I would love to bring up something beside the self-inflicted artificial debt crisis that has consumed Washington and the MSM (Main Stream Media). But almost any other topic I bring up will get lost in the whirlwind. There's so many ways to take this. But the bottom line is that we shouldn't be dealing with it at all. Passing the debt ceiling is just a stupid accounting trick. I'm not even sure why it has to be voted on, since in reality, constitutionally, it can't be turned down. This is money they've already spent. Rejecting the debt ceiling will only make it harder to pay on items that have already been guaranteed or purchased. It will destroy the country's credit rating and increase the interest on everything we pay on.
My primary objection then is that this is not the place to bring up budget matters, whether spending or taxes. We understand about negotiating with terrorists and criminals, but when it's the whole country held hostage we let it slide. President Obama is to blame for even allowing so-called negotiations in the first place. One of the great fallacies of reasoning in the Obama White House and the Democratic leadership is that if they stand firm, everyone but the liberal base will abandon them. They are wrong. America respects a strong leader. Even if they don't get everything they want, they love someone who "gits-er-done". No, that doesn't mean dictatorial control, but it does mean firm, clear, principled leadership. I believe with all my heart that the President is principled, just not so much on the firm part.
I would like to ask, if the debt ceiling fails to get raised, and the inevitable catastrophe results, who are you going to blame?
I mean to me, since it's been raised so consistently over so many years, some new element of insanity must have been introduced into our body politic. And that of course, is Tea Party Amerika. It's an awful insanity that won't burn itself out until it's taken the whole country with it. Honest to God, I don't see how anyone can make a case for anything else. Remember, this has nothing to do with the budget or whoever has overspent or under collected in the past. This has to do with one simple question. Are we going to follow the 14th amendment of our Constitution and honor our debts or not?
Saturday, July 30, 2011
Saturday, July 23, 2011
Saturday Political Soap Box 4
Class warfare? It exists but not in the way everybody thinks. The problem isn't the poor taking from the rich (that's almost funny). It ultimately isn't even about the rich taking from the poor (although, God knows, that goes on). It's about the people on the third and fourth tier being angry that the people on the fifth tier might take part of the pie that they've worked so hard for. Class warfare is about those in the middle doing battle with those on the bottom. Not that the rich and their media lackeys aren't ginning it up. What upsets you more? The person in line at the grocery store using food stamps and driving a Cadillac, or the rich fat cat riding around in a limousine living off the spoils of the less well-off? Well, the fat cat most often seems too remote, and well, who knows, the Horatio Alger myth lives and shines. "Oh, that could be me one day!" but going to the store and seeing someone get something for free that you had to work hard to get? That they can see and taste. Meanwhile, the wealthy are lighting up their stogies at the club, clinking their Dom Perignon and chortling about how clever they are.
Sunday, July 17, 2011
Thoughts
I thought it would always be there
I thought I would always care
I thought it could be kept at distant
I thought it couldn't change in an instant
I thought the air was pure
I though the water was sure
I thought the soil was rich
I thought it couldn't unstitch
I thought there was still hope
I thought that but I was a dope
I thought prayer was the stuff
I thought that love was enough
I thought wrong.....
I thought I would always care
I thought it could be kept at distant
I thought it couldn't change in an instant
I thought the air was pure
I though the water was sure
I thought the soil was rich
I thought it couldn't unstitch
I thought there was still hope
I thought that but I was a dope
I thought prayer was the stuff
I thought that love was enough
I thought wrong.....
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Saturday Political Soap boxes 1 - 3
I thought I might catch up my vast army of blog followers as to the Saturday Political Soap boxes I've been posting on Facebook. I will try to do this now on a weekly basis.
Saturday Political Soap Box 1
Health care costs and Health Care Reform got you down? Well, for right now, live with it. It's the best thing that could have passed given the bitter and divisive political climate. Anything less than true universal health care is going to fall short. Medicare for All is the only effective solution. Everybody in the same boat...pay through increased medicare tax on both earned and unearned income. No more private insurance gouging and overhead, cost negotiated by a front of 3oo million plus people, no more medical bankruptcies, no more your health insurance quality dependent on an employer whose primary desire is to reduce their own costs, no more people dying from lack of access to decent care. C'mon, people, get off your ideological high horses and let's do the RIGHT thing, the fiscally sound thing, the only thing that makes moral sense! If you push the politicians hard enough, they will come around.
Saturday Political soap Box 2
An insanity has gripped the nation. Well, at least the mainstream media. Here we are, unemployment rate inching back up, job growth moribund, and what are they talking about? The deficit! 24/7! Is it something we have to get a handle on? Yes, eventually. Is it the most important thing during a recession, when the most important thing is to accelerate demand? No, most economists say that austerity measures will actually significantly slow or even reverse the recovery. Right now, we need to shore up state and local governments so that they stop laying off essential workers, accelerate infrastructure improvements, make America the leader of the world in greening the economy, focus on education, and frankly, like it or not, get money into the hands of those who will spend it. The austerity measures contemplated by the Republicans and sadly many Democrats will only accelerate the middle class' decline and our jolly romp to Third World status.
Saturday Political Soap Box 3
Is there any more fundamental right in a democracy than the right to vote? Whenever people refer to our soldiers fighting for America and our way of life, I believe that is what most often comes first to people's minds. Yet, this fundamental right that so many have fought and died for is being chipped away. For the first time since Jim Crow and the poll tax, Republican legislatures throughout the country are passing new laws that restrict voter's access to the polls in more and more draconian ways. Voter ID laws are being constructed in ways to increase the odds that such groups as African Americans, the poor, and college students will be less likely to vote. This is most often done with restrictive Voter ID laws. But there are also laws putting up serious blockades that make it harder for people to register to vote. In Florida, the venerable League of Women voters have decided to stop trying to register people to vote because of the way the new Florida law restricts and criminalizes registration. What do you think? Should barriers continue to be put up to voting?
Feel free to comment on any or all of these. I breathlessly await your responses.
Saturday Political Soap Box 1
Health care costs and Health Care Reform got you down? Well, for right now, live with it. It's the best thing that could have passed given the bitter and divisive political climate. Anything less than true universal health care is going to fall short. Medicare for All is the only effective solution. Everybody in the same boat...pay through increased medicare tax on both earned and unearned income. No more private insurance gouging and overhead, cost negotiated by a front of 3oo million plus people, no more medical bankruptcies, no more your health insurance quality dependent on an employer whose primary desire is to reduce their own costs, no more people dying from lack of access to decent care. C'mon, people, get off your ideological high horses and let's do the RIGHT thing, the fiscally sound thing, the only thing that makes moral sense! If you push the politicians hard enough, they will come around.
Saturday Political soap Box 2
An insanity has gripped the nation. Well, at least the mainstream media. Here we are, unemployment rate inching back up, job growth moribund, and what are they talking about? The deficit! 24/7! Is it something we have to get a handle on? Yes, eventually. Is it the most important thing during a recession, when the most important thing is to accelerate demand? No, most economists say that austerity measures will actually significantly slow or even reverse the recovery. Right now, we need to shore up state and local governments so that they stop laying off essential workers, accelerate infrastructure improvements, make America the leader of the world in greening the economy, focus on education, and frankly, like it or not, get money into the hands of those who will spend it. The austerity measures contemplated by the Republicans and sadly many Democrats will only accelerate the middle class' decline and our jolly romp to Third World status.
Saturday Political Soap Box 3
Is there any more fundamental right in a democracy than the right to vote? Whenever people refer to our soldiers fighting for America and our way of life, I believe that is what most often comes first to people's minds. Yet, this fundamental right that so many have fought and died for is being chipped away. For the first time since Jim Crow and the poll tax, Republican legislatures throughout the country are passing new laws that restrict voter's access to the polls in more and more draconian ways. Voter ID laws are being constructed in ways to increase the odds that such groups as African Americans, the poor, and college students will be less likely to vote. This is most often done with restrictive Voter ID laws. But there are also laws putting up serious blockades that make it harder for people to register to vote. In Florida, the venerable League of Women voters have decided to stop trying to register people to vote because of the way the new Florida law restricts and criminalizes registration. What do you think? Should barriers continue to be put up to voting?
Feel free to comment on any or all of these. I breathlessly await your responses.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Tour de High School Circa 1969
Summer 69....the one thing that I doubt any of my classmates could beat me on was the amount of time spent at the high school. I used to come up with my Dad on Saturdays and mostly hang out in the library. Sometimes I roamed. One time he showed me a fallout shelter. I thought that was a good thing to know, although I wondered how long the crackers might hold out.
Ninth grade 69/70....the concept behind Bridgeport High School came in large part from the team teaching concepts promoted by my Dad. That's why you had dividers between classrooms that could be opened up allowing classrooms to be combined, why there was so much glass and openness. It's why they hired my Dad, and he became principal within a couple of years.
Ninth Grade 69/70...I was the first student there every day. I would ride in with my Dad, getting there before 7 AM. I would go to the cafeteria, and sit and do homework (or more likely, write my own stuff), and wait for everyone else to arrive.
Ninth Grade 69/70...the place I liked the best, particularly on Saturdays when it was just me and my Dad, was the library. I loved libraries. My favorite was the bound periodicals. I loved the sense of history, and the flow of time one got looking at them.
Ninth Grade 69/70...sometimes, there alone with my Dad working in the office, I would get into the Gymnasium and play basketball. My height advantage I had in 7th grade was rapidly diminishing, as other boys started to catch up and I apparently had already topped out. Since I had no real talent, and could no longer take advantage of being tall, except by myself in that gym, basketball started to fade in my life.
9th Grade 69/70....the last place of note that I might wander to was the auditorium. Little did I know how important to me it would become as I went through high school, how many memories I would have there. I had seen some productions there....Dark At the Top the Stairs, Bye Bye Birdie, Once Upon A Mattress, but believe it or not, at that point, I did not see myself primarily as an actor.
Ninth grade 69/70....the concept behind Bridgeport High School came in large part from the team teaching concepts promoted by my Dad. That's why you had dividers between classrooms that could be opened up allowing classrooms to be combined, why there was so much glass and openness. It's why they hired my Dad, and he became principal within a couple of years.
Ninth Grade 69/70...I was the first student there every day. I would ride in with my Dad, getting there before 7 AM. I would go to the cafeteria, and sit and do homework (or more likely, write my own stuff), and wait for everyone else to arrive.
Ninth Grade 69/70...the place I liked the best, particularly on Saturdays when it was just me and my Dad, was the library. I loved libraries. My favorite was the bound periodicals. I loved the sense of history, and the flow of time one got looking at them.
Ninth Grade 69/70...sometimes, there alone with my Dad working in the office, I would get into the Gymnasium and play basketball. My height advantage I had in 7th grade was rapidly diminishing, as other boys started to catch up and I apparently had already topped out. Since I had no real talent, and could no longer take advantage of being tall, except by myself in that gym, basketball started to fade in my life.
9th Grade 69/70....the last place of note that I might wander to was the auditorium. Little did I know how important to me it would become as I went through high school, how many memories I would have there. I had seen some productions there....Dark At the Top the Stairs, Bye Bye Birdie, Once Upon A Mattress, but believe it or not, at that point, I did not see myself primarily as an actor.
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Jekyll Island Through Time and Space
Jekyll Island is not named after the cartoon crow.
Jekyll Island, a small island near Brunswick, has been an interesting place to visit for our family for the past decade or so. We visited there with my parents when Benjamin was a Toddler. We had gone for a Christmas dinner at the Jekyll Island Country Club, as a Christmas dinner for my work. Then we stayed the weekend with my parents.
Three of the pictures above are from a trip taken two years ago with Benjamin's good friend Grant. They visited the Sea Turtle Center and spent some time on the beach.
Our most recent trip was to visit our friends, the Becks. They had rented a house with a pool and was close to the ocean. The picture in the top upper left is of Benjamin and the two Beck girls, Elizabeth and Emily, at a mini-golf place on the island. They look like they're posing for a movie poster!
An interesting aside: Although I have done putt-putt many times, I have never played regular golf. Not once. Not even one hole.
How to Flush Seventy Plus Years of History
The comments below were sent to CBG (Comic Buyer's Guide Magazine) in response to the news that DC was going to renumber their comics at #1 again including titles like Action Comics that have been continuously published for decades and had currently just passed issue #900. This had particularly poignancy today as I try to reorganize and display my collection, and find all the reading, time and effort it has taken to participate in these titles that are now so casually betraying us.
LETTER SENT TO CBG:
Most of the comments I have read focuses on changes to this or that character. I could care less. Those kind of changes come and go. If they want to turn Superman into a mighty gopher for awhile, more power to them. But the renumbering thing, particularly the legacy titles, leaves me in quite the quandary as what to do next.
I’m 56, not the prime audience any more. DC and much of fandom really aren’t interested in the oldtimers’ opinions anymore. Fine, so be it. But it still leaves me with an individual decision as to what to do. I started collecting in the early sixties. Adventure, Action and Detective were all ready in their 300s. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to get them. I was actually more fascinated with the higher numbers and their sense of history than the barrage of single digit titles.
I thought, someday, I will get to see these titles reach 1,000!
Now they never will. Oh, sure, DC may take Action Comics #90 whatever and call it the One Thousandth issue of Action Comics, charge $25.99 (estimated price for a 64 page comic in eight years) for it. But it’s not the same thing. Not the same thing at all.
Is there any evidence, any at all, that this works? I have seen sales for new comics rise, and then fall back quickly to what they were before the renumbering occurred. I have seen sales on legacy titles rise dramatically when they were well done with great stories and art. If this is a gimmick to save comics as monthly periodicals, then I fear it will fall far short. Quality, marketing, and better distribution systems is what might save comics.
So, I have no idea what to do. Do I use this an excuse to save my family some $100 a month and end my fifty year ride? Or do I just pray that this is just one small glitch, and that sanity will be restored, as it was when Marvel thought it was swell to hand things over to the Image crew?
I don’t know. Any thoughts from others in the same dilemma would be greatly appreciated
AND, OF COURSE, NO ONE HAS COMMENTED.
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Stopping at the Tasty Breeze
Great Restaurants I Have Known
A & W Root Beer Drive-In
I have never tasted anything quite so good as a frosty mug of A & W Root Beer on a chill autumn evening in Michigan. And the fact that there was a whole family of hamburgers: Papa Burger, Mama Burger, Teen Burger and Baby Burger. what joy I had when I moved from Baby to Teen!
Bill Knapp's
On your birthday, you got the percentage off your meal that your age was. Dad would always like to bring Grandma on her birthday. And I would love to get Ham Croquettes, thinking it had something to do with the game. You could also get a chocolate cake on your birthday, on e of the driest cakes on God's green Earth, but my Mom loved it. just needed to be sure you had plenty of milk.
Olga's Kitchen
A place in Ann Ardor that taught me all about Gyro Wraps and Baklava.
The Lazy Donkey
A Latin restaurant in Carrollton where the food wasn't designed to be TexMex hot, just damn delicious.
Valentino's
Another Carrollton restaurant, this time with great Italian food, including cannolis. They understood the power of Mozzarella.
Wong's
Great food and great service. They will fix anything you want any way you want. Customer service is king. Love the Won ton Soup.
Barbara Jean's
Set on the pier at St. Simon's, my Mother and Alison were two of their first customers. Unequalled crab cakes. Always will be special to me because it meant so much to my mother.
Others include Amici's in St. Augustine, Pablo's in Fernandina, The Brickhouse in Thomasville, Pond View (under the Raulersons) in Waycross. Chains include Carrabba's, Fazzoli's, Smokey Bones Grand Traverse Pie Company.
I love food.
A & W Root Beer Drive-In
I have never tasted anything quite so good as a frosty mug of A & W Root Beer on a chill autumn evening in Michigan. And the fact that there was a whole family of hamburgers: Papa Burger, Mama Burger, Teen Burger and Baby Burger. what joy I had when I moved from Baby to Teen!
Bill Knapp's
On your birthday, you got the percentage off your meal that your age was. Dad would always like to bring Grandma on her birthday. And I would love to get Ham Croquettes, thinking it had something to do with the game. You could also get a chocolate cake on your birthday, on e of the driest cakes on God's green Earth, but my Mom loved it. just needed to be sure you had plenty of milk.
Olga's Kitchen
A place in Ann Ardor that taught me all about Gyro Wraps and Baklava.
The Lazy Donkey
A Latin restaurant in Carrollton where the food wasn't designed to be TexMex hot, just damn delicious.
Valentino's
Another Carrollton restaurant, this time with great Italian food, including cannolis. They understood the power of Mozzarella.
Wong's
Great food and great service. They will fix anything you want any way you want. Customer service is king. Love the Won ton Soup.
Barbara Jean's
Set on the pier at St. Simon's, my Mother and Alison were two of their first customers. Unequalled crab cakes. Always will be special to me because it meant so much to my mother.
Others include Amici's in St. Augustine, Pablo's in Fernandina, The Brickhouse in Thomasville, Pond View (under the Raulersons) in Waycross. Chains include Carrabba's, Fazzoli's, Smokey Bones Grand Traverse Pie Company.
I love food.
Monday, July 4, 2011
Blue Steamers Across A Broken Universe
Mama would iron in the late afternoons. She worked so hard to provide for us during the long stretches of time that PaPa was out to sea. I could see the steam rising from her iron. It had a faint blue tinge, and would float towards the window of our adobe apartment. Light brown walls, almost the color of sand, with seashells used as binding.
Out the window the blue steam rose, the open window, no curtain, no shutters, no glass, always open to the smell of the sea. I rushed to the window to see where it would go. High up we were, fifteen stories below us, seven more yet higher still. I saw the blue, wisping towards the clouds.
I could see the boats and ships. Some small fishing dinghies, some tugs, some larger trawlers. I used to fancy I could see PaPa and which boat he was on, but I have grown out of that. Beyond the boats that I normally saw, I could see something that I had not seen before. An armada of steamships, belching blue steam, thicker and more terrifying than my Mama's could ever be.
Mama stood by me and started to shake. It was then I knew. The armada was coming to our Villaggio del Castlemare. Soon they would be here, and there was little time to run or hide. The wooden soldiers were coming. Their march was about to begin.
Out the window the blue steam rose, the open window, no curtain, no shutters, no glass, always open to the smell of the sea. I rushed to the window to see where it would go. High up we were, fifteen stories below us, seven more yet higher still. I saw the blue, wisping towards the clouds.
I could see the boats and ships. Some small fishing dinghies, some tugs, some larger trawlers. I used to fancy I could see PaPa and which boat he was on, but I have grown out of that. Beyond the boats that I normally saw, I could see something that I had not seen before. An armada of steamships, belching blue steam, thicker and more terrifying than my Mama's could ever be.
Mama stood by me and started to shake. It was then I knew. The armada was coming to our Villaggio del Castlemare. Soon they would be here, and there was little time to run or hide. The wooden soldiers were coming. Their march was about to begin.
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