Nobody 828

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Nobody # 828

Nobody Asked Me But:

THE THIN BLACK LINE

I am referring to a line of font, because fiction writers seem to be our last line of defense against Homeland Security. (Sara Paretsky, for one, writes about the Age of Fear in her novel Hard Ball.) Only they seem to realize how much freedom we have given away unnecessarily to this monstrous agency. The Republicans, to their everlasting shame created this enemy of freedom, and, even more shamefully, the Democrats have allowed it to continue. Wake up America!

They came for my neighbor and I said nothing………………

…………………………………………………………….

Then they came for me.<<<

HOW I SEE IT

There is no mystic or profound “purpose of life.” Life is an accident and accidents have no purpose, they just are. However, there can be goals in life, because goals satisfy individual and group needs for structure and satisfaction.<<<

Examples of goals – I could want my life to be:

Happy

Successful

Loved

Loving<<<

(My granddaughter Emily, in the above picture taken 13+ years ago, obviously is achieving all four. She is also trying out for the lead in the new version of the film, "Angels With Dirty faces.")

I do not trust the honesty or efficiency of either the public or the private sector very much. But I lean towards the public sector (except for Bell, CA) because I trust their humanity more than I do the private.<<<

I think I want to move to France. I love their grape sociability. Every time two or more people get together, it is a reason to eat something and pour glasses of wine – even at 9 am.

And did you know that in rural France most babies were born in May which, by some strange coincidence, was nine months after the community grape-stomping?<<<

Speaking of being born – HAPPY BIRTHDAY HUGH!

Let’s see if you can follow this better than I. Michaele Salahi was on “The View” a few days ago and felt “demeaned and degraded” because of the frequent references to her being a “gate crasher.”

Remind me, please, why was she famous enough to be on “The View” in the first place? Oh that’s right. By being a gatecrasher. (She and her husband crashed that White House lawn party last year.)<<<

"He (Rick Pitino) is a grand ambassador for this athletic program." Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich, who went on to announce that the school is offering a new major, Screwing Around, in Pitino’s honor.<<<

Test Time: What do the religious far right and the political far right have in common?

They both use a cafeteria-style approach to their favorite writings - Bible and Constitution respectively. “I’ll take a little of this and some of that, but I’ll ignore that because it is not on my diet.”<<<

As a public service, I have condensed the pro and con arguments over the Obama Health Care Law into one sentence apiece:

I have mine, too bad about you.

I have mine; it is only fair that you have yours.

It is a nice idea, but we can’t afford it.

I am uninsured and desperate, so thank you.

I’m a number two, my contempt is for number one, my empathy is for number 4 and this question for number three:

Why is it all right to fight unnecessary and/or unwinnable wars while being the only Western democracy that “can not

afford” to insure the medical costs of its citizens?<<<

(This picture is of the famous climbing goats of Somis)

I watched the first two episodes of AMC’s new thriller, “Rubicon,” this past week and it is very good, with a shot at excellent. It reminded me slightly of one of my all-time favorite movies, “Three Days of Condor.” In Condor, Robert Redford has the boring and seemingly routine spy job of reading books, newspapers, and magazines from around the world, looking for hidden meanings and new ideas. He stumbles across a pattern that gets his fellow workers killed and sends him on the run trying to escape an assassin. “Three Days” is based on the James Grady spy thriller, “Six Days of Condor” – yes, they cut Redford’s days on the run in half to speed up the action. Six days or three, this is an excellent book turned into a film that is at least its equal.<<<

While I was waiting for my eye appointment at Kaiser last Monday, a worker walked passed pushing a cart containing four large urns of coffee and three bottles of wine. She was a tough one, refusing to give me a sample or even reveal the name of the doctor for whom they were intended.<<<

Get serious California. Apparently we are. Only UCSB, which finished eighth, made the Princeton Review’s annual list of the top 10 party schools in America. As usual, the University of Georgia led the way. What, no ASU this year?<<<

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates: “Posting classified war documents was morally wrong.”

Actually what’s morally wrong is sending our military to be killed or wounded in a hopeless cause.

Actually what’s morally wrong is to deceive the American people by hiding the truth behind a “national security” wall.<<<

It used to be commit a crime, go to jail. Now it’s commit a crime, go to Mississippi (and play football for the Rebels).

With the sorry state of the owner-challenged Dodgers and injury-plagued Tigers, here’s whom I am cheering for among teams who still have a real chance:

ALE – Devil Rays

ALC – Twins

ALW – Rangers

NLE – Braves

NLC - Reds

NLW – nobody<<<

Two lead lines from last Tuesday’s papers:

1. 8 people shot and killed at Connecticut business.

2. 8 shot, 2 killed at party in Indiana.

NRA reaction: Lucky it was just guns. Think of the carnage had the killers been using knives or slingshots.<<<

Action: Palin says the president lacks “cojones.”

Reaction: Do you know what Sarah’s problem is? (Make that one of Sarah’s problems.) She thinks her outrageous statements are cute and will be well received outside her small group of malcontents. But they are not, and they just reinforce the general view that she is (to paraphrase her quaint attack word) a numbnut.<<<

Another nefarious scheme - Damn that United Nations!

Dan Maes, a Colorado Republican vying to capture the party's Aug. 10 gubernatorial primary, is cautioning voters that an effort to boost bike riding promoted by Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, the leading Democratic candidate, is a “nefarious scheme propagated by the Democrat's U.N. overlords:”

"This is all very well-disguised, but it will be exposed," Maes told about 50 supporters. "This is bigger than it looks like on the surface, and it could threaten our personal freedoms. These aren't just warm, fuzzy ideas from the mayor. These are very specific strategies that are dictated to us by this United Nations program that mayors have signed on to."<<<

You think that’s bad? You are right, it is. But how about this:

According to a Harris Poll almost one in four Republicans suspect that Barack Obama is the Antichrist.<<<

(This picture is of a store in Edinburgh. Advice may be cheap but certainly not free in Scotland.)