So I walk into this Center for Guitars - Guitar WalMartland
Mood:  incredulous
Now Playing: NCIS
Topic: Mysteries of Life

I went to the Mall and tooled around the Apple store - the one where a dude got a finger ripped off by thieves who stole his iPad he had just bought a few months ago. Very exciting. Then it was across the street to the Guitar place.  There's the older dude at a desk area in front of the doors, he looks suspiciously at me - wearing dark hat, dark glasses etc.  I smile, say hello and wander around looking at the Gibson Gold Tops (which don't thrill me)

I'm seeing Telecasters fronm $119 to $1199 - I cannot discern a difference in quality. I see a pretty Wine Red Les Paul Gibson for under a grand and under it is the Epiphone for 299. The only difference I see is the Gibson has gold gear and the Epi has silver gear on it. Lots and lots of cheap guitars, from 200 bucks on up. Two mousy, sad looking guys walking around - Big guy who works there has plugged in a Tele and is playing it -badly. He looks like Fred Flintstone.

I go to the Acoustic Room and it's three different rooms. The big room has cheap ass guitars. Lots of strange brand name guitars, I see a twelve string for 249. Really? What's that made of - cardboard? Seagulls I think, I can't even look at them. Then I hear someone in one of the higher end guitar rooms, white guy with Dreads playing something - badly. I go to the high end room and there are a bunch of Taylors behind glass. Who likes Taylors anyways besides the guy from Dave Matthews Band? I visit with the Gibson Hummingbird and the Songwriter, I strum the other high end guitars, they all sound the same to me.

Blech. I go to look at the books. I hear some guy come in asking for strings. Do you know what you want? NOPE! I play Bass! Guitar guy tries to hard sell him - I'd get these ones with silicon on them. Buy two get One free! Only 24 dollars for three sets of strings! (a good set costs five bucks)  Even though the guy is a Bass player and acting dumb he wisely decides he only needs one set. I am thumbing through books. The door guy is eyeing me like I'm a twelve year old twitchy kid stuffing things in my pockets. I find a Guitar Soloing Book that looks interesting, decide to buy it and go to the counter. Guy says Hi there! I smile and say hi right back. He stands there posed at the register. Can I get a phone number!? I say you could probably get one from the phone company if you needed one. Dude looks puzzled. I helpfully say that I don't give my phone number out. I'm also holding cash money. I say 'Cash money' Dude thinks for a minute, can't process what I'm saying so he goes to the next thing. Can I Get your name? I usually go by "Fred Flintstone" when I come into this chain store. He looks puzzled. I glance over and the guy who looks like Fred Flintstone and who played the Tele badly and he's glaring at me. I smile back at him and say to both of them loudly that in every one of these places I've been they've always been able to find me - as Fred Flintstone in their computers. I could have started to talk about my philosophical objections to being nailed to the grid with every transaction I make or I could have started in with my fake religious rant about how we're being numbered by the antichrist but I doubt that my audience would have had a clue either way. Glaring guy keeps glaring at me, I cock my head sideways at him until he looks away and shambles along in I guess what he thought was a menacing way. I laugh at him and he double clutches his shoulders and continues on.

The whole time dude at the door is looking at me. I get my change and walk over to him and put my book down with the receipt in it. He had just seen me buy it, there are three people in the whole store and he pulls out the receipt and checks it against the book. I tell him about the last time I was in one of these store that shall remain nameles except to say that it's a large Center for Guitars, and how I felt the previous security checker tried to make me feel like a criminal but only succeeded in pissing me off and that I complained to the manager and got him fired. This dude looks up at me with eyes widening and stamps my receipt with a 'Thank you for Shopping at Blank Blank. Ahh, it's why I hardly ever go to that chain guitar store.

I just know it'll be another year or so before I go into one of those stores again. I'll go buy my Gibson or Fender or Guild at the friendly guitar store when it's time to buy. It's always amazing going to some places and a wonder they even stay in business. Crappy customer service and crappy manners.

Spending More Time Learning My Guitar
Mood:  a-ok
Now Playing: Brad Carlton's Bluesology at www.truefire.com/tftv/index.htm
Topic: Mysteries of Life

Nothing too exciting to say. I am spending more of my free time working on my limited understanding of the Guitar. I've found a very good forum at  Truefire.com/forum with plenty of knowledgable and interesting people. We're discussing Guitar Theory,  Practice Tips, Gear and Software and every other topic you can think of. A wide variety of guitar players and instructors there from early players like myself to people who play professionally and who have been at it for thirty years.

I'm watching the Democratic Convention starting in a day or so. I've avoided, successfully avoided any of the Olympics. My own personal boycott of the repressive Chinese Government was quite successful. That and the Olympics aren't what they were. Professional athletes and rigged contests and the whole thing has had a odor of corruption for some time now. I'm not thrilled that some professional basketball players can beat the Jamacian Team, I don't care to participate in the unwarranted hype for some swimmer or for some underage or overage gymnasts. Just a big corporate festival. No thanks. I'll wait for the Professional Football players to start playing in a few weeks. 

It's been interesting listening and watching the Political Theater. I got my Obama announcement and have been rewarded with an offer to buy the first magnetic Obama/Biden car magnet for only fifteen dollars and I did get the mass email from Joe Biden complete with the  video and the friendly use of my first name on the Email. I like Biden, except for an overly coziness with the RIAA and the entertainment industry he seems like a adult and one not swimming in the usual amount of political corruption. A good choice although it'll get pretty dicey with Obama before it reaches the end. The Republicans are well versed in being able to  get the American people see their opponents as liberal anti American pinkos who only want to allow same sex marriage and abortions at will. The Republicans are great at waving the flag and great at getting Americans vote against their own interests in the name of Flag and Country.  An interesting Political Season once again. I've got my popcorn.

Dwight 'Andy' Johnson
Topic: Mysteries of Life

I was going through a bunch of photos, you know the kind we took before the digital pictures made photos less of a tangible item? Well, I happened across a bunch from the Barrister's Ball some ten odd years ago and I was looking at all the photos of couples and all the folks dressed up and found a picture I had taken of my friend Andy Johnson. Another friend, Mark Messier, had informed me that Andy had been killed in a car accident a number of years ago and it's always been with me. I didn't go to the funeral, I didn't know his family, I lost touch with him after law school. But he died, he was a friend and a person I admired for his kind heart and the true lack of meanness in him. He had survived cancer and was thriving and he had graduated from Law School to boot. Great accomplishments for the man only to have those taken in a car accident on a Freeway in Ohio. Just senseless. To me, it's an example of the lack of justice in the world. A good man gone, for no reason. Evil men live and survive and thrive. Sometimes. Well, I'm fond of saying that you should enjoy your Karma - after all you earned it. I guess even the worst of us gets what is coming to them in the end. We all pass, good and evil. Moral and immoral. Some folks perhaps feel tortured by the evil they have caused, the lives they have ruined. Perhaps. But, regardless, we all get judged in the end. The truth often comes out as to who is bad and who is good and if you're righteous then you sleep at night better more often than those who aren't. Perhaps. I'm a fan of the light of day and the truth. The day comes eventually as does the truth. Andy was good, a good man and that's the truth.

 

Halloween
Topic: Mysteries of Life
It's near that magical time of year. Halloween. The ring on my phone has been the theme to the Halloween movie for a long time now, Tubular Bells makes an excellent ring. It's an odd holiday, people acting like they want to be scared and lots of fun is to be had at  Halloween parties and with costumes and dressing up. Of course, that's often the theme of the horror movie. People pretending to be at grips with their own mortality by dressing up as the dead, as zombies, as vampires and as crime victims. The fear of death and the fear of the unknown is laughed at and made less fearful by mocking it and making it less unknown and less fearsome.  That's the general view of it all. Some folks are actually like the character Jason in the Halloween movies, they are mentally ill and their motivation and desires are necessarily deviant and wrong. So many people are in between those extremes. It's like skiing, it seems like lots more people are into the activity because it gets so much attention in the media. Most folks don't ski or go to Halloween parites really. In the movies it's often a Halloween party where the mad superhuman killer stalks his victims who pretend to be scary or something other than what they normally are. In real life the actual scary person percolates and bubbles in their own tortured mind until finally erupting and bringing real horror to their victims. You'll hear the news report at any time of the year and in any place. Usually it's long held wrongs or jilted lovers or co workers or someone who was bullied or wronged or a  reason that you can look at and say that it doesn't affect you because you don't know anyone who has one of those grievances against you.   And then those stories go away with the start of the next story and we all wait for Halloween to have our official collective scare time.  All very curious. Happy Halloween.

House and seeking life/death
Now Playing: Janita
Topic: Mysteries of Life

  Sitting here listening to a bit of Tannahill Weavers from the Cullen Bay album, some lovely Jane Monheit, some similar jazzy female vocals by the Finnish singer Janita and flipping through some old Archies from the first vinyl record I have some memory of listening to while living in Maine and while under the age of five. It's remarkable the things you remember and a true blessing of many of the things you forget. Funny, I remember being alone in my room, five years old, listening to Hot Dog and Sugar, Sugar and looking at the cartoon Archies on the cover. The creeping realization that the world was not quite right, that cartoon characters weren't real and couldn't sing in an album and also wondering which female voice was Betty and which one was Veronica.

Having watched the recent new episode of House I'm reminded just how great that show is. You're not left with comfortable unremarkable characters and quaint answers to the questions of life. Oh no, you are pulled out of your comfort zone and have to look at yourself and see your own faults reflected back at you through the thoughts and actions of those on screen. No perfect human beings, all flawed and often uncomfortable to watch them in their destructive behaviors. This episode didn't have a happy ending for the patient of the week or the House proxy patient who reflects a part of House's character and ideas taken to the extreme. Both patients died, the long suffering young man with the degenerative disease whose life was reduced to suffering and pain who was willing to see an end to the pain and it's left open as to whether he tossed his own medicine or not. The other patient had been in a car accident and had 'died' for a minute and a half and found in that period of time the total 'bliss' he had always sought through an Abby Hoffman like search through recreational drugs. Both patients, proxies for House and by extension proxies for the rest of us, were left looking at the big questions of life. Pain and bliss, one seeking the absence of pain and one seeking that bliss of the other side. Death was the answer in both cases but House wasn't interested as much in the answer that the man seeking death sought in death. He couldn't and doesn't understand the giving up the fight despite the pain. His own life is about pain, loneliness and putting one foot in front of the other, being needed by everyone but scorning their praise and company and preferring the certainty of his pain as his grasp on reality while at the same time obliterating it through medication. The other guy was as convinced of the answer he found and put a knife in a light socket to reach that ecstatic place he found at the moment of death. The second guy intrigued House with his certainty enough that the seeker and questioner in House finally put a knife in a wall socket looking for that Bliss. House didn't find that magical place and didn't expect to but for him the infinitesimal chance needed to be refuted so the rest of his life could continue based on the logical assumptions he had reasoned through already. House told the corpse of the wall socket guy that he was wrong. As House has said many a time, there's no Bliss in the end, no 70 odd virgins, there is nothing there, there is only here. I agree with House but I also agree with the Wilson character who said that if some folks feel some comfort wrapping themselves in other believes then it's not right to rip that comfort from them. Wilson being the Greek Chorus who often times expresses the arguments of the audience to House.

We all bring our own filters to the game and like the car accident guy in the show, I've been clinically dead. I've been down that path a few times instead of the one time as the character experienced. I can't say that I experienced any visions of Valhalla or Heaven or any unforgettable bliss although one time I did think I heard the voice of an angel calling me back. But then, we bring our own hopes and desires to any experiences like that. From seeing the masked faces of doctors all around and above me fading from my sight to waking up alone, strapped down and able to see my own chest bloody, red and disfigured with black glossy stitches all along the wounds looking and feeling like legs and antenna of angry carnivorous beetles fighting to get out. The clear feelings of mindless terror followed not by soothing comforting words but by the circuit breaker of my mind simply shutting any further memories down. Hearing the Bliss seeking character relating his car accident as a slow motion nightmare and remembering the two times I've spun a car while going down dark and snowy mountain roads alone on the road. One time fighting to catch the car on a railing and succeeding with a few feet to spare, getting out of the car and looking down the side of a mountain I had almost plunged down. The other time completely loosing control and spinning like a top as time also slowed time and my calm resignation wondering how much it was going to hurt before amazingly hitting a snow filled snow bank sideways. Moments, which like the Slaughterhouse Five novel by Kurt Vonnegut, seem to come back to me in random order and just as vivid as they are happening all over again. Interesting.  

Forgivenss
Now Playing: Me on the guitar
Topic: Mysteries of Life

You can't help but be struck by the theme of the news lately. No, I'm not talking about the obsessive breathless reporting about every mass of swirling clouds near Africa that might or might not turn into the “Ultimate Hurricane” capable of destroying the eastern seaboard or a wide swath of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi or Florida that is hoped for and dreamed of by every cable news network ready to turn their studio into an emergency command post where empty headed teleprompter readers get to practice their faces of grim expectancy as they prattle on bravely in the face of doomsday and every once in a while throwing it to some expendable dolt wearing a logo laden slicker and standing in the path of death and destruction. No not that trend, as abominable as that particular aspect of yellow journalism is and evidence of the continued decline of civilization as we dream it might have been in the halcyon days of our imagined past. No not that trend. I'm thinking about the parade of disgraced and fallen public officials, entertainers and sports figures. Your basic Senator Craig, Michael Vick and NBA referee Tim Donaghy just to name three convicted fallen folk.

Senator Craig, by all the evidence is a religious, conservative Republican who by the evidence, is a fellow with homosexual tendencies. Well you know, if you have to have a chart of this sort of thing you'd pull out the New Jersey former Governor McGreevey who was a closeted gay and who wasn't trying to suppress it and in fact was getting himself in trouble by using his position as Governor to get a job for a lover and allegedly sexually harassing males. Pretty far on the heinous side there I'd say. He was run out of office and is now humorously enough studying to become an Episcopal priest. After him I'd put the Colorado Pastor and former leader of the New Life Church in Colorado Springs who also didn't suppress his homosexual tendencies to include a long term affair with a Denver male escort. He was pretty bad as a human being since he was preaching about the evils of those evil homosexual types while he was one. That would be hypocritical indeed on many levels. He of course went to some sort of 'Christian' camp to have the gay demons removed from himself, he proclaimed his miraculous deliverance from the evil gayness and is busy asking his former church for money as he and his wife go to school to learn something else to cheat people doing. At least McGreevey raised his hands when he was caught and said 'yup, I'm as gay as the day is long' and he is now living out of the closet, divorced his long suffering wife and is getting on with it. Now I'm looking at soon to be former Senator Craig and hearing him proclaim himself to be not gay. Well, okay. The evidence is of him trolling around bathrooms looking for that gay sex. So far no gay escorts are stepping forward to say they've been his longtime squeeze so perhaps this fellow is that type who has lied and denied to himself while still living that secret life he has compartmentalized and separated from the part of him that denounces gays and gay marriage and the like. Perhaps. All very interesting. Sad and interesting. All these folks, according to the reaction of the society in general, have committed unforgivable sins. More or less, no rehabilitation will be sufficient for any of them to reach the levels they were at. This is a given, this is fact. Forgiveness and a chance to make amends is not available to these folks. Of the three, McGreevey is the liberal fellow and has a book out about his life and the community he came from will accept him back after a fashion. Not so for the folks of the moral center and the religious Christians of the right. These guys eat their wounded and both are expected to crawl under rocks and die quietly.

The referee who found himself having committed the unforgivable crimes of gambling and perhaps game fixing is the most normal of the three and quickly and fairly quietly he's given up the fight with the authorities. He has said he is guilty and he will give over evidence and cooperate in the search of others who are up the food chain in game fixing of NBA games. Well, he is the least of the public public figures and while he has committed considerable damage to the NBA, there is no question of him being forgiven Indeed, that isn't even part of any discussion. What will he do when he has gone to jail and come out the other end? Nobody knows and nobody cares. It just doesn't matter as a point of interest. Society expects him to crawl off and die as well.

Now Michael Vick is another matter. The questions of forgiveness and redemption for him are ones that burn up the airways and discussion boards and conversation. His crime of the three is the crime that has had the biggest emotional reaction from the public. It's fair to say that Michael Vick is the most hated man in the United States outside of the President of the United States. His crimes of gambling and running a dog fighting enterprise have struck a chord with the public and have roused anger and calls for his punishment. Of the three people discussed who have admitted to some portion of their crimes, his crime is the one that cries out the loudest for lack of forgiveness. Curiously enough, the future of Michael Vick is the one most worried about. The discussion has revolved around how he could possibly plead guilty, get sent to prison, do his time, do his suspension and get back to the NFL. I've heard folks characterize their concern as being worried about the future of a young man who has done nothing wrong otherwise and who now realizes the errors of his ways and will be a good fellow from now on. All three have lost their positions, their dignity and position in society like many many other people who have gone through the criminal system. Redemption, forgiveness - these are just words that don't apply to people who have in some fashion gone through the criminal justice system. Unless somebody else can make money off of you as in the case of Michael Vick, nobody cares and it's of no consequence that your life is over.

Senator Craig in the end had no friends and nobody stood up with him or for him. Obviously a flawed fellow who doesn't garner much sympathy from folks but I wonder what he's thinking. A few days ago he had all sorts of friends and people who were happy to see him and to talk to him. Now nobody calls him, nobody takes his calls and there is no forgiveness for him. Everyone who has ever known him would be most happy if he faded away, crawled up under a rock and was never heard from again. The NBA official of course has no friends now, and probably has nobody saying he is a good person. Michael Vick of course still has friends as long as his money holds out and as long as he has the chance of returning to the NFL after his time is served. It's funny in a sad way. I wonder what all the friends and acquaintances who have abandoned their friends in trouble think of themselves now.

Love Heroes
Topic: Mysteries of Life

One of the few shows I wait for and enjoy watching, Heroes. It appeals to the kid in me with it's superhero characters, it's well acted and well written so far, just a joy to anticipate and get to watch when it comes on. Good stuff. 

Trying to learn how to get css style to work and getting there slowly. The usual mistakes I remember making with html, namely putting the images in the right folders and having the css style sheet refer properly to the images. I load it up then wonder where the pictures are, where the style sheet is. Why it isn't doing anything I want. Of course I finally figure it out after looking at it for a good long time. Duh.

Watching the fun after the first Democratic debate, no big punches thrown, no good knockdowns, but it's early and they are all still getting ready for the whole thing. This week the media heads have been talking up the Republican Debate this Thursday a bit as they anticipate a bit more slugging and slapping around. I'm thinking Rudi is getting a slap or three in the yapper. Of course, the media heads and their wet dream of Hagel getting in are getting a tiny bit of play. I've heard his name mentioned and how in the crowded field it could use a liberal approved anti war  Republican. It's still Fred Thompson who is the knight in shining armor waiting in the wings, there is no need for him to enter now and no need for him to stand in the pit yet and if he wants the nomination he can get it. I don't anticipate any of the other candidates on the Republican side to being able to pull out a large lead anytime soon. So the Republican debate will be or could be a good indicator as to how they might start to settle out. Ah, politics, good times. 

Playing with CSS
Topic: Mysteries of Life
The site is under renovation right now. The front page in it's new design shows up just fine in Explorer but looks like text in Firefox. I've only got the index page and the Buddhism page part way done. The CSS style sheet thingee works for one but not for the other. Looks like a long period of trial and error involved for me not including the time spent doing all the pages over again in the new style and fitting in with the new look of the site. Much cleaner, easy on the eyes but right now a bit of a bear with the Firefox. My most unfavorite thing, playing with code and all of the line by line work involved understanding it to fix it.

Violence and Madness
Topic: Mysteries of Life

When the first 'breaking news' bulletin hit the cable news networks on Monday morning it was the story of two people shot in a dorm room. An almost normal level of violence that was given the dutiful frown of concern before going back to the breathtaking news of it raining in New Jersey and the East Coast in general. The ordinary crazed boyfriend kills ex girlfriend, current girlfriend or some variation of that story. They didn't know anything more about it so it was back to the rain crisis they had already spun up for. The giant story the cable outlets were in position to over dramatize complete with colorized, spinning versions of the menacing nor'easter storm. I had already been overly fed up with breathless stories of how parts of cities were being flooded, I knew the parts that were being flooded were the idiots who had built in flood plains. Pictures of bridges over water and water going under them. My personal favorite, reporters in raincoats standing out in the rain, telling you it's raining.

And then the full horror of the shooting began to emerge. It was already over by the time the cameras made their way to visual range. Talking heads talking to each other about how many dead there might be, how many shots someone could get off in a short period of time. Just stupid stuff, three days later the “Breaking News” tag is everywhere. There's no damn breaking news, crazy, mentally ill person goes into school and kills 33 people and wounds a bunch more. He's dead. Grief and funerals and memorials to follow and everyone using this to push their own agendas. Violence in movies, violence in games, gun control, no conceal and carry, identifying troubled children and warning signs thereof. I'm sure there are more people bringing up their causes, I hear that the Scientologists are even down at Virginia Tech trolling for recruits and that SOB who pickets the funerals of Iraq war casualties is going to be there to picket the funerals of those kids. And probably the bikers that stop them will be there as well. Life is a circus and all the clowns and Carnies, starting with the Network anchors, descend upon tragedy like so many junkies looking for a fix.

The particular form that Cho's madness took will be examined by idiots without clues who enjoy hearing themselves talk for days and months to come. He blamed the world for his failings, bullies created him, he was egocentric and couldn't connect with other human beings, his shield against the world became a prison, his fantasies of revenge absorbed him until he wasn't there any longer and all that existed was those revenge fantasies. Perhaps the increasingly violent nature of the world is starting to spill to the US, perhaps another of the legacies of the violent suicide bombers that continue in unending waves will be an elevated level of violence, of rage attacks by people who consider themselves unheard or unrevenged by life and by the people in their lives. You could go down the list and every single hypothesis would be correct. His shooting the girl and the advisor made sense in a way, a tragedy but it made sense since violence like that is common. The purposefully going into a school and shooting people makes no sense and therefore is more terrifying to everyone. It demands a reason and the reason or reasons will be supplied by the talking heads. Who knows.

What is known is that stories for the next few weeks will include young men being hauled away to jail for saying it was a good thing (already happened) or expelling those who make jokes of it. People will have different attitudes and different reactions about perceived threats. That quite guy will be looked at a little more closely. Perhaps bullies will bully less for a while. Perhaps those who have wronged somebody will be a little more nervous than usual and will be looking over their shoulders more often. Undoubtedly there will be a copycat within the month. But after a while lessons learned, precautions taken will fade. And it doesn't matter in any event. If someone is determined and willing to die himself, he or she will be able to kill many people. And the world is getting more violent and these sort of things will happen more often until it'll get just a frown from the talking head on the cable news network.

American Nude Idol
Now Playing: My spyware program
Topic: Mysteries of Life

 

One of the television shows I make it a point of never ever watching is American Idol. It's not that I feel that I'm a snob or better than anyone else for not wanting to watch the omnipresent television presence of Simon, Paula and that other guy. I mean, it's hard to miss the show since it preempts the television show I do enjoy watching - House. It's on every cable news show to include the Keith Olbermann Show Countdown so I do know every aspect of every scandal to include the singer/idol hopeful Sanjaye and his big ever changing hair as the latest must know bit of American Idol trivia and made up controversy. Sorry, I'd rather remember Paula Abdul as the very cute woman who sang and danced with a Zoot Suit wearing cartoon cat. Still and all, it's a show that must be endured. Like Major League Baseball or the latest big and over hyped prime time game show.

The previous big scandal/big hype story that consumed countless hours of news and gossip time involved yet another young lady with yet another big bunch of nude and semi nude pictures. No, not Anna Nicole. The other one. It's an old story that never gets old. Somebody emerges from nowhere and then whatever dirt or skeletons are in the closet now come pouring out for all to see. The feeding frenzy cranks up and the hypocritical mob acts shocked at the nude and semi-nude pictures but of course making sure to show those pictures at every opportunity. Someone who seeks entertainment fame has nude pictures in their background.  So shocking, an extrovert with nude pictures.

A few things of note. The cheesecake type pictures were splashed everywhere on TV and the blow job pics were ignored by the mainstream media. Of course, those were splashed everywhere on the internet so her brief moment of fame will be eternal and not of the kind that will make her folks proud. She'll forever be that blow job giving Idol contestant. As the Simon fellow said, 'I only wish you could sing.' What he was saying is that if she could sing he could and would have happily sold her and made her famous. You'll remember the nude pictures of Madonna and of the Miss America 1984 Vanessa Williams, the first black Miss America, both of whom have continued in the entertainment industry and succeeded. For them the nudie pictures worked. The sad underbelly story in all of it was the huge number of racist slanders against the girl on forum posts around the net. Surprisingly I read a lot of posts about her being a 'guinea' - had to look that one up. And references to being hairy and whorish based on that level of racist slander. Must be a East Coast thing. 

The other interesting part is that it depends on whose nude pictures appear. I remember Dr. Laura, a conservative talk show host and rising star in that field, getting a national radio show.  A lot of hype and a lot of enemies protesting her viewpoint and her success. She was like Michael Savage with a degree and breasts. Old breasts at that. Old nude pictures of her from her college days 'appeared' and pretty much torpedoed her career. Poof - she was gone. A military woman here and there has nude pictures show up and she's discharged from the service never to heard from again. A policewoman sends semi nude pictures of herself to her boyfriend and they get out and she is fired. Big scandal, end of professional career. So entertainers can recover but professionals are cooked. The more distance someone puts between their wild younger days the more chance of those wild days catching up to them. I'm thinking that the guy who put that 'Girls Gone Wild' empire together has his consent forms filed and names crossfiled for later retrieval and reissue of Girls Gone Wild videos as "Where Are They Now?"with this or that now publically known ex eighteen year old boob shaking girl and now present day Congresswoman or possible American Idol contestant who makes it to the final 12. One thing is rock solid for certain, shocking nude pictures will emerge of someone and everyone who can make a dollar from it will be there feeding on the ruined lives or will chronicle the rise from the ashes.  The picture - did you get it? Wetlands Beaver? Too subtle?

sinus headaches and other depressing things
Topic: Mysteries of Life

Well those antihistamines are doing not so well, it's always a test of fortune to try to determine the amount that helps as opposed to the amount that makes you sleepy and dizzy. What makes it worse is the football game results, Broncos losing to some team whose name I have already forgotten, - my mental defense is to forget that which pains me. That and turn the dial to ignor, so I won't listen to any sports reports or deal with any football information for a while. Like the head in the sand only less ostrich like since eyes and ears full of sand seems rather a waste of time and energy. Nope, occupy the mind with other things of interest, playing guitar, trying to read the foreign policy tea leaves to see where events will find themselves.

There is an interesting Seymour Hersh article in the New Yorker that will probably set tongues a wagging for a while. The main bit that's being picked up by the liberal press is that he references a CIA report that says there is no evidence that Iran is trying to make a nuclear bomb. He says that Israel intelligence which has more of a human intel aspect unlike the satellite reading CIA, says that they are in fact testing triggers and are darn well trying to get themselves a nuke as quickly as possible. Also that Israel will go forth and do something about them but that Cheney says wait for us and we will do it when and if it needs to be done. That the Iranian leader, like Saddam, is happy to leave the impression that he's trying to get nukes when he's not, since it makes him look like a bigger and stronger dude for the mullahs and street people back home.  As always, various interests will cherry pick the quote that agrees with their own opinions and rail in whatever direction those opinions lead them. What is without doubt is that Iran is risking a bombing campaign and it assumes that the risk and possible bombing is worth the increased prestige and appearance of power in the region. A region it finds itself the biggest player in. And of course, because of the bubbling, inept foreign policy leadership in the Bush White House there is a good chance Iran will emerge stronger than when Bush started his ill advised and ill considered Mid East adventures. 

 

Benadryl as a food group
Topic: Mysteries of Life

Yes indeed, the constant need for benadryl for those pesky allergies makes me wonder if benadryl is in my own personal food pyramid. Watery itchy eyes so I can't see, runny nose and sneezing. Good times, good times. I'm vaguely aware that the food nazis have taken away the easy to understand food pyramid and have decided that there's some other division of foods we need in order to keep alive. I don't pay attention to that tripe. Eat lean foods, vegetables, fruits and the all the good stuff in moderation. If the food you eat makes you feel bad and makes you fat well then eat something else. It's not rocket science after all. And speaking of rocket science I've noticed the astronomy nazis have decided that Pluto isn't a planet any longer. Well fark those goobers, it's a planet, it's the ninth planet and the desperate attempt to change that fact is an attempt by a bunch of no name wanna be astronomers to be relevant in their field. A totally useless change only done in order to be strutting asses.  Same goes for the morons who decided that it was a good idea to change the name of the brontosauraus to something else. Another pointless, annoying change of names of something that was just fine the way it was. It's a mark of the stagnation of those fields of scientific inquiry when the best they can do is to go around changing the names and structures of things we already know. No other valid reason for it and bloody annoying.

And back to the benadryl. You know there are precious few things that actually work to help with allergies. Dristan cold works for me, tylenol sinus makes me groggy and disoriented so that one sucks. Benadryl works a bit, makes me a little groggy but I don't start to feel a drift from reality taking those. But now, thanks to all the crack heads and meth do it yourself factory entrepeneurs, the government has persuaded the cold medication makers to take out whatever it is in their medications which work and which unfortunately are used in the recipe to make meth. They advertise that they have 'new formulas' which hopefully can't be used to make meth. Unfortunately the new formulas suck. It's all very annoying.  Well enough ranting for the moment. 

Rutgers undefeated?
Topic: Mysteries of Life
I wasn't really watching the game but was vaguely aware of it. I flipped over near half time, they were suitably behind as you would expect on the basis of oh, all of recorded history of the school and said to myself, well the bubble has popped and that's the end of that magic. Flipping through the news sites after the game was long over it said they had won. Won? Louisville didnt' score another point in the game. Very odd. Well, as a long suffering east coast team there will be talk until they get beat. Everyone loves the Gonzaga, tiny unexpected winner where before there was only a loser. It's always cool. And a welcome change from the politics which will of course keep bubbling up the next two years at full force. 

Revenge against the innocents
Topic: Mysteries of Life

It's been such an unbelievably sad and tragic couple of weeks in the news. The complete evilness of some people and their ability to inflict their twisted sickness on others staggers the mind and the ability to cope with it. The sick person who chose girls out of a school in Colorado, with his plan to torture, assault and kill them who managed to kill one before the  police came in. The sick creature who took out his rage against the most helpless people he could find in a one room Amish schoolhouse. A rambling, mentally ill creature who somehow rationalized his unspeakably evil plans by apparently saying he'd been tortured by things in his past.  Both of these beasts had sent suicide notes to family members which boggles the mind, that they on one level cared about other people but still could plot and plan such evil. But the madness doesn't stop there, the so called church that pickets the funerals of young dead soldiers with their signs saying 'thank god for ied's' and 'god hates fags' and the like, unspeakably evil in their lack of care or concern for others and the feelings of others. Those beasts were going to picket the funerals of the young dead Amish girls and who have been seen on tv smiling and saying that those little girls are in hell and it's a good thing they died young because it saved them a longer stay in hell. It's as if madness  has finally descended. 

Not even considering the madness and evil violence that is islam. The suicide bombers in service of their vision of a coming apocalypse.  The madness of  violence against people who  say only the truth when they say the 'religion of peace' is anything but. Madness, madness everywhere. 

I think about the people who have a desire for revenge against the world in general and who take their madness to innocents. You know, many of the movies and a lot of the popular culture that is promoted and viewed as entertainment contains a lot of themes of violence and horror. Madmen killing terrorized teens and women are made into cult heros and are the stars of their own series of movies.  The purveyors of this blood and death porn hide behind misinterpreted versions of freedom of expression and their manufactured and celebratory movies of violence provide the mastubatory release and how to tutorials for those who aspire to Columbine/Bailey or Lancaster Pennsylvania activities of their own. The violence doesn't only manifest in such large and visable displays of course. Less prominant news flies across the airwaves and newspapers every single day. Someone who kills their family, kills their wife who tries to leave them, kills their girlfriends who try to leave them. It's every single day in every single area of the country.  Violence as an answer to grievances, violence and death and guns and death.

I see and the world sees the way that the Amish react to this senseless death and violence. Amazed news people interview an Amish grandfather who was there to see two of his family members die and he has no hate and says he has forgiveness for the shooter and the Amish themselves, who have received some 500 thousand dollars from around the country have insisted in putting part of that money for the family of the man who committed this violence. Such compassion and unwavering forgiveness frankly stuns and amazes everyone who hears it. The reporter asked the grandfather how it was possible for him to forgive, and he said without hesitation at all that he forgives with the help of God.

 My eyes welled up and the tears flowed from me. Seeing the funeral procession of Amish in their buggies made me cry and I still am emotional every time I see or think about all of this. Wherever the Amish live in our country they are treated like treasures, and indeed they are all the goodness and faith and steadfastness that we all wish we possessed. You could see it in the police who shut off the public roads and protected the Amish in their privacy and in their grief. The media circus was for once greatly curtailed and a people who carry all the good we aspire to be were spared from us for a moment. 

Say It Isn't So - Tour de France and Doping
Mood:  irritated
Topic: Mysteries of Life
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/5524189   A discussion about the news of a Tour de France rider who tested positive for elevated testosterone or some such thing. As with these new news items a lot of things are unclear. Is it Landis, is it Kloden, is it Perriro, they don't say. They are being cryptic and apparently awaiting the 'b' test to be done and someone with the Tour said it was 'the worst possible scenario'  which means it Landis or someone on the podium. Who knows, they are keeping it close to the vest and the various clues include the fact that Landis pulled out of a number of races in Europe suddenly and apparently he can't be contacted at the moment, Kloden pulled out of another race as well. Damn it. This is upsetting and it remains to be seen how bad this is going to get. It's definitely going to be a bad day for at least one rider and his team. We've already been denied a chance to see Ullrich and Basso and a number of others who were bounced from the Tour on suspicion. This will put the capper on the whole thing.