Video Treat 2

Video Treat

Good times. Always good times.

Dish 2

Evening cries turned to late night cries turned to overnight cries turned to very early morning cries turned to all day cries. Maggie's preferred way of dealing with her fallout from anesthesia and surgery was to pace constantly. From bedroom to hallway to dining room to living room to kitchen. To trip outside for any number of attempted potties, all failures as far as this reporter can verify. The learning curve for driving the dish around was loud and slow. Her drugged stupor combined with her natural stupor lead to a number of stalls. "Oh, I'm stuck on the corner of the bed. Can't go forward, left or right. Not smart enough to consider reverse. Oh well, guess I'll stand here and cry. Cry." Roundabout two this afternoon she was back to her normal neurotic self and seems more or less at peace with the collar. It is a razor sharp weapon, though, and all ankles and knees in the house are on high alert. So the first twenty four hours were not the best, but she now accepts being in her cage which after last night's fiasco is a welcome development (whereas last night that only turned into a whining amplifier, somewhere between a chainsaw at arms' length and a 747 taking off on the db meter). Despite our best calming and assertive efforts, I spent more time sleeping on the dog bed than she did (25 minutes for me, 0 for her). Sleep is the top priority tonight for all. It always is. Tonight it really is.

Dish

The collar is now on the other head. Mickey's had a near monopoly on post-surgical satellite dish collars over the past few years, now Maggie's got her chance. If all goes well, she will only need to wear it for two weeks. That means two weeks of crying and whimpering. We're trying to soothe her with a great mix of music from the 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's. Right now, we've got Kenny Loggins "Highway to the Danger Zone." The whimpering continues, whether a musical protest or expression of physical discomfort, we'll never really know. Spin Doctors "Two Princes" is now filling the air, the whimpering continues. Nothing serious for the fat black dog, some pretty straight-forward surgery to fix some overgrowth in her lady region. Obviously I'd rather not discuss it, so we'll leave it at that.



Below find the first (and as it turns out, only) red tomato of the year. The picture is at least a week old. It looks quite nice. Since I took it, the ants have totally destroyed zucchini-land. A nasty round of storms knocked down one of the tomato plants as well as the bean pole and assorted vining. Total yield: 11 Zucchini, 5 beans, 4 tomatoes of varying quality, basil plant still doing well, rosemary looks a little stressed out, maybe its roots are being attacked. Some more lessons learned this year. More vigilant pest control is essential. In New York I remember worms helping out the cause in the garden, here anything I see is wishing me ill. Potato bugs, Stink bugs, fire ants, other ants, beetles and dogs. More land has been tilled and will make for a better planting next year. I give my effort a B-, result C-.



Smash Mouth "Walkin' on the Sun" is on now. I'm not sure if Maggie's crying or not, it's hard to hear above my own whimpers and cries. "So don't delay, act now, supplies are running out...

... I might as well be walkin' on the sun."

Modern English "I melt with you"... better... but the crying continues.

Hot Dog Mike

The coolest hot dog cart in Little Rock, and beyond.



Where the meat hits the street!

Restraint

The title might bring to mind a more grandiose topic, but what it alludes to is my current desire to push on past a small neurotic blog comfort zone. There has been an urge (usually acted upon) in the past where I scour over previous entries and edit, correct and cleanse. For whom and for why? It's not worth the effort. I will not go back to fix the handful of typos in my previous couple entries... I will let them stand. You know what word I meant, so it will stand. Surely I retain some of my retentive ways, but I'd like to add a few hours to my life by not trifling with such unnecessary details. Should I spend my time fixing some syntax while I could be creating something new? I think not. It's not the best use of my "talents." Create. Create. And keep on creating. Whatever it may be. This will hold true for music as well. Make something new, put it out there, good or bad, and move on to the next. How many things have I been sitting on for how many years? Rhetorical question, but there is an answer... many things for many years. I've got a wee window of opportunity and I best push out as much as I can in the time I have. That bus might take me out tomorrow (one more reason to be against mass transit) and if all my creative mojo is only in my brain rather than recorded in some form for those that would care, well, it's just lost. Bummer. Glen Tilbrook, one of the songwriters for Squeeze said in an interview If I allowed it to be some craft where I'm working for inspiration, I think I probably would have written 30 songs by now. Instead I've written a couple thousand. Not all of them are good, but I learned – again, early on – that some songs would just come to you, and that would be great. Other songs you have to work really hard at. And that can still be great. Other songs you work really hard at, and they would be rubbish. There's all sorts of in between, you know. When I wrote music for "Tempted," that took me a week. I know that Bob Dylan quote that if it's not done in a couple of hours it's not worth it - well, not in my experience. Sometimes you can labor onto something. But sometimes writing music is like creating a piece of sculpture, you're sitting there chipping away at this block of marble. And you take a step back from it and see how you can change it, and see if you make it more beautiful. But the route to getting there isn't always clear. I think that sentiment translates into other arenas as well, artistic, political, etc. For what all that's worth.

I've decided that Maggie and Mickey (black dog and brown dog, respectively) are so happy because they live in the moment. At most they know there is a tomorrow, but they don't know there's an inevitable end. We have to come to peace with the inevitable in whatever way makes us best able to live in the moment. Moe (white cat), on the other hand, he may not know of the inevitable end, but I think he hopes there is one... especially for the dogs.

Speaking of dogs and orangutans. You should watch this craziness.

Independence Blog 2010

With little fanfare the residents of 980 Northwest Avenue celebrate our nation's birthday. Perhaps I dishonor the red, white and blue by eating a salad today. But, I am no communist vegetarian, I also ate two angus hot dogs. That's right. Angus. I get hot dogs two or three times a year, so I will not buy into some meat-by-committee creation. Also, the beauty of grocery shopping late on the 4th is that you are sure to find the products you want pretty easily. Go the bread aisle, the only thing left on the shelves is whole wheat. Where normally one would have to hunt through the wonderbreads of hot dog buns, wonderbreads of burger buns and wonderbreads of wonderbreads to find the good for you stuff... today, clear sailing.

The best thing about today (and yesterday, and the day before) is that it is beautiful outside. Down into the low 70's overnight, up into the mid upper 80's with not much humidity. A/C has been off for several days. What I like most about this is the silence. Inside, just the quiet whirr of ceiling fans. Outside, no air conditioner cycling on and off polluting my backyard (and my brain) with unwanted noise and clutter. The mosquitoes have disappeared for the moment, another plus. The lawn is mowed and weedeated. The garden looks as good as it can. It turns out that another ant attack is responsible for the demise of 2.5 zucchini plants. Boiling water has been employed, we all expect a robust recovery. If not, I have been given a 13-point road map to peace that should put the ants in their place. Their place being elsewhere or dead. The myrtles have grown to their annoying stage, can't mow around them and their limbs plopped on the ground. Perhaps time again for a mid-season buzz cut. Weeds continue to propagate in the front of the house... Round-up has been purchased. Round-up will be used. Time again to prune the gigantic azaleas. Tee small gigantic ones. The large gigantic ones are beyond my ability and desire.

Dogs snack on grass clumps. Maggie made another mole-kill today, the first in a while. Her least destructive to date. No month-long stalking and extensive tunnel unearthing. One little hole and she got it. Mickey stole it away a few moments later. Soon after I tossed it over the fence. A little muss, no fuss.

I am painting our small bathroom. Step 1, remove all the grandma wallpaper from 1974. Step 2, fill the many holes from long since abandoned towel bar mounting brackets. Step 3, sand. Step 4, vacuum. Step 5, prime. Step 6, think it looks pretty good just primed, think of a way to do no more work on it. Step 7, keep thinking how to consider it Mission Accomplished.

june!

I just had a minor breakthrough at the library. I have been mentioning a book over the last few months on a number of occasions. All that is well and good, but I could not remember the title nor author, making every mention of its value slightly dubious... or at least quite incomplete. I was about two-thirds through this journal style book when I realized two things: 1. I kind of like this character. 2. Hey wait a minute, he's gonna die. Bummer. I feel no desire to go into any more detail, but I went to the library today (first time in many months) looking for something new an stumbled back across this book and the very small weight was lifted from my shoulders. Any Human Heart by William Boyd. Huzzah.

Plant news... total zucchini harvest to date... eleven big beatiful green veggies. Some expected thunderstorms failed to show today, I am now watering in hopes of salvaging my droopy farm ( temps in the nineties for many days). Tomatoes still growing green, hoping for some ripeness soon. Herbs surviving. Beanplant is ravaged by insect chewing, but nothing else has been chewed upon... I leave it as a sacrificial lamb to the bug gods. It may yet yield a bean for us.

That's it.

May Post

Just under the wire for May.

The Farm: Season 2 episode 1

I got a dozen or so seedlings going early for the farm this year with some success. I tried tomatoes, zucchini, squash, cucumber and beans. Many seeds germinated in my starter tray, however, once in the ground most faltered. I do have a solid clump of five zucchini plants that are looking quite healthy and bearing the fruits of my limited labor. There are currently four zucchinis that I would estimate to be in the pupa stage of development. They look like zucchinis and if all goes well in the coming weeks they'll come to full term, I'll eat them and they'll taste like zucchini. One bean plant is going strong. I've given it a pole on which to climb, and it is a-climbin'. The Roanoke Garden club sale has added to the crop list with two good-looking tomato plants, some basil and rosemary. All have made it through their first week down south splendidly. I've tilled up some more ground and look to give the cucumbers another shot. And there is rumor of more tomato plants coming available. I will keep you posted as I know it is of great interest to all. The back forty has once again been attacked by ants. All attempts at diplomacy have failed as they will not listen to reason or even consider my terms. I am going medieval on them. Boiling water seems to be slowing down their assault and limiting their advances, hopefully it will drive them away. So far the tomato plants (which are nearest the ant encampments) seem to be surviving.

I got a tetanus shot today.... and boy does my arm hurt.

I thought about ranting about current events and politics, but as I sit outside in a shaded part of the yard enjoying a gentle warm breeze, a fat black dog in her crate awaiting dinner, a lean, loudly panting brown dog laying faithfully by my chair, it seems like the wrong way to go. Good thoughts. Peace and harmony and all that. Good (if slightly smelly) dogs. Good day.

Here I go again

I don't want to be that guy that is always contradicting everything, but there are so many topics and opinions flying around (conflicted, multi-layered issues that require some actual thought) that are receiving little in the way of civil debate/discourse. Some people understand what's going on (even with differing takes on the issues in question), but I don't think we get to hear from most of them. They're not on the big news payroll. We all need to take a deep breath and pull back a little bit. Let's listen to reasonable people. That doesn't mean they have to moderate or non-partisan or without a position, just reasonable... willing to rise above the political fray, if only for a moment and if only slightly.

Both quick reads.

A REASONABLE business perspective on the Washington flogging of Goldman-Sachs

A REASONABLE liberal perspective on the Arizona Immigration Law

So long as each side goes for the jugular by ratcheting up their opponent's position to the unlikely extreme, we'll get no where. If we work by that notion, the debates between the Fascist-Nazi-Rebuplicrats vs the Communist-Nazi-Demoplicans will yield nothing but (somehow) more outrageous and unproductive rhetoric. Fine, each side has an agenda and the extreme positions play a role... but they can not play a central role. It's time to grow up, behave like adults and get some shit done.

Pardonez moi pour "la merde," s'il vous plait.
Also, please pardon my poor French.

Happy Earthday To You

A perspective on green that I liked... (reading required)
SHOPPING!

Set your hypocrisy beams on stun so we can all get through this.

Much of the following I am guilty of, complicit in or tend to facilitate with extreme prejudice. It doesn't mean I don't have a differing opinion from my actions. Let the bloodletting begin.

Reduce reuse recycle.

easy as 1-2-3, or is it 3-2-1.

We create so much trash. So much recyclable trash, even. Recycle! Great! We recycle the 4 quadrillion plastic bottles of water we consume each year. That we created them in the first place is waste, pure and simple. Reuse? Well some clever artistes make sculptural chandeliers out of the used bottles. That is a drop in the bucket, or bottle, and it is useless as well, though may have some value for social significance, so long as it is lit up by a compact fluorescent bulb powered by a wind turbine, solar array or Ed Begley pedaling a generator bicycle. Reduce! Reduce? Not a viable option. Nothing can change the fact (fact in this case meaning my passionate opinion) that something that should not be produced was still made and used... or to clarify, we do not need all this bottled water, Haitians, Rwandans and Darfurians do. But that is beside the point, for now. There is a company in New York City that bottles local tap water and sells it locally at a profit. Now, this more sustainable but not realllly sustainable. Return to the average bottled water company. That's a factory making the bottles, people and machines filling them with water, planes, trains and trucks transporting them to our favorite Wal-mart store so we can by a case for $5. And then we dutifully recycle the empties (which makes it all ok). All of which requires fuel to transport the empties and energy to process and clean them to turn them into the next generation of ridiculous products for us to buy. Wasteful from the word go. The upside? Jobs and industry. 10 years ago, bottled water was a $35 billion industry, (due to a limited research budget at McBlogland Enterprises, current market numbers are unavailable). What is most disturbing is that the US is not leading the world in consumption of bottled water, rather, Western Europe has us by about 4 times. We can do better! I would assume we pump much of our drink buying dollars in sports drinks and sodas, which is fodder for another day. I guess Europe drinks in fear of their bad tap water and plagues and such. Back on topic.

We make a lot of unnecessary stuff. We are in a rough economic time. It is pretty messed up, the engine of the economy is stalled, but we are still producing and consuming garbage. Bottled water... garbage. A new cell phone every 18 months... garbage. The ipad... garbage. The answer isn't recycling and taking 3 minute showers and buying clothes from thrift stores or hippies that make everything out of hemp, it's wayyyyy bigger than that. And until the global community gets a sense of that (you know, thinking exactly like me), we'll find ourselves climbing out of this economic abyss on the back of novelty ice cube trays and baby on board signs. I firmly believe that we already make enough stuff to satisfy the world, it just isn't getting to the right places. I'm not arguing for a redistribution of wealth, just a redistribution of stuff. Ever see the show about hoarders in the US, people living with piles upon piles of stuff in their homes? Granted, there is a psychological element here... but America makes for a perfect setting. Ever see the episode of the family in Kazakhstan with so much stuff they couldn't walk through their yurt? That's what I thought.

Happy Earthday!

End of diatribinous outburst.

Another side

Austan Goolsbee, chief economist on the president's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, has a slightly more optimistic take on the reform bill than Ratigan (see yesterday). Now, with full embedded video technology (so you need not click on a link, only click play)... I give you Goolsbeeeeee. Goolsbee comes on at about the midpoint, so you'll have to work through the background as framed by my dear friend Keith Olbermann unless you click forward to the four minute mark or so. Your choice.

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

They call me the streak

Two days, two posts. Impressive.

If anyone wants a decent perspective on the financial mess/shenanigans, I suggest you check out Dylan Ratigan's explanation. And his Goldman Sachs explanation is pretty good as well, though cluttered with morning show banter. Too often on the evening news or Today show such stories get 45 seconds and you don't know any more than you had prior to hearing the report. So before you go back to youtube to watch cat videos, give it a shot.

They are both video links, so no extra reading will be required. If I was reading this, with that information, I'd be at least 13% more likely to click on those links and check them out.

And make no mistake, I wouldn't normally suggest anyone listen to someone named Dylan, especially one who has a capacity for hot-headedness, but he is passionate about it and he makes sense. He's got his own angle, but makes his case well. Give a look, give a listen. I feel more informed in the last 20 minutes than I had in the course of the previous year.

April, mid to late... April

Having dogs is not like having kids.

I yelled out the window last week "Mickey! Stop eating that chair." If Mickey was my kid, this probably wouldn't have happened.

And, for fun, I roll Mickey on his back, grab his legs and spank him while he chews on a rubber bone. He loves it. If Mickey was my kid, I'd be in jail for this one.

There's also the caging of dogs that is nothing like the caging of children.

I've started up the farm again. Death and destruction is already upon us. I began some seeds indoors and got them going before plopping them in the ground. After one night in the ground, a mole had tunneled right underneath my plantings. Also, some speckled something has tainted the leaves on the plants that aren't already necrotic. I am not much of a plant grower. Perhaps I'll get lucky with a few this year, it has to help that I have planted in April instead of August. I added a bag of topsoil to my quite infertile growing medium, so I remain confident. Gonna be a bumper crop... of something.

The pine pollen that had yellowed the world a couple weeks ago has now disappeared making outdoor blogging a possibility. Surely this will kick up my posting frequency. It's blog or exercise. Or neither. But not both. Definitely not both.

So, we're all up to date. I see future blog posts about the banjo, hypocrites in politics and other important issues of the day. Whether you see those blog posts... that's another matter.

March Blog

Oh, hi there. You remember me, right? The blog that blogged everyday for some time. Some time ago in fact. Now a forced effort is required to make sure each month has a single entry. Last post: February 1st. Quite a drought. In fact, it was pretty juicy around these parts, making a trip outside with the laptop and dogs unwise, unlikely and unhappening. That's no excuse for almost 60 days of nothing. Sometimes it just shuts itself down. There was travel and sickness, which are also not worthwhile excuses since both could have and should have provided some material. Some tidbits. Some thing. But no. Maybe life's little details didn't seem interesting. That happens. The minutia, just too minute too mention. The big stuff too big to tackle. Not enough outdoor dog time has some effect on me. I get a different perspective. A different field of vision opens up, closes, twists, turns, fades and heaves. The dogs let me know how exciting it would be to go outside right now. And how much fun it would be to lay on my back with my mouth half open, eyes rolled back in my head, softly snoring. An occasional dreamtwitch of my leg the only movement besides my chest rising and falling with each unconscious breath.

So, I'm not saying I'm back or promising any specific blog frequency in the coming weeks. But, I am here right now. (cue Doogie Howser M.D. closing music)

read?

Can't seem to do it these days. I just finished the first novel by Gary Shteyngart, the Russian Debutante's Handbook. It was good, not as entertaining as Absurdistan. I guess he progressed nicely in his sophomore effort. I read Debutante and thought this isn't that great, but if I wrote a novel I'd be thrilled if it was half as good. I have a(n) Haruki Murakami book on deck, but haven't pushed into it yet. I also have a couple business books that I'd like to want to read, but I can't commit myself. A Scrabble obsession has taken hold here, so the focus is more on individual words, sometimes two words, sometimes several two letter words, but complete thoughts created in intently formed sentences are on vacation. There was a chess obsession for a few weeks back in the fall, but you wouldn't know it to look at me at the time. I dream in Scrabble. Triple word has taken over my life. Either the prevention of or the taking advantage... uh... you see? I've lost my vocabulary. Plenty of words, but no vocabulary. Certainly nothing longer than seven letters. What would be the point? How would that help me score? I'd rather turn "ox" into "toxic" for 36 points than put together a thought. And what of the carpal tunnel strain all this mousing around is causing? Yes. What of that... indeed. Slushy brain keeps thinking of ta tam tame tamer oi oil oiled roiled broiled. Ah the waste. But it draws me in, like golf. One good shot, one killer word. I started out with a seventy pointer last night... it's intoxicating. The rush! The thrill! Nerdiness run amok. Dorkfest. Geek Week. Still I play. I'm cool, right? I swear I like sports. I can play guitar, too. Surprisingly well (at times). I'm aware of pop culture. Sure, most of it scares me, but at least I'm aware of it. I'm not totally out of touch. I'm hipper than most 35 year-olds, right? "Hipper" is a cool word, right? Cool is cool, yeah? I'm not a square. Mmmmh, squared... 17 points, but wait... triple letter on the "d", double word overall... 42 points. Excellent. Ahhhhhh. Oh yeah, I'm cool. 42 points cooler than you.

42 points
cooler
than
you

write?

What to write on a cold and juicy day? Low 30's and drizzly outside. Lazy and full of dog snoozing inside. No snow to look at. No ice to fear. No sun to see. Blankets and couches. Beds and blankets. Dogs sleep. Cat sleeps. Grey. Gray. Grey. Gray. A blog sits at the crossroads once again, inactively searching for an identity. Maybe the search is the identity. No, that doesn't sound like something I'd be into.

I went to the beach the other day. My office is ten minutes away from there but I haven't seen the water in months. Many months. It was cool and crisp with a nice stiff wind. I walked a bit. Looking at shells and sand and other oceanic bric-a-brac. I sat for a bit and listened to the waves crash. It was a gentle surf. The sea was melancholy that day, my friends. I woman walked by with a dog. The dog stopped several times to bark at me. He looked like Maggie. It was good natured barking. He didn't bark at anyone else. Another dog went by without incident. There were two guys out on the water (the 48 degree water). They were standing on surfboards and paddling around. Probably a nice relaxing time for them. If it were me out there I would have been in a full body spasm of fear, panic and anxiety. Also, the odds are pretty slim that I'll ever don a wetsuit. A small man's wetsuit.

A thin mist of some form of precipitation continues to fall outside beyond our double-paned windows. My stomach hurts. The dogs want dinner. The dogs always want dinner. Soon, I'll want dinner too.

I'll Huff and I'll Puff

The Huffington Post came through in a big way tonight. Big Big Big big headline about James O'Keefe being arrested for a plot to bug Senator Mary Landrieu's office phones. The motivation was certainly to expose the 'buying' of healthcare votes from the more moderate democrats.

The Huffington Post leans left, but also has a decidedly trashy-tabloid-celebrity addiction that many other news and/or opinion sites have. I think Arianna Huffington is pretty serious in her views, but her site is a little cutesy and trite for me to embrace, no matter the opinions within it. To the story at hand. If the allegations of wrongdoing are true, and let's assume they are, then it is a pretty sleazy attempt at another undercover sting operation. You'll recall O'Keefe from his role as the pimp who went to ACORN offices for tax advice on running underage brothels, and, in fact, received advice on just that. The whole ACORN episode was ridiculous from top to bottom. From O'Keefe's Bootsy Collins look to the unbelievable response from ACORN counselors... it had the look of an SNL skit... one that goes on six minutes too long where no one ever laughs. The beauty of this article in the Huffington Post is that they quote the Twitter feed from ACORN saying: "Couldn't have happened to a more deserving soul." Did I mention that is the official twitter feed from the organization? Tacky? Yes. Unprofessional? Yes. Come on! Grow up. Move on (dot org). Also, there's a boatload of irony there that I can't begin to sort through. (The following is taken from the article... and yes, they use 'allegations' twice in the same sentence separated by only two words.) The allegations quickly inspired allegations of a "Louisiana Watergate" from state Democrats and claims of vindication at ACORN... I'm all for vast right-wing conspiracies, but for now, I think we just have an over-motivated Alex P. Keaton trying to make his mark in an environment that is all too fertile. CONCLUSION: O'Keefe, as evidenced by this arrest, is a huge goober who may get ten years for his latest exploit, but that doesn't alter what he exposed in his first grand public stunt.

Day 2

Day 2 of the new blog theme and I'm already slightly off track. I decided to face my nemesis right of the bat... I went to People.com. I went in expecting all the useless drivel I see glaring at me in the grocery store checkout aisle. None of which interests me, ever. Not Tiger, not Brangelina, not Mary-Kate, not Ashley, not Octomom, not Madonna, not any of the Baldwins, not any of them, not any of that, not any of it. At least not that I can recall or to which I am willing to admit. So I went in expecting little. It did not disappoint on that count.

What grabbed me most was an updating Twitter feed of celebrity Tweets. Aside from the occasional... "hey, donate to help Haiti" post, it was as stupid as one could expect. If you tire of reading on Facebook about how somebody's kid had the sniffles today and seeing 45 people chime in "wishing Johnny a speedy recovery" and that"there must be a bug going around" and "OMG, little Susie has a tummy ache today, too" and so forth, be warned... Twitter takes that nothingness to new heights of nothingitude. "I'm eating a healthy sandwich, chicken on whole wheat" may have been the most profound, worthwhile and engaging Tweet I saw. And let's not overlook the fact that someone at People is being paid (with a paycheck, 401K, health and dental benefits, profit-sharing, daycare, free organic coffee and an on-campus gym) to read all these celebrity Tweets and choose the "best" to cycle through on People.com for me to read. It was mesmerizing. It was all stupid. Objectively... stupid. My challenge the next time I visit is to get beyond my initial gag reflex and probe (that is, somehow do the impossible) deeper into a "story" and not immediately dismiss what I see as shallow fodder for a celebrity-loving nation of fame-obsessed zombies. But for tonight... I'll leave it at that.

Last night Conan O'Brien signed off by mentioning how cynicism was a terrible trait and to "be a good person and good things will happen to you." It was touching, nicely said and he truly meant it. He believes in his show and his comedy and I respect that completely. As the "loser" in the Tonight Show fiasco he is walking away with $33 million. His staff will split up $12 million. Surely that takes some of the sting out of losing the show, yeah? How is it that we somehow wind up feeling sorry for a guy getting a $33,000,000 severance package. I'm not being a cynic here... but that's really really really twisted.

Los Federales! Los Federales!

CNN - Bernanke Article... and no, I don't expect you to go read it, I know I wouldn't. But in the interest of full disclosure, I offer the link.

The synopsis (eerily identical to the first paragraph of the story):
"A second term for Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke became more uncertain Friday as two leading liberal senators announced that they will vote no, and many other Senate Democrats said they are undecided."

Bloglas sez:
If Republicans and Democrats are split in their support (not by party line) for another term for Ben Bernanke as Chairman of the Fed, that has to be a good sign. Why is that a good sign? They must be thinking about it somewhat seriously. What makes me say that? There is no public outcry one way or the other, which to me is great evidence that there is independent thought by the lawmakers. The public could care less because they don't really understand the Federal Reserve, anyone that says they do is lying. If it's not about Health Care, Boxer Bombers or JobsJobsJobs, it's not on the radar.

Who cares about the Fed? Ron Paul and... and... only Ron Paul. Ron Paul, too crazy in his speach and earnest in his beliefs to be taken seriously by mainstream America. And even he doesn't care who heads the Fed... he cares that it exists at all... a different matter entirely.

Back to the Senate confirmation... when was the last time a vote wasn't known 14 months ahead of time? This is a good thing. This is process. It may not make for an exciting blog post... but it's worth noting. Greenspan chaired the Fed since the late 1840's. While I never much paid attention, I don't recall his position ever being challenged. His carefully chosen words caused the Dow to rise or fall. His raising and dropping of interest rates toying with inflation and deflation at his whim. Where does that now leave Bernanke? Well, at last check the interest rate was at zero... so there's nowhere to go but up. As for his words, nobody believes nothing nobody says no more... so maybe it doesn't matter. Nevertheless, the fact that the Senate is seriously thinking about something that no one cares about (but should) is encouraging. It gives me hope. That a way, politicians. Not too shabby. USA! USA! USA!

New Post (I call myself a Blogger)

Wow... what a long absence, eh? Three or four weeks may not be all that extensive, but it feels that way. To my devoted readership I offer no apology or explanation, instead I offer the future of McBlogland. I'm back in gear (perhaps) with a vision for this forum. What I'd like to try is this: every day I take the top story/headline from some news source, summarize it (if necessary) and then offer up my take on it. I'll rotate sources to take me out of my comfort zone... this may require that I read something from People. I'm prepared to make that sacrifice, all for infotainment. Infotainment... sadly passed the spell-checker. I bet the French haven't allowed infotainemènt into their language. Alas. While it's not original to have an opinion I find that positions clearly articulated and thoughtful are in short supply (which is not to claim I will provide such, but I hope to). One can blame the talking heads (Rush, Olbermann, Hannity and to a lesser extent: Lauer, Couric and Walters). I have had my stomach turned by all of them to varying degrees. I believe the real problem is not the talking heads but the nodding heads. The nodding heads of America that take the bait and are reeled in to a thoughtless stupor. The nodding heads that look at an NBC News poll and don't really care what it says (or more often, does not say) and slobber in what their favorite pundit says it means. I like to think most people mean well, but I don't think they think well, if they think at all. We'll see how this works out. Tonight is just the introduction... I'll start in tomorrow. If anyone has any suggestions for source material, I'm all for it. Send it in privately or publicly, maybe I'll give you sponsorship rights to those blog entries. Maybe I don't really know what that means. Maybe I'm rusty with these words. Maybe the brown dog has sidled up to my hip and needs (not wants) to wrestle with me. Wrestle indeed. So we shall. A black dog whines and cries in the distance for no good reason. She wrestles with her demons and anxiety, I wrestle with the brown dog. Wrestle indeed.