, I talked to him I was curious to know how this interaction went.  Tony told me he "forgot" to do this.  I knew the real reason was that he was scared to, and when I told him this, he admitted it.  He still didn't do anything about it, the next day.  I didn't bother asking him why he didn't, but I did call him a coward.  He then couldn't tell me what he had done in his English class.  I had to question him long and hard,  having all the while to think of the right yes-no questions to ask him to extract the info from him, and even then, I still didn't get to the bottom of what was happening in the class.  What I garnered was that the teacher lectured and Tony had no idea about the what the teacher was talking.

Tony!  You have to take the good with bad.  (Like father, like son.  But that's another story.)  Later after I got the notice of his getting demerits, I got a notice of his getting merits in his Math class.

I was disappointed to learn that the 2020-21 NHL season hasn't been organized yet.  And there is less than three weeks to go in 2020.

It would seem that the locals only get fed stories about America from CNN and MSNBC.  How many times I have told them how these outlets are likely to be lying about Trump.

A student attends my Speaker's Corner who had spent a year in Alabama:  a place where I would like to spend a year.

I heard that the Cleveland Indians are going to change their nickname.  I should swear about this, but I will laugh.  It is so absolutely ridiculous.  I feel sorry for Tony.  Sports were so much better when I was his age.  Now, it is so tosserish.

I decided to visit the MLB in order to get to the Indians site so I could confirm the news.  I first saw that MLB was going to somehow incorporate the records of the Negro Leagues into the Major League records.  My immediate reaction was to wonder how this would work and if the records kept for those leagues were reliable.  I then went to the Indians' site.  The name change was the first story I saw.  I scanned the article, and saw weasel wording as well as mention of George Floyd.  It's all based on a lie.

Fingers Crossed; Biden Corruption; My Son Struggles; 150 Books?; Square Dancing: a CR Artefact?; Two Sorts of People I Hate; My Current State of Health; My Communication with Laoweis;

I have my fingers crossed that the poo will hit the fan about the stolen election and that the liberal progressive globalist attempt to act like nothing has happened will blow up in their faces, big time.

Good to see that there is still news about Hunter and Joe Biden's corruption available.  Only problem is that it should be more widely known.

In China, I have to worry about helping my son Tony get through his struggles at his new school.  We really need to talk more.  I have got to raise his English abilities.

Maybe, I can read my 150th of the year later this month.  Right now, I am about to finish my 140th:  Suicide of the West by James Burnham.

The old ladies, who attend my Speaker's Corner, tell me that the public group dancing I often see in open public open spaces came about during the cultural revolution because of everyone wanting to show their loyalty to Chairman Mao.  Hitherto, I had thought it was a quaint Chinese custom.  That it started during the Cultural Revolution troubles me. Maybe perhaps it instead resulted from the introduction of music players into China.  The dancing can't take place without them.

Two sorts of people I hate the most:  White Liberals (aka Shitlibs) and Chinese drivers.  They both pursue their interests without regards for others, and they corrupt others in the process.

My health is not so wonderful these days.  I get pains on my chest when I am busy, and I have gallstones or a hernia always causing my discomfort.  I suppose I might just as well say I am getting old.

I communicate more with laoweis (non-Chinese people) via the internet than in person.

Comments: email me at andiskaulins@qq.com. 

Immaculate Conception, Anti-Mad-Scientist I Am; Local Police Policing Intersections; Another Bad Local Driving Habit; Divine Assistance?; Wuxi Weather Currently; Xenophobia Against Chinatowns?; Rude Wuxi Locals;

This blog entry was started on the day of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Es domāju, ka Trump tiešām uzvarēja vēlēšanās.  Vēlēšanas tika nozagtas.

I am not anti-science.  I am anti-scientism as well as anti-mad-scientist.  There are many of the latter these days.

I reported in a recent previous entry, that there has been a visible police presence at intersections.  The authorities are trying to get pedestrians and cyclists to behave better.  I have been warned twice about not standing beyond a line while waiting for a green pedestrian signal. 

On the morning of the Feast Day of the Immaculate Conception, I saw a woman on a bike being shooed behind a line by a tall policeman.  The woman and the policeman started arguing, and at one instance, it seemed that the policeman was about to grab the woman who seemed to make like she was about to flee the scene.  I never saw the conclusion of the set-to as I had to board the bus taking me to work.

Driving to and from Tony's school, I witnessed a frightening habit some local drivers have of suddenly crossing two or three lanes of traffic in order to drive into a exit lane that they suddenly realized that they should be turning into.  Local drivers are reactive and never seem to anticipate.

I may have mentioned this in a previous blog entry but I make it a habit of praying the rosary every day. (Every day, I also try to read some French, read some Spanish, read some Latvian, read some Chinese, practice French on Duolingo, practice Spanish on Duolingo, practice Chinese on Duolingo, practice Latvian on some other apps, read some Nicolás Gómez Dávila aphorisms, read poetry, read some Catholic, read another work of fiction or non-fiction, and write something for this blog.)  On the day after the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Mary Virgin, I suddenly couldn't remember part of the Hail Holy Queen prayer.  Maybe it's a sign I'm getting old.  But the missing words did come back to me.  Whether it is my brain memory working a strange way or some divine assistance, I couldn't tell, but getting the words back made my day.

The weather now in Wuxi is sort of cold, sort of not.  Today, I put on what turned out to be too many layers for the weather, and now I feel uncomfortably hot.  I can't say which is worse:  to be over-dressed or under-dressed in Wuxi weather.

I came across this news story staying that Chinatowns in the USA are suffering due to xenophobia brought on by the Covid situation.  My immediate reaction was Jesus!  Racism is a major explanation for everything in the world for some people.  Most of the Chinatowns are being avoided because of the panic and lockdowns brought by the Covid situation.  No racism there.  And the fact that the Covid originated in China and so people are reluctant to have anything to do with Chinese places, isn't racism either.

I have been annoyed by older Chinese women these past two days.  One day, I was waiting in line to buy bread at a bakery and an older woman cut in line.  I swore at her and she seemed to have understood.  The next day, I was sitting on the bus.  When an older woman sat in front of me and opened the window so that I was suddenly having a cold breeze blowing on me.  I swore at her too.  You would think that civilized people would ask if they were inconveniencing others if they opened a window on a cold day.  Well, the people in Wuxi, especially its older residents, don't.

Comments: email me at andiskaulins@qq.com or andiskaulins@hotmail.com.

Madame Bovary; Latvian; Busy Weekends; The Old Man and the Sea; Christmas 2020; Top Three Mental Diseases of 2020; Covid 20, Covid 21, ...; Tony Plays Sports; Chinese Not Allowed a Christmas Holiday; I'm a Lumberjack;

I have finishing reading Madame Bovary in French and in English translation.  In early January, I will publish entries documenting the video and movies I watched in 2020, and the books I read in 2020.  Both will be long entries.

Šeit ir daži latviešu rakstiski ar jums patiesi:Man nepatīk ķīnieši kā grupa.  Tomēr, man patīk daži kā indivīdiem.

Because Tony is only home on the weekend, I'm busy then and I have no time to relax or socialize.  Not that I am complaining.  I am just saying this to fulfill my daily blogging requirement.

Tony has to read the Old Man and the Sea at school.  I've just read the book so I will be able to help him and talk about the book with him.  I remember in my Winnipeg days, that there was an acquaintance that said it was his favorite book; and I thought it would be a nice gift to give him a hardcover copy of the book.  It was an attempt at that time to have a social life.  Alas, nothing came of it.

I really don't want to socialize with any expats this Christmas.  I don't want to deal with people who thought it was a good idea for Biden to win the election.

Three mental diseases afflicted the world in 2020:  Trump Derangement Syndrome, Covid Overreaction Syndrome and anti-ogly-booglyism.  The last could also be called Anti-Racism.  My favorite blogger (at Essays of Idleness) told of a woman who theorized that Covid kills old people and makes younger people mad.

I don't look forward to a future of Covid 20, Covid 21 and so on....

My son Tony told me he got a home-run playing baseball.  It was a grounder that went up the middle.

Basketball wise, he wasn't so successful as his team lost all three games they played on a Friday.

I have been told that at international schools in Wuxi, Chinese staff are not allowed to take time off on account of Christmas, because it is not a Chinese holiday.  This is Xi Jing Ping Nationalism I would suppose.

On the weekend, Tony was watching something on the computer and he found it so funny that he had to show it to me.  What was it?  The Monty Python Lumberjack Skit.

Happy December Day; Joe Biden Joke; Wuxi Tunnels; Lots of Police at Intersections; Annoying Things Speakers Corner; Christmas Break for Tony!; Blue Tooth is Wonky; Broke a Plate; Genius Defined

Happy December Day!  Laimigu Decembra Dienu!  十二月快乐!

0 Days since Joe Biden has had an accident. (No, I haven't given up hope that Trump can still be president.  I pray for it every day!)

Wuxi has a lot of tunnels for cars and for pedestrians.  The driving tunnels are nice except when there are accidents and a driver then can be really stranded.  I go through three fairly long tunnels as I drive Tony to school.  One goes under a lake; another goes through a mountain.

For the last week of November, there was a heavy presence of policemen and crossing guards at intersections.  I assume they were trying to get pedestrians and cyclists to behave more civilized.

December Day, the topic of my evening Speakers Corner was annoying things. One of the students told me that he was annoyed by a neighbor who was always starting his motorcycle at 4:30 AM. The neighbor worked at a vegetable market and that was when he would set out. The student that he had complained and complained, trying to get the neighbour to push the bike out of the apartment complex before starting it. He even tried confronting the neighbour but it turned out that the neighbour was a member of a motorcycle gang. At least, the government is dealing with motorcycle gangs, said the student. Other things that annoyed the students included apartment decoration in nearby apartments, cats in heat screeching, and a trumpet player playing across the canal from a student's residence.

Thanks to now attending an international school, my son Tony has a Christmas Winter Break to look forward to for the first time ever as a student. I just hope that my Chinese wife Jenny gives him some free time and doesn't overload him with activities.

Blue Tooth is sort of convenient, sort of not. One night for instance, my wife was listening on her blue tooth headphones to something playing on her phone when all of sudden, for no reason, the audio started playing on an external booth tooth speaker that was sitting at the side of my bed. And then my wife couldn't re-pair her blue tooth head phones with the phone. I have had times when I have tried to turn off my blue tooth, but the process is such that you can never be sure if the thing is in fact off. And then there are the times when I can't pair my devices with blue tooth. The technology is kind of wonky.

I broke a plate in the kitchen. What happened was I taking a plate off the dish rack above the sink, when I inadvertently pulled out this huge meat cleaver that my wife had put on the rack to dry. The cleaver was falling to the ground but I dare not catch it. The cleaver in turn took a plate with it and there was nothing I could do but watch the plate hit the kitchen floor, watch the plate shatter to a hundred pieces, and swear. I was annoyed but didn't tell my wife about this. It would somehow have been my fault. She likes to play the blame game.

Definition of genius: the ability to put one's underwear on after one has already on one's pants.

Being in the Moment; Tony & Jenny Conflicting; Made to Put on the Mask; What Load of Bravo Sierra 2020 Has Been!; Thanksgiving; Tony & Jenny Peacing;

I wish I could be in the moment, but often I find myself observing myself think I am in the moment, but really, I am pretending.  This happens a lot in Speaker's Corners where a student is talking and in mind, I stand there and think to adopt the posture of one who is listening intently to what the other person is saying, but really, I am posing.

My son Tony & my wife Jenny are conflicting.  In the past week, Tony has hung up twice on his mother where their conversations became too heated.  I find myself sympathetic to Tony because Jenny, being a Chinese mother, can be awfully harsh on her son.  This is not to say that Tony doesn't need a good kick in the ass sometime, or even every day but, Jenny, like all Chinese mothers, seems to this foreigner, to be over doing it.  She makes Tony become so intensely angry that he doesn't know how to control himself. (And there have been a few cases in my time of children killing themselves because of overzealous parents.)

My mask wearing habit is as follows:  I put on the mask to avoid hassles, but I take the mask off or put the mask off my face as soon as the opportunity arises.  So, when I am on the bus or train, I usually have the mask down.  Thursday the 26th, I had my mask down while on the subway platform and was made to put it on by some uniformed person.  I suppose I should thank my lucky starts that I wasn't in Canada.  Doing what I am doing there would have surely resulted in a hundred dollar fine.

What bravo sierra!!

If Trump can't get back the election that was stolen from him, it will further prove that 2020 has been one of the worse years on record.  And for humanity, it has basically been an own-goal:  one of the worse own-goals since the 1914-1918 war.

Thursday was American Thanksgiving Day.  I asked the students at my Speaker's Corner what they were thankful for, and they had to say the Communist Party and Chairman Mao.  In my mind, I put the finger in my mouth and pretended to vomit.  These retired schoolteachers are grateful for their pension.

I publish this entry on a Tuesday.  There has been peace between my son Tony and my wife Jenny.

Why Has 2020 Been Such a Bad Year?

Two things have made 2020 a bad year:

• Covid Overreaction Syndrome
• Trump Derangement Syndrome

Ten Things about Joe Biden

Responding to his critics, Joe Biden says that the production masks and smasks will increase if he becomes the president.

Joe Biden likes to put potpourri in his pant pockets.

Joe Biden has gotten his son Hunter a chair on the board of the Depends Adult Undergarment company.

Joe Biden says that anyone who questions his sex fetishes is a racist.

Joe Biden says that anyone who questions his son Hunter's sex fetishes is a racist.

Joe Biden says that it is a shame that so many people have died of Covid and that maybe they should have been wearing seat belts.

Joe Biden says that if he becomes president, he will race systemic fightism.

Joe Biden says he hopes that the country can unite and forget that he is a crook.

Joe Biden says that his running mate Oprah Winfrey would be more than a vice-president who spits in warm bowls.

Joe Biden says that he has sniffed pot but never smoked or stroked it.

Parent Teacher Meetings; Too Much Driving; 2 + 2 = 4 or 2 + 2 = 5?

Friday the 20th, in the morning, my wife Jenny & I drove to Tony's school for Parent Teacher Meetings, or what they called PTCs.  We meet with 12 teachers in two hours, so it was all a bit of a dizzy whirl for me, as the three of us went from building to building to building and back again and then back again, to see all his teachers.  (I booked the meetings but paid no regard to their location.)  I took in a lot in those two hours, and it would be best if I just rattle off thoughts and observations in no particular order:

• Most of Tony's teachers spoke with UK accents.  One of his teachers was American.  One of his teachers from was Croatia.
• Most of the teachers said Tony was a nice enough kid, very easy-going, but too shy to tell anyone that he has problems.
• I confirmed my suspicions that Tony needs to read more.  While he can understand a lot of English, he doesn't have much experience writing it, and so some of his tests have been embarrassingly bad, filled with blank responses to questions.
• One of the teachers says that Tony takes a lot of notes.
• One of the teachers says that Tony's got neat handwriting.
• Tony doesn't talk about his problems with his parents.
• Tony can't write English for beans.  (I am trying to get him to communicate with me via email.)
• Tony has had to deal with being a new kid at his school.
• Tony is in his own world (like his blogger father who is a Latvian introvert).
• Tony always says he understands, always gives a "yeah!" whenever he is told something, leaving everyone with the suspicion that he doesn't understand.  I have long suspected this.
• Tony is always hanging with other kids.  He never seems alone.
• The P.E. teacher said that Tony lacks stamina.  I have told Tony this on so many occasions.  One time, I told him that in the NBA, which he says he would like to play in, the players aren't given drives up and down the court.
• None of what the teachers told me was a surprise. 

Sunday, November 22nd, I did a lot of driving. In the morning, I first drove Tony to his drumming class, which was downtown, about thirty minutes from Compound Kaulins.  On the way, Tony said something about forgetting his book for a music class which I didn't know he was to have after the drumming class.  So, after the drumming class, I had to drive back to Casa Kaulins so Tony could pick up the book.  I then drove him downtown again for this music class.  When he finished this class, I saw that my phone run out of money so I couldn't use the GPS to get back to Casa Kaulins.  I had to drive back by memory.  I was going to take the Taihu Avenue Tunnel but there was a lineup of cars waiting to enter it.  i decided to take another route through downtown Wuxi that was much slower.  I spent an extra fifty minutes on the road and was annoyed as all heck.  Finally, in the evening, I drove him to his school Dorm and back which about an hour or so all told, I spent three hours on the road.

When I am dealing with my Chinese wife, I feel like I am dealing with someone coming from a universe where 2 + 2 = 5.  Now, it could very well be that I am the one who is living in the 2 + 2 = 5 universe, but I don't think my wife is aware that we are in the midst of two universes, and a lot of what she expects of me seems, to me, to be as if she is expecting me to believe that 2 + 2 actually equals 5.

Thought experiment:  who is more likely to bang their head against the wall:  the person who thinks 2 + 2 = 4 or the person who thinks 2 + 2 = 5, when they are dealing with each other?

And if my Chinese wife is in fact in a 2 + 2 = 4 universe, she seems to be unaware that 1 + 3 = 4 also.  That is, that there are different ways to try to come up with the same result.

Latvian; Thank you!; Should I stay or should I go?; the Black Dog, Stand Off; Parent Teacher Meetings; Pain; Cold Winter?; I Take Part in a Company Video

I said something a few entries back about composing Latvian sentences to put into my blog entries.  Then, I didn't.  Oops!

So here it goes:

Sveicieni!  Es esmu Andis Kaulins!  Man ir latviešu senči!  Es dzīvoju ļaunajā Komunistiskajā Ķīnā.  Es esmu angļu valodas skolotājs.

And I have been further remiss.  Thank you, very rare reader indeed, for taking the time to read my blog.  If you have any comments, email me at andiskaulins@qq.com or andiskaulins@hotmail.com, or both.

I would like to go back to Canada and take Tony with me.  But Canada has become so stupid that the likelihood of it ever not having an intelligent leader seem remote.  It will be stuck with some Trudeau or Progressive "Conservative" as PM forever.  Maybe, I am best stuck here where I am not one with the locals, I can keep to myself and I don't have to deal with many Karens or Shitlibs.

I blog this after reading dissident right bloggers in the States wondering about countries, they can move to in order to escape the Stalinists eager to wreak vengeance on those who supported Trump.

The black dog hits every once in a while.  The feeling of being not worthy of the salary I get seems too much to bear.  The dark year that is surely coming because of the Covid panic derailing my travel plans for 2021 darkens my mood as well.  But I pray the rosary and to my guardian angel, and so I can look at the depression as what it is, a physical affliction that has to borne with like the toothaches and stomach aches that afflict me as well.

On the way to work and writing this entry, I walked down this narrow two-lane street which has a fence in the middle.  The street has a hospital on it, so if one goes down this street, one is trapped in a lineup of people waiting to get into the hospital.  I assume the street is one way, because I have seen taxis driving in the left lane to avoid the lineup in the right lane.

Anyway, as I was walking to work and to write this blog entry, I saw a taxi driver and a deliver driver, on a e-bike, having a stand-off.  Each wanted the other to back up.  The delivery driver was going against traffic and attempting to enter the hospital compound.  The taxi driver was trying to make his way down the road.

Friday the 20th, I will be going to Tony's school for Parent Teacher Meetings.  I will see more laowei in two hours than I have seen in the last year.  I would like to tell the teacher with the gobblely-gook talk in messages to shove it, but I will be nice.  Tony apparently likes this teacher.

On the 18th, I did a Speaker's Corner about Pain.  Most painful thing you ever experienced. I asked.  One student misunderstanding said she never had much pain in her life.  I got similar lack or response from the students, all of whom were older women.  So, I had to give the answer I was expecting:   childbirth.  The one student then said it was very painful.  Then another student said abortion was painful also...  I shrugged to myself.

The student who talked about abortion being painful, then said something about Jack Ma, China's most successful businessman, being a bad man.

A student told me the upcoming winter will be cold because it was warm on November 18th.

I took part in a video where I was the laowei visiting a company.  I had a hard time acting naturally, for I was telling myself, all the time, to act naturally.  I was also telling myself to bring out my inner Steve McQueen, and act minimally, but that only made myself more self-conscious.