Hope Springs Eternal for 2013

It's finally the new year and it couldn't have come a moment too soon.  I'm ever so happy to be seeing 2012 in the rear view mirror.  It seems the House Republicans may have to put the speaker's Boehner on ice, like they did with that horse last night on Mob Doctor, because everybody knows an uncontrolable Boehner can become politically embarrassing after a while.  Harry Reid and Mitch Mc Conell and Joe Byden could all come together but Eric Cantor about threw a fit when he learned what was happening.  He says this bill will increase the national deficet by four trillion over ten years or whatever.  Well isn't that just too bad!  The People have Spoken.  The Senate hammered out their bill at two o clock EST this morning or whatever working feverishly and still missing the deadline- - - and let's hope no workers stub their toes over any of the broken pieces of glass slipper.  They have voted on a procedural bill a few hours ago.  We've been hearing that a vote in the final measure already ratified by the Senate will take place "within the hour' and we've been hearing that for three hours now.  More details will be forthcoming, I'm sure.  It seems that $400,000 is the magic cut-off line.  This bill contains none of the many cuts in federal programs people were fearing.  It will keep the wheels of the money machine greased for a few more weeks at least.  That is untill the whole debt ceiling thing again comes up for a vote.  Stay tuned, and I know you will.

If people will get off their emotional high horse for one moment, there are ample good reasons why embracing the Neil Savedra kind of Christianity makes no logical sense.  For instance some react with hostility to anything Christian or religious.  Rather than be seen as a bad sign - - if it's true that Apathy is the opposite of Love - - then if you are at Apathy you logically have to go Through - - - Anger and Hatred arrive back to a state of Love, assuming that is even possible at all.  Neil says you can become a Christian and "not sin" purely on your own mental Will and Resolve, and that to think otherwise is to "make excuses for yourself".  The trouble with Neil's thinking is that the Bible itself does not agree with him, but insists that any "coming to God" has to be at the instigation of the Holy Spirit.  It's at this point that Neil of KFI will tell you "I'm not going to get into the Bible Quoting Game with you".  So Neil would end a dispute not by appealing to either God or the Bible but just an "I'm not going to do it" statement.  I'd be curious in defense of eternal torment and damnation in Hell - - to have Neil once again to talk about how if a rabid dog bites a wino on skid row - - that's no major offense, but if that same rabid dog bites the President of the United States he merits eternal torture and torment in the Afterlife.  I'd also like to again hear from Neil on the subject that "going to Heaven is like enjoying Country Music.  Some people do, but if you don't - - why subject yourself to it?   I'd also again like to hear from Neil how Jesus "would never have dinner with people he didn't know- - and who were not his friends" as Neil has so often intoned as to why you have to be a churchman to make it into heaven.  I'd like to hear again from Neil how "being a hypocrite is no big thing because after all  - - Everybody is doing it".  And I also like to hear again how snuffing out the faith others already have in God's intervention in their lives.  I guess I'd kind of like to see the "Snuffing out the faith in God by another" is perfectly good and acceptable behavior - - - line in the Bible.  I say all this stuff not out of animosity or "laying a trap for Neil Savedra" but I'm just putting it to him in a matter of fact way.  If all this is as readily resolvable as some of us would hope - - then Neil should have no problem dealing with these simple, direct questions.  Neil after all claims that he is the personal Embodyment of All Wisdom from God.  This paragraph represents a clear opportunity to Demonstrate it.  (Selah)

In terms of my own private computer saga, Judy had my computer booting to the wrong drive, the damaged one with all the bad sectors that is slipping by the day.  The bad sectors have doubled in just the past couple of days.  You get that click wherr sound now- - which spells danger.  But the good news is I think we knocked out the theorized "boot virus" that Staples suspects is there- - but it can only be detected by an outside computer and Staples said that Windows would not "let the Staples computer scan it for viruses", if that isn't too paranoid.  It "let" me scan it- - and Mc Affee gave my system a clean bill of health after a two and a half hour scan.  But what does IT know?  My scratchy sound card may have been cured by switching to the new drives, and indeed I was suspecting sound "tracking errors" and disconuity in sound, not too different from bad CD player tracking.  But now an Accronis "safe zone" has to be installed on my new drive.  Don't worry, we have Glen Beck's private number for "safe houses" and all, in case of total disaster.

Last night someone bought sparkling apple cider and so we all had small dixie cups of that around the patio table last night well before midnight.  It seems about half of the Dick Clark "discovered artists" came in the 'eighties even though Clark's carrier spans the thirty years from 1955 to 1985.  The only two 'fifties artists I saw were Johnny Cash and Bill Haley, and the only 'sixties artist we saw were the Jefferson Airplane.  We saw James Brown in the 'seventies doing some funk-a-delic stuff, and the rest of what we saw was "eighties till I switched to a Bones rerun at twenty to nine.  I slept well last night despite the grizzly bedtime TV fare. I got up at six thirty.  Breakfast ran late and I didn't turn on the TV for the Rose Parade till seven after eight.  But I caught the first seven minutes since they wasted no time in reruns.  They did not show the Rose Bowl on ABC, but as I told Bill and he agreed with "You know the west coast team wins more often than not, all else being equal".  And they did.  Stanford won for the first time since 1972, which was the first Rose Parade our family got to watch on our own Color TV.  (we were very late to the game)  In those days I didn't hate Stanford the way I do now.  Use their pennants for target practice!  Tonight Wally bought a huge thing of rainbow sherbet - - it had a be at least a gallon, if not larger.  People helped themselves and I filled up my tall blue water glass and invited Bill to go get some.  I also bought an eight pack of crumb donuts, and put my name on the Wall Mart shopping trip list for nine o clock tomorrow.  This is one time I won't miss the boat, and save myself a lot of money.  I didn't get paid by this place for the second week in a row, but I'm still living off of that sixty I got from my mother ten days ago at the family gathering.

Little Hope to Avert Fiscal Cliff

It's been a week since I've posted anything and I'll come to that later.  Right now nothing has changed from a week ago.  The President has offered to scrap the cost of living index of Social Security, which even Harry Reid and the democrtic  senate.  Now every time I hot the back space the thing wants to know if I intend to leave the page.  That could get old.  The President has also offered to raise medicare to age 57, which would impact a lot of people adversely.  John Boehner has offered nothing.  Mitch Mc Conell has offered nothing.  All he says is "We are waiting for the President to get serious about a deal".  The Republican on KNX on Saturday spewed out a lot of rhetorical bullshit in which he just lambasted the entire Obama first four years and brought up extranious things like the Canadian pipeline, which aren't relevent.  But there was not one proposal of any sort issued in the entire speech.  Then John Boehner says on Thursday that he wants to meet Sunday evening because it fulfills a "two day waiting requirement".  He can't even count because Sunday was three days away and not two.  And so far as I've checked there is no serious work being done.  There is only isolated speeches on irrelivent legeslative bills that have nothing to do with the crisis at hand.  It's irritating.  Now there are just 27 hours left and the odds of anything happening look pretty darned slim.

I felt that the President was a little limp wristed and lacking in resolve on his Meet the Press interview this morning.  What the President had to stress was the things in "Tax-Mageddon" that WILL go up at the start of the year and that BOTH sides want these things NOT to go up.  These would include the percent rate middle income tax payers pay.  There is the two percent hike in the FICA withholding rate.  There is "the marriage penalty" I'm a little fuzzy on.  There are various other deductions people of modest income make use of that are going away.  It's a dramatic hike in the estate tax, which for one wine vinyard will rise from 35% to 55% so I'm told, which ia bit draconian.  Also what doctors get paid for a Medicare visit will be reduced, forcing doctors to drop medicare patients.  And unemployment coverage people will end for many people.  None of these contingencies is tollerable and both sides can and should agree on this.  So what is the big stall in congress?  I heard that Congress went home for the night.  I guess I'll tune in tomorrow morning and check them out then.

The Minisota Vikings won that Stephen King game of "Can You?" by beating a superior team, the Green Bay Packers, and so have gotten into sixth place in the play-offs.  Cincinatti was top dog over the Baltimore Ravens today.  The Indy Colts bettered the Houston Texans.  Washington Redskins have just won their big game against the Dallas Cowboys and they are playing their victory song in the stadium now.  The Bears beat the Lions but unfortunately for the Bears, the Vikings held the Bear's fate in their hands.  The final week of the regular NFL season is always exciting.  My birthday is tomorrow and suddenly 62 is not just a year in my childhood.  When I started blogging I was "in my mid fifties" and now I'm wondering whether people would listen to a man in his mid fifties, but someone in their sixties might be considered "too old" and dottering to give advice to the younger readers.  All I can say is that I used to be young once, and some day they are going to be older, like me.

On a personal basis I was not in the hospital or anything, though I was sick much of the week, thanks in part to you know who's wife who was over here and coughing up a storm.  I got sicker again after she left for several more days.  This computer stopped working late Christmas day and for the second week in a row Accronis did not have an oppertunity to back up the drive with whatever it does.  I was doing things to try and speed up the computer such as de-frragging and such.  I did disk clean-up.  But it's when I got the blue screen message and the whole thing went off entirely that I knew I was in big trouble.  And for the next two days I could not get the computer to reboot at all.  Finally Thursday evening I and Judy took this computer into Staples to have them look at it and they got this thing up and running almost immediately while we were there and it stayed on the whole half hour plus we were there.  But they could not find out what was wrong with it, and Saturday evening we collected it in a state of quandry.  They ran extensive tests saying it wasn't the hard drive or CMOS or the mother board or RAM or any other conceivable hardware related thing like that.  Judy thought that Windows XP had a virus but her solution was a little draconian meaning just wipe the whole drive because there is this mystery virus that will eventually destroy all my files, which is what she wants to do anyhow.  But I ran the Full Virus scan that took nearly three hours and it showed nothing.  There were nothing but goose eggs in the tally of viruses.  This back space control is driving me nuts right now and I'd like to know if there is a way I can fix that.  I really haven't had that many thoughts this past week

We now take you to a week ago Saturday afternoon Dec 22nd.  I had been intending to take the coffee grains out of the holder and leave it nice and clean, and thought I had, but I hadn’t.  Dr. Levy convened the group at about twelve to four sending Augustine up to get me.  Earlier I had borrowed a cigarette out on the west benches and looked in the window at three thirty and already seen people congregating.  Nora once again helped served.  Dr. Levy goes into the bathroom to look up scrabble words in the dictionary when his wife isn’t looking, and he still loses.  For our first cource we had crackers and cold cuts and cheese.  Then we had a big piece of really good Lazagna and two pieces of good pizza with everything on it.  I had about a glass and a half of eggnog.  I declined water.  But I excused myself a little after four twenty to get ready after having been there just over a half hour.   I called and Judy and Wendy were on their way.  Wendy really does have a sense of humor, and seemed open to the theory that Bill Gundersonl gave me my cold virus.  It must have been a fast acting one.  (That theory works for me)  Wendy had some strange stuff on her dashboard.  They said Mom and [a brother and his wife] had been there since three thirty.  The coffee maker was a mess with the undripped water and stuff Wendy got on her.  We ate dinner at ten after five.  We had ham and green beans with sauce, and dressing (which wasn’t that good) and thee salad Pete Richards made was excellent and was colorful, and it was a novel flavored dressing.  Only the coffee sucked, and that was my department.  I think the Yuban was either stale, or decaf, or something.  I declined the potatoes, with or without sour cream.  I just had the one piece of lemon marangue pie.  I talked to [same brother and wife] very little the entire time.  The cats were around and one of them sat on my lap on two different occasions.  One time I went in the bathroom to gargle that silver solution for my cough, which Judy said could cut down on infection.  The strange thing is that it actually worked.  But I did have to excuse myself from the table while Wendy was talking.  But I very much wanted to hear what she had to say about her job, and about John and his one time wife, Jenny.  Apparently Jenny isn’t above telling lies about her relation with Uncle John to make herself look better in the “public eye”.  Wendy gave me a book on Disneyland fasts.  [same brother]  gave me a really nice, warm, flannel shirt.  I got a fruit cake from [blank] and Judy.  And the most coveted prize of all was the money, of course, in a Christmas and birthday card (s) from Mom.  I told her I was smoking less and for physical proof of that you can see the nicotine stains on my fingers are a whole lot lighter now.   The idea of picking an envelope rather than my pants pocket as a “safe place to keep the money” was made plainly foolish to me as I frantically searched through all the envelopes on the table later looking for the one with the money in it and praying none had been thrown out or misplaced.  I found it.  I put the money in my wallet and now have my wallet in my pants pocket.  [brother and wife] took Mom home and someone suggested that we hold Mom’s hand as she went down the stairs.  It was hinting at rain.  I was physically spent before seven thirty and therefore did not contribute to that Christmas “game” where we all were supposed to share memories of our favorite Christmas.  Judy used to be afraid of Santa Clause at a little girl.  Marie actually had stairs to run down on Christmas morning.  I liked what Wendy had to say as to her feelings of what each Christmas day was life at her house.  It made me feel more a part of her life.  We talked at length about Dad’s picture taking habits and looked at various photos taken at wide ranging time frames.  I’m personally heartened that Dad was remembered in our Christmas conversation.  Judy read her Christmas poem and today I saw that she had E mailed me a copy of it.  Judy has real poetic talent.  I did not kiss any of the relatives good-bye, and the situation never came up, with my germs.  [blank] and Judy helped me pack up everything in the car and Paul took me home and helped carry the things up to my room.

The Apathy We've Had To Evolve Into

In terms of Christmases - - as to number of BAD things that could and have "messed up" a Christmas this year is among the worst.  Only Christmas 1973 tops it and I'll explain that later.  But I get tired of these phrases the tea party has forced us into all adopting, that are destructive to communacating needed information.  For instance I would like to retire the expression of "Don't politicize this shooting event" or "Don't exploit this current news for your own political goals".  The whole point is that we shouldn't HAVE to do this to begin with.  The whole violence situation was BAD before we turned the first page over in the 2012 Calendar.  We'd all had "quite enough" of the violence after Gabriel Giffards was gunned down nearly two years ago.  The fact is there is another phrase I'm also tired of, mainly because it's so untrue,w which goes "Well- - Perhaps GOD can use this tragedy to his own good to accomplish his purpose".  If God has to resort to such massive death and mahem to try and "effect something good" that STILL may not occur- - then I suggest it's time to change Gods.  The real tragedy is that the worse things get, the more apathetic we become.  It's like when a totalitarian government takes over.  If they employ gradualism in taking away our rights we gamble that we "won't miss this particular right' too much, until the Next one gets taken away, and the one after that.  Of course there are other phrases I'd like to retire.  Like radio hosts saying "Never read from anything on the radio when you call".  Of course the host can do it till he's blue in the face, but the last thing the host wants if for the caller to be able to compete on an equal footing with him.  Another expression I'd like to retire is "I'm not a leagelist - - - but - - " there is always a but.  What they mean is that they themselves don't want to be held accountable standard Apart from Themselves.  But they will not extend to you the same privelege.  Here's a skit I thought of doing about a football game and some play occurs that is "in the gray area" as to how to call it or what penalties, if any to call.  Then someone says "Well, let's see what the Rule Book has to say" and Neil Savedra will chime in with "Oh no!  I'm not going to play the Rule Book Quoting Game".  Just like Neil of KFI will never play the "Bible Quoting  game" because he'll know he can, and usually does - - Lose.  I think a lot of these Right Wingers must have been brought up differently where "Losing was not an option" and therefore- - the idea of facing even the slim Possibility of it - - sends them all into a panic and they will resort to lying and cheating or manipulating - - anything to avoid being called a Loser.  Another phrase I'd kind like to retire is "You're just trying to manipulate me..  But NOT because it isn't true.  But rather because like the term "legalist" the term "Manipulator" is used most often by people the MOST guilty of it.  There I like to avoid usage of that word unless it's absolutely necessary.  Another phrase worth retiring is "We don't have a revenue problem - - we have a spending problem".  This is one of the most oft Repeated Boldfaced LIES of perhaps all time by the tea party.  Another phrase I'd love to retire by its sheer hypocracy is "Having money is no big thing because money can never buy happiness".  Of course, you guessed it, the people saying this most likely earn double your take home pay, and they are not about to let Uncle Sam get so much over a penny more than possibly necessary.  Two more phrases I'd like to put out to pasture are "Culture wars" and "Class Warfare".  There IS "Class Warfare" and OUR side LOST that war thirty years ago when Ronald Reagan successfully enacted tax plans to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich.  And the whole "Culture War" thing conotes the idea that there is some "grand conspiracy" out there, some unseen and undocumented THEM  - - "out there" who are "secretly pulling the strings of all of our lives".  This is about one step removed from the tin foil hat crowd.  There are other pervasive false beliefs that have been peddled to the public at large by the Political Right.  There is the idea that Pension Funds you paid into all your life - - aren't really kosher but all of them are either "slush funds" or somehow "riddled with political corruption" or else people who draw from Pension Funds are just "Making the problem of Entitlements worse".  The word "Entitlement' is another word that I would like to 86 from our lexicon, because the original expression has long outlived its usefulness.  And of course the idea has been revived that all labor Unions are somehow Communist in origen and "have a political agenda".  By the way that's another caller hose phrase I'd like to retire and Neil of KFI is guilty of it.  He says "You are free to say anything - - as long as you don't have an Agenda".  The way I look at it - - everybody has an "Agenda" or some sort.  People have drives and goals and things they'd like to get accomplished.  That's kind of the POINT is living is to Accomplish things.  But if you make plans on HOW to accomplish them you are "guilty of having an Agenda".   One fig leaf of defense the Tea Party right used to put up is "Of course you realize that Conservatives are inherently more generous people than are liberals".  I personally haven't come accross one shred of support for this thesis, but rather, quite the opposite..  Yet the right repeats it like a mantra.  So of Course labor unions have to be BAD   - - Because they FORCE management to do something they really "wanted to do all along" but now that they HAVE to do it- - they resent it- - and therefore they fight the labor unions.  So I guess if they should learn there were laws against deficating in public then the tea party would do it - - just to make the abstract Point that "No law is going to tell Me what to do".

Last night I went to my brother's house and his wife, and the usual relatives were there.  I wasn't feeling well and had already stuffed myself with lazagna and pizza and eggnot at Dr. Levy's and yet went to eat a second dinner.  When I told Judy I had a cough she gave me some silver solution and told me to go into the bathroom and garble with it and I wouldn't be as infective.  The strange thing about it is that it worked on my coughed.  While I was in there I had my "UFO antenna" out, and did not sense Stewart Sutcliffe or any of "the usual dead people' in observance.  It turned out afterwards Stewart contacted me and said that he was indeed not there at all because he had a previous engagement.  Anyhow I did get sixty dollars from my mother and other gifts I won't relate now.  But the next day the gift I got from Wendy LAST year- - - I wanted to look it.  This was that book of scientific conversions, terms, and formulas, as well as various tool calibrations.  Someone had stolen it- - and otherwise had done some rearranging of the items on top of my bookcase and also pushed the bookcase back to the wall so that my Stereo system darn near fell off the bookcase and onto the floor. I went to the front office to complain but - - you know- - this Christmas is so screwed allready.  I should have suspected it would Keep On "being screwed".  There is still the whole Major Furniture and Room Clean-out thing hanging over my head, assuming they still want to do that.  Progress in any room has come to a halt. But then you have two things I really wanted to go to - - on the very same day and at almost the same Time.  You have this illness which began promptly at the start of Wednesday afternoon, just after a visit from you-know-who.  I thought the flu-cold would lift but it didn't and I am still suffering from it, and almost strangled on my own mucus in a coughing spell at the dinner table.  I was about THAT far from excusing myself from the table (and croke out in the hall or something)  Of course this News Cycle really sucks.  We have no budget deal and the fiscal cliff calls us still to jump over it.  All I can say is "Per chance it might be the lesser of several other evils and go ahead and Just Do It - and it might not be as bad as we all are fearing.  We learn to compartmentalize.  We know our lives suck and all this Christmas bullshit with babes in mangers is just that.  It's verbiage from long ago to make us feel better envoking Prophecies from the Bible that have long since Failed.  (Selah)  I'd rather be a Jew because at least THEY know the Messiah, if there is even to be one, has not come yet.  And also the feast of the eight lights commemorates something that Really Happened and not some supposed hope or glimmer of an old pagan idea that never came off as advertised.

Well - - - Happy Doom's Day!

I hope everybody survived the end of the world OK.  The Griffith Park observatory was going to stay open till 12:01 tomorrow morning when they usually close at ten, just to prove that we successfully got through today.  It's funny that NASA would actually produce a video laying out a careful explanation as to why the world isn't going to end today.  I guess one guy’s sales of emergency shelter rooms has skyrocketed this month.  The funny thing is - that it it were "an ending of Time itself" or even some Supernatural Intervention in the affairs of man on planet Earth, mortal men would be Powerless to combat it.  (Selah) The last three nights have really been cold.  The previous night it got down to thirteen degrees in the Antelope Valley, which isn’t that far away.  I think that was a record.  I think this cold virus I have now was definitely cold weather caused.  In terms of the impending fiscal cliff it looks like we aren’t going to solve anything before Christmas.  John Boehner had his scheduled vote in the house on “Plan B” yesterday, but he canceled it and the house members went home for the holidays, because he didn’t have the votes.  This tax bill would have increased taxes on the middle class, but reduced what the wealthy would pay in contrast to the President’s plan.  The President proposed that the demarcation line be moved from $250.000 to $400,000 and also that Medicare coverage not start till age 67 and that we virtually eliminate the cost of living increase for security, which is less than three percent now, when the actual inflation rate is seven.  But John Boehner thinks even less than three percent is too much.  At any rate that plan failed, too.  As far as I am concerned, much as I’ve proposed all along, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if we just “went over the fiscal cliff”.  Who knows?  It could turn out the thing was a lot less scareyer than we all thought. After all some had doubts about Clinton’s tax hike in 1993 but that worked out all right.  We haven’t heard that much about College Bowl games lately.  Personally I haven’t thought about a lot of stuff lately, and I pretty much “phoned in” the last two blog postings, the one Tuesday and the one on Saturday   I just haven’t allowed myself to even think at all in “creative” terms or organizing ideas.  When I think of all the pre Christmas periods there have been over the past few years, I conjure up a whole lot more negative events and feelings from this year than I do positive ones.  That’s for sure.

Finally the NRA has weighed on on this whole New Town shooting crisis.  Their solution is that we need to screen better for mental illness and scale back the extremity of the violent video games and enforce age restriction laws to match the manufacturer’s ratings.  But the elephant in the room is obviously the guns.  This NRA spokesman was downright brash and irritating with his remarks.  He says “The cure for bed men with guns is good men with guns”.  Yeah, but what if the bad guy is armed with fifty calabre solid body “cop killer” bullets?  What then.  Clearly other countries have video games and violent movies, but have only a small fraction of our murder rate.  The clear malidy in our society is this “gun culture” we have.  People used to think of the National Rifle Association as an organization to help people who own guns use them safely.  But clearly the organization is out of touch with its own rank and file membership.  Many people said, “Just wait till after the election and the President will move to take away our guns”.  I guess that’s what you’d call a self fulfilling prophecy.  But who would have guessed there would be at least four major shootings in the past five months?  What are these gun nuts really expecting the President to do about our “present distress”.  Nothing?  But as it was pointed out- - if the total goal of the NRA is to jack up gun sales, they have succeeded.  But the NRA has to ask itself, “Just as what point do our own goals conflict with the interests of American society, at large?”  Yeah.

It's Good to Resolve Lingering Issues

It seems some sort of budget agreement or accords are in the works.  John Boehner has upped the anti to one trillion in new revenue that he'll agree to, and the last I checked that means giving ascent to a tax hike rate raise.  This is a good thing.  It was pointed out that none of the Republican senators who favor the NRA stance on guns, agreed to come on any of the network news interview shows last weekend, and for the longest time the NRA itself made no statement at all.  Of course the rank and file of the NRA membership is not nearly so anti gun regulation as the NRA organization is itself.  The NRA should be cognizent of this reality and adjust accordingly.  Enough anti gun statements have been made by all sectors of the political spectrum that I am confident perhaps for the first time that Something at least will be done about this issue.  There seems to be agreement on closing the gun show loophole at least.  If they did what they do with cars they would make you be qualified to use a firearm the same way you have to qualify to get a license to drive a car.  But when you buy a car from a private party there is no requirement for a "background check" to check for arrests or mental institution inturnment merely by the purchase of an automobile.  Perhaps this licensing rout is the way to go on this issue.  I guess perhaps they could have roaving cops around to demand "lets see your gun license".  Of course that mother of Adam was kind of a survivalist nut who taught her gun to shoot and how to handle a gun safely.  There are still unanswered questions in my mind just what motivated the shooter go target a bunch of innocent school children.  I see no "rage against children" as a prominent thing in his personality.  Nobody seems to have thought he had a murderous personality, only that he has "social problems".  Most people with aspurgers syndrone aren't this latently violent.  The tide is turning of course on several other main issues in society.  Society is transforming its stance on the gay marriage issue.  And conservatives are admitting they have to do Something or lose the Latino vote for all time - - on the subject of Legal - - immigration, or making the people who are here by circumstance Legal and not wanted suspects that can be picked up at any time.  Also on Global Warming, the idea of calling this whole thing a "made up hoax" is approaching the ludicris nature of other deniers such as those who deny that we ever landed on the Moon, or that the Holicaust ever existed.

Personal stress has gotten to me lately and today my blood pressure was 140 over 90, which by far is the highest since June of 2001.  Some issues are getting resolved.  Among these are the scheduling conflicts between the two major Christmas gatherings this Saturday.  I also found out I will be getting sixty dollars for Christmas.  And I found out that the mystery green capsule someone slipped into my medication that I took anyway and regretted- - was only an anti-biotic, and nothing dangerous.  I managed to get more coffee filters without having to go to Wall Mart tomorrow.  I've been worried about that for a while.  I found out one of the things on my computer that's a pain in the ass- - - is probably malware and can be deleted without fear of messing up anything.  I still have the problem of flook pops and crackles and static on music playback.  This remains unresolved.  I think if we can get past this budget impass, the "economic uncertainty" we've been experiancing lately- - will pass and that a whole lot of businesses will feel more confident about spending and hopefully attracting new customers willing to spend their cash.  Clearly there is a lot of money to be made in "green jobs".  Many of us have been depressed by all these recent shootings, and there have been a lot more than the four major shootings.  It's not just the Siek temple or a Colorado theater, or a Portland shopping mall, or a New England school.  The entire year of 2012 has been peppered with these multiple shootings including a white guy outside a fast food store firing into a car filled with Blacks that was playing loud music.  We had the shots fired incident at the Newport shopping center.  A number of shooting plots have been foiled and people arrested.   Some say it's because "America has lost God as a part of our societal consciousness.  But I don't know of any terrorists atheists who claim they did what they did to promote atheism, or to protest some Christmas nativity exhibit.  Atheists are not a violent group  And now to follow are a recent bunch of rambling thoughts I've had lately.

Nicole Sandler played that song of “Maybe it’s the guns” or “I’d take away their guns” that she has played several times before after shootings.  The piano at “Rick’s Place” in Casablanca only had 58 keys, they say.  What a freak!  It’s being sold today.  NASA deliberately crashed two space crafts named “Ebb” and “Flow” into the mountain near the Moon’s north pole so as to keep it from crashing at “historic sites”.   We just passed the fortieth anniversary of the Apollo 17 final moon landing.  Daniel Inowe died today at age 89 having been a senator now for 59 years, which has got to be some kind of a record, perhaps eclipsing Robert Byrd’s.  Hillary Clinton became violently ill with a serious stomach virus last week and was badly dehydrated and fell in the shower or something and hit her head, and developed a concussion.  When she began exhibiting symptoms they checked her out just to make sure that’s all it was.  I looked up all the Robert Johnston’s in the Wickipedia just out of idle curiosity.  The one guy was a confederate general.  Johnston claims to have written several highly obscure Elvis movie songs.  It seems that Adam Lanza’s mother may have been a bit of a kook herself.  She was a survivalist and regularly took her son to the gun range and stressed to him the need for safety at all times.  Apparently Adam was a Veegan, which is strange.  Those boy and girl twins who just turned six and the girl was in the bathroom hiding out with that blonde teacher.  That was Ariel, and her twin brother, Noah, died, and was laid to rest today.  Now they are saying that the school may never reopen, which seems to me like an extreme step to take.  Now they are saying that two of the adult teachers who were hit with gun fire, survived- so the death toll used to be eight. 

In terms of football predictions I was flawless until the evening game.  Perhaps it could be argued "well, these games were easy to "call" in advance to begin with".  Maybe.  Maybe it was sudden divine insight, however you wish to interpret that.  I was right in all of the game predictions I wrote down, and any I just made mentally and never wrote down, I was right about those too.  Denver beat Baltimore on the CBS morning game.  The Vikings beat the Rams in a game I never speculated on.  That was the “bonus game”.  The GB Packers defeated the Chicago bears, and in the afternoon game on FOX Dallas defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers.  Only on the evening game did I mess up.  I had predicted New England would defeat San Francisco, and they darn near did.  They brought the score all the way back from 31 to 3, to a score of 31 to 31, before the ‘49ers got their second wind, and forget ahead.  This game with Al Michaels calling it- - ran till after nine.  I was in a frenzy looking for that long sleeved gray shirt and had gotten buried in the covers.  Joe gave me a Philly cigarette as a “Christmas present” and then James gave Joe some package snack item.  The Hobbit was the number one grossing Movie for the weekend, setting new records of 80 million or something.  This movie is filmed at 48 frames per second, roomered soon to become the industry standard, and some theaters show the thing in 3 D.  I had “On the Red Carpet” briefly, but switched to the game on NBC, but also watched most of the hour of America’s Funniest Home Videos.  So I have been diverging from my Sunday night routine lately

Sometimes - Life Can Be A Real Drag

Well, I'm too down in the dumps to come up with anything really original today

 so instead I am putting forth the following - - -

This is after seven on Saturday December 15, 2012 and the jinxyness continues here in lavender background.  I haven’t experienced any sustained “positive’ period since it was summer back around mid September, I don’t think.  This computer is still booting more slowly despite the act I was able to run the file clean-up and other stuff in Accronis late this morning.  I double checked with Judy to make sure I was taking the steps in the right order, which I was not, and she set me straight.   It’s been cold today.  They said we made it to 62 today but I doubt that.  I remember being out on the patio after lunch with Wally and Keith in the shade and being cold in the wind.  I was telling Wally how I’d have to reset the default speaker vs headphone settings every time I used the new phones.  And I told him that I couldn’t get the speakers back till I rebooted, which I don’t think is normal.  Wally said that Marilyn Monroe used to work as a riveter during World War II, which had to be back when she was a teenager.  She began making movies in the late ‘forties.  Tonight Dennis was despairing of their ever finding a cure for almost any systemic cancer, unless the Lord comes back, or resurrected in Death.  James and Dennis were saying “Our bodies are so complex only our creator fully understands them.

Last night it was the usual ABC game shows.  Nikita wasn’t on, so we watched Chef Ramsey.  They reviewed three restaurant disasters in Baltimore, and Philadelphia, and one in New Jersey.  The latter two appear to be mainly Italian food restaurants.  Then at nine was “Fringe”.  I guess I went to bed about a quarter to ten.  I slept well and first woke at five but after twenty winks didn’t get up till ten to six.  I took a long hot shower to get warm.  As per Saturday usual I turned on KNX radio and listened to “rewind” and all that.  They said that out of respect for the dead at that New Town school, the Republicans would not deliver a rebuttal to the President’s address today.  I think that was wise.  It was sure cold in this room.

We had oatmeal and I used a pink sugar from my pocket.  Eventually we got a fried egg and toast, with nothing to put on it.  Dr. Levy was here early.  There were some new weirdos in class I’d never seen before, who weren’t very articulate during “check-in”.  I was near last and went through a fast recitation of my problems.  After this Dr. Levy wanted to talk about goals for the new year because he didn’t feel like talking about the school shooting.  Dr. Levy says he’d like to learn to be an expert photographer and take the sort of high quality the professionals take, and use a better camera.  Someone let it slip that nobody in Vince’s computer class does much to contribute to those complicated video technics.  Other than saying he was in San Francisco last week, Dr. Levy said virtually nothing about where he’d been or what he’d been doing the past three weeks, but made some joke about he and his wife not getting along.  Dr. Levy mentioned he’d like to have all these speakers he knows come and make a presentation in class.  One brother is a retired police commander, and another two relatives are pharmicists.  I indicated I’d like to hear one of them.  Mike Deletore after making light over his “not leaving three weeks ago” then said he’d like to learn basic computer.  We went till sometime after nine.  Then I went with Rosemary (?) to her room to look at minoras and other things in her room.  Dr. Levy said he wanted someone with him because it would “make it easier to find an excuse to leave, since she loves to talk a lot”.  The room was warm enough but smelled of feces or some sort.  Then I went with him and he gave me a five dollar bill.  Earlier he said that I could make both social gatherings if I attended his at four and then went on to my brother’s house about five thirty.  In terms of goals- - naturally I thought of things like “getting enough to eat” and not freezing to death, and people not dropping like flies around here who turned out “to be a lot sicker than anyone thought”.  It’s depressing on the soul.  Dr. Levy said “You people think this place is bad, but take my word for it, just about every other place is worse.  Some places are in such bad neighborhoods you don’t dare walk on the streets because of the high crime rate”.  And I had to agree with him about that.  I’ve seen these other places.  I went to the liquor store and bought a pack of John Black grape, and a jar of Folgiers instant coffee.  Then I paid Richard Moore back three cigarettes I owed him.  At this time I thought “things are looking up today”.

Actually I thought of saying, “You don’t think you could throw in an additional dollar fifty for an eight pack of chocolate donuts, could you?”  This computer is still just as slow after the clean, up.  I am increasingly plagued with static and various pops and crackles- when I do anything audio on the internet.  It’s not just one source now.  It’s on the British Blues station, and also on Chris Matthews.  All the cords appear to be plugged in properly leaving it a question as to what is causing it.  I played a game of Pinball just before lunch, and did extrordenarily well playing just one game.  Got a really high score.  But then I saw a disconcerting sight on my way to the dining room.  The cleaning staff was doing one of those major “spring cleaning” jobs in Wally’s room with the furniture being pulled out and stuff being chucked in the trash can.  We had cabbage soup for lunch, which is the only thing we got seconds on.  We had a chef’s salad.  I wonder about some of these people who salt their salads.  We had cantaloupe for desert.  I had Leo Le Port on and he was talking about connections of fax machines and printers to various other things- - that was a little esoteric.  Later on I watched the lengthly concluding minutes of the Indiana and Butler game on CBS two.  Butler ended up upsetting Indiana by a point or something- - and Indiana blew their “ghost of a chance” to pull out the game at the buzzer.

I decided to turn on Chris Matthews earlier than my normal routing today.  I watched all of Thursday show and the long first segment of Wednesday’s show, or maybe it was all of Wednesday and the start of Tuesday.  That’s it.  But then Nora was making the rounds on this side of the hall and spending time in a lot of the rooms.  I feared perhaps I’d get that major room cleaning today and have to leave.  But when Nora came she didn’t stay long.  Then I watched the ABC sports review program.  I think Dallas will beat Pittsburgh, and alas, Green Bay will beat the Bears, but I am predicting that the Texans and Denver will win their respective games, if anyone cares.  The Baltimore Ravens are high now, but are headed into a slump.

We had some spaghetti type concoction for dinner that was good, and carrots and a green salad.  Laura started with the cart on our side, which pleased and surprised me.  Most of us had seconds on everything.  We had strawberry yogurt for desert.  I made instant coffee.  Of course the shooting is still dominating the news, with the Mc Laughlin group relying on yesterday’s outdated information, like that the father was killed.  The town was considered one of the safest towns in the country, and the school was considered one of the best elementary schools in the country, and had one of the best security set-ups, even with student drills, in the country.  But all of that could not prevent what happened.  I watched the Mc Laughlin group.  The other topics raised were the budget impass, and the Fed Chairman blatantly tying monetary growth to the progress of the economy, saying he’ll end his extrordenary stimulation policies when the unemployment rate drops below 6.5% - which is a ways off.  Many Republicans are jumping ship and advocating that the Republicans give in to the idea of a “tax hike” for the rich, but then hold the democrats accountable to produce sizable “entitlement” cuts at some point down the line.  It may be that we’ll just have to go for the hike to age 67 for Medicare, and damn the hardship it will cause so many people.  It’s the price of making Mitch Mc Conell happy.  John Mc Laughlin for his end of how prediction stated that the economy would dip into another major recession in 2013.   Mort stated that Mayor Bloomberg has decimated the crime rate in New York with the murder rate only about an eighth or something of what it had been only a few years before, partially due to law enforcement’s “stop and frisk” policy.  I think this is a pretty good idea since if a person on the street has a gun, you know he doesn’t have it legally.