Monthly Archives: November 2010

My Life

November 25th

Leave a comment

Well…I feel much better today…don’t know if it was bad food or what that was the cause for yesterday’s malaise but what a wasted day. I can’t say not much to do today…have the boys coming over for dinner and have to get the pies started before I go out for coffee…they opened the coffee shop to try it out today so I kind of feel obligated to stop over there….I’ll fill you in on the rest of the day as it goes on…but need to get going right now…more later…

Okay…got the pies done and the potatoes peeled…and wanted to get this thought down before I forget it…I am starting to think our country is completely broken…after reading some comments to an E.J. Dionne column where he decries the lack of civility and the revisionism that the right is now doing with regards to Thanksgiving….these mean-spirited folks can’t, even for one day, just give it a rest, to take the day off and just enjoy…if we could just harness the hate that these people have…we could stop importing oil…

Misc

The MAD thing…

Leave a comment

Well…lest you think I’m one of those squishy folks that think it is a sin to use American power to further our security ends, this one will put that to rest…I hope. For all of us that have lived through he cold war and the threat of having 20,000 nuclear warheads from the Soviet Union rain down on our heads, this fearful overreaction to a bunch of cave dwellers with a few pounds of plastic explosives is just laughable. I mean, please, we disrupt our whole way of life, give up essential freedom, and spend billions of dollars on scanners and other security measures that are always chasing the last attack while we stand for the humiliation that chips away at the very idea of America. I propose that we stop playing defense…that we get rid of these scanners, the TSA, and stand up like the country that won World War Two…

My proposal is simple…we let the world know that in the event of any attack on any American anywhere, we will spend 6 months finding out who is behind it…and then, whatever country is responsible will have one of their cities turned into a puddle of glass. I know the argument that these terrorists are an amorphous, stateless entity, but they get support from many well-known countries like Pakistan, Iran, and Saudi Arabia with money and logistics. A very simple, easy to understand set of consequences…why do you think the Soviet Union with one of the largest armies in the history of the world never attacked us…it was the policy of MAD…Mutually Assured Destruction that made the price too high. I just propose that we again make the price too high…that we stop cowering in our stocking feet being searched like criminals and become Americans again.

The answer to the terrorist’s statement that they will defeat us with a “death of a thousand cuts” is to reply with a death of a million degrees…geez…

My Life

November 24th

Leave a comment

Well…a long day yesterday and I feel a little crappy today…I did win at pool so that was okay but I now remember why I’ve cut way back on the drinking…just want to stay on the couch today…which I could do but that would be giving in and I won’t do that. So, I’m going to suck it up and get on with the normal stuff….and I am glad there is not much to do today…I do have to brine the turkey but that is about it…so that’s all I’ll do…this isn’t going well so I’ll stop here…more later…

Okay…I’m back for a few minutes…got the turkey in the brine, worked out, and had my coffee and newspapers but I don’t feel that much better…maybe after I have lunch? I am going to take a nap here in a few minutes, that is, after I have some leftover ribs…so, the posts today are going to be kind of sporadic…sorry about that, but you know this happens some Wednesdays…

Misc

Top Gear America…

Leave a comment

Well…I was going to put a placeholder here until the comments solidified in my head but I think I’ll just start and then come back…this one is going to be about the British show “Top Gear” and its pale, bastardized American version that aired on History this past Sunday night….kind of telegraphed my feelings, huh? Come back after pool in Ada and I’ll complete it…

Okay…I’m back and feeling kind of weird…the chicken I had for lunch may have been borderline…but, we’ll see…if you’ve never seen the show “Top Gear” on BBC America, it a car show with three middle aged men as the hosts; that sometimes like each other and sometimes show the uniquely British contempt that is reserved for the “wankers” that is not only directed at each other but the world as a whole. I think where they are successful is that it is basically allowing these cranky hosts to be the normal, funny people that they are…not the perky, young, always “on” hosts that infest most of American TV. That brings us to the History channel’s americanization of the show, using the young, perky, hosts that I just hate. It starts with Tanner Foust, whose 15 minutes of fame should have been over long ago. The same can be said for one of the other hosts, the never funny Rutledge Wood that I’ve seen and avoided in many Nascar broadcasts, and the other one that I’ve never heard of…the three of them trying to match the smart banter of the BBC show with their own lame version. It only took about 10 minutes of the first episode for me to gag and quit watching it…what’s wrong with having some funny middle-aged Americans hosting the show…or heaven forbid, a woman? Just my thoughts…and I may come back later to say a little more…but if I feel like this, I won’t…one last thing before I head out…the one most important thing that I think the American producers missed is that Clarkson, Mays, and Hammond in the British version are extremely intelligent, well-read individuals, and come across that way…and the hosts of America’s version come across as “Jackass” lite who don’t bring anything to the show but reading the script….does everything have to be dumbed down for us Americans?

Sports

Let’s do a little sports….

Leave a comment

I’ve been thinking that I need to lighten up a little for a while, or for one post, whichever comes first, so I think I’ll throw out some thoughts on sports….I am getting so tired of Napcar, or Nascar to the rest of the world…can’t we have another champion? The TV ratings are way down and if you look in the stands at the races, you’ll see that they are 30% or more empty no matter where the races are. In my opinion, it’s a result of the sanitizing of the design of the cars they race…they’ve taken the innovation out of it by having such a stringent set of rules. Where are the days when Curtis Turner showed up with a 3/4 scale car that no one could figure out until he parked it next to a rental car of the same make? It used to be an exciting time when you never knew who was going to show up with the next big thing….but now, cars are being disqualified for being 10 thousandths of an inch out of spec…less than the width of a human hair…

Basketball…nope, don’t care about basketball…

Football…well, the Lions are still the Lions but I am hoping that they will at least be competitive on t-day. And, we have Michigan vs. Ohio State Sat but I’m just hoping it’s not a blowout…hmmm…I’m not really offering any insights here…so I think I’ll just stop for a while…I could get to Manchester United but I don’t think any of you out there know or care about soccer…I will say this..they were playing against Wigan yesterday and two Wigan players were sent off with red cards…but Man U only won by 2-0…they have looked terrible all year and I’m tired of hearing about Wayne Rooney bitching about his contract, etc…what has he done in the last year?

That’s about it for now…

My Life

November 23rd

Leave a comment

Well…it was kind of a full day yesterday with lunch with T and then out with G for a couple….still have the grinding the teeth thing going on at night and got up this morning with really bad pain from it…thought I had that figured out a couple of years ago but I guess I didn’t…I have heard from all three boys and there is going to be a T-day dinner…but I need to go out and get a few more things to finish it this morning…there is no way I’ll be in the stores Wed…just want to get the turkey brining and get the last few things cleaned up here and watch the Wings game….But, what about today, you ask? Or don’t ask, but I’m going to tell you anyway…it looks like the normal Tuesday…out to Ada later for pool to try to redeem myself from getting my butt kicked….but this week will be different….

It was kind of fun to have the last day of shorts and short sleeve shirts yesterday but I still have two more days to go before I can put on jeans…and I don’t want to anyway…what I don’t get is people think its weird for me to still be wearing shorts but don’t think anything of women wearing skirts through the winter….is it equivalent? Well…I think it is so it must be, right? Okay…drifting a little so I’ll end here…I’ll try to get another topic out later but you know how it goes on Tuesday…

Misc

An Independent judiciary…

Leave a comment

Well… this is not the one I was thinking about earlier in the day but it is a topic that needs to have some light shone on it after the recall of three judges in Iowa this election. If you didn’t read, there were three judges that voted for equal protection under the law in ruling that gays and lesbians have the right to marry in Iowa. What the crazy right wingers are saying that judges should reflect the will of the people and because they are against it, the rights of gays and lesbians should be suppressed until they say it okay to grant them the same rights as the rest of us. The founders established the independent judiciary specifically as a counterbalance to popular opinion to ensure that the majority couldn’t repress other citizens…what’s next…when judges vote to protect minority rights will they be recalled? These are the same people that thought “separate but equal” was just fine and it took an independent judiciary to end segregation and the many other instances of discrimination that “popular opinion” thought was just great. Again…it just another instance where the righties are all for the constitution unless it goes against their ignorant opinions….geez…

My Life

November 22nd

Leave a comment

Well…another almost weekend gone…I think I’ve said this before…how I miss the idea of weekends? When you’re unemployed, all days look the same and you miss the joy that there is a weekend coming….just a short musing…I guess that means that it doesn’t matter that Monday is here either….don’t really miss Mondays…okay, time to move on. Didn’t do a lot yesterday…but I think I’m done with Napcar…no competition and Jimmie Johnson winning the championship again….until they let there be real innovation in the cars and loosen the rules, the robots like Johnson will keep winning and it no longer fun to watch. But the Lions lost, too, so that was a plus…and they will probably lose again Thurs…didn’t do much else but make ribs yesterday…they were good but I think I overcooked them a little. Not much to do today….might have lunch with T but I’m not sure about that yet…and I have to get hold of the boys and make sure they know I’m making t-day dinner….and I hope the rain stops later so I can get a ride in…more later…

Okay…I did get the bike ride in and it was a little melancholy…I know this is the last day out in shorts and a t-shirt and that, to me, is more of a passing than the seasons….and I came back muddy from head to toe but it was a good muddy; to be able to sweat through everything on the 22nd of November is pretty cool…I may have topics later…there is one rattling around but who knows?

Politics

Yep, it’s personal….

Leave a comment

Well…over the last couple of years I have been admonished a few times by my friends to not take things so personally, especially politics, and I have taken that advice to heart for the most part…but, as I reflect further on the state of affairs in this country, I may have been wrong to listen…I am coming to a new way of thinking about things; that maybe the only way to effect change in our great country is to take all of the blows personally, to take torture in my name as an American personally, to take the concentration of wealth fostered by the repubs personally, to take the unrelenting partisanship in politics personally, and to take the gutting of the middle class personally. I don’t know if it will help or not but I think we need to do something different…especially when I hear of the “great social values awakening” that is the plan of the new Republican governors that were elected in November. I take it personally when these guys, including the new gov of Michigan Rick Snyder, are going back to the old, divisive ways of the past repub administrations where they try to shove the religious views of the minority of the electorate down our throats by legislation that is by design discriminatory…can we say more restrictions on women’s rights? Can we say legislating the permanent second class status for gays and lesbians by denying them the rights that the rest of us have? These are the guys that spout off about the constitution constantly, and how we have gotten away from it’s original intent….but it was never meant to restrict any groups rights, but to grow those rights as the society changed.

I take it personally when any political party abandons all principle for political gain….where, over the last 30 years. the repubs have been trying earnestly to kill the federal government by starving it of the tax revenue it needs to provide the protections that all societies provide to it’s citizens…and yet show it’s just a political ploy when one of their “stars”, Governor Jindal of Louisiana, goes on “Meet the Press” today and bitches that the federal government should have had ships, etc. sitting and ready to cope with any oil spills in the gulf….okay, Bobby, where do we get the money when your party is still trying to bankrupt the government by giving the rich a $700 billion dollar tax cut? Explain this to me…it’s the governments job to clean up after all of the business polluters, but it’s not the job of government to support citizens with UI benefits when we are in the greatest recession in all of our lifetimes? Can you see why I think I have to start taking all of this stuff personally again? But, I am going to try to convert those feelings into some sort of action…don’t know what it is yet…but this question keeps running through my head..”if not now, when”…geez…

My Life

November 21st

Leave a comment

Well…another crappy night of sleep and I’m waiting for the coffee to finish so I can wake up a little…I am a little excited, though, that the weather is going to be warmer today and tomorrow…I will certainly get out on the bike today and get in at least 20….with the season winding down, I need to take advantage of any reasonable day…yesterday was almost a complete bore, saved only by Netflix and cleaning….and today looks quite a bit the same…no SF but that’s okay since I want to save some cash…and there will be the last Napcar race but I don’t get excited about that like I used to…I will have a topic for later since there has been something jelling over the last couple of days…don’t know if it’s too topical but it is something that is becoming important to me….more later…