great put-down... Barney Frank places him in 'cuckoo-land'.
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Why does this sound so familiar?
Having had my mail I'd sent home from Austria confiscated, it sounds really familiar, all right. And the missing ones were from the only person I had written to about politics. In Norway. Uh-huh....
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I threw up in my mouf.... hypocrisy
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Fuck Newt to hell and back!
Hypocrisy
The blowhards need to be fired.
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Over the weekend.... I visited Tee-vee's netherworld
Which consists of Sunday and Monday chez RenB, I decided to delve into the nether world of tee-vee offered on my subscription channel, which seems to be expanding at the most amazing rate.
They are so ambitious! And I guess I got in on the ground floor of their enterprise. New series keep popping up, things I've read negative things about, and never really wanted to see. But it rained and I was bored, and although a few of them have been up there a while.... I wasn't really tempted to waste my time, and didn't click. As in CSI, the entire crap spinoffs, the Kardashians, whoever they might be, and all the Real Housewives... uh-uh. Not willing to go there.
However, the pseudo prude Mika Brzezinski of morning Joe was moaning and complaining about her twelve year old daughter who just HAD to see the final season's episode of Jersey Shore, and how terrible it is.
This piqued my curiosity, and I entered a world of such bizarre dimensions, I was spitless. What I watched was an hour's worth of a 'Big Brother' style show and it seems that all these people on it DO are to be half-way ok with one another during the day, and then go out and get shit-faced drunk in the evenings, and copulate or get in one another's faces so they can express their real distaste for one another, and yell Fuck You at one another a lot.
And the way Willie Geist always goes ON about 'Snookie' in his 'news you can't use' segments.... Well.... I didn't expect a sawed-off dwarf with weird hair and so much make-up, it looked like she put it on with a trowel... and with a potty mouth that reminded me of the troll lady in Merlin in Season Two. The only thing missing was the farts, and they made up for that with the cast cheering on the misshaped doggie who kept messing on their living room carpet.
The guys on the show have tortured themselves into misshapened nightmares of what Arnold Schwarzenegger visualised for himself in his idiocy for body-building, and have a vocabulary of maybe four thousand words. And are jerks.
So why did I watch one full episode? I wanted to know whereof I speak. But I have two questions. Why would Mika Brzezinski let her twelve year old daughter watch that piece of shit, and why would it be so popular? She, who prides herself on being a strict Mom?
Ohhhh, yeah, right. It's the 'elitist' thing. Let's face it, the kids are gonna hear it on the street, and it's 'in' with the other kids in her children's private upper-crust school, so she's gonna be good with peer pressure, so the kids will be 'in' or something like that? And the media is gonna drive disgusting behaviour, because it sells, and the demographics demand it, or something, I don't friggin' know. I swear, the next time she goes ON about being a responsible parent, I will send an e-mail.
I'm surprised at what passes for 'entertainment', nowadays, and the sort of neanderthal behaviour which is deemed 'cool'. All I see is exploited young people who are probably being egged on to act as outrageously as possible and selling it as 'cool. 'To the detriment of young people who are impressionable and think that is the way to be successful and popular.
And the people who produce that crap think all is perfectly ok. It's a good thing my Mom isn't around to see that. To think I got grounded for being caught reading 'GoneWith the Wind' .... 'because it told all about life'.
And yes, we knew ALL the vulgar words, wouldn't have dared use them in front of our families... and dosed them out where it was DESERVED, not as your regular way of expressing yourself. There are far more scathing ways to use other words to cut right to the bone, believe me.
After gasping for air, and going out for a Döner, which is the turkish version of a submarine 'samwich', I felt fortified, and ready to face a new adventure in US media horror: 'Dancing With The Stars'. Twelfth (!!!) season, first episode.
This I've heard of as well and seen some clips from people who watch this shit, and post ones of people who fail miserably. It's a BBC franchise, and they are so fake and perverse, it defies description. First time I saw a full episode. My Döner wasn't sitting well from the beginning to the end of this. Thirty-two tooth salutes are de rigeur... Eeeew. There was some vulgar, overweight, absolutely disgusting person called Wendy Williams on it. The whole thing was tired, a couple of pairs who were actually good, and I AM TOO OLD, I don't get it. Kirstie Allie was at least funny and proficient. And after several You Tube videos.... I want to punch Piers Morgan in the nose. And I don't know who that screamer third judge is, but he is NOT funny. Or amusing. Or of any value in watching him on tee-vee of any sort. If he really took over Larry King's spot, well, call out the Titanic Orchestra, because that man is going to sink.
So it rained and rained, and I ended up more or less in shock and billious. And found they put up 'Nurse Jackie', which I'd heard about. Edie Falco formerly of the Sopranos, hey. Two episodes from the new season. Too early to say anything about it.
And they put up some UK soaps. Coronation Street, which I've always heard of. I couldn't understand a single word. Seemingly they offer subtitles for the rest of the UK, so it wasn't me. And 'East Enders', which might turn out to be interesting, and 'Emmerdale', which immediately gained my interest. I still don't know what they are ABOUT, but I could at least understand them.
But then I found they are posting 'Shit My Dad Says'. PAYDIRT! I found it so funny. I'd heard about that too. Some guy in reality got sandbagged, moved in with his 74 year old father, and started a blog of the same name, which is very funny, have read some of it. The guy is so non-pc and hilarious.
It gained so much attention, it got turned into a tee-vee series, with William Shattner as the father. I told Peter to look out for it on the phone today, he says he'd seen the title somewhere so will try to watch it if he can find it, although he couldn't picture William Shattner being funny. And I said, 'believe me, he is'. There are so many gay jokes of the good kind in it, not denigrating, but genuinely funny.
My favorite so far was the fifth episode, season one. He going on about respecting one another's property, but borrows his son's jacket to a friend, which ends up on a dead man, and he has to get it back to prove he doesn't break his code of honor, crashes the wake, the corpse is wearing it, the family thinks he was the 'secret' Ed who was never to be revealed, and haul him up to give a eulogy. Ed thinks the guy had an affair, really blows it referring to his 'gay' relationship--which shocks the family, because they thought their father was an alcoholic, and that the real Ed was his sponsor, and .... well... I laughed myself sick. It ended well... but is very funny. Not all of them, but enough to keep you going.
SO, I guess if you want to be entertained, 'Shit My Dad Says' is lots of fun, just for a half hour of merriment, and well-made comedy. And the blog is worth looking at too. Reality-based.
By that time, I decided to go into hibernation, and the latter show was a remedy for a severe shock to the system.
But wouldn't you know.... I got up today, and of COURSE I had to watch my very favourite Soap, One Life To Live. That show is Soaps on steroids, SO WHAT DID MY TIRED EYES SEE this morning?
Wendy Williams as a gossip newscaster, and one of the non-descript, ugly, make-up applied-with-a-trowel Kardashian sisters who can read a line, but can't act her way out of a paper bag. I recognised Wendy from that blowsy number she did on Dancing With The Stars, but the other?
The comments board lit up with indignation, and they want both of them OFF the show, like yesterday. Some of them said the show had brought them on to boost ratings. And reach a new demographic. Well, that's lame. When General Hospital was in trouble, they brought in Liz Taylor. Now they at least have James Franco, who can ACT... Not some spoiled little Princess who got her own reality show to stick it to her own generation to show how excessively she can SHOP, and screw around. The sooner she gets out of there, the better. Wendy Williams was at least faintly amusing.
Faintly.
After all that.... I just felt dirty. And disgusted. That's 'Murkin culture? I'd rather go to New Yawk and see 'The Book of Mormon', which has gotten super reviews. From the makers of South Park. Really.
in review...
After having my usual depression after going to Gamlitz, ruminating on how things in the world seem to be going. Enough to depress me even more. Rachel Maddow and team got into hot water with their Thursday night show. Let's see, the blow-out preventors in the drilling stations in the Gulf.... don't ever work, faulty design. Now big dead zones there as a result of the plumes... How encouraging. But new licences are being given out anyway, and the Department of the Interior got on their case, they were very angry. But they said they'd keep reporting anyway... Which is good.
And then Fukushima Daiichi... have to say, the people working to control that plant are very brave.... or suicidal. They seem to have provided some control over the nuclear disaster so far, but looks like they are losing the battle to me... radiation in the drinking water, food, etc.
Yes, depressing.
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Aires Birfday, yay... or something...
It being Peter's birthday, of course I had to go and visit him. The trip down was uneventful, ear-drum punctruring grade school kids at the stop in Ehrenhausen, and a chattering group of senior citizens on the train back. Peter was overjoyed to see me, and I spent an hour correcting his Rasputin look, because they were gonna par-tay. As last year. Got him out into the sun and the air, because I don't think he ventures out alone down there... he saves that for Graz and trying to run away.
At two-something, they brought in what I call the 'rocket cake'... That really sparkles, and is about the only rockets that go off around here, thank goodness...
They sang Happy Birthday--in English, which is weird... and Hoch soll er leben, which is not, and the rocket reached it's apogee. 
Staff lined up to present best wishes for good health, and so on as is the custom...
And Peter looked happy with his cake. He got a chocolate bar and a bottle of white wine.
The cake was delicious. Bottom filling rasperry which tasted like freshly harvested, and a very light, hardly sweetened whipped cream with moist chocolate layers. And yes I tasted before shooting it. Sue me.
All in all, nice and he's looking good for his 72 years.
You have to hand it to them if they are rich
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Dreamscape with variants....
It must have been around the time he was on variant E before he realised what was going on. He was on a train platform, the time of day not so ascertainable, as it was just grey. He knew he had to get to Grado, although he couldn't imagine why, it was the only place in Italy that had thoroughly bored him.
But there was no denying it: there was the sign after all, blue neon letters with a red border. And he thought, that's wrong, it looks like a cinema theater exit sign you'd put over the doors. This one read 'Italy'. He thought that strange as well, as it was in the wrong language, but it didn't upset him.
A voice over the loudspeakers explained the car he'd reserved had been decoupled but would be arriving soon... but it turned into a warning that there was a bomb on board, and the platforms were to be cleared immediately.
So he ran to get outside the station. Everyone did, as fast as they could, although he only heard their shouts and the sound of their feet on the marble. He was focused on the huge rectangle of light at the station's entrance, which meant escape. There was a muffled explosion behind him.
And he was immediately in variant F: back on the platform, but on another, although it looked the same outwardly. And the same sign, 'Italy' hanging improbably out over the tracks. And the waiting was making him impatient. He muttering 'Gradno', instead of Grado. It was an insult, his local dialect of 'just barely', which he had labeled that vacation.
Out of nowhere, a white drone appeared, looking like a huge angry mosquito, and it was manned, except he couldn't see who was inside. There was a long white bar which had pressed him down to the ground, leaving him no room to wriggle out from under it. It didn't hurt. He was just annoyed. No one was coming to help, but inwardly, he shrugged, because he knew: there would be other variants, and their number was infinite. So he just felt.... resigned to it.
Don't ask me what this means, because I do not know.
Wall Street and Gas-Food prices
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Beck Takedown!
Oh fun.... O'Donnell is ramping up his snark... different from Olbermann's but effective.
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Crash course...
This is interesting....
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Beyond the pale.... why can't 'Murkins be
like the Japanese.
I did a moratorium yesterday, because I didn't want to add to any panic, given the very dark thoughts I was having, or fears.
But what I have been seeing has a basis in experience. Sure, the catastrophe was twenty-five years ago, but those things really stay fresh in your memory. And seemingly, no one has learned one iota since Tschernobyl when the shit hits the fan, and know what to do. Latest info? Yeah, they're gonna throw water on it. Good luck with THAT shit.... Even US experts have begun saying they need the Russian Hail Mary pass, and cover the reactors with cement.
And another report: in the US, they went into a panic buying up all the iodide they could find to avoid thyroid cancer. Uh-huh.
Well... a very respectable expert and physicist explained to all and sundry on the TODAY show... that doesn't do doodley-squat. And shouldn't be the main concern anyway. Concerns should be about released strontium, which affects bones and bone marrow. But the most horrible of what gets released is Cäsium... which can affect everything in your body, and there is no antidote that I ever heard of for that, and we had a lot of it here, and they reacted properly, places to avoid at all costs, but there's a problem with that. That element takes 300 years to decay. Can we say we're 'jolly'????
Everything I've seen today borders on 'oh, all will be well, all will be entirely well....' Uh-huh, have heard it before, thank you. Obviously, the radiation levels weren't so high in my area as to cause noticeable problems... but I do not think that any studies were ever conducted to track a rise in levels of certain cancers and other related sicknesses here either. It was a tragedy for us, unseeable, unknowable, and people moved on... but for people of my generation, it was a lesson and struck a fear into us that lasts to this day a quarter of a century later.
So far... I don't think there is much danger in what might get carried on the winds a half a world away in either direction. So far... There might be a little, but negligible. Where was the concern when the US and France tested a-bombs in in the South Pacific, and even Nevada? Even marching their troops up to see how they would react at several miles distance when they blew them up? No one sort of talks about that, now do they?
Hell, even W. was with the Legion outside Tahiti, and had to do that, watching from an island not far away, he told me that, and it didn't seem to be one of his favourite. experiences.
But hell.... everything was 'tiny' and not part of the global economy, so just fuck those tiny atolls, or whatever they were.
I guess I'm trying to say I am disgusted. The people who are really going to suffer are the people in Japan. And US hysteria among certain segments of the population are unwarranted. They should worry about the toxins in their own areas, and fracking, which could lead to setting their tap water on fire, but oh, don't they need that natural gas, hey. I wouldn't want to drink that shit....
No, all that worries me right now are the people in Japan who got a triple-whammy.
And if I see one more asshole Xtian gloating about how this is God's revenge for Pearl Harbor on Twitter, I might trash my 'machine'.
Oh holy fuck.....
I took a nap, and wanted to see something positive. and got a rude awakening. News here, but only if you speak German. A third meltdown after two are already critical. This is going to be Sooooo bad. Yup. GE.... have fun with that, the Amis nuke Japan yet again.
I spent a few hours on the internets last nite....
And some of the callousness, and hatefulness of what I saw on Twitter feeds made me feel spitless. And despairing. How can people FEEL like that? We're all interconnected, whether we like it or not, we are a global human family. And some 'entertainment' in the US right now makes me feel ashamed of what the culture I grew up in has become.
Self-righteous, selfish, and devoid of any community feeling, and angry and envious of anyone who gets more than they do. It is reflected in tee-vee shows... like 90210, or Gossip Girl, and a number of others. A generation showing rich, entitled vixen and toy boys who lack any sense of morality, other than what can make their lives richer, and have no reticence at screwing over anyone to get what they want.
That is CRASS, admittedly. But... the tweets show us how spiteful, and amoral, and selfish people have become. So it isn't just the media. They think it might get them somewhere.
Thus I have to ask a question in the form of a song, one which is gonna be timeless....
Just checked my tracking and noticed a jump
It seems people get a real charge out of Daylight Savings Time. Yeah, it was a funny story. But I really think there are things that are more important.
And yes, I posted two YouTube videos that were from a Brit Tee-vee show out of Russia. Sue me. I think that story far more important than trying to figure out how you're gonna milk the cows an hour earlier.
Oh, this is 'fun'....
Why am I getting flashbacks?...... And I love the use of the words, 'probably' and 'hopefully'.... ' Been there, done that... Nothing. There is nothing you can do. This GUY is a real tool. Love the stuttering when the 'journalist' starts doing her job and trying to corner him. And of COURSE it has to end with a brilliantly optimistic Xtian view of how people are holding up. How self-deceiving. When people are in crisis, they help. It's not some sort of 'miracle'.
And then the bed jumped across the floor.. it was fun.
Tremblor, Tsunami, possible nuclear catastrophe? Trifecta? Gawwd, I hate the news sometimes.
I hate earthquakes, have been in a few tiny ones, but it was enough to frighten me. And could really go into Flipper mode when I would read of ones in CA, or Japan, and immediately call to find out if my friends there were ok, and it would amuse the hell out of them. They were so used to them, it was just a day in the life. Although H. in Kobe was a bit shaken, as that one was major, but he survived it just fine, thank you.
And I was shocked to learn that Tschernobyl happened 25 years ago.... because it seems like yesterday to me. I am SO hoping that those reactors in Japan aren't going to make that seem like something simple in comparison, and am not yelling fire in a crowded theater. Yet.
I will never forget waking up, planning to go swimming, and turning on the radio for weather news. Only to hear warnings about staying indoors, keeping the windows shut, and that we had high levels of radiation out there. And yes, Austria isn't next door to Tschernobyl, but you have this thing called 'wind'. And it got blown here to our door. The feeling of impotence when you hear that is overpowering. And I know, you had to BE there, but believe me, it was frightening. Seeing produce from the first crop being pulled off the stands as fast as possible by health department workers made it worse somehow. They were to be destroyed. Two weeks later going to the swimming hole and seeing dandelions knee-high with stalks as thick as my forearm added to the horror. For the next 280 years, mushrooms from some areas are not to be eaten, because they stored up all the Cäsium 327 and are dangerous to eat. And how I loved those things... So something like that just doesn't go away two decades later.
The news about the reactors in Japan seems to be getting worse and worse. And of course, the nuclear power lobby is going to make it seem harmless. That is what they do. But I am very sceptical. Very. The Russians kept a cap on the information, and at last report, over 200,000 people died. Evacuating
people within a 20 kilometer perimeter around the plants doesn't seem to be reassuring to me. They should make it much wider. If only to be on the safe side.
Add the fact that the destruction is so bad, they can't move people out of there quickly is only going to make it much worse. Nuclear power to my mind is the most dangerous invention of the last century. Man playing God, and not realising the consequences, or how Nature can really kill your best laid plans, and put a capper on it, costing thousands of lives.
And it will come back to the 'vermaledeited' corporations. Let's see, BP messed up the entire Gulf last year, and now GE---which purportedly doesn't pay one cent in taxes in the US--- is gonna mess up Japan. How nice. I hope their emergency plans are better than those of BP. But am not so confident about that. If it goes south... a lot of people will pay with their lives and health. But hey, they make money, after all....
Of all the newscasts from yesterday... MSNBC blocked virtually every report to be seen outside the US. 'This video can not be shown due to usage restrictions.' (This was Nightly News w/Brian Williams). ABC has a site that was useful for information. The reporting was soft-peddling the nuclear plant story, more on personal experiences during the earthquake. And relying heavily on YouTube videos people had recorded during it. Which I had seen mostly 24 hours earlier on the YouTube site anyway. Most of them.
However, ABC had a live Twitter feed, and THAT was interesting. There were 'Murkin Bible-bangers evincing Schadenfreude, which didn't seem 'Christian' to me at all. And people sending their prayers till someone said they should get off their asses and send a couple of bucks to the Red Cross or Salvation Army.
My favorite was tongue-in-cheek, the sort of humour which masks worry and a sort of desperation. 'That's it, I'm leaving LA and taking all the sushi with me. And the woman in 34B.' (I hope I quoted that correctly.) It is the sort of thing I would expect from someone living in an active earthquake zone, the superficial nonchalance, but the worry beneath.
Just like my friends in San Diego back then. I think it was a five on Richter. So I called. 'We were asleep, and the bed bounced across the floor. It was fun.' And laughing at me for worrying.
I do not wish to downplay any part of the triple-whammy that Japan has had to suffer. It's horrendous in every sense. But I do know that the mind set of people who live in such regions gives them a built in sense of being realistic about the dangers in living where they do. It is the nuclear part that really upsets me the most... because that should have been avoidable.
Just sayin'
oooo a Newt Takedown that rocks!
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Fascism in NH?????
This makes me literally ill.
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Corporations win.... shifting wealth
Rachel always nails it....
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himmiHERRgottKruziFIXsakramenthallelujah! Peter ran away again
Which is swearing but not being profane.
Sometimes I really believe in a sort of collective consciousness. As if you feel something is in the air, and do something you normally do not do. Like a sort of telepathy.
Today is a case in point. I normally do not check my e-mail after five in the evening and wait till the morning when I fire up the lap top. But tonite, I had the urge to look, and whaddaya know... from my old work-place.
From my eldest colleague. 'Peter is here and waiting for you (in the hotel).' Good Gawwd!!!! was my only reaction. And 'WHAAA????' Well... after thinking for a moment which lasted five minutes with the little panic button having been pressed in my mind and all that was going on was 'Think! Think! Think!' I called the nursing home to see if he'd been kicked out or run away. Although I couldn't imagine how he'd get to Graz all the way from Gamlitz. Insane.
So that had to be first. And I got a nurse's aide, who passed me on to the head nurse, who passed me on to Juliana, and they were driving me crazy with me asking, 'did he go missing?' and getting no answer.
Juliana is where the buck stops, but the director was in the background, I know his voice. So I told her I'd gotten the e-mail, and where he was, and why, and that our former colleague had alerted me. Who he was? 'Chief Receptionist'. 'Oh, you mean Front Office'. (Curse you, Bill Gates....)
D. kept his cool. And he wasn't taking their word at face value for who they were, and asked that I call him to confirm it was really them. Kudos to D. for doing that.
'What's he dressed in? Is he in his wheelchair?' (We have to remember the LAST time he tried this he was only wearing a johnny, but landed in a long labyrinth of the cellar, so it wasn't an odd question. Red silk pajamas, and yes in his wheelchair. It's friggin' cold here still.)
Juliana was hemming and hawing all over the place, and the director would never have been there at that time of the evening, and was calling the hotel and the police from the home while we were talking. It's embarassing when your patients go AWOL, but I told her not to worry, I know how Peter ticks.
Up to the last, he was convinced I would run over there and see him. It took another moment that lasted ten minutes. How would THAT look to others if I didn't? Cold, selfish, and uncaring. Except I knew. If I had walked in there, and it's an easy ten minute's walk away, it would have made everything much worse. He would have cried and ask me to let him stay with me overnight. Jeebus, just the thought makes me cringe, let alone the embarassment.
The po-lice came and got him to take the ambulance back to Gamlitz. D. said he sighed, and said, 'That it always has to end with the police and the ambulance', and shook his head.
Am counting my blessings or serendipity that D. was there.... because most of the people working there wouldn't know us, and that he has my e-mail address, and that he is very calm. (I was known as 'Flipper'.) The three of us worked many years together. D. was consternated. But is a very good guy.
All's well that ends well.... once again. So tell me why I'm not happy about any of this. Gaawwwd.... Just another day in the life, hey.
Hoodwinking 101
Tell me again how democracy works?
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corporate class war expands... no surprise
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Wow...
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Fasching Dienstag--aka Mardi Gras
Went downtown for the annual Fasching Dienstag parade. It was loud, mobbed with people, so I just got some photos and left the 'madness'. It was 3 degrees plus, so nothing too wild in the way of costumes. There were a gaggle of kids dressed as lambs with a girl as shepherdess, and the lambs would try to break loose, and she would try to herd them back in. Cute, but they moved too fast. And a man with a weird pair of pants with a fake nekkid ass hanging out with a lipstick kiss on one cheek, and a huuuuge safety pin in his nose. It was odd enough, I guess... You can click through the rest as you wish. The Slovenians had something similar to our Krampus, but the masks are very tiny with birdlike beaks, sort of look like Ibus heads. Very strange.
Wall Street
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Are there any qustion? (And that is an old joke)
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Rachel is always fun and informative
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Blogger drives me nuts with formatting....
I cut and pasted the definition, and it was fine in the preview... but Blogger did what Blogger does. and the word 'title' in def 2 was eliminated. I could spit.
Entitlement
entitle (ɪnˈtaɪt ə l) ![[Click for IPA pronunciation guide]](https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/blogger_img_proxy/AEn0k_t3jEJPcFPqqEKVdrUYZr_uJEWTQM5gCweRWS7GBOaPNzBrMufftyyWVBTgvjeCpVVw4sIftAgnXVLoe9bs5aC8QHY5au4GVyM_bggxCAM72CidXAJErZkmxTf1M96QDz1cfB2vqrf3WAljD7_js1RZ=s0-d) | |
| — vb | |
| 1. | to give (a person) the right to do or have something; qualify; allow |
| 2. | to give a name or title to |
| 3. | to confer a title of rank or honour upon |
| [C14: from Old French entituler, from Late Latin intitulāre, from Latin titulus title ] This is a word which is erroneously being used in debates regarding Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. Oooo, we have to cut those entitlements, oooo, we have to just go after all those 'entitled' people. Can someone finally call bullshit on this term? Let's think about how this all works for a moment. You work. A part of your money goes into social security, and THAT is like you're 'forced saving away for a rainy day' 'tax'... for when you retire, and you get it back, and it is your friggin' pension. You paid it in, you get it back. It's sort of like your mom and dad teaching you to be frugal so you HAVE something for a rainy day. Sort of. Because now they say you'll only get 90 per cent of what YOU paid in. Now somewhere along the way after I left that borne of misery that was my home city, people were coerced by their companies to opt for something called 401K's. I never knew what that was, but you can find the definition here. And it is what the Rethugs want to do with social security, and medicare, and medicaid, make no mistake. Put it in the hands of Wall Street, and give people a vision of vast profits on their investment. A Ponzi scheme, and no one has learned anything as a moral since Dicken's 'Martin Chuzzlewit'. In which that was a theme. The PROBLEM is... I saw what THAT does fairly early, but never connected it to what was really going on, because I didn't understand it, and tend to mind my own business. With results that make me cringe today. We have to do a flash-back to the mid-Seventies. I was in Hampshire Plaza for some reason, they have shops and a bank my aunt worked for. And the banks had to post their current status on a board, which was just gobbledygook to me. However.... I was with this whiz kid economics major from Berlin. He looked at it and said... 'this bank is bankrupt!' And I thought, 'yeah, right...' And I was corresponding with my only girlfriend in the years after, who was working in banks, and they kept getting swallowed up, and swallowed up, and it seemed to be very odd to me, but I thought, 'well, what do YOU know?' It was like the Brecht drawing, tiny fish getting eaten up by ever bigger ones in a long line ending with a whale. Zoom ahead many years later.... the bank my aunt worked for got swallowed up by ever bigger ones, and they tanked. And her 401K? Disappeared. It's black magic, Preciousses. And that is what the Rethugs want, and I can still kick myself for not having told her what HJ so clearly saw that day in the Seventies. So I think, it's either gamble or you lose big, or you play it safe and save for your retirement. And yeah, the other things are paid for by your taxes as well, and they are beneficial to everyone. Now let us look at the first definition of the word 'entitlement'. Are you given the right to qualify? Are you given the right to have it?` Did you have a choice or take a test to QUALIFY? Did someone ALLOW you? Well on the latter, maybe someone did. Like a congressional law way back in the Thirties. Words are powerful, Preciousses, oh yes, and there are nawsty little thieves out there who want to get in your pocketses. If you are paying for something, laying away for a rainy day... HOW can you use the word 'entitlement' as if someone were GIVING you something? You paid it in, it was YOUR money. Maybe I should lable this economics 101. Words are deceptive. The way the word is being used today is as if someone is giving people something they didn't deserve. It is a gross misuse of language, and I don't hear the outcry. The English language is rich and nuanced. But sometimes it seems to me that the media dumbed America down to a ten-thousand word vocabulary. And the sneaky ones know how to bilk the others. Semantics. There are a lot of other punch words I keep hearing that are misused. But you know what? It always comes from people who were entitled by their class, the schools they went to, the lack of social conscience, and their main goal is to get more, and if they get theirs, they could so give a shit if others fall through the cracks, because.... that's the way it works. | |
Sometimes when you are really bored, as on Sundays...
You might look at things you normally wouldn't even want to touch on the 'interments'. This being such a Sunday, I tapped into one of the last Christmas movies of 2010. 'Yogi Bear'. I was perplexed as to why the poster would choose that, but soon learned why.
It wasn't so much amazing for the effects as for the message. Now I grew up with the cartoon characters, but this was something different. A corrupt mayor wants to become governor, and since he can't balance the budget, (italics mine), he decides to sell Jellystone Park to land developers. Most of the film is aimed at kids, but, now, a few months later, and the havoc Walker is wreaking in Wisconsin... even a grown-up would understand the underlying message.
As a rule, I would have closed the window on a children's film. Except this one was fascinating in its' underlying message. Dan Ackroyd and Justin Timberlake as the voices for Yogi and Boo-Boo were fine. It was sort of a mish-mash of what is real and what is CGI. It had a happy ending.
I hope Wisconsin will as well.
I never knew how sceptical I could be....
Oh yeah, it was another shit day where I only left the house for food. Five doors away out on the square, and feeling like I've been through a wringer emotionally. There is an e-mail I don't wish to write, because I have nothing to report. And some other issues. So I sort of run through things on my subscription site, either being bored out of my tits, or thinking WHA?
The 'WHA?' is the part when I realise I'm getting old. It's true. But we all do, every day....
Except... today I realised I owe a huge apology to Annti. Because she used to threaten me with Mormons at my door. Oh, we do have those neatly dressed, polite young men knockin on doors. Two showed up at Peter's and he let them in because I was at work and he was feeling really sick, but I couldn't be there. And they kept coming back of course, and I would come home and find their children's coloring book pamphlets on the dining room table. And no, Annti never sent them.
And I would ask, 'Why on earth would you let them in here?'
Answer: 'I was lonely, and they looked so nice.'
Uh-huh....
Well I was running myself ragged, and money had to come in from somewhere at that point, so what was I supposed to do? Be wired for sound all day for his edification?
On the other hand... my bio-Mom had her Jehovah Witness phase, and it got me curious. I would go to the cobbler as a kid, and yeah, there used to
be cobblers who repaired the holes in your soles if you were poor and couldn't afford new ones yet. He was a Witness, and would mournfully tell me we are in the end times, and the end was near, everything pointed to it. He was a nice man, and kind, but I thought he was sort of bonkers. I was ten. Good thing I didn't hold my breath.
Although I am agnostic, I don't believe in religion, I think they are harmful in the long run. But I did go so far as to attend a Witness mass rally in Fenway Park, and wow, that was a trip without having had a toke of anything. Except a cigarette way up in the stadium in the back row, and got looks that told me I was the devil incarnate. oooo.... yeah, that bad. They were such NICE little zombies.
And I thought they were the weirdest of the weird. Bar none. But nice.
Well one of the things I can see on my subscription site is 'Big Love'. And is about Mormon polygamists. Leaving the polygamy aside... what seems to be their core beliefs are so fucked up, and I thought Irish roman catholics had that prize, it sort of left me speechless. They take the prize by a mile.
So when Annti would go on one of her spectacular rants, I would be sceptical, and sort of shake my head, and wonder why it set her off. Now I know. So an open apology is due here.
This ties in to the election cycle, which never seems to ever stop in the MSM. Mitt Romney is a Mormon. And Mike Huckabee, a dyed in the wool Xtian who seemingly never fails to rant on gay marriage and say it leads to multiple marriages of every stripe, but is code for bashing Mormons, because he can't attack his 'religion'. That is sort of killing two birds with one stone, you see.
If Rick 'Sanatorium' Santorum decides to actually run, you have a trifecta of wackos. His thing is that if you pass gay marriage, it will be 'man on dog', the guy is a piece of work and looks like a minor mafia boss in Pittsburgh, or something. 'Family' values. His being taking his child's miscarried foetus home so his other kids could say goodbye to their sib, a fact he was proud of and often repeated. The man is insane, if you ask me....
Seeing religion so melded into politics is very creepy and unsettling. There is so much meddling that I find reprehensible, I mostly want to sleep till they all go away and wake up to find it was a dream. I want to find the rock they crawl out of and crush it with a pick-axe, spread a ton of salt on the site, and pray they would never pop up anywhere else.
And why in the world would Tom Hanks co-produce that HBO series. I sort of find it unbearable.
I don't know... am sorta stupid... looking back or something...
I've gone ON a lot about corporations lately, and I don't think that people understand what that means.
Imagine a place where there are immense factories on both sides of a river. And oh, they are so prosperous. But hey, they have to have a place to put the workers in, so they build 'adequate' housing, do not pay them very well if hardly well... and low and behold, a city grows.
And you go out and buy in the stores they attracted to the town, and you think you're are getting real bargains for shit. And you are controlled, like having nine children, and the oldest one has to go into the factories to do whatever, in order that the others stay in school, but oh hey! it's a sacrifice or something. Snatch 'em outta school, and there's supper on the table.
But it WORKS... if you propagate, and have oodles and oodles of children... and you sacrifice one or two and make them earn something so the rest might find a trade and be half-way successful, and climb a rung up the social ladder.
I get so incensed about people changing what history is. I've LIVED history so far, and a lot of it in my formative years had to do with corporations, and the people who run them.
I used to bring my Mom a lunch to the factory when she worked there for a while. It was grim in there. She glued innersoles into shoes they were manufacturing. Hell... 'Murka and manufacturing..... no one could imagine that today. But it was a dark and terrible place, and you were on the clock. My Mom let me put some of the innersoles in, I remember that. The smell of the glue was horrible. It was dirty and disgusting.
But people bore that because they thought things would get better.
Conditions were improved on... but whaddaya know... Wealth always wins if no one stands up and opens their moufs. And I dont expect anything in the way of improvement.
Life sucks.
Crazy ads
Ikea Austria came up with one that is edgy, as they often are. Bisexuals got pissed off. Women got pissed off for them putting women back in the kitchen. (???!!!) It's about a guy who comes home unexpectedly, and the main thing was... Ikea kitchens have lots of big storage space. Yup. I thought it was funny.
We had some sun today
for the first time in weeks. I kept thinking I'd been living in the Lincolnshire of Dicken's novel 'Bleak House' and expecting to find Lady Deadlock's ghost roaming about in the courtyard, harbinging revenge.
Luckily, a crop of movies popped up on my subscription site, so that was some distraction. First I watched 'Rabbit Hole'. Nicole Kidmann had a nomination for that.... and I can't for the life of me imagine WHY. Immensely boring.
Then I tried Alice in Wonderland, nearly turned it off immediately when the Disney logo came up, but it was directed by Tim Burton. And his films are for anyone who have Halloween as their most sacred horriday of the year. This version has Alice at nineteen going back. She has to end the red queen's reign of terror. The visuals were excellent. It begins with parallels to the original, then turns very dark, which is what Burton's movies normally do. Enjoyable, and Johnny Depp's Mad Hatter was a ton of fun and very amusing.
And although I'd been putting it off... I watched 'The Fighter'. Had mixed reactions to it. Christian Bale deserved his award. Melissa Leo, don't know, she seemed so exaggerated, but reminded me of my bio-Mom. Mark Wahlberg really pulled back and gave a quiet performance.The film wasn't boring. But disturbing to me on a mess of levels. I don't think it did any great service to Lowell, Massachusetts. It depressed me on so many levels, most of them purely personal. But is a very good film.
Today's afternoon feature for me was 'How Do You Know'. Yeah, the title didn't appeal to me either at first glance. But if you have a cast like Reese Witherspoon, Paul Rudd, Owen Wilson and Jack Nicholson, you have the perfect foggy afternoon movie to lift you up a bit. It's just a light, girl has to choose between two guys comedy, and Jack Nicholson being comic-surly-irritating. It was solid, has some hilarious dialogue at times, and was a nice escape movie. I'd recommend it as a date flick...
Class War ad infinitum....
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oooo.... bounty hunters? The Wild Wild
Mid-West? Do they realise how insane they look? Sheesh!
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