Many thanks to my friend Kevin, who tonight over dinner explained to me the rules of socks and sandals. I wear shorts all summer long, as I don’t do heat well, and it’s hard to come up with a shoe/socks/shorts combination that is tasteful.

It has to do with age. Kevin is 58, and so the rule for him is no socks with sandals ever, under any circumstances. I am 62, and so the rules are eased. I am allowed to wear anklet socks, preferably dark colored or flesh-toned, so as not to call attention to them.

That rule holds in place until age 70, at which time we are allowed to wear white socks with sandals. Shorter is better. At age 75, any length of white sock is OK.

At age 80, we are allowed to wear socks and sandals in any combination we desire, including argyle, surgical, hosiery, and even black or red socks. Indeed, this is a common sight. Young people think that old people don’t know how to dress. What young people do not grasp is the freedom of not caring how one dresses. Who is looking anyway?

85 is a tough transition, but my wife explained to me that if I am still around at that age, I’ll be wearing ‘onesies’ once more. There will be no more need for either socks or sandals.

This link is to a interview show called “Greater Boston”, hosted by Emily Rooney. In it she interviews Russ Baker, an investigative journalist who in his research unexpectedly came across evidence that Watergate was not at all what we were told then or are being told now.

The interview is about eleven minutes long, and I don’t know how to embed it (somebody help please!). What struck me about it were three lines by Rooney, to wit:

You’re not a grassy knoller, are you?

Would they have gotten those questions answered?

We let that go too early as journalists.”

Each of the three statements above appear to be mental stops, where her inner parent tells her curious child “This far, no further!
Continue reading “PBS: Where incuriosity is an asset” →

Other than offering up so few worthy candidates, the American voting system is hamstrung by another major defect – electronic voting machines. These Rube Goldberg devices cannot be made more secure than those who program them or have access to them. Consequently, when used, elections are not secure.

They were pushed on us after Florida 2000 due to the hanging chad fiasco. The first suspected theft of elections by their use happened shortly thereafter in Georgia and Alabama in 2002. (Don Siegelman, who likely won the Alabama election, is a political prisoner at this time.) Exit polling was widely variant of vote results in 2004, likely giving George W. Bush his second stolen election.
Continue reading “Scrap metal for sale” →

Banning commenters is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of a spiritless situation. It is the opium of the blogger.

No one is banned here. No one. I just cleared out the list.

Colorado is enduring the worst fires in state history. Colorado Springs proper is threatened, and 32,000 people have been evacuated. 

If there were any humor in this situation, and I emphasize that there is not, it is this: A local nickname given Colorado Springs is “Aynrandistan.” More than any other large city in the state, the Springs drank the free market Kool Aid. Even as they depend on government spending more than most communities, they imagine that government is a problem. 

They need a few things now – help from their fellow citizens, help from government to house and protect them and put out the fire. There isn’t much help on the way from their vaunted private sector. 

What is government? It is us. When is government a problem? When it is captured by concentrated wealth. Indeed, government is often a problem these days in BushObamastan, as the executive branch and regulatory agencies, the Senate and most state governments have been captured by private wealth. 

The budget for fighting fires was cut in Colorado last year. Too much government. Colorado Springs is in deep, deep trouble. Maybe they can use Kool Aid to put out the fire.

They could have just said that they want their little newspaper to be about food and music.

This post caught my eye as at another place we discussed the meaning of “hubris.” Lynne Foland, publisher of the Missoula Independent, referred to those who read columnist George Ochenski and who are upset at his firing as “disaffected.”

The word means alienated and resentful of authority.

It reminds me of a fellow who used to manage Yellowstone Public Radio in Billings, Montana. He had read a book describing “conspiracy theorists” as mentally unstable, and took great comfort. He too exhibited this arrogance.

In each case here, Our YPR guy and Foland (and Robert Meyerowitz, I take it), they are attempting to cast themselves in a superior light by demeaning those who disagree as being out of the mainstream, as if that in itself is grounds for contempt. They take perverse pleasure in siding with authority.

It does not require chops. There is no attempt to be right and no desire to engage opponents. They take their cues from group consensus and authority figures. Thought is not required, and spirit even less so. They mirror the status quo, an easy thing to do.

But it is no way to go through life. As I view things, they exhibit cowardice.

CIA supplying arms to Syrian rebels as US criticizes Russia for aiding Assad.

From Ingamar, or Swede, now “Big Johansson” – a Billings, Montana farmer, posting at 4&20 regarding the news that George Ochenski was hired to write for the Missoulian:

Of course I still remember that Rodger Clauson left the editorial pages of the Billings Gazette to grace Crisp’s liberal beacon.

Where he’s now no body knows or frankly cares.

Mr. Big usually posts non sequiturs. This one was especially offensive. He went out of his way to take a shot at Roger Clawson, a Billings, Montana writer, who died several years ago. Roger was a gem, an independent thinker, a bit of a gadfly (if that causes no offense – none intended). When I think of him, the name Ed Abbey comes to mind. The two had much in common. Their writing was crisp (npi) and witty, full of insight and disrespect for their betters. They knew, after all, that their betters were not better.

Notice the shot here at the Billings Outpost (“Crisp’s beacon”)- it’s “liberal.” There’s more to understand here, but I’m not going to bother. It’s the black/white with-us-or-against-us authoritarian mindset that so many right wingers and Democrats exhibit. Kinda funny.

There is much to learn from American news coverage, but not in the news that is covered. Most of what passes by us in the cycle is waste product, or filler. They are trying to generate interest in order to attract readers and viewers and thereby sell advertising. Audiences are the product, content the bait.

“News” coverage merely focuses our attention on places that the power centers want our attention focused. What is not covered is always more interesting, but takes conscious effort to find. When certain stories are covered and attention is highly focused, there is usually an unstated reason.

Take two examples: Dead Muslims as they appeared in legions in Iraq, and in small numbers in Syria. The Iraqi dead elicited not much coverage, and few Americans have any idea of the extent of that massacre, 1991 forward. When there were attempts to get a sense of the numbers, as with Johns Hopkins on two occasions, those attempting to count the bodies were vilified and marginalized.

Syrian deaths, on the other hand, elicit wide coverage appearing in lead stories and on the front pages of some newspapers. We get exact numbers, and officials in Washington are crying in the morning cappuccinos about it.
Continue reading “Why dead Syrians matter” →

One of the most troubling aspects of our wars of liberation around the world is the placement of supposed “innocent” victims in places where terrorists are hiding. Once struck, it appears to the world that the US and NATO have killed women and children in a blasé manner. This speaks to the vile nature of our enemy – the fact that they have such low regard for life that they place their women and children in faux locations, like weddings, homes, beds and schools, and then allow them to be killed, putting American and its allies in a bad light.

It happened again yesterday. Notice the paid actors, the fake crying and indignation. There is nothing lower on the planet than use of civilians as a shield against the forces of freedom.