Fun with Photography
Housekeeping
I have received a couple of e-mails asking me what the purpose of the Virtual Mirage Blog might be. I will attempt to answer the question. On the sidebar to the right, you will read:
“But I don’t want to go among mad people,” Alice remarked.
“Oh, you can’t help that,” said the cat. “We’re all mad here. I’m mad, you’re mad.”
“How do you know I’m mad,” asked Alice?
“You must be,” said the cat, “or you wouldn’t have come here.”
George Bernard Shaw, the famous British philosopher and author wrote,
“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”
Most people who end up returning here are unreasonable. The only thing that goes with the flow is a dead fish.
I hope that you enjoy the blog. “No law nor duty bade me fight, no public man, nor cheering crowd…etc.”
The Pedophile Prince
Prince Andrew’s trips to Epstein’s Love Island and to his various mansions to have sexual intercourse with underage girls is now legendary, but you have to ask yourself why his handlers didn’t stop it. The British Royal family never goes anywhere without a security detail, and it’s likely the case that they were all privy to the Princely predilection. And it’s not as though there aren’t laws – statutory rape – in Britain to protect young ladies from untoward behavior.
I realize that there are bubbles around people like Bill and Hillary Clinton and Prince Andrew, and that there are usually people who can procure the sort of company that they prefer. In the case of a US President and his lesbian wife, it may be a little different, but you’d think that the security detail would have told the Queen, who seems to have the smarts to know that this sort of thing usually goes sideways. (The Clintons have no such filter) There were lots of photos taken by the press (see above) so there was no lack of proof, even from that quarter.
We will never know. Maybe they told the Queen and she said, “boys will be boys.” Maybe the Queen said to herself, “at least he’s not queer.”
Sometimes you need to recall the Larger Picture
Food Preferences
I like meat cooked properly over an open fire. Don’t ask me why, I like it, but I do. City people never experience that so if you’re a city person, don’t worry about it. Open a can of tofu or something. Go buy a burger from McDonalds, or a fake taco from Taco Bell. Enjoy your perception of life.
Hints: (1) Watch the meat while it cooks or your friend’s dog will get it. (2) Don’t use parachute cord to wrap the meat because it melts. (3) baste the meat as you are moved to with garlic and herb butter. You should have prepared the rolled roast so it also bastes from the inside out. If you need more hints, e-mail LSP, he’s more of a chef and he has a dog that will just come up and steal the roast without remorse – or a steak – or a fried cherry pie.
I have an incurable love of olives, and when you blend them with fresh, crusty bread, and you make olive bread, I’m afraid that it is a potent (and delicious) drug.
Some people call it a wasteland. I call it close to home.
With reference to the dog stealing the meat off the grill, I have a friend who related an interesting story. He has a Catahoula dog named Bandit. I asked how the dog got the name Bandit. He told me he was cooking steaks for a family gathering when a thin dog came along and stole a couple of steaks off the grill. The dog was so undernourished that its ribs were showing. They followed the dog to a neighbor at the location where the cookout was being held. The person there admitted to not caring for the dog so my friend took it home. It is one of the best and loving dogs that he has.
When I was a boy, we had a dog named Suzi, a female Springer Spaniel. Suzi was a very good dog, beloved of all. One day my grandmother pulled a roast from the oven and left the oven open, roast on the rack to cool/rest.
She spotted Suzi running down the street and said, “I wonder what Suzi has in her mouth?” It was the entire roast. She stayed away a few days, they came home, slinking and ashamed, having eaten the entire roast.
I like a wasteland. The quiet of an empty country seems to suit me at times.
Anytime beef is cooked over a fire or anywhere else for that matter, I better be the one cooking it. If the better half does it, it’ll be ruined. She prefers it well done, or extra crispy as I put it, and will cook mine that way as well. Beef should have some color to it when cooked. Oh well, she has other redeeming characteristics.
The nice thing about cooking a roast over a fire is that you can put one half closer to the flame.
When I was a kid, I thought the best time to go camping at Ft. Pickens (near Pensacola) was in winter after a cold front blew through. Sometimes we were the only people there, and we could beach comb after the storm and we might see a couple of other people on the beach perhaps a mile away. That was the best you could get in that area. And exploring the abandoned coastal artillery installations was fascinating. One still had a much painted-over 5″ gun with a large shield (like a turret with most of back missing) that looked like it came off a decommissioned 1920s destroyer), another had a fairly large disappearing rifle. The mortar battery, sadly, didn’t have it’s armament preserved, but exploring the magazines, living quarters, and plotting rooms was great fun, even though they were mostly stripped. I hear they’re all sealed off now. 🙁
I had a similar experience. When I was young, there were coastal defense batteries on Southern California beaches. Most notably for me, at Redondo Beach. Maybe because the South Bay would be an inviting location for the Japanese hoards to come ashore. Strange as it seems today, those were different days. They also existed in the San Pedro Area, defending the Long Beach Naval Shipyard. The guns are long gone, most of the concrete revetments are gone as well, and condos rest on those ancient foundations that I recall.
A few times a year our rancher friends have a chuckwagon style cookout…open fire cooking, eating outside, an old gym sock in the hanging coffee pot, plenty of desserts…and great conversation and stories late into the evening with the cattle in the meadow below. Always the best of times.
I’ve had beef that way and mutton as well. By people who know how to cook mutton. Yes, the Very best of times.
Seriously the best of people. ALL of them proudly served their country as younger men. They give what I call “The cowboy knowing smile” to the current craziness and those involved. Says a lot.
Love the map of America, but did a double-take: in the UK red is the color of the Labour left, blue the Conservative right!
It was a clever move by the democrats in the US media. The Democrats should be proud of their communist roots and leanings and should have adopted red. But that’s not how they played it.
Yep, the color were originally ‘correct’: red for (socialist) revolutionary’, blue for (American abolitionist revolutionary): see https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/when-republicans-were-blue-and-democrats-were-red-104176297/
A comment on the map after returning to see if there were more comments to the subjects. The blue areas in Texas are primarily the cities of Austin, El Paso, Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio. A number of counties that are near or along the border also went blue; but the legal population of all of those probably does not equal any of the cities.
What I fear is that there will be more ballots cast in those areas that are for Democrats than all of the rest of the state and also that there will be significantly more ballots cast than the presumed number of voters in those areas. The dead, illegal and imaginary persons all deserve the vote!
Dead “lives” matter? It’s a catchy slogan and should allow them to vote (donkey) in the upcoming elections.
That’s exactly what I fear, living in a county directly north of Dallas, that my wife & and I’s votes won’t count due to ballot fraud. This isn’t our ‘home’, we plan to move north and west, hopefully to Montana or Wyoming, but either way, we will contest a fraudulent vote.
I call it an amazing view of God’s creation.
I worry about all the illegal voting as well.
Hubby sent off for our old farts, mail-in ballots. I want to push the buttons.
Of course mail-in ballots are being encouraged here, also.
There is nothing wrong with absentee ballots, but they have to be indexed to actual, living human beings, and checking up on that is (a) expensive and (b) racist. In Mexico the Voting Card is their national identification card. You are required to vote in person, at which time a box at the bottom of the card is punched (each time you vote). If you don’t vote, you can’t renew the card and you need the card to get by in Mexico. They’re light years ahead of us, but they’re worried about election fraud, and the US embrace fraud.
SLW had just taken a carefully prepared and cooked pork roast out of the oven to cool. Diamond, one of the dogs the kids brought here with them when they moved, was sniffing all around the kitchen, and finally localized the source of the delicious aroma.
Final score, Dog:1, Roast:0
She’d never done anything remotely like that in the past, and has never tried it again.
That’s not a “wasteland”, it’s just some more of God’s natural beauty. I feel sorry for city people who never get to see things like that. When my son and I drove out here, he insisted we stop at a few places to take pictures. He’d never been East of Vegas, so it was all new to him, and it hit him the same way it hit me when I drove through there in 1982 on my move to Kommiefornia.
“I like meat cooked properly over an open fire.”
YES.
And good paracord tip — DON’T USE IT.
Now I’ve got a good mind to roast some meat.
Re: The Secret Service keeping their traps shut. It is what they do. Knew an Agent that, as the agent described it, “Was 12 years of Hell concentrated in 1 year of trying to get out.” And that’s all the agent said on that subject. There are people who actually take their oaths seriously.
As to the Queen: What she said as soon as she found out was, “Bollocks. Now Charle’s oldest will need to survive long enough before I can die.”
Seriously, about 15-20 years ago there was a very brief news article about how Andrew was now out of contention for the throne. Which was weird at the time, as calamity and American divorcees can always occur. So now we know why Andrew was sidelined way back when.
Not like there weren’t rumors of kiddie-diddlers in the Royal family for many years before. And, at least, as you said, Andrew isn’t queer, maybe bisexual, but not queer.
The Queen is the only one of that bunch that is worth anything, and I think that she’s worth a great deal. As to Andrew, maybe latent but not blatant.
Princess Anne is also worth a lot. She does not enjoy the public gaze – just gets on with her responsibilities in the background.
The rest of them are a waste of space (& money)
I have little liking for royalty overall. Queen Elizabeth I admire. A class act, always.
In our 96 unit building we have an Englishwoman. She is emphatic she be called, Lady xxxxxxxx.
Said something to me and I told her the is the USA and her Ladyship doesn’t mean squat. Since then she has avoid me. Even boycotts my dog.
She should join the coven. I’m sure that she’d fit in there.
Waal, when a title is all you have of personal worth, then it means an awful lot.
There’s a story of two trainee medical doctors (interns) working in the room of an elderly patient, whom they called “Dearie” or by her first name, Helen. So the two docs are talking to each other using first names. Accordingly, Miss Helen addresses them as “David” and “Adam”. David gets huffy and says, “Please call me Dr. Philips. And that’s Dr. Vilensky. It shows respect for our education and training.”
Miss Helen rears up and says, “Then you two doctors will address me as ‘Mrs. Walters’. That shows respect for my age and the fact that I raised four children who are now adults with good manners.”
I’m with Mrs. Walters. To get respect you must give respect equally, something that Adam and David’s parents failed to beat into their big heads.
In America, respect is earned. In polite society it is presumed, and can be lost.
Nobody is Lord this or Lady that in America. Nobody. Unless their parents stupidly named them.
And Americans don’t bow to foreigners. We should shake hands. Foreigners should respect our Customs. Otherwise, fruck them.
Same with kneeling. We kneel to God. No one else.
Our flags dip to no earthly king or potentate unless we chose to out of respect. Surprisingly, there aren’t a lot of royalty or leaders out there worth dipping our flag to.
Decades ago when I worked nights in a nursing while going to school during the day, one imperious lady of 102 years age told me that in Switzerland, her family had been aristocracy of a sort (one of the German-speaking cantons), and people like me would’ve been servants who wouldn’t speak unless spoken to (when I was apparently over-familiar while helping her get dressed). That was better than a female coworker who she didn’t like, who was told when she knelt down to tie Rosa’s shoes, “That’s where people like you belong!” Sigh.
Some people are only comfortable when living in their illusions of superiority. We’re all shadows and dust, but that doesn’t offer people much comfort.
Cooking over a campfire with a bunch of friends is some of the best ‘relaxation’ there is…
It’s not just the wonderful food that the terrific people, but the air and the space that just makes the stress melt away.
I can confirm that I am unreasonable as I did a well renowned personality test and came out as the most disagreeable person on the planet.
On Price Andrew -Maybe the detail were getting into the detail, if you catch my drift. Cushy job and all.
You didn’t need to do the test. I could have confirmed that you’re unreasonable, unless somebody offers you a root beer float. Then you sensibly eat it.
I’m sure that there were perks for the security detail. I had a Secret Service Special Agent working for me at one point who had been on Bill Clinton’s detail after he left office. They used to go out on the town and the women swooned. Bill assured the agents that they’d get laid. And he didn’t lie.
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