Seeing is believing. 
Web Log Archive September 4th through September 17th, 2005
Saturday, September 17th, 2005
"...few...of us, whether on the right or on the left of
the spectrum, can perceive or admit to much "ideology" in our own
views, just as few of us are able to acknowledge anything but ideology in
the views of our political opponents." Rev.
James F. Thomas
Friday, September 16th, 2005 Happy Birthday, June!
As you practice, so shall you play.
Quasi-personal note: Every few
years (and it has been a few years now), I change computers. This
one is a mere Pentium II, 266 MHz. It has served me well but is coming up on the
time when, as with all Windows '9X
operating system installations, it is showing evidence of 'corruption'. It has
been my experience that, with any Windows
'9X system, the more files and programs you pile on
to it, the greater the likelihood that it will exhibit what seem to be
random errors. I'm not gonna even pretend to understand this process (of W
'98 OS corruption) and the only reason I mention it
here is that, over the next few days, I'm gonna be doing some overhauling
and if you've written to me and are expecting a reply (someday), then please
don't be offended if you don't get one for a day or two or three while I sort
things out. I've also been battling what seems to be a failing Ethernet card (in
this old machine) and I'm mounting a new defense
against the dozens of Spam messages that daily assault my inboxes.
I've been using a Pentium IV as my recording computer for almost a year and I
may decide to simply upgrade my (fwoabw)
'communications computer' (this one) to a Pentium IV also. Fer
Chrissake, from the ads I read, they're practically
giving them away anymore! You wonder how Dell, for example, can turn a
profit! [Actually, there's a strong rumor that Dell is not turning a
profit these days! Or, as my brother likes to say, "We lose money on
every sale, but we make it up in volume!"]
Thursday, September 15th, 2005
Seeing is believing.
Wednesday, September 14th, 2005
I caught a bit of the Judge Roberts hearing yesterday and I am not bothered by any of the evidence that he has a functioning mind with a clear memory and that he can talk, without notes, in complete (and grammatically-sound) sentences. While it's also true that he doesn't have a particularly sonorous voice, I don't mind listening to someone who has actually thought about the words that leave his mouth! OK. I suppose he must be a fascist pig to have been chosen by Alfred; but he strikes me as the sort of man who can be persuaded by facts and reason...and as someone who has enough self-confidence to change his mind (on occasion).
So this stranger goes into a tavern in Gilroy and sits at the bar where Bush is talking on the overhead TV. "Now there's a horse's ass!", he says of the President to the bartender, who grabs him by the throat and throws him back off the barstool to the floor. The guy picks himself up and says, "Geez! Hey! I'm sorry! I didn't realize this is Bush country!" "It's not!", says the bartender. "It's horse country!"
Tuesday, September 13th, 2005
"Have you ever noticed that the people who entreat us not to "play the blame game" are the very ones who would be blamed, were the "game" to be played?" Todd Sallo
Senator Sam Brownback, (Republican from Kansas) lamented yesterday that, because of Roe v. Wade, "forty million more people are not among us."
Monday, September 12th, 2005 Happy 59th birthday, Tootie!
"I like when a guy makes me feel like a woman and a little girl at the same time." Tara Reid [But this is profound!]
I've been trying to calculate the mental age of Comcast's
'target audience'. So far; I've got it at about eleven and
a half. Upon a visit to the Home
Page, one is often greeted with the latest wisdom from Tara
Reid or Paris Hilton or Lindsay
Lohan or with "Five Songs You Must Hear"
(meaning, of course, "Five Dumb Songs You Must
Hear") or "Everything Pamela Anderson".
Now...OK. Fair question: why do I travel to Comcast's Home Page? Anyway?
Well...the answer (but slightly off-topic) is:
to retrieve my Mail from the Web before it slithers into my Outlook Express
Inbox. See...I get at least fifty pieces of Spam for each piece of 'real'
email.
From hot babes (free trial)
to get-rich-before-noon (and hurry!)
to don't be so fat (you slob!)
to grow some muscles (you
wimp!)
to grow some hair ('cuz if someone
could stand to look at you, then maybe you could get a date!)
to grow a decent sex organ (if not
for you, then for her, you loathsome brute!)
to don't panic! ('when
the moment is right, will you be ready?')
to get high (cheaply and legally)
to finda friend (don't
spend another Saturday night alone, you loser!).
Comcast has a Spam filter ('BrightMail') which, though anemic, is somewhat
better than no filter at all...for I regard each (and every) piece of Spam that
makes it through the Comcast filter and on to my Outlook Express
program in much the same way as I regard a turd on my pillow. That is to say: not
fondly!
Yesterday's Home Page lead-in was a hoot! It was "How
To Have a Personality". "Awkward silences can kill a
romantic mood. It's one of the biggest
first-date fears: 'What if we don't have anything
to talk about?' To help ease any...grasshopper-chirping
silences, try one of these conversation-starters!"
['Do you think it's
OK for animals to run around naked?' 'Who's your favorite Olsen twin?']
Sunday, September 11th, 2005
Who doesn't remember where they were and what they were doing
four years ago today?
Saturday, September 10th, 2005
On January 8, 1982, a random event transpired
that has
disproportionately affected
me. I had taken my 1974 VW Dasher to
a local mechanic to have him replace the starter motor. By that date I had
served only about two weeks of what was to be a twenty-two year sentence for dropping out of
college. The
mechanic replaced the starter motor all right but then he had his teenage
assistant test drive the car. Why? I can't say (and neither could the mechanic)
but the kid cracked up the car when, blinded by the late afternoon sun, he
turned left in front of another vehicle at an intersection. No one was hurt (praise
God) but the car was never the same. Even though there was insurance and all, it
put me in a dangerous state of mind: I vowed, from that day on, to do all
my own automotive work. I'm old enough, now, to be out of the business of labeling
things good or bad. I only know that automotive stuff has become a rather
engrossing (read: time consuming) avocation;
one that has affected me in ways that I could not have foreseen. I've done a
range of projects from rebuilding engines and transmissions on down to swapping
light bulbs.
There have been many times, of course, during these last twenty odd years when I
have taken my cars to a professional mechanic. From these episodes, I've formulated
an axiom (with broader application): If I must choose between a
mechanic who is competent but crooked
and one who is incompetent but honest,
the choice is easy. True, you will pay more to the former but you will
also, in the end, have gotten something for your money. With the latter,
no matter how great the 'bargain', you will always be worse off for the
exchange.
Friday, September 9th, 2005
Half of what you see and none of what you hear Department: "...they warned that stress was not a health cure." I'm old enough to remember when margarine was a health food...but not old enough to remember when sex was dirty and air was clean!
Thursday, September 8th, 2005 Thirty five years later.
"Everything in life is not perfect. Expect to make those mistakes.
Expect to fall down every now and then. And expect to occasionally fail at
something." Motivational message from FEMA Director, Michael
D. Brown
"Whatever the course of our lives, we should receive them as the highest
gift from the hand of God, in which equally reposed the power to do nothing
whatever for us. Indeed, we should accept misfortune not only in thanks, but in
infinite gratitude to Providence, which by such
means detaches us from an excessive love for Earthly things and elevates our
minds to the celestial and divine." Galileo
Galilei (1564-1642)
Wednesday, September 7th, 2006
"Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse, and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival." From a speech delivered by Frederick Douglass on July 5, 1852 to the Rochester (New York) Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society.
Tuesday, September 6th, 2005
More than one inquiring mind wanted to
know how much KC's vet
visit cost. The answer is a mere $61.
My big sister wrote to tell her sad story of a vet bill from Hell.
Two of 'em, actually, and I have a third
story from a very nice lady with whom I used to work.
I'll tell the third story first:
My former colleague had a tomcat from when she was a teenager and, at about age
twenty (!), the animal developed a cancer. Most people would have given up on
the cat but this lady was (and is), like me, a true cat fool. She parted
with more money than she is willing to admit (at least a few thousand
dollars) in order to have her furry companion (the 'love
of her life') 'cured' with the help of some
creative medicine from the esteemed staff at the University of California at
Davis. Alas, the dreaded symptoms returned all too soon...but she got to spend a
few extra months with her companion before he succumbed at (nearly) age
twenty-two!
My sister Carol's very
recent story about her cat goes like this: "I just had Mary
Elizabeth groomed to the tune of $445
and change. Since she is labeled an 'aggressive' cat, she needs sedation for
this...that'll be 50 bucks please. The groomer only charges $45 to put her
in a lion cut which I perceive as a bargain considering the disposition of the
animal. When I went to pick her up, I was presented with another bill totaling
$355 for a rabies shot, blood work, ear mite and heart worm protection medicine,
a year's supply of flea prevention (she's an indoor cat and has never had a flea
on her), a week's supply of an antibiotic because they found an infection in one
of her mammary glands. One of the charges was for $0.45
for a syringe with which I was to administer the antibiotic. As I am writing the
check, the still very-much-sedated Mary Elizabeth
is heard growling at me from her carrier. 'Owners
abandon their pets for less than this', I
tell her."
Finally, my sister's less-recent
story about the same cat is this: "When [my grandson] was born, I
went to NY...and left Mary Elizabeth
in the care of a neighbor. She got into some red
yarn...and that trip to the vet cost me, are you ready...$2600!
The yarn had gotten wrapped around and embedded in the lining of her stomach and
her intestines, and surgery was the only option presented to me. (I
considered one more, but couldn't live with myself.) Next time I
have the urge to get a pet, a goldfish
sounds about right."
Monday, September 5th, 2005
Honor Labor?
Saturday Morning, before the gig, Maggie
and I took this site's mascot for only his second vet visit. When I got KC,
she was a short-haired female;
ya know, just the perfect docile sleep-in-your-bed girl
cat for a (pre-teenage) girl. On our (me and KC's)
first visit to the vet when she was a kitten (six years ago), I was brutally informed that KC
is (and always was) a "he"!
Bye and bye, it became clear that he is also not a short-haired
feline. Oh well, zero for two ain't bad. They also did a presumptive test for
feline leukemia and he 'passed'.
Had he 'failed',
I'm told that summary euthanasia would have been recommended.
Anyway, the occasion for this second visit was a so-called 'abscess'
from a bite-wound. Fun! We first noticed (about a week
ago) that something was on his back under his fur. We had hoped it was a
simple cut from a thorn or, maybe, from a protruding sharp surface in his
dedicated egress. On Friday, however, we could tell that something had 'broken'
as there was a foul odor emanating from under his thick coat. Yum!
The first vet we called wouldn't see him until Tuesday and the animal was
already becoming hard to live with: fidgety and downright
uncomfortable.
So Maggie called another vet who agreed to see KC
on short notice. The vet's name is Dr. Foor
and he calls his shop the Foor Paws Veterinary
Clinic which, incidentally, has its own
"barking lot".
Anyway...KC is
a big strong tomcat (weighing eighteen pounds) and neither the Mag nor myself expected
him to be enthusiastic about this appointment. We borrowed a dog-carrier 'cuz KC's
more the size of a dog than a cat and, somewhat before the appointed
time, I wrestled him head first toward the cage opening, having already wrapped
him best-I-could in a large towel. The Mag had to use two hands to remove one of
his hind paws from the outside of the carrier. At first, he fell silent. [After
all, we've played with him on occasion by letting him hide in a bag or under a
laundry basket.] But when we moved him to the car and, especially, when the car
started moving...he howled!
The first thing Dr. Foor
did was to shave the fur around the wound for a good look-see. It's hard
not to admire the confidence that a veteran veterinarian brings to the
examination table. This doctor was easily able to control the animal and gave me
and the Mag some tips. We were relieved to be told that KC's
injury is not life-threatening. The doc cleaned the wound, then gave and
prescribed antibiotics and ointment.
I'm keeping the fur-ball inside for a few days until his wound scabs over.
Sunday, September 4th, 2005
"Mass exodus" has put a stranglehold on First Place in the Redundancy Derby!
"Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the Republican whip, said it would be a mistake to abandon efforts to reduce the estate tax, arguing that was precisely what the economy needed to grow. But he said he thought the White House might reconsider what it wanted this fall."
"Even before Katrina took
command of the news, Sept. 11, 2005, was destined to be a half-forgotten
occasion, distorted and sullied by a grotesquely inappropriate
Pentagon-sponsored country music jamboree on the Mall.
The president's declaration that 'I don't think anyone
anticipated the breach of the levees' has instantly achieved the
notoriety of Condoleezza Rice's 'I
don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an
airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center.' The
administration's...obliviousness to the possibilities for energy
failures, food and water deprivation, and civil disorder in a major city under
siege needs only the Donald Rumsfeld punch line of
"Stuff happens" for a coup de grâce.
Katrina
is déjà vu with a vengeance." Falluja Floods the Superdome
