Well…this one is a change of pace from the normal stuff, but it is something I wanted to pass along..was watching “countdown” last week and there was a segment about a violinist who had just purchased a Stradivarius violin for $3.5 million dollars..but that is not the remarkable thing…because, how do you really value a treasure like that? It’s provenance? I really don’t care who owned it before…what I do care about is that majestic sound…that, even through the tiny little speakers on my tv, it was one of the most glorious things I have ever heard. Luckily, the segment is still available on the “Countdown” site and it is worth seeing…and I have added “hearing a Stradivarius in person” to my list….those of you who know me know that getting on my list is important…to me at least…
I know this one is a little different but I have to take time off to see and hear the beauty that still exists in the world and I have to remind myself that this Strad will still exist even if the repubs win the election…and Steely Dan won’t disappear, and Led Zeppelin won’t disappear….at least I hope they won’t…
Well…I don’t know about you but I think that the instances of just breathtaking stupidity are on the rise in our society…and it still amazes me when I hear ignorance being sold as gravitas…and the hard headed refusal to see that the lies they have been sold are not true. This little bit of revelation was spurred by an article I read in the Post this morning where one of their reporters went into one of the strong bastions of repub support…an area of Kentucky where only 14% of the voters went for Obama in 2008 and asked them why they are so angry; why they think America id going in the wrong direction. Of course, their responses were straight out of the 4 o’clock hour of Fox news…they are forcing socialism down our throats and taking away our freedom. Every time I hear that crap I just want to shout “HOW?”…how is your freedom less now than when the Bushies were wiretapping everyone in the country? Give me an example…maybe the healthcare law that doesn’t take effect until 2014? And no one seems to care that federal taxes are lower for most of the country than they were two years ago…not higher as the repub lies would have us believe…300 billion of the stimulus was TAX CUTS! Are you really so dense out there that you think that tax cuts mean higher taxes?
Let’s deal with the idea of socialism…first I think most of the people they interviewed don’t even know what socialism is…but they are sure that it is bad because they have been told that by Fox…but this whole socialism argument is trumped by the statistics of the area of Kentucky where the questions were asked..that almost 80 % of the people there live on some kind of government assistance…another case of the know-nothings shouting “keep your government hands off our Medicare”. Ignorance rules again…but with the republican party being based on ignorance, do you expect anything else? Geez….
Well…I hope I didn’t depress you with that last one but it was something I had to say…and you’ve seen me that way a few times so you really shouldn’t be surprised…but I am going to move into hunker down mode here for the next couple of years…and I do have hope that maybe, just once, people will surprise me and do something good with a bad situation…but just a little hope…I am a pragmatist after all. Oh, great news…Fox and Dish folks have settle their differences and I have my Red Wings back…but I have mixed emotions about it because it was forcing me to to go out amongst people to see the games…and I’m alone enough as it is…but, I will indulge in Ken and Mickey tonight here since the Michigan game is on at the same time and it’s kind of nice to hear the commentary. Going to make a pork loin roast in the slow cooker today…and then just clean this place up some…have another spider invasion since the weather has gotten colder and it is somewhat unnerving to have them in every corner again. That’s about it for now…I have a couple of topics gestating in the brain….oh, and I forgot to pass on that I am feeling better today…I think the bug is passing and taking the weekend off from beer is going to help…more later…
Well…I was going to label this one “October 29th part two” but I thought better of it…because I’m going to explain a little bit why I feel so depressed about what is happening in politics today. I think part of it was the euphoria that came with the ending of the eight years of hell under ole GW and having possibilities for this country to go forward again, to have the fingers of business lifted from the scale of life, and to see that maybe, just maybe, we could have a government that governed for people like you and me. And now, for reasons that I cannot comprehend, we are poised to go right back to those bad old days…to a governmental philosophy that can be best described as by the republicans and for business; the rest of the country be damned.
I know, I learned a while ago to not let these things take so much out of me, to not get so invested in things that I can’t control, but this one feels different…it’s like this is it for the country and the resilience that we have shown over the years is coming to a end. I’ve lived through the cold war, the communist scares, mutually assured destruction, and Watergate and I have never felt that we couldn’t come back until now…this time the people have killed the idea of America….they have bought into the lies and made them the truth of their reality even when it’s not so….we are no longer in this together…and I’m so depressed…
Well…this is the second in the series of what you have to look forward to with the probable election of the repubs next week…this one deals with their promise to repeal the financial regulation bill that was passed this year. Really, they are going to go back to the wild west, free for all unregulated financial industry that cost everyone in this country but the rich and the perpetrators. Are you listening? they are going to go back to what caused the meltdown that cost almost 10 million jobs. But, hey, it only affected the middle class and the poor so why should they care? They never have so why start now?
Now let’s look at what this means..it means a return to their wonderful little world where when they bet right, they get rich, and when they bet wrong, you and I pay for it. A pretty sweet deal, huh? I’ll be you’d like to have that kind of a rigged market to take advantage of. How will this create jobs? How will this raise the wages of workers so they can share in the profits and benefits that the rich are stealing? The short answer is…it won’t…because the repubs are there for one thing and one thing only…to make themselves and their business buddies richer…that’s the simple bottom line and anything else they say is just lies…and they must be pretty good ones since a lot of people believe them. Or have people just gotten dumber over the last two years?
I have to agree with Paul Krugman…if you think things are bad now…just wait and hold your breath for the next two years…
Well…still feel pretty crappy today but I know now that it is a bug…and I just have to wait it out and I’ll feel better…at least I hope so…I did go out and have a couple with K last night to watch part of the Wings game…they really looked bad and lost to the Coyotes…but it is still early in the season so that’s okay. Not a lot to do today except the grocery run and that is a good thing…I think I’ll end here for now….more later…
I’m back and still feel crappy even after the bike ride and lunch…just so tired I can’t stand it…so, I’ll guess I’ll take a nap and then come back later and get to a couple of topics…
Well…I know, I haven’t been that prolific lately and I don’t know if I’ll get to sixty for the month but I’ll keep trying if I have something to say…and you have to admit there were quite a few less of the one line placeholders that I’ve been known to do…unless you like those better….I’ll keep doing them…but not now…
This one is about the repubs promise to repeal the healthcare law and the fact that a lot of people out there in the country agree with them…what I want to know is why? Is it better to return to the bad old days when, as soon as you get sick, your insurance company could cancel your policy or just not pay your claim? Is it better to return to the bad old days when any pre-existing condition could be grounds for cancellation of your policy…for example, if you were treated for acne and didn’t tell the insurance company, they could deny your claim for cancer treatment. Is that where we want to go? Do we want to go back to when the insurance companies held all of the cards? I know, some of you think this law is an intrusion into your “freedom”, and I admit that there is something about the individual mandate (forcing people to buy insurance) that strikes me as wrong but I understand it…that it is necessary for the system to work. And, the fear mongers in the repub party play on your fears of a “government takeover” of health care..but who would you rather have in control of the healthcare system? Insurance companies that don’t answer to anyone, or the government model where you do have influence over the elected representatives that control the plan?
As an older American that has been “going naked” without health insurance since 2002 because I can’t afford it, I would like the opportunity to take my mind off that fact, to not wake up every morning with the fear that this could be the day that my health fails me and everything I worked for my whole life will be gone. Isn’t there something wrong with that? Geez…
Well…have been thinking about this since Ford reported it’s quarterly profits in the last week or so, making it almost 6.5 billion dollars in profit through the third quarter; eclipsing all of the other automakers combined. And, guess what? They did it with union organized plants that pay a wage that keeps their workers solidly in the middle class. Take that you right wing union bashers….you that have done your best to destroy organized labor here in the US….saying that the only reason the automakers can’t or haven’t made money is the overpaid, lazy union workforce. But the question that immediately comes to my mind is: if Ford can do it, why can’t the rest? Why is it necessary for GM and Chrysler to have a two tiered wage scale that pays new workers half of what their old ones make? What is different that they can’t do what Ford does, especially when they have come through bankruptcy with little of the debt that Ford carries? I don’t think there is a difference other than, with the bad economic times, GM and Chrysler are still hanging on to the adversarial labor relationship that existed before the downturn and their management just doesn’t get that their workers are not the problem. But, with the return of the know nothing repubs…that is all we have to look forward to….they are going to keep their feet on the necks of the middle class as long as America stays so damn stupid and keeps electing them….
One other observation that just popped into my head…why are police and firefighters unions okay, but teachers and industrial unions are constant targets of the repubs. I’ve never heard them say one word about the police unions in any of the big cities that have them…so, again, if unions are so bad, why are police and firefighters given a pass by the repubs? Just asking….
Well…felt like crap all day yesterday but I think I actually have a bug this time…not just he aftereffects of pool night in Ada…at least that’s my story…and I do still feel kind of crappy today with a slight fever and coughing a lot so maybe I’ll have an excuse to not do anything today but take it easy…as opposed to most days when I don’t have an excuse. The chairs did survive the wind yesterday and I didn’t have to chase them…geez…this is boring…I’m even bored writing it…so, what to do?
Not much to do today….again, but there is a Wings game tonight that I’ll have to go out to see…and I do have a few things to so around here…will probably start working on maintaining the bike since it’s raining and I’ll probably take the day off…okay, my brain is not working at all this morning…so I’m going to make some breakfast and come back later…
Well..if you’ve been reading or watching the news over the last couple of days, you’ve seen some quite disturbing behavior by some of the tea party candidates whose reason for running has been their respect of the constitution. Oh, really? Let’s start with Joe Miller who is running for senate from Alaska. This lying jerk (he admitted he is a liar the other day) couldn’t take a non-Fox reporter trying to ask him questions so he had his goon squad (he calls them bodyguards) handcuff and detain the reporter in what they called a “citizens arrest”; and the local sheriff had to come and rescue the guy. So, I guess ole Joe believes in the first amendment only when it suits him…but that shouldn’t surprise us since he has stated his admiration for the East German communist regime because “they knew how to handle illegal immigration”; but what this idiot clearly doesn’t care to know is that it was not immigration but emigration that they could handle well…with something called the Berlin Wall and shooting anyone who tried to leave.
Then, we have the “volunteer” from Rand Paul’s campaign who was shown on video stomping on the neck of a person from Moveon.org who was trying to ask Paul a question and was set upon by the mob that was at the rally. These are the kinds of thugs that are part of the tea party and are who you are going to have on your conscience if you vote for them. I guess the only people that have rights in their vision of America are those that agree with them…watch out the rest of us.
Then, we have Sharron Angle from Nevada…the tea party darling…who has said that if she doesn’t win the election, then there may have to be “Second Amendment remedies” for her loss…yep, she is proposing armed insurrection to “take back our country” if the people don’t want to vote for her. Another constitutional scholar from the right that uses the constitution as a political prop but doesn’t believe in it….don’t these people look like the bullies that tortured you when you were in school? I, for one, don’t want a bunch of thugs representing me or being anywhere near me….geez…