Monthly Archives: December 2014

Winter Is Here!

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Fine Art BikeWinter is here! Tra la, tra la! I shall go to the beach to celebrate!

The Winter Solstice arrived last night at 23:03 p.m. “UTC” here in South Puffin. That would be 6:03 p.m. in real Eastern Standard Time here. Why did the New World Order change from GMT to UTC, anyway? What on earth was wrong with Greenwich Mean Time?

The winter solstice marks the shortest day and longest night of the year but sunsets are already getting later. 4:14 p.m. EST in North Puffin and 5:40 p.m. EST here today. Tell me again why we don’t have Daylight “Saving” Time year round? A 6:40 p.m. sunset sounds pretty good to me.

My shadow on the beach at noon yesterday and today will be the longest of the year.

Winter.

The rain over the southeast has broken up and spread out a bit — it was pretty heavy as far south as central Florida last night. A lightning strike at an NFL game in Tampa almost hit seven fans.

It was 17° and foggy in North Puffin this morning which is 10° warmer than yesterday. The first day of winter there will be partly sunny with a high of just under freezing on nice light southeast winds. On the other hand, it was 75° here when I first checked. Here in South Puffin, we do have a slight 10% chance of showers coming in on southeast winds but I’m seeing partly-to-mostly sunny with the high temp topping 80°!

Winter.

I like to hit the beach in late afternoon.

My beach faces south into the Atlantic that divides us from Cuba (Cuba is closer to Key West than Walmart). The navigation channel is a hundred yards or so off shore so we get some interesting boat traffic.

Our osprey came a’calling a couple of times recently. He landed on the roof one day, but chose a palm frond the next. That big bird bounced the palm enough that I got seasick.

Mermaid Washes Up on BeachKids discovered a mermaid earlier this month.

Two women and two kids were there the other day. Both kids and one of the women went in the chilly 70° water, That woman did it clean the sand out of the top of her bathing suit. See, she had been shelling and dropped the shells into her top.

A friend saw something very seal/walrus like rolling around amongst the bait fish but I missed it.

Despite all the attractions, my beach is the most relaxing place in the islands.

Still Life with Palms

Low tide is at 2:34 p.m. and high at 9 so the most beach will be about when I’m swimming this afternoon. And I shall do the Penguin Plunge on Christmas Day.

Merry Christmas, y’all!

 

Protest Too Much

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“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

“O, but she’ll keep her word.”

But will she?

Shakespear and others of that time knew that the word “protest” meant to “vow” or “declare solemnly.” Gertrude thought the Player Queen went a little over the top with her promises. Taking the modern approach, I think the Player Queen got a little skewed with her mission.


Protesters Holding the Wrong Signs

Tens of thousands of protesters swarmed Washington yesterday because a black kid got shot running from a crime.

Not one protester was upset about the number of crimes committed by actual criminals. Or the crimes committed by the protesters. Some are calling this movement the “new Civil Rights” but no one takes responsibility for the old (un)civil behavior.

Some pundits believe as I do that it’s time for the Civil Rights movement to grow up, take responsibility, and forge ahead.

Are there some bad cops? Sure. There are about 15,000 law enforcement agencies in the United States with more than 750,000 sworn officers. That many people means there are some bad actors but the data shows that police officers commit very few crimes relative to the population they swear to protect.

1,163,146 violent crimes were reported in 2013 nationwide. More than 720,000 ag assaults accounted for 62.3% of that. Almost 350,000 robberies (29.7%), 81,000 rapes (6.9%) and about 14,000 murders (1.2%) made up the rest.

The question you have to ask yourself is, who should get most of your attention? The few bad cops or the 1,163,146 criminals?

End Gang ViolenceWhere are the protests over unarmed black men shot in drivebys?
Where are the protests over unarmed black women shot in bedrooms?
Where are the protests over unarmed black children shot in “neighbor disputes”?

No Looting BurningWhere are the protests over drug dealers on the corners?
Where are the protests over vandalism?
Where are the protests over arson?

Stop Robbing UsWhere are the protests over burglaries?
Where are the protests over armed robberies?
Where are the protests over smash-and-grabs?

Those are the crimes in neighborhoods like yours and mine. Those are the crimes you expect cops to prevent. Those are the crimes you say are the cops’ fault.

Who is the actual pig in this story?

Some pundits believe as I do that it’s time to stop letting old demagogues like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson blame everyone but the criminals for all the crimes. It’s time for the Civil Rights movement to grow up, take responsibility, and forge ahead.

We’ve all seen the current crop of protest signs. I like my signs better.

This might could or even might be the start of Civil Rights 2.0.

 

Ouch!

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I made a mistake.

I flog my blog in social media (some might call that “trolling”) both to advertise it and to get more discussion going. This week, I wrote the come-on, “That’s just another day in the life of a police officer. So is the Liberal cry to Kill the Pigs.”

The piece itself doesn’t make much of a connection between Liberals and the slogan but I did.

“Liberals don’t want to ‘kill the pigs’,” my friend Dangerous Bill replied. “They want to see the justice system working the way it was meant to.”

If liberals don’t want to ‘kill the pigs,’ who are all those outsiders at the protest riots? I wondered.

If liberals don’t want to ‘kill the pigs,’ who posted that saying on Facebook?

If liberals don’t want to ‘kill the pigs,’ who is buying all the t-shirts?

Dangerous Bill brought me up short. “Angry people,” he said but “not necessarily ‘liberal’ in the Fox News sense of the word.”

Fox News has a sense that is different from yours and mine?

“Yes. It’s anyone who deviates in any way from teabagger ideology.” [emphasis added]

And that’s the mistake I made.

Dangerous Bill and others blame all things that Liberals hate on teabaggers and the teabagger ideology.

I want to overthrow Obamacare. I must be a “teabagger.”

I want government to stop spending my great-great-great-great-grandchildren’s inheritance. I must be a “teabagger.”

I want the Administration to obey the law. I must be a “teabagger.”

And, see, that’s the problem. Plenty of people who believe those ideals are indeed in the Tea Party but millions of Americans believe those ideals and are found in every other political persuasion.

Like Dangerous Bill, I blame all the bad things that Liberals do on liberals and the Liberal ideology.

It may be too broad a brush.

I’ve never met anyone but a liberal who would say “Kill the Pigs” and mean it, but I’ve met many, many Liberals who would never do so. And most of those decry anyone who would.

So.

I’ve now learned not to tar all Liberals with that “teabagger” brush some liberals wield.