The great flatware reunion

The New Neo Posted on by

I spent several hours today getting rid of things in my ex’s place. That simple statement doesn’t even begin to express what it feels like to do this. My ex was very sentimental about things and nostalgic about time, and he saved almost everything. I knew that, if he predeceased me, I’d have to be part of the dismantling of his precious things (only a few actually worth anything in dollars, but all of which meant a great great deal to him).

It feels like a betrayal, although I know it’s not.

But I thought our son would be more involved. Although he tried to be – he came here for a week – he came down with the flu and was very sick the whole time he was here. One other family member came for a few hours. And next week my brother and sister-in-law will come for two days. I’m grateful for any help at all, but this is such a huge task that I would need a lot more help than that to even make a dent in it.

I mentioned in a previous post that I’ve hired a friend who does this for a living. But there’s only so much she can do, and she can’t go through papers. Only I can do that, and the amount of paper is overwhelming. Boxes and boxes, shelves and shelves, and many suitcases full. I started today on the paper and got an immediate headache. I’m not going through each piece, but even a general perusal takes time.

I found, for example, a cache of my credit cards from the 1980s. Old medical records from the 1950s. The blueprints for the house we bought as a married couple, which was built in the 1930s. And on and on and on.

But one thing that made me happy was opening a drawer and seeing the flatware. I knew it was there, of course. When we separated about twenty-five years ago, we divided the flatware into two halves and each got six place settings. It was beautiful, heavy flatware (we never got silver) and I always loved it. And now – opening that drawer made me gasp, because I realized the set would be together again.

And so it is. It seems symbolic to me. Our divorce was always a sorrowful thing, necessary but tragic. Suffice to say I never stopped loving my ex-husband, although the love changed.

NOTE: The flatware, in case you’re interested, is called Lauffer Magnum and it was made in Norway. Later it got taken over by other companies and an inferior version was made. Google AI has this to say:

Lauffer Magnum is an original mid-century modern stainless steel pattern designed with a satin finish.

Key Details

• Material and Finish: 18/8 stainless steel with a sleek satin finish.
• Design Style: Bold, minimalist mid-century modern aesthetic.
• Collector Sentiment: Most users on Reddit agree that the original Norwegian-made sets are more desirable and higher quality compared to later or alternative regional productions (such as those from Japan or Korea).

It’s not really about the flatware, though. Not at all.

News roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) I think this is the right decision:

President Donald Trump said Thursday that the execution of the terrorist-traitor Army Maj. Nidal Hasan will not be live-streamed. Trump’s order overrides Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s earlier decision to make the death-by-firing-squad viewable by the public.

I already weighed in on the idea of livestreaming the execution, in this post. I was not in favor.

(2) It seems it’s okay to say abusive and racist things about white people, and of course about Jews. I hear it all the time, especially about white people – and often said by white people. Apparently these virtue-signalers feel they’ll get extra virtue points from trashing themselves.

(3) Democrats apparently don’t want Kamala Harris as their candidate in 2028. But did they ever want her as their candidate? She certainly didn’t do well in the 2020 primaries. And in 2024 she was foisted on the party after it was caught in a Biden dilemma of its own making. The amazing thing is that she came as close to winning as she did. Most Democrats and Trump-haters either held their noses and voted for her, or thought she was perfectly okay. The latter group contained many people who didn’t watch her interviews.

(4) Banks discriminated against conservatives. No surprise there:

The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) released its Debanking Review on Wednesday. Miranda Devine first broke the story in the New York Post. The 47-page report, titled “Guaranteeing Fair Banking for All Americans,” draws on a hundred thousand complaints and fifty thousand internal bank records from 2020 through 2025. It names JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Wells Fargo, U.S. Bank, Capital One, PNC, TD Bank, and BMO Bank.

Every one of them hid behind the same excuse: “reputation risk.”

What did these banks fear? Bad press, protests, attacks from activist outfits like the Southern Poverty Law Center, and retaliation from regulators and politicians. So they purged anyone who might draw that heat. Christian organizations lost service over their views on abortion, LGBT issues, and traditional family values. Gun makers and retailers, Arctic oil and gas, coal, detention facilities, tobacco, and e-cigarette companies all saw financing dry up.

And it will happen again if Democrats regain control.

(5) Democrats talk about affordability but won’t be delivering it. Anyone who’s been paying attention should know that. But a great many people don’t pay attention. “Affordability” is therefore a smart campaign strategy.

Getting up to speed on the proceedings against Ilhan Omar

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s a roundup.

From Ace. An excerpt:

She lied about being 17 when she applied for citizenship, because the law stated that a minor could piggyback off a naturalized parent’s citizenship but an adult couldn’t.

So she changed her actual age, 18 or 19, to 17.

Then her staffers changed her Wikipedia entry, which had shown her real birthdate, to her fraudulent birthdate, so that it would agree with her fraudulent immigration paperwork.

That last part isn’t illegal. It just shows she knows she was lying all along.

Powerline has been writing about Omar for many years, and they are (unsurprisingly) covering the current developments fairly thoroughly. A sampler can be found here and here.

From Legal Insurrection:

Speaking on Fox News’ “America Reports,” Pirro said her office was examining Omar’s financial disclosures, which previously showed that the reported value of businesses tied to her husband, Tim Mynett, had surged from as much as $51,000 in 2023 to as much as $30 million in 2024.

—

The original filings, examined by Fox News Digital earlier this year, showed millions of dollars in newly reported assets associated with two of Mynett’s business ventures — a California-based winery and a Washington, D.C.-based venture capital firm.

More on Omar’s father and her citizenship application can be found here.

Jonathan Turley summarizes here:

The midterms: is the US even slightly sane these days?

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m with Kruiser on this:

In my four-plus decades of political activism, I have never seen a party that is supposed to steamroll an election be in the kind of disarray that the 2026 Democrats are in. Their candidate slate is a motley collection of communists and buffoons. They’re embroiled in a power struggle between the young, loud and proud commies, and the establishment, more subtle commies.

And their only clear policy position is that they are pro-criminal and anti-law enforcement.

Seriously, in an even slightly sane world, the Republicans should be able to dominate these midterms without candidates even having to get out of bed. Sadly, “even slightly sane” has been in the rearview mirror for too many miles now.

Well, they do have one more clear policy position, probably their over-arching one: anything Trump is for they are against.

I am gobsmacked at the idea that the current Democrat Party is poised to do very well in November. How can this be? Are we that far gone? Maybe; probably. If so, I am convinced it is because of our educational system, which has been churning out historically (and otherwise) ignorant pro-leftists for decades. That group has finally reached a critical mass. Many of them are also ruled by envy; it’s not for nothing that one of the Ten Commandments is “Thou shalt not covet.”

Now might be the time for me to post the results of some polls for the midterms, but I have come to distrust polls more than ever. So I’ll skip it.

It’s bots all the way down

The New Neo Posted on by

Not quite all the way down. But bots seem to be a major part of the traffic of certain people:

Of course Russia would do everything it can to drive the traffic up for Carlson and MacGregor, who have been supporting Russia for years. Carlson is more well-known, but MacGregor is a font of Russian disinformation and I’ve written about him before, in this post from April of 2022.

How much of internet traffic is smoke and mirrors? It depends who you are and what you support. My traffic is pretty real, I believe, but then my traffic is relatively modest. It’s also been rather stable for many years

News roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) It’s a tale everyone seems to be covering, although I don’t find it especially interesting. But if you want to discuss it, here’s the Kimberly Guilfoyle grift-and-resignation story.

(2) Now Andy Burnham says that yes, the men apprehended (briefly) concerning the Fairford base incident were probably connected with Iranian terrorism:

A suspected plot to attack a U.S.-run military air base in England was “almost certainly” directed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, British Prime Minister Andy Burnham said Monday.

Burnham previously said there are strong indications Iran was linked to the apparent plan last month to attack the RAF Fairford air base, which has been used by American bombers to strike Iran in the ongoing war.

Police have arrested seven men in the investigation into the alleged plot, but all suspects have been released on bail and no one has been charged so far.

Why were they released? Either it’s the utter incompetence of the British authorities, or they’re being tracked and monitored very closely in order to lead authorities to the higher-ups. One can hope.

(3) There’s nothing magical about ten thousand steps:

But according to a recent Lancet Public Health study, which analyzed data from more than 110,000 people, taking 7,000 steps offered the same health benefits as 10,000 steps, including a lower risk of all-cause mortality, reduced cardiovascular risk, and even a decreased risk of developing dementia. …

As it turns out, the 10,000-step benchmark wasn’t based on science. It originated in Japan in the 1960s, when a pedometer company called Yamasa created a product named “manpo-kei,” which translates to “10,000-step meter.” The catchy number stuck — and so did the idea that 10,000 was the gold standard.

Walking is good for you – at least, I certainly hope so, because I’ve been doing it almost every day for about forty years. I’ve never counted steps, but I try to walk at a brisk pace for 45 minutes. Strength training is supposed to be very very good, too, but when I try to add that my old injuries kick up.

(4) About Russia’s plague labs.

(5) Fetterman presents a dilemma for the Democrats. They would dearly love to be rid of him, but the trick is to replace him with another, far less independent, Democrat. The state he represents is Pennsylvania, and so that’s not a given. At any rate, they’re stuck with him until the 2028 election. And if they annoy him too much, he can always go over to the dark (GOP) side.

The Democrat tent is big, but only on its left wing. The right wing is practically non-existent.

One in five college students say …

The New Neo Posted on by

… America deserved 9/11.

Actually, I’m a bit surprised that it’s that low. Today’s college students have no personal memory of 9/11; it’s just something they learned about in school. And the vast majority of today’s college students have gone to schools dominated by leftist thought.

The pollsters didn’t ask the students who thought 9/11 was deserved why they thought it was deserved. Here’s more about the poll; the results are broken down by political affiliation but not by, for example, ethnicity or religion, which might have been informative.

I find this interesting and not the least bit surprising:

Some students in this survey expressed intolerance for contrary opinions. A significant minority (42%) believe that hearing opinions they disagree with can be harmful to their mental health, the highest percentage in the five years the question has been asked. 44% would avoid taking a class with a professor who publicly shares opinions they disagree with, and 48% would not be able to be close friends with someone of a different political party. Liberal students led moderates and conservatives in all 3 categories with 51% believing contradictory political opinions are harmful to their mental health, 55% saying they wouldn’t take a class with a professor with contrary opinions, and 65% being unwilling to have close friends across the aisle. Conservatives sat at just 31%, 33%, and 27% respectively.

That conforms to my own observations, and not just of students but across the age groups.

My new printer

The New Neo Posted on by

I haven’t had a working printer for a long time. I bought one many years ago, and after a short while it stopped working. My ex-husband tried to fix it – he’d never had any trouble with printers – and he couldn’t make it work, either. So any time I wanted something printed, I just had him do it at his place. It didn’t happen often, and it seemed to work out.

Now that he’s gone, I decided that because his printer is very old and somewhat of a problem I’d get a new one. They’re not expensive, and surely there have been improvements in the many years since I got mine. And so I bought one and tried to set it up.

Hours later I was still stymied. It would not – simply would not – connect to the Wifi. I have free access to the Geek Squad, and so I tried to make an appointment. The page I was directed to online would only let me change an already-existing appointment; it would not let me make one. So I called the handy dandy phone number and got an AI voice. She (it was definitely a she) kept directing me to a Geek Squad in a store an hour away, despite the fact that there is one about ten minutes away.

Why? Why? In my frustration, I said something like, “this is ridiculous; why won’t you take me to the right store?” She replied, “I can understand your frustration,” to which I replied, “No you CAN’T; you’re not even a person!” She answered, “I know I’m not human, but I’m doing the best I can.”

I asked to speak with a human, and indeed was connected to one somewhere in Asia. This person ultimately informed me that the Geek Squad cannot help set up printers because connecting to the Wifi in the store wouldn’t help; it has to be your own Wifi, which necessitates a house call.

How much does a house call cost? One hundred and twenty-five dollars. How much did the printer cost? Sixty-nine dollars.

I returned it.

Then I read that Staples will allow you to print a page off the internet. So I went there, and was directed to a computer attached to a printer. So far, so good. But the very first thing the computer asked me to do was to insert my credit card, for a charge of forty-nine cents a minute. This task could easily take me a half-hour to figure out. Did I want to pay fifteen dollars to print two pages? No.

Next I’m going to try the library.

Wordsworth isn’t too much with us

The New Neo Posted on by

I noticed this today at Althouse:

[Chris Williamson was talking] with Robert Greene, who has a new book called “The Law of the Sublime” (commission earned). Maybe he’s got the answer to our problem of colorlessness.

Williamson prompts: “You talk about sort of pagan time, pagan religions, this sense of so much more wonder, so many more unanswered questions, the opportunity to use story and narrative and personification. It’s the gods fighting that’s made the lightning, how much easier it must have been to have been infused by life. Should we all become pagans again? Is that the answer? Can we just do that?”

Greene responds: “I would love it if we would. I’m down. If you want to make a pagan commune somewhere, I’ll join. I would because I’ve always felt myself to be pagan. I’ve always, when I see, when I go to the British Museum and I see that section on Assyrian [artifacts], I see some of those massive sculptures of like half human, half tiger, lions, whoa, I feel like it’s expressing something so powerful in me. I’ve always been deeply, deeply attracted to the designs, to the things of like the, in the Aborigines, their little paintings that they make of, you know, the waves inside of animals, something. It seems more alive. It seems like something so powerful and so direct.”

I don’t know about you, but when I read that I immediately thought “Wordsworth, ‘The World Is Too Much With Us.'” Perhaps it’s a small nitpicky point I’m making. But Greene’s thoughts so closely parallel that poem of Wordsworth’s, yet when I looked at the interview I saw not a single reference to Wordsworth or to the antiquity of the thoughts Greene himself was expressing (at least, I couldn’t find any – it’s a long long interview and perhaps I missed something).

Why does this absence bother me? Well, as a poetry lover, it just does – but it also indicates a cultural illiteracy that’s commonplace even among the highly educated. After all, Wordsworth is – or used to be – a big part of the Western canon. I had to memorize that poem (along with so many others) in junior high school in a NYC public school. Wordsworth was the founder of English Romanticism, and as such was an extremely important figure:

William Wordsworth was one of the founders of English Romanticism and one its most central figures and important intellects. He is remembered as a poet of spiritual and epistemological speculation, a poet concerned with the human relationship to nature and a fierce advocate of using the vocabulary and speech patterns of common people in poetry.

And “The World Is Too Much With Us,” a sonnet of which I’m not inordinately fond but which I can still recite from memory, goes like this, which seems to track very very closely with the point Greene is trying to make. It was written in 1802, well over two hundred years ago:

The world is too much with us; late and soon,
Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;—
Little we see in Nature that is ours;
We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!
This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon;
The winds that will be howling at all hours,
And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers;
For this, for everything, we are out of tune;
It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be
A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn;
So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,
Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn;
Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.