Gratitude:
I have so much to be thankful.
I have a wife. I have a son. I have a job. I have some life left
in my body. I have great technology that allows me to access things
that twenty years ago would have cost me an arm and a leg.
Acknowledgement:
I have been lazy and so I
haven't publish one of these Akicistan blog entries. I am also rude
to my co-workers. As well, I harbour bitter thoughts
Request(s):
Please visit the page I have
dedicated to my father and make a comment. If you are having trouble
doing this, you can email me at andiskaulins@qq.com
What
is Akicistan? It isn't a
place. It is 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.
If
Akicistan was an empire, it would comprise China, Canada, the Red
States of the USA, Latvia, and the parts of the world that comprise
Modern Christendom as well as ancient Christendom.
Akicistan
news in brief: Life has
carried on in Akicistan. Tony goes to his school and Andis talks at
his.
Important
Akicistan Links:
In
Akicistan:
Some
of us can speak Chinese!
我的生活是好的。我有一个孩子。我有一个妻子。
我觉得中国共产党是盗贼团伙.
我觉得无锡不需要地铁。
现在，我有中华老师。
现在我看很多无锡人买了车。
我不喜欢汽车。
We
sometimes pay attention to China.
I hear China is having trouble with its neighbors Vietnam and Japan.
It is all that is shown on the Chinese news.
We
are fond of Canada!
At
least, I pay lip service to Canada. I was thinking of going back but
I may stay in China as long as I can. I don't want to deal with the
winters and having to own a car. The
prospect of another Trudeau being prime minister is also another
reason to stay put.
We
are fond of Latvia! It is a
shame that they aren't in
the World Cup.
The
Politics are Conservative and Reactionary!
My hero is Nicolas Gomez Davilla.
English
is taught! I have reading
a lot of grammar books lately. I now know the difference between
using that and which in relative clauses. It was the book When
Bad Grammar Happens to Good People
that taught me.
Citizens
aren't freaks! If
they were, they would be expelled, unless they were me.
Reading
is the #1 Pastime! Here
is what I had been working my way through the past few months or so:
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
Summa by Thomas Aquinas. This
is a hard book to read. I have had to re-read every section in the
book so far.
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 finished reading the Book of Genesis. I
am not in the Book of Exodus. In the New Testament, I am reading the
Gospel According to Matthew.
Antony
and Cleopatra by William Shakespeare. [Finished] I have a plan
to read all of Shakespeare's plays.
As
You Like It by William Shakespeare. [Finished] I will read
Shakespeare's in alphabetical order, by title.
Other
Limits of Reason: Nolson S. Yanofsky. [Finished]
A Difficult book to read. Very mathematical and thought provoking.
Travels
in West Africa by Mary H Kingsley. [Finished]
This woman went to Africa in the 1890s before feminism and political
correctness.
Johnny
Carson by Henry Bushkin [Finished]
This book is not a bio but a memoir of Bushkin's time with Carson.
Shows the fleetingness of fame and not much else.
American
Gun by Chris Kyle [Finished]
Not a great book but a good book to read for the purposes of annoying
Leftists.
Under
the Skin by Michael Faber [Finished]
It was at a Catholic site that I learned of the movie that this book
is based on. An alien woman goes around Scotland in a car picking
up male hitchhikers for the purpose of processing them into meat.
The novel follows the thought patterns of the alien.
Infinite
Ascent by David Berlinski
[Finished] A history of Mathematics. I understood just a little of
it.
The
Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton. [Finished]
Merton chronicles his life and his decision to become a monk. It is
quite well-written and inspiring.
Deng
Xiaoping and the Transformation of China by Ezra Vogel.
This was the subject of a multi-part series of the China History
Podcast.
Routledge
– Teaching English as a Foreign Language. The book is
jargon-filled and makes mention of Chomsky.
Beauties
of Tennyson by Baron Alfred Tennyson [Finished]. The best book
of poetry I have read this year.
The
Comedy of Errors by William Shakespeare [Finished] I would love
to see this play performed.
Coriolanus
by William Shakespeare. [Finished] This play contains some of my
favorite Shakespearean dialogue. The things that Coriolanus says in
his detestation of the mob are delicious. How are you doing you
fragments?
Jesus
Christus by Romano Guardini. [Finished] Flannery O'Connor said
she tried to read everything she could of Romano Guardini. Maybe I
should too. This short book of meditations was quite profound.
President
Me by Adam Carolla. [[Finished] From the divine (Guardini) to
the crude. I like the libertarian part of Carolla when he criticizes
those who don't, but can, look after themselves. However, I wish he
wouldn't be so vulgar.
The
Story of the Greeks (Yesterday's Classics) by H.A. Guerber.
[Finished] Meant for high school students. I am reading it to hone
my knowledge of ancient Greek.
Everyday
English by Michelle Finlay. [Finished] I will be reading a lot
of these guides this summer.
When
Bad Grammar Happens to Good People by Ann Batko. As I just said
I will be reading a lot of books this summer about English grammar.
Cymbeline
by William Shakespeare. A not so famous Shakespeare play.
Memorable
quotes are presented and discussed!
Nicholas
Gomez Davilla:
874
Many doctrines are less valuable for the truths they contain than for
the errors they reject. [Could
this be an argument for pragmatism? No. Pragmatism rejects
doctrines.]
876
The reactionary does not become a conservative except in ages
which maintain something worthy of being conserved.
878
Philosophy is the art of lucidly formulating problems. Inventing
solutions is not an occupation of serious intellects. [A
middle-of-the-roader said something about wanting to embrace all
tools in order to solve problems. Pragmatists imagine there are
solutions to every problem.]
881
We only succeed in saying what we want when we accidentally say
what we should. [There is nothing I can add to this. ]
882
The modern world demands that we approve what it should not even
dare ask us to tolerate. [Gay Marriage.]
883
The colony which gains its independence passes from acknowledged
imitation to artificial originality. [Describes Canada to a
tee.]
884
Journalists and politicians do
not know how to distinguish between the development of an idea and
the lengthening of a sentence. [Only journalists and
politicians?]
885
Those who remove man's chains free only an animal。
888
We can never count on a man who does look upon himself with the
look of an entomologist. [Most people are insects!]
903
Reading the newspaper degrades whomever it does not make into a
brute. [Reading the newspaper everyday does make people stupid.]
904
Perhaps individually men are our neighbors, but massed together
they are surely not. [It goes without saying that we should avoid
the mass. But what about the individuals one knows who are surely a
product of mass thinking? Should I avoid them too?]
907
Faith in God does not solve problems, but makes them laughable.
The serenity of the believer is not a presumption of knowledge, but a
fullness of confidence.
908
The punishment of the man who searches for himself is that he
finds himself. [You could also
say that yourself finds you.]
909
Knowing which reforms the world needs is the only unequivocal
symptom of stupidity.
912
The old despotisms limited themselves to locking man up in his
private life; those of the new stamp prefer that he have nothing but
a public life. To domesticate man all one has to do is politicize
all his gestures. [That LA Clipper owner comes to mind.]
915
Would that the philosophers of the 18th
century would rise from the dead with their wit, their sarcasm, their
audacity, so that they would undermine, dismantle, demolish the
“prejudices” of this century. The prejudices that they created.
917
The most repulsive and grotesque of spectacles is that of the
superiority of a living professor over a dead genius. [Scientists
can be bad for this.]
921
Man's three enemies are: the devil, the state, and technology.
[I was listening to a podcast from Winnipeg where a police
officer was defending all the things his organizations did to stop
automobile accidents. The State, technology. What is the devil's
angle in this.]
923
The most ominous of modern perversions is the shame of appearing
naïve if we do not flirt with evil. [Or of appearing
uncool....]
925
I am not a non-conformist modern intellectual but an indignant
medieval peasant. [I am so tainted by modernity that I can only
sympathize with the medieval mindset.]
926
The writer cannot pride himself on the successes he attains, but
on the mistakes he avoids. [So true. When I read over my work, I
see nothing but mistake after mistake after mistake.]
928
The intention to engage in dialogue, today, presupposes the
intention to betray.
937
A gesture, just one gesture, is enough at times to justify the
existence of the world.
938
When reason takes flight to escape history, it is not the absolute
where it alights, but in the fashion of the day.
939
Confusion is the normal result of a dialogue. Except when a single
author invents it.
941
Contemporary thinkers differ among each other in the same way as
do international hotels, whose uniform structure is superficially
adorned with indigenous motifs. When in truth, the only interesting
thing is mental localism which expresses itself in a cosmopolitan
vocabulary.
942
Capitalism is abominable because it achieves that disgusting
prosperity promised in vain by the socialism that hates it.
951
To be authentically modern is, in any century, a sign of
mediocrity.
954
“Solutions” are the ideologies of stupidity. [Pragmatist
say they are only concerned with what works.]
955
Once youth is past, chastity forms a part not so much of ethics as
of good taste.
956
To discover the countenance of Christ in the face of modern man
requires more than an act of faith – an act of credulity.
964
The Belief in the fundamental solubility of problems is a
characteristic peculiar to the modern world. That all conflict
between principles is simply a matter of equivocation, that there
will be aspirin for every headache. [Someone tried to defend the
middle-of-the-road label to me by saying that they had more tools to
solve problems.]
969
At the end of the last century, there was only an “art without
style”; in the second half of this century there is only a style
without art. [It carries on into the 21st century with
these ideas of being hip or being cool.]
971
Bureaucracies do not succeed revolutions by coincidence.
Revolutions are the bloody births of revolutions. [The gulag was
very bureaucratic. China is a vast bureaucracy today. How can it
have another revolution?]
972
The noblest things on earth may not exist except in the words that
evoke them. But it is enough that they be there for them to be.
975
Every non-conformist knows, in the depths of his soul, that the
place his vanity rejects is the exact same place nature has assigned
him. [God, I rejected many places in my life out of vanity.
What was the place nature assigned me?]
977
The most to which a man who knows himself can aspire is to be the
least repugnant possible. [I try to not be repugnant by keeping
quiet and keeping to myself.]
984
Nations or individuals – with rare exceptions – only behave
themselves decently when circumstances do not allow for anything
else. [I am not one of those rare exceptions.]
987
Whoever does not get a head start on his old age does not prolong
his youth, but corrupts even his memories.
Peter
Hitchens
The
EU is, as I keep pointing out, the continuation of Germany by other
means – though, unlike in 1914 and 1939, this time it is Germany
with full American backing. [An
interesting observation
though I don't agree with the idea of America backing. Many American
conservatives hope that the EU will fail.]
Theodore
Dalrymple
By
their language shall ye know them. But knowing them is not the same,
alas, as keeping ourselves safe from them. 'They' and their language
are everywhere, from Parliament to Tesco. Their language in not
intended to express but to prevent thought.
I
think I can put my hand on my heart and say that I have no tyrannical
leanings, though no doubt like everyone else there are a few things
that I should like to see prohibited, such as (in my case) chewing
gum, drinks sold in cans, baseball caps, rock and other forms of pop
music in public places, and preferably in private as well, fast food,
men wearing suits without ties, television, mobile telephones in
trains and restaurants, burqas (except for drunken British girls on
Friday and Saturday nights, for whom they should be compulsory),
tattoos, piercings, celebrity magazines, pasteurised cheese, the use
of the word chair for chairman, conversations in public about
football, the Olympic Games, jeans, skateboards, eating in the
streets, coffee served in plastic containers, basketball, etc. My
father liked to tyrannise the people around him, and so immunised me
against the desire for power. [Link
I agree
with everything in TD's list. Unfortunately, I am addicted to some
of them.]
The
ingredients that are needed to transform information into knowledge
are perspective and judgment: a lesson more than ever important in
the so-called information age. There is something to be said for
reading disregarded old books. They rarely have nothing to say to
us. [Link]
David
Warren
The
modern man is free only to indulge his lusts and perversions; to
display “choice” in his consumer selection of “products”
almost invariably fake. He has no patience for the good, the true,
the beautiful — and is therefore a cringing slave in his nature,
compelled to participate as an easily replaceable cog in the infernal
machinery.
if
one is lucky enough to live in a slum or ghetto, one may be on a
street where no one owns a car. [As
soon as a few people own a car, the community they come from is
destroyed.]
That
the book of Genesis is not a biological treatise should be apparent
to anyone with sufficient intelligence to master the Roman alphabet,
and yet the mocking, facetious question reduced it to that. Much of
the conceit of scientism — in its most ignorant form — is to
dismiss everything that cannot be repeated in a laboratory test to
“myth.” I put the quotes because there is no understanding of
myth, either; that it may be true deeply below the factitious level;
or that by this tactic everything we know, without exception,
including the efficacy of laboratory tests, becomes “mythical.”
I
think the whole matter illustrates by analogy the importance of
Tradition, where Scripture is silent or obscure. Trust the Tradition.
Do not simply assume that you know better than the people who were
there. By reversing the analogy, we see that the whole world makes a
lot more sense on the “conservative” principle, or better, the
reactionary principle, that our ancestors knew what they were doing.
It is when the (self-selecting) smart people — the “enlightened”
types — the “Brights” as the New Atheists like to call
themselves — start to tinker with Tradition that the gates of Hell
begin to yawn.
She
[Warren's Mother] had a number of
eccentricities, and one of them was distaste for the expression,
“passed away.” She preferred the term, “dead.”
[Carlos Caso-Rosendi: Thank you for sharing with us your
mother’s preference for “dead” over “passed away.” A
healthy distaste for euphemisms is a good way to learn to live in
truth. One may start with things like “passed away” and end up
being politically correct.]
Now,
I have touched before on the natural alliance between “liberals”
— or, Liberals, as in this case — and the criminally insane. The
former are perhaps the latter’s most pampered constituency, but the
two are not interchangeable. While the criminal tendency pertains to
both, the element of calculation differs between “politician” and
“client.” Yet, as in any feudal system, lord and peasant,
provider and supplicant, share material interests, and an essential
point of view. Each is capable of identifying with the other, so that
whether the issue is disarming the law-abiding public to improve the
criminals’ chances, or launching whimsical programmes to spread the
working stiff’s lifeblood around, or inventing new “human rights”
with which the criminal may turn the tables on the just man, or
select fresh victims for his sport — services are indeed provided
in return for a reliable vote.
For
centuries, the secret of success for the parties of the Left has been
to encourage their avant-garde. When every public policy you offer so
obviously advances the interests of the Devil, it is important to
avoid reason, and cultivate fashion instead. The Left has been
consistently fashionable since the 18th century, at latest. There has
been no pendulum of political fashion. Or if there was one, it broke
long ago. And since, there has been at the heart of every fashion
statement, an irruption of madness.
Canadians,
like Germans, and Swedes, are an industrious people. And we are never
working harder than when towards some profoundly counter-productive
purpose.
The
gratuitous nature of some of these projects astounds me. Take for
example the workmen I discovered repaving a back lane, then
installing speed bumps over the smooth concrete. Any rational
creature, such as an Italian, could see the same end could be
admirably served by leaving each of the potholes in place. The peace
of the neighbourhood is being disturbed for a prolonged period —
for the sake of the peace of the neighbourhood. (And they
call me crazy.)
My
hero (the secret patron of this blog) Nicolás Gómez Dávila
[ditto]
...
I outline a new Manifesto for the Conservative Party, one that will
break decisively with its dreary past:
“If
elected, we promise to do nothing. There will be no new initiative in
any area of government. Should some foreign power threaten us, we
shall smoosh them promptly. Should some other unforeseen event
positively demand our attention, we shall respond in like spirit to
make it go away. Such contingencies aside, we shall avoid enterprise
of any sort. Instead, we shall devote our entire attention, not to
doing, but to undoing
things.
And not just little things but big things; and not just a few
notoriously rotten apples in the eyes of vested interests known to be
unloved, but the whole apple pie, the whole bakery. We shall make the
Tea Party in the United States look like a bunch of socialist
whiners. We shall make the UKIP in Britain look like Europhiles. Our
ambition, as we cling to power, shall be to undo every gratuitous Act
of Parliament, or other superannuated government measure, going back
to Confederation, if not to Champlain. We shall repeal legislation,
erase regulations, close government departments, demolish the
buildings, salt the earth on which they stood, fire and retire civil
servants by the refugee shipload. We shall sack them on the beaches,
we shall sack them on the landing grounds, we shall sack them in the
fields and in the streets, we shall start with the CBC. Our motto
shall be that of the Machine Gun Corps of the British Army in the
Great War. (‘Saul hath slain his thousands, but David his tens of
thousands.’) We shall do this deliberately and persistently and
remorselessly with no more attention to public opinion than will be
necessary to lure our opponents into traps.”
[Yes to all of this! Yes to getting
rid of
the CBC!]
The
secret of worldly pessimism is to look at each situation deadpan. You
don’t even have to be jaded; just look at what’s there, and ask
yourself what it looks like, with all excuses and extenuations
removed. Making a good Confession frequently is tremendously useful
in developing this skill.
In
the small society, people can see who is the natural leader, and
instinctively support him. No one needs to strut: whatever the job,
the man who can best do it will be revealed in the doing itself.
Whether that small society is a village, or a chamber ensemble, we
can see who should play first violin. I have myself been fortunate to
obtain plenty of experience in such small societies wherein, from top
to bottom by a natural hierarchy, the members were not externally
sorted, but in effect sorted themselves, into a team with their
natural captain. This is how the world works, by natural design. Our
abstract and artificial arrangements subvert this natural order, with
results we can see all around in the triumph of ugliness and
mediocrity.
civilization
depends far more on intolerance, than tolerance.
[The barbarities that are done in the name of tolerance.]
Anthony
Esolen
...because
the good sentinel loves his city, he calls up a host of subordinate
virtues to support his piety. He calls upon self-denial. He
is sometimes sleepy, but he never winks. He is often hungry, but he
puts it out of his mind. He is often weary, but he does not flag. He
calls upon foresight. He makes sure that he is physically
and mentally ready to begin his watch, and orders his day
accordingly. He calls upon industry and humility, as
he considers that no work, no matter how small, is beneath his care,
if it bears upon his duty. Other men may instruct a page boy to clean
their rifles. He cleans his rifle himself.
It
is a telltale sign for our times that our most heated debates arise
from the sexual faculties. We suppose ourselves enlightened in these
matters, having matured far beyond the repressions and the taboos of
our ancestors. One might note also that we have matured far beyond
other qualities of our ancestors: their racism, perhaps; and that may
be the best we can say for ourselves. We have matured far beyond
their industriousness, their artistic skill, their loyalty, their
honesty, their filial duty, their self-denial, their courage, their
personal generosity, their purity, their neighborliness, and their
reverence. Lawyers devour a full tenth of our nation’s income, as
we take one another to court for a cross on the side of a public
road, or a hot coffee that an old lady spills on herself at the
drive-through—and that alone gives the lie to the single virtue we
claim as our most precious. For we are, in fact, the
most intolerant generation ever to walk upon the face of
the earth.
...we
are now in the odd position of supposing that sex is too trivial to
require virtue for its exercise, but that it is simultaneously so
significant, so determinative of a person’s identity, that to
suggest any restraint upon its consensual exercise is an affront to
the most important fount of human dignity. It is at once nugatory and
holy. We are at once to think nothing of it, and everything. It is at
once like scratching an itch, and worshiping a god. It requires no
sacrifice from its exerciser, and the sacrifice of everything else to
it: the welfare of children and the family, public morals, the common
good, and liberty itself.
My
father never told foul jokes or listened to them. That wasn't
because he thought he was better than other people; he'd have said,
if you asked him, that he wasn't interested in that stuff. He
never gossiped, nor did he listen to gossip. He was a keen
judge of character, but only once or twice in my life did I ever hear
him say anything about someone that he would not have said to the
person's face.
Robert
Eady (David Warren Blog Commentator)
What
one should strive for is to be “marginal,” “fringe,” or “out
there.” It’s really quite simple for Christians — accept and
try to live what the Church teaches as per moral issues and be very
noisy about it. Blessings immediately follow like having the vast
majority of human beings despise and shun you. It’s a misanthrope’s
dream.
The
best way to get rid of most annoying music snobs is to say you like
country music even if you don’t. Most such snobs are liberals so
they hate the American working class and country music is very
American working class.
Mary H. Kingsley. “Travels in West Africa.”
A
great woman, either mentally or physically, will excel an indifferent
man, but no woman ever equals a really great man.
Kathy
Shaidle
Within
living memory, Westerners at least paid lip service to the ideal that
“justice must be seen to be done.” Today, ain’t nobody got time
for that. What “must be seen to be done” instead is trendy,
risk-free, bumper sticker level moral preening that burns as few
calories as possible.
In
a society that valorizes conspicuous exertion—by the
steroid-powered professional athlete, the 80-hour-a-week attorney,
the Christmas morning jogger—it’s revealing that this is what
passes for compassionate, socially aware “activism.”
For
people obsessed with “raising awareness,” it sure takes leftists
a long time to get outraged about stuff that actually matters. At
this rate, expect to see the hashtag #RememberBenghazi turning up in
leftists’ Twitter feeds sometime around, oh, 2026. [Link]
ChiCom
apologist Eric X. Li, for example, in his
side of a Foreign
Affairs debate last
year:
Beijing will be able to meet the country’s ills with dynamism and resilience, thanks to the CCP’s adaptability, system of meritocracy, and legitimacy with the Chinese people. In the next decade, China will continue to rise, not fade. The country’s leaders will consolidate the one party model and, in the process, challenge the West’s conventional wisdom … In the capital of the Middle Kingdom, the world might witness the birth of a post-democratic future. [Link]
Lists
are made: Bands, Musicians & Singers I have liked:
- Frank Sinatra
- New Order
- The Beatles
- Elvis Presley
- Husker Du
- Rolling Stones
- The Clash
- The Sex Pistols
- R.E.M.
- The Buzzcocks
- U2
- David Bowie
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Fred Astaire
- Johnny Cash
- The Velvet Underground
- Joy Division
- Iggy Pop
- Kris Kristofferson
- The Jam
- The Replacements
- Dean Martin
- The Pogues
- Toby Keith
- ZZ Top
- Early Van Halen
- The Pixies
- The Police
Words
that I wished rhymed but unfortunately don't
- Obama and idiot
- Atheists and devils
- Communist and devils
- Pragmatist and Charlatan
Thoughts
are thought
- The Nazis were Racist Socialists. The American Democratic Party has adopted a milder form of Racial Socialism.
- If it makes them stop talking to you than silence is the best policy.
- Doing nothing is the best way to get back at people.
- Now that they are saying that sitting is the new standing. What clever rationale will the left and health fascists come up with to justify the concept of second hand sitting?
- If you can't sustain a life-long relationship with a woman, you should go gay.
- Progressives love homosexuals; they don't love rural folk from the Southern U.S.A. Progressives despise the latter which is strange since they believe that rednecks have homosexual tendencies as in the movie Deliverance.
- To say you are middle of the road is to say that you are modern. Perhaps that is all it means. But people who classify themselves that way are trying to take on a pose of transcendence even if the modern world goes out of its way to deny such ideas.
