Wasted time

A co-worker and I were having this discussion last night. Take the most boring, unsatisfying and mundane job you can think of, fill in blank but we can start with armpit sniffer if you like and I said in a way it's tragic, those are lost hours of your life you can never get back to read a book, to watch a documentary on cheetahs, to go for a walk, to cultivate a friendship or any of a hundred other activities that give enjoyment and meaning to you personally. He thought for a moment and considered but then said "but you're getting paid for it." A strong logical point and I had to think for a minute. His is a common attitude, perhaps the prevailing one but dunno I said, I disagree. Since work is such a large part of our lives, such a huge chunk of Time really it should at least be satisfying and fulfilling on some level, have some overall Meaning. Now we all feel being stuck in a traffic jam is a perfect waste of time but let's say we got paid a little for it to take the edge off, to compensate us for the pain of our boredom and delay would it still be wasted time? My friend would obviously say no but I say yes it would still be since a traffic jam is not even remotely related to the meaning and purpose of Life. In Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged the motive power of Life is simply the joy of existence, that's good enough for me and by this standard being in a coma for ten years even if you're lucky enough to come out of it accounts for Time Lost and the Good Lord doesn't give those back unless there's some kind of holdover system into your next life. You'll often hear conservatives say that prisoners these days have the life. This is rather asinine and I have to say something about this. The prisoner's real sentence here is wasted time and I don't care if there's a gym involved and three square meals a day and cable tv, it's still prison. I would rather be at home at night watching that good cheetah documentary or reading a stimulating book or doing a challenging crossword puzzle and this is the short list because I'm somehow broadening my horizons, massaging my imagination, increasing my knowledge if only by increments whereas the totally nonfulfilling job takes important time away from doing this and far more besides and even taking into account the monetary consideration involved it's a total waste of my time although apparently not of my friend's and that's cool, to each his own as they say. If I could call this blog anything it's a kind of ongoing Manifesto of Life. They say you learn something new everyday. By my reckoning if you live to be 5oo you'll be a Genius:)

Joe Biden and the Tea Party Terrorists

Originally this blog was taking shape as all the various ways critics, usually liberal ones invalidate those with whom they disagee by the use of the political pejorative "extremist." SHAW does this and neocon David Brooks of the New York Times does it as well and it's an argument from intimidation, a deliberate polemical device to curb free-flowing and robust intellectual, philosophical and political debate and its purpose is to circumscribe already shrinking respectable parameters of civic discourse and yes it's an attempt at thought control although I can't obviously impugn motives to everyone here. On my walk today the way this was shaping up in my mind though is why we worship moderation so much (seems kinda boring and bland to have this as your overall guiding life philosophy), why it's now considered the supreme political virtue and basically I want to know do we worship moderation in and of itself as a goal and an end or is it simply a technique, an important at times and pragmatic step towards the Larger Goals (the Reagan approach)? If it's the former what's the point? if it's the latter I can understand and there may be times that it makes eminent practical sense although I can imagine my idealist colleague soapie disagreeing. Used to be if the word extremist was bandied about everyone pretty much knew who everyone was talking about, those who oppose abortion and gay marriage for instance, narrow folks who were seen as being overly cramped on the social issues. NOW it means especially for liberals anyone whom the wielder of the term disagrees with. If you're for fiscal responsibility and government living within its means you're an extremist. If you're against higher taxes on the wealthy (and don't kid yourself on everyone else) as a way of dealing with the debt and deficit then you're an extremist and I can imagine the list expanding. It means whatever SHAW and Brooks and others want it to mean. For liberals and conservatives some things are just not for sale whereas moderates want to sell the whole house. Oh isn't Joe Biden charming btw, just had another brain fart:)

A kind of closet environmentalist

Yesterday I took my long customary walk from Woodlands Lake in Ardsley, Westchester County NY all the way up to Rte. 119 in Elmsford figuring maybe the beavers moved downstream after all these years. When we were kids my Dad took us to Warehouse Lane in Elmsford off 9A where UPS is and where the Saw Mill River meanders its way through on its eventual destination in the Hudson River and we observed the local beaver population busy at work building their lodges and dams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beaver). Now there's much more industry here, there's a Sam's Club where the drive-in theater used to be and Masters Department Store has been replaced by a huge multiplex showcasing the latest in Hollywood dreck. Warehouse Lane, home to a huge Coca-Cola plant, FedEx, Conway Freight, Nestle Foods (Poland Spring and Deer Park trucks parked outside), a tire and auto place and San-Mar Laboratories, the Elmsford Animal Shelter and other assorted places of business. Over down 9A a bit by where you get on 287 is a Romantic Depot, an overpriced porn hut. Browser packs, a clown fucking some fat woman or maybe that's Giggles. It kind of melds together in your mind after awhile in one big existential landfill but I mean at least strive for Art. Wendy's, KFC, Grainger's, Rosedale Nurseries more in Hawthorne where the Saw Mill is very picturesque here and quaint like something out of a jigsaw puzzle. If Rush lived here he'd probably think it's all good, a hustling and bustling area, good population and jobs galore but you'd think a beaver population would be special, a kind of nurtured and protected area. Do we have ANY sense of the environment anymore? Does that make me an environmental wacko? maybe in his book but I'm just someone who would like the Dads of today to be able to take their kids there and learn something about Nature, about this special rodent that had been so heavily and tragically decimated back in the day, to see something they don't teach in school anymore because they're too busy learning about the Gay Lifestyle instead. Been meaning to ask btw, Powerwalkers with their weird arm movements, what's that supposed to do for you?

I don't want to bore you with this stuff

The New Debt Deal for Dummies

Nearly $3 trillion in spending cuts. The debt limit would be raised in two stages, a $900 billion increase now and a $1.5 trillion increase next year. Obama has a temporary authority to hike the debt limit without Congressional approval. The plan calls for at least $2.7 trillion in spending cuts over 10 years and also takes place in two steps: $1.2 trillion in cuts now and at least another $1.5 trillion in cuts to be named by a special bipartisan committee by Thanksgiving. If the Congress doesn't act on the suggested spending cuts by 12/23 automatic triggers go into effect to the tune of $1.5 trillion and we're talking sacred cows like the Pentagon and Medicare here. Reforming entitlements like Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare are on the table as well as the tax code. My thoughts: reminds me of Astronomy which I was interested in as a kid. A light-year is the distance light travels in one year moving along at about the rate of 186,000 miles/sec. and this galaxy and that star are so many light-years away from Us and then you get into the whole area of black holes and event horizons and when you seriously begin to ponder the whole thing boggles the Mind and so these #'s from the Guv'ment are hard to wrap around so how does the average yokel know if they're good or they're bad? All I knows is keep raising the debt ceiling as it will be again in 2013 and you begin to escape the field of gravity (i.e. fiscal responsibility and good governance), actually we've been in Orbit for some time now. I'm not gonna be like the other erudite bloggers out there and pretend I understand this stuff. The whole thing imo is just an intergalactic clusterfuck:)

And on the aggressive atheism front

A group calling themselves American Atheists has filed a lawsuit trying to prevent the return of the steel beam cross that was found standing in the rubble of 9/11 to the new World Trade Center Memorial. They argue that the government is partially funding the project and the Cross is a religious symbol. The new memorial is set to open on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 (sans banos btw but that's a whole side issue). Mayor Bloomberg who always can be counted on to say the safe and nondisputable thing said on his weekly radio show on WOR that they have the right to sue. My take, by its very nature mourning is for so many people such an intensely spiritual and religious experience and this country has such strong religious underpinnings that goes all the way back to its Founding that only a bunch of Grinches with too much time on their hands and nothing better to do could do such a thing.

Rush, the Old Gray Lady and political masochism

As a very occasional reader of Shaw's blog "Progressive Eruptions" the topic of Rush Limbaugh comes up ALOT. To be fair she mentions Rush's name about as much as conservatives talk about New York Times editorials. I get the sense liberals form a core listenership of Rush's radio show just like conservatives probably form a core readership of the Old Gray Lady, in fact they probably subscribe. The New York Post has an occasional feature called TimesWatch but does the NYT have a counter-section called PostWatch? (I'm watching you buddy) I don't get caught up in this stuff. I say this, both should be allowed to peacefully co-exist. A nonopining newspaper, oh how I yearn! Rush is like the Mick Jagger of our national political discussion, I may occasionally tune in but there's newer stuff out there:)

The gutting of the 9/11 Zadroga Act

First responders who may have gotten cancer on that fateful day are not covered under the $2.7 billion compensation fund. Federal doc John Howard, director of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health says in a new study he can't seem to come up with a cancer/9-11 toxins in the air kind of link. Well that's one way to cut spending. Ya gotta do what ya gotta do in these financially apocalyptic times but makes you wonder why they wanna raise the debt ceiling and yet they won't cover these brave men and women. C'mon, not even a trickle of a trillion? By the time they finally get the bill right most of the ailing 9/11 heroes will be dead or maybe that's the whole point. Maybe this is one of the rationing aspects of Obamacare we're seeing but I wouldn't want to be accused of making another hate statement.

Pro-Choice = Pro-Abortion

Is this another Hate Statement? Why is it when you get close to the Truth of the Matter you're accused of making a hate statement? So nobody in the abortion clinic, not the doctor or the woman or the boyfriend or any member of the nursing staff or a counselor or the janitor is really for what is taking place? Everybody is morally sleepwalking through the entire procedure? It's a surreal conclusion.

Obama's State of the Apocalypse

Though it was a rather brief speech Obamawise I was furiously scribbling down notes in my little pad. The Debt Crisis - A Special Address. The speech and the president were utterly predictable, I could've written it. He hates capitalism but through a polemical sleight-of-mind cast himself as a compromiser and a moderate. Basically he is holding a resolution to the debt crisis hostage so he can punish the Rich so unwavering is that principle for him. If no deal is reached he said America will lose its AAA credit rating. Another point - two wars (that he continued btw) and a prescription drug plan added greatly to our national debt. SS checks and Veteran's Bennies are now in jeopardy, interest rates will rise on car loans and mortgages and credit cards (what, they're not high already on the credit cards?) and we won't be able to pay for Medicaid and Medicare. The whole address was peppered with the classic key words and phrases of Class Warfare. 98& of Americans who make under 250G as a household would see no tax increases (250G being the threshold I guess for being considered a millionaire these days) and he had to get in about corporate jet owners and oil companies his favorite mantra of late. Boehner's approach to extend the debt ceiling for 6 more months won't solve the problem and basically there are two approaches he said. First drastically cut spending without any revenue (read: tax increases), the Republican plan and two Our Way which is to close all those tax breaks and loopholes for the rich (one of David Brooks' favorite talking points). It's not fair he said that the wealthiest Americans and Corporations not contribute anything at all here (what, they haven't paid Taxes up until now?) and what we need is a balanced approach to reducing the debt and deficit (i.e. those tax increases again which Republicans are deadset against). He invoked Ronald Reagan 2X saying Reagan himself raised the debt ceiling 18X (he likes the Gipper when it suits him and Abe Lincoln too). Kicking the can down the road, he likes that one. Congress has one week left to act and it's a dangerous game we're playing. Yeah we have the challenges of entitlements and tax reform to consider. "Compromise has become a dirty word." If only he practiced it. Let's put Politics aside for God's sake!!! Then House Speaker John Boehner spoke. He's all for cutting and capping government spending which will eventually lead to a balanced budget amendment. We got a health care bill nobody wanted and Obama wants the largest increase ever in the debt ceiling after the largest spending binge in History. The Boehner Plan would cut spending by $1 trilion. So stimulate my stimulus. We now return you to Masterchef already in progress:)

The tragedy in Oslo

It is now just coming to light that the 32-year old man Anders Behring Breivik wanted to target ex-PM of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland who led 3 Labor Party governments in the 80's and 90's and is known as the "mother of the nation." All told 76 people tragically lost their lives last Friday and after bombing Oslo, Norway's capital Breivik gunned down scores of Labor Party youths on the island of Utoya. Apparently he left alot and I mean alot of online rants, manifestos on the Web filled with hateful and violent and extremist rhetoric which begs the question with such a lengthy cybertrail were authorities asleep at the switch? I mean how could he do what he did, was nobody keeping tabs on the guy? Well now we know Breivik is some kind of right-wing fanatic motivated by anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim sentiment and according to Liberal Theory there exists some kind of mysterious, mystical connection between all right-wing groups. In other words we are all guilty, somehow implicated, Palin/Bachmann so please Curb your Free Speech. Breivik wanted to spark some kind of Crusade and transformation over there, prevent "cultural Marxism" and Islamism from taking over Europe. Expect liberals to make hay and politicize Tragedy here:)

The Good Ole Summertime

Yesterday it was 104 degrees in Central Park a record for July the 22nd. There was no major power outages to my knowledge but you dread them just the same this time of year Crank up the temps and folks naturally crank up the AC units then naturally blame Con Ed when the power grid can't handle it and they don't fix it in a timely enough fashion as in NOW. People today don't want any discomfort, no more that shared sense of sacrifice for the greater good and gone is the day of the Fan you used to see in those old black & white film noir detective movies with the gumshoe's feet on the cluttered desk and the old and tired dog in the corner. Now I'm not against the AC, I'm not against Progress by any stretch and schools, stores and most especially hospitals need it this time of year. The elderly and the sick are most at risk during a heatwave but what about the Rest of Us? Ceiling fans, there ya go! What if most of us opted to use a fan in order to reduce the chances of the next major blackout? just a thought. Think of how much you can save on your next electric bill. Anyway there's a definite difference between 90 and 100 and yesterday even just going to your car or sitting on your porch reading the paper was like being on Venus. It's hard on the pets but they know what to do, take it easy. We haven't even gotten to the dog days of August yet, oy vey!

The GOP field is giving me a migraine

I've decided to hold off on doing the usual, blogging about the ever-growing GOP field for president and so we get ten different conservative bloggers going with ten different conservative candidates but something tells me we'll be talking alot about Michele Bachmann in the near future. BTW how are President Obama's bowel movements?

The thought occured

I made an OJ joke the other day at work and the black guy made a good point, "if Casey is innocent then OJ is innocent too." Now we are taught that no matter how a jury decides in controversial and high-profile cases we should respect their decisions. The system worked and other nostrums. Fine but if we accept juries' decisions then how come nobody is out actively searching for the real killers? in fact nobody seems to care. You can't have it both ways, if jury verdicts represent some kind of philosophical truth, legal realities then everybody needs to start these now open cases over again and ferret out the true perps and bring 'em to justice. Imagine that, the killers of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman and of little Caylee are still walking the streets!!! On the other hand if you concede as I do that juries are frequently just plain stupid and don't follow instructions then there really is no problem, no intellectual inconsistency to speak of. Do ya know what I'm sayin'? Just another exhibit in why Conventional Wisdom is so often wrong:)

I need a pill for the pill for the pill for the pill......

Shift Work (Sleep) Disorder or SWSD, from Wiki: "SWSD is a circadian rhythm sleep disorder characterized by insomnia and excessive sleepiness affecting people whose work hours are scheduled during the typical sleep period. There are numerous shift work schedules and they may be permanent, intermittent or rotating; consequently the manifestations of SWSD are quite variable." BUT there's good news, there's NUVIGIL!!! Nuvigil may cause side effects like, oh I don't know a serious rash or a serious allergic reaction that may affect parts of your body such as your liver or blood cells which may result in hospitalization and be life-threatening. A skin rash, hives, sores in the mouth, blisters, swelling, peeling or yellowing of the skin or eyes, trouble swallowing or breathing, dark urine or fever. Then there are the serious sides: mental (psychiatric) symptoms such as depression, anxiety, sensing things that are not really there, mania, suicidal thoughts, aggression or other mental problems. Symptoms of a heart problem including chest pain, abnormal heartbeat and trouble breathing. Some of the more common sides include headache, nausea, dizziness and trouble sleeping, you know the usual. Why not deal with the Original Problem instead of twenty myriad other ones?

Will liberals continue to use the race card?

Proba-blee. Now by any objective standard Obama's first term has been more than a bit of a dud, even the alleged bin Laden slay doesn't seem to have any staying power. The nub of the matter, Obama is not a good president. Conventional political wisdom says people vote mainly on the economy, economy still ain't doing so good and the jobless rate is up to 9.2% with only 18,000 new jobs added for the whole month of June. I don't care if the guy is black, white or polka-dot you can't vote for the guy. The Obamanauts will though and they'll make a whole racial thing about it but how can I in good conscience vote for a black Jimmy Carter? Obama doesn't suck because he's a black guy, he's a black guy who happens to suck. He made History though, duly noted for the Almanac:)

If we were living in a police state he'd still be alive today

This seems to be the thrust of NYS lawmakers in the wake of the Leiby Kletzky tragedy. Known as "The Leiby Initiative" incentives would be offered local merchants to set up surveillance cameras around their places of business. As everyone knows 8-year old Leiby Kletzky was abducted by a stranger by the name of Levi Aron early this past week on his first solo trip home from day camp and he got lost in Borough Park, Brooklyn and asked Mr. Aron for directions. Leiby was smothered to death sometime later after probably putting up a great struggle and dismembered by this monster ironically of the same faith. I knew I would be blogging about this of course but at first my thoughts turned to such philosophical things like The God Problem, why does a loving God allow such tremendous evil? However it takes but a day or two after a tragedy or disaster or some type of social calamity of this sort (think the LIRR massacre or whatever else fits here) for our heroic legislators to step up to the plate and what I am against is the politicization of tragedy. Now we have Caylee's Law being enacted in several states. Bill O'Reilly is for that and it means if you don't report a child missing within a very short period of time, say a day or two then you can be charged with a felony. Evil has been around since the dawn of time and recorded history and yet our lawmakers seem to think they can somehow legislate it away or at least contain it or reduce it or modify it or circumscribe it or mollify it or something. Anyway that's just my view and I'm sure there will be disagreement. The other thing, hindsight is 20/20 of course and now people are coming out of the woodwork as they always do saying Levi Aron was weird, this and that and the other thing, the way he sliced meats down in that kosher deli in Tennessee and do you wanna know how many weird people I worked with over the years? To be weird is not a crime so let's not malign the whole community of the weird here however you define that and OF COURSE he was a loner. Now the vast majority of loners would never even think of doing such a thing and I think we can go out on a limb here and say while the majority of these type killers may be loners the majority of loners are not killers. Finally not that long ago we had a good rollicking discussion, still going on apparently on Race and Crime and while blacks do commit a disproportionate share of everyday crime (I hate to make crime sound so prosaic) whites seem to commit the more bizarre acts of a kind of mind-boggling evil that defies all logic and this goes all the way back to Charles Manson and beyond. This latest tragedy has brought together the Hasidic enclave in Borough Park and shows a tight-knit faith community and that is heartening. There are no more words I can say except don't push the latest atrocity in order to set up some kind of police state as we all know what the road to hell is paved with. That's not the way to go and if folks would just come out of their prescription drug induced fogs or whatever the hell everybody is in these days maybe someone would have noticed something wrong in this situation and taken action without the use of the extra surveillance network the Albany lawmakers are advocating. See Something Say Something. Prayers:)

@ the Movies

I really don't go to the flicks that much anymore but my friend wanted to see Horrible Bosses so we went. Besides it was a scorcher of a day so at least I can sit for an hour and a half with the AC and meditate and ponder and ruminate if the movie sucks. I didn't like it that the plot revolved around three pals trying to do in their respective bosses. That happens in real life and it ain't funny but that's Hollywood. Jennifer Aniston was hot though, didn't even know it was her at first and Kevin Spacey always plays a mean prick of a boss. Oh the Previews!!! Movies never start on time of course and just because the schedule said 1:30 that just means when the Coming Attractions start. It lasted it seemed for 20 minutes and there were six of 'em. Reminds me of why most movies are pure dreck and the Cancer Movie with Seth Rogen (I only vaguely know the latest names but my friend is up on this) looked downright depressing. You really gotta do a cancer movie right and even then I don't wanna see it. That Marine Sgt. who invited actress Mila Kunis to the Marine Ball on YouTube...let's try that again, that Marine Sgt. who invited Mila Kunis on YouTube to the Marine Ball...that Marine Sgt. who posted an invite to Ms. Kunis on YouTube. I don't even like her movies and word on the street is she may not be going after initially accepting because she's in the middle of work on two flicks, crappy no doubt. If I did something like this I'd be a stalker:)

The true test of a retired conservative

Return all your Social Security checks.

Thoughts on Jaycee Lee Dugard

It was Compelling TV. I wasn't gonna watch all of it but I did, the Diane Sawyer/Primetime Live Special with the first exclusive interview with Jaycee Lee Dugard who in 1991 was kidnapped at the age of 11 somewhere in CA and held captive in a nightmarish world for the next 18 yrs. by the charming Phillip and Nancy Garrido couple. Now during the latter years of her ordeal she had ample opportunity to escape with the two daughters Mr. Garrido helped sire with her so why didn't she??? They were at an amusement park couple of occasions, there was Phillip's new printing company (what Hallmark Cards with a pervy twist?) which gave her access to the Web and the chatter inevitably turns to Stockholm Syndrome or some variant thereof and yet why do so many of us stay in bad jobs, forms of corporate slavery, endless mindgames, manipulative bosses, the alternate reality of the Office, the Hell on Earth that is the 9-5? They say there is a soulmate for everybody and Nancy fell in love with Phillip Garrido while he was serving time in prison for earlier sex crimes. She went to visit an uncle then something must have happened, a romantic spark, the lust on the apple or maybe it was just his eyes, those psychotic baby blues. This husband and wife perv team, this existentially creepy couple, him with his quirks hearing angels' voices and making some contraption to commune with God and her holding the kid down in the backseat of the car, this 1/2 Manson who made her life a living hell yet somehow didn't kill her, fed her and gave her kittens in between molesting her...and yet so many nice men out there who can't seem to find Someone and conjugate with them who eventually spiral down into the circle-jerk hell of bad gas station porn and Jose Cuervo. The second half of the special had Chris Cuomo's investigative report on why the federal bureaucracy didn't work in this case. I mean how could parole agents have visited that fantastic Garrido compound on 60 separate occasions and not notice anything even remotely peculiar? took two amateur female campus security officers to get things rolling. Chris needs to seriously bone up on his Peter Principle, this is the way a bureaucracy is supposed to function. Jaycee came off well and poised for a gal who's been through so much and her book or memoir comes out today. I can't believe I'm living:)

A Simple Experiment

There is only way to ultimately prove the political validity and viability of either liberalism or conservatism as a way of correct governance for Society. Now in Science tests are done, experiments are repeated endlessly and new ones thought up to winnow through the various theories that sprout up to help explain this or that so as to ferret out better conclusions and so Politics should be no different. The Eternal Political Debate, Shaw, Dave, BB, Saty et al making their respective points, passionately argued of course and so what I propose is simply that we have fifty years of pure liberalism and fifty years of pure conservatism. Liberalism can go first if it wants. Of course this is a long time, real political epochs spanning generations but a Study of this magnitude and import takes time and you don't want various conservative pockets like Reaganism and fig Newtons let's say to offset the results, to give false positive readings spawn from a quirky kind of giddiness that doesn't prove anything anyway one way or the other. These things take time and since we'll all be long gone and dead by then it will be up to posthumous generations to study and collate the results and infuse the wisdom found therein to political systems in the future and so we'll all be more enlightened by then to know what to do and how to proceed...Oh wait, we've already had 50+ years of liberalism:)