Drifting away from sanity

During the past few months I have been plagued by insomnia. I tried to ride it out, but nothing solved the problem. Even sleeping pills just made me groggy. I truly cannot sleep four or five nights out of seven. It's making me crazy.

I decided to just ride it out, I figured eventually I will get tired enough to sleep naturally. Last night was a totally sleepless one, so I got up at 5 o'clock and tried to get something done. I resisted the desire to go back to bed, but went to the gym instead, doing my usual routine, but sluggishly. I was very tired when I got home, and my feet and legs were tired, so I lay down on the couch with a book. (Sometimes when I elevate my feet it relieves the tiredness. I'm a great believer in elevating the feet.)

I could feel myself drifting off, even though the air was hot and still. I woke up completely disoriented. I only knew I had been asleep a long time. My watch told me it was 5:30, but whether in the morning or the evening I could not tell. I looked at my phone and found it was still Tuesday. I was relieved. (I think.) Maybe not.

I could not help remembering a time, long ago, when I never knew what time it was. I was maybe 13. My family had just moved into a new house, my parents were separated, the house was horribly hot. I stayed up late, very late. I would be reading. Two o'clock would come, then three, and I would tell myself to go to sleep, but I wouldn't. I was reading P G Wodehouse at the time, I remember. I would wake up at 2 or three in the afternoon, feeling completely adrift from the society around me. It was unpleasant. More than that, it was frightening. I felt so separated from everyday life, unmoored from the ordinary life of ordinary people. Nowhere to be, nowhere to go. It was like being dead, but still alive.

Computer problems

So I wanted to order my medication over the phone, using Humana's automated service. I put in the prescription number. then was asked for my birthdate. I gave them the only birthdate I have, but the computer did not recognize it. So what to do? I am stumped. I can't change my date of birth, much as I would like to.

Blogger is driving me crazy

Yes, Blogger is cheap. In fact it is free, the very best kind of cheap. Otherwise, no-one would use it. It's a very clumsy tool. For instance, since I haven't been blogging, I forgot that, even though I put page breaks in, Blogger does not recognize them. They print all my stuff in one block of text--the print equivalent of a speech by the late lamented (but not by me) Fidel Castro.

By the way, for those who want to impeach Donald Trump: Getting rid of Trump doesn't mean that Hillary would be president. That's not how it works. Mike Pence would become President. I hope you all like him. He probably would not employ his son-in-law, and it's a sure thing that Melania is prettier than Mrs Pence.

Damn upset

I was expecting my airbnb guest today, but he stood me up. Admittedly, I was of two minds about having a stranger in my house, but now that he does not want to come I am desolate. I cleaned the house as though expecting an inspection by my most censorious aunt, a woman who has been dead for 20 years. I know this attitude on my part is unreasonable. I am fully aware of the stupidity of it. The feeling is strong though.

I am trying to get back to my usually scintillating self, but it's hard to get back on track. Bear with me please.

One pleasant development--I am glad to hear from my old blogfriends. Being surrounded here by incendiary Democrats, I am afraid to open my mouth lest I become a social leper. One Facebook friend expressed her annoyance with readers who commented only on personal matters but failed to respond to her political rants. Apparently it is not enough to live and let live, to agree to disagree, to withhold commenting on matters about which we disagree; she wanted full-throated agreement or nothing. Nothing is what she got, from me. Since I refused to join the Trump Assassination Club, I was persona non grata. Tough. I can live with that. But I like to know that out there in the Internet, there are people who agree with me!.

I'm starting a new career as an airbnb host

I put up the pictures, very poor ones to be sure, but someone is already coming on Monday!

Distracted by facebook

I admit it--I was distracted by Facebook. But I got burned out. Facebook can actually be very dull. Having seen countless Facebook videos of people's cats doing clever things, I have decided to swear off them. Unless you can train your cat to cook and serve a flawless dinner for 8 and then clean up the mess, I'm not interested. Or maybe she could knit a sweater or even a scarf. I will still watch videos of small children or dogs doing something cute. But it has to be really cute. I also like to see your grandchildren. i'm tired now. More tomorrow.

Back in business

I decided that since I am never going to be free of the Mysterious Ailment, to continue with my life as if I were normal and just avoid falling down. At this point, I am more or less normal except I don't take long walks without my walker. I bring it along because I have broken my nose. The break is not visible to the outer eye, but I do have two gouges, one under each eye, which the dermatologist says he can't fix, the result of collateral damage in the form of black eyes. However, I have been tested every which way and you would be surprised at how many diseases have been ruled out. I'm feeling quite healthy. Sort of. This is a notice that I am going to be just as annoying as ever. I am going to stay away from politics, though. The stuff that goes on every day is beyond satire unless you are Jonathan Swift. And I'm not. Just a humble blogger, thank you.

Who do you think won the debate?

I only watched a little of it. The consensus seems to be that Hillary won it, according to reports from the professional thinkers on television today. Frankly, I was gobsmacked when Hillary came to the mic, wearing what at first glance appeared to be a union suit; long red underwear such as you used to see in cartoons about hicks in the sticks, with a rear seat that comes down for sanitary purposes. But it was just one of her lamentable* pantsuits, possibly picked up during her stay in Arkansas. Or maybe it belonged to Bill. The woman has no fashion sense whatever, unlike Princess Diana, who had fashion sense but no other sense to speak of. She was like a paper doll--but at least you enjoyed looking at her. I am also sick of Hillary's voice. Did she always sound like the village scold? Trump is almost unintelligible. One suspects a brain is in there somewhere. Some of the stuff he says makes sense, but you have to work hard to figure it out. We need a new amendment to the Constitution barring people over 60 from running for office. *I should have said deplorable. Sorry.

Back and better than ever

This blog was hijacked for quite a while, but my computer expert sorted it out, so I am back to expressing myself, sort of.

I have been busy trying to renegotiate my mortgage while co-signing for a new car for  a relative.  Never do these two things together--it's like mixing chlorine with ammonia, which I understand is  toxic.  Actually it's more like trying to stand on your head while painting your toenails.  It can be done, but at a great cost to sanity.

I also am coping with a super sinus infection and other major or minor infirmities.  But I've always been a person who didn't know how to quit, and that hasn't changed.

Watch this space.  I'm open for business. 

Being sick

I have been feeling a little down for a while, but I ignored it.  Yesterday I felt that I was in imminent danger of dying.  All systems were shutting down.  I was coughing and sneezing, my head was stuffed up, I could not remember how to add, subtract, multiply of divide.  So either the grim reaper was coming for me or I had a galloping case of Alzheimer's.  To make matters worse, I was choking on a piece of raw cauliflower.  What an ignominious death that would be!  To choke to death on a humble vegetable!

The doctor did not agree that i was dying.  He thought I had a sinus infection, and prescribed some generic antibiotic.  After one day on this medicine, I feel better, although my mathematical skills are still shaky--but that might be because I am trying to do my income tax.

What a miracle!  What did doctors do for patients before antibiotics were discovered?

About Oscar Wilde,English history, and other harrowing events.

I saw the most marvelous film tonight--"Oscar Wilde," starring Robert Morley, who was perfect for the part.  Wilde's undoing was a libel lawsuit he instigated against his lover's father.  The film was 90 percent about the trial, and brilliantly done.  Of course, British actors are the best in the world.  Now I have to look up Wilde, Carson and the rest of the principal characters and see how true to history the film was.

The Marquess of Queensbury was represented in court by Ralph Richardson, who I finally figured out was playing Sir Edward Carson, a brilliant lawyer and, I believe, member of Parliament.  Carson, born in Ireland--as was Oscar Wilde--but of Scottish descent,was a firm Unionist,  and a real pain in the neck to the Irish Parliamentary Party. How I wished Mr Charm were still around to talk about the movie with.  He could tell me all about Sir Edward Carson.

Mr Charm took his PhD in English history.  His specialty was the late 19th century and early 20th century and he loved reading and talking about Sir Edward Carson, F E Smith and other brilliant lights of the period.  He really loved his studies.  He was the first person in his family to attend college and appreciated the opportunity to do so.  How I miss him!  We always watched the Olympics together.  They were not the same without him.  We always made presidential elections a special event, staying up till all hours to watch the results.  I don't find them very interesting without him.  Funny how that works.

Mayans and Muslims

The Mayans had some really neat art forms, civilization, yada yada.  Pyramids!  They also practiced human sacrifice, but hey, that was their culture and we mustn't be judgmental.   These wonderful folks are all dead.   The Spanish took care of them.  Does anyone wonder why the other mesoamerican tribes allied themselves with the Spanish invaders?  Perhaps they didn't want to be human sacrifices--just guessing, of course.

I would suggest that today's Islam operates under the same value system as the Mayans.  Their vengeful god demands human sacrifice, only in this case the humans in question are non-muslims.  Their god is the meanest in the Pantheon.  The Greek gods were pussycats compared to him.

We are wrong in considering Islam one of the Abrahamic faiths,   a religion of peace as our leaders keep repeating ad nauseam.  They are not like the Christians or the Jews, who consider all humans made in the image of God, all worth redeeming.  They are like the Mayans, a warrior religion which wants to rid the world of non-Muslims.   If we don't get tough with them, they will outnumber us soon.

   Being sick.

For the past year I have been under the star of some malignant force that has it in for me.  I got sick last year just about about Labor Day and spent several days in the infectious disease area of a local hospital and then 21 days in a nursing home.  I had a super-duper infection that required a special antibiotic and had to be administered by infusion into a port which they installed in my upper chest.

That was just the beginning.  After that I went to California where I suffered numerous urgent health problems, which I won't go into. And it's still not over.  The worst of it is the feeling of debilitation which leaves you helpless and angry.  It's difficult to snap back after a health crisis; your first impulse is just to turn your head to the wall.

The only thing that helps when you get that sick is physical therapy.  I felt immediately stronger after every session, and almost got back to my original state of health several times, but when I got sick again I went downhill fast.  Then I came back fast, though.

I am hoping that this Labor Day will see the end of this cycle of debility and despair.

My latest painting:

Bellieving six impossible things before breakfast

I am puzzled by the events in Orlando.  Grieved, of course, but puzzled.

Three hundred people were peacefully assembled when 1 (one) lone gunman murdered 49 of them and wounded 50 more. while at the same time chatting in Arabic on his cell phone and no-one did anything?  It's hard to believe.  Nevertheless. res ipsa loquitor.  Or is it ipso?  I got a C in Latin, but you get the idea.

I'm not blaming the victims.  I just cannot believe that 300 disabled Social Security recipients  along with 100 Brownie Girl Scouts couldn't have done something.  Got behind him and kicked him in the ass, for instance.  Jumped him.  Tackled him.  But it happened, so res ipsa whatever. 

Oh yes, and where were the police for three hours?

I'm confused

Please enlighten me.  Homosexuality is a no-no, how come some muslims rape little boys?  Is there a little boy exception to that law?

Just and juster

Once a year the Athenians would meet and vote on exiling someone. If a simple majority voted yes, then they dispersed and reassembled two months later. They brought with them their ostracon (a fragment of pottery), on which they had scratched the name of the person they thought represented a threat. The man with the most votes lost. He was exiled for 10 years, They not only voted people into office, but they had a regular procedure for voting one person per year out of office. It was an option which could be exercised but did not have to be. The exile did not involve confiscation or any other punitive measures.

Aristides was known for his probity, and often called Aristides the Just.  On one occasion, a voter, who did not know him, came up to him, and giving him his shard, asked him to write upon it the name of Aristides. The latter asked if Aristides had wronged him. “No,” was the reply, “and I do not even know him, but it irritates me to hear him everywhere called the just.”

There's a moral to this story, but I don't know what it is.

Second rate movies

I love to watch old movies.  But once in a while you find yourself watching a real stinker.  How you can tell:

1.  The sets are crummy, look like they are made of cardboard, but the picture is really dark so you can't tell.

2.  All the police are old, way too old to serve on a police force.  Imagine one of these senior citizens chasing a criminal!  He would drop dead of a heart attack after the first 60 seconds.

3.Much staged business around smoking.  Like this:  "Mind if I smoke?"  "No, have one of mine."  "No thanks, I have my own.."  "Nice cigarette case."   "Got a light?"  "Thanks,"  Cigarette is lighted, and both characters inhale pensively, followed by silent contemplation as they stare at one another.  This interaction takes a minute or two, advancing the action not at all.  Unless the book of matches comes from a suspicious source, in which case the mystery is solved.  This action can be varied by offers of cigars, fussing around fiddling with pipes, or scrutiny of cigarette butts in an ashtray with lipstick on them.

4.  Similarly, but not as frequently, pouring and consumption of drinks, which are always on a handy table, complete with seltzer bottle, glassware, and a bucket of ice.  Drinks don't take as much time as smoking, so are less frequently deployed.

5.  Final scene, when the murderer is about to murder the heroine, so the police chief orders "Calling all cars," and all the elderly cops get in their cars and drive madly around, sirens screaming.

Now you know.

Hillary's wardrobe

People are saying mean things about Hillary's wardrobe, particularly the $12,000 coat she appeared in recently.  I  think that's a cheap shot.  The coat is not becoming,--she can't carry it off.   She looks like she picked it up at some store that features garments for older women.  I can just see some upper middle class woman wearing it to church or to a do at the Women's Club, and looking better in it than Hillary.

No kidding, I think I would look better in that coat than she does; she is not interested in looking attractive, and I am.  Surely the pantsuits she wore in office were dreadful, but so was everything she wore, including her ugly hairstyle, which made her look like someone who does not visit her stylist  often enough, or maybe doesn't even have a hairstylist.  She does not place a high value on her appearance, having more worthwhile things to concern herself with, like how many bombs to drop on ISIS this week or what to do about hunger.  I'm not saying she shouldn't spend a lot of money on her clothes; no-one expects a millionaire in public life to shop at JCPenney. (Sorry, JC, not criticizing you!)

Everyone was always sniping at Jacqueline Kennedy for dressing elegantly, but she was a delight to the eye, very pretty, very stylish.  She brought grace to the White House.  Michelle Obama always looks beautifully dressed, although every time she opens her mouth she utters claptrap, and aggrieved claptrap at that.  Silence would do her a world of good.

Hillary is not a good campaigner, unlike her husband, who clearly loves, loves, loves speaking to a group who adulates him.  His wife is more like Nixon; she understands that you can't get elected unless you campaign for office, so she does, but you can see it is not her metier.  Bill liked to show off, and he craved attention and admiration.  He had a raffish sort of charm.  People liked him.  If you were seated next to him at a dinner party, you would like him.  If you were seated next to Hillary, she would talk about day care or getting out the vote.  Trump is more like Bill, he glories in being the center of attention.  He takes great joy in shooting off his mouth and more, in shocking people like a kid showing off in class.

Her voice is not passionate or persuasive.  It's not even pleasant.  That midwestern croak!  Crows could take her seminar and benefit by it.  She does not love her audience and they don't love her back.  As for her ideas!  She, like Muhammed Ali, keeps talking about fighting, but unlike him, she does not put on the gloves.  Her ideas are shopworn and have no substance.  Sincerity also is not her metier, unlike Bernie Sanders, who clearly believes every crackpot idea he so passionately advocates.

What Hillary clearly believes is that it is her turn to be President.  She earned it!  She's a woman,   She was gracious about losing to Obama, so she is now entitled to the presidency for being a good sport, and  it is her turn.

How to be Republican

I changed my party registration when I lived in New Jersey and someone I knew was running in the primary for some office.  Later I tried to change it back to Democrat but for some reason that option was not open to me on this particular day.  So I stayed a Republlican--it was easier. There were so few republicans in the district that I was asked to be a district leader, not because I had any value to anyone but simply because I was living and breathing.

This happened around the time Jimmy Carter was president.  I actually started disliking Jimmy when he decided to carry his own suitcase into the White House. What a tiresome person he was, chock full of false humility!   Him and his sweaters!  He was such a loser that I voted Republican in the next election and Ronald Reagan won.  Ron wore a suit and tie, not a cardigan like a Man of the People.  Good enough for me.

I became a staunch Republican.  At every subsequent election I voted for the republican candidate. Some of them were not so hot, I admit.  But probably no worse than their opponents.

This brings me to Donald Trump.  I plan to vote for him because he won the nomination fair and square.  I would rather vote for Abraham Lincoln, but he is not on the ballot.. I have two choices, and all the finely reasoned objections to him by highly educated intellectuals are so much hot air.  There is not going to be a Third Party candidate.  When I get in the voting booth there will be two names on the ballot and I am a Republican.

Vox populi vox dei, I always say.

Handling charges

I've noticed for a long time that when you order tickets for a concert or play over the Internet you don't pay just the ticket price.  Something else is added:  a "handling charge," presumably for the insult of ordering tickets or the inconvenience of the organization having to maintain a website for dolts like you, or possibly to cover the cost of the oxygen you are likely to consume at the venue.

So I ordered two $20 tickets for Tanglewood, and received a $17 handling charge.  Why not just charge $57 in the first place?  There are no good tickets for sitting in the shed, since there is no way you could actually watch the orchestra play because of the configuration of the shed.  You actually watch the live performance on enormous television monitors, which is much better.  The camera or cameras zoom in on the performers, shifting the focus from time to time: first the violinists sawing away, then the horns perhaps, then the soloist.  It's a wonderful experience:  the coolness of a breeze,  the clarity of the music heard in the night air, and of course the excellence of the performers and the beauty of the music.  I've never heard a bad performance, although the weather is not always clement. Sometimes umbrellas, raincoats, or even blankets come in handy.

The curse of electronics

When e-mail started to be accepted by everyone, I was thrilled.  I could keep up with my friends without writing letters or even calling them on the phone.  When someone died, I just had to post regrets on the funeral home's website instead of struggling to write a letter which is really hard to write and takes you half a morning to compose and then you have to look for a stamp and an envelope and put it in the mailbox, not forgetting to write your return address in the upper left hand corner.

So I was happy to have e-mail.  Until I started to get hundreds of e-mail messages every day from every retailer I had ever bought anything from and many I had never bought anything from, not to mention begging letters from Nigeria.

When I got stuck in California for 8 weeks I came home to find 7,000 e-mail messages on my server.  It took me quite a while just to erase them and I've been grumpy about it ever since.

But e-mail is not nearly as intrusive as the ads on my iPhone that keep popping up with gross pictures of women with black stuff on their upper lip or big fat stomachs or ads for first, second, and third mortgages.  I'm getting to hate my phone as it takes me half an hour to read a paragraph or two.

Facebook was a nice alternative for a while, until cute cat videos started popping up.  I don't want anyone to send me pictures of their cats, dogs, or even horses.  I'm also tired of elephants.  If you are a Facebook friend of mine, please no Fauna of any description.  Flora yes, fauna no.

Correction, and explanation

In a previous post, I stated that I had been doing this for 11 years.  Wrong!  It's more like 12 years.  I started in 2004, when I purchased my first computer with my first royalty check.  Of course I had been using computers at work, but this one was mine, and I wanted to take it around the block and see how it worked.  So I started blogging.

I was a lot more cheerful then, and so were the few readers I accumulated.  I have become more moribund, and the readers more reticent.  Hardly anyone comments any more.

I have an excuse.  I was very sick in 2015, of an unspecified disease.  So dire was my condition, that I actually believed that the angel of death had come for me.  This was an unusual event, since I am dubious about things spiritual.  I must have inherited a superstitious gene from Bubbe, my maternal grandmother.

When you are sick, you get very weak.  I could barely get out of bed and really thought I would die in California.  So I got out of CA, and have been spending time with doctors and physical therapists.  I decided to go back to the gym and see if I could recover my strength.  I'm still not up to standard, but getting better.

I've had a bit of good luck.  I won a place in a juried art show, and was just informed by Amazon that I had recieved royalties on my book for the first time in five years.  So I plan to resume my more than occasional posts here and be a little more regular about it.

Good God!

I have been doing this for over 11 years.  Is that depressing, or what?  You be the judge.

Slacking

My impulse toward self-improvement, never very strong, has been waning at present.  I got myself a copy of the Federalist Papers and sat down to read it, but I realized that what I really wanted was not to read it, but to have read it.  In short, I wished to have ti transferred to my brain without having spent any time with it.

Instead, I did what I always do when I don't want to edify myself:  I re-read Anna Karenina, one of my favorite books.  Every time I read it, I find more in it.  I see it differently.  In my youth, Anna seemed like a tragic heroine, but now  I am more inclined to side with the cuckolded husband.  I direct your attention to the part where Anna has just given birth to a baby girl fathered by Vronsky.  Everyone is weeping and lamenting at the top of their voices.--Are all Russians opera fans?--at the tragedy of it all, but everyone behaves in a surprisingly modern manner.  She is allowed to choose her own fate, and both Vronsky and Karenin are  supportive.

Imagine what Dickens would do with a scene like that!  Anna and the child would have been thrown out in the snow in a New York minute, and there is plenty of snow in Tsarist Russia.  Or at the very least, exiled to Australia.

Instead, Anna and Vronsky set up housekeeping together.  Everyone in their world snubs her, but not him.  He even offers to marry her, but she refuses to get a divorce--oh these Russian women!  More tragic weeping and wailing from all hands, eventually resulting in her suicide, under the wheels of the same train she arrived on.

Meanwhile, she takes little interest in baby Anna, nor does Vronsky.  She laments losing her son by Karenin, whom she is not allowed to see.  What is up with Anna? She's a tragic heroine, that's what.

I won't even get into the subsidiary characters, like Pierre and Kitty.  And Darya, Anna's brother's wife, very sympathetic and real.  Stiva, the philandering husband and lazy bureacrat.

Luckily, I don't mind reading long books, and Tolstoy apparently enjoyed writing them.

Anyway, I love this stuff.  All the characters are so real.

A poem I've always liked

Spring and Fall, by Gerard Manley Hopkins



To a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Rejected by TurboTax

I'm just a mediocre person, incomewise, so I couldn't suppose the government has much interest in my taxes, as opposed to those of Al Sharpton, the presidential advisor, tax-evader and murderer.

But I digress.  My income consists of a pension, Social Security, and not much more.  It's generally pretty cut and dried.  So I've usually done it myself.  But this time I had a royalty check for a book I and some others wrote in 2002.  

When I entered the figure--about 50 dollars--TurboTax got all high and mighty, refusing to do my taxes for the regular sum of about $40.  I had turned out to be a very special taxpayer, one which would strain the algorithm and probably crash the entire system.  So complex was  my income that TurboTax stopped in its tracks.  It shied like a horse who was asked to jump a deep ditch.  I was informed that my royalty check made me an unusual taxpayer and I needed an extra $50 for them to continue my return.

I would now be paying a hundred dollars in fees for earning an extra $50.  For a couple of hundred I could hire a live accountant.

I pondered the problem for a couple of days and then decided to file for a six month  extension, thus evading the problem until the leaves turned color and started to fall from the trees.

I have so many diseases and they are so complex that I have enough doctors to make a basketball team, although some of them are too short.  I figured that the chances were good that one of them would kill me before October, if I was lucky.

 

Another poem

Another poem for poetry month:

Robert Burns. 1759–1796

. John Anderson, my Jo

JOHN ANDERSON, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,	5
Your locks are like the snow;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo!
John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither;	10
And monie a canty day, John,
We've had wi' ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we'll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot,	15
John Anderson, my jo.

Anyone who has been married for a long time will get this one:

Psychologizing Trump

Since everyone else in the country is psycho-analyzing Donald Trump, I figure now it's my turn.  Fair is fair, no?  I know as little or as much as  anyone who has not been locked up in an abandoned coal mine for the last six months, so I'm going to have at it.

(That rumbling noise you hear is The Donald shaking in his shoes.)

He reminds me of my Uncle Doc, who would say anything that came into his head without pausing for thought.  He yelled at everybody who ever upset him.  You should have heard him opine on my father after he divorced my mother.  Or his son-in-law.  Or the government, Republican or Democrat; he had no use for any of them.  And he could change his mind at the tip of a hat.  Many times, he didn't know what he was opining about, but that didn't stop him for a minute.

It was all a sham.  Deep down inside, he was a generous and loving man, but no-one was allowed to know  this, it would ruin his reputation as a hard man.  But his parents knew, and so did his brother and sister.  He never let any of them down, although his siblings got plenty of verbal abuse.

I'm not saying Trump is a good man; but his statements about everything strike me as so much bluster. I'm sure he never gave abortion a moment's thought, for instance.  But on the basics he's got a few things right, and isn't afraid to say so.  That's what makes him attractive to voters, who are tired of the mealymouthed politicians of both parties, and their thinly veiled contempt for average Americans.

A poem for poetry month

“It was a lover and his lass”

By William Shakespeare

(from As You Like It)

It was a lover and his lass,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

That o’er the green cornfield did pass,

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

Between the acres of the rye,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

Those pretty country folks would lie,

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

This carol they began that hour,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

How that a life was but a flower

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

And therefore take the present time,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

For love is crownèd with the prime

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

I do like a good hey nonino from time to time.And hey ding a ding ding is very cheery too.

Share this text ...?

• Twitter
• Pinterest

Credit card fraud

I got a call from my  credit card provider.  They were questioning certain transactions  made in California last month: to wit,  a charge for gas at a Shell station, and a purchase from In n Out Burger.  The two together were less than $50, but the bank was right.  I was not in California at the time.
Neither was my credit card.  It was secure in my wallet.

So  somebody  committed a felony to get some gas and a burger. I'm struck by the modesty of their desires.  Why not buy an expensive camera or  a set of tires?  (These are the items a thief bought on my credit card last time I was robbed.)  Why would anyone risk getting a criminal record for a hamburger?  If I were going to steal something, or defraud someone, it would have to be for a much larger sum than that.

Update:  I am reliably informed that the modest first purchases are just a trial to see if anyone notices their card is missing.  If these go through, they know you or your bank are not paying attention and then they can really let themselves go.

My vote

If the Republican Party chooses Donald Trump as their candidate for President, I will vote for him.  Unless he is convicted of a major felony between now and November.  And no, he would not be my first choice.

I'm so sick of people on the right, and on the left, maligning him.  You cannot pick up a conservative magazine without encountering some learned dissertation predicting the end of at least the nation, if not the world, if he should be elected.   In my opinion, the Republic will survive. 

Mine is purely a protest vote.  I don't want Trump, but I want Hillary less.   The Democrats have had eight years to screw the country.  I want them out.  It's the Republicans' turn.  If this means Trump will be president, bring it on.

When do college students study?

I'm confused.  I was admittedly a slacker when I attended college.   I was fond of hanging out, drinking beer, and playing bridge with my friends.  Dating guys.  But I still had to study, pass exams, and write term papers.  Students at the time had sex, just like they do today--well maybe not that much--but we did in before 10 o'clock and never complained.  Or we stayed out past curfew and were helped to sneak into the building by confederates.

From what I read on the Internet, the average college student is having sex at all hours of the day and night, sober, or more likely, drunk.  Complaining, protesting, picketing, raping or being raped, making rude remarks to faculty and guest speakers, or being insulted.  Sending obscene texts to other students whom they fancy on their expensive cell phones.  Protesting when the recipients of the texts take them up on their texted suggestions.

How do they ever study?  What happens when their French professor schedules a pop quiz?  When do they have time to prepare term papers?  Why do they get all As when they are drunk, stoned, protesting social injustice, or preventing invited guests from speaking all day long?  Or painting obscene remarks on college property?  Or being so hurt and aggrieved when they encounter someone who thinks differently that they need a safe space?

What's wrong with Philly?

I live 20 minutes from the Philadelphia Airport, 30 minutes from downtown Philly.  It takes me 25 minutes to get to the Kimmel Center, 5 minutes to go to (paid) parking.  I have paid as little as $20 to attend a concert at the Kimmel Center (Obviously this is an exceptional price).  Last Friday I had tickets to a performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony which cost $60 each.  We sat in the highest balcony, but the acoustics were superb, and the sight lines were perfect, if you had opera glasses. Plenty of leg room. The house was full.  And the performance was outstanding. 

Meanwhile, it costs $65 to attend a concert at the Delaware Symphony.   These concerts are held in various venues, including some private schools in the sticks which you need GPS to find and when you do find them they are crowded and you feel like you are back in high school. It takes maybe 15 minutes to find these places, if you are lucky.  Concerts in the Grand Opera House are more elegant, but parking in downtown Wilmington is no fun.  Also, residents of nursing homes are bused in and none of them pay $65.  One dollar is more like it.

The problem?  No-one wants to go to Philadedelphia.  I had a friend who used to attend concerts in Philadelphia with me, but she moved away.  And nobody else wants to cross the state line.  They will go to Philadelphia to consult a doctor, but to attend a concert?  It might as well be in Pittsburgh.

Meanwhile, there are excellent concerts in Philadelphia--not just the symphony, but the Chamber Music society offer concerts by world class musicians.

So what's wrong with Philly?

Hollywood actors and their teeth

I saw the film 'Race" over the weekend.  It was a well done movie, although they didn't mention that he was called the Buckeye Bullet.  He came from Ohio and so do I, and another bunch of famous people.  James Thurber was the only one I can remember--oh yes, William Howard Taft, who was so fat they had to put a special oversized bathtub in the White House.  But there were others.

The young man who played Jesse was extremely good looking.

When I got home I looked up Jesse on the Internet, and he was not nearly as handsome, and he looks like he had crooked teeth.  In fact, all the actors playing his family members had flawless teeth.  This was in 1935, during the depression, when people didn't have money for food, let alone fancy dental care.  My mother's clients were from the same demographic, people descended from sharecroppers and slaves.   by the time I encountered them, they didn't have such wonderful teeth except for the kind you put in a glass every night, maybe.

Anyway, if they ever want to make a movie about my life, I would like to be played by Jennifer Lawrence.

Two little girls

A visit to New Jersey

Trying to come home from Delaware Rt 13, I inadvertently got in the wrong lane, trying to get to I-95.  The entrance ramp was closed, so I ended up crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge.  Twice.  Ended up in New Jersey, but not the part you see in tourist brochures.

Liquor stores, bail bondsmen, Payday loans, and for some reason, lots of dentists.  And laundromats. When you are in an area that has laundromats, you know you're not in rich people territory.  Rich people have washers and dryers, or even clotheslines. Spending time watching the clothes spin around is not something most of us want to do. Married to a graduate student, I put in plenty of time in laundromats.

Also, there was a bumper crop of road ragers; possibly angry because they were in New Jersey.  

I finally escaped to Delaware, to an area that was working class at best.  Also not featured in tourist brochures. but it was a sylvan glen compared to grotty New Jersey.

My parents

My parents were different in all the big things and many of the small ones.

Dad, for instance, was conscientious about punctuality. Mealtimes and bedtimes were as fixed as the stars. His clothing and other belongings were laid out the night before in preparation for going to work. I am sure that if he were ordered to attend his own hanging, he would make sure to be on time. Once, when I had promised to take him to the hospital for surgery, I had a flat tire and was 20 minutes late. When I got to his house, a taxi was turning into the driveway.

Time was a flexible concept to mother. She did what she was doing until she was finished doing it without ever stopping to look at the clock. If she got up in the morning and discovered there were no clean stockings in the drawer, she washed out a pair and read the newspaper until they were dry. Or made a phone call. Or went into the garden to pick a few roses.

Overweight

You didn't get this fat by yourself. You used the bakeries the rest of us built, the fast food restaurants employing minimum wage workers, the feed lots, the cattle breeders, the pastry chefs

Getting upset with Obama

It seems to me that people are wasting a lot of righteous indignation getting upset at little things Obama does.  It doesn't bother me when he behaves clownishly.  He's not a gentleman, obviously.  A gentleman does the right thing.

What bothers me are the big things he does, like the health care bill or the Iran deal.

So let him play golf whenever he wants.  He can even wear those deplorable shorts.  Put his feet on the desk.  Call the queen of England Liz.  (Okay, I made that one up.)

What a material at your post!

I only publish comments that make some kind of sense to me.  But don't think those are the only comments I get.  My spam folder is full of interesting comments, many of them by people with an idiosyncratic command of English.  Most are laudatory, though, which boosts my morale no end.  A sample:

I doscover your blog by accidental- great work!

Catching up with literature

I've been re-reading my old books.  Among them is the mystery classic, "Tragedy at Law" by Cyril Hare As I read it, the book is disintegrating  in my hands.  Pages, even whole signatures, are falling out.  A pity, because it's a clever, civilized book, an affectionate portrait of life on the legal circuit during World War II.

Cyril Hare was a member of the legal establishment, whose real name I have forgotten and am too lazy to look up.  He was a deft and amusing writer in that distinctive and civilized  manner of  English writers before Britain became a no-place whose main characteristic was a flabby "diversity.".

Since I am now more or less housebound, I considered   this a great opportunity to read some of the  Great Works of Literature.  I took down Beowolf from the shelf.  Can't understand its appeal.  Likewise The Red and the Black, and as for Ulysses, forget it!

My mind is impervious to improvement.

This is how I am feeling.  (It's a rusted water pipe from Flint)

I've been sampling the health care quality from coast to coast.

It has occurred to me that 50 % of medical graduates are in the bottom half of their graduating class.  I believe I've met a large number of them.

I fell off my treadmill--but good

I went to California to see the sights.  On Day 1, I tripped over my suitcase.  Then the fun started:

1. broken neck, two black eyes
2.) ischemic colitis. This means they don't know why you have colitis, and neither do you
3.) UTI
4.)they said I had gout;  I didn't
5. UTI
6.)Immmensely swollen leg, blown off as arthritis of the knee @ the hospital;
7.) broken ankle
8.) home
9.) x-rays and other diagnostic stuff in Delaware.

Now you know.

Remember loyalty cards?

You remember them, surely?  If you used them at the Acme, you could get 10 cents off of a can of beans.  At the Regal Theater, you got free popcorn.  It was effortless, if not brainless.  You didn't even have to bring the card with you; they could look up your phone number.

Well, those days are over.  Loyalty cards now represent an educational opportunity.  You have to use your brain--never an attractive option for me.  Now you have to go to the website of the loyalty card--let's say it's Plenti--log on, get yourself a username and a password, and then--but I never got that far, so I never got anything out of my Plenti card.

I haven't given up hope.  So today, I used my Plenti card at the gas station, and what do you know, the brain inside the pump asked me if I wanted to use the $12 I had on my Plenti card.  Did I ever?  I pressed yes, and proceeded to pump gas into the car.  However, the receipt said I couldn't use the Plenti points to buy gas.  But I got 8 more Plenti points.

Whole Foods also has a Rewards card.  Yesterday the cashier at my local Whole Foods advised me to just spend an hour familiarizing myself with the card, but that's an hour I will never get back.  Furthermore, I don't want to give Whole Foods my e-mail address and get lots of spam messages from the company offering me free range chickens.  I don't want to sign up.  I don't want an app on my iPhone.  I want 10 cents off a can of beans or free popcorn without making a gigantic mental effort.  Is that too much to ask?

To hell in a handbasket

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

These passages  by William Butler  Yeats could be  read at the beginning of every newscast, followed by the words, "Details at eleven," and they would describe the world situation perfectly.  We could then have a speech by Obama, explaining that this was the desired effect of his wise policies, and everything was going as planned.

On the treadmill

Every day when the weather is not good I walk on the treadmill at the gym.  The treadmill has television, I plug in my headset, and I am good for a mind-numbing session of the Food Network.  Or sometimes I watch the news on occasions when Obama is not speaking.

Yesterday, all the television sets were set on one channel, a sports channel, which was having special coverage on a basketball scandal taking place at the University of Louisville.  It featured a woman who procured women for prospective basketball players.  Among the prostitutes she recruited were three of her young daughters.  She had four daughters, but the youngest was left at home, perhaps to watch the cat or maybe do her homework.

Apparently life at the U of Louisville was just one round of orgies, with drugs, alcohol, sex and more sex, all paid for by the coach.  Occasionally the student athletes had to interrupt the party scene for basketball games or practice.  Writing term papers or studying for tests were activities not prominently featured in their schedules.  Student athletes could graduate from the University after a decent interval as ignorant as the day they started their university careers, or maybe more so,  having had their brains fried by alcohol or drugs.

I hate to be the neighborhood scold (or maybe not), but what does this stuff have to do with education?  Why doesn't the university of Louisville just hire themselves a  basketball team, pay them decent salaries, and pocket the profits, if any.  In this way, they could avoid the fiction that they were in the education business.  Nothing wrong with that; the New York Yankees do not award degrees.  They don't have to hire United States Senators and other worthies to give inspirational speeches at commencement.  In other words, they are honestly paid to provide a service which people are willing to pay for. The University of Louisville, on the other hand, is a whore.

I'm still here, and pissed!

I spent 20 days in rehab, getting infused every 6 hours with antibiotics.  They stuck a tube up my arm so they wouldn't have to open a new vein every time I got an infusion.  That would have been inconvenient.

Every few hours they pricked my finger to test my blood sugar, which was all over the place because I was sick, for God's sake.  After a while, I told them to knock it off.  My blood sugar was not what I was there for, and I didn't want any more finger sticks.  So they sent a nurse over to inform me that if I developed diabetes Medicare would not pay for insulin.  I managed to bear this news with equanimity.

While I was lying there in my bed of discomfort, I managed to read all the literature the hospital had given me.  It turns out that the hospital treats everybody over a certain age as a fall risk.  This means they put a Whoopie cushion in your bed, under your body, so every time you get up an alarm goes off.  You are supposed to ring for the nurse, who then might come and assist you out of bed.When she gets around to it.  Yes, the Wilmington Hospital treats every older adult admitted for anything like a toddler.  You could be a circus acrobat suffering from a sinus infection and still be humiliated this way.  It's not unpleasant enough to be in the hospital, so they make it worse, for their own convenience.

I think this procedure was invented by lawyers to prevent the hospital from being sued. 

I am angry enough about the lack of cleanliness.  Hand sanitizers and hazmat suits have taken the place of soap and water.  The rooms and bathrooms are never cleaned, nor are the patients washed.  I was in there for 5 days, and I must admit I reeked.  But the hazmat suits protected the staff, and the hell with the patients and visitors.

Florence Nightingale, call your office

I am not dead, contrary to rumor, not even close.

My life, or my health, was saved by doctors and nurses of various local institutions, and I am grateful to them.

However, gratitude is the most short-lived emotion, so I am ready to bitch and moan about cleanliness, or the lack thereof.  I was in the infectious disease ward.  Everyone who came in had to put on a garment like a hazmat suit, even if they only brought a pill or a blanket. But the floor was not cleaned once in four days.  There was something--I won't specify what-- on the floor in the bathroom, which had also not been cleaned.  For a moment I flirted with the possibility of cleaning it up myself, but sanity prevailed, so I told the nurse about it.  She immediately told someone, and a maintenance person was sent up.

The maintenance person said nothing, but every atom of her being bristled with the injustice of the thing.  Her body was eloquent with disapproval.  However, she did clean the floor.

Then I was transferred to a nursing home, where the same standard of cleanliness, or lack thereof, was apparent.  Someone came in with a broom and dustpan to remove whatever had spilled on the floor, if it was the size of a kernel of corn or larger.  The toilet overflowed twice, and someone wiped up the water on the floor, but no soap was applied.

Sanitation is something that interests me, for personal reasons.  My father died because an infected pacemaker was implanted in his body and he could not fight off the infection. So I consider the mop, the broom, and the vacuum cleaner vital to taking care of sick people.

Business as usual

A teacher in New Jersey  is reinstated after being tardy 110 times.  Yawn.  Tell me something new.

As library director,I once fired a young man for being insolent.  He had dropped in at various Board members' homes on Easter Sunday to discuss his grievances.  One of the Board members insisted he be fired.  In any private enterprise in New Jersey, an employee can be fired at any time, for any cause.  I know this because I looked it up.  I knew there would be repercussions, even as I drafted the letter relieving him of his responsibilities.

Our library did not have a union at that time, but we had Civil Service, which is just as good at assuring any public employee that he had a cast-iron right to his job.  And so it turned out.  The employee threatened to sue.  The municipality settled the case in his favor, giving him everything he had been asking for.  They even paid for his lawyer.

There is a procedure for firing an employee who is a civil servant.  It involved keeping a log of the person's misdeeds, oral counseling (in Civil Service lingo, that means talking to him).  After that comes written counselling, (writing the person a letter).  There was plenty more that had to be done before saying sayonara, but I will spare you the details.  Just thinking about it makes me tired.

The amount of work needed  to get rid of an employee was phenomenal and took up most of the supervisor's time for weeks.  I also learned that I needed another employee in the room when I did all this counseling, etc, or it would be a case of he said/she said.

Nevertheless I did get rid of two good-for-nothing lazy employees.  I did this by writing them endless letters and having sessions of criticism with both of them (separately) in my office, with a witness.  I kept track of them like God does when he keeps an eye on a sparrow, only God does not have to issue written reports and memos and have limitless discussions.  Nor does God have to have a witness present.

Meanwhile, the supervisor (me) and the witness (someone else) cannot perform any other of our duties because of the time suck involved in showing an employee the door.

How I envy Donald Trump!

20th century memories: playing bridge

Mr Charm and I were pals with another couple; we used to visit each others' houses for dinner and bridge.  After a few inter-couple flare-ups, we settled on a method of keeping the peace while playing: the boys played against the girls.

Mr Charm was an outrageous bridge player; he bid high, wide and handsome, just because he felt like it.  The cards he had been dealt had little to do with it.  His partner was cautious; eons passed, or seemed to pass, before he placed a bid or made a move.  But the worst part of this whole thing was that the men seemed to have all the luck, and wiped the floor with us women almost every time.

Despite flouting all the rules accepted  by right-thinking bridge experts and bidding because he just had a feeling he could make six spades, he won most of the time.  His playing was erratic; they should not have won, but they did.  Then the men, not being good sports, would gloat and taunt us women.

Fortunately for the two marriages, we were drinking hard liquor--it was the 20th century, remember? and we were all pretty well oiled at the time., so no grudges were held and we remained friends.

The curse of great possessions

Great possessions were never a worry to me, because I never had any.  I drove an old beater, and you could give it a going over with a baseball bat and I wouldn't mind, or even notice maybe.  Now I have a new car and live in fear that someone will put a dent in my little darling.  It's a year old now, and I am starting to calm down.

So now I have this dishwasher.  It's a Bosch, and so complicated that the repairman had to come twice to counsel me on how to use it.  It's undoubtedly the best dishwasher I've ever had in my life, but hard to work with.  For instance, if you press really hard on the "Start" button, it will shut itself off.  It has other tricks, but I won't go into them, except to speculate that the Germans might still harbor a grudge for us because we won World War II.

But it has a dent in the front panel which displeases me mightily because I bought it at retail, not as a "scratch or dent" model or without a box or the last one in the store.  So I called the store, and talked to someone who understood I had a problem but wasn't the person to deal with it.  The person to talk to was the salesman, Al, but he was on vacation.

I called back a few days later and spoke to Al, who said he had to order the part, but the person who took care of such orders was on vacation.  I called back, and the manager, all fresh and rested from his vacation. said he would order the part and would call me when it came in.  Great!  We are making progress here!

Later still, I called again, and was told the part was in but the guy who did the installation was on vacation.

I was getting steamed.  Not only did the new dishwasher require constant consultation with the very cryptic and arcane manual, but I had to look at the dented panel every time I went in the kitchen.  How to get their attention?  So I called Visa and told them not to pay for the dishwasher.  They sent me a form, which I filled out, and then there was a hiatus during which the entire staff of Visa was busy with other things or maybe taking a vacation or possibly had been rubbed out by someone pumping  Sarin gas into the HVAC of their establishment.

If they had been disabled by Sarin gas, apparently they were over the effects, as they called me back and said they were looking into the matter.  The young man on the phone told me he had tried to call the appliance store but the person who handled such matters was, you guessed it, on vacation.

Today I received my Visa bill, and they had credited me with the cost of the dishwasher.  So now I have a free dishwasher with a dent in it that washes the dishes just great if you handle it with the proper respect.

Too proud to go on welfare

It's hard to believe, but there was once a time when people refused to take charity, public or private. Despite Mitt Romney's belief that 47 percent of Americans are on the public tit, there once were people like that, too proud to go on welfare.

My mother-in-law was one of them.  She was a proofreader, working in the printing trade, but she was not allowed to join the union, which at the time did not accept women.  So when the Depression hit, she lost her job, and was unable to get another.  She was a single mother of three children at the time and the sole support of her widowed mother.  She scrubbed floors.  She took in laundry.  But she would not go on welfare, then known in New York City as "home relief."

Don't think the family did not suffer.  My husband, who was born in 1931, was the baby.  Too young to understand what was going on,  he cried because he was hungry.  His older brother stole bread in the early morning hours, when bakeries delivered bread and pastries to retail stores.  When he could get any.

Eventually, she married a man who had several children of his own.  Her family was fed, but the marriage was a disaster.  I don't know the details of either the marriage or the split-up; but eventually the marriage ended.  She was supporting  herself, her mother, and her youngest child by freelance proofreading.  The older two grew up and married and moved away.  She died of a heart attack at 54.

I by no means support her views; if my kids had ever missed  a meal I would have been first in line at  welfare headquarters at the opening of business.  But I admire her integrity and the steadfastness with which she lived her beliefs.

Enjoying authentic Cuba

Disturbing:

 I have spent about a year of my life in Cuba, so have seen a great deal of its ‘authentic’ side. Aside from the police repression and intellectual wasteland (there is one newspaper and state television brooks no dissent) the Cuba I have experienced is one of dirt, scarcity and rampant prostitution.

It is the last of these which is the most galling. Cuba’s command economy is unable to provide a basic standard of living for its people, so in order to survive, most Cubans must find an income source to top up their state salary. For those fortunate enough to have relatives in the United States or Europe, help comes in the form of dollar remittances. For those less fortunate, the only way to make some extra cash or eat a decent meal can often be to sell their body to a – usually much older – European or Canadian tourist.
This reality hits you as soon as you step inside a restaurant or hotel in Havana. In every direction are girls who look no more than 16 accompanied by sagging and pale tourists approaching pension age....

Arthur Koestler once referred to pro-Soviet communists in the rich world as voyeurs, peeping through a hole in the wall at history while not having to experience it themselves. The Stalin Society is a lot smaller today (though you can still find the Cuba Solidarity stall at Labour party conference) but the mindset persists: Cubans are the unwilling participants in a communist experiment, there mainly for affluent westerners to gawk at and, when the ‘chemistry’ is right (i.e. when you’ve paid for everything) to take back to the hotel room.
Of course, the resorts in Varadero that most tourists visit are about as ‘authentically’ Cuban as a Soho restaurant’s ‘authentically Chinese’ sweet-and-sour chicken. Step outside of the official tourist route and one soon sees the real Cuba. It is here, amidst the prostitutes and the elderly people rummaging through bins in central Havana, that one starts to understand why many Cubans might like a few branches of McDonalds in their country. Cheap plastic food is, after all, a good deal better than no food at all.

These visitors are of the same ilk as those who see a little African child poking at the dirt with a stick--his only toy--and pointing out that he is happier than American children who don't value their many possessions.


.

Beggars on the streets of Philadelphia

When I was a small child I saw grown men begging on the streets of Columbus, OH, during the Depression.  It was a sad sight, even to a little girl like me.  I felt sorry for them and sorry that our country had let them down.  No-one should have to beg to stay alive. Not here.  Not in this country.


Today, as I exited the Ben Franklin Parkway, there were little boys approaching cars stopped at a traffic light with blue buckets in their hands.  They were begging from the motorists.   I have seen children begging on the streets of Dublin, but never thought I would see such a thing here.

Where were all the social workers, the interfering busybodies who punish parents who allow their children to walk alone to a public park? None were in attendance.  I guess the lives of little black children don't matter quite as much.  It's okay to let them run around on busy streets, dodging cars and putting themselves in danger.  Their lives don't matter until the Rev Al Sharpton shows up with his followers and makes an issue of it.  I guess the Rev has weighed his options and decided there was no profit for him in exploiting these kids.

I certainly don't dismiss the possibility that these kids are little hustlers, like the squegee men who used to infest New York City.  But they are kids.  They shouldn't have the freedom to put themselves in dangerous situations.  Grown-ups should be in charge of kids.  Grown-ups such as parents, teachers, cops.

But there seems to be a serious shortage of grown-ups in Obama's America. 

Art in the basement, or on display?

Something to think about.

Home decor update

I recently needed to replace one if my toilet seats, so I went on the Internet to review my options.  Wow!  The world of toilet seats has really expanded since I last bought one.  In the old days, back in the  twentieth century, you could choose either round or oblong toilet seats, depending on the shape of the One-eyed Riley.

That having been settled by necessity, there were wood, plastic, and soft.  In various colors.  Nothing else had changed since my father's outdoor privy.

What boring lives we led!  Now you have a choice of round or oblong, of course.  There are toilet seats that close  noiselessly.  Toilet seats that remove from their hinges for cleaning; others that contain a potty option in case you are toilet training a toddler.  Seats that light up at night (Batteries not included.).  All sorts of plastic, with designs or flowers or seahorses embedded.  Wooden seats with veneers to match your dining room table.  And of course, customized seats such as the one pictured above and others that cannot be described in polite company.

For less than $600 you can buy a heated toilet seat which washes the relevant body parts and even blow dries them.  Of course, you need the services of a plumber and electrician if you want them to work..

The Pope takes a stand

The Pope has come out against materialism.  I so agree!  All these rich people have big houses, private planes, world travel.  And they don't have to make their beds in the morning or wash dishes.  Someone else does their laundry! I truly resent them.  The only thing that could mollify me is for me to have all these things  myself. And I'd still probably resent them anyway.  Such is envy.

There is much to be said for materialism.  I remember the cartoon Blondie from my childhood.  Back in the day when women wore hats. Whenever Blondie got blue she went out and bought a new hat!  And she immediately felt better.  A new bathmat does it for me.  Retail therapy usually is safe and effective. And if you find out later you don't like the hat, or bathmat, chances are you can return it or exchange it for something else.

My family has done well with materialism.  My father grew up in a house with dirt floors and an outhouse in the back yard.  He was bowlegged due to rickets.  By the time he died, in 2011, he had two bathrooms, central heating, and a brand new car. And plenty to eat.

Contrast that with spirituality.  Let's talk about Muslims here, leaving aside Christians and Jews, who I am sure have their faults.  But they are usually quietists and want to be left alone to worship, or not, in their own way.Deeply devout Muslims, on the other hand,  cure their blue feelings by going out and beheading a few Christians and raping defenseless women and children.  No doubt they feel better after committing these atrocities in honor of Allah.  But the rest of the world feels measurably worse.

The only saving grace about these deeply religious people is that they can be bought.  If you offer them enough money they will probably betray their fellows.  The Muslim world is full or traitors and spies.  How do you think the Israelis get the better of them?

The Kreutzer Sonata

This afternoon I heard the "Kreutzer Sonata," by Janacek, based on the "Kreutzer Sonata" by Tolstoy, which in turn was based on"the Kreutzer Sonata" by Beethoven.  According to Wikipedia,

The sonata was originally dedicated to the violinist George Bridgetower (1778–1860), who performed it with Beethoven at the premiere on 24 May 1803 at the Augarten Theatre at a concert that started at the unusually early hour of 8:00 am. Bridgetower sight-read the sonata; he had never seen the work before, and there had been no time for any rehearsal. However, research indicates that after the performance, while the two were drinking, Bridgetower insulted the morals of a woman whom Beethoven cherished. Enraged, Beethoven removed the dedication of the piece, dedicating it instead to Rodolphe Kreutzer, who was considered the finest violinist of the day.^[1] However, Kreutzer never performed it, considering it "outrageously unintelligible". He did not particularly care for any of Beethoven's music, and they only ever met once, briefly.^[2]

Could this be true?  Anyway, the story is too good to check, and I'm only a humble blogger so no-one cares much what I say.

To get back to Tolstoy, his story is the account of a man finding his wife, a pianist, conversing intimately with her accompanist and friend, a violinist. The two have been practicing the Kreutzer Sonata.  It requires a lot of practice because it is a quite difficult piece of music.   He then kills his wife out of jealousy, but the violinist gets away.   I have not read the story, because I no longer am attempting to improve my mind through literature and would rather curl up with Daniel Silva's latest.  If my mind accidentally gets improved, okay, but I'm no longer working on it.

I was interested enough in the story  to go to YouTube and play a couple of versions of the Beethoven original.  It is quite beautiful but appears to be very demanding technically; however, to me all violin music seems demanding because I could no more play the violin than I could invent electricity. 

This Tolstoy story has apparently been made into a play, then adapted into a play for the Yiddish theater, then made into a movie of the Yiddish theater version, and for all I know is being made into a Pixar or Claymation version as we speak. 

The moral of the story might be, "Don't try to play music which is too technically difficult or emotionally arousing,"  Or maybe not.

Everybody hates everybody else and always has

I've been reading "The Mask of Command," by John Keegan.  Keegan discusses four commanders, Alexander, Wellington, Grant, and Hitler.  I was particularly keen to learn something about Alexander, about whom I knew nothing, except that he was the son of Philip of Macedon.

Now I have a smattering of information about Alexander, which is sufficient, because my interest is actually in American history.  But I did learn something I had long suspected, that the Greek city-states were constantly either at war with each other, just getting over a war with each other, or preparing for such a war.  This was their normal state, excepted when threatened by the Persians, whom they hated more than they hated one another.

Similarly, the peacable, nature loving Native Americans of whom Ellizabeth Warren is such a notable example, were  constantly fighting with each other.  They also had a habit of attacking villages full of settlers who were minding their own business.  I know we treated them unfairly, but there is a reason they were featured as bad guys in so many movies.

Anyway, we weren't nearly as mean to them as the British were to the Irish.

But my thesis is not to prove that we are the best country in the world.  Although we are.  My point is that armed struggle between groups has always existed and always will.  There can be no such thing as a War to End All Wars because wars will not end.   James Madison, in a different context, wrote:  If men were angels, no government would be necessary.  Neither would wars, because we would all be too busy with harp lessons and choir practice.

Obama seemed to believe that our disagreements with Russia were all one big misunderstanding which could be settled with a nice comfortable talk with his friend Vlad.  Clearly the lovefest did not work, and Putin is re-conquering the former Soviet satellites even though it might upset his friend Barack.  

Once we had removed American troops from Iraq, no doubt our government believed that Sunnis and Shi'ites would be having interfaith picnics to explore their common heritage and Kumbaya would be the new official government anthem.  Again, this did not happen.

wou

Worst customer service?

I heard on the radio somewhere that U S Cable had been chosen as the worst customer service provider in the country for 2014.  This made me angry, and I think the folks at United Airlines ought to demand a recount.  They certainly are a strong contender for the title.  It's hard to see how their customer service could be any worse.  Even with Wells Fargo Bank and Comcast in strong competition, I think United should be considered for next year's award.

I recently took a trip to San Francisco from Philadelphia which delayed leaving the ground for 4 hours.  Of course there was a grisly kind of domino effect, causing travelers to miss their connections from Africa to Zanzibar.  My plane to San Luis Obispo was long gone.  Customer service then re-routed me to Santa Barbara   by way of Los Angeles. 

My Los Angeles flight departure was then delayed so that the Santa Barbara flight would leave the ground before its arrival.  No-one informed me of this delay.  I just happened to glance at the departures board and did the math. 

Back to customer service.  They kept suggesting places I might like to fly besides Santa Barbara or San Luis Obispo.  Orange County, anyone?  I told them I was very weak on California geography but did not think Orange County would do.  I got my daughter on the phone when they suggested Bakerfield, which got a strong nolle prosequi from my daughter. We finally settled on a midnight flight to Santa Maria, which was only a half hour late in leaving. 

In recompense for their poor performance, they gave me two $7 vouchers for food at any of the airport vendors.

The return flight was much less annoying, arriving in Philadelphia only and hour and a half late, which passes for promptness at United.

By the way, on the return flight, one of the $7 vouchers was refused at the food court.

Back in the day

When my kids were little.  Clockwise, from upper  left:  Rose Sanzone, Kenny Sanzone, Susan Sanzone, Miriam Sawyer, Rachel Sawyer, Louisa Sawyer

20th century memories:what ladies wore

I've looked in vain for a photo of my mother wearing one of her hats,  but due to her policy of never having her picture taken until she had lost at least 20 lbs,--which never happened--I don't have one.

Nevertheless, she never left the house without one.  These hats were purely ceremonial, having no justification, either decorative or functional.  They neither enhanced her appearance or kept her head warm.  They were stiff little parabolas of some kind of cloth with a snatch of veiling attached.  The image above is an approximation.  Hers were uglier.

She had a bunch of them, which lived on the top of the sideboard in the dining room, and she would pick one at random when she had to leave the house.  If she were going somewhere related to her profession. she was in full lawyer array, including girdle and stockings.  As she entered the house, off came the girdle and hosiery.

Her normal indoor garb was something called a housedress.   I couldn't find a picture on the Internet of anything as dismal as those housedresses my mother--and Bubbe--wore. Department stores had whole departments of "Moderate Housedresses" as well as "Better Housedresses."  Although I never saw one that was better than any other; they were all pretty frightful.  They usually were made of tacky material in ugly but loud patterns which either buttoned or zipped up the front.  They often had two generous patch pockets on the front.  Bubbe used to keep her false teeth in one of the pockets, but I digress.

In this one respect America is a better place today: terrorists, riots, train derailments, yes, but a total lack of housedresses.

A few words in praise of violence

We've seen lots of quotes on Facebook about the effectiveness of non-violence, most popularly those of Martin Luther King, Jr. These sentiments look very fine, especially on a poster decorated tastefully with flowers or adorable small animals. There are, however, those who dissent from the beloved civil rights leader:

We sleep safely at night because rough men stand ready to visit violence on those who would harm us.  Winston Churchill

Those who “abjure” violence can only do so because others are committing violence on their behalf.  Attributed to George Orwell.

  [M]akin' mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap;
Rudyard Kipling, "Tommy"

I could quote more, but you get the idea.

I am not advocating violence on the part of citizens in democratic countries like ours, where we have free speech, a Constitution that protects us, and the power to vote the rascals out (and elect new rascals). But in nations run by kleptocrats and religious fanatics, violence is the  alternative chosen by those who do not choose to be slaves.



The government of the United States tried asking the Southern states nicely not to secede, but somehow it didn't work, though tried over and over. The only thing that put the idea permanently out of their heads was the bloody work of Grant and Sherman.  Nearly a third of the young men who fought for the Confederacy were killed or wounded--a terrible price to pay for a terrible idea.

Hitler also did not respond to reason, and giving him a few countries to gobble up did not work either. 

The Jewish prisoners in the death camps would have been grateful to see Allied bombers raining death on these institutions but the powers that be didn't want to make the Germans mad at them.

There is such a thing as just war.  Violence works.  Violence settles things.  Slavery was ended.  Europe and the Far East were liberated.

The "I'm not in jail" club

Bloggers too numerous to mention have claimed that Hillary Clinton should be imprisoned for her tortious e-mail activities during her tenure as Secretary of State.  Not gonna happen.  She is merely joining the large and illustrious group of innocent until proven guilty non-felons who enjoy immunity from the laws that afflict the rest of us.  She can even park in the handicapped-designated parking spot with impunity.

Here are some  further examples:  her husband, of course.  Al Sharpton,  whose official job description should be, if it isn't, rabble rouser, who blithely declines to pay his back income tax.  Al is not in hiding, like Whitey Bulger.  He's right out there, leading flash mobs and sharing wisdom with his dear old buddy, the President of the United States, at the latter's taxpayer-funded residence.

And then there's Jon Corzine, former governor of New Jersey, incompetent and corrupt even by the lenient standards of the Garden State.  He  lost millions of other people's money and hasn't the slightest idea what happened to it.  It has slipped his mind, apparently permanently.  Bernie Madoff must be gnashing his teeth.

I don't understand where several former governors of Illinois went wrong, but at least three of them were actually sent to jail.  Pure carelessness?  Or did they make mistakes like Robert Menendez, Senator from New Jersey, who was doing just fine until he crossed the Democratic leadership by thinking for himself.

Delaware oil trains a menace

Remind me  why the government did not approve the Keystone Pipeline.

How do the Baltimore rioters differ from a lynch mob?

They don't.  Alan Dershowitz explains what's going on.

Oh dear.

When he finds his car, maybe my new glasses will be in it.