Personal Musings category archive

Never worked a polling place before.

Six hours at the polling place annoying persons as they arrived to vote.

Actually, I tried to be not annoying.

Most of the voters, I must say were quite polite. Many were pleasant. No one was actively rude, though a few were somewhat curt.

I had several interesting conversations and reached enthusiastic agreement with one conservative voter that broadcast and print coverage of local elections is deplorably deficient, making it difficult to learn about the candidates or the issues; with one Democratic voter that persons who are willing to vote Republican and expect them to be different from 2000-2008 think fantastickal thoughts.

I brought a camp chair with me, but didn’t get to use it for more than half an hour total. I haven’t been on my feet continuously for so long since I worked in a factory.

Afterwards, some of us gathered with Andrew to celebrate, if not a victory, at least the end of the campaign.

The battle is never won. It is always just one in the series.

An election is not an end. It is another beginning.

Afterthought:

I’ll read the returns in the morning. They won’t change from now till then. CSI: New York reruns are great for winding down.

I had a dream last night, oh boy.

I dreamt that . . .

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Are cats aware of their tails?

Do cats control their tails or do cats’ tails betray them?

I dreamt I was up all night repairing a car.

Now I don’t know whether I’m tired or rested.

One of the things that I have missed since moving to these parts is Drinking Liberally.

When I lived in the Greater Philadelphia Co-Prosperity Sphere, the regular Tuesday meetings of the local DL chapter recharged and invigorated me. The Philly DL bloggers who still have active blogs are linked on the sidebar, over there ————->.

It wasn’t the drinking (I can do that quite well on my own, thank you).

It was the liberally–the fellowship of kindred minds.

Some of the friendships I made there continue across the miles.

When I moved here, there were two DL chapters listed at the mothership–one in Norfolk and one in Virginia Beach–but both of them had faded away by the time I went looking for them.

Now, someone is trying to revive a local chapter.

See you there:

When: Thursday, October 28, 6:00 p. m.

Where: Croc’s Bistro & Bar, 620 19th St, Virginia Beach, Virginia (Map)

To quote one of my Philly DL friends,

“Come for the beer, stay for the check”

When persons idolize June Cleaver, they forget that Barbara Billingsley was a working mom.

This.

Torn between being sorry the Phillies lost and thinking that an extra-innings finish after an 8 p. m. starts would have been too late for me.

This kind of stuff really must end. It’s time to let go of the hate. If you are a Christian, another way of putting it is this: It’s time to live by the Gospels, not by Leviticus.

If you think that gays are icky, it just reveals that your mind is icky.

It’s called “Projection.”

It looks like it’s finally time to roll out the quilts.

My cat’s not getting fat.

Her legs are just getting too short.

The Cincinnati Reds’ naming their baseball stadium “The Great American Ballpark” is as arrogant as the Dallas Cowboys pretending to be “America’s Team.”

In my part of America, any day on which the Cowboys lose is a good day.

(True fact, as contrasted to untrue facts: It was a sell-out to the Great American Insurance Company, whoever they are. It is now my policy to avoid their policies.)

If there is a great American ballpark, it is Yankee Stadium (and I’m not even a Yankees fan, though I was one in the days of Mickey Mantle and Whitey Ford, in the days of ships of wood and men of iron).

Attending a ballgame in Yankee Stadium is a thing unto itself.

Proposals to introduce a law compelling non-Jews seeking Israeli citizenship to swear allegiance to Israel as a ”Jewish and democratic state” have generated a lively debate in Israeli papers.

Loyalty oaths were stupid during the Cold War and they are stupid now.

Someone with dastardly intent will quite happily swear a loyalty oath. What’s the little betrayal of a loyalty oath to someone who has already determined to betray a trust?

The only persons who benefit from loyalty oaths are politicians who use them to create fusses and furors.

Follow the link for more details on this particular fuss and furor.

In Wilmington, Delaware, there is a strong Christian Orthodox presence, reflecting the pattern of immigration (you know about immigration; it’s a word that means, “We’re here; you’re not allowed”). Up the road from my old house was a Ukrainian Orthodox Church.

When they held their annual bazaar, you could get pierogies to die for. (For those of you who have never heard of pierogies, they are sort of eastern European raviolis, usually filled with mashed potatoes or mashed potatoes and onions. You boil them up and, for a true treat, simultaneously fry up some onions and finish by browning the pierogies with the onions. You can sometimes find a pale imitation in the freezer section of your grocery store).

We attended it once, because the Pastor was our neighbor two doors up. The service was two hours of beautiful liturgy, much of it spent standing. The most memorable event was that First Son’s girlfriend of the time fainted from all the standing and incense. She went to the Narthex for a breath and, the next thing we knew, an usher was at our pew whispering, “Your daughter has fainted.” Daughter was standing right there . . . process of elimination and all that.

Anyhoo, in the course of a discussion of the place of archangels as opposed to angels (I took the position that angels were, at best, a metaphor, but that, in Christian tradition, archangels were sort of like the sergeants of angels–sergeants run the Army), I stumbled on the Orthodox Page, which discusses the Orders of Angels.

We are tired of “hearty soups.”

We’re going to start our own brand:

“Pine View Farm Puny Soups.”

For small appetites.

Susie Madrak managed to get the term “hippie punching” into the news this week.

I’ve never quite been sure what “hippie punching” means, other than a sort of misdirection play, sort of a modern equivalent of “shoot the messenger” that might be expressed as

When you don’t want to deal with the cause of a problem, blame the hippies.

Never mind that no hippies have been seen in the wild since 1969 and that many of the persons who use the phrase with themselves in the role of “hippie” not only were not hippies, but also have never seen one–indeed, their activism is quite the opposite of anything hippie–but let them have their little fantasy.

As of today, the Urban Dictionary has only one definition, added three days ago from what is clearly a rightwing perspective (the user who posted it uses a nom de innertubes of DA+IRS+IS+GONNA+GETCHA+SOON).

With that out of the way, what Mithras said.

Interpolation:

Noz defines the term for me. From the comments:

“hippie punching” is when democrats gratuitously attack their liberal base, perhaps for the misguided reason that it somehow helps their credibility with “regular” americans.

End Interpolation.

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The road to perdition oft leads through tradition.

I didn’t much like Hawaii Five-O the first time around.

For some fool reason, the local cable people think that the only baseball team that matters to people in these parts is the Washington Nationals.

The networks seem to think it’s either the Nationals or the Orioles (who are rumored to have at one time played in the Bigs).

We do get WGN (Cubs).

The Phillies are playing the Nationals this weekend. Then they’re playing the Braves and the New York Mutts (both probably not available here), and then the Nationals again at the end of the week.

There’s at least a little bit of baseball on the telly vision.

3,000 is not such a big deal, but grasping at straws etc. (emphasis added):

Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell last week to the lowest level in two months, a sign the labor market is improving.

Initial jobless claims dropped by 3,000 to 450,000 in the week ended Sept. 11, Labor Department figures showed today in Washington. The median forecast was for a rise to 459,000, according to a Bloomberg News survey. The total number of people receiving unemployment insurance fell, and those getting extended payments plunged.