Lee Duigon

To Quote Long John Silver…

leeduigon(patty)May 20, 2026

“I am becalmed.” It sounds sort of nice, actually, but to the old pirate it was not a good way to be. Wallace Beery was just great in that role. If you ever get a chance to watch Treasure Island with Beery, and Jackie Cooper as Jim–watch it. We used to watch it quite often.

The heat has becalmed me. (read paralyzed). Actually, it’s not as bad today as it was yesterday, but still way over the top for this time of year. Tomorrow, there’s supposed to be rain (which we need desperately) and a lot cooler temperatures.

Did the absolute minimum for survival today. Just the inescapably necessary stuff. I’m sort of edging up toward that bum-of-the-year category again.

I’ll stick with blaming it on the heat.

I’m also trying to figure out how to bring one of Lee’s podcast interviews to the blog, so you can hear him discuss writing in person. He had such an odd voice. People would assume he was a very elderly man (even back when he was in his 30’s) because of his voice. It was also very soft and the sound engineers would go nuts trying to manage the sound levels when he was being interviewed for internet radio.

I am now going to make my supper and relax a bit.

Have a good night.

See you tomorrow.

God bless everybody.

Patty

Talkin’ Like a Liberal REPRINT

leeduigon(patty)May 20, 2026

From July 7, 2015

Well, after all this time, they finally did it to me: got me to talk like a liberal. Now I know how Ben-Hur felt when Esther told him, “You have become Messala!”

My wife was reading me the news report about a woman who visited a San Francisco tourist site and was gunned down by an illegal alien who’d already been deported a number of times and kept coming back to commit more crimes. I lost it when we came to the part, “The White House has blamed the Republicans for the incident…”

That was when I spoke like a liberal.

“I hate the White House, and I wish everyone in it would die a miserable death.”

Shameful, isn’t it? I sounded just like those liberals who cursed Michael Crichton’s survivors when he died, because he dared disbelieve in Global Warming.

True, that person occupying the White House today is utterly despicable, and he has surrounded himself with toadies and creeps. His policies are evil, and should be undone. On top of all that, he’s a race hustler who has done immeasurable harm to the country which he swore an oath to protect.

But is any of that an excuse for talking like a liberal? Really, I am ashamed of myself.

I’m comfortable with hating what people do, especially when it goes against God’s word and they try to impose their own wickedness on whole nations. Resist it to the utmost, denounce it, try to undo it. And if the bad guys want to fight, make righteous war against them.

And if they repent, forgive them.

Yes, that’s hard. But it’s what God commands. Not that any of these villains is going to repent any time soon: you don’t get to be the head of a teachers’ union by repenting evil works,. God Himself forgives sinners. He has forgiven me. And you.

But of course if you’re a lefty loon, you don’t believe that, and you are free to indulge unbridled hatred and commit crimes for your cause… as witness the entire history of that lamentable 20th century.

We can’t understand God’s ways. He is God and we aren’t. When it’s as counter-intuitive as this appears to be, we are thrown back on our faith: and that’s how He makes us grow.

Grieving Parrot Makes Recovery

leeduigon(patty)May 20, 2026

This remarkable bird, had to recover from deep grief. Parrots feel grief very keenly and take time to recover, not always completely. Cosmo is amazing.

Lifelong bond with abandoned kitten

leeduigon(patty)May 20, 2026

I’ve seen this before , but I love it..

leeduigon(patty)May 20, 2026

I find these wonderful little creatures delightful in the mating display. Who ever thought to set it to music was really clever. Enjoy!

Where Not to Go for Information REPRINT

leeduigon(patty)May 20, 2026

From October 20, 2013

Over years of fishing in Barnegat Bay, NJ, my wife and I caught hundreds of small sharks which we and everybody else called “smooth dogfish.” But were they really smooth-hounds? Could they have been the young of another kind of shark? Curious to find out, I consulted the Internet.

So what’s wrong with that?

A question-and-answer site called “Cha-Cha” blithely informed me that there are no sharks in Barnegat Bay. Yup, that’s the answer from the high-tech oracle. That the answer happens to be completely, 100% wrong would not be noticed by someone who had never fished in Barnegat Bay.

Above the stupid answer, among the ads by Google, was an exhortation to “vote for Peter Barnes,” Middlesex County, NJ, Democrat, because “He believes tax money should be used to fund education instead of CEOs’ retirement packages.”

“To fund education,” translated into English, means to pump colossal sums of money into the teachers’ unions, who will continue to support Democrat politicians by funneling union dues into political campaigns.

So the ad is no more truthful than the phony phacts on Cha-Cha, and certainly no more informative.

Or have we reached the stage in our cultural development where “to inform” means “to provide with false or incomplete information”?

P.S.–They were dogfish, all right. As my wife reminds me, they have the flat, shellfish-crunching teeth of dogfish. So I didn’t need the Internet for this, after all.

Raccoon and Pittie Are Like Littermates

leeduigon(patty)May 20, 2026

This is a lovely story of friendship and family between different species.

I Need Thee Every Hour

leeduigon(patty)May 20, 2026

The Heat Pooped Me Out Today

leeduigon(patty)May 19, 2026

Today the mercury hit 99 at Newark airport, and it knocked me out.

Hence, fewer posts today. I was just too darned tired.

If you remember, only a couple of days ago I was complaining about having to still wear my puffer jacket because it was so blinkin’ cold in the mornings. And cold in the apartment, too.

It just proves the truth of the old saw “if you can live in New Jersey you can live anywhere.”

There’s one more day of heat, then the temperatures should go into the 50s (which is actually cool for May).

On the home front, my new water cooler was delivered today. I’ve started using the 3 gallon bottles, because the 5 gallon were just getting too hard for me to wrangle into the cooler. The other day’s mini power outage seemed to have messed up the electronics in the cooler, hence the new one. I rent it from the water company. That’s actually better, because if there’s a problem, they replace it (as opposed to me buying a new one).

And that was my excitement for the day.

The delivery guy did spill some water.

On the rug.

Have a good night, all.

See you tomorrow.

God bless everybody.

Patty