Back To the Ol' Bad News Grindstone

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Let me lead off with this piece of utter garbage from Washington's Blog.  First they go into a Glen Beck exposee on how a little girl in kindergarten was allegedly "brainwashed and programmed" by her teacher not to listen to her parents.  The exact issue they never ONCE deemed to go into, they only wanted you to accept the fact that IT happened whatever "It" was.  We are then treated to this little paragraph.  The trouble with this paragraph is that if we are indeed NOT an "accident" (by the way the occurrance of the Holy Host in Catholic litergy is in fact referred to as an "accident" meaning "an occurance" if one will get out his dictionary.  What Glen Beck wants us to believe that "certain people" are "special" and have this "pipeline to God" and therefore the public school system isn't worthy of their Holiness, so these kids are taken out and home schooled.  I'd like to meet this "God" in who's eyes these right wingers are "Special".  This "specialness' obviously does not extend to the urban, the poor, or minorities.  I think parents who are constantly telling their kids they are "special" are setting them up for a collosal fall in life.

In this day and age, our public schools have essentially become government indoctrination centers that train our children to let “the matrix” do their thinking for them. They are taught that they are just highly evolved animals that are here only as the result of a giant cosmic accident, and that morality and values are all relative.
The computer crashed during Thom Hartman a little after ten.  Right wingers are so strange in their logic.  They say they want to drug test all welfare recipients.  And yet they are always saying the government “wastes money”.   But they aren’t concerned about the generous salaries or expense accounts of congressmen and their private junkets, or money for remodeling their offices every six months.  They aren’t concerned about ending research in the sex lives of mosquitos.  They aren’t concerned about funding all of this military hardware to keep contractors happy that often the military says they don’t even want.  No.  Where do they go when they say “Making a few cuts”.  Right to the vitals.  They go after the poor, the aged and the disabeled.  And when they say they want to lower taxes most often they aren’t talking about motor vehicles fees.  They mean taxes on the very rich.  They mean those accelerated depretiations and deductions that yield a credit balance.  Obviously drug testing every welfare recipient would be an undertaking frought with complications.   They had the stand-ins for Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity today on the radio.   Some of these people try and sound reasonable when talking about racial tensions and the police.  The charge is made that “These civil rights groups that come in always “default” to their being a racist cause”.  Not me.  I didn’t know for instance either that twelve year old kid, or the overweight cigarette vendor- - were Black.  It turned out of course that they were.  The statement has been made that “The facts indicate beyond any doubt that the Ferguson PD acted responsibly and didn’t make any mistakes”.    This is made as sort of an absolute statement.  Often the line is used “Well if you don’t want to get shot by a cop, don’t go after his gun”.   We don’t know for sure that’s even what happened.  But here is a simple comprehension test.  This guy in KEIB claims he got a Masters Degree as though they are so easy to get any ghetto black could get one.  OK if this guy is so smart tell me the proximate cause of why Michael Brown WAS shot.   Give up?   Going after the gun had NOTHING to do with it.  He got shot because he STOPPED RUNNING and turned around with his hands up and made an easier target to shoot at, since Wilson was such a lousy shot.  And he kept firing and firing and Browns body was riddled with bullet holes.  Of course Mayor Giuliani still likes to attack President Obama and Mayor De Blazio.  One Black caller made the point that “If this thing is not racially motivated- - how come white comentaters immediately turn it into a racial thing by attacking black civil rights groups and Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton?   Not that they actually listen to the words of these two, they just hear their names and go into some kind of a right wing trance- - and condemn any statement they make as bad.  I didn’t want to get into all of this today.  I went four days without writing or much hearing about all this stuff.  It felt good to be away from it, to tell you the truth.  Some would say looking on “News stories of 2014” that all these crises were in “the past” as part of the “year gone by” and we won’t have to think about any of these issues in the year 2015.  If only that were true.  The truth is that we have not even begun to see the ravages of this incoming Republican congress.   Some would say “We don’t have Institutional Racism and as proof we have a black President”.    Yeah, and one they are disrespecting and throwing disgraceful racial epithets at constantly.  I am more convinced than ever we still have entrenched racism even when it comes to red lining and bank loans, and which are “black cities’ and which are “white cities”.   I’m not buying for one moment Thom Hartman’s assertion that race relations are better today than thirty years ago.  America has been “fundamentally transformed’ all right.  Into a more racist place anytime in the last fifty years.

So now we have another Asian airliner that disappeared under mysterious circumstances.  I hope we don’t spend months talking about this one in the media.  It was across the Island Nation of Indonesia, a two hour flight- - - and suddenly a storm comes up and you can cue up the Gilligan’s Island theme.  The thing disappears.  They wanted to get above the weather climbing to 38,000 feet and then nothing - - no communication, no nothing.  Just the speculation.

A majority of the population believes the year 2015 will be better than 2014 with only a minority of ten percent believe it will be a worse year.  I have trouble being really confident myself.  Just when you think things are going to improve, something comes along to bring you back to reality.  If my own lagging behind the indlation rate routine continues- - costs of one nature or another will outstrip that paultry 1.4% increase I got in my Social Security payment.  They told us it would be 1.7% but California isn't pulling its weight.  If you use the analogy of a wave- - a top heavy wave eventually breaks.   Perhaps it isn't a big stretch to suppose this same imigry can be used with the economy.  Just like with real estate, those who speculate either in oil futures or in common stock prices, rely to a large extent on the "greater fool theory".  It's a ponsie scheme where someone will eventually be left holding the bag.  Joseph Kennedy got out of the stock market just prior to the crash of 1929.  I read that in a Kennedy biography.   But it just could be that some prominent rich people will "take a bath" this time.  President Obama according to sources, is always the one in the room saying "Don't prosecute" and "Give Wall Street everything it wants".  It was President Obama who argued now to prosecute the Bush - Chaney - Rumsfeld CIA war crimes.  I don't know how you can "move forward" when you are constantly shoving anything and everything under the rug.  It seems to me in the end you have a mighty lumpy rug and an even greater need to "clean house" properly.

This is Monday December 29, 2014 approaching two thirty or “tooth herty”.   You know, the one thing I wanted for this holiday season is not to be in the middle of some dental incident where I would be restricted as to what I ate, in terms of nuts and candy.  All in vain.  I just called the male dental receptionist about my “chipped tooth” as he refers to it.  It’s more like a “chunked” tooth.   The lower part of my tongue is all red and I’m getting canker sores, plural, on it.  I still have not unwrapped the fruit cake, or the baggie of walnuts.  I’m working my way through those chocolate sandwich cookie things- - two flavors remain now, ginger, and double chocolate, not good for my canker sore.  The bad news is that Dr Bowie is off all this week, which maybe explains why next week’s appointment originally was so late to begin with.  I told him the crown had already been paid for and to just switch off teeth, and the guy said that would not be a problem.  Now of course I’m guilt ridden eating anything sweet.

Two things in today’s Days of our Lives episode ticked me off.  The first of course was that baseball player was told and rather indelicate terms that his carrier as a baseball player was finished.  He was all washed up.    Dr Daniel Jonas was certain of that even before the guy’s routine of physical therapy was through.  But the other whammy is of course now he has to admit this to Will.  Suddenly in the middle of his article he goes from this big success story to the on the spot coverage of his impending ruin.  It completely sucks.  And now even if Sonny needs an influx of cash, this is yet another financial source that has dried up.  He's already drained his personal bank account with Will, without telling Will what he was doing.  And Chad tricked him into signing that contract that say "If financial troubles develop, you and not me are exclusively responsible".  Thanks a lot. This can't be Sonny's best week. But the other is this love affair between Melanie and Gabriel in prison.  They both have this element of commonality of saying Gabriel did the right thing in killing Nick Fallon.  The logic is completely stupid because the whole point was Nick was “disrupting her family life”.   Well, her whole life is a lot more “disrupted” now that she’s in prison for life.  For Melanie to now say “You did the right thing” is to question her sanity.  Maybe Gabriel was under stress and not thinking straight.  What would be Melanie’s excuse.  Meanwhile Melanie is giving Gabriel a pass for basically trying to get HER killed.  Suddenly that is OK.   Gabriel is alive and Nick is dead- - but it seems as if Nick is the one that both girls are maddest at.   If Roman knew the full truth about this crime, he’d be a hell of a lot matter than he got at Raphael today.   Then I went out for coffee break.  Nancy asked me for a cigarette loan.   She gets ten cigarettes at eight and if she smokes ten by two, and then wants another- - she’s smoking too much.   Rico is back serving.  I had two cups of coffee.

This morning didn’t get off to the greatest start.  The liquor store wasn’t open so I ended up spending a dollar fifty for coffee at the bakery, and then had to break a ten to buy cigarettes to pay Paul after breakfast.  I had Stephanie on and looked at my watch and it was twelve after seven so I hurried down and now suddenly was a minute and a half late.   Usually at seven fifteen we wait forever for drinks and cereal and things for them to finish serving.  Today every drink and every bowl of cereal was on the table.  But strangely there were no spoons to eat our cereal with.   Joe Drisco was holding down the fort for a whole table saying “Don’t take anything off of this table” and JW wouldn’t let me have empty place settings either.  So I’m a minute and a half late and don’t get served and yet I have to look at milk and orange just staring at me that I’m not allowed to touch.  Eventually I was served- - except for the spoon.  It’s the first time I’ve eaten Raison Bran with a fork.  Tom found me a spoon for the last three bites finally.