So there I am, with a wifi signal showing full strength, but no internet. To reset the device one must navigate a creaky door, a chilly, slippery, walk, and at the end, another creaky door, a sleeping, we hope, pair of octogenarians, and a sleeping 4 year-old for Mouse to wake in the cabin. And who knows where the device has gone, or why it isn’t working. I would currently be the resident expert, and that says a lot.
[Obviously the mystery has been solved, or you wouldn’t be reading this. [assumptions, assumptions, ed.] But I really thought I had them after two days of internet withdrawal. But apparently the octogenarians needed the wifi after I went to bed last night and, this is the part that stings, moved the wifi telecaster thingy I had carefully, and verbally, put against the wall in the living room, where it would work for everyone, if they weren’t so irritatingly hip and not hip at the same time, so forever seem to need to plug the damn thing directly into their computers. Thwarted by the canny elderly. I know it isn’t personal but I knew they had scuppered me.]
But before you bestow any misplaced sympathy on me, here is the upper boathouse this morning at dawn, which is currently my and Mouse’s hideaway:
But as one might reasonably expect if one wasn’t me, no internet most of the time. And this is mostly good.
I have read to said nephew, and can give you a run down of the themes explored in A Letter to Amy, and the interesting ghetto lesson of The Goggles
by the same author, Ezra Jack Keats, in which the kids learn to deceive the scary big bullies and make it home safely to their front stoop with the found motorcycle googles the bullies were going to take from them. This story disturbed my fabulous nephew, who asked why the big boys were going to take away the goggles. You almost hate to let them grow up. I feel like that ghastly woman in Bleak House who theorizes that it is better for her baby to die than grow up and experience life as she has.
But why would my mood be so dark? Could it be the perpetual cold has actually entered my very bones and chilled my heart? No, Oscar Wilde is to blame, that horny old goat. Deprived of my usual outlets, and limited to the audiobooks I currently seem to have on my computer, I reluctantly finally listened to The Portrait of Dorian Gray. Other than constantly wondering just what social horrors he was referring to at the beginning, as Dorian ruins reputation after reputation of men, woman and it seems possibly their horses too, I was struck by what an excellent representation of the mentality of a sociopath Oscar Wilde was able to give.
For one, it is appallingly honest, and when he discusses the compulsion towards sin and the excitement of a double life, it is on point. He should certainly know. But when Dorian is figuring out why the people he kills, directly or indirectly, were at fault, not him, it is frighteningly realistic.
I think this is something we forget too easily when wondering about the behaviours of the kleptocracy. The Jon Corzines of this world know who to blame, and it isn’t them. They haven’t met the enemy, it is themselves, and they are blinded by the simple knowledge that it was someone else’s fault. And hence they can rationalise that the victim deserved the punishment. I didn’t know his son had committed suicide when I picked on him, but it hardly alters his actions. I was about to mention how unsurprised I was to find he had two wives, one from 1969-2003, that would be 34 years, and then a different one he trophied in 2010. I think I still will. Ah the excitement of a double life. Oscar Wilde would understand. But my nephew would not. And I am thinking I shouldn’t have figured out how to outsmart the elderly. Can’t find any sand, so I will have to bury my head in snow. Of which we have plenty.
“…with the found motorcycle googles the bullies were going ”
I bet that one happens all the time now that the world runs on google.
Fescue, wow. Fescue is so common here that it would never make ‘word of the day’.
There are many varieties, but Creeping Red Fescue is my favorite. It’s hard to get going in the full shade of all these oak trees, but once started it’s like a wispy little carpet that never gets over a few inches tall.
All that snow,… hang in there Xty, surely it will be gone by July.
and i was struck by what an excellent representation of the mentality of a sociopath this masterful PR piece gives. but first, a quick review of PR (public relations).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_relations
here’s Charles Koch’s “op ed”…
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303978304579475860515021286?mod=trending_now
collectivism huh? i keep hearing that word. hmmmmmn. repeat after me, “collectivism”. again. again. buy the dip. collectivism. buy the dip. collectivism. now go vote, morons.
i also find it interesting that he chooses to slam Saul Alinsky, a community activist (like Obama). hmmmmn. but Charles, isn’t your astroturfing the same exact thing, you know, grass roots organizing, well except that yours is fake?
and this is really interesting too…
“Alinsky did not join political parties. When asked during an interview whether he ever considered becoming a Communist party member, he replied:
Not at any time. I’ve never joined any organization—not even the ones I’ve organized myself. I prize my own independence too much. And philosophically, I could never accept any rigid dogma or ideology, whether it’s Christianity or Marxism. One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as ‘that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you’re right.’ If you don’t have that, if you think you’ve got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.[4]”
from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saul_Alinsky
Alinsky doesn’t sound half as collectivist as the Koch bro’s, champions of the right wingnutosphere, and of unmitigated greed, dog eat dog capitalism, winner take all, social Darwinism. but i got to go now. i’m pretty sure i’m going to puke.
this article deals with facts, and is a good rebuttal to the Koch propaganda above.
http://robertreich.org/post/81303984245
dispute the facts if you can. also note that they are presented in a non-partisan manner.
actually there is a lot of good stuff here. the articles are short, and direct too. the 3rd article down actually talks about the Koch brothers specifically. i am glad that their tactics are finally receiving public scrutiny.
http://robertreich.org/
i wonder if he would consider writing about Tea Party sock puppets funded by these Koch brother bastards on blogs?
I think the internet is working!
The Barenaked Ladies are/were a band out of Toronto, and we had a weird brush with them when they came to Ottawa to play a Christmas concert and because of a bold teacher, not because the kids could sing, Mikey’s choir got to perform with them, and Mikey was into the bass at the time (he was 8) and after the practice we chased down the bass player and he was super nice and jammed with Mikey. He asked Mikey to play something and we asked him later on what he played and he said he just made up a bass line at the time.
I think I have photo proof.
Here we go
and
John Ralston Saul is featured at Jesse’s today.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/
Rideau Hall, where JRS lived while he was the Governor General’s consort. He has lived a life of stolen luxury and has no frigging clue about wages and shit. He makes me so mad, sounding so reasonable as he scarfs down all the privilege he can margin. Yeah, friend of the poor. Bite me.
so are you saying he’d be a democrat if he was American? 😀
this article nails it, but the comments are even better.
http://firedoglake.com/2014/04/03/late-night-nervous-as-a-whore-in-church/
I was forbidden your link!
I will not be sublimated!!!!!!!!!!!!……………….and I can prove it. I had planned to retire on 4/30/2011, but I got shitcanned on 11/9/09. Proud to have lasted as long as I did and also proud that I never kissed anybody’s ass and if something needed sayin’, I said it. Of course it was no surprise to me- I had been collecting documentation for a couple of years prior. I applied for unemployment, they fought it, I won, they appealed, I won again. Hah! Thanks for the 30G in benefits, assholes.
“Proud to have lasted as long as I did and also proud that I never kissed anybody’s ass and if something needed sayin’, I said it.” you can right the foreward to my book Dude.
how do you mean my link was forbidden? did your in laws activate the parental controls feature? 🙂
edit: “write” i haven’t even smoked anything.
this song sums it up. sheesh. today’s weather shouldn’t have happened in April. i feel your pain Xty. all the way to my bones. the winter from hell proceeds with impunity…
edit: yet.
Whipsaw City in gold continues. Closed the week above my key moving avg. This sort of trendless market is enough to drive trend followers to drink. I won’t bore you with the particulars. Here’s the fucking chart.
And no doubt the damn thing will sell off next week, then rally, then sell…
The only good news I have to share is that all my silver is officially gone. Except the spoons, and those are officially “lost at sea”…
Stood there filling the car up with gas a couple of hours ago. Frickin cold out there. Stood there like an idiot, in the wind, saying fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. It’s April, btw. 😯
EO… you ‘sold’ all silver?
I don’t judge your move, and I wouldn’t advise anybody either way, but in my watching of the silver charts and stories (what many people call a “market”) I’m a buyer in the 18,19,20 zone.
From what i’ve seen lately (and this is just my 2 cents) I think the owners of the system are getting ready to try and take down the USD as the world reserve currency, so they can try and implement some new digital thing. To that end, even the mainstream media is running “gold market is manipulated” stories.
My suspicion is that they will soon run the silver and gold charts (especially Gold) much higher (to show the USD as weak) I suspect the silver chart will lag by a week or two but due to public demand will then have to go much much higher…
Just my own personal, and fairly “random” analysis… but if you see big Gold Market Scandal stories, mixed with a booming gold chart… i think that will mean silver will be much much higher in the days following. again, just my .02.
Where would you put extra cash? Gold? stocks? actual stuff like land/houses? and why?
fixty four where are you?
Well, DN, as I’ve been explaining, I’ve got some fairly serious cash demands coming up over the next year or so. Two kids in college at the same time, some home remodeling, you know the drill. I don’t want to carry any more debt, so something had to go. It just so happens that my silver stash would go pretty far in taking care of it.
If all comes to pass as you say, I’ll still be participating, via my gold stash, which has always been the much, much larger of the two. In my heart, always with the gold. Silver just felt like something I figured I could make a buck on. Just not a “believer” if you know what I mean.
EO I hear ya. I’ve always went heavier Ag vs Au, but then I really am kind of expecting the Gold chart to get the first big run up, so there i go.
I thought maybe you had some other investment you might be dumping the cash into, but not with 2 kids in college and home remodeling going on. sheesh! triple sheesh! And the eternal winter is still going on for most. To which i must say congrats to everybody for sort of not being in as horrible of a mood as this winter would certainly warrant.
DP is sounding cheerier, and summer hasn’t even hit yet!! or spring for that matter. lol
damn, i think i just let some robins down, looked out the window and one was looking right at me from the empty bath, just added water. and good morning!