Green Acres

I keep hearing this song.  I think it's because I'm a city boy living in the country.  Now I'm moving back to the city, into a good house in a quiet neighborhood, with a wonderful woman.

I've enjoyed my time out here.  I came to get back on my feet, "find myself" and relax.  I found an old schoolhouse on the edge of a small town, not too far from a big city.  I mean, a really small town- 10 houses and a grain elevator.  I hear roosters in the morning, and sometimes cows and sheep (the kids across the way are in 4H.)  I have two neighbors, but they're not close and I rarely talk to them.  They're nice, and quiet, and do their own stuff.  Perfect neighbors (though my sweetie suspects some of them are up to no good...)  Down on the corner, some of the townfolk invited me to their cider pressing, and loaned me their deed abstract going back to 1808 and signed by President Madison.

I did some digging into the history of my place. It was built as a school in 1885, and was a school for about 15 years.  One of the kids in the last class ran the grain elevator in the middle of the last century, and I know some of his grandkids.  I had hoped to do some actual digging- into the cistern, maybe use a metal detector in the yard- but I never got around to that.  I'm leaving some pictures and a note on the history for the next tenant.

It's been a good couple of years.  In the country, but very close to the city.  (A real city, though when I go "into town" it's sometimes to the one with three stoplights...)  All the benefits of both.  I am looking forward to living with my sweetie, though, in the heart of the city.

Ignorance is Strength

I watched a documentary today that had clips from "1984" and "Animal Farm."  In one scene from "1984" I saw the well-known slogans: "War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength."

And I thought hmm, "Ignorance is Strength"- that seems to be the modern Republican party's slogan.  Okay, maybe just the Teabag/Silly Party wing's slogan, but still- so many conservatives I talk to, and hear, are so clueless about history, about current events, about reality, about how they are acting toward, well, everyone except themselves.  It's ignorance, often willful ignorance, combined with a lack of empathy, and self-righteousness.  Add all that up, plus anger issues, and I seem to be working toward a Unified Theory of Conservatism...

Let me give you my card

I've done things the old-fashioned way for the last few days- with cash.

I'm changing banks, and so am getting paper paychecks for the first time in several years.  I've had to cash them, which has led to some odd moments of confusion and... not nostalgia, but awareness of how much things have changed in a fairly short time.  It used to be that every transaction was in cash, and people knew how to make change.  Now, well, it confuses people.

And then I went to get gas.  "Pay first" is no big deal with a card.  But with cash, I had to do what we all used to do: go inside and give them money.  I gave them $40 and said I was going to top it off (my tank wasn't empty... The amount we spend has changed too, of course.)  When I went back inside after pumping less than $30 worth, they seemed confused about how to handle the return.

I had to wait in line at the bank to make a deposit, something else I haven't done in a long time.  (I don't have deposit slips yet, so I skipped the drive-through.)  Handing someone large amounts of cash?  Actually waiting?  Foreign experiences anymore.

I'm not complaining, just observing.  I still pay cash for small expenses, but have moved as much as possible to debit cards and online banking for anything more than a few dollars.  It's just weird how much change there has been in a few years.

A Reely Good Shew

I was reintroduced to Reel Big Fish a couple of years ago.  I've liked reggae and ska for a long time, and dabbled in different bands, but somehow hadn't gotten really into RBF.  These guys are great live, and do a ton of cover songs (which you'll notice as a trend in my music posts, I'm sure...)  The first concert Miss Mox and I went to was RBF, at the Newport (an illustrious dump, with a long history.)  Brown Eyed Girl became one of our songs that night.

Brown Eyed Girl
Yeah, I posted this in the fall, but hey, I love it.  And her.


Hungry Like The Wolf
The first concert I went to by choice was Duran Duran.  Yeah, yeah, I know.  It was a good trip, though; I ought to write about it.  Anyway, I liked them back then, and love this version, keyed to the DD video.  I hadn't watched it in a long time, and was pleasantly surprised to be reminded that it features an interracial couple.  Hm.


Take On Me
Another awesome cover.  This is how I hear this song now; the original has been deleted from my mind's playlist.


Sellout
One of their own, and an actual hit.  Funny video.


Everyone Else Is An Asshole
Another original.  Ironic and universal...

Scandalous

Wow.  I have only been following these "scandals" a bit, since I have a lot of other stuff going on.  But I have  a few things to say.

IRS- Maybe they went too far, but extra scrutiny for political groups of any ideology applying for non-profit status seems like a good idea.  I see that 300 were subject to closer scrutiny/delays.  75 were teabaggers.  The rest?  I'd like to see a breakdown by politics.  And of course the only group denied the status were liberals.  So, where is the scandal?

Benghazi- a mess.  But seeing as Republicans voted against more funding for security, how can they really complain?  And Issa, leading the investigation, has balls since he voted against it too.  The military offered the ambassador extra security, which he refused.  And exactly how were we to respond in the immediate aftermath of the attack?  One Republican suggested flying a jet over to scare the attackers.  Yeah, that would work.  They've never seen a plane before!  And there's certainly no chance they could shoot it down... People seem to think the military, and the government, are omnipotent and omniscient.  As if they can do whatever they want, wherever and whenever they want.  And so these people accuse the government of failing whenever anything goes wrong.  Welcome to the real world, folks.  Shit happens.  People screw up.  We should do what we can to avoid mistakes and disasters, but we're all human.

And not quite a scandal, but an issue: Rand Paul and drones.  I was one of the first to point out that approving drone flights over the U.S. was something we really wanted to think about before we did it.  Of course, Congress approved it without any thought.  And now they are concerned.  Surprise. I don't know, when I see Rand Paul I think two things: the nut doesn't fall far from the tree, and what is up with his hair?  And I think back, and realize that in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 Republicans would have been screeching support for Bush if he used drones anywhere, here and abroad, for anything.  And now they're upset?  Short-sighted ignoramuses.

To whom it may concern...

There was a letter in the local paper the other day about the sequester-caused flight delays.  I've written a few letters to the editor.  I'm usually disappointed in the editing they do to my writing- it has ended up saying something very different than I intended.  So I'm trying to give this guy a break.  The first few paragraphs are factual, and general, comments on how flying is less glamorous than it used to be, how the delays mainly affected business fliers and vacationing families instead of senators, etc.  I can agree with all that, and was with the writer for 2/3 of the letter.

Here's his last paragraph: "Obama ended the flight delays because the episode was becoming embarrassing to him and was pointing out the general ill intentions of his administration and his party.  Let's all remember who bent over backward to make air travel worse than it already is."

Where do I start?  With the self-centered assholery that says flying on time is more important than feeding kids (there are big sequester cuts in many programs, including aid programs)?  With the abysmal ignorance he shows about how the government works? (Congress enacted the sequester, since it couldn't negotiate a way to avoid the gun pointed at its head; Congress changed it so the FAA could get the towers staffed.)  Or the "blame Obama" idea that he and his party are just generally trying to make life miserable?

It's sobering to think that many people think the way he does.  To paraphrase Dean Wormer: ignorant, self-centered, and delusional is no way to go through life.

Like it or not

The other day someone shared a link on Facebook that said "let's see how many 'likes' the Bible can get!"  It struck me as weird.  And disrespectful.

Now, I can be cranky.  And I'm not very religious.  But I still think it is unseemly to fake-like the Bible.  "Like" and "Friend" have different meanings on Facebook than they do in reality, of course.  I get annoyed at those statuses saying "like if you remember these!" (Showing perocolators, drive-ins, etc.)  I mean, come on.  Not that Facebook is a productive place, but how unproductive can you get?  Does it mean anything at all if you "like" those posts?  And there are some darker things going on behind stuff like that, and the "name a movie without an 's' in the title" ones too.

A while back a "friend" "liked" a page called "The Constitution by TA" or some such, the 'TA' being a conservative group.  I like the Constitution.  However, I most certainly do not like any political group claiming it as its own.  So I absolutely do not like "The Constitution by TA" or anyone else.  I think it is disrespectful to like something like that.  Disrespectful to the actual Constitution.

Facebook is good at what it is.  Unfortunately, it is starting to get overrun with ads, and scams.  And dumb shit forwarded by people who should know better.  It's like the old chain letters ("'like' if you remember them!") that counted on people just flat being gullible.

It's not all about you

Wow.  It's been almost a month since my last post?  Yeah, I've been busy.  I have lots of ideas, but little time to set them down on "paper."

This weekend President Obama spoke at Ohio State's graduation ceremony.  It's only the third time a sitting president has spoken at that, and OSU is my alma mater, so hey, it was kind of a big deal.

One of my Facebook friends posted a link about Obama saying Republicans are un-American during his speech.  I read, and listened to, the speech and he didn't say anything like that.  See for yourself.

I suppose, if you're paranoid, you can hear someone talk about those who say government is the "root of all our problems" and that "tyranny is always lurking just around the corner" and say "hey, he's talking about me!"  Because, you know, if you think those things, he is talking about you.  And you're a nutjob, and he didn't say you're un-American, but you know what?  You are.

Anyway, he of course didn't say what some nutjob conservative says he said.  And that particular site is barely readable since said nutjob doesn't know how to use quotes, and really doesn't prove his point on his own site, using those quotes.  So we should probably just ignore it.  But dumb shit like this sticks in my craw.  How can anyone read or hear that speech and not appreciate it for what it is- a speech congratulating and pumping up graduates, and reminding them to be good  citizens?  The same kind of speech any other president, or any speaker at all, would have given on that occasion.  Sadly, the kind of people who can twist that sort of thing into an assault on themselves hear it that way.

You know what?  I've said it before and I'll say it again.  Some conservatives ARE un-American.  They've been saying that about liberals for years, falsely, and now I will say it, truthfully, about them.