My Life

May 11th

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Well…didn’t go out to LC last night since the place is closed for some mysterious reason. Did go over to G’s and sat outside around the fireplace and had a few beers…got home pretty early. Still working on getting the tire sealer out of the carpet today, this place still smells like it has just been repainted so, even though it’s 43 degrees outside, I have the slider open to try to get the stink out of here.

I know I promised more outrage today but just can’t work any up right now…maybe some more life stuff later. No plans for tonight as far as I know…with the Wings done for the year there really isn’t anything I want to do…

My Life

May 10th

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It’s been kind of an interesting day…well…not really, did have a flat on the bike and when I tried to put sealer in it so I could ride today, the damn thing blew all over my carpeting. I know that white latex on beige carpeting is not such a big deal, but the solvent that they have in the cans stinks like crazy and I have my slider open with the heat on to try to air this place out. the tire may be okay, though..

Looks like a night out with G since it is Monday…first drinks since thurs so this might be fun…still have the damn allergy headaches so I’m going to take an allergy pill right now to see if that helps. Not much else to say but I can feel some outrage building for tomorrow..so check back and I’ll try not to disappoint….

Politics

False equality in the news

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Well….I am fed up with the tendency of commentators and of the righties to push the proposition that there is an equality in the bias that runs through the reporting of the cable news networks. I want to make this as clear as possible…Fox news is the Pravda of the American news channels and the others that are held up for comparison, i.e. MSNBC, NBC,and CBS are in no way close to being the propaganda arm of the Democratic Party as Fox news is to the Republicans. I hope you remember the bad old days of the Soviet Union when Pravda (ironically, Pravda means truth in Russian) would print blatant lies that were used to keep the populace stirred up and in line; but one of the sad things that is different about these two organizations is that the Russians had no choice but to read Pravda, it was the only news the Soviet rulers would allow. In America, the righties choose to listen to the propaganda that spews from Fox…but the result is the same; a significant part of the population that has abdicated their responsibility to think; succumbing to the visceral hatred of all things Obama or Democrat that makes them feel good but bodes I’ll for the continuing success of our society. Geez….

My Life

May 9th

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I had to share the fact that it has been three days with no booze…but you know what the big problem is? I don’t feel any better than I do when I drink. I hope it’s not the fact that I’m getting old…that would irritate the hell out of me. I did get to take the bike out today, but when I went out this morning to get a newspaper, the damn car was covered in ice. Not supposed to happen going into the second week of May.

I’m just crabby today..there has been a lot of that going around…G had the crabbiness Thursday and I think I caught it from her.

That’s about it…more later.

Sports

Thank You Red Wings

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Well…this is a post I didn’t want to write…our Wings lost to the Sharks last night and are out of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. I don’t know how I feel about this right now…as you can tell, it’s late in the day and I couldn’t bring myself to write anything until now.

One of the things that makes this a sad day is the all too real possibility that we have seen Nick Lidstrom play his last game for the Wings. It’s hard to let go of one of your favorite players, but even harder to let go of such a great person as Nick; the only other time I felt this way was when Stevie Y retired…I’m glad I got to see his last game and that I stayed up to watch all of Nick’s.

I know we’ll have a revamped team with many of our favorites gone next year; that’s something I’ll touch on tomorrow.

Thanks again, Red Wings!

Politics

News and how we get it..

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This is just a placeholder for now. I want to talk about how people get their news and what I think we’re missing by limiting our exposure to opposing ideas.

Back later for more…well, I’m back and to elaborate on the title…and try to make sense to both you and me. This post was in response to the news of the week that the news magazine “Newsweek” has been put up for sale with a future that looks like what has happened to other icons of the American news scene; it’s eventual closure. This has made me somewhat nostalgic for the news environment that I grew up in…that included Life, Look, and other magazines where we could get an unbiased, in-depth type of news that exists in few places today. But, I think I’m using nostalgia not as a wistfulness for what was, but more to point out the differences in the news and it’s reporting from my youth and what it is today; a partisan tool that is used for distraction or political gain.

I think I was really fortunate to grow up in my time, where you could trust the media to report the facts but that has handicapped me somewhat for today…I still trust some outlets to report facts and I am well-read and intelligent enough to be able to see those that don’t. As I talk to my youngster friends and others, I see a large problem that has arisen from this polarization of media and government in general…the public been taught over the past 20 years not to trust anyone; and that their analysis of the news etc. no matter how puerile or shallow , has the same value as someone who is an expert in the field. In this environment, opinion has taken on the same weight as fact, and facts seem to be changeable related to how many times you repeat falsehoods.

As more and more of the truth-tellers in the media fail and disappear since the appetite for truth has been replaced by polemic, the opportunity for a person to get to the truth is drowned out by the loudest, most well-funded voices. Geez….

Sports

Let’s Go Red Wings!!!

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Well….game time is almost here and I am getting excited…this should be fun if Howard can keep us in it for about the first 10 minutes or so…or if Frantzen can do the same thing he did last game. Have never seen a performance like that but I did see his hat trick against Colorado two years ago live and only 7 rows from the glass with G. Man, you could feel the wind from the players coming down the ice and the speed just seems so much faster in person; it was also cool to have them slam the glass and have it rattle like crazy.

So…on that note LET’S GO RED WINGS!!!!!!

My Life

May 8th

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Well…wanted to get a post out before I dive into cleaning up this mess…have been working hard on slowing down and making my life a little more languid. Don’t know why I still feel the need to get all the tasks of life done as fast as possible; I guess it’s that I still am struggling with the fact that the journey is the thing, not the destination. So, I’m going to make the effort with today’s cleaning, cooking, and writing to enjoy the process and shift down a gear..after all, where do I have to be?

I do have my Red Wings gear on already and I am excited to see which team comes out at 10….my prediction of a 4-2 series win for us is out the window but as long as we’re are playing, I’ll still have hope….let’s stretch this out until at least Monday!!

Go Wings!!!

My Life

Music and Me….more onion skin…

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If there is anything that anyone knows about me is how important music has been to me all of my life and that fact makes it inevitable that I would want to share how that came to be…but the problem is that I really don’t know why intellectually; it’s like seeing a painting that immediately evokes a response but to try to explain it to anyone else then pollutes their reaction to it. Or, it invokes an argument on the meaning where there is no need for one since art can and should mean different things to different people. Does that make sense? I guess music has helped me to understand that we are not alone in the world for one thing; it is a shorthand that connects us to shared thoughts and feelings and even at times has helped me realize that there are emotions to be felt that had never been a part of me.

I’ll get specific in a later post….

My Life

Let’s clarify…

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I don’t want you to think that an earlier post was a screed against the wealthy since it wasn’t. But I also want to make clear that people that have a lot of money don’t impress me; it’s what they DO with the money that can impress me. People like Peter Cook, Bob Israels, and the DeVos’s and VanAndels who have used their wealth to make Grand Rapids and Michigan a better place to live.

Still don’t like the idea of having rich people’s names on everything around here, though.

What you never want to be….