All posts by James DeVol

My Life

November 23rd

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Well…it was kind of a full day yesterday with lunch with T and then out with G for a couple….still have the grinding the teeth thing going on at night and got up this morning with really bad pain from it…thought I had that figured out a couple of years ago but I guess I didn’t…I have heard from all three boys and there is going to be a T-day dinner…but I need to go out and get a few more things to finish it this morning…there is no way I’ll be in the stores Wed…just want to get the turkey brining and get the last few things cleaned up here and watch the Wings game….But, what about today, you ask? Or don’t ask, but I’m going to tell you anyway…it looks like the normal Tuesday…out to Ada later for pool to try to redeem myself from getting my butt kicked….but this week will be different….

It was kind of fun to have the last day of shorts and short sleeve shirts yesterday but I still have two more days to go before I can put on jeans…and I don’t want to anyway…what I don’t get is people think its weird for me to still be wearing shorts but don’t think anything of women wearing skirts through the winter….is it equivalent? Well…I think it is so it must be, right? Okay…drifting a little so I’ll end here…I’ll try to get another topic out later but you know how it goes on Tuesday…

Misc

An Independent judiciary…

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Well… this is not the one I was thinking about earlier in the day but it is a topic that needs to have some light shone on it after the recall of three judges in Iowa this election. If you didn’t read, there were three judges that voted for equal protection under the law in ruling that gays and lesbians have the right to marry in Iowa. What the crazy right wingers are saying that judges should reflect the will of the people and because they are against it, the rights of gays and lesbians should be suppressed until they say it okay to grant them the same rights as the rest of us. The founders established the independent judiciary specifically as a counterbalance to popular opinion to ensure that the majority couldn’t repress other citizens…what’s next…when judges vote to protect minority rights will they be recalled? These are the same people that thought “separate but equal” was just fine and it took an independent judiciary to end segregation and the many other instances of discrimination that “popular opinion” thought was just great. Again…it just another instance where the righties are all for the constitution unless it goes against their ignorant opinions….geez…

My Life

November 22nd

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Well…another almost weekend gone…I think I’ve said this before…how I miss the idea of weekends? When you’re unemployed, all days look the same and you miss the joy that there is a weekend coming….just a short musing…I guess that means that it doesn’t matter that Monday is here either….don’t really miss Mondays…okay, time to move on. Didn’t do a lot yesterday…but I think I’m done with Napcar…no competition and Jimmie Johnson winning the championship again….until they let there be real innovation in the cars and loosen the rules, the robots like Johnson will keep winning and it no longer fun to watch. But the Lions lost, too, so that was a plus…and they will probably lose again Thurs…didn’t do much else but make ribs yesterday…they were good but I think I overcooked them a little. Not much to do today….might have lunch with T but I’m not sure about that yet…and I have to get hold of the boys and make sure they know I’m making t-day dinner….and I hope the rain stops later so I can get a ride in…more later…

Okay…I did get the bike ride in and it was a little melancholy…I know this is the last day out in shorts and a t-shirt and that, to me, is more of a passing than the seasons….and I came back muddy from head to toe but it was a good muddy; to be able to sweat through everything on the 22nd of November is pretty cool…I may have topics later…there is one rattling around but who knows?

Politics

Yep, it’s personal….

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Well…over the last couple of years I have been admonished a few times by my friends to not take things so personally, especially politics, and I have taken that advice to heart for the most part…but, as I reflect further on the state of affairs in this country, I may have been wrong to listen…I am coming to a new way of thinking about things; that maybe the only way to effect change in our great country is to take all of the blows personally, to take torture in my name as an American personally, to take the concentration of wealth fostered by the repubs personally, to take the unrelenting partisanship in politics personally, and to take the gutting of the middle class personally. I don’t know if it will help or not but I think we need to do something different…especially when I hear of the “great social values awakening” that is the plan of the new Republican governors that were elected in November. I take it personally when these guys, including the new gov of Michigan Rick Snyder, are going back to the old, divisive ways of the past repub administrations where they try to shove the religious views of the minority of the electorate down our throats by legislation that is by design discriminatory…can we say more restrictions on women’s rights? Can we say legislating the permanent second class status for gays and lesbians by denying them the rights that the rest of us have? These are the guys that spout off about the constitution constantly, and how we have gotten away from it’s original intent….but it was never meant to restrict any groups rights, but to grow those rights as the society changed.

I take it personally when any political party abandons all principle for political gain….where, over the last 30 years. the repubs have been trying earnestly to kill the federal government by starving it of the tax revenue it needs to provide the protections that all societies provide to it’s citizens…and yet show it’s just a political ploy when one of their “stars”, Governor Jindal of Louisiana, goes on “Meet the Press” today and bitches that the federal government should have had ships, etc. sitting and ready to cope with any oil spills in the gulf….okay, Bobby, where do we get the money when your party is still trying to bankrupt the government by giving the rich a $700 billion dollar tax cut? Explain this to me…it’s the governments job to clean up after all of the business polluters, but it’s not the job of government to support citizens with UI benefits when we are in the greatest recession in all of our lifetimes? Can you see why I think I have to start taking all of this stuff personally again? But, I am going to try to convert those feelings into some sort of action…don’t know what it is yet…but this question keeps running through my head..”if not now, when”…geez…

My Life

November 21st

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Well…another crappy night of sleep and I’m waiting for the coffee to finish so I can wake up a little…I am a little excited, though, that the weather is going to be warmer today and tomorrow…I will certainly get out on the bike today and get in at least 20….with the season winding down, I need to take advantage of any reasonable day…yesterday was almost a complete bore, saved only by Netflix and cleaning….and today looks quite a bit the same…no SF but that’s okay since I want to save some cash…and there will be the last Napcar race but I don’t get excited about that like I used to…I will have a topic for later since there has been something jelling over the last couple of days…don’t know if it’s too topical but it is something that is becoming important to me….more later…

Misc

The noose is closing…

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Well…an interesting day in the news yesterday and Ole GW should start sweating a little…if you didn’t hear, the mayor of London issued a warning to GW about any idea for a book tour that would include Europe…with the victory tour to support his new book, the idiot has gone on record with Matt Lauer of NBC and even in the book that he authorized torture…the waterboarding of a couple of prisoners over 100 times when waterboarding is torture in both international treaties that the US has signed, and in a 1994 US law that makes it a felony to approve or participate in torture. This moron thinks that just because his hand-picked lawyers said it was okay to torture, that he is protected by the law…when it is clear in the treaties that there is no hiding behind lawyers; as Augusto Pinochet discovered when he was arrested for approving torture and murder in Chile, as he traveled to Europe for medical care. Now, the outcry to hold Bush and Cheney responsible is rising across Europe and Canada as a result of the decision of Obama to not investigate or prosecute these clear violations of the law…this lack of commitment to uphold our international obligations is another black eye on the Obama administration and on us, the people of America and have further destroyed our moral standing in the world.

I hope both Bush and Cheney decide to flaunt their lawbreaking by traveling to one of the countries that is a signatory to these international laws against torture….they deserve to be prosecuted for their role in the torture and the ruination of our country’s traditional role as the leader on human rights….we are supposed to be a nation of laws and we used to be…now, we are a society that Orwell described in “Animal Farm”…that everyone’s equal…but some are more equal than others…

It will be a shame if we have to be taught our obligations to the world by Europe and Canada…geez…

If it sounds like I take this stuff personally, you’re right…

My Life

November 20th

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Well…another night at home last night…and I think that is going to be the refrain for a while until I get some cash coming in…it was nice to see my atm card still works…haven’t had to take any money out all year but I needed cash today…gives me a sinking feeling when I have to do that for some reason. Oh, well…not much to do today..I just started the coffee and have a couple of newspapers waiting for me…then there will be Michigan football for later…don’t know if there is going to be anything else…but, who knows? A meteor might drop out of the sky….I do have a topic for later that I touched on way back when I started this thing….it’s about ole GW…and I think it’s a good one…more later…

One last thing…just wanted to say Happy Birthday to Joe Walsh…can’t believe he’s 63 today…if you don’t know Joe…listen to the James Gang and “The Smoker You Drink, The Player you Get” or Smoker to us fans or any of his other solo albums to get a taste of what he’s meant to rock and roll over the past 40 years…going to make it a Joe day in the car…

Politics

Hypocrisy, thy name is Republican..

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Well…this is going to be a short one but one that I had to comment on…the repubs just shot down the extension of unemployment benefits for the purported reason that any additional spending has to be paid for by cuts in other spending. this move will cut off these benefits to almost 2 million people at the end of the year and has never happened in history with the unemployment rate so high…and their comments ratcheted up their nastiness to a new level even for them…they think it is a citizen’s duty to take any job, no matter that the pay is less than they would get in UI benefits; that it is less than the money they need to keep feeding their families…but that is not the repubs problem. They just don’t give a damn about anyone but the rich…and you can see that by their continued insistence that the 700 billion dollars in tax cuts for the rich be made permanent…but with no word of how to pay for that….of course…geez…

Politics

Bye Bye, Blue Dogs….

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Well…one of the themes that has come out of the recent mid-terms is the shrinking of the “Blue Dog Democrat” caucus from 56 members to only 23. And, the losers are casting their losses to be all tied to the healthcare bill and that they were not conservative enough in their philosophy….what planet are they living on? The reason that most of them lost was their abandonment of the Democratic party and the principles of fairness and protection of the middle class that has been part of the dems ideals for more than 50 years. During the healthcare debate, and the financial regulation debate, when the blue dogs talked you couldn’t tell them from the repubs…and most of this crap was motivated by political calculations made to ensure their re-election. What they didn’t count on was that the dem voters would remember what they said, and what they did to gut the healthcare bill and turn it into a windfall for the insurance companies. This was compounded by their siding with the repubs on financial reform….and not offering any reasons other than the tired old repub talking points of “government regulation bad, free market good” that has run this country into the ground over the past decade.

So, what did they expect? When they abandoned their constituents didn’t they foresee that these same constituents would abandon them? I guess they thought that repubs would vote for them if they acted like repubs…but that was never going to happen, either. I say good riddance to them…to these Democrats in name only who showed their true colors and lack of empathy for all of us that have no healthcare and because of our age, have few prospects…that is not the America I grew up in…I hope Democrats become Democrats again and grow a spine…geez….

My Life

November 19th

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Well…I’m going to get to the blue dogs after I go out for coffee but right now it’s just going to be the normal stuff…C and D did come into town and it was fun to go out and have a couple of beers….and it did force me into cleaning this place up and it looks the best it has in quite a while….I do need to get the T-day groceries today to make sure the turkey is thawed by next week but I’m not sure if I’m going to have anyone here…but, I still do the full boat dinner even if it’s just for me since I need to have turkey sandwiches and the carcass for turkey soup….not much else to do today….I did take the day off riding yesterday so I need to get back on the bike today….may take a long one since I’m running out of nice weather….still in shorts, though, for 6 more days….more later…