There You Have It
Took the day off yesterday. Went out for a final sail with my friend in his boat CHIMAERA and then came home and had supper with an old friend and a new friend. During supper (well, actually what everyone calls dinner but I still like to call supper) one of them asked me something like "...well what do you expect any of them -referring to presidential candidates- to actually do.
Good question. I will start to sort that out. Here is a first stab at my priorities. Maybe I will amplify these issues here during the coming times. Or just leave them as obvious.
So.
Friday October 29, 1999
As is my wont, I watched some c-span this morning and until 9:30, I was sort of bored. A couple of guests. An actual more or less liberal TV commentator, and a woman who was supposed to be a genuine black Republican with a web site. I only half paid attention. Then some guy comes on and while I was half paying attention he talked about a new right wing wacko law. This from the right wing wackos who want fewer laws. ( they keep passing laws like this one and I will become a supporter of less government too)
Anyway, the law goes something like this. Starting in 2000, anyone applying for any form of government student aid will have to state that he has not ever been arrested for any drug related offense. Of course booze related offenses are excluded. He is then inelligible for the aid. If he lies he faces further trouble.
I don't have all the facts. The C-Span guest expert was an idiot and not very well informed. I have enough to know that the wackos have struck again. Another strange law aimed at you know who.
Thursday October 28,1999
In 1958, on one of my first actual dates with a new girl friend ( we did use that expression in those days) I took her to see the fairly new musical "Damn Yankees" at the North Shore Music Tent. This modern day re-do of Faust was a pretty good show.
Now after many many years I will finally admit that the real NY Yankees are a pretty good show too. That new girl friend, now my wife, might even agree.
The Senate and House negotiating with the President and the financial interest lobbies are about to pass a bill that is being fought by the ACLU, and Phyllis Schlafly of the American Eagle Forum. Anything being opposed by such diverse groups must be worth a look. So have a look. And do something!
Wednesday October 27,1999
They did it again. Meddling on the basis of "morality" in another instance of big brother deciding what are essentially medical issues. Why is it that the Henry Hydes of the world don't see it as "big government in our medicine cabinets" when it is in the name of their morality.I saw this coming a few days ago, but so did anyone else who can think.
Tuesday October 26, 1999
I don't care at all about the golfer, I had never even heard of him. Pete Rose and his interview mean very little to me. Senator Chafee is another matter.
One of the truly good guys.
Monday October 25, 1999
So, here in 1999, fifty years after my graduation from Phillips Grammer School, where just a couple of years before my graduation a teacher who I remember as plump, wearing a flowered dress, taught me and my classmates, who were still giddy with the glow of the peace we all felt after the end of the rerrible war that was won for all mankind by the Allies led by the United States, Miss. Pooler taught me a little song about the United Nations a body essentially created by the United States to keep the peace forever and to keep us giddy forever, now fifty plus years later a bunch of petty little fools in the Congress want the United States to be kicked out the General Assembly of the United Nations.
The song went something like this:
United, united, a word that we must cherish
While all remain united
No nation on earth will perish.
So fifty plus years will be down the drain if these wackos get their way. Oh Miss Pooler, why were you not around to teach these zealots that their kind of zealotry is why we had to fight World War II in the first place.
Another teacher, Mr Barron in 1953 told me to be anything I wanted to be except a writer. Both Miss Pooler and Mr Barron were correct.
Friday October 22, 1999
When in doubt, punt!
Thursday October 21, 1999
Advice to politicians.
A long time ago ( or so it seems) I used to think that stuff could be kept simple. For instance, in business I would keep track of the total dollars we took in and the total dollars we spent over any period of time and the delta would be either the profit (surplus) or loss ( deficit). Everything else I relagated to accountants' baloney fat.
Wednesday, October 20, 1999
Three small items today that interested me. Well, one is not so small.
The first is an issue that good old C-Span brought to my attention. A classic example of Right Wing newspeak. Their is a bill coming to a vote in The House that is titled The Pain Relief Promotion Act . The act claims to make it a little easier for doctors to prescribe anti-pain medication and to "educate" doctors in the use of these drugs. Rep. David Weldon, R-Florida, a soft spoken spokesman for the bill, revealed the bills true intention when he said that it also make it easier to prosecute Oregon doctors who will participate in the "morally reprehensible act of doctor assisted suicide". The entire bill, being pushed by the Right Wing Wackos is intended to undermine the Oregon law and any others that might pass. This is double "newspeak" at it's best(worst). Pretend to be helping out pain and suffering but really increase pain and suffering and at the same time chip away at states rights unless they are Right Wing Wacko approved states rights. Makes it easier and easier for anyone who is willing to think, despise Right Wing Wackos.
My newspaper features a story on it's style section about an old fashioned shirt, the guayabera, becoming a new fashion statement for hip young guys. This is bad. I have a couple of these and now I wil have to keep them in my closet for fear of seeming hip. Mine don't fit anymore anyway. I have had them for a decade or so.
Finally, the Vieques Island baloney. Just stop the stupid use of this little paradise as a bombing target. Who are we kidding that we "need" to be able to practice. This is like saying we need tailhook to practice our manliness. We want to have a handy place to play with our toys, so why not use Vieques. Whose going to complain (that matters). Well, I am for one.
Tuesday October 19,1999
Yesterday, while looking around for a place to report a dolphin sighting, I found a place on the web where you can track a couple of whales soon to be released back to the wild. By the way, the dolphin sighting occured on Sunday while sailing on my friends boat CHIMAERA, south of New London on Long Island Sound. Dolphins in that area are fairly unusual.
Ok, Ok....I wasn't going to talk about baseball anymore, but when you make ten errors and three other unrecorded mental errors in five games you can't win. Simple as that.
Monday October 18,1999
I hate drunken stupidity more than anything. After the fiasco with some drunks who happend to be at Fenway Park last night, I feel crummy. A good season of baseball, a great comeback series with Cleveland, a fun filled crushing of the Yankess and Clemens...all will be forever overshadowed by the display of drunken stupidity by some last night. The season is over. The bad taste will linger and linger and linger.
Sunday October 17,1999
I think tonight's game is the season.
Saturday, October 16 1999
The ball game today will be worth seeing. So, I will see it. And that's that
Friday, October 15. 1999
As if the injury of the Red Sox leaving a bunch of guys on base in a game they could have ( and should have) won wasn't enough, this morning C-Span added insult to the injury by having a guy who is Rush Limbaugh's brother on as their guest. This guy has a column, they say, that is published on a handful of right wing websites and one or two extreme right wing papers. Besides being what you would expect from a silly brother trying to make hay with a famous name, the guy says that the answer to all our problems is to bring god back to the schools.
Now which god would that be Mr. Rushes baby brother? The god who permits and commands:
This could go on and on. Maybe we need less of this god inspired hatred and more logic inspired thought.
No, not maybe at all.
Thursday. October 14,1999
Let's just say that enough is enough. No more use of:
and there you have it.
Wednesday, October 13,1999
During his playing days, I was among those who naver appreciated Wilt's game. After all, we had the Celtics and Bill Russell. Even later, I gave him short shrift.
I shouldn't have. Watching the modern game (which guys like Wilt and Bill invented) there are few like him.
Maybe none.
******************
A couple of days ago, I found this new and free program in ( yes, another one) a newspaper column. It's one of those programs that will eventually be what all programs are about. The integration of PC and the internet and other nets yet to be created. OK, maybe a small example, but I think it is neat. Go get it.
Tuesday Oct 12, 1999
Alright, I know that it was twenty three and not twenty four to whatever the other day, That really shouldn't matter. What does matter is that it was right here just a few days ago that you saw this sort of prediction.
Final for the series, Sox a whole bunch; Indians, no where near enough.
Now, Here is something else that will interest you conspiracy fans. The secret of The mystery of Manuscript 408, or the Devil did it.
This was found in the only other interesting story in the Courant today.
Monday Oct 11, 1999
Twenty four to what!!!
Sure the obvious thing now is for me to say the just one more stuff. So I will. But the true nature of a Red Sox fan is to say wait till next year. I never wonder what would happen if we win it all. I know what would happen. And..., well let's not dwell on it. So, win one more against the Cleveland team, have a series with the hated and dreaded Yankees, then we will see what we will see.
Sunday Oct 10, 1999
Just two more!!!
Saturday October 9, 1999
Don't be mislead by the apparant feud between George W. and the wacko Republicans. There is no real split and Bush is not trying to be the Republican Clinton. He will not pull the GOP toward the center no matter how much the press and his own fellow GOP types try to tell you he is.
First, he is not capable. And then listen to the scary Tom Delay who has said, and I will paraphrase, all we are trying to do is get a (malleable) Republican in the Whitehouse whose only job will be that of a bill signer.So let him do whatever he has to do to get elected.
Bush is no more a potential centrist than Clinton is a liberal. Bush will be whatever the likes of Delay, Graam, Lott, Armey, Barr, Helms, the Impeachment 13, Robertson, Falwell, and Gingrich (from wherever he may be) tell him to be. This is one dangerous time.
We could I suppose win three in a row. So.
Thursday October 7, 1999
The Red Sox lost. But it's not over.
Meanwhile our statesmen in the Senate and House are:
The TV and radio talkers are blabbing about:
The clown Jesse Ventura
The kazillionaire jerk Donald Trump
The fascist-light Pat Buchannan
The semi-sane Ross Perot
The actor whatever his name is
The other pseudo actor whatever his name is
What a time to be an American.
Wed. October 6, 1999
Thoughts while watching a little A.M. television this morning. Firt I have to confess that I watched a little of the Imus show on MSNBC. This guy, this phony, this drunk, this junkie, this kick-back ( I can't remember the old term of art) accepting DJ from the old days has a huge radio audience. I have to admit that the show is, in a racisit, prejudiced,crude,and often perverse way, funny, But why the celeb TV talkers and pols flock to the show is beyond me. Most of that sanctimonious bunch are fond of trying to impose their newly discovered "morality" on the rest of us. But, somehow they find it OK to appear looking so "with it and cool" with this guy Imus.
Then there was C-Span this mornig featuring such lightweights as Joe Barton, (R-Texas), and Jeff Sessions a particularly dumb Senator (R-Georgia) defending respectively deregulation of electricity and the nuclear test ban treaty. It was a spectacle that you needed to see for yourself. These guys make the cliche about dumb southern politicians come alive.The Barton character even admitted that he did not have a clue about how electricity worked but by god, he was the Chairman of the Sub-Commitee preparing the bill and he knew that what the Electricity lobby was telling him was for the good of the people.Just like cable deregulation and telephone deregulation.
Enough, I am boring, I am bored, I quit.
I have to tell you, whenever I heard someone say "...what goes around comes around" or other silly aphorism that means essentially the same thing, I would cringe. But, what goes around does come around.
And that's a true fact.
Monday, October 4,1999
Perhaps it is just us, but:
other days stuff
Sunday, October 3, 1999
Not much political that We want to talk about today. In fact there is nothing even as interesting as this. And this, like Jesse Ventura is pretty pointless.
October1,1999
It's October, the RedSox are in the post season, I am off to The Eastern States Exposition, the weather promises to be very nice, what else is there?
Oh, I remember. The Republicans have decided to help balance the budget by slowing payments to all those awful poor people who get the earned income tax credit. That will teach them. Well I have even a better suggestion Mr and Mrs Republican. When I was a small boy, they still had poor houses and poor farms. Restart that system and criminalize poverty like you have tried to criminalize a lot of other things that bother you. That might work.
Even the slow-witted George W. thinks you guys are off the wall with this one.
9/22/99
Listening to the Republicans trashing Buchanan is funny. I suppose if they can sell him as a lefty leaning crackpot rather than the right wing, xenophobic, anti-semite, religious zealot that he is they can possibly stop his insane run for the reform ( ha-ha ) party nomination. Failing that they think that they can keep his fellow xenophobes.racists,and zealots in their own party from voting for him.
09/23/99
Every once in a while there is something in the newspaper ( yes, we do read newspapers. For the uninformed, a newspaper is a longish document that is printed on paper and is either bought at a stand or in extreme cases delivered to your door. It is full of stories and articles about "the news" and ads for stuff a lot of you will want to buy)(oh yeah, most of them have pictures too), well anyway every once in a while there is something interesting. Here is such a case. I found this page's URL buried in a story way back in today's issue of The Hartford Courant, a newspaper that is the oldest continously published paper in the country.
09/26/99
I am begining to panic about the Red Sox.
Sept 27,1999
Here are some neat items to watch over the next few months.
Tuesday, September 28
Today, we are told by the Republicans that not only are they the guardians of public morality and religion, they are also the guardians of the publics taste in art.
How far are we from the ugly Nazi days of 1939 if we permit this kind of baloney fat to continue here?
9/29/99
Bill Bradley has a plan for sort of, well maybe, but not really universal health care.
Bill, the only route to Universal Health Care is Universal Health Care. You can't do it by patching together a bunch of ideas that are all designed to attempt to make the insurance companies happy.
Health care for people not for profits, Bill. The insurance companies are the problem not the solution.
A system based on the Canadian Plan with some of the minor faults fixed would be a real start. Your plan reads like a full employment ( and profit ) plan for the insurance companies.
Another approach, Bill; simply expanding Medicare to include all Americans and eliminating all other government health care programs would probably work. The tax increase to cover this would probably be less than the combined total of all insurance premiums now being paid to the carriers by companies, taxes and individuals.
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