Category Archives: Politics

February 11, 2014 · 22:51

Extremes

I’ve been thinking a lot this past week about extremes in human nature. It’s a theme that you see regularly here and there, in all genres of fiction. In particular, I see it a lot in science fiction.

On the one hand, we can create fine art in all forms. Mozart’s 40th, Beethoven’s 5th, and Pink Floyd’s “Dark Side Of The Moon.” “The Godfather” movies, “Bridge On The River Kwai”, and “Field Of Dreams.” Picasso, Rembrandt, Renoir. Shakespeare, Twain, Dickens.

On the other hand, we can destroy more horribly and thoroughly than any plague of locust. Gallipoli. Gettysburg. Dresden.

On the one hand, we can build great cities and buildings. New York, Paris, Shanghai. St. Peter’s Basilica, the Great Pyramid of Giza, Burj Khalifa.

On the other hand, we can abuse and misuse our talents and create monsters. Chernobyl. Love Canal. Climate change.

On the one hand, we can perform incredible acts of bravery and kindness. Mother Theresa. Mahatma Gandhi. Nelson Mandela.

On the other hand, we can inflict horrible acts of cruelty and hatred. Adolf Hitler. Idi Amin. Pol Pot.

On the one hand, we can do incredible things to better the lives of everyone. Medicine. Education. Communications.

On the other hand, we can treat our fellow humans as if they were nothing. Slavery. Bigotry and repression. The Holocaust.

On the one hand, we can create and discover and invent unbelievable things. Gutenberg. Edison. Apollo 11.

On the other hand, we can turn our backs on reality and let our darkest fears take us. Jonestown. The Manson family. Suicide bombers.

You get the picture.

Without darkness, how can we know what light is? Without sorrow, how can we savor joy? Without hatred, how would we learn to value love?

How can we as a culture, as a society, as a species be so amazing, awesome, and incredibly fantastic, while at the same time being so hateful, despicable, and disgusting?

More importantly, how can we as individuals maintain balance and reconcile this duality, both within ourselves and in the world as a whole? When the news and the comments section of just about any internet article make you think there are no redeeming values to humanity, how can you remember that each of us can love and be loved? When the horrors of the world threaten to blind you, how can you remember to look at all of the beauty in the world?

In science fiction, these extremes and this dichotomy is often shown in how an alien species might judge mankind. For example, in “The Fifth Element,” Leeloo is almost overwhelmed by human’s propensity for war and destruction and must find love to see if it’s enough to balance out the horror. At the end of Heinlein’s “Have Spacesuit, Will Travel,” Kip and the Mother Thing must defend humanity in a galactic court judging whether or not humans are too dangerous to be allowed to live. In the “Star Trek” adaptation of Fredric Brown’s “Arena”, Kirk and the Gorn fight to the death to see which species will survive, but Kirk’s refusal to kill the Gorn when he can shows that humans have “potential.” The character of Q is a recurring force in “Star Trek: The Next Generation”, judging mankind and weighing the opposing aspects of good and evil in our actions and nature.

With all of that in mind, what’s been on my mind has been whether or not this range of extremes is a good thing or a bad thing if and/or when we ever encounter another, superior alien race, or even a full-blown galactic civilization. (I’m not getting into the whole Fermi Paradox thing right now.)

Will we be judged as too extreme, too unpredictable, and therefore too dangerous or immature as a species?

Or will these extremes and fundamental dichotomies be judged to be a great strength, giving us flexibility, strength, and adaptability? “With great power…” and all of that.

I wish that I had an answer. I just know that now, I seem to be surfing the highs some days and being beaten by the lows on others.

“Balance” is not the same as “average.” I don’t know if the world’s getting more extreme, or if it’s just my perception of it.

Finally, while my knee-jerk reaction on the “down” days is to wish for less amplitude with higher lows and lower highs, I hesitate to voice that wish too loudly since it would also mean a world with less exhilarating and spectacular peaks.

I don’t know which scares me more, thinking that I’ll never find an answer, or fearing that I will find it but will then not be able to hang onto it or share it with others.

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Filed under Art, Music, Politics, Science Fiction

November 22, 2013 · 16:45

I Was At Home, In The Basement

As so many people are doing today, I’ve been remembering where I was fifty years ago, when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas.

I was seven, in second grade in a Catholic school in Kansas City, Kansas. For some reason, possibly a cold or some other ailment, I was at home. My father was at work, my next younger brother would have been at school, my oldest sister would have been at kindergarten. Four other siblings would have been in the house, the youngest only six months old, and my mother was in one of those rare moments when she wasn’t pregnant. (I’m the oldest of eight kids, the last one born in September, 1964.)

I was alone in the basement that my father had converted to a family room. The laundry room was also down there. I remember my mother coming down the stairs off and on to check on me, but I have no recollection of any of my siblings around. This may have been in part because I was sick and we were trying to limit the plague’s spread through the family (a futile effort, I’m sure). The other factor in isolating me was that I was supposed to be studying.

As a good Catholic boy, I was studying my doctrine lessons for an upcoming religious test of some sort. I’m pretty sure I had gotten First Communion in first grade, so by the middle of second grade I was probably studying for a Confirmation test. The television on for some reason, possibly for my mother to watch, since I was supposed to be studying and I didn’t watch daytime programming.

As everyone says, “I’ll never forget”. I’ll never forget sitting on the couch in that basement rec room, studying, when they broke in with a special bulletin. My mother was upstairs at the time and I remember running to get her to tell her about it. She came back downstairs and for the rest of the day we watched the grainy black & white images that we’ve all seen so many times. Walter Cronkite, the frantic live reports, conflicting news, finally the word that the president was dead, and the news that LBJ had been sworn in. I remember the funeral coverage. I remember watching live as Jack Ruby shot Lee Harvey Oswald on November 24th.

As part of the news coverage for today, NPR has a great audio clip (here) of radio communications between Air Force One, the Situation Room in Washington, and a plane (Aircraft 972) which was two hours out of Honolulu on its way to Japan. That plane carried Secretary of State Dean Rusk along with five other members of Kennedy’s Cabinet, so one can understand the concern for that plane and its passengers. If the assassination of the president was part of an attempted coup or other attack on our government by foreign agents, that plane would obviously be a target. It’s fascinating to listen to these recordings, hearing these men trying to do their jobs and figure out what to do on the fly in the middle of an enormous crisis.

It’s one of those moments. I’ll never forget.

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Filed under Paul, Politics

October 16, 2013 · 18:47

It’s A Long Way To Irvine

About seventy-two miles each way, to be exact. At rush hour, through the teeth of the 101/405 interchange and up over the hill through the Sepulveda Pass construction zone. My first thought was that the “fun” value for the experience could definitely use some improvements. At least I had some good tunes to sooth my brain. (“Return Of The King” soundtrack. Tasty!)

The writer’s group made it all worth while. I think this may be a very good thing, as long as the commute doesn’t get too onerous.

But it does make for a long day, with lots of other stuff to get caught up on once I get home. And I should eat, I guess. As well as keeping an eye on the government to make sure they don’t do something even more stupid. Or, at the least, know about it when they do. (Eternal optimism can be a real pain in the ass some times.)

So have a before & after pair of pictures:

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Filed under Flowers, Photography, Politics, Writing

October 8, 2013 · 20:00

What Do Our Representatives Owe Us?

I haven’t written much on the current political deadlock in the US because I find that the whole mess tends to do bad things to my blood pressure. In addition, given that it’s a pretty central story to just about every news conduit every second right now, there are some far, far better wordsmiths than I weighing in. For example, Jim Wright has a truly excellent, civil, even-handed, and logical article over on his Stonekettle Station blog. There are body parts I would sacrifice or exchange if I could write that well.

Nevertheless, today a couple of thoughts came together in my brain that I need to put out there for discussion.

First, one of my all-time favorite plays, musicals, and movies is “1776“. We studied it in high school in 1971 or 1972 and I was enthralled. There was talk of our school doing it as our senior play and I was ready to just nail the part of John Adams. (We eventually did “Harvey” instead and I played Dr. Chumley.) I can still do whole sections of “1776” at the drop of a hat. If I see it being done live anywhere here in LA, I’m there.

A line from John Adams’ opening soliloquy has been widely quoted during the current (and previous) Congressional deadlocks:

“I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace, that two are called a law firm, and that three or more become a Congress. And by God, I have had this Congress!”

You won’t get an argument from me.

Secondly, today I read probably the 100th news story quoting a member of the Republican “Suicide Caucus” (a term coined by Pulitzer Prize-winning, conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer) justifying what they’re doing as follows – while a huge majority of Americans may think that what they’re doing is completely deplorable and despicable, their constituents from back in their (gerrymandered) districts are telling them to fight on, stay the course, keep doing what is perceived back in the district as the right thing.

With that article still rattling around in my head, I started humming something from “1776”. I thought about a scene late in the movie, just before the July 4th vote is taken on the Declaration of Independence. In this scene, a Congressional Congress delegate who has been instructed by his constituents to vote against independence instead changes his vote to what he believes is right, i.e., approval of the Declaration and freedom from England.

During this scene, a quote from British Parliamentarian Edmund Burke is given as a key part of the logic and thought process behind the change in his vote. I went and found the exact quote, from Burke’s 1774 Speech to the Electors at Bristol at the Conclusion of the Poll (section 4.1.22 – worth reading the whole section even if you don’t read the whole speech):

“Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.”

Let’s think about that for a minute, current 2013 members of the House of Representatives.

You repeatedly claim that you’re taking these actions, as harmful and damaging as they are, because the folks back home who elected you are telling you that’s what they want? That’s really your story? That’s really your justification?

What if “what they’re telling you to do” is causing serious damage to huge sections of the country?

What if “what they’re telling you to do” is a real threat to put the country right back into another recession, or worse?

What if “what they’re telling you to do” has a legitimate chance of causing incredible damage to the entire world’s economy?

What if “what they’re telling you to do” can destroy the United States’ position as a world power?

What if “what they’re telling you to do” is a corruption of the US Constitution, not a defense of it?

What if “what they’re telling you to do” is insane?

What if “what they’re telling you to do” is treason?

(For the moment we’ll overlook the question of whether “what they’re telling you to do” is actually what they’re telling you to do, or just what some multi-billionaire, ultra conservative campaign contributors are telling you to do.)

In researching the Burke quote, I was surprised to find several sources referring to Burke as one of the philosophical fathers of modern conservative thought. It was also fascinating to find that Burke thought as he did because he believed that the common masses would be slaves to emotional and impassioned impulses, while a governing body of the elite upper class would be able to make rational, unbiased decisions when governing.

I’m open to the judgement that we could be doing that part wrong, also.

Let’s assume that the current conservative factions in our government would or should listen to the philosophy of one of the founders of their movement. Let’s assume that the current representatives are sane and intelligent, able to make rational, unbiased decisions. Let’s assume that they take seriously their responsibilities to “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”.

Given those assumptions, how in the world can the “Suicide Caucus” justify their current actions based on the argument that “the folks back home are telling us to do it?” Would Burke clearly not demand that the representatives do what is right (based on reasoning and logic) instead of what the masses instruct them to do (based on uninformed or uneducated bias and impulsiveness)?

Conversely, if Burke is wrong and the “Suicide Caucus’s” responsibility is to either pass laws that their constituents demand or work to hold the entire country hostage, would they use the current legislative tactics if “the folks back home” had other extreme views?

What if the folks back home thought that women shouldn’t vote?

What if the folks back home thought that blacks shouldn’t vote, or even be granted citizenship?

What if the folks back home thought that only those born in the United States of US parents should have citizenship?

What if the folks back home thought that only property owners should be able to vote?

What if the folks back home thought that only approved Christian churches should be allowed, not Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, or any other?

Would any of these Representatives ever dream of blackmailing the entire country and holding the economy hostage over any of those extreme issues? If not, why do they think it’s somehow ethical, just, and justifiable to do that over the ACA, which is the law of the land after having been debated for years, modified, compromised, passed by Congress, challenged, ruled constitutional by a conservative Supreme Court, and given a mandate by the 2012 national elections?

The logic isn’t there – but we all know that. The question at this point is how we get the Congressional leaders to bother listening to their own founders, and be sane and intelligent enough to understand what he was telling them.

If only it were that easy.

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Moral Outrage, Politics

September 30, 2013 · 21:23

Something To Cheer Us Up!

It’s after midnight in Washington DC and the FREAKIN’ IDIOTS (you know who you are!) have managed their particular little epic fail. I was going to rant at length, but Chuck Wendig did it far better than I could ever dream of (WARNING – it’s really, really NSFW) here.

Instead, since I’m depressed and frustrated with all of that BS plus a bunch of other things, let’s just look at pictures of puppies and kittens. Maybe it will all be better in the morning.

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2001_0930AEMaybe October will be better.

 

 

 

 

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Filed under Cats, Dogs, Freakin' Idiots!, Politics

September 25, 2013 · 21:47

Juicy Chunks O’ Wisdom For Wednesday, September 25th

‘Cause I’m trying to get caught up on a bunch o’ stuff, that’s why.

  • Congrats to all parties involved in getting the Expedition 37 astronauts up to the ISS today. I’ll give a lot of credit to the Russians, they really have it down pat when it comes to simply getting the job done.
  • While changing channels to get to NASA-TV I accidentally wound up on NBC Sports channel and some hunting show, heavily sponsored by the NRA. I had never seen any of the ads they’re running now to keep their faithful in line. Oh. My. God! I’m actually a big supporter of the Second Amendment, but in the Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly way. These NRA dudes are truly scary.
  • I’m not a big fan of Chrysler vehicles after the problems they’ve given us in the last couple of years. On the other hand, the ads they’ve been running for the last year or so for the new Dart II have been fantastic. Very catchy, clever, amusing, and effective. Now I’m starting to see similar ads for the new Charger. Conclusion – their cars might be questionable, but they’ve got a great ad agency!
  • Don’t sweat the petty things and don’t pet the sweaty things.
  • Do raccoons hibernate or do I have to put up with these critters running around on my roof all winter long?
  • Does anyone know where I can get some of those old baseball-themed “No Fear” T-shirts still? I can find articles about them online and one or two on Ebay, but that’s it.
  • I don’t normally do Facebook memes, but many of my fannish/filker friends are taking the “What Literary Character Are You?” test. So I answered their silly questions honestly, and got “Gandalf”. It’s so tempting to take it again and try to guess what answers will give the “Sauron” or “Darth Vader”.
  • Speaking of busted Chryslers, I happened across a YouTube video that shows how to replace the part that’s broken in my daughter’s PT Cruiser. It’s a little box inside the steering column about the size of a pack of cards and the replacement looks pretty straightforward. Except that you need a couple of dealer-only “anti-theft” tools. And the part is only available to dealers. And two dealers have told me that the only way to fix it is to replace the entire steering column for $2,000+. I’m just about the furthest thing in the world from being a “car guy” or a “gear head”, but does anyone wanna bet that I can find that “dealer only” piece in a junkyard and get the “dealer only” tools somewhere on Ebay and fix the car for something on the order of $100 instead of something on the order of $2,000?
  • I’ve upgraded all of my iCritters to iOS7 and I’m really happy with it for the most part. A couple of little glitches here and there on a couple of apps, but none of them are a big thing. Except for the redesigned WordPress app. Geez Louise! I tried to use it today to write this post and wanted to gouge my eyeballs out with a fork after about five minutes.

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Filed under Juicy Chunks, Politics, Space

September 11, 2013 · 15:07

Always Remember, Never Forget

Today is, of course, September 11th.

9/11.

The twelfth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the United States in which 2,977 innocent people were murdered by 19 terrorists.

Unless you’re spending the day (and probably the whole week) locked inside of a vault which is sealed inside a Faraday cage, completely cutting you off from all contact with civilization, it’s impossible to not see and hear hundreds of mentions of 9/11. Television news, newspapers, online news, Twitter, Facebook, e-mail — they’ve all got stories about 9/11, either the one in 2001 or the memorial services today. That’s not unusual given that it was such a monumental day in the lives of so many people.

So many people were directly affected, losing a spouse, child, parent, or friend. So many people were injured and still suffer from long-term disabilities due to the after effects and exposure to toxic smoke and materials following the collapse of the World Trade Center towers. Factor in everyone who was killed or injured in the ten years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and the percentage of the population which have had their lives knocked off course due to 9/11 gets to be huge.

We all watched and felt the horror, shock, anger, and frustration. So many among us were directly touched and scarred by the events of the day. For them, this day on the calendar will never be the same.

But…

Don’t we all have dates on the calendar which rock us back on our heels every year? Dates on which we know that we’re going to have to spend some time alone or with family or loved ones to remember and reflect on the loss of a spouse, parent, child, or friend? The difference with a tragedy like 9/11 is one of proportion and size, with so many people sharing the pain, horror, and anger.

Sadly, among those who weren’t directly touched that day, so many have succumbed to fear that continues to echo in their lives. We need to beware of that. Too often that fear is irrational and leads to consequences which weaken us instead of strengthening us as a society. More on that some other time perhaps.

What of those who had some wonderful thing happen on September 11th, either the one in 2001 or some other. Or the day before, or the day after? Today I’ve seen multiple stories about children born on 09/11/2001 who can’t enjoy their birthdays or even get teased or bullied about it, as if they had any control. I’ve seen people whose wedding anniversary just happens to be September 11th, and they feel that it’s now tainted in some way.

Really? People react this way?

Two sentiments that sound like opposites but mean the same thing get repeated over and over on September 11th. Our new national mantra for the day.

“Always remember.”

“Never forget.”

Absolutely. No question. But let’s do it with our brains as well as our hearts.

Let us make a conscious, intelligent decision to be positive, not negative.

Let us always remember the innocents, remember the heroes, and remember the stories of bravery and courage.

Let us make a choice to not remember it tinged with an everlasting patina of fear and hate.

We can and should pledge to never forget any of it.

We can and should strive to always remember and memorialize every loss and every triumph.

We must also realize that we have a choice in how we work to do those things as well as how we try to prevent it from happening again.

We can be inspired or we can be consumed. We can be motivated or we can be paralyzed. We can look forward to our dreams or we can be trapped by our past.

Sometimes in all of the grief and rage it’s hard to remember that we still get to choose.

Let’s always remember that, too. Never forget it.

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Filed under Politics

August 5, 2013 · 21:24

Stuck In The Middle Blues

A few items from the current headlines and from our personal life:

  • Fourteen baseball players got huge suspensions and penalties for getting caught again using illegal performance enhancing drugs – the record books mean just about nothing these days since many of the current records were set by players who were or were suspected to be “juiced”.
  • At our grocery store we’re now forced to either check out our own groceries (a process which fails more often than it succeeds and they only have one person to assist a dozen terminals as things go FUBAR) or wait in increasingly long lines caused by only having one or two of the eight regular checkout aisles open. Yet every couple of years we have to endure even worse service and even less selection when the union goes on strike, sometimes for months and months. Oh, and we now get a choice of either bagging our own groceries or taking even longer at checkout to wait for the groceries to be properly crushed by the union employees.
  • We’ve got a dozen or more channels on our cable television that are now showing propaganda from Time Warner Cable – no CBS or Showtime or KCAL. They’re predicting that this particular little pissing contest might drag on for weeks, until the return of the NFL games gets consumers really, Really, REALLY pissed off instead of just really pissed off.
  • At least we have the NFL this year. Last year we didn’t have the referees and it was a joke. A few years ago we didn’t have players and it was a bigger joke. The NHL season last year was cut to about half its normal length by a strike/lockout, and a few years ago those yahoos managed to cancel an entire season.
  • In San Francisco, BART went on strike last month for several days, completely snarling the city. They went back to work for a month-long “cooling off period”, but that’s expired now and the only reason they weren’t on strike again this morning and again shutting down the city was because the governor stepped in. That will only buy a few days and then we’re right back to our brinksmanship.
  • Congress. The White House. The state legislature. (Any state.) The city council. Does any one have any level of government that isn’t totally a partisan collection of completely incompetent buffoons? Doesn’t matter the party, doesn’t matter your affiliation. It’s the blind leading the blind, six of one and half a dozen of the other.

The common thread in all of these stories (and dozens more just like it every day) is that the common people, you and I, get the short end of the stick every single time.

Do CBS and Time Warner Cable lose anything significant in their dispute? Not really, and eventually they’ll come to an agreement that will be identical to the agreement they could have come to last week. But the little guy that just wants to watch television at night gets screwed.

Do any of the millionaire athletes or billionaire owners lose anything when they go toe to toe for months? You know better. But the devoted fans who live for the games turn bitter and disillusioned, while tens of thousands of minimum wage employees and small businesses who provide parking and tickets and food and security and cleaning and a thousand other things at the games all get to go unemployed. They’re missing meals, they’re losing their homes, they’re going broke – how many athletes or owners missed meals or lost their homes?

Same thing about the unions and the stores and the unions and the transit managers and the unions and the hospitals and… After months of angst, suffering, and sometimes violence, they’ll come to the exact same agreement that they could have done earlier to avoid the problem. Then they’ll both “declare victory” and claim that they did it “for us”.

That’s the salt in the wound.

Look at what CBS and TWC are telling the press, putting on billboards, and putting on full-page newspaper ads. Each side claims that they’re doing what they’re doing in order to help you and me, to protect you and me from the big, bad other guy.

BULLSHIT.

Maybe they’re so delusional and drowning in the corporate koolaid that they truly believe that. Maybe they’re truly so full of their own stupidity to even realize how blind and ignorant they are, something that’s only too clear to us.

Or more likely, they’re fully aware of what BS they’re spreading, and they’re fully aware that we know that they’re raining BS down on us – THEY JUST DON’T CARE.

We’re cannon fodder to them, the little guys stuck in the middle, and they can continue to redefine the limits of arrogance and ignorance. It’s just a game to them.

Politicians, labor leaders, civic leaders, owners, athletes, captains of industry – none of them care. It’s guaranteed that none of them are “leaders” by any definition of the term that I grew up with. If they were, they would solve the problems before they became crises. They would work their butts off to make it better instead of deliberately making it worse.

Yeah. Let’s wait for that to happen. Can anyone name the last time that one of these “leaders” did his or her job and actually “led”, actually solved problems, actually got their job done and earned their millions and billions?

Maybe if 500,000 cable subscribers this month didn’t pay their bill and turned in their cable boxes, would that get their attention? If a couple million voters signed recall petitions and demanded there be a “None of the Above” option on the ballot, would Congress notice? If the baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and soccer stadiums were 99% empty for a year or two and no one bought jerseys or memorabilia to put millions in the athlete’s pockets, would they wise up?

It’ll never happen. We don’t have any leaders who are supposed to be leaders, and we most certainly don’t have any leaders to lead the masses in the middle out of that rut and out of harm’s way.

I wish that I were wrong.

Freakin’ idiots.

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Politics, Sports

August 2, 2013 · 13:28

Political Robocalls

This morning I got my first “robo-call” from a local politician wanting my vote in the upcoming September special election for state assembly. We have a special election coming up in September? Who knew?

And so it begins again. I hate robocalls, with a passion like the fiery burning of a thousand white-hot suns.

On the one hand, one of the few things that Congress has done that I’m a big fan of is the “Do Not Call List“. We signed up instantly when it went live a few years ago.

On the other hand, every spammer, scammer, and troll out there pretty much blatantly ignores the DNCL. There is really no way to enforce the DNCL laws since it’s so trivially easy for the scum telemarketers to spoof their caller IDs. When you get one of these calls for “credit card repairs” or “carpet cleaning” or “home improvements” or whatever, there’s no way to know the actual name, address, or phone number of the slimeball company calling you. They don’t care if you hang up, it’s just a computer. It’s already gone on to the next automated call.

If you click past the computer robocall and get a human to ask for any of that information, demand that they stop calling, threaten them with an FTC complaint, or simply cuss them out and vent your frustrations at them, they simply hang up on you. Even when you do manage to find out the information needed to file a complaint, there is so little enforcement that it’s a complete joke.

You and your anger and frustration mean absolutely zero to anyone involved, either those inflicting the robocall interruptions on us or those who are supposed to be stopping them.

The best part of all is that the politicians, upstanding leaders of our society that they are, wrote the DNCL laws and exempted themselves from it. Politicians and political campaigns can robocall you until your ears bleed and there’s not a thing you can do about it. Their justification was that it was necessary in order to insure we had open and free elections and campaigning. (Can you say “bullshit”? Sure. I knew you could!)

Do companies actually get any business out of these robocalls? Have you or anyone you know ever done business or paid good money based on a robocall or telemarketer? EVER?

Do politicians actually get any votes out of these robocalls? Have you or anyone you know ever voted for someone or something based on a robocall or telemarketer? EVER?

It’s a mystery to me. I don’t know of a single person who could answer either of these questions with a “yes”. (If you can, please, please, PLEASE let me know in the comments!) Yet there must be some return on the money spent to do this kind of “advertising” or “marketing”. If there wasn’t, simple economics says that they would stop. Yet it keeps getting worse. Ergo, it must pay off. Who are the people who aren’t as annoyed by these calls as everyone I know?

Sometimes we go for weeks at a time with our phone off the hook or unplugged, simply in order to avoid getting called a dozen times a day by some idiot machine or another. At the moment, due to a couple of other things going on in life, that’s not a good option. Ditto for simply ignoring the ringing unless it’s someone we recognize. There are a couple of potential calls we can get at any moment that we really, really need to get and we won’t recognize those numbers. We’re a captive target audience.

The only small control we can have over this problem lies with the politicians. They have to let us know exactly who or what they’re pushing or it’s truly a waste of their time and money. But in doing so, they also make sure that we know exactly who’s bothering us and pissing us off.

I had never heard of the guy who had the political robocall from this morning. I have now, which I guess satisfies part of his campaign’s goal. But I also went to his website, hit the “contact us” button, and fired off a capsule summary of my feelings on robocalls and pointed out that I now vote for the guy who robocalls me the least.

I have no clue who he’s running against, but I know that he has called. Like the old joke says, “That’s one!” He’s now in last place in this race as far as I’m concerned.

Any political campaign consultants out there listening?

(P.S. – in the half hour or so that it’s taken to write this rant, I’ve had two more robocalls, one on duct cleaning and one on credit cards.)

(P.P.S. – there should be a software patch in WordPress so that when I flag a post with the “Politics” category, the “Freakin’ Idiots!” category automatically gets flagged as well!)

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Filed under Freakin' Idiots!, Politics

July 20, 2013 · 20:20

Forty-Four Years Ago Today

Forty-four years ago today we all held our breath until the Eagle had landed. It was one of the biggest moments in human history, right up there with the discovery of fire, domestication of animals, development of agriculture, invention of movable type & printing press, discovery of America, and the development of flight.

20130720-183608.jpg CBS

And it was live on television. Walter Cronkite was as nervous as we had ever seen him, on pins and needles, and (dare we say it?) almost speechless. We listened to the radio transmissions, heard the calls as master alarms were going off, heard the warnings from Houston that fuel was running out, heard the warnings from Neil Armstrong that the autopilot was putting the Eagle into a boulder field and he was taking over the controls.

Were they going to have to abort? Or worse, were they going to crash or be trapped where they couldn’t take off again, dying so very far from home? We had seen failure and death on the pad just thirty-one months earlier when we had lost Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee. Armstrong had almost died on Gemini 8, along with David Scott. Success was by no means guaranteed.

“Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed.”

Do you remember the cheering? The insane, out of your mind relief and release of tension? The hugging of total strangers in every corner of the world? The pictures on the news, and in Time and Life and Look and Newsweek and National Geographic magazines, and on every newspaper in the world?

20130720-194938.jpgDenver Post

Do you remember the crowds watching and cheering along with us in London, Paris, Bangkok, New Dehli, Cairo, Johannesburg, Rio de Janerio, and tiny little villages in the middle of nowhere on every continent. Do you remember 600 million people all watching together?

Where I was a 13-year old in the Chicago suburbs, it was late in the evening by the time the moon walk started, six and a half hours after landing. It was coming up on 10:00 at night when the hatch opened and Armstrong started down the ladder. He pulled a lanyard, a hatch on the side of the LM folded down, and we had live video! From the moon! With a guy climbing down the ladder in front of us!

20130720-185514.jpg NASA

“That’s one small step…”

I don’t know how much my seven younger brothers and sisters remember from that night. I know my parents had us all there in front of the television, but it was late and I’m sure that many of them slept through most of it.

20130720-191201.jpg NASA

I did not. I still vividly remember the first step, the ghostly black & white televised images as the contingency soil samples were taken, Buzz Aldrin coming down the ladder next with Armstrong’s help, the installation of the science experiments, the set up of the US flag, the call from Nixon.

One of my most distinct memories is from when the plaque on the lander’s leg was unveiled. As Neil read the plaque, the video was clear enough to see inside his helmet and you could see his face as he read.

“We came in peace for all mankind.”

20130720-191028.jpgNASA

Soon enough it was done. They hustled to get the rock boxes and cameras and experiments back into the LM. After less than an hour, the first moonwalk in human history was done. The crew, and the world, got some sleep. The next day Armstrong and Aldrin blasted off from the moon, docked with Mike Collins in the Columbia command module, and returned safely to Earth three days later. Their film got developed and we’ve had iconic images as a part of our lives, our culture, and our history for forty-four years.

20130720-193957.jpgNASA

Now it’s forty-four years later. A generation and more not only don’t remember Apollo 11, they weren’t born until fifteen or twenty years after Gene Cernan left the last footprints on the moon at the end of Apollo 17 in 1973.

Why haven’t we gone back? Why haven’t we learned about living on another planet by living on another planet?

Why haven’t we gone further? Why haven’t we put boot prints on Mars? Or an asteroid? Or a comet?

Why haven’t we gone permanently? Elon Musk and others are now talking about colonization, not just travel. Why aren’t there opportunities for people like me, middle aged, healthy, kids grown, to go and live the rest of our lives building a colony on the moon or at L5 or on Mars?

Given the chance to spend the next forty or fifty years here on the ground becoming a part of the Lazy Boy lounger or going to Mars for fifteen or twenty years building the first human colony on another planet, I’m outta here in a heartbeat.

Forty-four years ago I wanted more than anything to follow in Neil Armstrong’s and Buzz Aldrin’s footsteps.

I still do.

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