In this world of sin and sorrow there is always something to be thankful for; As for me, I rejoice that I am not a Republican.
H.L.Mencken
Sunday January 30, 2000
Looking around today I came across this article about Mike Tyson who had a boxing bout against some guy over in England. Somehow, it made me think of the very early days of TV and some of the very earliest nationally broadcast events, many of which were boxing bouts. We often watched these events standing out in front of some store or bar or in the case of one bout that I sort of remember involving Joe Louis, and I think Joe Wolcott by standing out in front of a neighbors house and looking in through the window.
Now things are not the same. And I am not even suggesting to understand all the reasons why, but I do want to suggest that as an ex-fan of boxing, Mike Tyson for all his flaws and crimes, would have been as good as Joe Louis if he had been born in 1914 instead of whenever he was born. Of course neither could ever have filled these shoes,
Muhammad Ali was and is The Greatest. And, for me, since Ali, boxing is dead.
Friday January 28, 2000
I did not watch the State of the Union speech last night , nor the so-called responses, but this morning as usual, I got up and started a pot of coffee, opened up the curtain to my little deck where I can watch the birds at a feeder that hangs over the deck from the chair where I have my coffee(s), (yes I know that makes a big mess for me to clean up when the feeder comes down in the spring, but it is worth it for all the nice close ups of the birds all winter) when soon after noticing that it's -4 degrees outside, yes I also have a thermometer on the railing of the deck, a stinking squirrel leaps upon my feeder and starts it swinging and I have to go over open the sliding doors which are frozen making the job less than easy so that I can make loud scary noises to get the little guy to leap off, a process which has to be repeated several times before the squirrel comes to the conclusion that it is not worth the effort only to be scared by the same thing over and over and finally quits, ( a lesson somewhere there maybe?) whereupon I sit down have my coffee(s) and read my paper.
I do have some other news this morning too. Big Barbara Bush's bratty boy is not as inevitable as he once seemed. And that is good news.
Even better, pitchers and catchers report on February 19, 2000 and start workouts on the 20th. Squirells vanquished, George W. slipping, baseball coming; what could be better.
Thursday January 27, 2000
This entire Cuban-Exiles vs Castro, the Grandmothers, the INS, the chicken politicians, world wide public opinion, common sense, morality, logic, and anyone and everything else that gets in the way of their obsession is becoming stranger and stranger. The bizarre "visit" is the strangest event yet. I expect a made for TV movie before the month is out.
President Clinton, General Reno, listen to me. End this absurd confrontation now. You can't restore any dignity to the mess. That's gone forever. But you can end it. Send Elian home to his father in Cuba today.
I will end my ranting about this mess before I go nuts. No mas. Finito. Forget about it. That's it. I will wait for the fat lady..
Wednesday January 26, 2000
Taking the day(s) off. Loved the storm. Hope you did too.
Tuesday January 25, 2000
It is snowing out and my newspaper didn't arrive this morning. This is very disruptive. The day can't get started properly without the paper and coffee. I did have coffee and now that I think about it, the paper would be full of meaningless political analysis of the voting in Iowa ( Gore won, Bush won; the others didn't). There would be more stories of Elian and the grandmothers and of the fascist like moves to create "acts of congress" when wackos don't like the current law. So I did read my newest favorite comic strip on the web and I found this editorial which supports my point of view on Elian, And for the fun of it I read this piece from the achives of Nation Magazine, which, I suppose, does convey some sort of lesson.
Other than that I think I will just settle in and enjoy the
snowstorm. You should too.
Monday January 24, 2000
Today, members of the Senate who like to refer to it as" the worlds greatest deliberative body" will entertain private bills to make Elian, the kidnapped Cuban boy, an American citizen. Sponsored by the likes of Connie Mack, R- Florida and co-sponsored by the Majority Leader Trent Lott, this joke of a bill will make a laughing stock out of the worlds most deliberative body. And the House, not to be outdone will have similar bills sponsored by Tom (the hammer) Delay house majority whip Congressman McCullan R-Florida and Ilean Ros- Lehtinan R-Florida, previously identified here as the Devil and Lincoln Diaz-Balart R-Florida identified here today as a genuine jerk. While Presidential candidate Bush says in his usual way of showing great leadership, I think it's a nice gesture, isn't it?
My message to the Cuban people and to Ricardo Alarcon
President of the Cuban National Assembly is this. I know it you
would have to hold back a chuckle or two, but why not let your
deliberative body declare Lott, Mack, Diaz-Balart, McCullan, and
George W. all citizens of Cuba. Then try them in absentia as
fools.
Sunday January 23, 2000
If I had been asked to guess, I would have guessed that there were more than one billion reachable documents on the World Wide Web. But I wasn't asked to guess and I never even thought about it. Until now, that is. I wonder if they found and counted There You Have It.
Since it's Sunday try this easy fix. From among the 1,000,000,000 or so this isn't the dumbest. Or is it?
By the way, I know that spelling errors are piling up again.
This little program I use, FP Express, does not include a spell
ckecker and I have been to lazy to go through all the motions
necessary to check the spelling.
Saturday January 22, 2000
In the papers today are stories that seem to be typical these days. There is the story about the doctor who carves his initials into the abdomen of a woman who he has just delivered of a baby. He still practices, except now he is chief of obstectrics or something. And more absolute nonsense from the likes of Trent Lott no-less, on having a bill ready to make Elian Gonzalez a citizen(by decree)by Wednesday. Then there was one about a lawyer who cheated on his taxes for big (felony) bucks but will probably not be disbarred only suspended for a month or so. And of course the stories whining about how cold it is when ten days ago there were stories about how abnormally warm it was. Even here.
Silliest of all are the endless stories in the papers, on the internet and all over television about the Iowa Caucus as if this had any resemblence to reality. The empty suit George W Bush will run against Al Gore in November. That's been true since last summer and remains true. The vote of a 100,000 or so middle class white folks from Iowa will change nothing, neither will the vote of a bunch of white "let's pretend we actually know what our state motto means" yuppies who live in New Hampshire, but have just moved there from Massachusetts. Jerks.
Bush was bought and paid for more than a year ago and Gore is the Vice-President. The beginning and the end of the presidential primary story, this is a true fact. Everything else is baloney fat.
Friday January 21, 2000
Not new stuff, but a new comment on the Elian Gonzalez circus which has really become even more of a convoluted mess in the past couple of days. And not to belittle the seriousness of Elian's plight but here is another story that demonstrates the stupidity of caving to the Cuban-American wackos in Florida. Miami, the most natural and logical place to honor Latin music, is being deprived of the show and the revenues it will bring bring. Not to mention the great Cuban performers like this group of oldtimers.
And today, let me share my latest favorite comic strip. Why I
haven't been reading this one before now(now means the past
couple of months) is beyond me. If it's not in your paper bookmark the site and
read it every day.
Thursday January 20, 2000
While I anxiously await new stuff to spark my interest, I want
to point to a new column which will be featured every once in a
while in The Nation. The
column, The Beat , by John Nichols is one of the few
around that talks about progressive news. You will have to scroll
down on the link to find it. The Nation's site links to some of
it's articles, but when I try to link directly, I just get the
main framed page. I don't know how to get around this (yet). I
suppose I should try to learn a little about all this web stuff
and HTML and all that. Alas, old
dogs and new tricks. Well maybe not there, but possibly here?
Wednesday January 19, 2000
A couple of news items hit me today. First it is this story about the missle miss. In the zeal that has developed lately to resurrect the silly Star Wars notion of Reagan and his bunch, Congress and Clinton have been rushing to get this absurd Star Wars sort of system up and spending. The entire concept is wrongheaded. First they warn us about the rogues bringing in all sorts of stuff via suitcases, then they say it's neccessary to spend kazillions on this advance sort of SCUD system because of all those rogues out there who may develop some sort of awkward missle that may be able to reach us maybe, someday. Meanwhile the SCUD of Gulf War infamy didn't even work. And what about the suitcases?
To me, this is an example of the kind of nonsense that Dwight Eisenhower warned about in his farewell address in January of 1961. In this speech, he warned about the increasing influence of the industrial-military complex.. We haven't listened well. The USA spends more on armies, and arms than all the countries of the world combined. Much of it on silly stuff like this star wars nonsense.
Now I have nothing against government sponsored make work projects. In fact, I think that is one of governments main functions. Just call it what it is. And do less war stuff and more usefull stuff.
And the other item that caught my attention today is the silly
political expections game being played by the presentitial
candidates. Now Bradley has joined in and says that he
will "win", sort of, if he gets around 31% in Iowa.
Didn't some of the press have him actually winning there a few
weeks ago? Now I single out Bradley but they
all do it and all the so called analysts go along......god in
heaven save me from all this baloney fat.
Tuesday January 18, 2000
The lead story in my paper today as well as all over the other papers and a the internet portals is this.The rich are getting richer. And it rates a big duh! (isn't that the expression in common use to express something like "well, how obvious can it get?)
When I was a little kid I can remember both grandmothers and my father invoking this, it seems, constantly. In my grandmothers case it was a lament. In my fathers case it was as a lesson. Later on, my wife took to saying it all the time. First, as a comment on how unjust it was when we were in that top tier for a while. Later as a comment on how unjust it is when after we moved into the lower tier.( even if it was deliberate) So it takes not one, but two think tanks to come to the obvious conclusion that at least three generations of Americans simply know in their bones to be true. Duh!!!
Which all is a long way to say that the stupid "trickle down" economic theories of the absurd Reagan era were 180 degrees out of whack, ( most everyone knew that and simply lied and pretended it was so) and, the idiotic "give a huge tax break to the top 5%" a la George W's empty headed tax cut contemplates is equally stupid and outrageous.
But in ten or fifteen years another think tank will look at the several economic segments of our society and conclude that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Deja duh all over again---with apologies to Yogi Berra.
Monday January 17, 2000
First off, this is Martin Luther King Day. One of my personal regrets is that when Martin Luther King was alive and doing much of his great work, I was among those who ignored what he and the entire black civil rights movement was doing. Like a lot of northern white liberals, I really did not pay much attention until the turmoil which swept the country after his murder. And like a lot of my fellow liberals, I adopted his philosophy after the fact instead of being there during the fact.
So Martin, late perhaps, but mine eyes too, have seen the
glory. Finally.
Sunday January 16, 2000
So I took yesterday off thinking that I would find a new wind or a new tack. I didn't. The Republican gang of five plus the "leader" said nothing worth either talking about or repeating. Neither did the dems. Perhaps the black hole is swallowing everything.
The Elian story is still obscene. ( oh, here is an editoriial in my paper that is simple, concise and right)
I heard about an ice cream melt on a floor somewhere that folks around here decided was the latest apparition of the virgin. This was just recently according to my source who reads everything in the newspapers we get, including the classifieds and the personals. The last one we had was an outline in an oak tree which occured this past summer. No pictures or other information about either but I will look some more.
So I am off. The quest continues.
Friday January 14, 2000
To summarize for now anyway:
Thursday January 13, 2000
Winter has finally come to my house. It is actually snowing some and the weather guys are saying it will be cold for the next couple of days. That's fine. Maybe the cold will knock out some of the colds and flu that have been haunting a lot of us here.And by way of truth telling. I am not in Boston, but I liked the weather story there better than the one for here.
Here we go again with more on Elian. I can't resist. Janet Reno, who has nothing to loose with the GOP wackos, takes a stand that is righteous. At least as righteous as any political person can seem to get. Good for her. I wish Gore or Bradley would show a little spine too. Try this editorial's point of view boys.
I wish I could say been there seen this; but I did take this virtual trip to Cuba.
Wednesday January 12, 1999 (whoops, just noticed that I did it again, 1/13//00 fpmjr)
Yes of course, as opposed to flat shaped, as it would be easy to imagine most of the GOP believes. Yes, I am resorting to stupid "cute" baloney to try and avoid becoming a tounge tied frothing at the mouth futile, but right lefty.
And that is what I have been sounding like lately.
A long time ago, and it seems in another life, I had a small part in a local production of "Inherit The Wind". In the course of the play the character based on Clarence Darrow shows up and is greeted by the character based on H.L.Mencken with the greeting, "hello Devil, welcome to Hell". Now I am sure I don't have to make the connections for any of you. This is what we are all about to confront if we let them takeover. And no, this is not a whine simply about evolution, but about evolution as a metaphor for all the reactionary stuff they want to foist on us. The very scary Mona Charen in her column today suggests that Elian Gonzalez survived because god intervened to send him as a messenger against evil. Her proof is that he was found surrounded by dolphins and without sunburn. Here, read this baloney fat for yourself! Now tell me I am getting hysterical and paranoid.
Whoops. I am doing it again.
Tuesday January 11, 1999
Early last night I was disappointed to hear of the ruling by Dade CountyCircuit Court Judge Rosa Rodriguez in which she said that there was credible evidence that there would be irreparable harm both physically and mentally to Elian if he was returned at this time to his father in Cuba. With this outrageous ruling Judge Rodriguez becomes the darling of all the gutless politicians on both sides of this issue who can all now say "...we are a country of laws and we should all wait for this to play out in court" and other similar pieces of baloney fat. She has let them all off of the hook and damned the legitimate cause of the boy's father and four grandparents at the same time. She further reveals her mind-set by stating that Elians father should appear in her court and if he doesn't it would weigh against him.
With this, I have to concede that Elian Gonzalez has been successfuly kidnapped by the Cuban-American anti-Castro wackos and will eventually be turned into a spokesperson against Castro and perhaps even his family in Cuba. I can see no other outcome. This Judge will certainly grant permanent custody to the distant Miami relative who is claiming it and they will ask for and get political asylum for the little guy. You can look for Helms and Burton to push a bill through congress making him a citizen and after a little more hoopla and flagwaving and a few more photo op's it will die down and not get used again until very near the November elections when he will attend various Republican rallies and probably talk a little Spanish to George W and we will all say isn't that adorable.
I want to throw up!
Monday January 10, 1999
The cable connection was out again for a lot of the day, up until now anyway. But so was I so no big trauma. Besides I re-subscribed to AOL this morning. So I do have my backup and have regained my status as a pioneer in the company who, it seems, will eventually share all business with GE.
Once I drove to New Jersey instead of through New Jersey and
as far as I am concerned this
little bit of news is OK.Why not? While they are at it I
could think of some other places for elimination. Fairfield
County in Connecticut for example.Just make it part of New York
Sunday January 9, 1999
I know that I get a little crazy about things and even obsessive. And this Elian business is one of those things. So, Here I go. First of all, the new little tag stays until there is reason to remove it. And now this woman, who, if you have ever seen her deserves the paragraphs here, is on the list of crazy Republicans. She is Congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida. She is the one who convinced looney Dan Burton to issue the subpoena yesterday.
I still believe that the extreme right is getting caught on
the wrong side of this one politically and that in the final
analysis they will have to back away and let the kid go home.
However, for now at least, they seem to be winning.
January 8, 2000
It's still strange typing 2000. It is even stranger waking up this morning to find that looney Dan Burton ( you know him as the guy who shot a melon with a pistol and then took to the House Floor to use that as proof that Vince Foster could not have committed suicide) this same deranged right wing congressman has issued a subpoena for little Elian to appear before Congress. And the idiot George W. seems to support this type of extreme action by the GOP. Problem is that none of the characters running for President in either party will make a strong statement supporting the correct position that the INS has taken. Maybe I am missing something, but aren't the politicans all on the wrong side of this issue? My sense is that Americans want the boy to be returned to his family and not kidnapped and exploited by some great-uncle and a bunch of anti-Castro zealots.
OK, another track. Soon one of the best series ever to be on TV will be coming back for a second season. If you didn't see any of the series from last year, do whatever you have to do to do so. Then watch the new episodes. And like them. Like them a lot. Like them like you have never liked any other TV show.
And here is a website that qualifies as both artsy and
interesting. Have a look if
you feel like it.
January 7, 2000
I am sitting here feeling very isolated. My so-called superfast modern cable connection to the internet which I have through Cox Communications is down. They say they know it is down and are trying to fix it. They can't say when, but one of their so-called service helpers who answer the phones out in California has already given me a credit for the next week. Is that a bad sign or what? What is worse, is that after having the AOL service practically forever, the other day I cancelled that service which I had just kept for sentimental reasons. Further, I had a fairly reliable local dial up ISP and I cancelled that a couple of weeks ago. All that because the Cox provided cable service seemed to be both stable and reliable.
So, for the first time in many many years I am not connected to the internet, nor any other kind of net, not even an old fashioned local bulletin board hence the isolation. Sure, the radio and the tv still work. So does the telephone. I can still look out the window and if I wanted I could go for a walk, or a ride in the car or even go to a store and buy a card or something. Problem is that I actually like being connected. Try as I might to be or become a luddite, I like the stinking internet and thats a fact. So I sit, sigh and wait for the cable guy to fix it.
It's still Friday but it is late in the day and as quick as it went away it just came back. So, I am restored. And the Castro hating crazies in Miami are rioting over Elian, the silly GOP candidates are fighting over who hates gays the most, who loves Jesus the most, who hates government the most, who loves the military the most, while the leader of the pack defines himself by this and other aspects of his record. I actually watched the Tim Russert show otherwise called the debate last night. Stupid choice and stupid show. And there are still nearly 11 months to go! It can't get any worse, can it?
But, I will stop whining. The net is back.
January 6, 2000
First of all. Yesterday was the 5th and not the 4th despite all respected opinion to the contrary. Next, have a look at this kind of interesting site that attempts to use random snapshots as windows to reality. I like the idea a lot.
One of the books of photographs that had an actual and lasting effect on me was The Family of Man, a book based on an exhibition of photographs put together by Edward Steichen for the Museum of Modern Art way back in 1955. While many of the photographs in that book are great and famous works, many more are obscure snapshots. There is one in particular, a man laboring up a dark stairwell after his days labor, which I have never been able to forget.
There is another, a snapshot of a man, cigarette in mouth, hands on hips, paunched, wearing bathing trunks and a fedora, dancing on a beach to the strumming of a guitar being played by a young man, while a smiling shawled old woman watches and claps time, that for all the world haunts me and taunts me still. If you have never looked at this book do so.
My old and broken 1st edition copy is one of my few treasures.
January 4, 2000
I'll tell you, it is very weird typing the date as someday, 2000. I will never get used to it. I am not going to be a very good 21st century person.
So, it's finally over. The holidays, the funny millennium stuff, the Y2K jitters and hype, my lousy sickness whatever it was, and maybe even Elian's ordeal as a hostage of the wacko Florida Cubans, all either actually over or seemingly over. All that is pretty good .
But, amidst the good stuff, the worst stuff of all. George W. is not only still viable, he is a shoo-in for the GOP nomination and a likely winner in November. What in the world is going on here? Why would any thinking American, even a Republican, want this silly little airhead as his leader? What's worse, is that we will have to suffer that awful woman Barbara again if her little cutey is elected.
January 1, 2000
Happy New Year!