Saturday, July 4, 2020

Happy 4th of July! The Bowery of 1930 colorized

What's the 4th of July without a little color? If not from fireworks then from a black and white photo from the summer of 1930 brought into color.



Haven't done any colorizing recently but some unavoidable lulls in an Edison-Bell model 433 cathedral radio (ca 1931) restoration had left some time for other projects. This being the Bowery around Chatham Square (I think) with the 3rd Avenue Elevated in the background being about the same time as the radio when new seemed a good fit. The original B&W I found on pinterest and traced it to this fairly good sized scan from Photographium.com.

The RCA 9K3 which took up much of my time was finished and came out well-




Piping old time radio shows through this old girl sets a good mood for vintage photo colorizing.
Can't be all about politics.



Donald Cavaioli

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Degrees of Death

On the left, there is almost always a hierarchy. In victims who have grievances and needs, there are always those with greater grievance and have more needs which tends to shift around. In what is advertised as an egalitarian system, this may to those mundanes who use at least simple logic and reason seem contradictory but it isn't. Post-modernism allows for truth to exist in a superposition of many "truths" or anything the leftists wants to call "truths" at the same time. But unlike superposition in modern physics that collapse into one state when observed, Marx's cat can be not only dead and alive but in all intermediate states at the same time when the box is opened and the cat observed. The truth of post-modernism is that there is really no truth. The rank and file Marxist simply picks the one state of "truth" suitable for the moment that satisfies some emotional need or better highlights his virtue and the leadership picks the one that advances the Party's interests. So rather than puzzle things out, it's easier to do what any leftist does in this situation: Just to accept today's declaration of the hivemind on the matter and forget and deny the existence of what contradictory thing was declared true yesterday. Facts and reality be damned!

The only exception to the rule of hierarchy on the left where there is only one truth is in the matter of their enemies, i.e. anyone who disagrees even in the slightest with the dogmas of the One True Ideological religion. There is only one Devil of literally Hitler (with many faces) and his legion of witches and demons with their fixed moral character of pure evil and their insufferable fixation on fact based truthiness. And but one commandment on the matter to the faithful- Thou shalt not suffer a witch or their truth of empirical fact to live.

But all rules have exceptions to even the exceptions. Don't try to figure that out, just accept that sometimes the centrally planned and controlled mind of the leftist functions much like that of a of an OCD addled bureaucrat- all things must be categorized and sorted.

So three paragraphs of  digression and annoyingly long sentences later we have not yet come to the topic of death? You'd think any blog with such a morbid and macabre title, this author would jump right into the subject of death. Hell, the damned blog should be a grisly exposition of moldering lichs and graveyards! What gives, caretaker!

Just warming you up, dear reader. Setting the table as it were with the rotted flesh of a decayed and intellectually dead ideology before we autopsy the subject at hand.

So today we have the latest apocalypse/fear porn craze sweeping not only the nation, but the world: corona virus COVID-19. It is a most contagious and deadly plague as if the medieval black plague had a love child with the Andromeda strain creating a microbial demon spawn. Even if you can't see the hospitals overflowing with the desperately ill and dead bodies littering the streets with your lying eyes, the computer models read by the high priests of expertise assure us they are there. If not outside the really cool graphics on their xbox models then in the soon to happen terrifying second (or maybe third) wave. And since this variant of a common cold virus is so incredibly murderous and evil, death by COVID-19 has been elevated into the most worstest form of death one can experience. Worse than gunshot wounds or climate change deaths at present. Orders of magnitude more horrifying than more mundane and unimportant forms of death that don't rate on the SJW scale.

So sometimes if the Devil is death, there can be worse forms of death for which the entire might of the Managerial State must be deployed against without a moment's delay. And all actions of the State are unquestionable otherwise such doubting miscreants who question diktats or ask for proof are guilty of being in league with the demon virus. They want grandma to die! The exception to the one Devil exception is when the previous devils of gun violence, racism and climate change failed to scare the masses enough for them to allow political leaders and bureaucrats to take plenary power.

This is where the constant changing reasons for lockdowns and moving of goalposts to end it makes sense. It's a Ruling Class who although at first, not seeing its potential, came to realize that this Wuhan flu is the crisis that should be exploited to the max. It's the perfect boogeyman in that it's not only a mysterious, invisible killer but it's a personal one that can strike any individual without warning or mercy. Or at least as mainstream media propaganda makes it out to be as even the CDC stats are starting to show it to be an average cold and flu season. And it worked beautifully.

Never since September 11, 2001 have Americans been so ready willing and eager to not only surrender more of their rights and freedoms, but even better: To slavishly wear masks and stay 6 feet from each other. Depersonalized, atomized as a community, treated like a child that cannot understand what is best for him and degraded in servile obedience. Even going so far as to spend their own money on masks and gloves for the honor and privilege of entering and spending their money in a store. They tolerate this disrespect from businesses because they're too scared of the invisible killer to remember such things as the customer is the lifeblood of a business and the customer is always right.

This is not because the government has made such extraordinary claims about how dangerous this virus is with extraordinary proof given but just because our betters simply said so. Most people did not ask one single question as to why this lockdown thing with the masks and distancing stuff which was never done before in prior pandemics was really necessary. Nor did they ask that government officials prove it would be effective. Nor did the government bother to prove it anyway. As this is now the absolute worst form of death, the masses simply did as they were told like good little peasants.

We will now have to live like feudal serfs, tied to our homes and only allowed out for only essential (by official expert government definition) reasons and we must wear face masks to show our unconditional fealty to our Master's commandments. Then it's as if we expect our Master's Experts will tell us that avoiding the most deadly form of death, we can live forever. That the average age of death from Wuhan flu or by some stretched definition is about 80 years old so one would assume that's the natural human lifespan but no. We cannot lose one precious otherwise immortal life or at least have grandma in hospice care live a few months more or the younger terminally ill get their full promised 6 months to a year to live. This would be just.....wrong!

Proof be damned and anyone who is skeptical and dares asks for proof, questioning his better government expert with "Doctor" as his first name is a denier and a heathen miscreant. A heretic who is evil and wants to kill someone's grandma and so must be unfriended and cast into the void forthwith. Probably a racist and white supremacist too.

We must never, ever question any government bureaucrat with "Doctor" as his first name as he is the anointed Infallible High Priest. Any other dissenting first name Doctor must be ignored as he is in league with the Wuhan demon virus and the great Orange Satan. Nothing must shake the faith of the progressive congregation in the official narrative of today's most worst form of death ever... until it is officially changed by the officially recognized authorities of the Great Hivemind.

So our autopsy of the rancid corpse of progressive liberalism is complete and the cause of death was denial of reality, hiding behind the authority of experts worshiped as gods and an idiotic submissiveness to a narrative and agenda. An agenda whose true purpose the rank-and-file progressive liberal/Social Justice Warrior himself does not or cannot understand. Nor can the SJW notice the contradictory narratives of the Wuhan demon virus precautions and the BLM/Antifa demonstrations and riots in which all COVID-19 rules and precautions are cancelled without explanation. It seems that only Black people can die when killed by white police officers which at least for the time being is now the most worst form of death.

One would think that anyone who really follows this cult would have a serious case of whiplash from following the rapid fire narrative changes and sharp about faces of "truth" but no. The faithful progs try ever harder to keep up. They're used to the multiple realities of Marx's cat and can reverse course at a moment's notice from huffpo. Yesterday's truth is quickly forgotten in light of today's new truth. Today's cause upon which the fate of the world hangs in the balance is serious until a new, even more super serious cause comes along. The worst form of death is the worst until the Masters decide a new form of death is even worse than that. The liberal prog and SJW simply nod and obey. They then engage in purity spirals among themselves to establish status and persecute the witches and heretics who are either outright skeptics or progs who aren't pure enough.

In the end, this COVID-19 Wuhan flu thing is a political abuse of expertise and science prostituted for a political and economic agenda. We hire an expert to give us their opinion but as rational adults, we also seek out other experts' opinions, then do our due diligence and research to decide which expert opinion cost/benefit would be best for us. There are those who are incompetent imbeciles who have no other choice than to look upon government experts as infallible authorities and need some demagogue to lead them. Unfortunately, this sort of cretin and their Masters are all too ubiquitous in modern society and their fears given too much credence by Joe and Jane Normie.

Conversely there are those like a certain blogger of my acquaintance who follows the worstest form of novel virus death because he is either a virtue signalling twat or a political rent boy hoping for his Master to upgrade him from a seat in a toy government community council to run for political office. Maybe both. Either way, his mindlessly following arbitrary rules with a born again fervor while hiding behind an appeal to authority is subservience veiled with gravity. This is the hallmark of a contemptible character. Just like all the others who slavishly follow these absurd rules.



Donald Cavaioli

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

For Some Small Businesses Like Restaurants, It's Not Adapt or Die. They Don't Understand It's Just Die already.

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle: ‘Adapt or die’ — Restaurants find ways to evolve amid virus, June 22, 2020 Mark Kennedy Associated Press

The Peasant Mindset never ceases to amaze me in a horrifying sort of way. When I wrote that post, I had at least some notion that new information or observation could come along in the future that would have me revisit this theory and revise or discard it as necessary. Maybe it's better than average correct but I had no idea how accurate the theory really was. Not that it pleases me to be right, but on the contrary, I am dismayed and disgusted by it. The more the notion that on average people will behave like servile peasants has spread around the internet as many more people than myself have independently come up with the idea, I hoped more normies would have seen this and acted to prove it wrong. Joe and Jane Normie view themselves as proud Americans and nothing could be less American than being a debased slave of the State and if called out on it, they would act to refute it. I was in the end, wrong for being right.

Two of the most fundamental ideals of being an American are valuing and protecting their inalienable individual rights, protected from government encroachment by the Bill of Rights and free enterprise. But under the multi-purpose tool of this alleged demon virus, COVID-19, Joes and Janes around the country can't surrender to the plenary power of the State fast enough or more completely. Even at the cost of their own livelihoods, they will in effect, willingly commit suicide to prove what loyal little peasants they are. And in this Brooklyn Daily Eagle article, behold the once proud Americans castrate themselves out of unreasoning fear and obsequiousness before the politicians and bureaucrats who are supposed to be the public's servants.

The restaurants owners have given up any pretense of government by and for the people for the "new normal" of micro-managed government control down to how many patrons my dine there, that salt and pepper shakers cannot be on the tables and how many feet apart patrons must be- or else. Patrons are even required to wear face masks while alone in a restroom so to enforce this edict, how long will it be before cameras are mandated in bathrooms. The panopticon taken to levels undreamed of by Orwell and would have made the likes of Hitler, Stalin and Mao blush.

Not that any of our Betters have bothered to prove that this virus is in any way novel or deadly, or that there is any science behind this anal-retentive hypochondria beyond hysterical claims based on wildly inaccurate computer models. The facts even from the CDC show COVID-19 isn't worse than an average cold and flu season. So why go through all this shutdown/lockdown essential/non-essential, masks and social distancing nonsense? Because government apparatchiks said so, that's why and that's all the filthy peasants need to know.

These restaurant owners seem to forget that that as taxpayers and voters, that the politicians and bureaucrats they kowtow to are in fact their employees, not their masters even if politicians threaten their licenses. Does the Chamber of Commerce have no lobbying power? Do these business owners not make contributions to political campaigns such that they have some influence with elected politicians? Do they not vote in elections? Can they not band together for a class action lawsuit that would force the state of New York to prove their claims of how dangerous this COVID-19 virus is and prove the science behind and necessity of all these draconian regulations? Did anyone not notice how all the mask wearing, social distancing and prohibition of demonstrations and groups not to exceed 10 people have gone completely out the window in light of the George Floyd/BLM/Antifa demonstrations, riots and looting? How many businesses were further hurt by this while the city and state stood by and did nothing. In fact, how many government apparatchiks with some sort of medical degree declared these events as good and will cause no public health problems. What more proof does anyone need to see that city, state and federal government officials who have imposed this control freak's Orwellian wet dream on us were lying all along?

To these restaurant and bar owners who believe they can conform to this artificial "new normal" and survive, I tell you this: You'll lose eventually because the powers that be have decreed it. Our Masters have found that when people get together and socialize, the peasants get into such mischief as questioning the official narrative, voting for Orange man bad, Boris Johnson and Brexit and develop the temerity and hubris to live above their lowly station. The peasant begins to see himself as the equal of his Master and this must be stopped. No amount of whining "not me","it wasn't me doing these things", "I'm a loyal progressive liberal" will matter. Your goodthinker progressive credentials and past acts will not save you from Witch Hunter Karen.

The U.S. Constitution has long been a thorn in the side of the Managerial Ruling Class and has been de-facto overthrown with governors and mayors illegally ruling through fiat. We must not stand for it and must vote all politicians who went along with this out of office. No exceptions for your Great Guy.  If I was correct in the Peasant Mindset then I may well be correct now in what I write. If nothing else, you can have pride in yourselves as competent, productive adults who contribute to their communities and local economies. Otherwise, you'd be forced to eke out a marginal existence as incompetent imbeciles wholly dependent on the opinions and decisions of government experts fetishized as infallible high priests. You built businesses and worked too hard for them to now accept living on your knees for the reason a politician or bureaucrat merely said so.

There is no longer any room in the new perfect planned and controlled cashless society for such small fry as yourselves so if you survive these regulations, a new invisible killer unicorn threat will be manufactured with even more stringent rules to finally kill you all off. As the length of time for such non-essential businesses as yours and the reasons for it were changed so many times already do you not see you were being lied to? Understand that all the virtue signalling, fealty and groveling to your Betters will not save you as it shows how weak and cowardly you are. It will only make your destruction more satisfying to our political masters as they slowly crush you. Your dying squeals for mercy and of loyalty while on your knees will be sweet music to their ears. Don't believe the lies, don't meekly accept this new normal. Fight back now before it's too late.


Donald Cavaioli

Monday, May 25, 2020

Memorial Day

This is an especially poignant memorial day when we remember the veterans who made the ultimate sacrifice for this country, her people, the constitution and our freedoms.

Heroes are not extraordinary people doing extraordinary things but average people who come to see there are greater things in life than themselves. And come to understand that if something isn't worth fighting for even risking their lives for, then of what value could that thing be.

Have we honored them or have we made all they fought and bled for into a farce.

Look around you.
Governors and Mayors have taken plenary power and rule by fiat. In taking such extraordinary measures ostensibly to protect us from the ravages of COVID-19, they offered no extraordinary proof of its necessity. A once free people are no longer free to attend religious services, congregate together or demonstrate for redress of grievance. Nor can they appear in public unless they wear a face mask and maintain a distance of 6 feet between them. People are obligated to wear face masks for the privilege to enter a business and spend there money there. We have now willingly separated ourselves into such arbitrary categories as "essential" and "non-essential" jobs and businesses. There is now such a thing as essential and non-essential people by extension. Even swimming at the beach, a memorial day, beginning of summer tradition enjoying the freedoms dearly bought for us by the sacrifices of our servicemen is now forbidden.

We have allowed ourselves to be turned into dependent and helpless children who are unable to decide for ourselves what is best for us. Just as we have turned our elected politicians and bureaucrats, those who are our employees, into all-powerful parents who command our absolute obedience and whose word cannot be questioned.

Worse is the docile and slavish attitude of the majority of people who adhere to these diktats without question. Cowards who willingly surrendered the Bill of Rights in fear of an exaggerated menace. A lockdown said to be only for 2 weeks to prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed changed to 4 weeks to "flatten the curve" then more than 2 months to "save on precious life" ignoring all the other precious lives affected or even lost due to the decisions of politicians. Not even as the time frame extended and the excuses changed, the curve flattened, did people realize they were being lied to the entire time. The despotic rules applied will never be fully rescinded and the social mores changed with depersonalizing and ultimately dehumanizing forced wearing of masks and "social distancing" will become "our new normal". Something that should be regarded gravely and rejected as it will serve only to socially isolate people into atomized individuals suspicious and fearful of each other. Protests and rallies will be no more and unnecessary as individualized, non-essential cattle have no voice or will to resist. They will only silently maintain their mandatory 6 foot distancing as they are inevitably marched into the abattoir.

We have shamed ourselves and the memory of those lost in defending our country, our freedoms and our way of life. We've rendered their sacrifices pointless and even ludicrous. Not because we were conquered from without but because we cravenly destroyed ourselves from within. The men who fought the dictators in the second world war now have their children and grandchildren applauding and praising dictators in Nurse Ratchet drag here at home.



Donald Cavaioli

Sunday, May 17, 2020

Morons like me- Comments on the Newtown Pentacle post "Sunniest Room", posted May 12, 2020

Expanded from a comment originally from the Newtown Pentacle post titled "Sunniest Room", by Mitch Waxman, May 12, 2020.

We all make mistakes, going along with something because everyone else was doing it only to later realize how absurd and foolish we were. Like thinking polyester disco clothes or leisure suits looked cool. Realizing the mistake and fixing it is what we must do. Better late than never.

One way to do it: Changing one's position slowly and by small degrees over a period of time is the best way to do an about face. Hopefully there are no wits or wags out there to recall one's original, shall we say, not very well thought out stance, which would highlight one's gullibility. Well, we're all guilty sometimes of the proverbial brain fart. I do also count myself as 'present' in that dubious roll call.

Just in the aftermath, we're left with the sticky problem of extricating ourselves with whatever shreds of dignity we can muster. The last thing one should do is respond with sobbing and railing against their interlocutor as picking their arguments apart like some evil black raven.

That's OK for the cad or bounder but completely undignified for the learned and bookish sort of gentleman. One should realize that they should have constructed a better thesis and accept the criticism with stoic equanimity.

Yes, even with the seat of one's trousers torn away, we should hold our heads high as we walk away with our bare arses hanging out. Because sooner or later we 'll turn a corner where our detractors will no longer see us and distance will fade their mocking laughter. Stiff upper lip, keep calm and carry on and such.

OK, so what does the previous doggerel have to do with this Newtown Pentacle post or even anything sensible? Nothing, I suppose.

Hold on a sec! What's this: "Before any of you Libertarians, Bible Thumpers, LaRouchites, supply siders, Tea Partiers, or bleach drinkers accuse me of changing my tune on the Corona crisis… I’m as frustrated as everyone else is right now,..."

Is this the start of that slow about face or is it more "damn the iceberg, full speed ahead! Trust our experts, we're unsinkable!" I dunno. Maybe I'm one of those dullard Libertarians, Bible Thumpers, supply siders, Tea Partiers, bleach drinkers or just a moron.

We continue: "This isn’t a conspiracy, it’s a public health emergency. The kind which has historically scythed through the human population about once every hundred years or so."

So this super virus is the love child of the Andromeda strain and the black death. Only we can't see the sick everywhere around us and Eric Idle pulling a cart shouting "bring out your dead" but our experts and Mitch can. If any bleach drinking, bible thumping, libertarian supply siding Tea Partier says different, then they're conspiracy theorists which means their questions may be summarily dismissed because they drink bleach for heaven's sake. Furthermore as I quote from  Planet Moron:

"If you are confused with some of the media accounts regarding the Covid-19 virus, it could simply be because you are still relying on “old science. This is a common error.”...[snip]..." Old science was grounded on the fundamental principle that conclusions must remain subject to scrutiny and therefore need to change in accordance with new data and observations whereas New Science is grounded in the fundamental principle of because I said so." 

As President Fauci and the models said so seconded by our own Humble Narrator therefore it must be true even if the actual data says different. Got it. And for those who cannot get it even if they don't get it, go drink some more bleach.

"Those of you unfamiliar with New Science might mistakenly believe it sounds an awful lot like religion. Nothing could be further from the truth....[snip]...In stark contrast, people who adhere to religion are Republicans [Libertarians, Bible Thumpers, LaRouchites, supply siders, Tea Partiers, or bleach drinkers-my addition] And that’s why smart people know they should stick to science. Science helps everything make sense. There's no reason to be confused anymore. For example, still trying to understand why engaging in anonymous sex hookups on Tinder is okay but shaking hands isn’t? Because I said so."

There you go. Quod erat demonstratum. The CoronAmerica daemon virus is the worstest we've evah faced and all praise to his Celestial Majesty Andy Cuomo of Nipplerings (and seconded by our Humble Narrator with spaniel like fidelity) for shutting everything down lest we all die because He and the High Priests of Expertise said so. Stay at home, wear your mask properly or face the wrath of the NYPD, stay 6 feet apart and line up outside half empty stores like good Soviet citizens even if our betters do not.

So it isn't simply because I said so but do as I say and not as I do. That's okay with you, isn't it Mitch? Sure! Because it's a public health emergency even if the political and upper bureaucratic establishment don't follow the rules they impose on us. Members of Congress are exempted from the covid vaccine mandate mere peasants can lose their jobs or be denied medical treatment if they refuse. Pay no attention to the apparatchik behind the curtain or the bitter almond aftertaste of the Kool-Aid you're drinking. I suppose I'm the fool to disagree in light of the apocalyptic ravages of the daemon virus only the wiser and more enlightened can see. Fools had ne'er less grace in a year...

I guess I'm a truculent moron who adheres to hopelessly outdated notions of science and proof. As well, I have no credentials to gainsay my betters who are entitled to make ex cathedra pronouncements. But even a bleach drinking moron should conduct himself with proper dignity especially when bookish and learned gentlemen play the fool. I shall now walk away, trounced and bare arsed, with stoic equanimity.



Donald Cavaioli


P.S.

To be fair and play devil's advocate, I realize this may (or may not) be just some of Mitch's shtick In which case I would owe him an apology with the excuse that sometimes it's hard to tell when he's being serious or when he's putting you on as he has a perfect sense of timing and is very subtle when laying it on. I'd owe you several rounds of drinks at Doyle's, payable on demand, if it ever opens again. But he does make one of the best conversationalists or sparring partners and sometimes it's irresistible to make jokes on. This post is tongue in cheek so the reader shouldn't take my comments here too seriously. I really do like the guy.

Monday, March 2, 2020

World's Fair Special streetcar 1938

Been slacking off here, with an excellent excuse, of course, but I'm back. I wouldn't just abandon my duties at the mausoleum without saying goodbye.







Here's a PCC car in its original livery of Cordova brown running along the private right of way on Rodman Street (College Point Blvd today). The World's Fair special started at Brooklyn Borough Hall along the Flushing Ave. line then connected to the Grand Ave. line to terminal on Rodman Street next to the fair grounds. This is one of two brand new PCC cars that operated into Queens County as who would waste brand new, state-of-the-art trolleys on Queens when the PCC fleet can be operated in Brooklyn. To my knowledge, there is no existent original color photo of a PCC car in this livery so I just had to colorize this one.

Another point of note is the 10 cent fare listed on the white card on the PCC's front instead of the 5 cents B&QT was permitted to charge. The City did step in and force B&QT to stop this sacrilege against the 5 cent fare but then charged 10 cents as the fare for their IND World's Fair subway line. When you own the law, you don't have to follow it yourself.

The original B&W photo is from, as usual, NYC Subway.org carefully hidden behind 'World' sub-menu.



Donald Cavaioli

Sunday, February 16, 2020

Vision Zero doesn't work

This obsession progressive liberals have with creating ever more laws to force people to obey the existing laws that they aren't is a topic which I've touched on before in previous posts especially in regards to gun laws. But I thought I had written specifically about this Vision Zero thing here at the sepulchrum but apparently not. I must have it confused with posted comments on Queenscrap and the Newtown Pentacle. What can I say, I'm getting old.

However aside from a tangental subject on bicycle lanes where I wrote that being an entitled asshole with a lack of civility and exercise of common sense which cuts across all demographics is the problem, not lack of more laws or bike lanes and I might add more cameras. To actually believe it is possible to reduce all traffic accidents with fatalities to zero, let alone any and all traffic accident for that matter, is completely impossible unless someone engineers a new, flawless human who never makes mistakes.

So until that happens, this vision zero thing is an idea born of either industrial grade imbeciles or grifters of the political or activist stripe with an altogether different ulterior motive. Either way, it will not work for its stated purpose because it does not properly address the human element but maybe it was never supposed to work in the first place.

Here is an article from FEE detailing the progress of Vision Zero in that progresive sewer of Los Angeles. To any Angeleno who might take offense, NYC is just as bad of an leftist open sewer and festering progressive liberal boil on the ass of America so nobody's getting an attitude here. As to Vision Zero, it's just as I've said.


Donald Cavaioli

Friday, February 14, 2020

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Meeker Avenue at Penny Bridge ca 1936

Sometimes it's nice to escape back to a simpler time.


Here is Meeker Avenue on the Brooklyn side of the old Penny Bridge barely visible on the far right. This is probably around 1936 at the latest as with the completion of the Koscuiuszko Bridge, it was demolished. The photographer however, was far more concerned with this Stephenson model 1907 car at the terminal stop of the Meeker Ave line of the B&QT when it was a privately owned railroad company. The end of the track and catenary wires clearly visible on the right.  I like the little green convenience store, if that's what it is, with the coca-cola sign on front. Getting the colors of the Stephenson right was tough because these cars were originally convertible cars- double ended open motorman control and sides can be removed in the summer to permanently a fully closed car, front and rear doors with parts of slightly differing shades of red added.

The original black and white photo was found in the hidden back 'World' menus of NYC Subway.org where the trolley photos are carefully concealed (those ERA types, I tell ya!) and by myself colorized in defiance.



Donald Cavaioli

Monday, February 10, 2020

When the far right mirrors the far left

The model of the political spectrum I favor in a previous post here makes a prediction that can be tested that could strengthen it as a more logically consistent and better model than the horseshoes, circles and pretzels favored by others. It predicts that the extreme far right and the extreme far left would hold similar positions but for diametrically opposite reasons. They would be mirror twins.

For those who only look at the subject superficially, it would be understandable how they make the error of bending the spectrum to make the two ends meet. If A = C and B = C then A must equal B and they would still be wrong if the comparison were between libertarian anarchism of the right endpoint with communist anarchism of the left endpoint. One needs to look just beneath the surface to understand the differences in motivation and ideals involved. But as I have said, their endpoints are only similar as anarchism itself means different things to the right and the left.

For the left, anarchism is the end product of Marxist dialectic materialism, the synthesis after the communist anarchist antithesis destroys the current "capitalist" thesis. In Marxism, this synthesis is undefined as to what exactly it will be other than the state (the dictatorship of the proletariat interim phase) withering away under communism. As it is in the future, it is as unknowable today as capitalism and the industrial revolution would have been during the earlier patriarchy and feudal phases. This new synthesis is not only inevitable but the final stage of human history.

For the far right anarchists, there would simply be a stateless society as Man, in their view, is a naturally rational economic actor, a fundamental property of human nature as they see it, where all people would keep and dispose of the products of their labor as they see fit. No courts, no military, no police, no national borders, no basic services as each individual will see to these matters themselves or at worst, a minimal form of government for at most basic services like water, sanitation and sewage. It would be a society, if you could call it that, where each person is a country unto himself and his national boundaries don't extend beyond the tip of his own nose. Courts would only exist to protect individual property rights. Overall in the libertarian society, everybody does as he pleases and the whole of the law shall be do as thou wilt as long as it does not violate the non-aggression principle- another fundamental property of human nature in libertarianism.

So both believe in a stateless or nearly stateless society but the critical difference is the communist will have the fruits of individual labor equally distributed throughout the community whereas the in the libertarian anarchist society it's every man for himself, getting by or not based only on one's individual talent, ability and drive.

One interesting side note is in the dissident right there is an interesting similarity to Marxist material dialectics where some believe in either withdrawing from participation in the political process and allowing the political and economic system to collapse on its own or voting for the most extreme leftist to speed up the collapse. It is as if they are the antithesis in a sort of passive-aggressive  conflict with the present thesis and as with the communists, the future synthesis cannot be described in either how it will come to be or what exactly it will look like. It will just happen and it will work out in favor of the dissident righters in a sort of libertarianish (although DR'ers seem to hate libertarians as apostates are wont to do) society and this is inevitable because they have the best ideas. Again the right mirrors the left with opposite expectations and opposite outcomes. Even with tactics employed in the antithesis-thesis conflict itself, the right is passive where the left is active.

However, it is disturbing how this sect of the right seems quite comfortable with Marxists concepts like material dialectics and their acceptance of blurring the definitions of words and phrases such as their refusing to define the 'right' as anything more than the 'not-left'. As well as their distrust of corporations and big banks and seeing them as a greater evil than big managerial government. But as I've previously noted, the dissident right appears to consist of libertarian and objectivist apostates and heretics with some disgruntled blue-collar, big pro-union, old-school New Dealer Democrats thrown in. So it should not be too surprising to find them using New Deal rhetoric and ideas. Just as it should not be surprising that many DR'ers being from the blue-collar and suburban middle-class strivers set would think that having a lot of money translates into power- If I were a rich man, with my gold alone I'd rule over the men with the guns. Completely absurd. No understanding whatsoever of the difference between influence and power.

When you use the right model, understanding the present and predicting the future becomes much easier.




Sunday, February 9, 2020

The People's Banana Empire's New 5 Year Plan which will take 20 years for Traffic Reduction Through Eliminating Roadway Lanes

From The Brooklyn Daily Eagle: Brooklyn-Queens Expressway panel delivers long-awaited recommendations by Mary Frost, January 31, 2020

Our glorious People's Rulers have devised a magnificent new plan to rebuild the aging Brooklyn-Queens Expressway in such a way as to reduce traffic by removing a lane of traffic. Now to the uninspired simpleton, not intellectually and politically advanced enough to comprehend this plan would make the atrociously insipid argument that removing a lane of traffic would increase and greatly slow traffic on the remaining two lanes. Absolutely not! For as our cosmically intelligent liberal betters have long since known that as building an extra lane on highways causes more cars to spontaneously appear through mechanical abiogenesis, then the contrary must be true that eliminating a lane from the highway will cause cars and trucks to be spontaneously annihilated.

A BQE Panel formed by Our Most Wise and Benevolent Ruler, Mayor de Blasio under the astute leadership of Carlo Scissura has definitively stated that this shall be a monumental improvement in traffic flow as it will allow broken down vehicles or ones involved in a traffic accident a shoulder upon which to await response of the appropriate officials. The return of both way tolls with high speed E-ZPass on the Verrazzano Bridge instead of one double toll with high speed E-ZPass would reduce traffic by some technical means that are so advanced that only Mr. Scissura and his high priests in the construction industry could fathom it. Thus, is the definitive ex-cathedra pronouncement on the matter. All other ideas submitted by the lower orders of the community were summarily disposed of in the circular file amidst some Jovian mirth.

Our masters should be given praise for being gracious enough to at least pretend that they cared what the filthy peasant masses thought and allowed the simpering fools to place their hopelessly simplistic ideas at the feet of their betters. The Official Plan is absolutely the best and shall work flawlessly because our betters have decreed it.

It should not cause any suspicion of a vested interest whatsoever that Mr. Scissura is the president and CEO of the New York Building Congress, an advocacy and lobbying group for the construction industry. That this fellow would be taking a 1.5 mile repair project and ridiculously expanding it to a unnecessary gargantuan project only so he and his buddies in the industry can reap an obscene fortune through crony-capitalism. There should be no censorious conspiracy theories that this is just a crony capitalist and politically powerful construction union feeding frenzy of public monies. The aging 1.5 mile section of the BQE is really in need of repair and it is absolutely necessary to re-construct the entire BQE to make it a 2 lane highway because.... you know.... reasons and stuff, save the planet from global weather change, prevent the return of Noah's flood (as Gaia is wroth at us), the sustainable eco-friendly thingie and more. Why, the whole blasted thing absolutely must be "re-thought", "re-imagined", and "re-worked" not to make consultant fees and allow for politically connected groups to perform endless publicly financed environmental impact, feasibility and planning studies. Not to allow more activist and lobbyist snouts in the public trough to feed for the decades it would take to complete this behemoth masterpiece, if it is ever really and finally completed, that is. But this is because they can and because our betters said it is necessary and this is all we ignorant, unwashed peasants need to know. To say anything else would be as rude and uncouth as casting aspersions of corruption upon this paragon of wisdom and virtue, our dear leader, Mayor de Blasio and our world-famous super-competent, honest and corruption-free city government.(please clap)

Nothing can contradict the official narrative of higher leftist moral truths and progressive canon as any truths based on objective reality are mere conspiracy theories promulgated by naughty rightwing badthinkers even if backed up by facts. Facts and objective reality, sir, are the devil's playthings.


Donald Cavaioli

Saturday, February 8, 2020

A Critique of the American Right Strategy (or Lack Thereof) Part 3

Parts 1 is here and part 2 is here


So I've finally got around to finishing this post which started several months ago and grew to such lengths as I began exploring this idea that I decided to break it into 3 separate walls of text and still feel that there's much I didn't cover properly. And after much editing and re-editing, I still don't think the writing flows smoothly enough and is still missing points I should have made. But as they say- either get down to business or get off the pot so finally I got down to business.

Simply put, the right needs to reach out to and if not attract and convert more moderate middle Americans then to at least have them more sympathetic to the philosophy and goals of the right. For the most part, this means soft-peddling the previously mentioned segments of the right I critiqued rather than completely reading them out of the movement except of course, in extreme cases. Besides the obvious cranks and weirdos, there should be no place for the alt-leftists of national socialism and those who advocate for unprovoked violence against non-whites and starting race wars. The other rightists might still have contributions to make outside of their pet ideas or peeves even if I disagree with some of their positions. The right needs all the allies they can get.  As one last criticism of the alt and dissident right, by reading out the entirety of the conservative movement, are they not as guilty as when they criticize the Buckley conservatives for reading out the John Birchers and neo-confederates? Although Buckley and his NRO followers in the end failed as their critics charge and have in fact shifted into neo-liberalism, imperialism and social and political positions taken by 1950's and 60's Democrat liberals, these people, mostly professional pundits, are in fact, a minority of those who identify as mainstream conservatives. And again I ask the dissident and alt-right (if any still exist unironically) where are your achievements and successes? Did the Z man or Vox Day manage to eject the men in sundresses from out of the women's restroom yet? Still waiting, guys.

Proposed solution:
As conservatism is more familiar to Joe and Jane Normie and if reformed as the groypers attempted, can be valuable as a bridge between the more nationalist dissident right and middle America. That the mainstream rank-and-file conservative might still hold to a civic national/propositional nation of immigrants position, support of President Trump's make America great again more nationalistic position and support for the border wall show an openness to reconsider civic nationalism. They might therefore be more amenable to reason and this line should be pursued which will lead to a realization that its underlying "blank slate" model of humanity is likewise false. It should be stressed that noticing differences between peoples and cultures is not racism or does not necessarily mean one is better or superior to the other but simply acknowledging reality with no hate involved. So rather than recriminations of "boomercons" and further alienating conservatives who might otherwise move more towards nationalism, the dissident right should forego puerile name calling and vapid provincialism and consider forming alliances with them. Nor would it hurt if the conservatives were allowed to retain their own banner rather than forcing them to drop it in favor of identifying only as dissident right or alt-right (of the non-Spencerian flavors). The tact of "you're with us only under our banner (we're number one, huzzah!) and in complete lockstep with us or you are against us" serves only the left's so far successful drive to destroy the disarrayed and atomized right in detail.

Finally, the religion thing must be considered. Although it would set the teeth of right-leaning atheists on edge, there cannot be a strong concept of morality without it. Man will only obey the morality revealed by a power higher than himself as an absolute and eternal truth. This morality adhered to by the people en masse is necessary to the function of a high trust culture under a constitutional republic and a common religion is part of what holds a culture and community together. A strong commonly held moral order along with civic engagement by the average citizen is what keeps government honest by holding the bad guys accountable when found. So let the atheists get over their daddy issues and at least accept and support cultural Christianity even if they do not wish to participate in a religion.

I don't expect these ideas to gain any traction among libertarians, their apostates and heretics in the dissident right and alt-right because of their individualism preferences so a centralized ideology or philosophy around which all can coalesce simply isn't in their natures. Nor the mainstream conservatives who likewise share this individualist bent but are still waiting for permission to reject the failures of civic nationalism and the blank slate theory without fear of being called racist. All in all, the American right has accepted too many of the left's moral premises with elements of the far right viewing themselves as a passive-aggressive antithesis in material dialectics waiting in Galt's Abbey for the crash and the as yet unknowable new synthesis to spontaneously emerge. However, in the meantime, we'll continue to fight more among ourselves rather than the left because, hey, we're the American right. It's what we do.


Donald Cavaioli

Friday, February 7, 2020

The Psychic Inquisitors Know You Are a Racist Thought Criminal Even If You Don't Say or do Anything Racist

It seems the White Supremacist Satan has been abroad throughout the land seducing presumably white proles to release their inner racist demon and go on a frenzied black mass of hanging banners that cause white liberal progressive soyflakes unspeakable levels of butthurt and badfeelz. But fear not, gentle readers, for the Psychic Inquisitors are on the case.

From the 'I don't know how I missed this gem of assholery' files and recorded for all prosperity to be gawped at by the masses by our glorious people's heroes of journalistic labor of The Brooklyn Daily Eagle:

Bay Ridge unites against white nationalist recruitment written by staff, January 6, 2020

Indeed, a highly diverse group of white people transplanted to Brooklyn from around the United States gathered to gasp in horror before falling into an exaggerated swoon and make angry NPC noises at the display of a banner hung by what they describe as "nazis" with allusions to World War II. It were as if this group, identified as Patriot Front, were capable of time travel, resurrecting a German alt-left socialist party that has been defunct for nearly 75 years and maybe even clone Hitler too! All by the devilish witchcraft of hanging banners. Feel the power of hate, man! Like with the Dark Side of the Force, anything is possible.

As an aside, the rally was organized by Fight Back Bay Ridge with help from the Bay Ridge for Social Justice and, drumroll please....The Democratic Socialists of America, The Arab Association of NY, and The Arab Women's Voice . A strange combination of the first two being white Midwestern regional and ethnic chameleons who usually support illegal immigrant causes because of their phobia of being "othered" and pathological need to be accepted by foreigners. This possibly due to traumatic school experiences of being social rejects and their inability to understand that nobody liked them because they're detestable people. Then the DSA, a veritable circus of degenerate assclowns whose collective psychological abnormalities would fill volumes of the DSM. But the last two? The Arab American Association of NY which had or has Linda Sarsour as a member, which was founded by her father's cousin, Basemah Atweh and seems comfortable with Linda's more colorful comments towards whites, Jews and anyone who asks about Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood or if any politician tries to take away its tax dollar funding. And then The Arab Women's Voice, a political consultant firm. Definitely some big money and political influence backing this little hipster honkfest as AANY not only receives public money from NY but also has the North Star fund which gets funding from old daddy moneybags, Soros.

Strange bedfellows if one were to consider that Muslims tend to view most progressive liberal positions with a jaundiced eye such as gay rights and women's rights. So to find white progressive liberals allied with Muslim groups one must wonder if the progs are simply sanctimonious hypocrites who only seek to destroy their own country and fellow citizens, weapons-grade stupid or some combination of both. End aside.

So in this article we come to find the offending banner had written upon it "Support American workers". The unspired, un-woke dullard might look at this and say "so what?" why should we be against American workers? Isn't the left all about the workers, even the American ones? On the surface, this and the other banners seem like innocuous patriotic platitudes. Just as the Patriot Front website doesn't seem to mention anything about race at all unless I missed the time when 'American' was designated as a race and which I am informed by leftists that race does not exist. A contradiction which only progressive liberals with their highly advanced emotional intelligence can puzzle out. There's not even a mention of the infamous "Jewish Question" or JQ to the cognoscenti. Proof that PF is a racist front?! They don't need no stinking proof!

On the question of Patriot Front being a coven of hateful white supremacists haters there can be no doubt as the Psychic Inquisitors of the ADL and the SPLC were not fooled by the lack of Ku Klux Klan regalia or overt panegyrics to Hitler and Nazism. No sir! Both the ADL and the SPLC had already placed this heinous group of thought criminals in double secret probation.

The Witch Sniffers immediately detected the effluence of hellish sulfur wafting from PF's website, expert cryptographers using special secret decoder rings broke the codes used to disguise their evil plot to do....uh...bad stuff... and the psychic detectives read every member's mind and found them all to be possessed by the daemon Racism.  Furthermore, any lack of racism or denial of racism is proof positive of racism. Elementary. Case closed, QED.

In the end, this demonstration was a complete success as a group of white progressive left people honked and quacked in consternation like a flock of angry geese and ducks, tore down the offending banner and thus prevented white non-Jewish proles from seeing it and magically triggering them to join White Supremacist Satan's unholy legions. Civilization was saved. Forward, comrades, forward!



Donald Cavaioli






Wednesday, February 5, 2020

Random Photo


This RCA 9K3 has been occupying some time in restoration. Chassis is done and the cabinet is in the final stages of refinishing.





Got 2 drafts on other stuff I should get done by tomorrow or the next day. But if anyone needs an old vacuum tube radio restored, you know who to call.




Donald Cavaioli

Monday, February 3, 2020

1940's Surf Avenue colorized

A quick look into a long gone world:


And what's more lost world than the B&QT trolleys?
Here at Surf Avenue and W.37th Street terminal is the old workhorse John Stephenson model 1907 car. The motorman is pulling down and securing the now front trolley pole in preparation of heading back to the opposite terminal stop.

Original B&W photo, as usual for trains and trolleys is from NYC Subway.org


Donald Cavaioli

Saturday, February 1, 2020

Modern American Expectations of Political Candidates

“It was inevitable under a monarchy, however benevolent the monarch. The old virtues disappear. Independence and frankness are at a discount. Complacent anticipation of the monarch's wishes is then the greatest of all virtues. One must either be a good monarch like yourself, or a good courtier like myself—either an Emperor or an idiot.”
― Robert Graves, Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina


I read this article in Crisis Magazine, President, for Life by Austin Ruse regarding a colleague and friend, Jonathan Last, executive editor of Bulwark, views on President Trump as a pro-life supporter. Long story short, Ruse feels Last's never-Trumper attitude colors his perception about the depth and sincerity of Trump's pro-life stance that in fact Trump is not pro-life insofar as Last's "seamless garment" all or nothing political interpretation would have it.

The article itself is good and in a way depicts the typical political never-Trumper view that Trump is the Orange Satan from whom absolutely nothing good comes. But what caught my attention more is the reactions in the comments section. Forget the never-Trumpers and the disdain of the mainstream moderate liberals but what I found interesting was the reaction of the moderate to moderate conservative normies. Many of them mostly support Trump but they find him to be coarse and uncouth which seems to weigh more heavily on them than Trump's competence or accomplishments.
This, I believe, is something I would call the television commercial effect.

As the prevalence of television in the American home increased since the 1950's and 60's, the method of advertisers changed from simply touting the superiority of a product as in radio to a more visual appeal. Form over function, style and slick, glossy image over the dry technical points. The look, optics and visual appeal also took root in advertising political candidates when not engaged in mud-slinging against their opponent. Kennedy was thought to have won a debate with Nixon simply because he looked more telegenic than a Nixon who was still recovering from an illness and looked pale. What viewer would have remembered the dry details of Soviet ICBMs versus U.S. ICBM's or how Castro's Cuba affects U.S. national security or which candidate was a stronger opponent of Soviet communist expansionism. John Lindsay was elected mayor of New York City in 1966 on the strength of his movie star good looks and re-elected on the same even if he was an incompetent mayor.

Gradually, the Madison Avenue Admen began marketing politicians as if they were advertising lite beer- weak, watery and flavorless. Even the mud-slinging began to be more moderated. Political candidates are now expected to be as watery and flavorless as lite beer, giving carefully worded speeches tailored to the audience's political preferences. If not answering direct questions with a yes, no and but on the other hand, politicians will either tell a particular group what they want to hear or keep the speech vague enough so like a blank screen, the audience will project their own desires onto it. Then came Donald J. Trump with  his direct, in-your-face, pull no punches style more typical of Queens, NY natives than the usual polished milquetoast politician.

Now of course, there are exceptions to the rule that pop-culture views as acceptable. People of color candidates and honorary people of color such as homosexuals and Jewish candidates are permitted to be bombastic or obnoxious and make some outrageous statements because they are considered "victims" and have the right to "fight back" against their perceived oppressors. But of course not straight, white Christian males and absolutely not ever Republicans of any type. Republicans are not permitted to even respond to any Democrat's most outrageous attacks. Nor is it ever acceptable for any politician to criticize the mainstream media. This is what television has taught generations of Americans to expect as normal and proper political debate and discourse. This is the only acceptable way for politicians to behave. And Trump breaks every one of these rules and a few more unwritten rules besides. This flummoxes the normies and puts Trump beyond the pale of civilization itself.

Normie is aghast that Trump hits back when hit, uses twitter to do an end-run around of the mainstream media and contradicts and talks back to the talking heads on the TV news. But normie is not historically aware enough to understand that in the bygone age before TV, politicians were expected to answer questions directly, explain their platform plainly and in detail, to be forthright and to stand up for himself when criticized or in debate.  And perhaps what would be considered today to be the worst sin of all, to be an unabashed nationalist and patriot supporting American interests over all others. Even up through the 1980's, giving vague yes, no and maybe answers and flip-flopping on issues was considered disingenuous and a sign of bad character. Nowadays, it's considered de rigueur for uniparty candidates and viewed as "nuanced" and somehow smart and "wonkish" by normies.

The worst part of this is that the average American is not even aware of how their perceptions of what constitutes a proper politician have been altered to suit the needs of the managerial state and to bow before the altar of globalism. All along, a slave's collar was fastened around their neck and they've been lead down the garden path into a system that works to their detriment that they're beginning to notice. For all his brashness and crudeness, Trump is the right man in the right place to break this illusion if he does nothing else. Now, if only normie would fully wake up.



Donald Cavaioli

Friday, January 31, 2020

Random Photo




Harry Houdini- Still there.

Busy today, be back tomorrow.


Donald Cavaioli

Thursday, January 30, 2020

Bergen Street Brooklyn late 1940's recolored


Bergen Street and Washington Avenue sometime before July 20, 1947 when the Bergen St. trolley line became the B65 bus. The neighborhood was much less busy and less traffic in the street than today. Looks like a nice place to live. The trolley car is John Stephenson 1907 model still going strong after 40 years in service if a bit worn.

The original B&W photo was from NYC Subway.org because they have a good collection of photos of decent size and good quality for colorizing.


Donald Cavaioli

Wednesday, January 29, 2020

Divide and Conquer

Since the 1930's, the ruling class here in the U.S., especially the old-money, northeastern establishment WASPs of New York, have been  fascinated by Marxist Leninist totalitarianism.  Although, at first they were horrified at the anarchist and communist bomb throwing and rioting antics as southern and eastern European immigrants used American society as a punching bag in their proxy war of revenge against the rulers of their home countries. It was the twisted emotional satisfaction of after being beaten up by a bigger kid, then going out and beating up another, smaller kid combined with a satanic preference for ruling in hell rather than serving in heaven. After all, the individual liberties and freedoms guaranteed by the constitution were easy for the Marxists to exploit.

Marxism was before the 1930's a dreadful anathema to this clique of staid, well-heeled  blue blooded, heritage Americans who were accustomed to their inherited wealth and government positions. Although these elected and bureaucratic positions had limited powers, they were prestigious enough and provided a comfortable niche for the blue bloods. This all began to change in the aftermath of what historians are pleased to call "the gilded age", a sneering appellation to describe a time of unimaginable horror where any greasy prole with the intelligence, drive and determination could start up a business and become anything from moderately successful to a captain of industry. If not, then many other of the lower orders were becoming part of a burgeoning middle class whose children would have access to better education and themselves may join the nouveau riche. The unspeakable horror of the gilded age that would be later sold to the masses was that some proles got rich and worse, they flaunted their wealth! Honestly, is there no room for breeding and old world courtly manners? What if the bluebloods were driven to bankruptcy and even eventually pushed out of their government sinecures by those new hungry wolves! The real horror of the gilded age was for the old money WASP establishment that they would be toppled from their thrones by these new entrepreneurs.

Eventually, the blue bloods of the northeastern WASP establishment decided that the Soviet model of government with its top-down centrally managed and controlled economy with some modifications would offer the benefit of society under their control- including social mobility of who and how many get to rise up the social ranks. And under Franklin Delano Roosevelt's brain trust would offer academic design and control of the system so that means a scientific system which cannot fail. The problem with the Russian Soviets, in the new managerial planner's opinion, was that it was being run by a bunch of dumb Russian peasants, not by the super-smart elite cloud people of Harvard and Yale. Stalin and his men never even attended Dartmouth, for heaven sake! But in the hands of the right people...

In New York City of the 1930's where anarchists and communists were once despised, Democrat politicians were beginning to play footsie with communists and Marxists of every stripe. What better way to get the masses to support the party machine than to play the friend of the working man and promising to berate their bosses and make those evil rich people pay for the heinous crime of getting rich? Still, under no circumstances should the working man ever want to aspire to achieve more lest they become Satan incarnate by the evil and corrupting influence of even modest success. It is by far more moral and good to remain poor and oppressed. The lesson was victimhood is a blessed state to aspire to and achievement above one's station is evil and will be punished.

But there was something else the Democrat party machine learned from their communist buddies and that was using cultural Marxism to attack segments of the population and then divide and conquer the electorate. After 1965, this tactic was augmented by increasingly open immigration from all different cultures and ethnicities to a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants. The new immigrants legal and illegal were granted the holy sacrament of victimhood by virtue of coming from poorer countries which were oppressed by European and American colonialism. Then entire communities would never be able to unite to oppose the political and managerial establishment's schemes as each group would have its own unique interests, be assigned the status of angel victims (identity victim groups) or devil oppressors (the native New Yorkers) and they would have nothing more in common with each other than residing in the same geographical area. This was intended to ensure the electorate would be permanently divided and forever squabbling amongst themselves.

But our managerial overlords ever fearful of even an improbable servile insurrection can never stop finding new ways to further balkanize us and impose identity bean-counting in every corner of society. From The City: DOES YOUR COMMUNITY BOARD REFLECT YOU AND YOUR NEIGHBORS? FIND OUT. by Rachel Holliday Smith and Ann Choi with additional reporting by Clifford Michel, January 29, 2020

Even the local community council, a toy government created to promote the illusion of select people (picked by the Borough President) in the community having some influence in what their political and managerial betters plan is not free from divide and conquer. No matter how servile the slave foremen, one must keep the whip in full view.


Donald Cavaioli

Tuesday, January 28, 2020

The Fulton Street El colorized 1940's


Here's a street scene colorized from 1940. The location is Boerum Place and Fulton Street with a train of BMT C cars moving along. Gotta love those 1940's car for their style and trolleys and those old subway trains are cool.

The original B&W photo is from NYC Subway.org



Donald Cavaioli

Monday, January 27, 2020

For Our Friends in China Dealing With the Coronavirus- The Doctor is In

If you need a doctor experienced in treating the plague, I know just the fellow who can help and he does house calls. Can't beat that!


He's kind of an alternative medicine guy, uses leaches, has some good potions and elixirs but you've got to love that hat. If for no other reason you consult this guy, it should be for the hat.



Just tell him the Caretaker recommended him to you, he'll give you a discount on the bill.

And if all else fails, I know a couple of good necromancers. You meet all sorts in my line of work. But calling it coronavirus? I feel a bit slighted here as I come from Corona!
Good luck.


Donald Cavaioli

Sunday, January 26, 2020

Counting Made Desperate (but I've got a cunning plan)

It should be an easy matter to count anything from beans to people but not here in the People's Banana Empire of New York where progressive liberals prove they can make any simple task a bureaucratic nightmare. Logical organization and breaking down a large task among smaller, coordinated groups is hard enough but what if you're under the gun to pad out the numbers to hide the fact that people are fleeing the place in droves. This might be one of the reasons our rulers are trying so desperately to ban motor vehicles from the People's Empire to keep them from escaping without the embarrassment of building a Berlin-style wall.

The Gotham Gazette gives us the update on the counting and sorting problems here.

Aside from the usual method of problem solving most often employed by liberals- spending flipping great wads of cash, just throwing it around and hoping something happens other than politically connected people and groups pocket it, there's another suggestion I might offer: Copy names off headstones at the local cemeteries.

This has a time honored tradition among Democrats during elections when every vote counts, including dead people who amazingly vote 100% Democrat after they've shuffled off this mortal coil and presumably have thought the better of it. So why be bigoted against the dead just because they are not exactly alive according conventional definitions? I mean, just because they're dead and buried, in various states of decay, they still sort of reside here, right? Since when does death deprive us of our constitutional rights? If we can define "family" as 2 or more people living in the same domicile regardless of relation and there can be 57 different genders, then why can dead people not be classified as an alternative definition of being alive?  A cemetery then, is the place they live or exist or something. Who are we to judge. So why not just use the cemetery road and plot number as an address and voila! The city and state population jumps by millions! Tens of millions! 5 million alternative definition of being alive people reside in cemeteries in the borough of Queens which would triple the census count in this borough alone.

Ah, think of all the new voters we can register with a 100% vote for the Ruling Party, the extra electoral college votes we can get. No more talk of end runs around it 'cause it works for the Party now! Imagine all the gerrymandering and creation of brand spanking new congressional seats from whole cloth. A jobs program for politicians that politicians can get behind. A dozen more Democrat Socialists of America congress creatures, moar Sandy the Barmaids. moar federal money to spend and pocket. This is truly a cunning plan that cannot fail!


Donald Cavaioli


Saturday, January 25, 2020

More old Manhattan colorized

Sorry for another quickie, been busy. Antique radios don't restore themselves and I've got one hell of a backlog to go through. Anyway, I should have part 3 of my strange dream posted tomorrow but otherwise, the news is either boring (like the impeachment show) or been covered to death by everybody and his brother (like the corona virus).  I'm starting to get tired of the multicult and civic nationalism failures and feel like I'm repeating myself too much. I hate repeating myself and being a one note song. That's why there were sometimes long stretches between posts waiting for something interesting to write about or too busy with other things. But my New Year's resolution is to post daily so here's at least something:


This is 9th Street at 3rd Avenue which has the elevated train line in Manhattan ca 1902. The forerunner of the subway was this and other elevated lines or Els as we like to call them. This photo was taken just before the lines were electrified and shows an old steam engine pulling the cars.

This photo may have come from NYC Subway.org but I'm not 100% sure. I am sure I did the color work. Enjoy.



Donald Cavaioli

Friday, January 24, 2020

Turn of the 20th Century West Village in color


This is Abingdon Square, West Village, on 8th Avenue and Bleeker Street ca 1908. Seems like a nice place and probably reasonably priced as H.P. Lovecraft did live around that area or will live there in the not too distant future relative to this photo. One this that would be surprising for 1908 is that there was still a horse drawn streetcar. Shouldn't TARS have gone all electric by then?

I can't recall where I got the original B&W photo but I do recall that I did colorize it and at least that's something.


Donald Cavaioli


Thursday, January 23, 2020

What did I tell you- Illegals want the vote and sooner or later, New York will give it to them

First, it was New York State driver's licenses for illegals, then a bill passes in the New York State Assembly in which anyone who goes to NY Dept. of Motor Vehicles for any transaction will automatically be registered to vote, now illegals demonstrate for their right to vote in a country in which they do not have citizenship. Holding signs printed in Spanish and Bengali demanding the vote in the U.S. because most of them sort of pay taxes, sales taxes mostly, when they buy groceries, clothes, furniture and cars. Eventually, any and every non-citizen including every illegal alien and perhaps tourists as well will be able to vote here in our most magnificent People's Banana Empire of New York. Don't you just love it?

See here the latest atrocity in the cultural Marxist's dialectical materialism war on New Yorkers and in general, the American people from The Queens Daily Eagle: 'No taxation without representation'- noncitizens rally for NYC voting rights, by Emma Whitford, January 23, 2020

Daring to use such phrases as no taxation without representation in foreign languages to promote foreign influence in our elections, pissing on our history in pursuit of plunder and is an insufferable insult to the American colonists who bravely fought the British for our independence. Their cynical use of this phrase is a disgrace and an obscenity.

They don't even have the most minimum courtesy, the merest shred of respect, even a paper thin veneer of decency about how this looks in printing signs in their own languages demanding the vote. They demand and we Americans have no other choice than to give these people what they view as their absolute and unquestionable right. Or else.

But let's look for a moment at the completely insipid nonsense part. If legal permanent residents want the vote then they can apply for naturalization, problem solved. If they want to keep the citizenship of their country of origin, then no they cannot vote and why should they as they clearly evince no true loyalty to this country. Pay taxes? If they want to live and work here as a foreigner, a citizen of another country, they pay taxes for the privilege of living and working here. Then otherwise that's a fair exchange. Not happy about that? Nobody told them to come here in the first place nor do we need them. Then they should return to their home country where they may vote as early and as often as they wish. What government of any other country on earth would even dare to suggest non-citizens vote in their elections let alone foreigners who enter their country illegally. Certainly these people protesting would scream bloody murder if a law such as this was proposed in their own country. Hypocrites and obnoxious newcomers should not be welcomed here but asked to leave. But these newcomers are not the real prime movers behind this reprehensible proposed law, it is white liberals and leftist activists- our own people who would betray us.

However as with all things white liberal, progressive left, this isn't a sorry tale of poor immigrants wrongfully denied their sovereign right to vote in a country that is not their own. No sob story of racism and xenophobia by evil Americans. Not people of color cruelly wronged by an unjust, racist system. It is simply another one of their lies. It is one step more towards the end game of we-are-the-world cosmopolitanism in giving anyone from any country the right to vote for simply showing up on our door unannounced and uninvited and then helping themselves to the public purse. This law is just a way of getting the camel's nose in the tent so it can later enter fully, straddle the tent's legitimate resident and shit all over his face.

But for our betters who wholeheartedly endorse this claptrap, it's an amazing new twist on the old slave trade: The illegal immigrant slaves ship themselves in to work dirt cheap as sex workers or for elite corporate vassals and we the citizen taxpayers purchase the slaves and maintain them with free healthcare, welfare and other freestuff as a client voting bloc for the ruling class politicians. Sheer genius and oh, so progressive even if it is treason. And best of all: The slave owners don't pay a dime out of their own pocket for their chattel. Don't you just love it?

Worse still, this demolishes the rights of a people to self determination. New Yorkers will increasingly have their fate determined by people from other countries who have no stake in this city or state, nor any loyalty or love for it in refusing to seek citizenship, other than whatever wealth they can take from it in this new form of colonialism. The vote of the New Yorker as a U.S. citizen exercising the franchise of the vote is diluted and ultimately rendered null and void. This right as well as all others paid for by the blood of patriots who fought this nation's wars to defend them rendered ludicrous.

One might be tempted to gasp in outrage who the fuck do these people think they are but that is the wrong response. The correct response is what the fuck is wrong with us as New Yorkers to permit those odious cretins of the elected political class (hi Danny Dromm!) to even dare promote this abomination without fear of being thrown out of office if not bodily thrown out of this city.



Donald Cavaioli


Wednesday, January 22, 2020

When cowboys and steam locomotive trains ran in the streets of Manhattan

There never seem to be enough hours in the day or enough spare time to finish a draft post or two...
But for a quickie post to keep the proverbial pot boiling something you'd never expect to see in Manhattan but a colorized B&W photo tells no lies...



A cowboy on horseback does the flagman job to clear traffic along 10th Avenue and 28th Street for that steam locomotive hauling some freight in the early 1920's.

Can't recall where the original black and white photo is from otherwise credit where credit is due but the colorizing is my own handiwork.


Donald Cavaioli

Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Another interview with Josh Philipp on YouTube

"A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within."
Ariel Durant

YouTube channel China Unscripted has another interesting discussion with Josh Philipp on the subject of Marxist material dialectics. A good video, audio really, that puts weaponized cultural Marxism into perspective and understand it as a strategy for destroying a society and culture.

A bit long at 1 hour and 40 minutes but well worth the time.



Donald Cavaioli

Monday, January 20, 2020

Somewhere in downtown Brooklyn past


Where this was is a bit of a mystery. It's somewhere in the downtown Brooklyn end of the #12 Dekalb Ave. line. Nothing along Court Street matches any of these buildings which presently has buildings from around the time this photo was taken. Could be along Cadman Plaza west in what is today a park and the buildings in this photo long since disappeared by eminent domain. Then this could be a colorized tribute to a vanished neighborhood.

Original B&W photo from NYC Subway.org, colorizing it is my own work.



Donald Cavaioli

Sunday, January 19, 2020

YouTuber Brandon F's Farbtastic Woke Sermon

Indeed, one would be hard pressed to find a YouTube content creator more eloquent and verbose the Brandon F. His channel usually features military history subjects which are interesting even if he tends to sperg out on the "farb" he finds regarding his subject du jour. Farb, of course, a word Brandon tends to perhaps overuse, is a historical reenactor's term for anything not exactly historically accurate down to the molecular level in terms of uniforms and weaponry. But as they say, spergs are gonna sperg.

So we come to his recent upload of the second part of his grand review of the movie The Patriot and here he not only waxes eloquent but feels compelled to pontificate a grand sermon on the evils of slavery in the colonies but to spend and entire 57 minutes and 2 seconds of being repeatedly kicked in the groin by gassing over scenes that were probably all said about 10 or 15 minutes or so of the 2 hour and 45 minute movie. For most mundane mortals, myself included, a 5-7 minute oration on the immorality of slavery and the positive depiction of it at a prima facia glance as somewhat callous and in poor taste would suffice. However, Brandon, are you not familiar with the term poetic license or the concept of suspending disbelief in fiction or how about chill out, man, it's only a movie, not a f&#*@^% historical documentary, you tool?

However, we do learn soon enough that the black men and women on the farm of Benjamin Martin (played by Mel Gibson) are in fact freedmen and women working as hired hands. Something over which Brandon proceeds to beat his chest in outrage as he does not believe slaves were ever manumitted. I suppose in all his research on the proper way to wear a cocked hat, which mundane dullards erroneously refer to as a "tricorn hat", the correct pronunciation of "huzzah" as "hoo-zay" he somehow missed that even Thomas Jefferson had freed his slaves in his will as had some other slave owners. Something known to any school child.

That the other character, Charlotte (Joely Richardson) has a well dressed house slave, has two homes or how the extras playing the field slaves are dressed and stand has no deeper significance as a social statement and is not the main plot of the movie. They're just extras acting as background characters, of course they don't have lines and neither do the white extras. And Charlotte is herself a secondary character and only part of a sub plot, you pretentious twit.

Further, I should hate to see the apoplectic fit that would be induced were I to inform him that there were even black men who owned black African slaves. Or that horror of horrors, slavery has been practiced all over the world by all races and civilizations since the dawn of H. Sapiens and even still is today in some places in the world *cough* North Africa, Islamic State *cough*. The little fellow might have a stroke for heaven sake!

Moreover, Brandon takes particular umbrage at Benjamin Martin working his own fields! Next to a black man as if they were on friendly terms! Brandon, old bean, I do suggest you consider the image of manhood prevalent at the time not only of bucks and blades but of the American yeoman who worked his own fields with a latent Cincinnatus homage there. Sure there were gentleman farmers who never touched a plow but there is some historical references to landowners who would occasionally do some of their own work in the fields or around the farm if only for appearance sake. The actions and attitudes of Benjamin Martin may be unusually progressive for the time, extremely rare, but not wholly impossible. Not everybody thought slavery was a great thing in those days and perhaps only a relative few, but not all white people looked down upon black people. And by the way, the character of Benjamin Martin, although based on the historical person, Francis Marion is not meant to exactly be Francis Marion, based on being the operative term here. Recall, it's only a movie, you twit.

Although Marion Francis' deeds in life both good and bad are matters of historical fact, his misdeeds may be noted as such and rightly condemned but still they now belong to history. For all Brandon's posturing, it is a false dichotomy to claim it is moral relativity for recognizing it as such. A cheap way of instilling guilt in all who refuse to continually flog the shade of Francis Marion for his long dead sins and to make modern Americans continue to wear the hair shirt of slavery that ended 154 years ago. Besides, who Marion Francis was and whatever dark and malevolent nature he was possessed of is utterly irrelevant to the movie The Patriot or the protagonist. Benjamin Martin. The point of the movie was the story of a man seeking revenge during the American Revolution, not about rehabilitating Francis Marion and the institution of slavery. Focus, Brandon, focus.

Here I might add Brandon's mention of the historical Marion executing slaves found guilty of carrying provisions or gathering intelligence, working or fighting for the enemy (the British). However, even a white American colonist found guilty of the same would likewise have been executed because this was called being a collaborator, spy or traitor- something of a no-no in wartime. A little factoid Brandon seems to have overlooked during his witch hunt for racism which eclipses his previous exhortations of not judging the past when he demonstrated a commendable measure of probity. But when the topic of slavery and racism rears its ugly head, the liberal narrative of the evil white man over truth bursts forth, denials of the same not withstanding and topped off with feigned display of dismay at being impaled on the horns of a moral dilemma. Medice, cura te ipsum.

However, one must keep up appearances and burnish our goodwhite anti-racism credentials, of course. Respectability amongst one's fellow Bay Staters is of paramount importance, you know. So who wouldn't accept the word of an activist non-profit, the Equal Justice Initiative whose stock and trade is race baiting as to be kinda unreliable and claims of lynchings and their causes as being because a black man simply smiled at a white woman may, er, be somewhat exaggerated(?) as to be blowing smoke up your ass makes no nevermind. Maybe the Equal Justice Initiative is sorta full of bullshit and not a objective source of information? No! Forward, comrade forward! Good Sir Brandon has a holy crusade to fight and a noble sermon to preach! African Americans are most fortunate to have such a white wordsmith and master of righteous indignation speak out for them on the horrors of white people and black people getting along with each other at an improbable wedding.

Oh and by the way, old sport; what do lynchings between 1877 and 1950 have to do with colonial era slavery and racism? Just thought you'd throw that in to further gild an already badly over gilded lily? Or just padding out the content?

Be that as it may, Brandon rests comfortably in the singularly liberal notion that only, only in these United States of all places on earth past or present was the absolute worst form slavery ever employed with only black Africans of all humanity ever placed in bondage. And presumably all these Africans captured and placed in chains by white Europeans and Americans only according the the leftist holy Gospels of Alex Haley and Howard Zinn. I am sure that were Brandon to read these words, he would sniff disdainfully that he never said exactly those words and technically, he would be correct. But his statements about the horrors of American slavery without any comparison with other instances of contemporaneous slavery demonstrates either ignorance of the subject or a willful attempt to create this impression by lifting it out of context.

But not Brandon for whom political correctness ultimately supersedes historical facts inconvenient to the modern progressive narrative should he find the two crossing paths. For Brandon F is truly a most servile courtier to the great Woke Zeitgeist, ever watchful for even the spectral evidence of racism. And as ever sensitive to the insidious attempt to cynically hide it behind a facade of faux friendliness towards black people, or to note the appalling scene of a white landowner plowing his fields, blatantly displaying toxic masculinity to the horror and dismay of liberal goodwhites.

In the end, this video was an extravaganza of insufferable virtue signalling, a colossal neon sign surmounted by bright flashing lights announcing in blinding letters: "I so totally denounce slavery as a very bad thing and I am implacably against racism in all its forms and manifestations no matter how trivial". 57 minutes and 2 seconds of being figuratively beaten over the head by bloviating platitudes, pointless digressions and tiresome non-sequiturs such as the percentage of the population who were slaves and endless repeating of the same scenes and same histrionics ad nauseum. 7 minutes at most would have sufficed if Brandon stayed on point. However, the depiction of slaves or black extras in the background in the movie were not germane to the plot and it would be understandable if the director and producers would like to avoid controversy and so tread lightly on the subject. Something an overly literal Aspie cannot fathom any more than he could poetic license. Thus the witchfinder general digs deeply far and wide to dredge up all that can be sarcastically stretched beyond the break point as evidence of racism which he presents in excruciating detail.

Finally it seems clear after 57 minutes and 2 seconds of my life which I will never get back, that the base motivation for this spectacular of historical filibuster is as much Brandon F's being an Anglophile deeply offended at the bad guy depiction of the British soldiers, which even when I watched this movie found to be rather over the top and silly, as is his penchant for insipid hand waving virtue signalling. If so, I would more respect the intellectual honesty of Brandon starting his rant in high dudgeon with a statement of his taking deep umbrage at the beastly portrayal of his beloved redcoats. Then I might better tolerate the pedantic, long winded, cringe inducing sermon about the evils of slavery and racism. Yeah, slavery was morally wrong and it's a good thing that it was abolished. I get it.

Believe it or not, I actually like Brandon F's other videos. I'm just a bit disappointed with this particular clunker and hope in future he confines himself to nit-picking about uniforms with his characteristic erudite sarcasm and calling everything farb. Huzzah!


Donald Cavaioli

Fear Response

On the internet, there is no end to conspiracy theories on any topic imaginable and there is no serious or concerted attempt made to censor ...