My Life

September 14th

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Well…have a bunch of topics for the day and, as you can see, I’ve already weighed in on one of them….but I think it may be time to tie together a theme for the fall elections…or maybe I’ll get sidetracked again…geez…I feel like I’m watching fireworks; that new ideas are exploding above me but they flash and then are gone…leaving me to try to make sense of the afterglow and turn it into some sort of lucid commentary. It’s not as easy as it looks…especially working without a net. But…that’s enough of that, if you’ve read these at all, the date in the title means this is supposed to be about my life so I’ll get on with today’s mundane description of the obvious…you can probably recite these in your sleep….

Not much to do today (see I told you…but it’s not a re run) but I do have to get groceries since I’m making T’s pot roast recipe in the slow cooker today and I’m going to try to use veggies from C s for all of the aromatics…I even have heirloom carrots that he grew that actually taste like carrots….then, I actually have some stuff to get done today…yay, and the 6th day of resting the liver was another good one…but, I am going to get a bottle of cabernet to have with dinner…maybe class this place up a little bit…is it wrong to still drink milk with dinner when you are 57? Don’t know where that came from…damn…do you ever type form when you meant from? In this post, and I guess every one….it seems that form comes out every time and I have to go back and correct it. Well….you know I’m weird…

Misc

Let’s put the mosque controversy to rest….

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Well…this is going to be short and the coup de grace for the loonies that are opposing the Islamic center in lower Manhattan. Their argument to support their opposition is that ground zero is hallowed ground, and since the terrorists were Muslim, it would be sacrilege to allow the center at Park 51 to be built. Well…here’s a little tidbit that the haters don’t want anyone to know, there was a mosque in the south tower of the World Trade Center that was destroyed on 9/11. Yep, a fully functioning mosque, at ground zero….let’s repeat that…a fully functioning mosque, at ground zero; destroyed by the terrorists. So, doesn’t that mean that Muslims have just as big a claim to ground zero as the haters?

Let’s just dismiss Palin, Newt, and the rest of the idiots as the political opportunists that they are and start getting to the real issues that we should be focused on and get this country moving again…let’s have some real debate, leave the posturing behind and be adults.

Politics

Listening to Fareed Zakaria…

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Well…an interesting article today by Fareed, who feels that we are giving way too much credibility to the 400 or so hard core terrorists that are left in bin Laden’s organization and spending way to much of our psychic energy on them; not to mention how many dollars it takes to maintain the armies that are chasing him. I agree with his assessment and have said that in a few earlier posts, but I take it a little further and ask this question: “who benefits from continuing the fear and overstating their capability?” It hasn’t been hard to see that the right has been the ones to manipulate this issue for political gain and continue to use it as a political ploy; they would be loath to say that the threat is greatly reduced since some of the credit would have to be shared with Obama, and their buddies in the military/industrial complex would see their profits plunge. Something their strategy of obstruction and demonization will not allow them to do.

So, what do we do about it? I’ve always been one to think that skepticism is a powerful weapon and to ask a politician to prove their baseless assertions is a good start; but, then to continue to ask the questions and teach people that is their right and duty to question these folks and hold them accountable…the founding fathers believed it, and I do to…

My Life

September 13th

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Well…it was kind of a Sunday Funday yesterday….won about 30 bucks playing Keno so the tab was quite small…took it easy the rest of the day after that so I feel okay today…I really like the idea of giving the liver a rest and feeling good in the morning but a pretty big setback on sleeping last night disappointed me a little. Oh, well…looks like it’s going to be a pretty nice day but no plans other than the regular stuff that I won’t bore you with today…tomorrow is a different story, though. I know I still have the Keynes placeholder for later and maybe a comment on a Fareed Zakaria article in the Washington Post that posits that we are overstating the threat from terrorists; but no mention of the reason why we are still doing it, and that is the key to the whole issue. So, there will be some topics for later if you come back…if not, have a nice day…

My Life

September 12th

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Well…it’s been a pretty good morning..up early, but I think the sleep is getting better…no where near as much tossing last night and I got up with a bunch of energy…so much so, that after the three cups of coffee I had during the F1 race, I had to go out on the bike and do 20 miles just to burn off the caffeine. Another benefit of resting the liver seems to be that I’m becoming more lucid and motivated to write, as you can see from the two posts that I completed before this one…at least it’s more lucid to me so please don’t burst my bubble. I think I have some plans today…not sure if it will be a full-blown Sunday Funday but I am going to meet up with C later this aft and have a couple of beers…K is still in Chi-town, so I don’t think we’ll see her today but I wouldn’t mind playing some Keno out at Vinnie’s and drinking cheap beer.

I don’t know if I should be excited that the Lions are starting their season today, but, as I’ve said before, we here in Michigan always succumb to the disease of optimism with them..irrational, I know, but as of this morning, they are undefeated!

Politics

More labor bashing from the right…

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“haven’t you heard it’s a battle of words, and most of them are lies…” Was listening to Pink Floyd on the bike ride and this line struck up a thought that connected with the concerted push by the right here in Michigan to destroy the unions abetted by their propaganda paper for west Michigan “the Grand Rapids Press”. For the past couple of weeks, the Press has been running a series whose purpose is to push the repubs continued attack on the unions; now cloaked in the right to work flag. The theme of the series is that if Michigan didn’t have unions, there would be many more auto jobs and the state would be more competitive in the race for new manufacturing plants that have generally been won by the low wage southern states. Their star example is the new Kia plant in Georgia and everyone they interviewed kept to the right’s line that the only reason it was built in Georgia instead of Michigan was Georgia’s right to work status.

Well…in the fine print, they mention what I think is the key, and it isn’t the right to work laws….it IS the fact that Georgia built Kia a $410 million, yep, that’s a $410 million dollar manufacturing plant and handed them the keys…and, while this plant was being built, all of the repub southern legislators were screaming socialism when the Obama administration was helping the unionized, American manufacturers survive. Why do the Republicans want the US worker to win the race to the bottom? Why aren’t they rejoicing that the unions are protecting the middle class with wages high enough so they can buy a house, a new car, put their kids through college, and save a little for their retirement? Again, I think it’s the unholy alliance of the repubs and business, now including even foreign manufacturers whose goal it is to accelerate the redistribution of wealth up the the rich…with the American worker paying the price. Geez….

Sports

Hail to the Victors…

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Well…that was a roller coaster ride watching the Michigan game yesterday. I hope they can figure out a way to win before there is less than a minute left in the game next time….I was so disgusted with the defensive series that led to Nortre Dame getting a 95 yard touchdown to go ahead that I almost turned it off; but I had to come back to be able to share the misery only to be surprised with the win. But, how long can they keep riding Robinson? It’s nice to see in these first two games but, as time goes on, the defenses will start really keying on him and the 500 yard days will be over. I hope Rich Rod has a plan B when that happens, but with the performance of the last two years, I’m going to reserve judgment and just enjoy for a while. After all, we can’t lose until next Saturday….

I’m done for now, the coffee maker has stopped bubbling and I have a fresh, new, newspaper calling my name along with the F1 race from Monza…..

My Life

September 11th

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Well… I may not get political for the rest of the day…so the last placeholder may be left until tomorrow…who knows….not a lot to do today, have been up since about 6 but that’s not bad…I think the sleep is getting better…still up and down but longer intervals so some progress.

I did make the decision to not ride today since it looked like it was going to rain and it just started so I don’t feel nearly as guilty now as I did earlier….as you know, I have a really well developed sense of guilt about just about everything that I do…growing up in West Michigan, you can’t help it…it’s the puritan capital of Michigan and it’s another reason that I don’t feel I fit here any more…but that’s another story for another time…

No plans for the Michigan game but to watch it here and that may be a good idea since I’m still working on cleaning out the liver….but I may have a beer or two during the game. Then, the Penn State Alabama game later in the day and I am loathe to root for Penn State but you have to support a Big Ten team that might knock off the number one. Don’t worry, I’ll go back to hating them later in the season when it gets to be time for us to play them.

Geez…I’ve already gotten everything done I wanted to do today and it’s only around 10….I do have more of the books that T gave me (down to the last two) and I want to have them finished before we have lunch next week so she can bring me another bag…much better than the library…it’s like having a personal book consultant but I am a little concerned that she has just ordered the new 3G Kindle…foiled again by modern technology but she has a whole wall of bookshelves that I haven’t read so I should be good for about a year…and then I may have to get a Kindle but I want to see hers first to see how it works in daylight…need to be able to read it at the beach.

That’s enough for now…may have some sports updates for later, especially if Michigan wins….Oh, I purposely didn’t comment on my feelings about 9/11 since I feel that it’s meaning is personal….not something to be worn on your sleeves and trotted out to show your bona fides as a patriot.

Politics

9/11 is not a politcal prop…

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Well…since it’s 9/11 today, I have a few thoughts about how the right has used their fake reverence for the losses on that day to score political points at every turn. If they had any true feelings, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin wouldn’t be staging political rallies in Alaska today to further their crazy brand of patriotism that cynically uses the wrongheaded fear of Islam to stoke the fires of hatred for their own financial gain. If the right’s feelings were true, you wouldn’t have had Giuliani running for president with his only stump speeches consisting of a noun, a verb, and 9/11. Of course, you’d have to be a hermit to have missed the pandering the right has done to score political points with the opposition to the Park 51 project in Manhattan…and before you say it, no, the left has not been involved to any comparable degree.

What has happened to the integrity of the Republican Party? Of course when you have people like Newt, Palin, and Beck considered leaders, this is what you get. What happened to the GOP of old that didn’t protest the building of Shinto shrines in Hawaii where the sneak attacks by Japan on December 7th killed almost 4,000 soldiers and sailors?

Who is going to restore the reverence for a day that is still fresh in the collective memory of our country? Don’t count on it being the right….and every time they sow dissension using the 9/11 attacks, they are giving Osama bin Laden just what he wanted; disruption in our society and moving it toward his vision of the world. Is this what they want? Geez….

What you never want to be….