Life is a shipwreck, but we must not forget to sing in the lifeboats.
~ Voltaire
Joel Bowman, with today’s Note from the End of the World…
One of our favorite aspects of homeschooling is no schooling. That is to say, when it’s a lovely day out… or when it’s a special occasion… or, if we’re being entirely honest, whenever we feel like it, our little family downs tools and heads out into the city to enjoy its many museums, parks, plazas, cafés and bookstores.
Yesterday was just such a day, practically made for playing hooky. The sun was out, songbirds were singing in the trees and the nearby Ecoparque beckoned. And so, after some morning lessons (violin and ancient Greek for dear daughter) and a bit of work (a podcast each for dear wife and yours truly, plus a spot of writing), we packed the family bindle and made our way parkward.
As you can see from the video above – and contrary to hyperventilating bedwetters in the mainstream presses – the country has not descended into a violent hellscape, with anarchists running wild and chaos and carnage on the streets.
Rather, with a sense of ebullience and optimism generally unfamiliar in these parts, the local porteños were in high spirits indeed, enjoying their Old European-style city in all its grace and splendor.
Of course, the aforementioned presstitutes in the mainstream news can’t have that… not with a (trigger warning!) libertarian as president... one who is busily taking a chainsaw to the rotten limbs of the bloated administrative state.
They need to perpetuate the Big Con, that mentira that free individuals cannot be trusted with their own lives, cannot be left to make decisions for themselves, to interact voluntarily and peacefully with their fellow citizens. They must be corralled, harassed and harangued by their better angels in government, who surely “know better” the hopes and dreams of the unwashed masses over whom they claim authority.
This past week, half the ministries in Argentina’s federal government were abolished… with promises to keep the cuts coming. And yet, when we look outside our window of a morning, we see a conspicuous lack of bombed out cars and crazed zombies looting and ransacking the neighborhood. Instead, folks are getting on with their private lives, cutting hair and mowing lawns, lawyering and doctoring, reading, writing and arithmetic-ing...
…oh, and playing hooky.
Until next time…
Cheers,
Joel Bowman
Buenos Aires, Argentina
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Playing Hooky