I found myself drifting over to Gwen Ifill and Judy Woodruff and their PBS coverage of the start of the convention. With the exception of being pro-choice Rudy Giuliani offered real savory red-meat conservatism with Peter Lugar steak sauce. It was a little thick, grilled and char-broiled and the wonderful aromas permeated the convention floor. A black sheriff spoke and Blue Lives Matter was perhaps the main theme of the entire evening. There's a little Melania controversy now as she may have borrowed elements of a previous Michele Obama convention speech. The PBS panelists: neocon David Brooks noted they all had a feeling of starkness so I started to feel stark too even though I've had this starkness since I turned fifty. There were some last minute delegates who wanted to throw the whole thing into chaos like being forced into a date you don't like. Last observation - Chris Christie politely attended but he had your typical man's angry attitude towards rejection;)
I don't generally watch the conventions any more, sort of got bored after the Truman era. RE: the plagiarism deal, I caught some Trump spokesman refuting the line by line comparisons of several sentences. Typical Trump spokesman,
ReplyDeletehe got angry and accused Michelle of quoting 'My Little Pony'. So, the next week and a half I will be on the road
between and betwixt here and upper WI. I find the lonely
Great Plains relaxing..no wi fi, no radio, no terrorists and no traffic. Picked out little towns to stay overnight: Butte, MT, Glendive, MT and Wadena MN. Back in the 60s, we
used Wadena as a jump off point for canoeing the Crow Wing
River. Stopped for gas and the guy looked at my credit card
and said, "That's a familiar last name. You any relation to
Red what owns the funeral parlor?" I appoint Saty to carry
on while I'm gone. Saty, where are you?
I kinda became intrigued by PBS coverage for some reason as everyone looked so serious. I know it's Trump but still...then I surfed a little and as I said Christie does not look happy, stewing as I said. Happy tripping. I'll probably leave it at the monologue level although there might be the occasional knock at the door. In other news Poland lowered the retirement age from 67 for everyone to 60 for women and 65 for men.
ReplyDeletePBS News; for old people, shut-ins and the phlegmatic
Deleteanalysts among us. As in- if you play Pokeman, you ain't never heard of PBS. I generally flip through Fox, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC and mentally sort through
the provincial spin while watching a rerun of Big Bang Theory or Doc Martin. Plus I have my own strong biases, so I don't cut Paul Ryan % Co. much slack. In hindsight, old Mitt doesn't look too bad, IMO.
PBS News relaxes me the same way. It's like having brandy without the brandy. You can think about your problems, daydream and then check in to what they're saying. I like it when the liberal Mark Shields gets all jowly.
DeleteI think the real reason Christie wasn't picked for VP is that Trump's advisors rightly saw you can't have a pair of brash and braggadocio braggarts touring the country. Can you imagine?
ReplyDeleteI can. I suspect that the Trump Show is all Trump, so
Deletewhoever the VP candidate is simply a garnish: dash of
lemon peel and twist of parsley. In fairness, that seems to historically go with the VP job. My guess is that Chris (Biggy Size that please) will be Secretary of Great Wall Building, headquartered in
Las Cruces. No major bridges to screw up there.
We thinking about the changing morals over time. Back in
ReplyDeletethe Washington-Jefferson era, things were pretty straight
laced. Then there was Andrew Jackson and his (as they said)
loose wife. Skip ahead and we have the fundamentalist rigorous family morals and the free-wheeling progressive
lack thereof. Yet, the first Pres to have been divorced was
Reagan, much loved by the fundies, and now possibly the twice divorced Trump, a paragon of fundie values. Yet, neither was much of a church goer. Go figure, maybe Pat
Robertson can explain...if someone will wake him.
The messages of society always confuse. On the one hand there's have sex, have lovers, have a good time (e.g. Cosmo) and at the same time there's enormous social pressure to settle down, get married and raise a family. It's like the two moralities co-exist at the same time.
DeleteAs to your point it's ironic that Howard Stern is more of a family or marriage long-term guy than Rush who talks morality until he's blue in the face.
DeleteBig shake up at FoxNews? Ailes leaving, Megyn accusing him of harassment, Gretchen Carlsons suing for same, Hannity, O'Reilly & van Sustern contracts linked to Ailes? WTF? A chance for David Brooks and Mark Shields to move over
ReplyDeletefrom staid ol PBS? Merry Media Mayhem...
Sexual harassment (& related issues) is basically (a) the woman doesn't want you and (b) your approach is all wrong. Thought the issue was kinda dying down but it's one of those perennials.
DeleteShields Brooks and let's throw in David Gergen. Now that's a power lineup.
DeleteThey must be gentlemen; neither Judy Woodruff nor
DeleteGwen Ifill have filed charges on those guys. On the other hand, PBS has fought the tendency to sprinkle
the network talking heads with bimbos...
I haven't researched the subject because I have better things to do but what did Ailes say to her? He looks the type, rather heavy and probably has a whiskey laugh but was it along the lines of you're a milf and may I tweak your nipples? You hear the word "harassment" and the mind automatically conjures up maybe an image of Boss Tweed pleasuring himself in front of the barservant. Should I wiki this?
DeleteLessee here, Thur @ 11 AM cross Lookout Pass over the Bitterroot Mts. Fri @ 9AM cross the continental divide
ReplyDeleteat Homestake Pass and @ 11AM Hellsgate Pass N. of Yellowston. Follow the Yellowstone River for the next
344 Miles. Sat @ noon cross the Missouri River. (not counting a zillion potty stops)
A woman recently fell to her death when she stepped aside to let a biker pass and fell into the Grand Canyon. Do be careful.
DeleteI stay well away from sheer heights. The Mrs. and kids used to make me nervous, peering over waterfalls and cliffs. Back in the day, was on a field trip with the botany class, looking for specimens. The old prof led us along a goat path
Deleteatop a bluff about 120 ft over the local river. One
kid leans way out over the drop and says "What's vertigo?" Then when I was a grade schooler, I fell
out of a treehouse we were building in the woods.
About 30 feet, but I hit a dozen branches on the way
down and just lost some air. My mother said, "How did you get all those scratches..what were you doing?" The standard kid answer, "nuttin".
Indelible memory as a kid. Had some gerbils in a terrarium on the cedar chest in my room. My Dad was with me at the time. I reached over for a nut I think it was and hit my windpipe on the edge of the chest and couldn't breathe for some seconds. My Dad said to breathe thru my nose and it popped out again. Scary. Can it explain the tinnitus?
DeleteMotels run well over $100 a night anymore. When I left for
ReplyDeleteArmy active duty in Summer 1964, I stopped in a little Iowa
burg and got a place for $7.85, with morning donuts no less.
My personal gripe: pipe tobacco..used to be $2.50 a can. Picked up a can today, same stuff, $40.50. Higher than dang
street drugs.
That's enough to fill up a pickup truck or SUV.
Delete