Mark Ford

Saturday, September 30, 2023, Delray Beach, Florida

September 30, 2023 No Comments

Why Cowboys and Not Cowmen?

I don’t know why cowboys are called cowboys in America. But it makes sense in the cattle country of Western Nicaragua.

There, most of the ranches produce beef. And almost all the cows are free-range. Which is to say that they are regularly herded from one grazing area to another almost every single day. This sort of herding is not what you see in the movies. It is slow and boring. It’s slow because those that do the herding don’t do it on horseback. (There aren’t enough horses for that.) And they don’t use lassos. They walk and move the cattle along by hitting them with switches.

And they’re young. When I say young, I mean 12 to 14 or 15.

It took me a while to figure out why the herding is done by boys instead of men. It’s because as soon as they get big enough to do the hard work of farming, their parents recruit them for that. Herding cattle, a much easier job, is left to their younger brothers.

I can’t explain why cowboys are called cowboys in this country. But I can share with you this interesting history of how the American cowboy came to be. Click here.

News & Views

September 30, 2023 No Comments

I’m Feeling Good About the Supreme Court

Can we put aside the ruling on abortion for a moment? (Which I felt was correct from a constitutional point of view, although I’m in favor of mothers having the final say.)

I don’t think about the Supreme Court that often. But when the Biden administration issues executive orders that seem to me both insanely dangerous and unconstitutional, I think: Breathe. The Supreme Court will strike them down.

On the other hand, there are some cases that come to the Supreme Court that make me worry because of the possibly conservative bias of the justices. I worry (as I imagine Leftists and Liberals do) that the conservative justices will band together to make a decision that will be decided along “party” lines.

Happily, that’s not what happened this week. Chief Justice John Roberts and Brett Kavanaugh joined the court’s three left-leaning justices – Elena Kagan, Sonia Sotomayor, and Ketanji Brown Jackson – in striking down Alabama’s attempt to disenfranchise its Black voters.

Click here.

What’s Wrong with Color Blindness?

I’m adding Coleman Hughes to my list of Black Conservatives talking truth today. He’s young. But he’s smarter than his years. He also communicates his ideas and opinions clearly and carefully, which is a sorely needed skill for public influencers today. He has a growing online readership, and he’s being cited occasionally by the mainstream media. I see a big future for him, either as a major conservative thinker or a politician (if he makes the mistake of moving in that direction).

Recently, he gave a TED Talk on the subject of “color blindness” that provoked a backlash from some left-leaning, CRT-advocating, liberal advocacy groups that argue that color blindness is itself racist. Watch it here and decide for yourself.

Vaccine Conspiracies: Why Is Data Disappearing?

This is a disturbing story about how the province of Alberta, after years of tracking and reporting on claims of injury from the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine (as required by law), suddenly stopped publishing the data. Then they took it a step further by deleting all previous reports. This after the number of reports began mounting to scary heights.

In this, the last of a three-part series of interviews with Canadian Dr. William Makis, you can see what happened. (You can also access the first two parts from it.) Click here.

By the way, when I call this a conspiracy theory, it’s not because I think it’s untrue. On the contrary, I think it may be true, but I know that a large chunk of the people reading my account of it will assume it’s some sort of Russian or Right Wing generated fake news. If you find it hard to believe that the province of Alberta would do something so obviously unethical as deleting data that contradicts their biases, I invite you to hit the link, read the article, and decide for yourself. If you do so, and still think it’s a conspiracy theory, let me know how it is false. I’d like to know!

Worth Watching

September 30, 2023 No Comments

The Deer Hunter

Directed and co-written by Michael Cimino

Starring Robert DeNiro, John Cazale, John Savage, Meryl Streep, and Christopher Walken

Originally released (in LA) Dec. 8, 1978

I hadn’t watched The Deer Hunter since it first came out – almost 35 years ago. I remembered it as a very good movie. But I also remembered that it was a harrowing, almost traumatizing, experience. What I forgot was how long it is: three hours.

Though categorized as an “epic war drama,” The Deer Hunter isn’t very much about Vietnam. It’s about two things that it well and deeply explored: The range of masculine strength and weaknesses. And the depth and tenacity of male friendship.

What I Liked About It

* The acting – by both the principal and secondary actors.

* The depiction of a mining town in Pennsylvania back then. I knew that part of Pennsylvania a bit, and it looked very right.

* The depiction of how we (draft-age men) spoke and interacted. Every stunt and conversation was very true to my life back then.

* The depiction of PTSD. The event that caused it in the movie was, as far as I can tell, invented. But the trauma displayed by the men coming back from the war was real.

* The photography. It was almost crude. But beautiful.

* The pace. Very slow. A full hour on a wedding! But it created a feeling for how life was in such towns that, again, felt very real to me.

What I Didn’t Like So Much

* The portrayal of Vietnam and the Vietnamese was superficial, almost racist.

* The battle scenes were not particularly interesting.

* The performance of Meryl Streep. This was a very early role for her. I didn’t think she pulled it off. I didn’t know any young woman like the one she played.

Critical Reception

The Deer Hunter was widely praised by both critics and audiences. The only negative comments referred to the film’s “simplistic, bigoted, and historically inaccurate depictions of the Viet Cong and of America’s position in the Vietnam War.” It won multiple important awards, including five Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and two BAFTAs. It has also been featured on many “Best Film” lists.

You can watch the trailer here.

Fun and/or Interesting

September 30, 2023 No Comments

Quick Bites: Inflation… Again!, More Corruption, Advice for Wannabe Writers, Amazon’s Stake in AI, and CNN Unleashes on Joe Biden

Another inflation storm is coming! Sean MacIntyre, my partner, the most entertaining polymath I know, talks about why the many dire predictions on inflation didn’t pan out and what his current data is telling him about the stock market later this year. He also gives a BA on inflation in just a single short video! Click here.
How corrupt is the medical/health industry? Click here to listen to Dr. Jason Fung on “Financial Conflicts of Interest and the End of Evidence-Based Medicine.”
Advice on how to become a successful writer from Octavia E Butler. She apparently failed to become one, but her advice is spot on. Click here.
Amazon is investing billions in AI. Specifically, in Anthropic, the company that published chatbot Claude 2, which is meant to be a rival for OpenAI’s ChatGPT. Click here.
And now CNN is going after Biden. As I said in the Sept. 19 issue, it’s already been decided that Biden won’t run next year. Here’s more evidence.

Readers Write

September 30, 2023 No Comments

Re the Sept. 26 issue…

From AS:

“It’s rare that I agree with any of your political views, but I agree with your thoughts on legalizing hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans. The decision to do so is ridiculous!

“Not only does it encourage more illegals, but you’re right about all the other nationalities that are excluded. Why are Venezuelans favored? Are they lighter skinned, better workers, have a better command of the English language?

“Are there a ton of Venezuelans in the US who can vote? Was there some kind of bribery involved? It’s unbelievable. Who advised that move?”

My Response: First, I should have said, in reporting this, that the estimated 472,000 Venezuelans that will receive “temporary” legal status along with work permits now is in addition to an estimated 274,000 Venezuelans that have qualified for “temporary” legal status already. (That was under a separate presidential order earlier this year.)

The legal status of the 274,000 who had come earlier was also labeled as temporary. But Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas has just granted them an 18-month extension. This was needed because of “Venezuela’s increased instability and lack of safety due to the enduring humanitarian, security, political, and environmental conditions,” the department said in a statement.

So, we are talking about more than 700,000 “temporary” new US residents.

The Biden administration says it is granting legal status and work permits for these Venezuelans in order to provide financial relief for the cities that are currently housing them.

During the first half of the year, when the Biden administration allowed more than four million undocumented migrants to enter the US borders, border states like Texas, California, and also Florida were harboring the bulk of them. Back in April of 2022, those besieged governors decided to start transporting a small fraction of the undocumented immigrants to cities like LA and New York. (And even, by Ron DeSantis, to Martha’s Vineyard!) These are cities that had presented themselves proudly as havens, as “sanctuary cities” for illegals. Suddenly, the White House was hearing from all the influential Democrats in those places.

Liberals, who, it turns out, were very unhappy with having to support all those illegal immigrants, demanded federal aid to pay for the enormous costs of providing them with housing, food, and medical care. New York, in particular, was overwhelmed. Mayor Adams actually began making public media appeals to the federal government for help.

The rationale for giving these 700,000 Venezuelans legal status and work permits is that some of them could get jobs. Then they could pay for their own upkeep. This would reduce the financial pressure on state and local governments.

But why Venezuelans?

The Biden administration says it’s because of the chaos going on in Venezuela since Nicolás Maduro took over as president in 2013. He installed a makeshift socialist economic and political structure along classic Marxist lines. An “improvement” that has devastated the economy and everyday life for most Venezuelans. In their “socialist paradise,” they are suffering ongoing shortages of key necessities, random power outages, police abuse, and hyperinflation.

From KK:

“There’s a major flaw in your immigrant voting theory and that is your assumption that they will vote Democratic. In the previous election, the Republicans did a good job of selling the anti-socialist anxiety story to most immigrants from Latin America. In your state, the Democratic Party saw reduced support in Hispanic Miami-Dade and lost two seats in the US House. Trump performed well with non-Cuban Hispanics, and many Venezuelan-American voters passionately campaigned for him.

“Doral, the city with the largest Venezuelan-born population in the country, showed a 41% swing toward Trump. He had a 1.4% win in the city in 2020 after having lost by 40% to Hillary Clinton in 2016 when she received 52% of the votes.”

My Response: I held that optimistic theory myself for the last several years after reading about the trend you mention – the surveys showing that many Latinos are moving away from the Democratic party.

As you can see from this chart, Latinos’ party affiliation has been steady since 2019.

That said, you have a point re Venezuelans. Those coming here are fleeing a country that was wrecked by electing a communist dictator. Cubans, who came to America to escape the wrecked economy and political dictatorship of Cuba, are largely politically conservative. The Venezuelans may act like the Cubans and vote Republican. And if they do that, Biden’s gambit will have failed.

But there is a big difference between Cuban refugees that came in the 50s and 60s and the Venezuelans coming to America today. The great majority of Cuban immigrants are and have always been people that were or would be successful professionals and entrepreneurs in Cuba. They experienced communism under Castro. They know what socialist policies did to their once rich and free country. They don’t want to see communism taking root in the USA.

Most of the Venezuelans that are about to become legalized are relatively uneducated and poor. They will almost certainly want every dollar of welfare that the governors, mayors, and federal government are willing to give them. These are prime candidates for voting Blue.

From JM:

“Without even looking at the Taki piece, I recall a headline that read: Biden wants Ukraine to win… by the inch.

“We never seem to learn that war is not fought incrementally. That was the overarching lesson from Vietnam. Yet…”

My Response: Yes. It disappoints me to think about how many of my very smart, good-willed, and otherwise fair-minded friends and family members have become so supportive of our involvement in Ukraine. Surely, they know that we basically started it.

Like most of our generation, they must remember the Vietnam war – the damaging and devastating futility of it – not to mention Korea and every other proxy war the US has fought since President Eisenhower, who actually knew something about war, warned us about the military-industrial complex.

MarkFord.net