Even before “everyday carry” became a thing I was fascinated to learn what people haul around in their pockets. What a person carries every day says a lot about their life, I think — values, interests, independence, sentiment and more.
Most of my personal EDC kit reflects utility. I carry a Glock 19 Gen3 and spare magazine, a Benchmade Griptilian and a Victorinox Tinker or Farmer, a Zippo lighter with butane insert (even though I no longer smoke cigarettes), a wooden beard comb, a Pokka pen, wallet, calling cards, a wad of keys, a Brous BMT, a SureFire Sidekick, my nicotine-delivery system (Geek Vape Aegis mod with SMOK TFV16 tank) and a Samsung S21 Ultra. During our time on the road that loadout would get shuffled occasionally, depending on where we were and what we were up to, but the stuff I’ve listed here forms the core of what I have with me every day.
A number of those items, by the way, are orange in color. I happen to like orange.
On the sentimental side I carry a “pocket shrine.” (See today’s header image.) Currently it comprises six items, including a small stone heart, a “love coin” and a large copper μολὼν λαβέ coin, all gifted to me by Deb. There’s a pebble I picked out of the shallows at Kintla Lake in Montana and another fished from the Buffalo River in Arkansas, each of which represents a criminal act in the eyes of the National Park Service. (I don’t care.)
Owing to my Ohio heritage I’ve carried a “lucky buckeye” in my pocket since I was a kid. I’d been toting one from a tree behind Second Chance Ranch until September, when I pitched it into Kintla Lake. (If you’re keeping score, that’s another crime.) In Winterset, Iowa a month later I picked up a replacement — it came from a buckeye tree growing next to the house in which John Wayne was born.
And that’s my pocket dump. You can decide what (if anything) it says about me.
Americans are paying a lot of attention to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, understandably and perhaps justifiably. We’d be better off, in my opinion, if more folks devoted some of that attention to the invasion of our own once-sovereign country by illegal immigrants, an estimated one million of which have been released into the country in just the last six months.
With a change in federal policy imminent, those numbers are about to explode. We’ve never seen anything like it. America has gone from build-that-wall to free-for-all in less than 18 months.
Deb and I will be moving closer to the open border with Mexico, from central Ohio to northern Arkansas. I feel confident saying that the locals there, compassionate though they may be, won’t put up with any shit — like the daily dumping of hundred of illegals in small Texas towns, miles from the Rio Grande.
One of those towns is Uvalde, 60 miles inside the US. It’s a long way from The Ozarks, but it’s just 50 miles from Bandera, the righteous old town where we spent considerable time while visiting the Texas Hill Country last June. Not that illegals can’t advance into The Heartland, but we’re glad we’re going where we’re going.
The regime’s mismanagement of immigration is intentional, of course. Destroying Texas would be a real prize for the Left. The future of the Republic depends on real Texans repelling the threat.
Surveys and polls make news — even the stupid ones, if they’re promoted and placed well, draw interest and eyeballs. Over the last 24 hours I’ve become aware of two which, while I can’t vouch for their statistical integrity, caught my eye.
A study reported by the website WalletHub analyzed states according to Work-Related Stress, Money-Related Stress, Family-Related Stress and Health- and Safety-Related Stress. It then scored and ranked the 50 states.
Arkansas registered the 6th-highest level of combined stress. Ohio ranked 20th, for what it’s worth, West Virginia 4th.
Two other states to which friends of ours are fleeing also made the top ten — Mississippi (5th) and Tennessee (10th). I believe I understand, based on my reading of the methodology, why the analysis put states where they are. It’s just that stress is the furthest thing from our consciousness when we’re in The Ozarks.
If you want to buy the results of that study, though, be my guest. Go ahead and stay away from those mean, awful, stressful states, and we’ll enjoy our elbow room in Free America.
The other survey, produced by London-based YouGovAmerica, asked respondents to guess the percentage of American adults who are members of several dozen different demographic groups. The results were startling, yet not surprising.
Generally speaking, Americans are inclined to grossly overestimate the size of minorities and fashionable identity groups. For example, respondents estimated that 30% of American adults are homosexual, when the actual number is 3%. The same was true of so-called transgenders (21% vs. 0.6%), Muslims (27% vs. 1%), Jews (30% vs. 2%), blacks (41% vs. 12%), Hispanics (39% vs. 17%) and vegetarians (30% vs. 5%).
Missing the mark with that kind of consistency exposes how gullible and easily manipulated Americans are. It also reveals how successful tiny minorities and fringe interest groups are at “normalizing.” By way of exaggeration and sheer decibels — and by infiltrating a cultural mainstream to which they have no claim — they con the masses.
On one hand, that’s harmless. I mean, we shouldn’t be shocked to learn that we’re surrounded by fools and people who crave more significance than they deserve. The problem comes when disinformation infects things like commerce, public policy and school curricula.
To the refrain, “Perception is reality,” intellectual honesty demands that we call bullshit. Only reality is reality. As Thoreau advised,
“No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth.”
In the end — and thinking critically — the only truth that matters is truth grounded in facts.
Take care of yourselves, Patriots. Stay calm. Stay sharp. Stay free.
#WiseUp #LibertyOrDeath
#LetsGoBrandon #FJB