Put A Cork In It!

After yesterday's tragic shooting of Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, the expected is playing out. Unfortunately it took the murder of six people and the serious wounding of many more, including the Congresswoman, to bring it to a head.

We are an angry nation. There are unbalanced malcontents among us just itching for an excuse to vent their anger. The rest of us blog or jog. The trouble is, when times are bad, desperate people are often driven to desperate means. And too often it doesn't take much to push them over the edge. I think this is one reason for this tragedy.

Another reason is we have people with high public profiles, be they politicians or members of the media, who wittingly or unwittingly egg them on. Let's face it, there are a whole lot of us acting like children.

First the politicians and their partisan spats that bear no inkling of civility. No matter which side of the aisle, they all do it. For a person on the edge, this provides a perfect launching pad.

Then there is the media. The right is to blame. The left is to blame. Civility is non-existent.  Listen to Keith Olbermann. Then there are those with loose connections like Glenn Beck espousing his theories that people, looking for an excuse like the current shooter, take to heart. Neither contributes to civil discourse. It's by no means just these two, there are many from every side of the political spectrum. They know exactly what they're doing. Do enough of us see it?  Is there anything we can do to stop them?  Turn them off.  Maybe their ratings and advertisers might hear, though I doubt it.

Next will come the overreaction by the government. But for the prominence of some of the victims, this would just be another tragic shooting, would run it's cycle and fade into the archives.

But no. This was a Congresswoman and a Federal Judge. Already there is talk about more security for them. What will that entail? Will constituents have to be searched before meeting with their Representatives? Are the tax payers going to be expected to pay for 24/7 protection for every government official? If it comes to that two things will result. No one of substance will run for public office and we'll soon be living in a police state.

So let's go back to the politicians and their rhetoric. Put a cork in it. And to the on air voices who regale us 24/7 with their "wisdom", put a cork in it.  Who anointed them as all knowing anyway and why do we buy into it?

The sick will always be among us and tragedies will occur be it kids mad at their peers or teachers, or adults mad at their country. The rest of us hold a huge responsibility to not add to problems that are a part of life by enhancing our own egos.

If that's all you have to offer, truly, put a cork in it!

A Change Of Priorities

This is my workbench. There are three chess pieces in progress and two sitting there to reference for dimensions. These characters are for a set based on the original illustrations in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass which is based on a chess game.  Years ago doing my own version became an obsession.

Then came the back pain. It was such I could not sit on my stool for long periods, then eventually not at all.  For whatever reason, the position was different than the chair in front of my computer. Besides it doesn't take nearly as long to write a post as it does to carve a figure. I stopped. I couldn't concentrate to the degree necessary. I need to get back to it. I miss it.

My one other love is blogging. It's nearing obsolescence with the advent of Facebook and Twitter, but I still enjoy it. I want to keep at it. I'd miss it.

Today I've put my Facebook Zoo Mates on notice I'm cutting way back. It has become an addiction I need to break. My "friends" count will probably dwindle. The real ones will stay. I hope.

Yesterday I spent the afternoon unsubscribing to sites I'd joined for no really good reason. Linkedin. It's for business networking. I have nothing to offer or gain.

Nolabels. People are friending people right and left, forming discussion groups with no discussions and mainly just sitting there. One more group discussing the pros and cons of our government such as it is has no teeth. There are too many of them.

Various photo editing sites. I have one that fills my needs. I don't need a half dozen. Sites I've bookmarked and never visit. Gone.

What's left will still take up ample time but my illusions of being discovered have settled into reality. I'm one blogger out of how many kazillions. It's fun. It gives me a chance to vent. What more need it be?

It's time to live. The pain will, apparently, always be with me. It's time to accept it, deal with it as well as I can and move on.

Or in one case move back. I've got a chess set to finish.

Political Correctness Will Destroy History

What is wrong with leaving well enough alone with things that do no harm but are accurate reflections of who we were and are?

When I read that a new edition of Huckleberry Finn will not have the words Nigger nor Injun in it I was disgusted beyond words. How dare anyone rewrite great literature! It's akin to painting clothing on, say Venus Anadyomene by Titan which, by the way, dates back to 1525.

Venus Anadyomene

It's a malady creeping across our  culture and it's dangerous.  Just last spring a group in Texas won a battle to put a conservative slant on the content of their textbooks.  Parents dictate to schools which novels their children are allowed to read using the  most lame of excuses.  This is no way to teach.  More importantly it is no way to learn!

I remember the book  Little Black Sambo?  Do you?  And the restaurant that bore the name Sambo's?  The original book was about an East Indian boy, not a black, but somewhere along the way it was decided it was hurtful to black children and the name was changed to Little Brave Sambo.

As for the restaurant, the owners picked up on the theme thinking it fun using a combination of their names.  So much for fun.

Let's move on to the names of sports teams.  No longer can you use Squaw, nor Redskin among others.  Now we have rough and tumble mascots like the Banana Slugs and Fighting Blue Hens. There are teams that will strike fear into the hearts of their opponents.

It goes on to the world stage.  If Ahmajinedad had his way there was no holocaust. Actually there is a British Bishop who holds the same belief.

It makes me wonder what is and what is not true.  More and more we have to read dozens of periodicals and listen to a broad spectrum of news shows and punditry to get even a feeble grasp of what actually is.

As the trend grows there will be more and more doubt.  Soon people will no longer question.  They'll accept whatever sound bite they happen to hear.  It's already happening in politics and why partisanship is so prevalent.

That much, at least for the present time, I'm willing to sort through.  But don't mess with the classics; what books tell us.  They are our only link to the past.  Before people were inclined to  impose their own views before truth.

 Without that we can but live from day to day with no sense of who we were, who we are and who we're likely to become.  Those are treasures about to be lost and there will be no treasure hunters to seek them out because they won't know they exist.

Parenting Isn't What It Used To Be!

We're all aware of what models often do to stay as slim as necessary for their work. They starve themselves. Bulimia. Anorexia. It's often tragic and totally unnecessary as far as the people who purchase what they are selling are concerned. Most of us don't look like they do nor would if we could!

Fashion. I often wonder how trends get started. Copying celebrity I understand. However, the current trend here, wearing next to nothing, ie; shorts, flip flops and the like in winter weather, is sheer stupidity and laziness on the part of the parents. And the kids.

The rationale is, one, they won't catch cold because it's a virus; two, school lockers aren't large enough to accommodate winter wear and they don't want to have to lug it around; three,  parents allow it because it's the latest fashion!

Funny, when I was in school our lockers were plenty big enough to accommodate winter coats. Perhaps there is too much other 'stuff' kept in them?

As for fashion? Well, the kids have their ideas. My parents had theirs too and when it was too 'far out' it was nixed. I would never, ever have been allowed to dye my hair any number of colors from magenta to purple. And never, never ever would I have been allowed to pierce my nose, lips or any other body part except maybe my ears. Forget tattoos! The interesting thing, and puzzling, is that I would never have questioned my parent's authority on this. Or anything else for that matter.

Now to the practicality of the matter. Running around in shorts and flip flops may not cause healthy youth to catch the virus. Note I say healthy. Those who sit behind computers all day don't tend to develop good immune systems.

Then there are the what ifs. What if Mom's car breaks down on her way to pick up junior. He's left standing in the cold for a half hour or an hour rather than five or ten minutes. What if it begins to snow. There are possible results far worse than a cold. Hypothermia. Frostbite.

Understand this. We're not talking about temperatures in the mid-30s. We're talking about temperatures hovering around zero. The weather people are always cautioning us about leaving our pets out too long in these temperatures. And they have coats!

No, when a parent says you have to choose your battles with your kids, the generational gap is glaring.

No. You're the parent. I'm sorry my Mom and her generation aren't around to give a few pointers.

Pardon My Gas

Oil and Gas fuel our cars and heat our homes. Not the sun, not ethanol and certainly not the wind. Not on a realistic scale anyway.

I'm wondering if anyone in Congress realizes what our energy policies and roadblocks are really doing to our economy. I've been reading lately that sales of battery powered and hybrid cars are slim to none. Why? They just aren't practical. I was reading an ad this morning where you can go all of 100 miles on one charge. That means I could barely get up to Sandpoint to visit a friend, and back.

How many wind turbines does it require to produce enough energy to supply a town the size of Coeur d'Alene for a year? Where would we put them anyway?  And how do we get the power to the grid?  How do even more remote places do it?  They don't.

Solar panels? The same thing. Not practical when the "sun don't shine".   Ethanol for your car gives poorer mileage and is hard on the engine.  What's the point other than giving subsidies to farmers.  Eat the corn!  It's good for you!

I'm not saying these ideas are all bad. I am suggesting we're cutting off our nose to spite our face with technologies that are not yet ready for prime time. If not in this country, certainly nowhere else.

Consider China's up and coming love affair with the automobile. Consider the expanse of that country. To get from point A to point B in a battery powered car is laughable. Forget ethanol, forget solar and wind. Good old gas power is the up and comer.

Third world countries too. As they develop industry it isn't going to be powered by solar or wind but gas, oil and coal.

Hampering the exploration for and development of fields in this country and off shore makes no sense. Isn't it better to use our own? Consider, too, that world market I just outlined. Who is going to supply them? Canada? China? Venezuela? All the gas and oil producing middle eastern countries?  Getting rich. Healthy economies. Oil at $90 a barrel. Why? Because they can. And we're stuck with it because we deny ourselves sources of our own.

I hope Congress will be happy commuting on bicycles. Of course it will cut down the length of their sessions which isn't all bad. It will completely destroy what's left of the airline industry. And every other industry that uses oil in any phase of manufacturing - be it an ingredient in a product or a lubrication for machinery.

Unintended consequences. That's what our government policies do best at creating.

For me, I'll stick to our 10 cylinder Ford 250. Driven at a reasonable speed we get reasonable mileage. We get to our destination in reasonable time and safely in a reasonably sized vehicle.

I ride my bike around the neighborhood. What's next? Hair shirts? The only one's around here are on the dogs. Where they belong.