Happy Veterans Day.
I hope that those of you who can are going to be with family and friends among those people you love and who love you.
Thank you Veterans for all you do and have done to secure our home.
Be safe
I sat down to write…
I had something in mind, then I read something else on a news site on the web.
Now I can’t remember what I was going to write about. The news piece I read wasn’t controversial or badly written, it was actually kind of blasé.
But I suppose what I was going to write about wasn’t completely developed and so… evaporated like rain on hot asphalt.
Now, after looking at a blank page for far too long, I’m hungry.
Sigh, OK I’ll go get food and then come back to seeing what I was wanting to write about.
And once again…
My mind is as blank as this page. Just a little static, but nothing more.
The DOW has been a bit of a roller coaster the past week. Twitters IPO appears to have been successful.
But that’s not what I was going to write about…
I noticed The President apologized to the people for their loss of healthcare coverage that they were happy with and could afford without government subsidies.
The bigger questions for me are if law was supposed to make it possible for all Americans to be covered, Why is anyone falling through the cracks?
Why are the extremely poor and elderly may finding that their coverage is significantly reduced or completely unaffordable even with subsidies?
How is it reasonable at all to cancel plans that people could afford and tell them that they need to go shopping for more coverage that they can’t afford? YES! I subscribe to the theory something is better than nothing.
My healthcare plan is very expensive for what it is. I’ve got a deductible that is really high and the plan only covers 80%.
I really feel for those folks receiving cancellation notices, I can’t afford to pay more than I’m paying. I sure as hell don’t have the stomach to go through all the insurance bullshit again in less than a year.
I’m also a bit put off that the so called “Good” plans have all kinds of coverage that for instance elderly folks don’t really need. A 65 year old couple isn’t likely to need pregnancy coverage for example. So why are they having their insurance plan cancelled because it doesn’t include that coverage?
I’ve heard proponents of Obamacare calling the plans being cancelled “CRAP” plans.
I don’t see it that way. I see it as the ultimate in capitalism. People purchase the plans they can afford with the options that most closely match their anticipated needs.
After all, Obamacare made “Cadillac” health plans bad things too.
Hell if I had the money I’d purchase a “BMW” healthcare plan, you know something that included weekly massages (with happy endings) and guaranteed cloning & transfer of my consciousness to a new body every 20 or 30 years.
No doubt that would really piss off the folks striving for a more socialist “everyone is equal” health care system.
Being a single male, I don’t need a mammogram, pap smear, or pregnancy coverage. I notice however that coverage is a little light when it comes to my cock and balls.
The only “sanctioned” (covered) therapy for prostate cancer is surgery which leaves the patient incontinent, sterile, and impotent .
I’m thinking, if it ever came to it I’ll take the cancer and fuck my way across the globe. Or I’d pony up the cash for the minimally invasive therapies, completely bypassing my insurance and therefore not getting my moneys worth out of it.
That’s another entire discussion dealing with the pendulum swing caused by men’s mistreatment of women in our society that persisted until the mid 80s. We all know the equation, Men = evil, greedy, sexual predators. Women = Justice, valkyries of virtue and light.
I’ll remind you that my government mandated COBRA coverage was almost $700 a month. That’s more than I was paying for my car and within a couple hundred bucks of my mortgage. I can’t pay that kind of money for something that isn’t providing a tangible benefit every month.
Most young people can’t either.
A 20 year old working at McDonalds, but not working enough hours to have company paid health insurance faced with a choice between paying rent, buying groceries, and putting gas in their car, or paying for healthcare is going to say, “screw healthcare” every time.
If that same individual is paying for school you can be absolutely sure they’re not going to pay for healthcare. Particularly, if they’re squeaking by financially and not able to be a full time student.
I remember making those choices… I always chose rent (having a place to get laid), gas, (cause going out meant getting laid), then food (drink enough coffee and you can do without food for 3 maybe 4 days.)
Today, I’m in better shape than many people. Getting my healthcare policy was a stressful, long process. Made more stressful because I didn’t want to run afoul of the new law dictating that I must have health insurance.
Yeah, for the most part I’m a legal beagle. I don’t want to give the obscenity our government has become any reason to come looking for me. I pay my taxes, obey the laws, and keep a low profile, all I ask in return is that the government leave me the hell alone.
They only caught Capone because he wasn’t paying taxes, and every hooker knows you always pay your taxes, the IRS pimps gotta have their taste.
Eventually, if the government keeps on it’s current course, it will have the power to observe every aspect of my daily life. My hope is that by the time they get there, I’ll be so old that they’re not going bother themselves with the likes of me.
Funny isn’t it? A year ago that statement would have been dismissed as the ravings of nut job wearing a tin foil hat. But in light of the revelations about the NSA, IRS, and god knows how many other government organizations it doesn’t sound quite so crazy.
Orwell was off by a hundred years… he should have called the book 2084.
Oh… I see this is one of my Randomized posts… Hummm, maybe I should be wearing the tinfoil hat!
But that isn’t what I was going to write about.
Since it’s not coming to me… I’m just going to go with what I’ve written.
As soon as I press “Publish” I’ll no doubt remember what it was.
But you’ll just have to be left wondering…
Ain’t senility a stone bitch?
Say no to the fearmongers.
I was watching the CBS news last night.
I know, not a good thing and certain to give you indigestion.
They caught my attention because they did this “shooting timeline“
Essentially, they plotted all the “Major” ie “Newsworthy” shootings in 2012 & 2013 and concluded that these shootings typically happened about 6 weeks apart.
They ended of course with the LAX and Westfield Mall shootings. And a grim total of 84 dead.
I should point out that the Westfield mall shooting resulted in no shootings except the self inflicted fatal wound of the shooter himself.
What struck me was that CBS didn’t include police shootings which I would argue are far more terrifying because the police are supposed to protect us, not shoot us.
The most recent of these was in New York where officers shot at and missed a perpetrator but managed to wound innocent bystanders on the street.
They also said nothing about the 13 year old who was shot and killed on the street near his home by a police officer in Northern California less than 10 seconds after the encounter began. The 13 year old was carrying a bb gun…
CBS also completely ignored the incessant shootings in Chicago and Washington DC. I would argue that the daily violence in Chicago rivals or exceeds the violence we saw in the Nigeria mall shooting, which CBS included in their mass shooting timeline.
How many people per day have to be shot in Chicago’s “Gun Free zone” before the magnitude of this national tragedy and fallacy of “Gun Free Zones” is newsworthy?
Don’t misunderstand,mass shootings are horrible. They’re the product of a deranged mind or minds. Shootings during the commission of a crime are horrific.
Often these shootings are used as circumstantial evidence in support of stricter gun control.
This was evident in the CBS report as one to the CBS reporters was shown asking Harry Reid if he would push additional gun control legislation given the recent LAX and Mall shootings.
I find myself on the other side of the argument.
I can’t help but think if one or two citizens had been carrying concealed weapons, or if an off-duty police officer (who could shoot straight) was carrying a weapon that the mall shooting, or the Colorado theater shooting, or the LAX shooting, or Sandy Hook, would have ended very differently.
By differently, I mean with the deranged individual bleeding out on the floor and the innocent citizens either physically unscathed or far fewer number among the injured.
I’m not suggesting a wild west scenario, I’m suggesting, putting down an obvious and dangerous threat to the society.
We’d have no problem, and in fact in the past we didn’t have a problem shooting rabid animals in the streets when they posed a threat to the community.
These deranged criminals, regardless of their mental health, their medications, or lack thereof are demonstrably more dangerous to the community than any rabid animal.
I find myself believing more and more that community safety is better preserved by having random people in the community carrying concealed weapons, and knowing how to use them.
If a criminal has no idea and no way to anticipate what kind of resistance they’re likely to encounter then only very stupid or very desperate criminals will commit heinous acts of mass violence.
When I say carrying concealed weapons, It’s implied that these folks are properly trained, and know how to use their weapons appropriately.
Some people go through the training, and simulated crime situations only to discover they don’t have the temperament to carry a concealed weapon.
Most, if not all of those folks take that knowledge and don’t go any further. They don’t carry weapons, because they’ve learned that their temperaments or beliefs won’t let them harm another person.
Other people may discover that they’re a little too quick to draw and that too is valuable knowledge which may prevent those individuals from obtaining a concealed carry permit.
Obviously the rules and permitting requirements vary from state to state, but training is almost always at the core of any concealed carry permit process.
Either case, desperate or stupid, I believe a criminal is more likely to be stopped before doing serious damage in a society where 
concealed carry (and appropriate training) is the norm.
The fearmongers would have you believe that guns are used only by criminals, or sick individuals, the deranged, or terrorists.
The fearmongers would present a case where we can only be safe if guns and gun ownership are reduced.
The fearmongers will sell you a belief that anyone who wants a gun is by definition; sick, twisted, insane, criminal, or a terrorist.
This is the worst kind of misrepresentation. It’s actually an example of conflation and to my mind it’s among the most despicable things of which the main stream media is guilty.
Last nights CBS broadcast was simply another in a long line of Anti “this” and Pro “that” rhetoric designed to manipulate our people, (For our own good, of course).
One need only compare and contrast the medias reporting styles from administration to administration to see manipulation time and again.
Recently I found myself finding this all too familiar.
It was as if I’d read it or seen it in an “reductio ad absurdum” form in a book or movie.
The propaganda of many governments and tyrannical regimes springs easily to mind. Those examples are paraded by all opponents of any government policy.
What was trying to surface from the dark recesses of my curdled brain was more extreme…
Then I was reminded of the movie Serenity.
In the movie, a Teacher is describing all the benefits of Alliance rule, and how it brought true civilization to many worlds.
One of the students asks why a rebel group would refuse all these benefits and fight against the Alliance.
Another student says, “People don’t like to be meddled with. We tell them what to do, what to think, don’t run, don’t walk. We’re in their homes and in their heads and we haven’t the right. We’re meddlesome.”
The teacher replies, We’re not telling them what to think, we’re telling them how.
Later, One of the heroes, after discovering that the Alliance has lied and carried out an experiment that was supposed to make people peaceful but which destroyed millions, an entire world and also created a group of very aggressive monsters says; “Sure as I know anything, I know this – they will try again. Maybe on another world, maybe on this very ground swept clean. A year from now, ten? They’ll swing back to the belief that they can make people… better.”
I think my brain latched onto the movie because it was ironic coming from Hollywood. Hollywood has been a staunch supporter of public policies designed to make us better.
No plastic bags.
No smoking… not in bars, not in cars, not on the beach, and recently not even in your own apartment.
No guns, more government control, less individual responsibility…
Entertainment has reflected these messages.
But these reflections are from a dark and elitist mirror.
Hollywood celebrities who run afoul of the law receive only the lightest of punishments. The average person committing the same crime, finds themselves being gang raped in prison.
Congress imposes laws, punitive taxes, and creates draconian bureaucracies, yet exempts themselves as a function of the same law. The bureaucracies consider our lawmakers exempt from their tender mercies as well.
All of it of course is “in the public interest”, “for your own good”, “for the good of the children”.
Sometimes they’re even right. But even in being “right”…
They’re meddlesome.
Through it all, our media continues to repeat the accepted party line in a never ending sycophantic orgy, instead of asking questions, reporting facts and performing their duty.
Benjamin Franklins quote;
“Believe none of what you hear and half of what you see“
Rings truer today than ever before.
Give it some thought when you listening to the evening news.
Just sayin…
My Favorite Holiday
It’s Halloween, one of my all time favorite holidays.
I like Halloween because it’s not too cold, not blazing hot and that time of year has a great set of childhood memories.
Thanksgiving and Christmas also have good memories but those holidays are rushed and chaotic because of the obligations of family.
Halloween was always a little simpler and honestly more relaxed.
It was the one holiday you didn’t have Aunt Edna holding her Bourbon and Cigarette in one hand pinching your cheek off your face with the other, saying “Hello you cute little thing” and demanding a full mouth kiss!
I can remember hiding out at Thanksgiving and Christmas, until called for dinner. I was thankful that I was sitting at the kiddie table too.
Usually, by the time dinner was ready, Aunt Edna was too smashed to care if she’d made all the children sick to their stomachs.
It’s not that she wasn’t trying to be a nice person, she just didn’t get that most of us didn’t want to kiss a boozy ashtray.
Amazing how we kids adapted.
We’d go so far as to rat out the older cousins and / or siblings who were notably absent.
Then we’d be sent on the mission to find the cousins and siblings with orders from our parents to return home to greet all the “Aunt Edna’s” in the family.
Somtimes it was hard to find the cousins and even harder to find the siblings. We’d have to look for “hours and hours”, sometimes we might even have to play a game of touch football.
Of course if Dad was the one giving those orders he’d usually wink and we knew that meant come back in an hour or two… or when dinner was ready.
Then he’d pour Aunt Edna a stiff drink, all the while she’d be protesting how much he’d poured in her glass.
If you looked carefully, Dad would have the number of fingers that corresponded to the time dinner would be ready, hooked around the doorjamb.
Less than 15 minutes later Aunt Edna would be asking for a “freshen up” of her almost empty glass.
But we kids were free, and Dad would make the excuse that his work kept him far too busy to drive 60 miles to Aunt Ednas trailer park for a visit.
Halloween had none of that.
Halloween was about the costumes, the candy & in my day the tricks.
Not everyone had candy to give. Sometimes they’d just forget to buy some and instead we’d get the change from the bottoms of their pockets or purses.
A nickel or two in a treat bag could keep the tricks at bay for a year. (Thats why I understood the “Protection” schemes of the Mafia! Or maybe we learned it from the Mafia…)
Woe be unto those sitting at home trying to ignore us…
Our parents would check that we didn’t leave the house with toilet paper… What they usually failed to notice was that the toilet paper had been spirited out of the house in the 2 weeks leading up to Halloween and was now safely ensconced in one of several treehouses or forts around the neighborhood.
These places were the first stops we made. Then we went ’round the neighborhood collecting our treats and exacting revenge on those who’d earned our wrath.
Masks in place we’d settle scores accumulated during the year.
Old Mr. Barker who always shortchanged us on our newspaper routes and our lawn cutting. He’d claim that we’d lost the change he paid us for our paper routes.
He somehow thought asking “Do you have a hole in your pocket?” Or changing the terms of the deal AFTER we’d mowed the lawn in the hot Florida sun, made everything alright.
Mrs. White whose home was fenced in with 8ft tall fencing. Every Halloween she locked the outer gates to keep us “Little Hellions” off her property.
Her chihuahua could be heard patrolling the fence, but if you tossed it a chunk of hamburger it would let you pass.
Pass we did every year.
Her house was a personal challenge and soaping her windows, TPing her trees and cutting the locks off of her gates was looked forward to by most of the kids in the neighborhood. Each child leaving his or her distinctive marks.
None of those marks permanent and often the very kids who had the axes to grind were the same kids she end up paying to clean up the mess.
Unless your handiwork was too distinctive, then you’d be cleaning the mess up for free, under the watchful eye of your father and his ever-present belt.
In general halloween was a peaceful and wonderful holiday.
We were safe, it was our turf and the neighbors were all watching out for all the children, not just their own. The 7-eleven would give us free mini-slurpies and our pick of 5 pieces of nickel candy.
This was back when the guy who owned the 7-eleven lived in the neighborhood and respected his place and was respected in the fabric of the local society.
This was someone who knew if your Mom didn’t like you drinking cokes and would tell you to go put the coke bottle back.
He’d sell you Gatoraide, milk or orange juice without question. Once every week or so, he’d “forget” and you got a coke. On those days you’d be on top of the world, like the luckiest kid on the planet.
These were days when every business, and home had a band-aid for skinned knees. I myself had band-aids applied to knee and elbow at the 7-eleven after a particularly nasty bicycle tumble.
I remember the shock I felt hearing about vandalism of the permanent kind having been done one Halloween.
It was all the talk at school and my classmates were disbelieving and sad. We knew that something had changed. We wouldn’t understand the change until a couple of years later when razor blades were reported in candied apples.
Suddenly our world wasn’t so safe and we became more suspicious.
It took several more years for the 7-eleven man to sell out, & move to the Keys.
The new guy wasn’t as “kid friendly” and always accused us of stealing from him. We didn’t. Not once did I ever see any of my friends take something without paying.
He saw no difference in kids, we were all bad as far as he was concerned. As a consequence we became exactly what he accused us of.
One Halloween we let loose our fury on him. TPing the store, his car, and the dumpsters. We also changed the sign that read;
“No More than 3 children in store at one time” to “NO Children welcome in store at any time”
That began a year long boycott. We’d do anything to prevent our parents from shopping there. For a solid year all the kids from the elementary and junior high school didn’t darken his door. Even in the summer we rode our bikes 8 blocks further away, to load up on our sweets and drinks.
Eventually the closest 7-eleven closed forever. As it turned out, the guy that owned the place was nasty to everyone. He had accused children of stealing and forced kids to turn out their pockets, even when they were accompanied by their parents.
We saw the changes mounting.
Halloween now had limits. The size of the neighborhood we could roam was smaller. The time to be back was 9PM instead of Midnight. (Although we usually camped out, so there was no curfew. But even camping was eventually forbidden as too dangerous.)
Eventually we were called upon to walk with the little kids, to herd them back into the loving arms of their parents at the end of the evening.
I remember catching a glint of sadness in the eyes of the father of one of my friends as we returned at 9 with his youngest child in tow.
He remembered how it used to be, Jacks Dad remembered fondly the one night a year when it was ok to be wild.
I remember it too. Cool wind, sweets, and fun.
Me & my buddies immortal and free, always together, knowing they had my back as I had theirs.
We acted as controls for each other too. Our morals reenforced each others so no matter how wild or angry we might have been, the voice of our parents and ministers whispered in our ears. “You boys know right from wrong…”
We did, and 95% of the time we chose right over wrong.
The 5% where we didn’t were learning experiences. Lessons about guilt and forgiveness, and why choosing the right way was best.
I wouldn’t trade my childhood for all the tea in China.
“Trick or Treat, smell my feet, give me something good to eat.”
I still love Halloween
Now where did I hide that candy stash?
HAPPY HALLOWEEN!
Another Insomniac night
There are times when I want my mind to work … and it won’t. That’s been happening more often lately than I’d like to admit.
Then other times like now when I want my mind to stop, be quiet and let me rest.
It’s one of those nights when I can’t just slip into the abyss of dreams.
No, tonight my mind is alive with thoughts and memories and sensations all at once. It’s like having the cacophony of the construction zone outside my back window, right behind my eyes.
The half dreamed, the regrets that pile up, the trips you wish you’d taken, the opportunities missed, the sexual escapades you denied yourself, the loves unrequited, in short the life that could have been… if only…
All of these things screaming at me at once saying, “PAY ATTENTION TO ME!”
Then I’m awake. Fully awake and I know I’m not going to sleep for hours. I wonder if I’m amped about something in particular or is it just “normal” occasional insomnia.
Was killing another social media account really the right thing to do? What does that say about me? Am I becoming anti-social, or just rejecting the impersonal words on a computer screen for real presence? Am I losing my mind?
Is the antibiotic I’m on, the one that was causing me to be dizzy also causing this angst? I hope it is the problem but can’t help wondering if the drug is inducing the angst or is it simply ripping away the barrier that prevents me from looking at my life in an objective way.
If I’m looking at my life in an objective way, how would I change things? What does it say about me that I’m apparently so very capable of deluding myself into numbness?
I think of the friend who’s just come back to the states after having lived in China for almost two years. He had guts and chose his freedom over convention. He saw an opportunity and he took it. I want to go see him to hear what he’s done and yet I’m in pretty much the same place I was when he left. Only now I don’t even have a job to show for my time spent… doing what… being predictable? I feel ashamed.
I pop out to Craigs list and wonder how close I am to being a broken sad person like so many people in the personals on that site. Briefly I wonder if it’s as simple as giving up.
Fuck it! I’m going to have a drink!
The anesthetic of whiskey helps a little.
Still my mind is a whirling vortex of thoughts.
Time ticks by.
A theme I seem to come to again and again is the question, “Have I built my own silk lined cage?” Having built that cage why am I not happy in it? What more do I want? If I can’t define it, does it mean the proverbial “It” doesn’t exist and I’m in fact tilting at windmills?
Time ticks by
Why has it become so very difficult for me to seize the day? Perhaps a better question is, “When did it become so difficult?”
Is this being old?
I’ve loved a few times in my life. I mean truly loved, that heart rending crazy with desire kind of love that drove me to the brink of insanity. The love that makes it a joyous relief to get out of your clothes and just touch skin to skin.
Some of those loves are no longer in this world.
Other people that I’ve cared very deeply about as friends are no longer around either.
Is getting old not actually a function of time passing, but instead a function of losses adding up around us until we have so little in common with the people surrounding us that we prefer to be with those who’ve gone on before us?
Does a familiar voice, or the smell of someones skin, or the way they looked in the morning, become so desired by us that we long for the dirt nap?
Time ticks by
My drink is sweating on the desk. The water droplets following the same inexorable tug of gravity as the inexplicable tears running down my cheek.
I miss those I’ve lost. I know I’m going to lose more people that I care about in due time. Are my tears for them, or for me?
Time ticks by
How do I go about moving forward again when I’ve misplaced all my forward momentum? The same four walls are most certainly not the answer. I’ve realized that trying to reignite my passion for a new career, job, or whatever can’t be done in a vacuum.
I’m not ready to be old yet.
And yet… I’m tired.
I understand my Grandfathers comment about “Routine Changes”.
I always thought he was talking about politics “Politicians are all liars and crooks”. I see now he was talking about the “NEW” that was really the “old”. Its just the “Old” dressed up in a new Sunday hat.
Over time I guess I’ve become jaded. Politicians are still crooks & liars. Young people still think that they know everything. Their new whats-it, system, whatever is the best, and original, and no-one has ever tried it before.
I’ve seen repetitive patterns in business for years. Software development methodologies spring to mind. You can also see it in education.
Core competencies? (New Sunday hat name for reading writing and arithmetic.) You know the stuff they taught all us “over 50s” with a paddle hanging in the principals office and a sharp crack of a ruler across our knuckles.
Those incentives coupled with the terror you faced at the prospect of being held back a grade meant that you worked your ass off to pass your exams. Back in the day Teachers weren’t really all that concerned with your insignificant feelings about education. They were concerned about you actually being educated.
Grandpa was right, it cycles at least once in your lifetime.
This is one of those posts that I usually delete.
Apparently it was the antibiotic. As I read this I think “Wow who is this?” I acknowledge it’s me, but it’s me without filters.
What the hell? I’ll post it. Probably pop right up on the NSA screen
Hi NSA!