Personal Musings category archive
Diluting the Gene Pool, Football Dept. 0
The competence of sports broadcasters is the reciprocal of the number of sports stations.
Eight Is Enough? (Updated) 2
Facts are starting to trickle out about the woman who, with the help of implanted embryos, bore eight babies last week.
Now, I’m not going to get involved in any discussion of the morality of fertility drugs, in vitro fertilization, or stuff like that there. For one thing, I haven’t thought it through, because I’m well past the age when stuff like that could conceivably (as it were) affect my daily life. For another thing, it’s just not worth the effort.
But this sentence at the end of the article in today’s local rag caught my eye:
Forty-six physicians and staff assisted in the deliveries of the six boys and two girls.
I know persons with serious health problems who refuse to go to the doctor because they have lousy or, indeed, no health insurance.
Something about that makes my nerves jangle.
Addendum, That Evening:
According to the Times of London, Mama wants to go on a Magical Money Tour.
Stray Thought 0
A dog is man’s best friend. Except when it is man’s most annoying friend.
And there’s no looking forward to the empty nest.
(Wanna dog? Free shipping. Tranquilizers are on you.)
Stray Thought 1
One of the appalling things about modern American conservatives is that so many of them seem to be nasty, unpleasant, hate-full persons.
Icey Dicey 0
My brother gave me a cane for Christmas.
No, not because he thinks I’m decrepit. Though he probably does, because I am.
Because he knew I enjoy making useful things of wood and would admire the quality of the woodwork. It’s gorgeous. (Really, follow the link and look at the samples. I think the one he selected is number five.)
I needed it today.
The rain that was forecast to follow the snow yesterday never got beyond a drizzle, so it did not wash away the snow. When the temperature dropped below freezing over night, it just added a nice little one-inch layer of ice on top.
Then, when the temperature nudged above freezing in the morning, a silly little millimeter of water formed on top of the ice.
I had nature’s own Slip ‘n Slide for a front yard.
I needed the cane to walk down the little hill (about a four-foot drop) between my house and the street without falling on my–er, never mind.
(I have another cane that is more functional. Unscrew the handle and it holds five shots of whatever you want to put in the little test tube thingees. I recommend whiskey. It never goes bad. Great for Independence Day fireworks shows.)
Into the Dustbin of History? 0
One can only hope.
Coinkydink? 0
It is somehow fitting that the ranking Republican representative from Lala Land is Jerry Lewis.
Wonder whether he’s popular in France?
One More Time: The Internet is a Public Place: Appellate Division 0
In California, a Christian school wins an appeal affirming its right to expel students for homosexuality.
The case is troubling, not least because there was no evidence of homosexual behavior, except for “my word against your word” claims.
Hypocrisy (Updated) 0
I just heard John “Boner” Boehner gassing about tax cuts on Marconi’s Magic Box in a story about the economy.
Among other things, he said that “government cannot fix this problem.”
Why the hell not?
Government–most specifically Republican government–created it.
Addendum:
Krugman dissects the lies. A nugget:
Here’s how to think about this argument: it implies that we should shut down the air traffic control system. After all, that system is paid for with fees on air tickets — and surely it would be better to let the flying public keep its money rather than hand it over to government bureaucrats. If that would mean lots of midair collisions, hey, stuff happens.
This Is Not Right 0
I know that politics (with a small “p”) are part of running any large organization.
The way I look at it, it’s “politics” when your position loses and it’s a “process of negotiation and compromise” when your position wins.
Compromise may not be a pretty thing.
Nevertheless, it is often a necessary thing. If you cannot take two steps forward because the current is too strong, one step forward is good. (Some of my fellow lefties haven’t figured that out yet, but that’s another blog post.)
But sanctioning the denial of truth is beyond the pale of civilized conduct and beyond the pale of the Gospel of Love.
Flip-Flopped 0
Wonder how well that odious telly vision show Flip This House will do in the ratings this year when the real estate market seems to be flying on a bling and a prayer?
Local shops that sell religious paraphernalia are reporting phenomenal sales of tiny statuettes of St. Joseph – the earthly father of Jesus and the patron saint of the home and house sellers – to real estate agents and homeowners.
Side Issue 0
As long as I can remember–and I am older by the minute–the Governors of many states have had the right to fill a U. S. Senate vacancy pending the next regularly scheduled commercial interruption election.
It’s worked just fine–not great, but okay.
Despite the fulminations of the Washington Post–which has over the past eight years demonstrated in its editorials a disturbing tendency to miss the point–the kerfuffle over New York’s Caroline Kennedy and Illinois Governor Blagomumble’s (insert mandatory “alleged” here) flea market does not impeach that method of filling out a Senatorial term.
All it does it impeach Caroline Kennedy’s pretensions and Governor Blagomumble’s conduct.
Bushonomics: The Hangover 4
The Washington Post looks at why Chapter 11 Bankruptcy isn’t working any more. Companies are giving up reorganizing and, instead, giving up the ghost.
Now, I’m not familiar with Mervyn’s, Steve and Barry’s, or Whitehall Jewelers.
I am familiar with Circuit City and have mentioned them here probably more times than I ever went into one of their stores (which was twice). At least in my little Circuit City store, they had a lousy selection unattractively arranged.
I am familiar with Linens ‘n Things and Sharper Image. Their selection ranged from the over-priced to the useless to the over-priced useless. Heck, Sharper Image made Brookstone look like a five and dime (Brookstone, for all it’s expensive, does sometimes have useful stuff that you just can’t easily find anywhere else).
In bad times, customers don’t buy over-priced unnecessary junk. Heck, they don’t even buy over-priced necessary junk.
I am not an economist (though I do have some economic training), and I’m guessing Bed Bath and Beyond is probably shaking in its bed bath and beyond slippers.
These are not times when persons are going to buy $120.00 coffee makers.
These are times when persons buy house brands, not brand hype.
Quote of the Day 0
Via (with miswording and misattribution) Gene Weingarten, who was doing it off the top of his head, and got the wording a little wrong, while capturing the essence, and attributed it to FDR Benjamin Franklin.
While you’re at it, read Weingarten’s column from Sunday.
Great Moments in Journalism 0
Not.
“Responsible journalists” are so busy patting themselves on the back that they keep forgetting to get the damned story.
The press wonders why newspapers and traditional media are failing financially.
In other words, they wonder why fewer persons are willing to pay for their product.
Has the press considered that their consistently missing the story may have something to do with it?
Persons don’t like to pay for a defective product.
Question 4
Why would the Department of Homeland Security want to look at my picture of a magnolia tree?
From the stats (emphasis added):
URL: /weblog/?m=200604
Date: 2009-Jan-23 15:53:32
Referer: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://pineviewfarm.net/graphics/magnolia.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.pineviewfarm.net/weblog/%3Fm%3D200604&usg=__dPjKV009qCbCCtyjW80S–urFL0=&h=497&w=435&sz=222&hl=en&start=20&tbnid=rZe-p23wXqEhYM:&tbnh=130&tbnw=1
IP: 204.248.24.163
Host: sbcp4.dhs.gov
Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; DHSI60SP1001; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; InfoPath.1)
One would think they could find better things to do with our time. Not, of course, that I ever surfed the web while at work.
(Frankly, I think it should never had been created. Congress blew that one. And, if it had to be created, it should have been called the “Department of Domestic Security.” “Homeland” sounds too much like “Vaterland.“)
“Whois” information below the fold.
A Vote against Small-Minded Silliness 0
Of course, anyone who comes here knows that English is the lingua franca, as it were.
Passing a law declaring English the “official language” of a city, town, or state is nothing more that legislating xenophobia. Such laws have no practical value except to say to those who come looking for a better life, “Get off my lawn.”
The citizens of Nashville figured that out.
A Liberal Nation 0
Yesterday, I received an email in response to this post.
The email was from someone in the Netherlands.
(As usual, I was mildly surprised to find that someone other than the two or three friends and relatives that I know about actually reads this thing.)
The writer told me of watching the inauguration of the President of the United States on the telly vision, because
the inauguration of Mr. Obama was and is something very very moving.
One of my friends tried to claim that the writer was trying to blame his country’s problems on the United States.
That could not have been farther from the writer’s intentions.
His country doesn’t have problems to blame on the United States (other than the venality of Wall Street and the corruption of Republican Economic Theory, which has poisoned the financial system of the world and which richly deserves opprobrium).
As I have mentioned from time to time, the United States of America is the only nation founded on an idea: the idea of freedom under the rule of law.
That idea is a real thing, not just for those of us who, like me, can trace their ancestry in this land to before the French and Indian War, not just for all those who since then have come here, believing in that idea and looking for a better life, but also for persons who have never left their home countries to come here, but who still treasure the idea of freedom under the rule of law.
This has never been a perfect country.
It is a nation that has done really bad things.
Just for a moment, think of the Trail of Tears.
Indeed, I have ancestors who were slaveholders.
One of my relatives signed John Brown’s death warrant (not that John Brown was a prince among men).
But, all the while, one of the core beliefs of America has been the idea of perfectibility.
This does not mean a belief that the United States or, indeed, mankind, can ever become perfect (only the wingnuts and the nutcases believe that we have achieved perfection, whatever the hell that is), but rather the belief that a free people working together can continually find a better way.
And, with many failures and false steps and mistakes, throughout the two and a half centuries of its history as a nation, the United States of America has, with all it faults, encouraged others that the world could become better, because the United States believed that it could become better.
To paraphrase the Grateful Dead, it’s been a long, strange trip, but somehow, with each meandering, the United States has managed to get a little closer to getting it right.
With much bumbling and fumbling and with many sidetrips and false starts, over the years, the United States has faced its failures, faced its injustices, faced its darkest impulses, and tried to fix them. Yes, often with great struggle, but getting it right a little more often than getting it wrong.
As I have pointed out from time to time, I grew up under Jim Crow.
Those who you did not, whether it was because of where you grew up or because of when you grew up, cannot imagine what it was like.
And, as I look back on it, the scary thing was that, as I was growing up, it seemed normal. Because it was what we were used to.
It seemed normal to have separate schools, separate bathrooms, separate water fountains, based on the amount of carotene in the skin.
Indeed, I remember taking the bus with my mother to visit my grandmother in the red clay country of South Carolina sometime in the late 1950s. Somewhere in North Carolina, I think in Raleigh, the bus made a rest stop. I remember walking into the wrong–into the “colored”–waiting room.
Never in my life, and I am old and have made many mistakes, have I felt so out of place. I can only imagine from that experience what it was like to be black in a white world.
And I know my imaginings cannot approach the reality that black persons have dealt with for 300 years on these shores.
I would not wish the feeling I had at that moment on anyone.
For the last eight years, I have had that a similar feeling in my own country, in the country my ancestors fought to found.
Under a mad leadership, the United States of America has been insane for eight years.
Horrible, evil things, deeds which betrayed the blood and the ideals and the beliefs and the sacrifices of the Founders, have been done in our name by persons who are yet and will remain unrepentant.
And, as we look at those persons, we see that evil is banal, for they are ultimately banal, small, weak persons who, having no character, no principles, no understanding of the meaning of the ideals upon which this country was founded, seized on force as the only value.
They are gone from governance.
Not merely gone. Repudiated.
In their own way, the American people, sometimes sooner, too often later, have managed to figure out the right thing to do.
As I told my correspondent from the Netherlands, it is good to have my country back.
God be with President Barack Hussein Obama as he leads us back to sanity.
Stray Thought: Ettiquet Dept. 1
If you don’t tell me why you’re calling me in the message you leave, I’m not calling you back.
Stray Question 3
Why does every device that comes with a USB cable say, “Use only the cable that came with this [device name]”?