Miguel meets the new state bureaucracy, Part I

(Miguel moved from Florida to another state. Here is his adventure.)

From Gun Free Zone

I need to get a new drivers license.

I go online to set up an appointment.

Six weeks.

Go in, the DMV requires a mask.  I don’t have one.

Usually they have extras but they are out.

They check my paperwork to make sure I have what I need then send me away to get a mask.

I get one.

Come back.

They sign me in.

Wait five minutes.

They process my paperwork and make me take off my mask for the picture.

None of this makes a God dammed bit of sense.  But obtuse bureaucrats have to enforce obtuse, useless, and inconvenient rules because that justifies their existence.

I hate the bureaucratic state.

Part II

North Carolina lets you register to vote at the DMV.

I had to tell them my party affiliation.

Unfortunately I could not register as a Pinochetist.

Also, if you try and register two pickup trucks, and the guy asks “Why do you have two pickup trucks?”

The correct answer is not “one for each testicle”

(Here is my DMV story, eight years ago in Arkansas.

I had done everything with paperwork and now had one last thing to do before getting my new license in hand. The DMV lady said, “Do you want to register to vote?”

I said, “I am already registered.”

She pushed a piece of paper at me and said, “Sign this saying you declined to register.”

I said, “I do not decline. I am already registered.”

She holds my new DL. “If you don’t register here, you have to sign this paper saying you decline to register to vote.”

I figure I’ll try at least one more time. “I am not declining to register. I am registered.”

She said, “The legislature says that if you do not register to vote here, you must sign this paper saying you decline to register.”

So I signed and got my new DL. And left the DMV office much, much more pissed off than when I went in.)

Repatriation flights are not free

From US Embassy in Afghanistan 

“Flight Costs: Repatriation flights are not free, and passengers will be required to sign a promissory loan agreement and may not be eligible to renew their U.S. passports until the loan is repaid.  The cost may be $2,000USD or more per person.”

https://af.usembassy.gov/security-alert-repatriation-assistance-for-u-s-citizens-august-14-2021/

Story mentioned at Gun Free Zone.

 

And they think this will get them more votes?

Hungary opposition party opposes fireworks and an air show on St. Stephen’s Day, August 20, because those forms of celebration are “by no means green, environmentally sound or sustainable.” 

From Hungary Today

The opposition party is LMP, Hungary’s Green Party.

In a year, party co-leader Mate Kanasz-Nay said, the Greens will be in power, and will initiate a new order of social justice, elimination of child poverty, raising the wages of social workers, increasing the family allowance, and will give young people easier access to housing.

(Well, Mate, when you control parliament, you can announce to the people of Hungary there won’t be any more fireworks for any holiday. Not one. Ever.)

“The new government, he said, will take action to slow climate change, focus on renewable energy, stop the Paks II nuclear power plant project, close the Mátra power plant, and establish solar plants and wind farms.”

https://hungarytoday.hu/lmp-fireworks-green-sustainability/

Another headline: ‘Prepare for Hungary’s “Best Ever” St Stephen’s Day Celebrations.’

Hungary sending more aircraft to Afghanistan

From Daily News Hungary 

The 26 Hungarian citizens rescued from Afghanistan arrived by plane in Frankfurt early on Thursday, foreign ministry state secretary Levente Magyar said.

The Hungarians are safe and they are expected to arrive in Budapest in several groups during the day on Thursday, he said.

Aircraft to rescue further Hungarian civilians and Afghans that earlier helped Hungarian troops in the country took off from Hungary early on Thursday, Magyar said. These flights are planned to travel to Kabul through Uzbekistan, he added.

“It wasn’t easy to organise the rescue, as it is not just Kabul where conditions are chaotic,” Magyar said. “Half the world is crowding the Central Asian airspace, scrambling to evacuate their citizens.”

Magyar said Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó had personally reached out to the Uzbek deputy prime minister for the Hungarian planes to be given special permission to pass through Uzbekistan’s airspace and refuel.

He said it was uncertain what sort of conditions the Hungarian planes will be faced with in Kabul and how fast they can take on their passengers, but said the government would do everything to make sure that the planes can bring people back to Hungary.

https://dailynewshungary.com/news_to_go/foreign-ministry-hungarians-rescued-from-afghanistan-arrive-in-frankfurt/

 

 

British MP reminds us of a forgotten fact

Tom Tugendhat, member of Parliament and veteran of the Afghan war, mentioned in his speech Wednesday that the 20-year war in Afghanistan was a NATO war, not an American war. An American administration does not have the moral authority to decide what happens now.

Tolkien might say, ‘I fear you have missed the point’

The Tolkien Society’s 2021 Annual Seminar demanded papers on “Tolkien’s approach to colonialism and neo-colonialism, representation of race, gender, sexuality and the rest in Tolkien, and so on.

https://thecritic.co.uk/woke-of-the-rings/

“This call was answered with appropriate gusto. The programme for the event is too large to reproduce here: but we can give a flavour of it. It kicks off with Gondor in Transition: A Brief Introduction to Transgender Realities in The Lord of the Rings. We then have delights such as ‘The Burnt Hand Teaches Most About Fire’: Applying Traumatic Stress and Ecological Frameworks to Narratives of Displacement and Resettlement Across Cultures in Tolkien’s Middle-earth; and The Lossoth: Indigeneity, Identity, and Antiracism. The second day continues with more in the same vein: “Something Mighty Queer”: Destabilizing Cishetero Amatonormativity in the Works of Tolkien; Questions of Caste in The Lord of the Rings and its Multiple Chinese Translations; and something which should puzzle anyone, Hidden Visions: Iconographies of Alterity in Soviet Bloc Illustrations for The Lord of the Rings.”

Those supposed aficionados of Tolkien need reminding: He wrote in English.

That “Cishetero Amatonormativity”? As near as I could find, it has nothing to do with thee and me, since we speak the language of daily communication. See above, Tolkien wrote in English.

Link at neveryetmelted.

The over-educated should read Harvard Lampoon's "Bored of the Rings" for some perspective.

 

My wife hired a cleaning lady

What that means: 

The house must be cleaned of clutter and dusted, lest the cleaning lady think we are bad housekeepers.

I have to remove everything form a small table near the dining room table because the things have attracted dust. The dining room table holds my laptop, a Tanakh, two stone coasters, a folded dish towel for the coasters, my phone and my Nookbook. The small table holds three charging devices, a lung exerciser, a mouse pad, a timer to remind me to get up every hour and take 200 steps through the house, a thermos for coffee or tea and a thermos cup.

I have to put away all visible guns, lest the cleaning lady be afraid of guns.

Note: The cleaning lady speaks English with the same proficiency as my wife and I speak Spanish. My Spanish consists of: Donde esta communista? Donde esta guerrilla? Donde esta el bano? Donde esta restaurante? Donde esta cerveza? I can throw in things like tamale, tortilla, policia, le migra policia. Most of those, the cleaning lady is not interested in.

So, when the senora de la limpieza is here, I will be as I am now, sitting on the lanai, with the ceiling fan on high and me poking at the letters on my writing machine.