December 2021 – MASTER OF NONE

December 29, 2021

Book Review: Mein Kampf

My Struggle: Mein Kamphf - Mein Kampt - Mein Kampf (Hardcover) | Politics and Prose Bookstore

Narcissistic Ramblings of a Megalomaniac

It would be meaningless for me to do a deep dive into the psychology and meaning behind the words of one of history’s great monsters as this man’s actions have been dissected by luminaries time and again. This article is merely the general impressions I came away with after ploughing my way through this seemingly endless tome.

As endless tasks go, it was tough making it through this book but I pushed myself sometimes only a page or two at a sitting because I felt it is important to try to understand the origins of how these monsters come into being.

Hitler’s writing style does not lend itself to easy reading. Perhaps he forbade his comrades from doing a proper edit or there was not anyone brave enough to volunteer but it certainly could have used better structure. It seemed as if he thought of a subject, labeled bags with the chapter headings, and then randomly tossed in vaguely relevant thoughts until the bag was full. He would start with some premise to begin the chapter, write pages and pages of endless paragraphs which would somewhat torturously lead to a conclusion, then do a sort of summation to close. These two volumes are not for your casual reader.

Things Hitler did not Like

Jews

Hitler really got into his hatred for the ‘International’ Jew in the 2nd Volume. His main complaints related to the banking and media sectors who were going to ultimately ruin the Fatherland. The Jews had played a large hand in the ‘Revolution’ or the final days of WW1 where Germany surrendered. In addition, he abhorred the idea that Jewish blood would dilute the Aryan bloodlines.

Few things here, Jews don’t really intermarry outside of their faith and Hitler even mentions this in the book. So I am not sure where the widespread ‘contamination’ would come from unless he was refering verboten Jewish ‘ideas’. Jews did participate to a high degree in the banking and print sectors worldwide. As for general anti-Semitism, well, Hitler really was not the first to spew this type of hatred. He was of course, the first to try a Final Solution, but that did not come out in this 1925 writing.

Marxism

Hitler wrote extensively about his dislike for Marxism. The German Marxist political forces were the National Socialist Party’s main opponents. According to Hitler, they helped bring Germany to their knees at the end of the War. Russia could not be trusted because the Marxists had taken over. Plus there were the Jewish Marxist overtones.

Shirkers

Hitler felt that the best of Germany had gone to and had been sacrificed at the Front after four years of titanic struggle. The shirkers and cowards who remained behind eventually sold out the Fatherland when the government was taken over and the War was brought to an end.

When duties within the Party were divvied up, Hitler distained the Committee where he felt the shirker could hide from accountability. He would assign individuals tasks and they would hold sole responsibility for the success or failure.

Negroids

Hitler was not convinced that Germany’s strength was going to come from their colonies implying their Negro inhabitants were an issue. He looked towards France who allowed Negros to pour into the country from their colonies as a warning to Germany. Again, it was an issue of bloodlines being diluted.

France

The War was really a gigantic struggle between France and Germany fought mostly on French soil. France, understandably, took a hard line with the terms to end the conflict. Then later, French forces moved into the rich coal area of the German Ruhr. Hitler was not the only ex-soldier to be disgruntled with this backhanded treatment.

Things Hitler did Like

Himself: Hitler definitely had an outsized ego. He was the only one who knew the way forward. He pushed aside the leadership of the group he joined to lead them himself. He bragged about being the one to design the new flag. His speeches would last for hours.
Propaganda: To Hitler, this was the most important part of a movement in order to get it going and to bring in the followers.
Large Spectacles: Go big or go home would have been his motto. He understood the psychology of getting a mass of humanity together and how much more it would sway them during his speeches.
The Fatherland: Hitler’s goal was to centralize certain important concepts in order to cement proper respect for the German way of life. He was a hardline traditionalist in many respects. He definitely wanted the fair haired German women to breed with only fair haired German men to keep the Aryan blood pure.
Athletics: Hitler felt that an active German people who were fit would be a good base to draw from in case of a need to raise a military.

Some Miscellaneous Points

Hitler and his National Socialist Party were a product of their time. Their controversial and ultimately hugely successful propaganda newsletter was one of 1000’s being printed. Their political group started with a few men, no money, and would have been swept away like flotsam like so many others except for Hitler’s sheer force of will.
Hitler must have been one helluva good speaker. There would not have been much for entertainment except to go to a hall to listen to one guy or another up on his soapbox blathering away. Usually fights would break out. Drinks and a show would keep bored men entertained.
Hitler posited that Britain could have been an ally. His thoughts were that the Empire did not want just one strong European power like France. If there were at least two strong powers, then they would cancel each other out to Britain’s benefit.
Hitler’s goal for German expansion was not through colonies but through growing the German homeland, specifically to the East through Poland. He foresaw a population growth to 250 million Germans.
Hitler liked intimidation. He wrote a whole chapter on his Storm Troops. At first, they were the bodyguard necessary when rival groups wanted to break up one of their public hall meetings. They were the most fanatical of the Party’s members and used ferociousness to fend off attack.

Conclusion

Was there a point where Adolf Hitler could have stopped advancing his military and become a World leader instead of one of the most reviled villains of history? He marched into former German areas to reunite the Fatherland with nary a shot fired. Even Poland was a small bump which he deftly divided in half with the Soviets. Sure, that brought the ‘Big Boys’ into the arena but there seemed to be no stomach from the West to make the first move. In fact, could have Hitler extended an olive branch to Britain after the conquest of France? Would a strong Germany not have been a good bulwark between Red Russia and Britain? Push come to shove, if Russia had been more of a threat would the World have really cared that all the Jews were being rounded up?

In the end, Hitler’s megalomania which got him to his pinnacle of power was what ultimately defeated him. As for his book, it was not his skills in penmanship which gained him his fame.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

December 21, 2021December 21, 2021

Book Review: The Afghanistan Papers

U.S. officials misled the public about the war in Afghanistan, confidential documents reveal - Washington Post — Image courtesy of The Washington Post

Politicians & Generals Should be Jailed for Treason

“We know they are lying, they know they are lying, they know we know they are lying, we know they know we know they are lying, but they are still lying.”
Attributed to Aleksandr Isayevich Solzhenitsyn

Thankfully, the West still has Freedom of Information (FOI) laws. If someone has the patience and deep enough pockets, despite deliberate government functionary obfuscation, documents are to be disclosed. The Washington Post backed reporter Craig Whitlock’s quest for the truth regarding the Afghanistan War and spent their own treasure and time suing the US government to turn over war documents. The following is a brief synopsis of the book’s contents.

Part 1 (2001-2002): Who am I supposed to shoot?

After Al-Qaeda spectacularly attacked America and traumatized the Nation, President George W. Bush invoked NATO articles and launched his ‘War on Terror’. Al-Qaeda was routed in their stronghold of Afghanistan forthwith and Osama bin Laden barely escaped across the border into Pakistan. At this point, the NATO forces could have high-fived and gone home.

Nope!

The Americans were all dressed up and ready for a party, so they looked around for a reason to stay. Well, the Taliban had harboured Al-Qaeda, were ‘mean’ to women, and most of the country was illiterate. Besides, if they could build a ‘Western’ style Nation in Afghanistan, they could keep an eye on the pesky Russians. Hooray, we’re here to stay! Everyone loves the States, they all want to be just like us, shoot all the Taliban if you can figure out who they are, what could go wrong?

Part 2 (2003-2005): Peek-A-Boo, where did you go?

Not content with one major war, President Bush went after his father’s bête noire in Iraq chasing after fictitious ‘Weapons of Mass Destruction’. Immediately, the action in Afghanistan became an afterthought.

The Afghanistan conflict seemed to be running smooth enough at that point. The major players, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban seemed to be on the ropes despite that pesky bin Laden still being at large. Afghan women were liberated and the process of educating kids could start. An emphasis was placed on training the Afghans to take over their own security with a comprehensive training program to create their own National Army and police force.

The fly in the ointment was the constant hit and run attacks originating on the southern border with Pakistan. It was obvious that enemy combatants were hiding and launching strikes from across the border. But like Vietnam, NATO forces refrained from pursuit lest they raised the ire of this nuclear armed country. Pressure was put on Pakistan to sort this out themselves but they just played both sides.

Part 3 (2006-2008): We’re back!

Five years into the War, it became apparent that it was not going to wrap up neatly. The Taliban just would not lay down and disappear. A quote from one of their leaders, “You have all the clocks but we have all the time.” meant they were content with waiting it out until the Americans tired of the conflict and went home.

President Bush was disappointed with Donald Rumsfeld as Secretary of Defense and swapped him out for a former CIA Director, Robert Gates. The conflict was described as ‘on automatic cruise control, without a roadmap or a destination.’

In addition, it was coming to the attention of the World through Human Rights groups that America had taken up with war criminals who were now ensconced as Afghan government leaders. The ‘puppet’ government was a cabal of warlords protecting their fiefdoms. Many of these mini empires ran off the lucrative opium industry which was a cash crop for the country. In the ultimate irony, the Taliban had outlawed the poppy in 2000 as against the will of Islam. Then with the arrival of the NATO forces, the poppy flourished under the corrupt Afghan government and the inept military strategies to eradicate it.

Part 4 (2009-2010): Enter Obama.

It was the new kid on the block’s turn at the tiller. President Obama put a new General in charge of the War, committed thousands of more troops to the fighting, and opened the funding gates to rebuild the country.

Instead of a decisive turn of fortune, Obama had to deal with Hamid Karzai running a corrupt election to get re-elected, Afghan’s largest private bank liquefied due to fraud, and anti-corruption efforts amounted to nothing. Ordinary Afghans were losing faith in anything connected to the Allies and the Taliban were waiting in the wings.

Part 5 (2011-2016): Got the dirty bastard, time to go home right?

In 2011, American forces in a clandestine mission into Pakistan finally took out America’s Public Enemy No. 1 thus symbolically removing the reason for invading Afghanistan. But America was going to stay because they were ‘winning’.

The Americans had a loose understanding on what ‘winning’ was supposed to look like. After years of training, the indigenous Afghan security forces were a joke. In fact, infiltrators were posing as Allies and there were numerous occasions where they would turn on their benefactors. The military was full on using weasel words to spin the ‘winning’ narrative but the Taliban were making more incursions and American soldiers were dying.

When asked point blank what would end the stalemate, the Generals trotted out the old chestnut of ‘more troops and more guns’.

Part 6 (2017-2021): Elvis has left the building.

Although President Trump had campaigned on getting the troops home and the States out of foreign Nation building, he ended up keeping the status quo. Massive corruption stymied any attempts to reform the country, it was still a money pit for massive amounts of American dollars, and tepid attempts to talk to the Taliban leaders led to nowhere. When Trump left office, nothing had really changed.

President Biden finally decided to pull the plug on twenty years of blood and treasure spent on a land described as ‘where Empires go to die’. The last American troops pulled out at the end of August, 2021.

The book does not go into the fantastic speed with which the Taliban retook the country but it was obvious that the staggering sums of treasure spent on the local military and police were spent in vain. For a more complete accounting of costs of the Afghanistan war in blood and treasure, I refer you to the Brown University Watson Institute figures.

Craig Whitlock’s reporting makes for fascinating reading but this chronicle is not just about a confusing conflict which took place in a faraway, foreign land. It goes to the very heart of the rot gripping the West. For twenty years, the political and military establishment misled, varnished, and mangled the truth over what was really going on in Afghanistan. They outright lied. It is a classic case of the elite believing the ends justify the means. If they are not held accountable, then what is to stop them from adopting this pattern of behaviour as OPS Normal for all forms of governing?

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

December 18, 2021December 30, 2021

BC Government Failure in the Flood Zone

Shortly before the 25th, the West Coast Pilots Assn conducted ‘Operation Elf’ to cutoff BC communities to spread some Christmas cheer

Why have BC Communities been Abandoned?

A positive thing about social media is that stories which used to be the exclusive domain of large media outlets can be told by the ordinary citizen on the ground. Real time images and video can be instantaneously shared worldwide where otherwise the suffering would be done in silence.

Starting on November 15, devastating mudslides started to cut BC off from the rest of Canada. On November 17, after a formal request from the Province, the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) stood up Operation LENTUS 21-06 in order to augment the Province’s flood relief efforts. They did an admirable job but now they are leaving, in particular, the RCAF announced on December 10 that they were done.

But the job is not done!

Members of the Lord Strathcona’s Horse (Royal Canadian) Regiment based in Edmonton, Alberta, fill sandbags in support of Operation Lentus to help the local community in Princeton, B.C. on Nov. 25. Photo by MCpl Nicolas Alonso, Canadian Forces Combat Camera, Canadian Armed Forces photo

On November 17, a friend and former military flight instructor of mine, Sigmund Bering Sort, posted that he and his Cessna 172 was available for no-cost flood relief flights. Since then, he has been chronicling his and other pilots efforts to provide lifelines to cut-off BC communities.

It did not take long for Sigmund to be taken up on his offer. An Operations Specialist at Hope Regional Airport (CYHE) was already putting out calls for volunteer pilots to ‘fly the needy‘ out. First efforts were these mercy flights but it was already recognized that essential cargo flights were needed. Offers of donations and fuel for cash were starting to already trickle in.

By December 2, the focus had shifted to cargo flights and Sigmund was making flights from Langley to Merritt. At this point, he had joined with the West Coast Pilots Association, headed by Shaun Heaps, who was coordinating a larger effort through their facilities at Langley Airport. Special mention was made of the local Sikh community stepping up during a CBC Morning Live Interview. Also in the interview, Shaun mentioned they had 40 fixed wing aircraft and 4 helicopters flying in relief efforts from Boston Bar to Merritt. A key point of the interview was he had reached out to the BC government with no response.

Another key challenge for the pilot volunteers was money for fuel to keep the operation in the air. In Sigmund’s words, “We are volunteers who are allowed to get a bit of fuel assistance with some restaurants donating some hot meals to the volunteers to keep us going – ground crew and air crew alike. My costs are mine to bear and I am not paid. I donate my time and the costs of running my aeroplane.” During the interview, Shaun stated that one day’s worth of fuel for the fleet cost $20,000.

Sigmund has continued to post news, images, and video of the enormous relief effort. Kudos has been given out to all who have been involved such as the BC General Aviation Assn, the Jewish community, the Sikh community, the Russian community, the West Coast Pilots Assn, the numerous airport facilities, etc. He stated, “The humanity in this mammoth effort is deeply moving affecting people in a very profound and humbling way. Some communities we’re flying into have received no other help. Wow! No other help?! Groceries are cut-off from oh so many people now in dire need. The grateful faces that light up when we taxi our aircraft in to unload the essential cargo literally brightens the day, and as we unload we get to hear and witness folks share their respective community plight and hunger for help, any help.“

By December 5, weeks into the relief effort, Government and the CAF had not even contacted the communities Sigmund was flying into. In a Global News article, by December 2, the pilots were helping 30 to 35 cut-off communities, many First Nations. The last correspondence I had with Sigmund on December 16 was they were increasing work to 12 to 15 hour days in preparation for Christmas. He does not have kind words for government efforts who are MIA.

The highways are severed in many, many places cutting off communities from their supply chain that’s also needed to recover from the physical damage, cut off from their jobs and similar. Some communities have been running out of basic groceries, prescriptions and similar. The volunteers that meet the arriving aircraft tell us that we are the ONLY help they’ve had. There is a political disconnect as well as a physical infrastructure disconnect for these communities. The “Emergency Disaster” playbook is in serious need of a rewrite and/or additional chapters added. This is not hard to address with immediacy of action… after all, that’s exactly what we’re doing. Governments are encouraged to step up and take over the delivery of the essential cargo today, and if they need some idea of how to assist in real time… we can do that too! Just sayin’.
Sigmund Bering Sort – Volunteer BC Flood relief pilot, December 5

Sigmund’s thoughts mirror my own regarding the overall incompetence of Canadian government’s efforts to deal with natural disasters. According to BC Emergency Management in a December 6 statement, everything was being taken care of.

It obviously is not.

December 10, RCAF Operations tweeted out the standing down of operations out of Abbotsford Airport. It was ironic Global News called the West Coast Pilots Assn of 40 aircraft and 4 helicopters a ‘tiny air force’.

As for the military’s efforts, my ire is not towards the personnel on the ground but with their spineless officers in command. Yes, they can hide behind regulations stating the Province needs to formally request CAF assistance. That is a coward’s way out. Senior officers are well aware needs still need to be met for Canadians who are struggling. Nothing is stopping them from speaking out that wrongs are being committed other than career implications. But it seems no one with big broad stripes on their sleeves has the balls to stand up for their fellow Canadians.

Thankfully, ordinary Canadians like Sigmund and the army and air force of volunteers with him are answering the call. Tells you who you can count on when the chips are down.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.

December 10, 2021

The Insidious Nature of the Environmental Movement

https://i.inews.co.uk/content/uploads/2020/08/PRI_162444039.jpg — Groups like Extinction Rebellion are not concerned about the welfare of mankind, they are concerned with the extinction of the Earth. The extinction of Man is their ultimate anti-humanist goal. (Photo – Getty)

Mission Creep is Bringing Western Civilization to a Halt

There is a YouTube video making the rounds of social media of an older clip of Dr. Jordan Peterson chatting with Joe Rogan over the gradual loss of our personal freedoms. It is a fresh take on boiling a frog where you gradually heat his water and he does not realize until too late that he is cuisses de grenouilles.

Maybe you have not realized it yet but the Environmental Movement has nothing to do with making the environment better for you and I to live in. Their mission is to remove humanity from the environment with just a few chosen human caretakers leftover. Gradually, these anti-humanists have taken over our cultural entities, the media, our schools and universities, and have infiltrated their way into our various levels of government. The ideals of Marxism enthrall these eco-socialists and it does not take too much digging through history to see what happens to the masses when they get in the way of their dogma.

Here are a few examples to illustrate my point but just think of how your own personal or business life has been gradually hemmed in with increasing government oversight, regulations, and dictates.

**Former building from the Mount Agassiz Ski Resort** (August 2021)
*Source:* George Penner

On the Eastern edge of Riding Mountain National Park in Manitoba, there used to be a ski hill called Mount Agassiz. It is long gone and the site has been turned into a picnic and day use area. The ski hill’s lodge was repurposed as a cook shack. Unfortunately, the inside of the building is being steadily covered in Barn Swallow feces as Park staff are purposely allowing the birds to nest in an area that was designed for cooking and eating.

An outfit called The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC), described as ‘an independent advisory panel to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change Canada’, deemed in May 2011 that despite the Barn Swallow being the most common swallow in the entire World (over six million in Canada) that it needed to go on the endangered species list. The Canadian population had dipped for some unknown reason but because they exploit structures for nesting spaces, places like buildings in National Parks stopped taking their nests down. In fact, it is illegal to do so anywhere in Canada.

Man-made structures are not a natural nesting area for Barn Swallows. They adapted to their environment when Natives first started building structures. In fact, upon further study, no one knows the exact carrying capacity or reasons why their populations fluctuate. But in the Federal Government’s opinion it is more important for a common bird to shit all over your food prep and eating area instead of just putting up a screen door.

Back in 2018 while I was a beat reporter for South Mountain Press, I wrote a series of articles on the FOUR WINDS ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT PARTNERSHIP which was trying to create a super garbage dump to take care of the waste needs of a pair of local Rural Municipalities (RMs) and a pair of First Nation (FNs) Reserves. The Province had dictated that existing dump sites were to be decommissioned so there was impetus to find solutions. Extra Federal monies had been freed up through Indigenous Services Canada for projects like this hence the unique partnering of RMs and FNs. Years of meetings, public consultations, and hundreds of thousands spent later, the project was finally about to put spades in the ground.

Unfortunately, the FOUR WINDS PARTNERSHIP came up against their bête noire in the form of a vocal NIMBY group who literally shouted down Council and was able to elect a slate of new council representatives whose mandate was to kill the project. I spent quite a bit of time interviewing the opposition group. Despite a very expensive engineering study and numerous consultations, they were vehemently opposed to the dump site. The original problem with the area’s garbage has still not been solved, large amounts of taxpayer monies were spent spinning wheels, and a few score of people are going to inconvenience thousands.

The handling of waste in Canada has become a major issue with RMs coming under very strict guidelines. But when novel solutions are sought, the lead time for all the consultation and study runs into political considerations. At best, projects which seem straight forward are delayed interminably or at worst after considerable time and money, they are outright canceled. Meanwhile, the original problem has not been solved and continues to get worse and more expensive as time goes on. Environmental groups are famous for successfully delaying and ultimately cancelling projects through political pressure, judicial lawsuits, protests, and civil disobedience.

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/aNWvnl7SQtA/maxresdefault.jpg — Nuclear Chemist, Galen Hulet Winsor, 1926-2008

Our ability to measure has exceeded our ability to understand.
Galen Winsor – Nuclear Chemist

Back in the 80’s before the internet, YouTube, TED Talks, or social media, people went on lecture tours to get their message out. But unless you were picked up by one of the few networks, it was a hard slog to gain any notoriety or publicity. One man, Galen Hulet Winsor, a long time Nuclear Chemist who started refining plutonium back in the 40’s after his war tour, was working hard to get his message out. Thankfully, there are a couple of videos surviving of his lectures and I highly recommend taking the time to watch them before the links get broken.

A Free Nuclear Economy – Galen Winsor Lecture (1985)

Ben Williams Presents Galen Winsor (1986)

While watching the lectures, a quote of Mr. Winsor’s jumped out at me. “Our ability to measure has exceeded our ability to understand.” He was referring to nuclear radiation and the fearmongering which has mothballed the nuclear industry. Michael Shellenberger expands on this theme when he explains in his 2017 TED Talk, ‘How Fear of Nuclear Ends‘, how the environmentalist movement struck gold when they invoked the fear of mothers. All sorts of organizations employ this tactic to great effect. MADD lectures no amount of alcohol is safe. Moms Against GMOs are dead set against agricultural progress. Moms Across America are concerned about parts per billion of glyphosate residue in their kids Cheerios. The list goes on because emotional arguments more easily sway this particular demographic.

Getting back to nuclear energy, as Mr. Shellenberger explains, ironically the Sierra Club was all for nuclear energy because it was cleaner compared to fossil fuels. But radicals in the group went the other direction, tied nuclear energy to nuclear weapons, and despite the fact that you can run the plants at greater than 100% efficiency, nuclear has stagnated.

Mr. Winsor finally got so fed up with the misinformation and needless safety measures, he tossed away the remaining years of his long career in the nuclear industry and incurred the wrath and censure of the Federal government. As he graphically explains, there is no need to be so afraid of nuclear power plants or nuclear materials. He advocated that every small community could easily have a small plant (similiar to those that have been employed for decades onboard US Navy carriers and submarines) producing cheap, abundant electricity for pennies. Nuclear is just not that dangerous.

Of course, despite the fact that Mr. Winsor should know what he is talking about considering his extensive experience, he is in the solid minority. The narrative is nuclear is scary and too expensive compared to wind and solar. Of course, this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when ‘safety’ standards, environmental groups, and political opposition jam up the process of building nuclear plants. As an example, the Diablo Canyon (Nuclear) Power Plant which Mr. Shellenberger speaks of, took 19 years before it was allowed to produce electricity. In 1950, Mr. Winsor described how the plant he worked at was up and producing plutonium in a year and within five years, they had produced enough material that the States would not be able to use it all. But instead of embracing this technology, the World is dead set on anemic wind and solar generation for our energy needs.

The masses are easily swayed by emotional arguments made by nefarious actors within the environmental movement. Their motivations range from genuine concern to monetary enrichment. But the end goal appears to be the ranking of Mother Earth over that of their fellow man whom unless you are one of the Chosen, is seen as a blight to be curtailed and/or eradicated. As Dr. Jordan Peterson explains, millimeter by millimeter, these people are stealthily encroaching and then all the frogs are surprised when they look up and realize they have been pushed back by miles.

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Blair is a personification of a ‘Jack of All Trades and Master of None’. He has held several careers and has all the T-shirts. Time to add the title Blogger to the list.