I did spend a lot of time in Trader Joe’s stores when I lived in Socal. Had to be dragged in at first, then it turned out they had really good food at fairly reasonable prices – by Socal standards – and then I didn’t want to shop for groceries anywhere else. It wasn’t half as weird as I’d expected.
But I’ve never been in a Whole Foods. I’m told it’s…different.
They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
Little Bear 2009-2018
Laddie the Amazing Torso Boy 2011-2020
"Freedom Outlaw. It’s not what you do; it’s how you do it. It’s an attitude — from which actions always follow. It’s a do-it-yourself occupation. And a lifetime vocation."
- Claire Wolfe, Backwoods Home Companion, 6-07-10
I owe my success to having listened respectfully to the very best advice, and then going away and doing the exact opposite.
- G. K. Chesterton
"If every Jewish and anti-Nazi family in Germany had owned a Mauser rifle and twenty rounds of ammunition and the will to use it, Adolf Hitler would be a little-known footnote to the history of the Weimar Republic."
- Aaron Zelman
"Authority should derive from the consent of the governed, not from the threat of force."
- Barbie
"Never underestimate the ability of shit to find a fan."
- F. Paul Wilson
"You can't make an omelet without breaking eggs." The sophistry of villains - Bah!
- Robert A. Heinlein, Double Star
“Truth is, I’m not specifically interested in an armed society. What I want is a free society.”
- George Potter
I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself
A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.
- D. H. Lawrence
Aristippus passed Diogenes as he was washing lentils.
He said, “If you could but learn to flatter the king, you would not have to live on lentils.”
Diogenes said, “And if you could learn to live on lentils, you would not have to flatter the king.”
Sandy Hook was a Gun Free Zone. So was the Westroads Mall. And the Aurora Theater. And Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Should I go on? They were all Gun Free Zones.
– Reality
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
- Robert A. Heinlein
"Civilization is the process of setting man free from men."
- Ayn Rand
If ever a man should ask you
For your business or your name
Tell him to go and fuck himself
Tell his friends to do the same.
For a man who'd trade his liberty
For a safe and dreamless sleep
Doesn't deserve the both of them
And neither shall he keep.
- Frank Turner
Don't be afraid to try something big, just because you're an amateur. The Ark was built by amateurs. The Titanic was built by professionals.
- Anon
"Nothing scares a police officer more than the threat of being treated the way that they treat people every day."
- Anon
"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."
- Gen. James Mattis
"Lust for power is the most flagrant of all the passions."
- Tacitus
"The man who knows what freedom means will find a way to be free."
- F.A. "Baldy" Harper
"The greatest discovery of any generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitude."
- William James
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms -- to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
- Viktor Frankl
The free man will ask neither what his country can do for him nor what he can do for his country.
- Milton Friedman
“We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.”
- William Faulkner
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.
- Ernest Hemingway
"Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
John Moses Browning - The most badass Mormon who ever lived.
"The nine most terrifying words in the English language are 'I'm from the government, and I'm here to help.'"
- Ronald Reagan
The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose.
- James A. Baldwin
"It is better to be a warrior in a garden than to be a gardener in a war."
- Anon
“I tried to live in such a way that, when dying, I would rather feel happy than scared.”
– Witold Pilecki
Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.
- Sallust
"Place your clothes and weapons where you can find them in the dark."
- Lazarus Long
Read, every day, something no one else is reading.
Think, every day, something no one else is thinking.
Do, every day, something no one else would be silly enough to do.
It is bad for the mind to continually be part of unanimity.
– Christopher Morley
“I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken his moral and mental vision, and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason. He must be able to detect no inconsistencies in slavery; he must be made to feel that slavery is right; and he can be brought to that only when he ceases to be a man.”
-Frederick Douglass
ESSE QUAM VIDERI –
To be, rather than to seem
– Marcus Tullius Cicero
“A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give.”
– Ida B. Wells
Do what thy manhood bid thee do; from none but self expect applause.
He noblest lives and noblest dies, who makes and keeps his self made laws
– Sir Richard Burton
Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.
– Winston Churchill
“Happiness is a journey, not a destination. Dance as though no one is watching you. Love as though you have never been hurt before. Sing as though no one can hear you. Live as though heaven is on earth.”
― Father Alfred d’Souza
Good grief…
I do remember (vaguely) when the whole “fair trade” thing came out, at least for coffee. Had a very strange conversation with a friend about it, and never was tempted to approach the subject again…
She said it was worth paying LOTS more for the coffee because it was “fair trade.” I asked what that meant, and she seemed to think that the people who picked the coffee got more money. I asked how she knew that was so and she just smiled, saying because that’s what it said on the can.
Sure thing.
Don’t even get me started on this “gluten” or “vegan” thing. Bunch of nuts, far as I’m concerned. The upside is that there’s just that much more meat and bread for me… and whoever else wants them.
On a largely unrelated note (except that it deals with food), I saw this video and thought you might find it interesting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0foHjPVbP4
How to make an earthen oven. The followup video shows the host making bread in the oven. Given that you like to make bread, and your various oven issues, this might be worth investigating at some point.
Assuming that your bandwidth allows you to even watch the videos of course:-/.
There’s the odd reason here and there to go into Whole Foods. Their price on vegetable glycerin is lower than WalMart (I use that to make my nic-juice.) They used to carry both Blue Sky Cream Soda and Hansons Ginger Ale, though the ones near me stopped doing that. Now there’s a first world problem – I know of no place near me where I can buy good cream soda. I guess people do it all the time now, but I have a hard time convincing myself to order soda pop from Amazon.
jed – Looked up the Blue Sky label cause it sounded familiar. The product line was sold to Monster. It is no longer made in Santa Fe, NM but in Corona, CA. By the way it looks like Coke-Cola took over Monster in 2015. Looks like you can’t get a decent soda-pop without having to deal with Coke and their shenanigans.
I grew up in the town next to Corona, and consequently would be very reluctant to ingest anything that came from there.
I went in one once. Was traveling, needed AA batteries and figured any grocery store would have them. They were obviously different than any grocery store I had ever been in so I figured I just couldn’t find them due to their layout. When I asked, they said they didn’t carry batteries at all. I didn’t ask why since I knew I had no reason to enter again.
Whole Foods was useful to us when we lived in Colorado, at least at the time. IIRC, at one point the owner rather pissed off some of the more shrill and harpy-like Leninistas by not being adequately lockstep-critical of capitalism and property rights, which made me grin.
Even back then, though, some of the people that one would just randomly encounter there…whoo Space-cadet much?
The smug on some people is nearly debilitating in its brazenness.
I will admit it… We occasionally use a Whole Foods as a restaurant. They have rather tasty salads and hot food for carry-out or consumption on the premises. Watching the customers/freak show is half the fun!
@Judy. Thanks for the info. I don’t drink much soda, actually. It’s more of an occasional thing. So I didn’t try to research it. But it is possible to get a soda without buying from Coke, or other huge-brand companies. However, it’s going to be typically pricey, and usually hard to find. “Artisanal” might be an applicable word. Or “craft”. Oddly enough, I discovered a candied bacon cream soda at the local Ace Hardware. Very tasty, but too expensive. Dr. Brown’s is still out there, but I don’t know if they’re owned by some huge conglomerate. Hmmm, they use high-fructose corn syrup. Ugh.
jed, when we want soda without HFCS, we go to a Mexican grocery store. The sodas in the glass bottles, produced in Mexico, have cane sugar…and flavor.
Jed,
I have no idea where you live, but we have Gray’s here in Southern Wisconsin, and it is available online:
http://www.beveragesdirect.com/products/grays-cream-soda
The brewery has been in continuous operation by the same family since the 1800’s. They started making soda during Prohibition and never stopped.
For my own cream soda, I caramelize some sugar, add more and make a heavy syrup…mixed with some Vanilla Essence:
http://www.kauffmansfruitfarm.com/Perrier-Essence-of-Vanilla-Concentrate-16-oz/item/51620
This goes into my Soda Stream carbonated water, after I pour out enough water to give space for the syrup…There is no alcohol in the Essence, so it gives a much “cleaner” taste in my opinion.