Sunday, September 30, 2018

You go, Willie



A must-see,. Yesterday in Texas Beto O'Rourke who is running to unseat Sen. Ted Cruz had a rally in Austin. Crowd was estimated at more than 50,000, which would make it the largest candidate rally since Barack Obama's in Portland in 2008. Some people say it was because of a famous singer on the stage. Here is the song he introduced at the rally.

Thursday, September 27, 2018

Some reflections on Kavanaugh


    During Dr.  Christine Blasey Ford's testimony:
Watching the hearing this morning a warning keeps flashing in my mind. (Incidentally it's something I recall from about 15 years before this assault took place.) As the news pundits analyze and propose logical commentary to the testimony, the warning is this. In a college political science class I wrote a paper analyzing a particular political campaign. I carefully constructed an analysis that came to a logical reasoning for the result. The teaching assistant (I assume) who graded my paper wrote: "There is no logic in politics C+" And to my mind, the illogical conclusion to what I am watching today is the fear that this sexual predator will end up on the Supreme Court despite what is said in this hearing.
This prosecutor, fronting for a bunch of chickenshit Republican senators, keeps probing for minute details as if she were preparing what would be called a" preponderance of evidence" that would lead to a final argument for a verdict based on "reasonable doubt" over a witness's testimony.
Best reason given for employing the woman prosecutor was the leadership did not want the American people watch 11 white men in their 80s questioning one credible woman.
Reasons I almost never watch Fox news: I just heard Chris Wallace, whose daughters recently told him about having experiences similar to Dr. Ford's, call Kavanaugh a man of towering intellect.

When Kavanaugh began testifying after about 15 minutes I had to turn it off. I couldn't stand his spittle-lipped anger or his quivering chin as he supposedly fought tears during the rant proclaiming his innocence. One thing he showed all too clearly is how vicious his anger can be and one can only imagine what it is like when fueled by alcohol. I finally turned it off long before he was done.


The more I read and saw from Brett Kavanaugh, the more it seemed he is a self-entitled, spoiled, privileged kid/adult who has never suffered a hardship or even been told "no" in his life. When finally faced with it, he threw a tantrum and complained his life is ruined. The father of a Parkland student who was killed in that attack sets him straight with this tweet. 

Jaime Guttenberg's obituary

Whether Kavenaugh sits on the Supreme Court or not his life will go on with privilege few of us have enjoyed.

In time I began to wonder if that sort of demeanor was acceptable for a Supreme Court justice. And that led to seeing a great failure of this particular hearing day. While the world focused on the sexual assault charge, left in the dust were all the other reasons why he is a bad choice for the court: including (as many as I can recall): his stated opposition to several women's health issues, not the least of which is Roe v. Wade; his standing that a president cannot be charged with a crime; the fact that he may sit in judgment of a president charged with a crime and who appointed him to the bench; all the background information and documentation that was never revealed; along with others. Any one of those should be enough to disqualify this guy, but they have disappeared in the dust of the assault charge.

Not that any of it matters. Republicans have said all along his confirmation is a foregone conclusion. I hope I'm wrong but at this point I think he will be confirmed, one more issue to be confronted if the Democrats can take over Congress in the upcoming election. He can be impeached.


Obviously: There is no logic in politics C+.

Tuesday, September 25, 2018

It's not really a laughing matter


The performance of the #fakepresident today in front of the United Nations raises so many thoughts and reactions. Here are a couple:
 Could anybody ever imagine a U.S. president claiming to have accomplished more than any president in history? Is it any wonder the audience laughed at him? And think of the embarrassment of our own president being laughed at by world leaders and, sadly, deservedly so. Unfortunately for those of us living in this country it is no laughing matter as the #crookinchief and his minions continue to dismantle the republic.
Less noticed and less mentioned was his call for a worldwide movement toward almost isolationist nationalism, each country for itself without regard for the whole. His base probably cheered, my own father would have, at that thought. Like it or not we are also citizens of the world and solutions to many problems will come only with worldwide cooperation. Climate change is a huge example.
The issue reminds me of a poem my friend Patricia Monaghan wrote almost 30 years ago. Living in Chicago at the time she wrote about the Exxon Valdez oil spill as someone who has experienced Prince William Sound but even in her current residence realized the spill affected her along with accepting her own and everyone else's responsibility for it. She ended the poem with the line that went something like “you are nowhere where you are not part of the world.” And that was the line that came to mind today at the thought of a president calling for isolationist nationalism shortly after being laughed at by world leaders in the audience.
It will take years to recover from the damage and it is going to take a cosmic realization that we are all part of the world and like it or not we cannot isolate ourselves from the rest of it.

Sunday, September 16, 2018

In dreams




This is the second time my security camera has caught this spider spinning her web across the eaves in front of the lens. In sleep I dream of waking to a house encased in a cocoon of cobweb, my windows glowing with what translucent light can filter through, while a huge shadow crosses one after another probing for a weak spot where she can pry an opening to allow her entry so she can perform her nefarious deed whatever that might be.



Tuesday, September 4, 2018

It turns out one of my crazy ideas has some basis in science

   

Over the years I've been known to come up with some harebrained theories for various aspects of life. Among them was this:
     As we grow old we face what has been called and laughed at as memory loss. Every time we can't recall something from memory there is an instant of panic when we wonder, "Is this it? The beginning of the long decline?"
    Well it hit me one time that it's not memory loss at all. Over an extended lifetime we gather large amounts of information that we store somewhere in our brains. When it comes time to remember something it takes longer and longer to sort through that growing body of knowledge to find the specific item we're looking for.  In short, it's not a memory problem, it's a data management problem. Oh and the short-term memory problem? Well that's all the new stuff that's like still on the desk and hasn't been filed yet so it doesn't show up in a regular search. It's the stuff you will get to sooner or later.
     That's the short version of the theory. The full thought process is in the second link below.
     It sounds outrageous, right? I mean, I proposed it more for the humor of it and as a response to some younger person's idea of a joke than for any real belief such an idea could have merit.
     Well, guess what. It turns out there's some scientific basis for that being the exact problem. Some folks at the University of California Berkley (where else?) have studied the phenomenon and concluded that there is some scientific basis for the data management theory and it does in fact take those of us who have lived long enough to gather all the information we do, to have some difficulty sorting through the recollections of great aunt Tillie's second husband and how to frame a wall for an 8-foot picture window to figure out where we left our keys.
    Advice? Don't panic, relax, sooner or later your mind will find what you were looking for, maybe later today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next month, but it's there and it will show up sooner or later.
     Meanwhile if you stop, look around a little or retrace your steps you will figure out why you came into the kitchen.
     And, oh boy, am I going to remember this vindication. One of my outrageous theories actually has some solid foundation even if I came to it without the slightest background in any facts. Now, do you want to hear my numerous theories on how to troll for silver salmon?

Here's the Berkley report
The original data management post

Saturday, September 1, 2018

Unexpected visitors

This is just to move that picture of the #fakepresident down the page a way. It's a short video taken by my security camera a week or so ago.




And then there were these too:" … when you go chasing rabbits …and you know you're going to fall
Tell 'em a hookah-smoking caterpillar has given you the call. And call Alice, when she was just small"

Best headlines ever

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel

Memorable quotations

The best way to know you are having an adventure is when you wish you were home talking about it." — a mechanic on the Alaska State Ferry System. Or as in my own case planning how I will be writing it on this blog.

"You can't promote principled anti-corruption without pissing off corrupt people." — George Kent

"If only the British had held on to the airports, the whole thing might have gone differently for us." — Mick Jagger

"You can do anything as long as you don't scare the horses." — a mother's favorite saying recalled by a friend

A poem is an egg with a horse inside” — anonymous fourth grader

“My children will likely turn my picture to the wall but what the hell, you only get old once." — Joe May

“Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut.” — Ernest Hemingway

When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth. Kurt Vonnegut

“If you wrote something for which someone sent you a cheque, if you cashed the cheque and it didn't bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.”Stephen King

The thing about ignorance is, you don't have to remain ignorant. — me again"

"It was like the aftermath of an orgasm with the wrong partner." – David Lagercrants “The Girl in the Spider’s Web.”

Why worry about dying, you aren't going to live to regret it.

Never debate with someone who gets ink by the barrel" — George Hayes, former Alaska Attorney General who died recently

My dear Mr. Frost: two roads never diverge in a yellow wood. Three roads meet there. — @Shakespeare on Twitter

Normal is how somebody else thinks you should act.

"The mark of a great shiphandler is never getting into situations that require great shiphandling," Adm. Ernest King, USN

Me: Does the restaurant have cute waitresses?

My friend Gail: All waitresses are cute when you're hungry.

I'm not a writer, but sometimes I push around words to see what happens. – Scott Berry

I realized today how many of my stories start out "years ago." What's next? Once upon a time?"

“The rivers of Alaska are strewn with the bones of men who made but one mistake” - Fred McGarry, a Nushagak Trapper

Many people hear voices when no one is there. Some of them are called mad and are shut up in rooms where they stared at walls all day. Others are called writers and they do pretty much the same thing. – Meg Chittenden

A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity. – Franz Kafka

We are all immortal until the one day we are not. – me again

If the muse is late, start without her – Peter S. Beagle

Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be. ~Mark Twain Actually you could do the same thing with the word "really" as in "really cold."

If you are looking for an experience that will temper your vanity, this is it. There's no one to impress when you're alone on the trap line. – Michael Carey quoting his father's journal

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing. – Benjamin Franklin

It’s nervous work. The state you need to write in is the state that others are paying large sums of money to get rid of. – Shirley Hazzard

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence -- Bertrand Russell

You know that I always just wanted to have a small ship to take stuff from a place that had a lot of that stuff to a place that did not have a lot of that stuff and so prosper.—Jackie Faber, “The Wake of the Lorelei Lee”

If you attack the arguer instead of the argument, you lose both

If an insurance company won’t pay for damages caused by an “act of God,” shouldn’t it then have to prove the existence of God? – I said that

I used to think getting old was about vanity—but actually it’s about losing people you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial. – Eugene O’Neill

German General to Swiss General: “You have only 500,000 men in your army; what would you do if I invaded with 1 million men?”

Swiss General: “Well, I suppose every one of my soldiers would need to fire twice.”

Writing is the only thing that when I do it, I don’t feel I should be doing something else.—Gloria Steinem

Exceed your bandwidth—sign on the wall of the maintenance shop at the West Coast/Alaska Tsunami Warning Center

One thing I do know, if you keep at it, you usually wind up getting something done.—Patricia Monaghan

Do you want to know what kind of person makes the best reporter? I’ll tell you. A borderline sociopath. Someone smart, inquisitive, stubborn, disorganized, chaotic, and in a perpetual state of simmering rage at the failings of the world.—Brett Arends

It is a very simple mind that only knows how to spell a word one way.—Andrew Jackson

3:30 is too late or too early to do anything—Rene Descartes

Everything is okay when it’s 50-below as long as everything is okay. – an Alaskan in Tom Walker’s “The Seventymile Kid”

You can have your own opinion but you can’t have your own science.—commenter arguing on a story about polar bears and global warming

He looks at three ex wives as a good start—TV police drama

Talkeetna: A friendly little drinking town with a climbing problem.—a handmade bumper sticker

“You’re either into the wall or into the show”—Marco Andretti on giving it all to qualify last at the 2011 Indy 500

Makeup is not for the faint of heart—the makeup guerrilla

“I’m going to relax in a very adult manner.”—Danica Patrick after sweating it out and qualifying half an hour before Andretti

“Asking Congress to come back is like asking a mugger to come back because he forgot your wallet.”—a roundtable participant on Fox of all places

As Republicans go further back in the conception process to define when life actually begins, I am beginning to think the eventual definition will be life begins in the beer I was drinking when I met her.—me again

Hunting is a “critical element for the long-term conservation of wood bison.”—a state department of Fish and Game official explaining why the state would not go along with a federal plan to reintroduce wood bison in Alaska because the agreement did not specifically allow hunting

Each day do something that won’t compute – anon

I can’t belive I still have to protest this shit – a sign carriend by an elderly woman at an Occupy demonstration

Life should be a little nuts or else it’s just a bunch of Thursdays strung together—Kevin Costner as Beau Burroughs in “Rumor has it”

You’re just a wanker whipping up fear —Irish President Michael D. Higgins to a tea party radio announcer

Being president doesn’t change who you are; it reveals who you are—Michelle Obama

Sports malaprops

Naked pair fed LSD gummy worm to dog

Owners of a Noah's Ark replica file a lawsuit over rain damage

In Southcentral Alaska earthquake, damage originated in the ground, engineers say

A headline that could only be written in Alaska: At state cross country, Glacier Bears and Grizzlies sweep, Lynx repeat, Wolverines make history — and a black bear crosses the trail

Man kills self before shooting wife and daughter

Alabama governor candidate caught in lesbian sperm donation scandal

Sister hits moose on way to visit sister who hit moose.

Man caught driving stolen car filled with radioactive uranium, rattlesnake, whiskey

Man loses his testicles after attempting to smoke weed through a SCUBA tank

Church Mutual Insurance won't cover Church's flood damage because it's 'an act of God'

Homicide victims rarely talk to police

Meerkat Expert Attacked Monkey Handler Over Love Affair with Llama Keeper

GOP congressman opposes gun control because gay marriage leads to bestiality

Owner of killer bear chokes to death on sex toy

Support for legalizing pot hits all-time high

Give me all your money or my penguin will explode

How zombie worms have sex in whale bones

Crocodile steals zoo worker's lawn mower

Woman shot by oven while trying to cook waffles

Nude beach blowjob jet ski fight leads to wife's death

Woman stabs husband with squirrel for not buying beer Christmas Eve

GOPer files complaint against Democrat for telling the truth about Big Lie social posts

Man shot dead on Syracuse Street for 2nd time in 2 days

Alaska woman punches bear in face, saves dog

Johnny Rotten suffers flea bite on his penis after rescuing squirrel