Personal Musings category archive

We stumbled over this a couple of weeks ago. It airs on our cable provider on Sundays, eight hours of a pot-potpourri of songs, shorts, excerpts, and the like. One of the items this week included Nat “King” Cole and Ella Fitzgerald in a duet.

It airs on one of the “public access” channels (channel 47 on Virginia Beach’s Cox Cable), so it’s not listed in the “listings” on the cable company’s DVR–the listing provides no information about what’s on the three “public access” channels.

Those channels are normally a rather boring collection of local miscellany, but the Classic Arts Showcase is a fascinating variety of excellent viewing and listening.

Follow the link to find out where you can view it in your area.

I did. Several.

Susan can attest to that.

I know this lady. She is a good and caring person and a good Democrat.

Really, nothing more needs to be said.

My mother died of Alzheimer’s.

My ex noticed it years before anyone else (whatever complaints I may have, my ex is a damned good nurse). It was progressing slowly until my father had a heart attack and died a week later.

My father was so wrapped up in caring for my mother that, I am certain, he delayed calling for help so as not to worry or distress her. When he passed, she started to fail more quickly.

This seems be a parallel.

Alzheimer’s is not a nice way to go.

I have watched it.

I know.

Please say a prayer for Mayor Meyera and for her family who supports her.

They must walk into a tunnel that has but one end.

Have you ever wondered why there were no black folks in Mayberry? In North Carolina? In the South?

I cannot think of a pretty answer.

I understand that something important is happening today. And yesterday.

The election’s signed and sealed. Now the politics continue.

Notre Dame got beat so badly in the Orange Bowl that the band wanted to leave at the end of the third quarter.

Also, commercials are getting dumber (yeah, I didn’t think it was possible either). Compared to Verizon’s welcome-to-the-Matrix Droid ads, Speedy Alka-Seltzer was blankety-blank War and Peace and M&Ms in the swimming pool was the bleedin’ Bolshoi.

It’s most amazing how often “be a man” translates into “do something stupid.”

Kansas City played a large role in the growth of the blues, so I wonder whether their company name is not a coincidence.

Three years later, HollenWolff LLC, a company Stoehr started with two partners, has launched its first product: mechanical cuff links that use ball bearings to secure and release the halves.

It is ironic that the biggest argument against Christianity is the conduct of those who most loudly proclaim their own Christian-ness.

Matthew 6:5.

If the embed doesn’t work, click here.

I wonder how many persons are waiting to see what happens today hoping to get out of Christmas shopping?

I’m so old I can remember when television networks had new Christmas specials every year.

I do enjoy the schmaltzy Christmas pop songs of my youth, but if I never hear “Little Drummer Boy” again, it will be about 10,000 times too late.

It was 70 Fahrenheits on the first day of December, a temperature which, when I was growing up in these parts, would have been inconceivable (50 maybe, on an unseasonably warm day), but it clearly can have nothing to do with global heating.

Move along now, nothing to see here.

If you are unwilling to identify yourself, I’m unwilling to answer the phone.

I looked at the couch and realized that we have

Shreddinger’s Cat!

Romney lost the election not because he failed to convey the Republican message, but because he succeeded.

He conveyed, displayed, even portrayed it most accurately..

I wonder whether all the sirens I heard yesterday morning could have been this?

I was over that way on Witchduck Road (named after a real witch ducking) just about that time.

The number of messages I must delete unheard from my answering machine has decreased by 95% since Election Day.

Now it’s back to the usual “reduce! interest! rates!” stuff.

I voted on the way to my assignment. That location had two check-in lines and seven voting machines. Good turnout and 45-minute line. One of the poll workers said there had been a line since they opened at 6:00 a.

My friend voted and had a similar experience. Then she went to her workplace, which volunteers part of its facility to be used as a polling place, and couldn’t find a parking spot so she could go to work.

After I voted, I went to my assigned polling location–a large suburban high school–to hand out sample ballots for the forces of truth, justice, and the American way.

School was not in session, though the staff had an in-service day. But you could not tell that from the parking lot; it was jammed–people made spaces where there were no spaces.

That location had two check-in lines and ten voting machines.

And a three- to four-hour wait.

Some persons left without voting because they had to pick up their kids or go to work. Some of those, whom I commend wholeheartedly, came back, knowing what kind of wait they faced.

Regulars told me such waits are not uncommon in that location.

After lunchtime, some persons from the neighborhood came out with free coffee and doughnuts for the crowd, then someone showed up from the local Obama headquarters with cases of bottled water to distribute to the waiting voters.

Something is wrong when a polling location is so woefully understaffed with poll workers and voting machines on a regular basis.

I was on my feet for five and a half hours handing out “lit” (erature) and joking with the folks in line, who were generally good-natured.

One fellow did choose to get into a tiff with a lady distributing lit for a school board candidate. It seemed to be an apolitical snit. I guess he was a bad attitude waiting for a victim. Other than that, it was uneventful and, because of the attitude of the voters, a not unpleasant experience.

But long.

I don’t plan to watch the returns. I plan to check in on them from time to time while drinking heavily.

The torrent of Republican lies has exhausted me.

On the bright side, the 2016 campaign starts tomorrow.

Image via Comically Vintage.

Ten robocalls so far today, including one accusing President Obama of being a So-chul-ist (anyone who knows anything about Socialism knows better) and an enemy of Christianity and of a decent moral order.

The Republican Party and its dupes, symps, and fellow travelers have become vile and disgusting things.