Well…wine hangovers hurt. But, the party at G’s was so much fun it was worth it…I have a sore throat from laughing so much and what little voice I have left has shifted down a couple of octaves. The car was even parked straight when I went out to get the paper this morning so I feel okay about that….there was good news on the political front yesterday….hmmm…should probably put that in a political post, huh? I think I will so I’ll have something else to write about later….but, what about now? Not a lot to do today….and this time I mean it….watched the wonderful movie “Top Hat” this morning with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers and the really cool Irving Berlin songs…yep, that really tells you how old I am….I can’t believe it was made 75 years ago….oh, back to today…going to have another cup of coffee and read the online papers and wait to hear from K to see if there is going to be a SF today….I wouldn’t mind going out for a while…after I slump back to the couch and veg for added energy or for decreased pain, I can’t figure out which yet…more later…
All posts by James DeVol
December 18th
Well…things went downhill into boredom pretty quickly after lunch with T yesterday….and the Wings lost which just capped off the slide…but I did see the Ridley Scott version of Robin Hood…and I don’t understand why they even called it Robin Hood…there was really no connection to the traditional story except for a couple of names but it was a good movie anyway. Not a lot to do today…have to make the shrimp fettucine for G’s party later but that is about it…there were cocktails involved last night so I’m a little slow today…I’ll try to get a couple of posts out later but I have the feeling that today is a veg day..so, I’ll start vegging right now and go get a cup of coffee and read the paper…more later…
We can choose….
Well…I have been thinking about this one for a while and thought I’d put it down on paper so to speak. I guess it’s just a general comment on things I see every day…the over-reaction to almost everything. Have we lost all of our internal controls? When I see the daily stories of road rage, when I read the rantings that come with the comments of any political article online, and when I see peoples’ courtesy toward others opinions vanish like smoke, I have to wonder. I don’t know how we got here but it’s not a place I want to be…and the sad fact is that we can choose to not react this way….but we don’t.
Look….I used to be that guy…the one that would cut people off in traffic and flare like the sun when someone did that to me, the one that would treat someone with utter contempt if they had different political views; but it was rotting me from the inside out and just so damn much work to be pissed off constantly. I’m sure some of my friends think that I’ve gone overboard on the “navel gazing”, the necessary introspection that comes with wanting to be a better person, and, they could be right…but, I like myself a lot more now. Okay, I know you’re going to say “who cares” or “what’s your point”…and those are fair questions…all I’m trying to say it that the coarseness the permeates our society can be changed if we all just think…”we can choose”….it’s tough, sure, I still struggle with this crap everyday but, shouldn’t we at least try? Okay…enough soap box for the day….I promise there will be some politics later….crap, is this just more “navel gazing”? Oh, well….
December 17th
Well…a long night with a couple of cocktails so I’m a little slow today…..yeah, you did see a placeholder if you were here earlier….but I dumped it so it didn’t show up in the count….and the idea I had sounded like a good one at the time but I’m not sure if I’ll get to it today….who knows? I do have something to do today…having lunch with T and there are supposed to be stories so that will be fun….other than that…not much to do today…I was worried how I was going to get that one in…I don’t know what is going on but I am sore from head to toe and it is getting old…just like me, but I hope that’s not the reason….I think I’ll go get an ibuprofen and see if that helps…more later…
I’m back for a few…the ibuprofen did help, as did the beer at lunch…and T got me to do something that no one has been able to do in quite a few years…go into a mall during the holidays…yep, I know, not me at all but it’s just fun to hang out with her…even shopping…but I will say it took all of 5 minutes so maybe it’s not too big of a test….I will try to get to the topics later…oh, it is later, isn’t it? Damn….let me have a couple of minutes and I’ll get to it….
Just a quick question…
Well…I don’t know if you’ve been following the first rulings in the lawsuits that have been filed against the new healthcare law, but I see a troubling thing happening; that the two judges that upheld all provisions of the law were appointed by Dems while the one that recently struck down the individual mandate portion of the law was appointed by a repub. I was always taught that judges were supposed to be impartial arbiters of the law, using precedence as a guide, that were blind to political pressures…it was even one of the founding principles of this country…that an independent judiciary was necessary to rein in both the passions of the populace and as a check on the legislatures reflecting those passions. When did judges abdicate their responsibilities to be fair and impartial? One of the most egregious of these is the supreme courts overturning of a hundred years of precedence in the Citizens United decision that gave corporations the same rights to political speech as flesh and blood Americans; which the right wing majority knew would tip the political scales in favor of the repubs. But, don’t think I reserve my scorn for only those on the right, any judge that abdicates his responsibilities to be fair and objective, and follow the law, whether they lean right or left should be removed from office.
That said, the repubs who shout all day about following the constitution are the ones who expect judges to strike down laws they don’t like…just because they don’t like them, and they don’t fit their narrow view of what America should be. To those folks I say: please get a copy of the constitution and read it….the judiciary is not another political toy for you to play with…there is great danger to what you want judges to do…geez…
December 16th
Well…the days are starting to run together with boredom and I’m not sure what to do about it..but that’s my problem, huh? There was a pretty good Wings game last night and I got to see Nicky Lidstrom get the first hat-trick in his career…over 1400 games but he’s a defenseman so that’s not unexpected. Pretty cool, though, and it couldn’t happen to a classier guy. Slept okay again but there are so many new aches and pains that I’m not sure what is going on….it’s a pain getting older…ha,ha. Yeah, I know, bad joke…Not much to do today…have to get the makings for the dish I’m making for G’s party sat…a shrimp fettucine with Feta that is really light and tasty…but I don’t like to cook for people much anymore since I think my tastes have started to skew along with my brain as I get older and there is nothing worse than making something and having everyone hate it….yep, feeling that insecure tight now and I don’t know why…..hey, keep watching…I may be going off the rails soon…the signs are there and it may make this more interesting…more later…
December 15th part two….
Well…haven’t done one of these addendum in quite a while because you probably think they are cheating in a sense…and it would be if I was counting the quantity and getting paid by the number I do each month…you know I don’t get paid at all to do this…is there a way to get paid to do this? If you know, please let me know because I could use the cash…was just thinking that there may be a connection between sleeping and writing…yep, I did say that before and if you’ve been here you’ve seen it…well, can’t make that assumption, either. Okay, a quick summary…I have finally been sleeping pretty well over the last week or so but that has resulted in the edge going off my brain…not having as many ideas or any outrage to drive them. But, with the crappy sleep I had last night, I have had some of the outrage come back and a couple of ideas that were worth writing about. Can you make a connection between the two? Not on this sample size I’m afraid….but I’ll let you know in a couple of days if there is something to it…
Anything else…hmmmm….oh, still getting to like the Pandora service more and more and watching less and less tv….a good thing, I think…and reading a lot more…have gone through a couple of books in the last couple of days….that’s it…more later, maybe…
If you had any doubt….
Well…it didn’t take long for my predictions on the impact of the November elections to begin to be seen….we have all of the tea partiers that were elected hiring lobbyists as their chiefs of staff along with bellying up to the trough to see how much money they can grab from business and lobbyists…nevermind that their primary reason for being elected was to “change” the way things are done in Washington…yep, they changed it alright…from one pocket to the other. Do you feel betrayed yet tea partiers? And, all of this is happening even before they take office…do you think there won’t be strings attached to this money? How is that changey thing working out for you folks? This is identical to what the repubs did to the Christian right in the 90’s…they mobilized them to get elected and then just ignored them; just another piece of evidence that these repubs are a bunch of two-faced liars that will say anything to use their constiuents to get elected and then kneel to their real masters….business and the rich.
We can see this philosophy easily and starkly in the statements of the incoming chair of the House financial committee, Spencer Bachus, who stated: “Washington and regulators are there to serve the banks”….just remember what this kind of thinking did to the country over the last 10 years… but that is the problem…no one remembers who it was that championed the business take all strategy….it was the repubs folks…and you think it was bad before….this next two years is going to make the meltdown look like kindergarten….geez….
December 15th
Well…another night out in Ada but I lost again and did not win at Keno…I don’t know what I expected….yes I do….I expect to win every week…oh, well. Missed the Geminid meteor shower since it was cloudy last night and into this morning but I avoided the 15 degree temps and freezing my butt off so that is a plus. A bad night of sleep last night…started getting up at 1:16 and have been up and down since…but three out of 4 days with tolerable sleep is not bad…much better than the last couple of years. Not much to do today…going to take the day off from everything but coffee and the newspapers…oh, and getting some posts out since there are developments in the world that I need to comment on…just not right now since I do have to get ready to go out….more later…
Simplistic thinking….
Well…I think I’ve fallen into the trap of thinking in sounds bites and prejudices which has taken me away from the resonableness that I have been espousing. Some of it is a hangover from the “I hate Bush” syndrome that I regretfully admit had me in its clutches for quite a while and some of it is was caused by the growing demise of the middle class and my situation in particular. It is really difficult to watch the people who are still doing well in their 500 dollar gloves and new Mercedes when that used to be an attainable aspiration for me and it no longer is. What makes it even more difficult is that I know it’s not something I can correct…there is no way I know of to make myself not be 57 anymore; to be 35 again with prospects….I may have let these facts color the way I see the world and has led me to see that any compromise in a complex political situation was a defeat, was a failure of Obama to stand up and support those that supported him.
So, on that note, I am going to try to be more objective in my thinking starting now….as the tax bill is parsed and studied, I think it may be a better deal than I thought and it could be the start of grownups looking at real solutions for the terrible recession…after all, there are stimulative measures in the bill that will help get the economy going and we did get the extension of UI benefits…now, if we could just teach the rich that they have enough and giving some back to help continue the country’s success is in their self interest, things might be able to get better…..we can hope anyway….