Monthly Archives: July 2010
Short. Not Sweet.
I must be a racist. After all, I’m white and conservative, and I don’t think we should have an African-American president.
There. I said it.
I AM absolutely convinced we should not have an African-American president.
Read the next sentence in full because regular readers know what I think of Mr. Obama’s ability to govern. I’m perfectly OK with Barack Obama as a black man or a “person of color” or a purple man with pink polka dots but we ought not have an African-American president.
We should have an American president. Period.
Anyone who thinks we should have a hyphenated president is just plain nuts.
“No person except a natural born Citizen … shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.” Not a natural born citizen of Europe. Not a natural born citizen of Antarctica. Not a natural born citizen of Africa. A natural born citizen of America. Those who become citizens here by birth or immigration are no longer citizens of somewhere else. They are Americans, darn it, not European-Americans nor Antarctic-Americans nor African-Americans.
Americans.
This whole argument irks me. Are there racist idiots in the Tea Party? Absolutely. Are there racist idiots in the Communist Party of the United States? Positively. Have the Lefty Loons trotted out the race card every day since 2008 to deflect us from their failed policies? Without doubt. Have the Tighty Righties stupidly responded to those slurs over and over again? Right again.
Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean called Fox News “absolutely racist” on Fox News Sunday. Vermont state veterinarian Robert Johnson also says there have been an unusual number of fox attacks this year, but it’s not cause for alarm. The latest attack happened a couple of weeks ago in Bennington when a rabid fox bit 8-year-old Rimmele Wood on the leg. His father killed the fox with an ax.
Some of our liberal friends are probably considering that solution for Fox News.
Perhaps everyone, not just the Wood family, needs the rabies shots. As my roofer friend Dino likes to say, sometimes I think I fell down the rabbit hole and we’re wandering around with Alice in Blunderland.
Wordless Wednesday
Buttons
When you find a button, push it.
I celebrated a birthday this year. While I still have my whole life in front of me, it no longer seems as infinite as it did forty years ago today. I’m thinking I should decide what I want to do when I grow up.
Or not.
Although I am indeed more than 50 and less than 100, this is the Internoodle and probably not a good place to publicize the actual day or month or year of one’s birth.
Writer, actor, and Shaq-twin in the cable ads Ben Stein spoke about the happiness that “comes to those who pursue careers that define their passions.” He delivered part of the commencement address he didn’t give at UVM on CBS Sunday Morning and I pulled a quote for an article about an early morning apartment house explosion last month. The resulting fire left one man in the hospital with severe burns and several families homeless. The other six residents of the four apartments, including Jimmy Branca’s family, escaped without injuries.
Despite the fire, despite playing the blues for a living, despite the fact that he says he is “one flat hat away from being an Amish guy,” Mr. Branca is a pretty happy fellow.
“What about the happy people,” Mr. Stein asked in his address. “What did they do?
“They made a decision to live.
“They decided to do what their hearts told them to do, to do what was in them to do. They took risks and they took chances, and they tried a lot of different things until they got to where they wanted to be.”
I’ve been working on my tan.
I rebuilt, extended, added an angled entry and reshingled the back porches here almost 30 years ago. The one-by tongue-and-groove lumber that sheathed the original porches could have been 100 years old then. Time and shingles that had developed some leaks have taken their toll. It is time for plywood. And shingles. And some redesign. The new porches will have a nice roof deck, a much better entry, and a garbin.
It gives me a certain amount of pleasure when Rufus, a guy two years younger than I, tells me, “You are out of your mind. After helping you with your porch roof in New Jersey, I swore I would NEVER do roofing again. I was… what?…. 25 years old?
“You are totally out of your f-ing mind. I wish you luck. Seriously.”
And I’m doing it by myself. At my age.
I can almost guarantee I won’t do this again but I enjoy planning a job and really like seeing the physical results. Improving my tan in the process is a nice side benefit.
Happiness ain’t overrated.
After our concert last night, I helped the Fire Department Auxiliary take down their folding tent. We didn’t know how it worked until I found a big button hidden in a plastic bracket on each leg.
“Push the button,” I said.
We each did and the canopy collapsed magically into its carry bag.
I have pursued my own passions but I wonder if I’ve pursued them enough.
Over the years, I have built fine furniture, milked a cow barehanded, raced at Watkins Glen, designed and built a 30′ boat in my barn, taught college, founded a health center, hosted a television program, invented machinery, touched lion cubs and sharks, learned how to make stained glass windows, had dinner at the Tavern On The Green, published more than a half-million words in newspapers, shaved my head, sold and donated photographs, lived on an island, and made two great friends, one via the Interwhatsit although she lives thousands of miles away. Recently, thanks to this blog and the same Intertoob, I’ve convinced all of my rug chewing right handed friends — including the bikers — that I am the devil spawn of Leo Trotsky and all of my loony left handed friends — including the Far Green true believers — that I am the consummate mouthpiece of Genghis Khan. Lots of buttons pushed.
It is time to find some more buttons. I don’t know yet if I’ll write the Great American novel. I don’t particularly want to learn to belly dance but I wouldn’t mind learning to juggle. I want not to worry about bills and taxes and appointments but I may sell my business. I do know I will work to keep my two friends.
You can’t leap over a canyon in two small jumps. And when you find a button, push it.
Gulf. Seawater. Explodes.
A friend posted a news clip on Facebook, to wit:
Recently, a News 5 investigation collected samples from multiple beaches in and around the Gulf region. Samples were taken in areas where kids were playing and swimming. The results were absolutely terrifying.
Good thing she didn’t test for arsenic. Also a good thing she didn’t read any actual scientific papers, I replied.
It sure would be refreshing to find a local news anchor who had even the remotest clue about science.
Another Facebook buddy commented on the link.
“@Dick: Did you actually watch the clip? If you had, you would know that the comment about the sample came from an analytical chemist (a “he”), and you’d also know that the sample was being tested for oil concentration, and underwent a surprisingly violent reaction that destroyed its Erlenmeyer flask because it contained an unknown component (dispersant? methane? they didn’t know).”
Pfui. He was trolling, right? Surely he must have been trolling. If he has heard the word Erlenmeyer flask somewhere, then he has enough technical knowledge to understand that (a) the reporter had no idea what she was talking about, (b) the report was full of scare stuff and devoid of much science stuff, and © Erlenmeyer flasks have flat bottoms. Jessica Taloney (the “she” I referenced) was the reporter. I don’t know if she has a flat bottom.
Robert Naman, the chemist “she” interviewed, told us that sea water typically has about 5 ppm of oil. The reporter scared us by saying “from 16 ppm to 221 ppm, our results are concerning.” Why? She didn’t tell us if 221 gallons of oil in a million gallons of sea water is fatal to humans or if it is only a problem when she needs ratings. She didn’t tell us if the oil in the marina (the highest concentration she measured) was from Deepwater Horizon or from a leak on the boat she used to dip the water. Marinas usually have higher concentration of oil in the water than beaches. SHE DIDN’T TELL US BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T KNOW. And neither did my Facebook buddy.
But the comment about the sample came from an analytical chemist.
Woo hoo. I Googled. Didn’t find anything about Robert Naman in the ACS rolls. The exploded flask did “contain an unknown component” so they speculated on how bad it was but SHE DIDN’T TELL US WHAT BLEW UP BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T KNOW. And neither did my Facebook buddy.
“News 5 will test that water for chemicals, specifically chemicals linked to the dispersant being used in the Gulf, Corexit,” Ms. Taloney reported alarmingly.
Well, isn’t that special. Mr. Naman doesn’t know what caused the explosion but Ms. Taloney will make sure they hang it on a chemical she knows nothing about.
I’m not a chemist nor do I play one on TV. I have no idea, based on the “WKRG News” report, whether the amount of oil they found is a reasonable average for the areas they sampled, is toxic in the concentrations they did find, or even if it came from Deepwater Horizon. I have no idea because the reporter did such a lousy job. SHE DIDN’T TELL US BECAUSE SHE DIDN’T KNOW. And neither did my Facebook buddy.
Unfortunately, my Facebook buddy (and WKRG “News”) want to make it into something that keeps us scared.
Gulf. Seawater. Explodes. And that, dear reader, is how the media deceives us.