The Patriot Post® · Climate Derangement Syndrome
It can’t just be a coincidence that so many of the same people who are hysterical about Donald Trump are so susceptible to the nonsense about the climate. When they’re not screaming about the sky falling, they’re screaming about the oceans rising. They must have nightmares about being squished between the two.
It’s perfectly understandable that those of us who place no stock in global warming/climate change being an existential threat wouldn’t change our behavior. That makes perfect sense.
But those who claim to believe that the world will be destroyed within a decade, a warning begun in the 1970’s by Paul Ehrlich, repeated by Al Gore in the 1990’s and repeated yet again by Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez in 2019, haven’t modified their behavior in the least.
They still drive or are driven in SUVs and limousines, still fly on private jets and, in Al Gore’s case, live in mansions.
In what is probably the most glaring case of hypocrisy, we have seen such eminent greenies as Barack and Michelle Obama plunking down $14 million for an estate on an island that, according to the data they swear they believe in, will be under the Atlantic Ocean by 2030.
Because my in-laws showed me how I can watch the DVDs the studios send out to Hollywood guild members at awards time on my existing equipment, I am finally catching up on some of the movies that will be duking it out for Oscars.
I used to make my living reviewing movies, but ever since I’ve been able to pick and choose, I find I am rarely lured out of my home to see them, even when the ads promise them to be “cinematic miracles,” “modern classics” and “movies that will shake you to your core.”
I have always known better than to trust critics. By and large, they are a pompous bunch who seem to believe that just because they can write unreadable prose and pretend to be smitten with the movies of Eisenstein, Von Sternberg and Scorsese, they reside with the gods on Mount Olympus.
The fact of the matter is that if you like a movie, it’s good; if you don’t, it’s not. And don’t let anyone tell you differently. For my part, I always knew that if someone told he or she enjoyed Elvis Presley movies, they were telling the truth. If he or she told me they actually enjoyed a movie directed by Luchino Visconti, Jean Cocteau or Michelangelo Antonioni, I knew they were lying and trying to impress me.
So far, I’ve seen four. I liked “Richard Jewell,” partly because the title character reminded me so much of my late brother-in-law. I hated “Knives Out.” One, it bored me stiff. Two, based on the commercials, I expected it would be a clever mystery leavened by witty lines. It wasn’t clever and it wasn’t witty. It was long, though, which might appeal to people who demand to get a lot for their money.
I didn’t have great expectations for “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” which, I assumed, would be all about Fred Rogers, “Mr. Rogers” of children’s television fame. I recall being relieved when my little son showed no liking for the show, which meant I didn’t have to sit and watch the guy in the cardigan more than once.
The movie is actually about a cynical journalist who gets an assignment to profile Mr. Rogers, and the effect the relationship has on his life.
There is a very brief scene at the end of the movie when we get to see that Fred Rogers isn’t just a plaster saint and that even the most devout Christians have to deal with the same issues and the same daily frustrations as the rest of us; the best of them just have a better, more humane, more loving, way of dealing with them.
As for the Korean movie that is likely to cop the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, it just might be the worst movie I have ever seen. To be fair, a few of my friends liked it. Apparently, there’s no accounting for movies or, possibly, even for friends.
It’s been heartbreaking to see fires destroying great swaths of Australia and to know that the homes and habitats of thousands of people and millions of animals are being engulfed in flames. It is so unfair, especially when there are so many nations that deserve to be turned into blazing infernos.
As if it’s not bad enough that California is home to the likes of Nancy Pelosi, Adam Schiff, Eric Swalwell, Maxine Waters, Kamala Harris, thousands of drugged and loony street dwellers and millions of illegal aliens, we also have to put up with leaf-blowers.
They are allegedly illegal or at least they used to be, but since all the gardeners use them and all the gardeners are Latinos, the law has never been enforced.
If you’re a baseball fan, you know that the catcher’s mitt, mask, pads and crotch cup, have been referred to as the tools of ignorance. It’s a misnomer, of course, because as everyone knows, the catcher is the most intelligent member of the team, which helps to explain why so many go on to become big league managers.
But a leaf-blower truly is a tool of ignorance. In case they are banned where you live, they’re like vacuum cleaners, except that the gardeners who tote them over their shoulder, use them to blow leaves rather than vacuum them. That means they will spend 20 minutes blowing air at the leaves that only moves them eventually in the street or on to a neighbor’s lawn.
If they reversed the air flow and connected sacks to the devices, they could collect them in a sack the way a vacuum cleaner does. It would cut the time the machines were being used, thus lessening the amount of noise, and would result in the leaves being removed and not just moved from one place to another.
You might wonder if they also use these gas-guzzling machines when vacuuming their own homes. My guess is they don’t. I suspect the gardeners know exactly what they’re doing but enjoy annoying the gringos whom they hold responsible for stealing California from their ancestors.
One of my female subscribers let me know that she has little patience with the Hollywood actresses who, in order to further their careers, endured Harvey Weinstein’s sexual demands and then turned around and joined #MeToo midst much fanfare.
Her point was that If the price one has to pay for a possible acting career is too steep, you simply choose a different career. You shouldn’t get away with playing the innocent victim.
I happen to agree. I find it impossible to choose sides when my choices are either swinish men or overly-ambitious hypocritical women.
Proving there are also swinish women, I recently learned that aging starlet Gwyneth Paltrow’s company, GOOP, is selling a scented candle she calls “This Smells Like My Vagina” for $75. Proving that some people have far more money than they’re supposed to, the initial batch of candles have already sold out.
I’m not usually a litigious person, but it seems to me that a class action suit is in order.
If she were accused of engaging in false advertising, wouldn’t Ms. Paltrow have to prove to the jury’s satisfaction that her female organ really does smell like a combination of geranium, citrusy bergamot and cedar, the way her ad copy claims?
I couldn’t help thinking how much money Monica Lewinsky might have made if only she’d thought to bring out a line of expensive cigars.