Beneath the geopolitical churn and the tidal washes of virality (both epidemiological and political) life at Naked Capitalism goes on. Especially in the comment section! This post is a tribute to the alert readers of Naked Capitalism, whose comment threads weave together the material realities of our daily lives. If you want to support the loom on which this tapestry is woven, you know what to do!
By material realities, I mean things like dad jokes, cougar spotting, gardening, machine tools, marriage, fatherhood. In this post, I’ve curated some of the longer threads over the past year by these topics (I didn’t say “better,” so please don’t feel bad if your handle does not appear; the sheer quanity of comments makes anything other than a random selection impossible). Also, I’ve pruned the threads and edited the comments within them — no ellipses for omissions, the formatting is hard enough already — because otherwise this post would be impossibly long! You might want go back to the complete threads on topics that interest you; there’s a lot of good stuff! To begin:
Dad Jokes. Starting with El Slobbo:
June 16, 2024 at 5:20 pm
“Why is six afraid of seven? Because seven ate nine.”
Actually, I first heard this joke in grade four: it was told to me by an 8-year-old girl, a classmate who laughed hysterically at her own joke, and who would be mortified if you called her a dad.
Lee
June 16, 2024 at 7:36 pm
By ascribing this type of joke exclusively to dads in general is, I suppose, a sly undermining of patriarchy, or more generally, it questions the entirety of our constructed social hierarchy. As an old man with grandchildren I ambivalently embrace them by being involuntarily amused and laughing at them, at the same time realizing that my demographic is the butt of a joke that speaks biological truth to what one hopes is waning social power.
If you laughed (or snorted (or groaned (or even suppressed laughter entirely))), the Tip Jar is placed, within easy mousing distance, to your right.
Tree Watching and Cougar Spotting. Starting with Wukchumni:
July 16, 2024 at 7:53 am
I’ll never forget my mountain lion encounter on the deck of the Silver City Resort in Mineral King almost 4 years ago to the day @ 4:20 in the morning…
There is no electricity in MK aside from the resort, and they have a wi-fi connection too, and waking up early is what I do…
In the dark I traipsed over to the front deck and there are a couple of rocking chairs on the left hand side and back then, there was a 5 foot wide Lodgepole sticking out of the deck (since expired and cut down-yet another bark beetle victim) with a cut-out accommodating it, which hid me away from sight…
The deck has ambient lights that barely give off any brightness, and I heard an animal on the other side of the tree and really didn’t give it any thought as the resort has a couple of house dogs who rule the roost, along with a little house cat in the guise of a mountain moggie, no biggie.
Then not 5 feet from me, a yearling mountain lion about 30% larger than a fully grown German Shepherd poked it’s head around said tree and looked at me, as I was sitting on the rocking chair peering at my open laptop @ NC, no doubt.
It did a ‘oh, one of those’ kinda looks at me and turned around to leave and I don’t know why, but I stood up to watch it go and witnessed the most sensuous saunter ever, with it’s tail completely erect where it didn’t move an iota as it made it’s way across the deck, where a 2nd yearling the same size was hanging out 25 more feet away.
It had taken me 58 years to see a cougar in the Sierra Nevada, and I hit the daily double.
The Rev Kev
July 16, 2024 at 8:30 am
Hmmm. Ever considered the number of times that cougars may have been watching you in the Sierra Nevada – but you never actually saw them because they were too well hidden? But they certainly look like beautiful animals.
Wukchumni
July 16, 2024 at 9:49 am
You come across mountain lion tracks and spoor fairly often, last time we walked up to Oriole Lake, saw both tracks and very identifiable poop d’jour in a few locations…
They’re primarily nocturnal, no different than my hair’m who want out at night to go on the prowl, bringing home the bacon, as it were.
My buddy is a Giant Sequoia tree collector, and I met him in 2017 and he wanted to know how to get to the Diamond, AD, Dean & Arm Trees, which are all in steep off-trail locations that require hours of walking to get to, and I took him on his appointed rounds, and the next day he wanted to walk the Partadise Trail, which goes through part of the Atwell Grove, and i’d walked it a few days before, and begged off of going, and later that day he comes back with the perfect mountain lion encounter that occurred around noon, where near the top of the grove, there was a cougar right on the trail 100 feet ahead of him, and he took this photo:
Upon his return he told me of what went down, I was so green with envy, it was like a bad dream, missing out.
JP
July 16, 2024 at 9:18 am
They mostly avoid humans except, it seems, a human riding a bicycle looks a lot like a juicy deer.
Only ran into one in the outback. Felt pretty exposed but she just sauntered off. Got to look closely at an adult that had been depredated by fish and game but was frozen solid with eyes open. You couldn’t open that freezer door with out jumping back. That thing was solid muscle killing machine.
They often hunt in pairs and I have seen parallel tracks separated by 15 meters. I have also heard it said, the one you see is not the one that will get you. I have also seen solitary tracks in the snow near our house. Their very distinctive tracks are a definitive ID. They make a lot of noise when they mate. You can hear them for a good mile.
Permaculture. Starting with Tom Pfotzer:
July 8, 2024 at 8:54 am
About 20 years ago, a few years after we bought our farm, and before I’d done any major plantings, grading, irrigation, tree-cutting, etc. I fortunately bought and read, and re-read Bill Mollison’s Permaculture Design Manual.
There are a number of reasons to have this book. The ones I found most compelling are:
a. It sets out the forces that operate on a piece of land. Sun, water, wind, animals wild and domestic, soil, temperature, and plants. Those are the major forces to understand, and learn to work with
b. It shows how to build the tools and facilities you’ll need to implement your design. To meet your and your land & its inhabitants’ needs, quite a bit of physical intervention is required…
e. It talks about operations – e.g. the regularly occurring activities one must perform in order to maintain equilibrium and obtain the human yield from your permaculture system
This is a big lifestyle commitment. Not just for design, or installation, but the loads – the labor and thinking required, over time – that is the biggest challenge to we humans.
Steve H.
July 8, 2024 at 9:04 am
I have recently gifted multiple copies of:
: Permaculture Design Manual
: A Pattern Language
: A Darwinian Survival Guide.These are extraordinary works.
divadab
July 8, 2024 at 8:54 am
Permaculture is the only solution to agriculture not based in ignorance of natural ecological processes. Our current chemical industrial ag model is as stupid and ignorant and wasteful as Las Vegas – unnatural, unsustainable, based on pure borrowing from the future and thereby degrading that future.
A very simple start is to replace your lawn monoculture with perennials – flowers, herbs, berries, fruit trees – you will be amazed at how many birds delight in your garden.
If you value book recommendations, or have recently taken up gardening because of a comment you read here. then you can avoid a media monoculture by donating to Naked Capitalism. It’s easy!
Machine Tools and Deindustrialization. Starting with JBird4049:
May 13, 2024 at 4:54 pm
The United States (and I guess Europe as well) still has a large puddle or very small pond of talent, skills, education, and even a bit of real, not finance, wealth. It is difficult to eliminate all of two centuries of deliberate, concentrated efforts to create the ocean that once existed. However, it is to the immediate benefit of much of our short sighted elites to stop the use of this puddle; these ignorant buffoons also denigrate the work of fifteen or more generations of Americans who created the tools needed for the fools to become wealthy.
The puddle of talent could be our starter yeast as after all the country started as a backwater with no industry at all. The United States as industrial, economic, educational, and scientific Goliath was a deliberate creation just as its rapid loss of all this was. But I think that they rather finish draining it if it would get them the last bit of loot all the while patting themselves on the back for being so farsighted.
This denigration of work especially with one’s hands and their belief in their superiority over the past fifteen or more generations of Americans is why we have such an add. Even the several generations of people who created the ideas, languages, and programs that were needed for computers to work are being denigrated.
Twenty generations to build and three to destroy; seven lifetimes of work and one of arson. Happy, happy. Joy, joy.
Bill Malcolm
May 14, 2024 at 10:46 am
James Watt is supposed to have invented the steam engine — but the Frenchman Gugnot’s wheeled steam-powered carriage of 1769 showed far more advanced thinking than Watt’s clanking monstrosity (an early example of which is on display at the Museum of Science and Technology in London). No atmospheric condensing to gain a vacuum, so continuous operation.
Anyway, when Watt teamed up with Boulton to make steam-powered “engines” for pumping out mines and replacing water mill power, the canny old Scot didn’t sell his wares. Oh no, he devised a scheme whereby the actual savings in operating costs were paid to him on a 50/50 basis (or some other proportion). That was what made Watt rich, paid for manufacturing his wares and leaving a tidy sum over. The customer made out well too.
So, Watt was an early renter outer.
What I’m saying is that there’s nothing much new under the sun, but neither did the US develop in tandem with Europe until the 1870s. Steam hammer, precision lead screws for lathes? Standard measurements? All British, look it up. 1840s, 1850s.
JBird4049
May 14, 2024 at 4:40 pm
Yes, IIRC the British had the standard in machine tools and related technology during the 19th century. In someways, the United States and the British Empire had a similar dynamic as with China and the United States currently. However, a big difference is that while the British also financialized and destroyed their economy, it was not as fast as with the Americans. Patriotism, generally practicality, fighting the world wars, and the lack of ability to shift money and workers across borders all contributed.
Do not forget that the United States was internally developing for centuries especially after it got out from the British Empire’s economic policy of mercantilism: resources from the colonies and manufactured goods from Britain. The colonists were not to manufacture so much as a nail. Adding the corruption and mismanagement of the British government just made it worse.
After Independence, there were the problems of setting up a permanent system of government, and proving that it had the fortitude and ability to deal with enemies such as the Barbary Pirates, the British, and Native Americans as well as maintaining political cohesion; IIRC, during the 1820s, the American System was planned, implemented, and followed until the late 1960s. Really, if one includes the efforts at improvements from just before 1800, that is over 150 years of sustained growth due to a single economic policy. Decades of canals, roads, manufacturing, colleges, electrical expansion, infectious disease control, etc.
I could make 1972 as the year it was dropped. I also think the Powell Memo, which was typed in 1971, was not just about stopping the Left; it was a suggestion for destroying the then current system by capturing the government and education. This led to the modern system of rentier capitalism and government capture.
Lost Youth. Starting with Henry Moon Pie:
September 10, 2024 at 12:52 pm
I’ll ask a question I asked here a few weeks ago, primarily of those who, like me, came of age in the era of assassinations, Kent State and the Democrats’ Chicago convention. If we could go back in time, knowing what has happened since, would we be willing to join the Weathermen? We saw how wrong things were and were desperate to change them using peaceful means that soon morphed into electoral means with McGovern. Those methods were clearly not up to the task, and now things have grown so much worse that the idea of electorally powered change is laughable (as it was then if we had been more realistic) and the hope of even peaceful change embodied in the mass strike seems almost ridiculous.
Did we miss our shot, largely because, as Lawrence validly indicts us, the sacrifice of opposing the madness by all possible means would have cost us too much? It’s a question that haunts me as someone who expected to participate in a revolution at 18 but ended up going to law school.
Carla
September 10, 2024 at 5:45 pm
Re: 1969: “I don’t think I could have imagined back then how bad things would be now.”
I think about this a lot. And every time, I wind up here: we were so young. So very, very young.
I mean that not as an excuse, but more, a lament.
If a path was apparent, surely we missed it.
Marriage and Mourning. Starting with Amfortas the Hippie:
June 12, 2024 at 3:30 pm
2 years ago, at 13:12 Lima….and there I was down by the graveyard in the Falcon, balling my eyes out.
I can remember every minute of that day…except the part where I was alone with her, saying goodbye….i dont remember that, not what I said, anything.
this was the first of 4 Wakes…and none of them were planned, at all…
and I remember it all…and all in such detail…
and I relive it…almost daily…but especially on days like today.
Except there are no other days like today,lol….
Y’all were with me through all of this…and I still thank y’all for it.
katiebird
June 12, 2024 at 3:41 pm
In spite of being speechless, I have to tell you how much. I appreciate you. And, I hate that Tam and you and your family went through this. And that you still ARE going through it. (but how could you stop?) Thank you for sharing your life and world and the Wilderness Bar with us.
Cassandra
June 12, 2024 at 4:26 pm
Amfortas, my deepest sympathies for what she endured, for what you continue to endure. And yet… what a lucky woman she was to have been so loved.
Finally, Marriage and Fatherhood. From Late Introvert:
July 26, 2024 at 12:29 am
I never wanted children, and I thought I would be a terrible father. I came late to the game too, 42, but I think that was a good thing. Financially stable for the Midwest, we were able to buy a small house in a good school district. Wife and I not too ambitious, thrifty and fine to have 1 car and no luxuries, part-time and freelance gigs so the parental duties were manageable.
I can’t speak for others, but the minute I had a child everything changed, the focus was now her.
I do have to say there were several moments in the first 2 years where I would turn to wife and say how do single parents do this (the answer is badly)? And we just had the one child.
Best thing that ever happened to me. Brought me out of my introversion. I wasn’t the most importanct person anymore, she was. It was very difficult, but I learned to fake it. Spent my share of hours at the playground after school talking to mostly moms, all younger than me.
We are lucky. She is happy and healthy despite some Covid years setbacks and turning 19 this year doing well in college that we could never afford if she didn’t have scholarships.
Call-back to previous discussions on NC, we read to her every night until she was a teenager and it finally got awkward. She reads books on her own all the time now.
America is so hard these days, and nothing is perfect but for me being a father has worked out.
This is a small sampling of the quotidian, day-to-day topics of interest to the Naked Capitalism commentariat. If you want threads like this to continue to be braided together, please visit the tip jar. If you can give a little, give a little. If you can give a lot, give a lot. If you have already given, consider “paying it forward” by donating on behalf of those who wish they could but cannot. Every little bit helps!
APPENDIX
Since “Living in the Material World” is the title of a George Harrison album, here is a track from that album:
[embedded content]
Yes, all things must pass… But not too soon!
And things pass, but patterns endure; patterns like jokes, cougar spotting, gardening, marriage, fatherhood (even de-/and reindustrialization). As the Dwarves’ Low King, Rhys Rhysson, says to Sam Vimes in Terry Pratchett’s The Fifth Elephant:
Suddenly the king was holding his mining axe again. “This, milord, is my family’s axe. We have owned it for almost nine hundred years, see. Of course, sometimes it needed a new blade. And sometimes it has required a new handle, new designs on the metalwork, a little refreshing of the ornamentation… But is this not the nine-hundred-year-old axe of my family? And because it has changed gently over time, it is still a pretty good axe, y’know. Pretty good.”
And so with the constantly old-but-new daily concerns in the comments section.
But speaking of axes, you can help Naked Capitalism keep its edge by visiting the Tip Jar — over there! — to your right.