Well now we know for sure when life begins....

There was a radio programme about jewish humour on this morning. So the next time people go hammer and tongs at one another about when human life begins, you can defuse it.

A christian and a jewish man get into the question, and the christian says, 'everybody knows it begins at conception'. And the jewish man says, 'no, it's when a woman first feels a child moving inside her.' And they consult a rabbi to ask who is right.

And he says... 'human life begins when the children are grown and move out of the house.'

I loved it.

It was interesting by the way... but then again Freud maintained that people laugh over good jokes.... because they hurt on some level.

'If you stand with one foot in yesterday, and the other in tomorrow,

you're gonna piss on today.'

Queer as Folk, season two, episode six, and useful thought for the day.

It resonated.

Yes have been watching some of the series of late from a jaded eye. I think it will prove sociologically valuable as a view of a certain subculture of a certain time... and god or whomever help me, but I can certainly identify with much of it. And not always in a positive way.

Season one ended with a horrific shock, and was chilling. It doesn't help to watch the news, and see all the reporting on the Trayvon Martin killing, and learning about assinine laws that allow anyone to just gun someone down... because they are black, because they are gay... let's not forget the guys who dragged a gay black man behind their car on a chain till he looked like friggin road kill, here... the rethugs ramped it up so that people can kill and get off scott free, it's a license to hunt what people don't like. Always 'the other'.

Which, by the way... does NH have a stand your ground law... or not? First they were on the maps, then they weren't... which is it?

It would be interesting to know in case I wanted to ever visit... because if it is the case, no way I'm up for being victim.

The other theme in season two involves being hiv positive. And a scene where the major character michael wants to sleep with his hiv positive friend, and sees all the meds for the first time, and gets cold feet. (He was looking for condoms in the wc).

And it reminded me of when my beloved friend Mark visited us the last time... in Vienna. And the hotel staff sort of freaked, because all his pills were on the night stand, and got very errrm... suspicious. Adding the fact that Mark was six months before dying and emaciated. It broke my heart. I told them he had cancer. Brave, right? They were scared to death back then... Hell, I was at the beginning. If anyone were from New York or San Francisto or Miami? I didn't want to be even near them, if they fit the category of possibly gay. And all we had back then were persistent journalists in the alternative press who did remarkably good reporting. No one today who is young would believe the fear and stress and death and destruction an entire generation endured. It was very intensive.

Or let alone sleep with anyone considered iffy, and boy, it sure didn't work that way for a lot of people.

Although the series reflects the post-outbreak era.... it was always in the background, and made a lot of us who somehow survived it become very cynical. With good reason. So the series is good, but I for one take it in small doses, and see new things with every viewing... am only on the third time around.

As above... socioliogically interesting and holds up for that alone. But that sentence sort of hit me, and sounds like good advice.

Charades.....

Let's see.... once upon a time, then... in a far-off kingdom where happiness was the main thing in the whooooollle wide world, there was an evil count. (No, it wasn't Disney World Florida). Even though he wasn't able to USE his title, everybody still knew... he was a count. Uh-huh. And the count was eeevil because.... he was an arms trading lobbyist, and for years, rumours and suspicions were muttered among the populace, because... they thought he was doing illegal things. And let's face it, selling arms isn't exactly a noble thing to do.

And the count took a wifey... who in the happy kingdom became the minister of health. And the people who sucked up to the count were even more happy, indeed, she provided a wonderful cover for him to continue in his 'business'.

Well, governments come, and governments go, and even in the happy kingdom, there was a regime change, and elections. The outcome was so close, the parties had to form a coalition. And the rumours about the count had become very loud indeed, so the old-fashioned party supported by the count decided to help the minister, saying they would only negotiate to form a coalition if the rebel party would apologise to the count. Which they did, thinking that a consensus would be constructive.

So the years went by, and the wifey and the count separated.... seemingly divorced, and the evil count was free to wheel and deal without compromising his spouse, and wheel and deal he seemingly did. The story teller isn't so clear on that... his attention was focused on another story.

Now, being a count has priveleges. And traditions! Like hosting hunts in the autumn, and all the lower intestinal acrobats among the populace were very lucky indeed to get trips, and kill bambis, and their mommies, and pheasants, and whatever moved in the woods.... but that was just camouflage. They were there for business. Or go golfing on the world's best courses... and do business.

Now oddly... the count always maintained he was poor and a modest sort of person, possessing not so much in means. But he had friends in the telecomunications industry, seemingly, and they were very happy to provide loads of monies to finance any junket the count thought would bring in revenue to what he considered a paltry estate. I mean, he WAS a count, after all... and that mattered to some people... because, being a count, he had influence, and 'knew' people and 'connections'.

And they provided tons of money to the candidates that the count liked for elections, the ones who would help him do even more business... seemingly with faked bill receipts. So it wouldn't look political, of course.

And one fine day, someone finally noticed, and the parliament of the tiny happy country decided to try to find out what threads of deceit had been perpertrated. And the count was cited to appear before the grave and disconcerted comittee.. and took a 'forget' pill, and couldn't remember 45 things that were important. Except the populace didn't buy that and got very angry, especially with his friends.

Now, the friends, who had feasted and dined, and hunted and golfed with the count were suddenly outraged, OUTRAGED, I tell you, that anyone in the populace would even think that they would have been involved in such nefarious behaviour. Why, they never had anything to do with the man, let alone condone anything he might have done.... Forgetting about the apology thing with the wifey.... Nope, they never knew him, never had anything to DO with him, nothing, nada, never. Except there were facts and documents showing that they did.

Of course.

And the grandee of all the counts' friends, and of high renown in his party said, 'if having a private company give money to an election campaign is illegal... we should change the law and let any private entity contribute as much money to a campaign as they see fit.'... That might have seemed like a good idea, but it seems the grandee got it from a very unhappy kingdom that was very far away, so he thought it would pass muster and no one would notice. AND... the grandee would devise an 'honor code' that everyone in their party would have to pledge to and follow.

This story doesn't have an end yet... in the happy kingdom, the populace are being forced to live on a restricted diet, because they were living too well. And the count and his ilk are miffed over all that lost revenue.

So the story teller can't pretend to know if there will be a happy end in the happy kingdom. But the story teller told it to Peter... and he giggled and grinned, and was thrilled about it. But some things made him indignant.

Disclaimer: any resemblance to the happy kingdom or the unhappy one and real places.... are purely coincidental. I must've dreamed it. And watch too much news.

and actually...

Peter's eyes are green with brown flecks in them, but mostly green.. I can never get that on film.

Birfday Boy

Friday Peter turned 73. I visited, of course, didn't wanna miss da rocket cake, hey. Except, well... he wasn't having a very good day. I didn't find him in his room, so went looking and there he was in the hall pulling himself along a railing, soooo concentrated and frustrated that he was having a hard time of it. So I was about fifteen feet away, and he'd look up, but... no recognition at all, and I thought, oh, THIS is gonna be a ton of fun. The house doctor was on the sidelines and suddenly seemed interested. I sort of shook my head at him, as if to say, 'WHAA???' No reaction. So I tentatively approached him and said 'Peter???' Once I was close to him, his face it up in recognition and joy. Not that looking at me is any reason to be joyous, believe me. That was the only smile I got, by the way. Of the three hours, he was just exhausted. We sat in the garden for half an hour, the weather was picture perfect beautiful, warm, and Spring is showing off down there in its' usual showy way.

But sitting hurt him, he wanted to sleep. The entire afternoon freaked me out totally. But I've seen him like that before. Apathetic. I couldn't get another smile out of him till I mentioned some news he missed or forgot about a corrupt politician. But didn't have the camera ready. It was just all too private.

So most of the time I was there he slept, and I watched him for a while, trying to remember the perosn in the shell that I loved so much, and find traces. Then I turned on his tee-vee very low, and ascertained that I haven't been missing ANYTHING.

Of course I kept going out, and feeding my asthma. And I said I would never do this... but there was a man out there with a goiter the likes of which I have NEVER seen. It's a thyroid condition, and there used to be a lot of people who had that malady back in the day... lack of iodine in their diet. But he was really a record breaker for me. And whereas that used to be sort of uncommon, but not unusual, it is very rare. He was very friendly... and racist. Going on about 'Jugos'. In front of a slovenian caretaker, yet. She said, 'There are no more 'iugos'... that stopped in 1991. You mean Slovenians.' He sure back peddaled, and made nice. Friendly, if rather stupid man. There was another man who seemed ok... asking me about my camera..... and then he wanted to ask me something. And his brain froze... He struggled and struggled, but the words just weren't there, and he was asking for help. With vague gestures. That went on for what seemed like forever, but was only three minutes, I would think. Painful to watch, that struggle, and being locked in his head, with some key words hidden somewhere.


Between times I was back and forth, so despite the picture perfect day in the picture perfect setting.... it was disgustingly depressing. But there was an easter bunny in the garden already.
And the personnel are unbelievably good. And in the two years now... hardly any new faces, no big staff turnover. Which is also very good.



On the trip back, got off the bus to be accosted by this... next to the church. What does an easter bunny have to do with catholicism, I ask you... And you probably won't be able to answer that either. Just sayin'. The eggs were hideous.

Remember the Fifties? And 'Hoods' and Rebel Without a Cause, and playing 'chicken' with cars?

Fresh news.....

A day or so ago... not far from here in a boring sleepy village.. some kids did something I had't heard of before. Car surfing.

Totally loaded. All 17. So a young guy and a young girl get up on the roof of two cars, and they zoom off. And whoever falls off first loses. Or something. Well something happened, and the cars had to swerve. The boy fell off first, got off with scrapes and bruises. The girl got thrown off after so hard, she sustained head injuries and died today.

And the kid driving was drunk and didn't have a license.

What a waste. I 'get' taking dares, done some, but something that dumb? How bored can you be? And it isn't as if there weren't enough things offered that could have interested them in some way.

Senseless. Or I'm getting old.

And just remembered... again... the kids in the 'lower corporation' were into stuff like that. It was called that because it was below the canal and a main large street that was an artery through the city. i was a bit too young to hang out with them, they were street tough. Went hunting rats in the factory yards, stunned them and blew them up with firecrackers. Which was dangerous enough..... you corner a rat, you're in for a surpise, and I hate them like nothing else.

But back in the day.... well, the train depot wasn't far from there. And the big thing someone came up with was.... targeting freight trains. The cars had ladders on them. And when they left the depot... it was a dare... see how far you could hold on to it as it gained speed, and go the farthest before jumping off. It was a big deal, back then.

And one not so fine day... a kid 'won' going the farthest ever. EXCEPT.... he fell wrong, landed under the train, and got basically cut in half.

Some things are really too stupid to even try.

What is that catch phrase? The more things change, the more they remain the same. The difference was the kids I knew were 12 to 15.

Well, it must be spring... or thereabouts. and formerly missing white women...

I wasn't paying attention, really. Except the apt. got warm, so I assumed it was mild out.

And went out at ten p.m., to get cigarettes, and it was so mild it was odd after all the cold. And had my winter coat thrown over me, which is having its' last season... and a mess of young people were out on the square in shorts and light hoodies. So I thought... whelp, you KNOW you're asking for a nasty spring cold, dont'cha? Which makes me old. Very ollld. Because when I was in my twenties and early thirties, the first day like that, I was out in a wind-sheltered corner of somewhere getting rid of my winter whiteness, and was out in short-sleeved shirts and light clothing, which, let's face it, is a nice change after all the gear you have to put on in winter.

So I should 'talk', right?

Even if it's in my head. Except..... back then, I only wore them during the height of the day. When it was warmest.

Guess the little buggers are hot-blooded.

So what's been happening? Dejà vu. Let's see, what's been happening? Well, there is an ongoing parliamentary investigation into a huge scandal involving the telekom. Involving lobbyists, corruption, bribes, and all the happy shit that comes with that stuff. Sound familiar? Except the numbers here were sort of laughable compared to what we've seen across the pond. But ya gotta hand it to the conservatives... the lead guy on the committee is being investigated and refused to step down. It's a 'conspiracy', yup, uh-huh...

People are basically disappointing. What caused a world-wide lack of a sense of morals, what is right, and got replaced with greed and disparaging people who have less means than the wealthy do? It wasn't like that before.

And that is another thing that amazed and bothered me of late. They re-opened the case of the kidnapped girl, now woman who was kept captive for eighteen years, because... a) they think there was something fishy about it, in that some accomplices might have been involved, and she hasn't been acting 'normal'. And maybe it had to do with white slavery, or something. They say.

After two years and I hadn't been paying attention, that is so wrong on so many levels.

I put out some feelers asking, 'why bring that all up again after two years, hey?'

Well, popular opinion is... something is fishy about the whole thing. And out comes the envy. 'No one can tell me she got so educated just through the radio.' 'No one can tell me that someone like that gets a tee-vee show and can be so sovereign.' 'And she bought the house that she was held captive for sentimental reasons.... who does something like that?'

Fishy... they say, and it went to a parliametary investigation, and the whole damned story gets drudged through the mud yet again. And produced some really bizarre side stories... like a policeman taking money to go into a grade school and get a dna sample of a child per dinner napkin to find out if some kid was another of the kidnapped woman's children. You can't make stuff like that up, hey. Creepy. Needless to say, the child wasn't.

And then the worst of the yellow press, Bild Zeitung in Germany.... I can't even begin to tell you how awful they are. Sort of a cross between The National Enquirer and The Sun. Only worse. And they came up with some fake photo of the dead kidnapper.... who threw himself under a train after she escaped.... without a head, so, of COURSE it wasn't him, and he's still at large, and wow, something is 'fishy'. Leave it to the journaille.

I can't even pretend to think of why she would have bought that house. But sorta think it had to do with confronting her past.... she did grow up there, after all. 'Who knows how someone would feel about a place where they grew up for 18 years? And bore children? People have their own way of confronting what traumatised them.

I wouldn't want to be that woman... with all that envy and suspicion... because she doesn't behave as what they think a 'victim' should in their opinion. It's sort of disgusting.

What I didn't see in the news over there this week was a tragic accident. Belgian school kids on ski vacation in Switzerland... they started home on a bus and it crashed into a tunnel wall... 22 students dead, 6 adults, including the driver and co-driver, and 2o some odd kids in critical condition. And hey, the busses had seat belts, whaddaya know? It was gruesome. And an hourly cnn type update for days. Journaille.

The more I hear from Rick Sanatorium and co... the less I wish to comment. With a field like that and mr. animatronic... I really don't think it will be much of a race in the end. Hopefully. But there is sure a lack of coverage regarding syria... and that guy who offed all those people in afghanistan? Heard more here, than from there. Like, he had a head wound in iraq, but was ok for afghanistan yet again.... and supposedly drunk. Way to go, guy. That's a mess, would say.

And the planet keeps turning, and somehow people keep taking in oxygen they shouldn't be entitled to. And how was YOUR week?

She forgot a mandatory prostate exam with a gloved digit...

But oh yeah, they should really go there. And while they are at it... masturbation should qualify as mass murder.... all those little squiggly things that might have been chirren. Gawwwwd.. it's awful to think about. Why, it could qualify as genocide, and half the world's population would be qualified to end up before the world court in the Hague. And you could have a generation of teen-aged boys having to wear spotted sheets of shame to school with mass murderer written on them in red lipstick, oh, the possibilities are endless. But I like that lady in ohio.

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And oh yes... I deliberately didn't go into

the asshole with vp aspirations who thinks transvaginal ultrasounds are necessary for women who want a 'procedure'

For a party who wants to take gubmit out of people's lives... why are they doing the opposite?

It's state sanctioned rape.

Boy, I have a mess to say right now....

Where to start, where to start.

I haven't neglected keeping up with news, either there nor here. But I don't see the sense in going from one hyperventilating cause of outrage to another without pause, or without having an antidote, other than to get involved in things directly through petitions, and giving your pennies to whomever you think can dig 'Murka out of the hole it dug for itself, and messed up half the world in the process.

But the THING IS... what happens there doesn't STAY there, and I sure as hell wish it would.

So let's see, on the repub side, you have a disney animatronics figure with faulty wiring and a weak battery that makes him stammer all over the place and look embarassed. And a wannabe disgusting guy who is out only for financial gain, and a real, dyed in the wool, bible-thumping, ASSinine religious zealot who would like to take the clown car in full throttle forward toward a cliff, and the gear shift is broken, and there's no reverse on the damned thing. They sure have them some 'swell' choices.

Things have come up in this cycle that I thought were dead and solved a half century ago. But hey, Sanatorium coming up and saying he wanted to puke over JFK's presser about separation of church and state? I REMEBERED that speech as if it were yesterday. I was 11 years old, but my family was catholic, and that was a very big deal and concern, the wasps thinking 'da pope' would control him somehow. I remembered that speech when they began playing excerpts in light of what mr. 'Sanatorium' was saying. And then they reported that the JFK speech was 51 years ago, and I said to myself, 'Oh, Ren... you've gotten oooooollllllld.

Then going after women, because that is what bullies and guys who are sexually frustrated and have no---NO--clue as to what women are like DO and they go after them because they think they are an easy target. And these ASSHOLES get onto contraception issues, out of the blue, hey... Except we thought THAT was settled 51 years ago. Leaving aside that some men still consider women as possessions or chattel, and the word trophy wife is so telling, don'tcha think?... leaving that aside, that wasn't even the real purpose of all the uproar. They hate health care and are using it as a wedge issue so that insurance companies can continue to screw the public, see the so-called Blunt ammendment. If I as an employer am not a believer in medicine, cancer treatments won't be part of the insurance package I offer. That's what they really want.

Just when you think progress of some sort was made. And attacking a college student, boy, ya gotta hand 'the Rush' a trophy. Here's a guy who was married four times, sired no children...(that anyone KNOWS of)... and he goes on thinking that women have to take a birth control pill every time they have sex, so the student is a ´rapacious slut? He HAS to know better, and it was vicious, and so typical of bully behaviour, and in the end, laughable... except a lot of people aren't very well edumacated in 'Murka these days. And the woman's testimony wasn't ABOUT that. It was about the fact that women take the pill for other reasons, like preventing ovarian cysts. But hey it's an agenda, so drag an innocent woman through the mud, why not, she's 'only' a woman, after all and that is how that bastard thinks. And the real rethugs kiss his ass and perform unmentionable lower intestinal acrobatics on him to make him feel reaaaalllll good.

And hokay, how does this look here? We got us an AUSTERITY package, how loverly. And the focus on pensioners and federal employees, not good, but it could have been worse. Except now, of a sudden, well, another major bank needs a bail-out and guess who's on the paying end? Uh-huh. It's a daily case of dejà vu.

What concerns me far more is what is coming out of the mouthpieces of the parties here about a rise in drop outs in the schools, and 'playing lots of hooky'. Alarums went off in what is left of my mind. Because, you see, the conservative party thinks it would be a useful thing to fine parents of children who play hooky.

Reallah... really? IF we are gonna haveta go there... I seem to remember a time when things in 'Murka weren't so good for kids in poor neighborhoods, and I went to a grade school in the poorest part of the city. You got caught playing hooky? You got sent to a juvenile detention center, and boy howdy, those institutions created a whole generation of petty criminals. The only way to keep peace in that grade school was for the principal to beat up the sixteen year old seventh grade students once a week in front of his office winder during recess, to intimidate the rest of the students. And there were knives, and one teacher got thrown down a flight of stairs and broke her leg, it was terrific, and didn't learn much of anything there other than to survive from one day to another, but thank whomever I read non-stop. Every single one of us were expected to fail. Every one of us. Let's face it, it's real class warfare... keeping the plebes in their place, and it was anything but pleasant. Now it seems subtle.. seems.

So that was also fifty years ago, so what? Except I saw an interview with a mother on one of the msnbc shows last week that I would have killed to keep for this, and can't find it. There's this school called noble school in one of the poorest parts of chicago. And it's the only hope for those kids. But they fine parents when the kids break the rules, and whoa, they are successful. They are so successful, they collected nearly half a million dollars in fines in a two year period. From the parents in the poorest part of the city. And they coughed it up, because if they didn't... there was no other school for their kids to go to. Simple as that.

Transgressions leading to fines? Untied shoelaces. A button not buttoned on a shirt. Not sitting up straight and tracking the teacher continuously, falling asleep in detention.

WHAT the hell has any of that have to do with education? And Rahm Emanuel thinks it's a great program? What was he looking at?` The fine intake?

It's keep em down, keep em in their place. So let's take a closer look at here. The socialists think it's a bad idea to fine the parents of kids who play hooky, the freepers are for it, of course, greens against, and the unmentionables... don't count... so far.

And I was on-line, and asked about it in my guild. We are only about seven people aged late thiry to my age. So sorta adult. And I wanted to know if they had those fines in germany, and they do. One said it was just another scheme to get money from people who are already so strapped by their austerity program. And I asked who gets the brunt of the fines? Not hard to guess, preciousses... the poor and the newly emigrated families. Just keep em in their place, hey. It was an interesting discussion.

If the children of immigrants aren't doing well, it's because their system is failing, as it is failing here. Ours fails them, they are trying to find a solution. And the Germans? Turn a blind eye, seemingly, but I might be wrong. I haven't looked into their 'troubles' so much, so that is only a supposition.
---
But if you take that to the extreme, you get what you recently had in chicago... I think it was... where a mother gets jail time for drugs... not the serious kind... and a sixteen THOUSAND dollar fine, BECAUSE... she enrolled her son in a school in a better district so he would have a better chance, and that was 'stealing' from the taxpayers.... a public school, hey, who did she steal from, huh?

This bothers me in the extreme... our schools are very good. When they graduate from 'high school' it is the equivalent of two years of college over there. And this shit shouldn't be happening, but leave it to the catholic conservatives... they are really a pain in the ass and mules with blinkers on.

This all seems somewhat surreal to me... as in getting the feeling, 'I've been here before, why am I back in this nightmare?'

I'm not so happy with the other side there either on some issues, but goodness... as Mittens would say... at least they act like they are adults.

One last thing... if anyone tells you that they are for 'enhanced interrogation' I saw a documentary on tee-vee the other night about Hitler taking over Austria. And you know what? That is when the SS decided to use, 'strengthened' vulgo 'enhanced' interrogation, right here. and that was their euphemism for it, and people died horribly. So I think I would ask such promoters of that why they would ever want to associate themselves with people so heinous, because that is what they do when they say they are for it.

What you don't know about the Dutch...

And Rick.... belongs in a Sanatorium.

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And again, here was the second place...

The fascinating Conchita Wurst tonite. Dress ordered extra from New Yawk... three hundred dollars, she said. The producers overdid the lighting. I've seen some deprecating comments elsewhere on YouTube, but generally, there wasn't all that much outrage.

Hokay... there's a winner... Eurrovision for Austria

Conchita Wurst came in second. So who is representing our fair land in Aserbajan? Track Shittaz... and yes, you read it correctly. Who will be sure that Austria lands down in one of the last places. And have to sit next year out. Of the ten contestants, there were some interesting, 'listenable' tracks that sort of grew on me, and diverse in musical style. But this?

Oh yeah, track shitters, all right. Why not skid marks? The text? Banal to irrelevant. They want everyone to shake their tushes around, because that's what they like (ooop ooop!) Idiotic, a novelty number, and, excuse the pun... assinine. We've had some winners and losers, but this time? Losers. Take a listen.

Well that was an interesting weekend....

After feeling like a fish out of water on the US/UK game site... I finally found a guild. A few ex-pats from the german one who like that much better. Met them in a group effort, and they asked me to join when they found I can more than carry a dialogue in german. The guild is small, and they are sort of cozy from northern germany. Age range mid thirties to my oldie category. They call their guild Dream Theater, and are sort of progressive... turns out it's the name of their favorite band, had never heard of it. Checked it on YouTube, and it sounded like a cross between Zappa, The Who, and AC/DC but still different. So they are my afternoon meeting and getting in touch with people people.

Late nights, when I can't sleep, which is usually, I was always ending up in a running group for anyone as long as there was space. And there I met Red from Greece, and a dutch person, and sometimes some other germans. And get called on to translate at times. Red is lots of fun.

Last nite, someone who goes by the name, 'da killer' was going on, and in those things it's always a running joke in either gaming place.. 'I'm making coffee, how do you like yours, will get you some.' So I said I didn't drink coffee any more, I'd never sleep at all. And she began listing what to put in it, vodka and rum, and gawd-awful things. And Red pipes up with, 'Are you making coffee or a BOMB?' Cracked me up, but I guess you had to be there. A while later I 'said' 'Errmm I gave half of mine to my horse. Shouldn't have done that. He keeps getting stuck in the trees.' which set them off, because there is one area where the horses really do get 'stuck' in the trees. Sometimes.

So last night from midnight to three, we went to a huge jail and had a melee killing all sorts of monsters and getting loads of points. And joking. It made it fun.

There was some private time with Red, who is really worried about what is going to be decided on helping Greece today, so it wasn't all chuckles either. I like the mix.

Doesn't mean I don't miss the people at the other place whom I 'spoke' with daily, but am finally off to a good start at the new place. And my knight is already level forty... mine at the other place took 5 months to get to 35. (there are over 195 levels, so go figure.)

And I checked out UP on msnbc, which is always interesting and provides food for thought. And otherwise heard the local pop radio mixed with the classical for news, and on the latter issue... every damned year people die in avalanches on skiing trips. Anyone wanna tell me that people are capable of learning? Every year it snows massively in the west, and people go on vacations, and the kids have a two week school break, and every year there's a period of severe cold... well, nearly every year... and then there is a slight thaw, and level 5 avalanche warnings go out. And every year, people go off the prepared slopes out into 'nature', and get killed when Mother Nature decides to let off a huge snow fart. Sometimes I think people are to stupid to learn anything whatsoever. And as we saw, there were several incidents and tragedies a day this weekend.

And it isn't just that, ignoring warnings, hey. About ten days ago, at the height of the cold front, two jackasses decided to go cross-country, ill equipped, in a place they weren't familiar with... at minus 25 degrees celcius, and they got lost. So they called for help, and help was sent.... over twenty experts looking for them. The idiots had gotten third degree frost-bite burns one in the face, even, and of the rescue team, ten had to have medical attention in the hospital. So these two dunderheads are going to get sued for needlessly endangering the rescue team, and will probably have to pay a lot of Euros in fines. I certainly hope so. Putting other people's lives at risk due to their own stupidity like that. It just never seems to improve. Then again, neither does mankind in general, so why should I even be surprised.

Anyway, there was enough distraction. UP had a good segment on men deciding on women's health issues, and I had a weird thought. ''That would be like frogs forming a panel to decide what sort of fodder horses need.' Must've been the game. I have one horse I hate to death... it won't learn anything, just like most people.

The good part of the day....

Was the local news. There was an item so good, I had to call Peter. Because it concerned someone both he and I despised. He was the former head of a local soccer team. And he was crass, and uncouth, and 'successful'. Which meant he had a mess of hangers on, your basic lower intestinal acrobats, basking in his 'glory'.

Try to think Ahnuld, but REALLY sleazy... a parvenu, and it never went away.

Well there were always rumours of graft and corruption as far back as I can remember, and he was just crass. And they finally GOT him, and he got a five year prison sentence and a 6.6 million Euro fine to boot.

I am willing to bet... ten Euros, even... that tomorrow, his most devoted sycophants are going to deny knowing him. I even called Peter with this news, he hadn't heard it yet. He was half-way cogent, and I don't know if he remembered it by suppertime, but he sure had him a moment of schadenfreude.

The bad news of the day involved General Motors.... because, you see, they bought Opel. And they aren't doing well, and now, it seems, what conglomerates did to the US... they will do to the idjits who trusted them, and all of a sudden, oh, the manufacturing here is too expensive, the unions, upteenth verse, same as the first. So there are intimations of cuts in Germany. Riiight. Union busting? Probably. Scaling back? Most likely. So they 'might' close the plant in Bochum, in Germany, and a mess of people will lose their livelihood.

If I were naive, I would think they are getting on board and bringing jobs back to the US... but being global... well there is only so far you can extend yourself, and so if you increase in one place, it will certainly be to the detriment of another. It sucks. But that's 'business'.

Today began with me getting riled... when I saw yesterday's news.

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Y'know... I think it's been about fifty years since 'da pill' became available, and I was young, and I remember people discussing it in whispers. As if it were shameful, and a moral dilemma. I thought that had been long resolved. And half a century later, WHAAAAA? Have the Rethugs become so desperate, all they have is going after women? And that aspirin crack... left me ab-so-lute-ly spitless, but hey, that's the fossil billionaire singlehandedly backing Rick Sanatorium... or whatever the hell his name is.

This is another case of Rethugs yelling about government interference in people's lives, but what they do when they get any power is REALLY interfere in people's personal lives and want to dictate morally what they cannot do, while gleefully doing it themselves. And have the government invade your most private parts literally by mandate. The hypocrisy is astounding.

And then the odious Daryll Issa held a congressional hearing about women's health issues... all because they don't like the compromise Obama reached, and whaddaya know... there were only men invited to speak.... as if they know anything about it. That's when I started yelling at the pc screen, Preciousses. All this was between four and seven in the morning, and my cigarettes were out, so I went over to get some, steamed.

And told my tobacconist what had gotten me riled. We had quite a discussion. Me: 'No MAN should ever have the responsibility of decision making regarding women's health.' And one of her better ones... 'They should turn the tables, and have men undergo humiliating exams...' I said, 'well they tried it in Texas... mandatory prostate exams... but it didn't pass, because most of the legislature were men.' She beamed about that news, believe me. It was the first time she ever wished me a nice weekend when I left. Which was the nice part of the day.

Maybe I made her day. The news didn't make mine by a long shot.

Just another vid...

Hubert von Goisern has been around for over a decade and a half. I just listened to something I really loved when it came out. His music isn't typical of what austrian pop music is.. he was more into cross-breeding traditional music with modern trends, and has always been interesting. This has hardly any text, but is so romantic and melancholy, it gets under the skin. Loosely translated: Can't you hear it?

Can't you hear it, the time going by?

Just yesterday, we talked totally differently.

The young have grown old, and the old have died (away)

And yesterday's become today, and today will soon be tomorrow.

Can't you hear it? Can't you hear it?

It takes yodeling back to what it was originally. And it isn't kitsch. So Lawrence Welk won't roll over in his grave the way he is over the one below. I hope you enjoy it.

Colloquialisms...

Finally met someone on line last night at the new place... we'd sort of just hit it off in a group. She's from northern Greece, somewhere near Thessaloniki, which they call Saloniki for short, I know. I didn't want to broach the current crisis there, having just met her, but she did, so it was ok to ask and excahange impressions of what is going down there. (She corresponds in excellent english, lest you think I got possessed and suddenly wrote in greek..)

What really upsets her and those she knows is the slant the world media put on reporting the violence in Athens and Saloniki last week, putting the entire citih
zenry in a bad light, when in actuality it was the doing of a small group of anarchists, and she said it hurts what they are protestIing against and what they want.

And we got into background causes, and Wall Street setting it off, and basic human greed that can ruin an entire country. She said they have a saying: 'you can't make a fortune with a cross in your hand.' ('Think about it.) I said I liked mine better... 'the basis of every fortune is a crime.'

It was a nice discussion. One of those 2 a.m. chat fests. I had parked my knight somewhere safe and we just rattled on. Suffice it to say, I didn't make many points last night. (smile). But it breaks up monotony.

Here's an interesting mix.... local folk meets rock, and protest in the lyrics

The occupy movement meets Tirol.

The text: Where is the place, where the devil bears its' children?
where is the place where eveything comes together?
Where is the fire, hey, where is lightning striking now?
Where is the cabin, which barn is burning down... (straw on fire)
Everyone knows that money doesn't grow in the fields.
And you can't eat it, but it burns very well. (in this case double meaning... burn=spend)
But we're burning up the wheat and the beets and the corn, (wasting it)
And if we keep going on, it will be too late. (colloquialism, your hat will burn).

There's more about people stealing money, and they should go to the devil. It's really difficult dialect.

Art imitates life. The artist is Hubert von Goisern. nearly forgot to prop him.

Bass, Treble and Woofers

Have been waiting and waiting on this post... because the local government hasn't been the swiftest in providing us plebes with what they are doing behind closed doors... or wasn't till about three days ago. A friday news dump where everyone has the weekend to figure out how to respond to it. Instead of immediately going into woofer mode if it had been the middle of the week and it would take days till all the initial misconceptions get corrected.

We used to have a tee-vee twenty years ago that was state of the art and ahead of its' time. It did things that were amazing. But as with pc's, no one used it to its' full potential, they just watched the programme they wanted to see and didn't bother with the fancy stuff, which was a bit complicated anyway.

One thing that was cool about it was that sometimes the stations would have shows on, and you could switch to the left speaker and and hear the original version. Or the right and hear the synchronised version. And for chuckles, you could get both and hear babylon. And sometimes discern that the right speakers weren't exactly giving the exact same thing as the left ones.

Speakers hell, they were towers of power.

So why would I dwell on that, you ask, as it was long ago? I see it as a perfect metaphor. Since I have been listening to a lot of radio lately when not chatting with people playing at my game. And got caught up with a lot of local things I'd just ignored.

But basically... what I see from the right speaker, metaphorically, on the intertubes is being echoed on the left speaker here, so the roles get reversed, the original and the translation. But it amounts to the same thing.

Locally, the govt. here got shaken up over the Moody's rating, and how the economic picture looks here in the EU, so they went into closed sessions, and thought up an austerity package so as not to lose their triple A ratings.

Now... we have a coalition government, socialist and (catholic) conservative. And they are sort of like the rethugs and the dems in their attitudes toward one another, but if things get tetchy, they actually comprimise.... except any time they've done it... no one likes the outcome at-all.

They were gonna 'streamline' the government, uh-huh... did the signals from the right speaker jump to the left one with a bit of distortion and static?

The result that has come out is sort of a rethugs' wet dream. Big gradual decrease in federal employees, and socking it to the pensioners. Not so much the range I'm in... I could hardly see how much less they could give and expect you to live on it... but the middle and higher range ones. With a freeze in increases to adjust for inflation for the next two years on the latter two if I understood it correctly.

And as to the federal jobs... well, the posts of people in that range who retire will not be replaced by new people, and their job loads will get dumped on the ones still working. Uh-huh...

The right speaker doing the original is sort of getting distortion signals and comes out diluted in the left one, but hell, the results are sort of the same.....

So all is reavealed in the finale, so to speak, and as the credits are rolling the left hand speaker starts going a bit off... the bass begins to boom too much, the treble becomes querulous and the woofers squeak. The bass being the right hand parties, the treble being the greens, and the woofers the progressives in the country. And we get the poor and middle class slammed, the rich paying lip service to solidarity sacrifice, but already wanting to wiggle out of that commitment, and the whole thing ends in babylonian cacophony.

I sort of like that metaphor.

Otherwise? Not much else to talk about, other than we had our usual siberian cold front, which is two weeks of what is severely cold weather for these parts. My heating system sort of can handle it, but some parts of the day it gets chilly, so hot soup and a warm bed are nice remedies for that.

Today they reported the worst is over.

My game site finally did it... kept tinkering with the programme till it crashed, and I re-installed it on Friday, but still can't get in, so am missing my daily chats with several people I have come to know and like. And it burns me, because we don't have e-mail exchange, you just assume you meet at the market place and catch up on daily stuff. That burned me. Had to switch to the US/EU version of another company, and begin all over, but turns out they have tons more features than the stingy germans did. They had stripped it down and made it five times more difficult to advance than the original... and no goodies, you either had to buy from their shop or go without. So now I can wait around a while till I can make some new acquaintances.

And oh yes... if you go into a depression and don't open your snail mail post box for 11 months in this electronic age... turns out you might miss something very important indeed. Seems I did.

I got executed and never noticed a thing.

In the form of a letter from the justice department, giving me a final court decision that I am to be executed, yup. To the tune of 516 Euros, no lawyers' costs. Which seemingly will be taken out of my bank account. Wish 'em good luck with that, hey.... I assume they'll attach my next 'double' pension payment.

So that was really 'heftig', as a friend of mine from Hannover would put it. Heavy. However, it is friggin' embarassing. Because I have no idea what I got executed FOR... I really haven't. And obviously it would be even more embarassing to call the listed lawyer and ask, 'errm... you know that court thing you filed against me? Could ya tell me what that was really about?' Riiight. No one would believe me anyway, let's face it.

The one thing I have always, always been stringent about is having all my monthly payments up to date and automatically sent where they are supposed to go every month, just to avoid that, so I can't figure what in the world was extra. Didn't buy anything, can't afford anything, so it's a mystery to me.

So my first reaction was booming bass, then sorta treble, and ended with a squeaky woofer. Watcha gonna do, hey. I'm too tired for any drama. And insomniac at present.

Whatever. The metaphor tells a story. Even if you have the two mono channels running, it's the same programme with variations. But the same programme.

Elsewise, the pop station amuses and irritates me. They have the weirdest stories of the day. I loved the one where a granfather and grandson hit nine cars in an alcoholic version of nascar and when the police caught them, both were drunk, but there was no way of telling who was driving. And as to salzburg and salzburg province... there are a mess of people driving without a license. No wonder there are always 'ghost' driver alerts on the radio. A ghost driver is one who enters the highway on an exit ramp and is thus driving the wrong way, endengering all oncoming traffic. And there is the new law requiring that if there is an accident and a traffic jam, drivers have to form a safety lane for the fire trucks police and ambulance... so the ones on the left pull left, all others pull to the right, and the emergency vehicles can get to the accident and maybe save a life. If you do not adhere to the new law... the fine is a draconian four thousand euros. So they aren't messing around. It is something new since the beginning of the year, but I find it sensible.

And otherwise... it was just too damned cold to go out. One lady did her daily constitutional walk anyway in the snow, fell, couldn't get up, and froze to death before they found her on a wooded path. She was seventy six. And so it goes. Tend to your speakers.