All posts by James DeVol

My Life

November 18th

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Well…I was going to go out for a while last night but thought better of it…not too prudent an idea with 8 bucks in your pocket…but that’s another story…the Wings did win after a a game that they looked slow until the last 10 minutes when they scored 4 to put the Blues away…pretty cool. This should be in sports, though…I guess…but I run this thing so I get to do what I want. Didn’t do much else last night but just hang out here and not drink…and I am feeling reasonably well this morning…I wonder why I just can’t seem to remember this feeling….oh, well…we all do need to have our vices but I think I’m pretty happy that they are in check right now…but that goes to a thought that I’ve had some as I age…what am I saving the liver for? So it’s healthy when I die of some other cause? Or maybe I’ll never die….yep, that’s delusional…

Not much to do today…have to clean this joint up some since C is coming into town and is going to hang out for a while but that’s about it..no cooking to do since I did that yesterday and today is a leftover day…I may even stay off the bike today to let the little soreness heal and see how much of it is caused by riding and how much is just age….who knows? I will have some topics for later….so, come back if you’re not too bored yet…

Politics

The hypocrisy continues…

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Well…I was going to title the one “the hypocrisy starts” but the one I used seems to describe what is happening better. Let’s start with the new repub member of the house from out east who was elected after railing about the new healthcare law and promising to repeal it. Then, this idiot goes off on congressional staffers who tell him that his “Cadillac” health benefits don’t kick in for a month….doesn’t he get it that his opposition to reform will keep 50 million Americans from having their healthcare kick in at all? Of course, these guys are so dense that they can’t see the irony of this kind of behavior…I’ve got mine, everyone else can go to hell.

Then you have our good buddy Rep. Mike Pence who has been on record multiple times saying that he can’t support extension of unemployment benefits for those most hurting in our society unless he gets the tax cuts for the rich extended…basically, extorting the majority of the working American people for the top 1% of earners. Don’t the rich already have enough? Another example of repub hypocrisy…getting elected by duping the middle class then screwing everyone but their rich buddies…geez…

Misc

It’s come to my attention…

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Well…it’s come to my attention through some comments that some of you may be having trouble downloading the novel…I just tried it using another provider and it worked using Word as the program…but I’m using firefox so I don’t know if that makes any difference…let me know if any of you are still having trouble and I’ll get the IT geek son on it….thanks for looking…and I hope you like it…

Oh…and the spam filter on my e-mail has been deleting some comments and I think I have that fixed, too…at least I hope so…it’s important to hear from everyone….agree or disagree….

Politics

What’s next Jon?

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Well…after the rally to restore sanity on the Washington mall a few weeks ago, one of the questions that keep recurring to me is what’s next? How do we take the idea of reasonableness and apply it to the problems we face in the US? Especially when all of the successful politicians over the past few years (mostly on the right) have espoused the winner take all philosophy that Boehner and McConnell have refined to an art form. I understand that there are real policy differences between the right and left, but I think we’ve lost sight of the fact that this hyper-partisanship is gradually painting us into a corner where the compromises necessary to make democracy work are no longer thinkable. Is this patriotism? How did we lose the vision of America as the place where things are possible? Reasonable politicians are roadkill for the well oiled machine of the right…and the rights only definition of compromise is that they hold out until they get everything they want even though they are hurting the country when they do so.

Again, I fault the American people for allowing this to happen…..to listen to the lies and accept them as truth…to buy into the “death panels” and the 200 million dollar a day cost of Obama’s trip to southeast Asia…one that was pushed by Michelle Bachmann as the absolute truth when the entire story was debunked by Anderson Cooper of CNN. I think the window for preserving what is great with America is quickly closing and the heavy hand of the moneyed interests are leaning on it to close it faster. We need to couch this fight in the idea of patriotism; that continuing to think in the short-sighted way our politicians do is not what is best for our country….but to expect this to change may just be wishful thinking…hope not…

Let’s start thinking about the next steps that come from the idea of reasonableness in government…and what we reasonables see as the path forward…I welcome any comments to try to build a new consensus…and aren’t there things that we can agree on already? For example…a balanced budget is a good thing when we are not digging out of a recession? That government intrusion into our lives should be the smallest it can be and still have a functioning society? That from those that much is given, much is expected? That there is a prohibition of the establishment of religion contained in the first amendment? What are some others that you think about?

My Life

November 17th

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Well…I know, no additional topic yesterday but my mind wasn’t working well and it would have been a crappy one anyway…I promise to do better today and I try to keep my promises..but the operative word is try….did go out to Ada last night and Tom just whipped me in pool…he was hitting everything and I couldn’t shoot a straight in shot…but it was about time he won one…I think it was that he just became a grandpa Monday night…I’ll use any excuse…but the streak will end next week at one…I was a good boy on the way home and didn’t stop for manhattan ingredients…and I feel good about that this morning but still no sleep…oh, well…

Not much to do today….going to run the slow cooker with a pork loin roast but that is about it…might go out for the first perlod of the Wings game just for the hell of it but with my cash being so low, that might not be a good idea…and, of course, the normal stuff for the rest of my day…I am going to try to get some topics out today do come back if you want…you never know, it might be a good one and then you’ll have missed it…oh, that’s right, you just have to look down..it will be there…

My Life

November 16th

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Well….I thought I was going to be home last night but G called and we ended up hitting Logan’s for a while…well..more than a while…didn’t get home until almost midnight but it was fun…needless to say, I feel a little crappy today but I think I’ll survive it. It was kind of a busy day for me yesterday and that was good…I did find a Kubrick movie that I’ve never seen on Netflix and watched most of it…have about 10 mins left and will get to that after coffee…man, didn’t even get out of bed until about 5 minutes ago so that’s why I’m running late today….not much to do today…no cooking or anything until Ada later..I’m not thinking yet so I’ll stop here..more later…

Okay, I’m back and I’m not going to add a new one…that may be cheating since this is really just part of what I should have added first thing this morning…I did go out and get a haircut a few minutes ago..it was getting quite shaggy looking and I don’t really need anything helping me look older..I already look old enough…I’ve had an infestation of those little flying black bugs lately and they are a pain in the butt…I have taken the environmentally conscious tack against them by leaving the little spiders in the corners of my bathroom…they seem to kill about 20 of them each daily and it gives me something to look at…I just want to know where they come from…it’s getting warm enough to go out for a ride so I’m going to end here…I hope to have a topic for later today, if one strikes me while I’m on the bike…

Misc

A little civil disobedience can be a good thing…

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Well…it’s about time that we Americans started to say “enough” to the actions of government as embodied in the TSA and their new passenger screening techniques that are being rolled out at US airports. First, it was the pilots that started to rebel at being fondled or blasted with radiation so they could do their jobs, now, ordinary people have started to do the same, to say “enough” to the gradual chipping way of our freedoms to the overreaching god of security. But, as you could easily predict, the masses…that great group of the easily led who have bought into the lie that there is danger under every bush, who have bought into the lie that by giving up the basic freedom to be let alone, they can be safe, have vilified these individuals. How has safety come to trump freedom and those who stand up for it?

I want to encourage this kind of behavior that says “enough”, that says just wait a minute, that says no one asked me if I wanted to be afraid….that no one asked any of us whether the American people are such wusses that we can’t take a little danger in exchange for freedom. All of the generations before us made the right decision, that freedom from government interference is a core value that we will not give up because some danger befalls us…we have always stood up as a nation and said we are tougher, we are greater than that…there is no power on earth that could make us give up our freedom because we are afraid and these times are no different.

I have to pass on one of the quotes from Benjamin Franklin that I always believe goes to the core of the balance we need to remember in America…and points out the danger we are in succinctly….”those who give up essential liberty for temporary safety deserve neither”. Thanks, Ben…

Sports

I’ll be back…see, I told you…

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Well…have been busier than crap all morning and now I’m going out to ride the bike before it rains…I’ll be back later with a topic but it might be sports, I’m not sure yet…

Yep, I’ve decided to do a sports update today…but I’m not typing too well since my hands are still a little numb from the bike ride….there was a little tidbit that I’d like to pass along that made me smile…when I stopped and parked the bike, the odometer read 666…yep, bet that made you laugh, too…never really thought of myself as the devil but who knows? Just joking…you know I don’t believe in that stuff. First lets get to the Lions…if you’ve been here in the past, you’ve seen that I had almost let myself surrender to the optimism that plagues all of us Lions fans at some time in the season…but I have been inoculated by their play over the last two weeks so I can let them go until next year….the disease didn’t hurt anywhere near as much this year and I may be gaining long-term immunity…I hope so.

Then, we have our Red Wings….how can one team be so good when the football team in the same city has been so terrible for so long? Can the Ilitches buy the Lions, too? Back to the Wings….another good start to the season and it’s great to see them playing upwards toward their potential…but I think they can get even better once the first line gets going and Hank and Pavel start dominating like we all know they can. I would like to tip my hat to the play of Danny Cleary and Todd Bertuzzi….it’s is a joy to watch them at full strength again with the nagging injuries healed….we need those points right now and let’s just hope they keep going when the rest of the team kicks it in gear…it’s going to be fun! Go Wings!

My Life

November 15th

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Well…yeah, I know, I didn’t come back yesterday to build on the number 500…but I have an excuse…we did have a short SF with K and V and when I got back I just didn’t feel like writing anything else….and after re-reading, I really didn’t have anything to add. So, I just came back here and watched the rest of the Napcar race and took it easy. I did get a lot of stuff done yesterday, though, and have to keep going on that today…along with getting started on the t-day cleaning in case the boys decide to come over for dinner. I did skip riding yesterday; it was just too cold and windy to want to go out but today looks better so I’ll be out after lunch. Not much else to do today…no Monday with G since she has a charity function for the org she works with but I’m broke anyway so that’s kind of a good thing. I do have to go out for supplies today to finish up the work I started yesterday and I think it will be good for the car….my longest trip in the last two weeks was out to Ada but most of them are about a mile and it is not good for the old wreck to never get up to operating temp….so, I’ll run over to the other side of town this morning while I’m waiting for the temp to come up far enough to ride in shorts. Yep, still in shorts and it is starting to get stares…only another week to go, though, so I’ll have to get the jeans out and see how they fit…more later…

My Life

Number 500

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Well…here’s number 500….that’s a milestone of some sort I think…yep, a milestone…500 of these things…I knew I’d get here but it still amazes me that I’ve had that much to say. Over that time, you’ve gotten to know me a little…but you have to remember that I won’t put anything in this post that I wouldn’t want my kids to read…so, while I have revealed quite a bit of what it is like to be an unemployed old guy and even some of what makes me me, there is still lots of onion skin to be peeled back and shared…but, hey, if I share too much too soon you won’t come back. Or maybe you won’t come back if I do share…who knows?

I have thought a little about if I should do a summary of how we got here, or if I should just keep plowing on with new stuff and haven’t made that decision yet…so you’ll have to come back today to see…there is one thing I have to say and that is thanks…I know some of you come back here every day and I have tried to be lucid and thought provoking with some success at times…and less other times…but, I’m going to keep trying to be topical and have that voice of reasonableness that I advocate…but there will be train wrecks in the future…and you probably like those better anyway. More later…