The Internet Never Forgets, But It Just Might Die

"The internet never forgets."

 

But, it could die.

 

 

Just in case, herein below (stupid lawyers) is what I could scrape from the interwebs, the remains of my written, posted work from blog posts over the last, oh, say, 14 years.  I will always contend that much deep thought went into these rants, some were even fully captured. These thoughts, framed by bits of time, have been fueled by one American citizen's concern -- for both ourselves and our posterity.

 

With my mother-in-law's funeral service coming next week, what I can honestly say is that I have done and what I have done here to express, despite the degrees of separation the internet creates, what I know to be true, good, and consistent. 

 

In the words of Nathaniel Benchley, "Only Earth and Sky Last Forever."

 

I'm not trying to top "mean Tweets," because it is the Divine Comedy that keeps me laughing.

And with all our years of accumulated experience, and purported wisdom, boomers like us may need to re-consider that in the eyes of our children, we are simply fools, who care too much to simply quit. 

 

Consider this body of work --- 

 

and remember --- 

 

whether at age 65, or any age, we are always a work in progress.

 

/initialize Time Warp  

 

[some links may be missing --- if so, they didn't die, they just faded away . . . ]

FROM THE ARCHIVES

"Wit, Gun, and Stein" (2009 - 2011) and
"English Swill" (2012 - 2019)

*HUMOR*

¤ "That's Not Funny, That's Sick ..." - When Sincerity Becomes Absurdity

by Roy Santonil (May 5, 2009)

¤ "Defining Success in a Global Economy" - Congratulations

by Roy Santonil (May 20, 2010)

  

*CULTURE*

 

¤ "Fool Me Twice" - Sorry, Not Sorry

by Roy Santonil (September 12, 2009) 

 

¤ "The Pursuit of Wisdom In the Age Of The Internet" - I Used To Be Pretty Smart

by James Bowman (October 25, 2009) 

 

¤ "J.D. Salinger: A Tribute" - Catch This

by Roy Santonil (January 30, 2010) 

 

¤ "The New Paradigm: You're Welcome" - Last Refuge or Last Resort?

by Roy Santonil (April 19, 2010)

 

¤ "A Tribute to Snail Mail" - Literally, An Internet Post

by Roy Santonil (June 9, 2010) 

 

¤ Word Wars - Care for Some Tea?

by Roy Santonil (November 2, 2010)

 

¤ "Creepy Misfits and Multiple Losers" - Let Me Keep My Precious Self-Loathing

by Roy Santonil (November 22, 2010) 

 

¤  "The End Of The Trail James Earl Fraser (1915)" - I'm Done (3 Final Essays)

by Roy Santonil (December 26, 2010)

 

¤ "LCDR Rosendo "Ross" T. Santonil (1931 - 2011)" - DAD'S EULOGY

(March 12, 2011)  

*LAW*

 

 

¤ "The Final Amnesty: Some Thoughts on Immigration Law"- Don't Insult Me

by Roy Santonil.(January 23, 2018)

¤ "The High Road" - Remember Prohibition?

by Roy Santonil (September 3, 2009) 

 

*GOLF*

¤ "On Respect" - Why the FedEx Cup Sucks

Golf Press Association Article (published August 22, 2007)

¤ "On Golf" - A Must Read For Every Golfer 

by John Updike, author of the Everyman's Library, The Witches of Eastwick, Marry Me, Brazil, The Coup, and Terrorist (originally published in The New York Times, June 10, 1973)

¤"What Do You Call A Black Guy Flying An Airplane?" - Thoughts on The Masters

by Roy Santonil (March 26, 2009) 

 

¤ "Tiger's Moral Hazard" - A Game of Sorrows

A New York Times Essay by Robert Wright (Posted March 31, 2010)

 

¤ "Putters of Distinction" - Bulls Eye!

by Roy Santonil (April 18, 2010) 

 

¤ "Pinetuck Golf Course: Old School" - Golf Course Review

by Roy Santonil (May 11, 2010)

 

 ¤ "The Divide Golf Course: Cart Golf" - Golf Course Review

by Roy Santonil (June 2, 2010)

 

¤ "Eagle Chase Golf Course: Going On Tour" - Golf Course Review

by Roy Santonil (June 5, 2010) 

 

¤ "Olde Sycamore Golf Plantation: Par For The Course" - Golf Course Review

by Roy Santonil (June 14, 2010) 

 

¤ "Charlotte National Golf Club: Dad's Dream" - Golf Course Review

by Roy Santonil (June 22, 2010)

¤ "The Tradition: Demons vs. Aces" - Golf Course Review

by Roy Santonil (June 26, 2010)

¤ "The Art of Distraction" - No excuses.

by Roy Santonil (July 24, 2010) 

 

¤ "Stonebridge Golf Club: A Game Of Sorrows" - Golf Course Review

by Roy Santonil (August 10, 2010) 

 

¤ "TPC Piper Glen: Show Me The Money" - Golf Course Review

by Roy Santonil (August 18, 2010)

 

 ¤ "A New Low" - 72

by Roy Santonil (October 13, 2010)

¤ "An Even Newer Low" - 70

by Roy Santonil (October 23, 2010)

*MUSIC *

 

¤ "Deacon Blues" - Steely Dan (1977) - I Cried When I Wrote This Song

by Roy Santonil (February 10, 2010) 

 

¤ "Hey Nineteen" - Steely Dan (1980)  - She Thinks I'm Crazy

by Roy Santonil (November 5, 2010)

LUKE 10:2

 

You Don't Have to LIKE it.

 

SHARE it so you get an objective thought.

 

SUBSCRIBE if you want more.

 

© 2024 by Roy Santonil

 

DOBBS V. JACKSON for Dummies (Part 2 of 5 : Culture)

Start here.

Welcome back, and thanks for tuning in. 

To review Part 1 (link), you may recall it ended with a bit of time travel. You were led to an obscure Commentary written 38 years ago in a law school newspaper. The writer spoke from the past about how Roe v. Wade had weak, and more likely non-existent, constitutional underpinnings. He asserted that Conscience is the true final arbiter of moral questions that society attempts to answer through legal sophistry. That writer has been doing honest homework on those issues, sustained by a steady diet of locusts and honey, so plentiful in the wilderness of legal unemployment. 

Such is the price for honest legal opinion. 

Such is the price for sticking to your guns.

But today, it is, finally, water under the bridge. 

The river has run its course.

As Thomas Paine put it, "Time Make More Converts Than Reason." Fortunately, you have not been triggered by my past comments enough to have me assassinated, just because I take our Constitution seriously, thank you.  I sincerely appreciate your academic integrity, as well as your critical thinking skills.  

Now: Roy's Theory can be summarized: E > C > P. 

As we journey the river of life, Economics is upstream from Culture is upstream from Politics.

Riding the Legal Beast

Laws are enacted to give us rules, rules through which we navigate the river -- trying to do the least damage and the most good for the "school of fish" that is Human Society. (Who makes those rules and how they are made is a another valid question for another time.)

Understanding the Dobbs case begins with understanding that cultural shifts occur mostly  without our conscious attention.  There is no way to "respond" or "reply" or "comment" or "like" something as glacial as cultural shifts.  I think the reason is because culture is a sum of parts, and the parts are our individual souls. 

Culture is a pot of stew, contained by the operation of  Economic principles, e.g., supply and demand, inflation, unemployment, etc. Legal opinions are like broth, including any meat, and lentils. And the Chef is the person applying Legal Principles for the Political consumer. You can't make good law from bad cases. And if you have a shitty chef, you get shitty stew. The culture suffers.

Sometime you have to throw out a bad batch.  Get new ingredients. Fire the chef.

Sometimes a punt is the best football play. Sometimes a frozen computer needs a re-boot.

So here we are in 2023.  Dobbs vs. Jackson is the law. American Culture, that is, We, the People, a body of citizens of a Nation (a Nation of Laws, not of Men), simply could not swallow the shitty politics, the Constitutional stew forced upon us by Justice Blackmun in 1973. 

Culture will evolve irrespective, but limited by, enduring natural principles.

 The water. The mountains. The forest. The ocean. 

None care and none are affected by our puny political grandstanding. Culture evolved, while the so-called "left" paid no heed, insisting upon the un-moored "right to abortion" in contravention of 

1) Language, 

2) Basic Legal Analysis, 

3) the History of Common Law, and 

4) Traditions regarding the "quickening" of human life. 

And now ... it is finished. My task is simply to present the skinny version of the Court's opinion:

Part II of Justice Alito's opinion addresses those 4 factors in a workmanlike, dispassionate, lawyerly matter, pointing out for all to see that:

• The actual language of the 1st, 4th, 5th, 9th, and 14th Amendments contains no express provision creating the "right" to an abortion. To argue otherwise casts away the essential human utility of letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs to communicate.
  

• As for any "implied" right to Liberty in the 14th Amendment which might serve as the basis for abortion rights, that right still must, necessarily, be derived from express provisions contained in the first 8 Amendments in the Bill of Rights, because the last 2 are rights implicitly reserved to the States. 
  

• The History of abortion "rights" has extremely shallow, if any roots, in our jurisprudence.

• Common Law cases regarding "quickening" shreds notions of viability and trimesters as guidelines for measuring proper and improper abortion.  Roe was an excercise of legal folly.
  

To be sure, and to be clear. -- a person with a uterus (can't say "woman) CAN STILL LEGALLY KILL THE BABY in a Post-Dobbs world. The difference now is that the voice of your community, the impact of your culture, and the values engrained in your sub-culture have a voice.  

There is a belief that the Dobbs case is about a "right to privacy," and by corollary, abortion. The self-centered mistake about that belief is that no decision has a more publicly significant and revolutionary impact on the world and society at large than whether to destroy or nourish another person. Families, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends . . . all the "other" voices are now being heard, now greater and heavier factors to consider when uterus-endowed people experience post-coital remorse.

Once again, Mother Nature disrupts human avarice. Dobbs is a result of the combined forces of Conscience and Culture, diverting American narcissism away from self-destructive values, to more precicely pin point the locus of responsibility regarding moral questions of Life and Death. 

In the case of abortions, that locus is far, far away from a Washington D.C. It is not determined in a courthouse, or even in a doctor's office. It is in the hearts and minds of two people whose Love (or lack, thereof) will determine their future. And the consequences will be felt regardless of that "choice."

In my "personal" view, under Dobbs, the Federal government no longer sanctions murder because American culture, taken as a whole, does not approve of pernicious irresponsibilty.

Whether "the choice" was or was not -- the Right one -- is still up to the individual. 

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you,
  before you were born I set you apart;
  I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.”

Jeremiah 1:5

Put simply, the room has gotten louder. The chorus of voices that formed your existence are also there for you, to help you to decide whether new life should (or should not) be realized. 

The voices of Culture and Conscience are much greater than one measly legal opinion, at some random point in history, even if that opinion is rendered by the Supreme Court of the United States of America.

 

© 2023 by Roy Santonil

No Mercy

Start here.

Hello again, Boomers, Jonesers, and Non-Boomers alike.

Nothing to talk about lately?

What do we Americans do when the temperature starts climbing above 80, and the lawn needs mowing? 

Well, for the last couple of centuries, there was this thing called Our National Pastime. Notice the word  "pastime" suggests an activity unabashedly and unequivocally meant to be an acceptable and civil way to pass time. I would even go so far to say, pre-Internet distraction, there was a tapestry. a weaving of the fabric of your cultural character in sport, a mythos, conjured and nurtured for the benefit of inter-generational respect and  civility. Heck, even affection. Love you, dad.

Alas, locusts and honey will have to suffice anymore

"Oh, there you go again 15, being literal, and trying to find out what words mean."

I suppose so. Unfortunately, in my blogging experience, if you are a fan of scholarly etymology and  reasonable contextual usage, with a dash of tropism, you are now generally considered to be A REAL ASSHOLE in cyberspace.

I humbly accept your unjustified aspersions, if it means I can "pass time" peacefully, and scribble away this "old man rant" verbiage in a constructive manner, and fully exploit the legal training for which I so sadly (perhaps foolishly) overpaid.

Well, it is indeed the middle of beisból season, and my team is awesome. 

No not the Padres.

I respectfully disagree.

Having relocated to the capital of the third world, Los Angeles, in 1987, I eventually became a Dodger fan. It was like Saul on the Road to Damascus. Do as the Romans do.  I suddenly recalled my Little League team was called the "Dodgers." The circle was complete.  I had left (one of) my childhood homes (San Diego, inter alia), to live under the bright lights of Hollywood, and presto!

Assimilation happens.

Back to baseball. In lower level and recreational leagues, you may know there is a rule called "the Mercy Rule." If a team was leading by more than ten runs after three (or 4?) innings, the game is over. The team leading the game wins, even though you have not played every inning of a regulation game. Simple concept, designed more than likely to save the kids from embarrassment, as well as save the parents' time.

You may ask yourself, as I do, is there a real world equivalent of the Mercy Rule?

Have you ever seen a contest, or conflict, that reached the point where everyone thinks:

 "OMG, this is just not a fair fight. It's almost laughable to continue. We really should \just end it here. We know who will win this thing."

Oh, by the way, 

• Someone in the halls of the Supreme Court of the United States is in BIG trouble. Unless they abort the prosecution.
  

• Congress has indicted itself by sending taxpayer money to their Ukrainian subsidiaries. That should resonate well in minority communities.
  

• John Durham has obtained voluminous discovery documents pointing to a conviction of a top Democrat lawyer, who did NOT act on behalf of the Clinton campaign. Right.
  

• Trump-endorsed candidates are 58-1 (as of this post) in their primary contests. But Biden got 81 million votes.
  

• Middle Eastern governments are reportedly refusing to take calls from the POTUS. But at least we are energy indepen -- never mind.
  

• The stock market has tanked, along with everyone's (hello, Boomers) 401k retirement assets. Capitalism sucks, except when you need a cup of coffee.
  

• Inflation is approaching double digits, eating into retiree savings plans. What COVID hasn't killed, the Federal Reserve can.
  

• Interest rates are projected to rise +/- 50 basis points in 2022. But I repeat myself.
  

• Our Southern Border is worse than a sieve. It is a port of entry for scofflaws. I'm being nice here.

• The newest SCOTUS nominee cannot even attempt to define a "woman." Sheee-iiit.
  

• Parents who disagree with sexual indoctrination in public schools were labeled FBI "terrorists." Poking mama bear, eh?
  

• No one seriously believes anymore the information broadcast from mainstream sources. QED.
  

• What happened to the "pandemic?" I guess we are all sick of the lies.
  

• There is no mercy rule in real life. Only zombies and zombie companies.

• I'll stop here for brevity's sake.

If you don't know by now, the REPUBLIC of the United States was ATTACKED on Nov. 3, 2020. 

From where I sit, we are now in counter-attack mode.

See you in November.

 

 © 2022 by Roy Santonil

VIDEO -- "Mexican Reggae" (1977 - Live Version)

Start here. 

I'm visiting the Golden State right now. So this message is pre-programmed.

Singing starts at 2:10.  "Mexican Reggae" was a tentative description of the song before the group settled on "Hotel California." There is no real Hotel California. The building on the album cover is in fact the Beverly Hills Hotel on Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles. 

I lived in Los Angeles from 1988 to 1991. Growing old ain't for sissies.

"Some of the wilder interpretations of that song have been amazing. It was really about the excesses of American culture and certain girls we knew. But it was also about the uneasy balance between art and commerce."

-- Don Henley, 9/11/07

On a dark desert highway, 

Cool wind in my hair, warm smell of colitas rising up through the air.

Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light.

My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim.

I had to stop for the night.

There she stood in the doorway 

I heard the mission bell. I was thinking to myself,

"This could be Heaven or this could be Hell."

Then . . . she lit up a candle and she showed me the way 

There were voices down the corridor, I thought I heard them say:

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (any time of year) you can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she got the Mercedes Benz. 

She got a lot of pretty, pretty boys, that she calls friends.

How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.

Some dance to remember, some dance to forget.

So I called up the Captain, "Please bring me my wine."

He said, "we haven't had that spirit here since 1969."

And still those voices are calling from far away,

Wake you up in the middle of the night just to hear them say

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
They're livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise (what a nice surprise), bring your alibis

Mirrors on the ceiling, the pink champagne on ice,

And she said, "we are all just prisoners here, of our own device." 

And in the Master's chambers, they gathered for the feast.

They stab it with their steely knives, but they just can't kill the beast.

Last thing I remember, I was running for the door 

I had to find the passage back to the place I was before 

"Relax," said the night man, "we are programmed to receive."

"You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave!"

© The Eagles 

Don't give up. DON'T EVER GIVE UP.

That'll do, pig.

IN THE BEGINNING . . . 

there was "WIT, GUN, and STEIN." That was the title of my first blog. 

Some of you already knew that.

WGS existed from January 2009 to March 2011. 

In it, I mixed blood, sweat, and tears, with golf course and music reviews. Sometimes, I tried to be funny.

Not much is left of WGS, other than the internet way-back machine archives, which means some but not all of the internet, lasts forever. 

Some of the internet just dies. Notwithstanding the grandiose experiment in literary expression and political polemic, I feel successful in having conducted my verbal excercise, working through variously apt sub-titles, patching together broken phrases, just to say: "Hey. Words mean things."

For example:

 WGS -- "3 Things You Will Need For The End Times"

As it turns out, the reference to  "End Times" was a bit melodramatic. Too early, perhaps?

Wittgenstein, get it?

Another sub-title was:  

• WGS - "A Golf Blog. Between Rounds"

And, frankly, it was that, first and foremost. But the work needed more, something more than the game of golf, which I love, but still, it required something more relevant to those with ears to hear.

I tried "You Have the Floor," and "Floor It." (above)

Nah. 

Finally, I ended up with

• WGS - "Too Old To Care. Too Young To Quit." 

Ah, the sweet spot. Just the right sub-title. Explains just what I am doing, and why I do it.

Dad's death in 2011 was an actual apocalypse ... for me and for him. 

And so ended WGS.

Yet my compulsion to write would not rest. 

Writers write because their visions are their release. 

I think, yes, in the long run, ultimately, writing is a process of self-editing. And every writer's raw material, the archetypes, the ideas, myths, their experience, and opinions, exist a priori. Then they are birthed for the world at large, for those with eyes to see.

Please, Sir, More Swill

Thus spake "English Swill."

My first resurrection as a content creator turned into something more polemical than WGS. 

The Swill began publication late in 2011. 

Concurrently, I was faced with the fact that the liberal stronghold of institutional learning were gaining influence in my personal life. I began writing with greater dismay, on topics related to my observations about 21st century American life, the stark differences between conservative and progressive politics, the rickety bridge between old and young, while trying to keep faith with humor, music, and yes, more golf.  I spent years stirring digital swill with English words. It was decent.

 "Wordsmithery -- At The Bottom Of The Barrel," 

By Christmas 2018, all my efforts to provide generational guidance crumbled under the sledgehammer of corporate media marketing and outright fraudulent deception (Hello, Congressman Schiff). I even tried to write rap lyrics, a vain effort to explain my thoughts about what constitutes proper American jurisprudence (damn you, Fox Network). Sadly, only (1) one post that was served from English Swill survived the corporate pogroms of the Trump years. 

But it was one of my favorites, a classic rant on immigration policy.

Anyway, the Swill dried up because well ... you know ... the President spoke for millions, if not billions, of U.S. citizens. 

Fast forward to 2022. 

All over the globe, for the last 23 months, there's been only one pervasive topic: the COVID. With this third effort (second resurrection) - BOOMERS ANONYMOUS - I plan to go far beyond the political shills, their sketchy fuckery; beyond the vast, innumerable scams put forth by the mainstream grift, the purportedly authoritative, sources . . . on and offline.  

If you are reading this, congratulations, you have ventured light years from the mainstream.

Together we sit perched and prayerful. It is the beginning of the end of Fauci's Folly, on the verge of 'the Great Awakening," or "the Great Reset," or "the Fourth Turning," or "the Quickening," or "the 5G rollout," "the Year of the Water Tiger," or even "Jewish New Year 5782," or just plain old 2022 C.E. 

I personally have found my home ... in the shade of the freeway ... and have filled in most of the missing colors in mine and my bride's paint-by-number dreams. Generational biases have been exposed. Becoming socially relevant is irrelevant to us.  

It's Time To Own It, Boomers.

But persist. Keep runnin' down the dream, take off those dark sunglasses, and mow that lawn ... taste the wine. Frankly, my dear reader ... there still a giant load of stuff to share, a lot of worldly crap that needs a response, even if it comes off as ... back-of-the-cereal-box philosophy. 

When the inter webs were born, some corporate media mogul said,

"Content is king." 

What he forgot to remember was that the medium is still the message. 

So. 

Here we are.

Every Internet Post in the World

We're boomers. We've got decades worth of content. We've earned it.

This is OUR safe space, and your subscription seals the deal!

Share with other baby boomers. Share with an intelligent millennial or even an open minded Gen X'er, if that's not an oxymoron.

Everyone on the internet plus their Uncle Bob wants you to Like, Share, Comment, and Subscribe to their shit ... ads nauseaum. 

(Spelling intended.)

I'm shamelessly asking you to do the same. 

Don't think of it as Spam. Think of it as Corn Flakes and Milk.

 And you may ask yourself, "Why should I follow your blog, 15ML?"

No reason. It's just goddamn social media! 

But remember ... here, kids eat free.

 © 2022 by Roy Santonil