9:30 AM Friday, July 4: 186

 It’s the 186th day of the year.

I extended my Duolingo streak to 1986 days.

I just finished reading a story in The Arabian Nights: Their Best-Known Tales. Great book.  The stories are captivating and enchanting.

I’m spending a year with Mary.  She’s my hope to establish community.

Living abroad for over twenty years as I have: no community.  Expats are generally selfish.  Community is below them.  They have to hang out with elites or try to be elites:  Lawrences of Arabia, as it were.

I’m spending a year with Chesterton, twice.

My bad. I put on my high beams to flash some e-biker who had on his high beams.  I then proceeded to drive down the narrow lanes of Yanqiao with them on until an oncoming vehicle aggressively high-beamed me.  My first reaction was to finger him. I then realized my mistake.

Just read a poem by Charles Kingsley,

Just finished reading a section of The Fourth Turning by William Strauss and Niel Howe.  It’s a book about generations and their relationship to history.  I can’t say that I agree with the book’s theory and I can’t keep straight the theory’s terms. However, the book is a trip down memory lane as it recounts the current events of my growing up.  Sometimes. a book is useful for the information it provides, rather than for its thesis.

Here’s what NGD had to say about generations: - La distancia entre jóvenes y viejos es hoy igual a la de siempre.Hoy se habla de "abismo" entre generaciones, porque el adulto actual se niega a envejecer y el joven, con el irrespeto debido, le asegura que envejeció.

NGD in French:  Comprendre consiste bien souvent à comprendre que nous n’avions pas compris ce que nous croyions avoir compris.

Finished reading a chapter of Empires and Barbarians by Peter Heather.  It’s a book I’m sticking with despite it not being what I expected.  I was hoping for more narrative and less analysis of historical evidence.

First substack link.

This morning’s standard view photo.

July 4th.  Some country’s national day. A Canadian dissident on YouTube, who I generally agree with, said the Americans have an ideal for which to celebrate their National Day, patriotically; unlike Canada which seems to be nothing but not being Red America and having bureaucratic programs with humanistic intentions.  He must not have heard the opinions of dissident Americans, many Trump voters, who say that America does not have a central cultural core either.  Personally, my conservative inc idea of America that I had had is gone.

I remember an atheist telling me that the atheists knew more about the Bible than believers.  I should have retorted that Holocaust deniers know more about details of the Holocaust than people who accept it happened.  Ditto for flat-earthers and people who deny that America put a man on the moon.  Now, people might say in response, what about people who are anti-climate alarmists and people who reject the COVID narrative put forth by governments?  They should be lumped in with flat-earthers and holocaust-deniers given your logic!  Well. The atheist used the you can’t say what about in debate line on me.  I was merely using their illogic to do a gotcha on them.  The fact was the atheist was using false premises.  I should have said that, but I went with the premise do as to touchez him with his fallacy.  Truth is, all these topics of debate have to be argued in detail. Shouldn’t try to use guilt by association arguments.  So, my bad up to a point.