Snowbanks in Ontonogon, 7th of March 2025. Winter has been pretty mild thus far.

William James predicted this:

SOME YEARS AGO, being with a camping party in the mountains, I returned from a solitary ramble to find every one engaged in a ferocious metaphysical dispute. The corpus of the dispute was a squirrel – a live squirrel supposed to be clinging to one side of a tree-trunk; while over against the tree’s opposite side a human being was imagined to stand. This human witness tries to get sight of the squirrel by moving rapidly round the tree, but no matter how fast he goes, the squirrel moves as fast in the opposite direction, and always keeps the tree between himself and the man, so that never a glimpse of him is caught. The resultant metaphysical problem now is this: Does the man go round the squirrel or not? He goes round the tree, sure enough, and the squirrel is on the tree; but does he go round the squirrel? In the unlimited leisure of the wilderness, discussion had been worn threadbare. Every one had taken sides, and was obstinate; and the numbers on both sides were even. Each side, when I appeared therefore appealed to me to make it a majority.

— Lecture II - "What Pragmatism Means" from What is Pragmatism

The notion that good people will lead to a good government, that politics is downstream from culture, is one of those notions birthed in Enlightenment and Reformation that holds little weight when examined. It's simply anti-reality; this notion, so earnestly embraced, denies the truer motion of power: it flows not from the many to the few, but from the few to the many. Governance, whether noble or corrupt, casts a far greater mold upon the souls of its people than the people ever do upon their rulers.

Consider the art of good parenting; what's the key to success? Evidently, it's simply having good kids. For parents blessed with good kids, the goodness of their children somehow flows up to them, guiding parental decisions. You see, it may look like the parents are the ones setting the rules, the ones providing the guidance, the ones who have responsibility regarding outcomes, but that's backwards, unenlightened, even unscientific thinking.

The parties with more power have greater responsibility, greater effect; this truth borders on tautology. "The people" shaping its government is like a child taking away his father's driving privileges in response to bad parenting. Such a vision misapprehends the very essence of authority, of hierarchy, of order.

Might makes right, not in the moral sense, but in the sense of control, of effect.

I linger here, so I'll close with a simple pronunciation: If politics were downstream from culture, Nazi Germany would still be Nazi.

"Bridge Karen" is fundamentally correct, though her language is unsightly. Our protagonist is engaging in nigger behavior, first giving no respect to trail rules and then just outright stealing.

AND IT COMES WITH ALL THAT SNOW?!

Just drove by the house... A lot of that snow has melted. It's a scam.

Out on Lake Superior’s icy edge, a Yooper named Jimmer casts his line through a hole in the ice, grinning as he feels a tug; after he reels in his fish, he celebrates his success with a hearty “yeehup.” Whenever one of them catches a fish like that, you can bet they’ll cook pasties that night—flaky, meat-filled pockets of U.P. tradition. So, we can be sure that as the sun dips low after da Jimmer has hauled his catch home, the kitchen will fill with the smell of dough and gravy.

I don't remember saying to do this, but evidently I have. Boys, divorce your fit wives and find yourself some fatties:

I'm not seeing the problem

Picked up a set of silver spoons from the thrift store for $5. Does this mean I'm no longer poor?

L

how are these people real

I remember when there were intersections with stoplights where there are now merely stop signs. This is the way.

Looks like winter highway cruisin' might be over for the year.... Sad

Soon, she'll be thawed

This is one of the best times of the year for Yoopers. The snow is starting to melt, and the snow banks are included in that. What this means is that all the roadkill, an entire winter's worth, an entire winter's worth that has been frozen in snow and ice for months, an entire winter's worth that has been pushed into the snow and ice and preserved for us by our diligent snowplowmen, is becoming slowly available to us Yoopers. Just got me a still mostly frozen raccoon, youbetcha, eh.

Just in: ruralites are now suggesting you marry hamster women who love sleeping on the floor