Month: August 2023

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I enjoy a good conspiracy theory as much as the next person. For me, though, a little evidence is required for me to take the bait and don my aluminum foil hat. This doesn’t seem to bother Vivek Ramaswamy, extremely long shot Republican candidate for President. He doubts the 9-11 Commissions findings. He wants to know how many armed US government officials were on board the planes that crashed into the twin towers. He admits he doesn’t have any idea or any information about how many were on board. Facts don’t matter. He has questions and damn it they must be answered.

The 9-11 commission admits to one government official being on board and he did not carry a gun. This isn’t good enough for Ramaswamy though, he needs another commission to confirm this fact. Now, I would think, and I am just guessing here, but in the spreading conspiracy theory world that’s all you need really, an inkling and nothing more, so I am going to go out on a limb here, that if there was any government official with a gun on board that day, they would have used it to stop the high jackers who only had box cutters. That this new commission is unlikely to discover anything new is besides the point. Coming from a candidate who claims fiscal responsibility is important to him this seems odd but then the similarly fiscally minded Republicans wanted 10 investigations into Benghazi even though each commission had remarkably similar findings.

Now Newt Gingrich, and, of course, another person who absolutely wants to rein in government spending on wasteful projects, claims that Former President Barack Obama is actually in charge of the government and not Joe Biden. Given that the Republicans claim that Biden is a doddering old man who should be in an old age home and not the White House, you would think they would take some comfort that Obama, a much younger and vigorous man, was actually in charge but no the nefarious Obama, partnered with the always evil Hillary Clinton, are up to no good. This is Gingrich’s theory, all gut instincts and no facts, and it needs investigating.

What bothers me about these obvious attempts to grab the media’s attention is that the media willingly just gives it to them. It is a remarkably easy method. Just say something outrageous and if you are half way famous person — the media will go out of their way to spread whatever bullshit conspiracy the person is talking about. I don’t blame Ramaswamy and Gingrich. They want attention and they know what they have to do to get it.

The media’s behavior is disappointing to say the least and belies the Republican argument that the media is against them. The media isn’t for or against anyone or anything. All they want to do is to sell papers. They are devoid of positions for the most part. So if anyone wants attention, all they have to do is say something outrageous and the media will do the rest. And you see where this takes us — Donald Trump, who, by the way, is out of office, gets 24/7/365 day coverage while the environment burns. There is not stop coverage of trans children which affects less than 1% of the students in public education because Governor DeSantis thinks it is the number one problem for American Education. It is all a diversion from what really matters. But never mind, I understand that there are some problems with deck chairs sliding on the Titanic. The good news is the passengers all have free ice.

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Oklahoma School Superintendent wants the truth of the Tulsa Race Riot to be taught but he also doesn’t want White kids to feel badly about it. Governor DeSantis in Florida feels the same way. What is the proper emotion for White kids to feel after learning about racism? It seems to me that is up to the individual child and is uncontrollable and not really the business of the educators. Some things will make you feel pride and other things might make you ashamed. There is no right way to feel about the past because people are still arguing about the past.

How do you take the White Racism out of the Tulsa Race Riot? White people targeted black people based on a run in between a Black man and a White woman. White people killed hundreds of Black people just because they were Black. White people either participated in the riot or did nothing to stop the riot. Should a White child feel badly about being White and the behavior of his race? Well, yes, if they are decent human beings. White people did a terrible thing to Black people. Thems the facts.

This idea that history has to show the American past in an admirable light seems incredibly wrong headed to begin with. First, history is about people. People are fallible. People sometimes do terrible things. The Civil War was one of the significant events in American history. In order to understand what happened and why this was so important in American history, difficult subjects have to be addressed. It doesn’t put everyone in a positive light. But I don’t think it will be any more traumatic than teaching first graders that one day an active shooter might appear in their classroom and how they should act when this occurs.

What doesn’t help is for educators to be even handed about a subject where being even handed is absurd which is what the Florida Department of Education tried to do. They were concerned that the slavery discussion was too one sided for the anti-slavery side. You heard it right. They wanted children to have a more positive view of the slave owners. This is dumbfounding. Why is that so important? Why can’t some White people be the villains in this particular story?

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The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, wants to flood the Civil Service with true believers because they want people who will follow Donald Trump’s orders when he is elected in 2024. I had to check my history books here but I thought the whole point of the Civil Service Reforms enacted after the Civil War was to ensure that workers were actually there to do their jobs and not perform as political operatives of the party in power. After only one google search, I discovered that I remembered correctly. A Republican administration and congress created laws to ensure that the civil service employees maintained their jobs through merit. This stopped the practice of using political strings to gain employment after election victories.

I can’t say I was shocked but it does reveal yet again the intentions of the modern Republican Party to undermine effective government. This is not an argument over the size and scope of government. It is a plan to gain a foothold in the present government institutions and then to dismantle them. They no longer want an independent civil service, they want servile employees who will follow orders. Well, ok but what happens when the Democrats win the next election and replace the Republican Party hacks with Democratic Party hacks? Isn’t preventing the chaos and confusion that such actions have on the independent civil service the exact problem that the Civil Service Reforms were designed to protect us against? So, much for moving forward.

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The Night of the Iguana is a movie I have been wanting to see for sometime. It’s based on a Tennessee Williams’ play though John Huston and Anthony Veiller wrote the screenplay. Williams usually plumbs the depths of the human race’s deep dark secrets and, lately I have to be in the right mood for these descents. But this movie has so many talented people involved, the big names alone are an impressive list of Hollywood heavyweights — John Huston, Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, and Deborah Kerr — I knew that I would eventually breakdown and see the movie.

I was pleasantly surprised. First the story isn’t so dark as Williams usually portrays the world, There is an underlying positive feel that is missing from most Williams plays. The characters go through some challenging experiences but they aren’t destroyed by what happens to them. They pick up the pieces and carry on with their lives It may not be where they intended to go but at least they aren’t being carted off to the insane asylum like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. They survive the storm.

For a movie that is over 60 years old, it aged well. It feels very much like a movie that was made in 2023 about life in the 1960’s. Richard Burton, who sometimes comes off like a stiff Shakespearean actor to me, particularly when in a Shakespeare play, is natural as the rascally defrocked minister who is reduced into being a tour guide in Mexico for good Christian women. Ava Gardner is a good time woman running a tourist hotel. She lives her life very much on her terms, even to the point of having two young men as lovers while her husband was still alive. Deborah Kerr is an unmarried artist struggling with poverty and caring for her aging grandfather. All these characters could easily be turned into caricatures but the actors give these characters a different look aided enormously by a script which surprises us with their actions while still being wholly believable.

The story takes surprising and interesting turns, the pace is crisp and unforced. and the acting is impressive. If you are looking for a good old movie, see this one.

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Glenn Reynolds thinks single White women are neurotic and thus creating all of our problems because they vote Democratic. Because only crazy people would vote Democratic. The sane people here are married men and women and single men mostly because they vote Republican. This is about all I can get from this muddled bit of writing.

Reynolds starts by talking about how fearful people became about COVID. In their panic, they opted mindlessly to support restrictions in order to stem the infection. This is apparently a bad thing. Reynolds believes that people should be more willing to take risks and to resist following instructions given by medical professionals. I don’t know about you but when a highly infectious deadly disease starts killing people, my first inclination is to listen to medical experts. What were we supposed to do? Particularly at the beginning when we knew so little and people began dying.

The medical establishment recommended the most extreme measures because they didn’t know how dangerous the disease was. It was new for Christ’s sake. Nobody knew. Now that we know more about COVID, we can discuss the lessons of COVID and how best to handle the next infectious disease. I am sure that we can do things differently and better. Discuss away. But to elude that the medical establishment allied with the Federal Government used COVID to install world government and just make life unpleasant for everybody because that’s what the evil Dr. Fauci and the Commies want, is simply unbelievable.

Any way, it shouldn’t be surprising that the medical establishment opts for the most restrictive options available because the best way to stay healthy is to follow their every word. Has Reynolds never been to a doctor. Stop smoking. Stop drinking so much. Stop eating so much. Drink more water, exercise more, take this pill for that. I don’t want to hear those things and I certainly don’t want to do those things but my doctor needs to tell me those restrictions and I need to hear them. The one thing I am confident about is that if I did follow his instructions to the T, I would have a healthier life. Doctors don’t want to see anyone die or get sick if they can convince people to take better care of themselves. It is in their job description.

Now, an economist might think differently about the same situation. She might think protecting people from an infectious disease is just one aspect to consider. The doctor is focused on keeping the most people possible healthy and alive. The economist, on the other hand, is focused on keeping a largely healthy population participating in the economy while keeping a deadly infectious disease from killing too many people. A death toll is more acceptable to the economist where it is failure to the doctor. Looking at a large population, the economist will determine an acceptable death rate that will protect most people while also keeping the economy going. This is why a lot of experts need to sit down and figure out the best way forward. What is most important — keeping the death rate as low as possible or keeping the economy humming along during a medical crisis? Again, I am betting the medical group will always opt for what ever path causes the least amount of deaths.

After determining that Americans just aren’t willing to take risks anymore, Reynolds careens wildly to find out who is responsible for all this caution — liberal white women. Not only are they liberal, they are also neurotic. Dear Lord, that explains everything. Except it doesn’t. Reynolds refers to a survey of people who have been called neurotic by another person. I am not least surprised that Liberal White women top the list. If you also asked the question who is most likely to take advantage of psychiatric care, guess who you would find on the top of the list — women who live in large urban areas. Men and people who live in rural areas are less likely to seek psychiatric help. Hmm, could that affect the number of people who have been called neurotic. Gee I don’t know. Perhaps Reynolds could redo this survey with a question like, “has the devil ever tempted you into sin.” I am certain he would receive some startling new information regarding his Republican friends.

Finally, I am not sure what Reynolds wants to do about it. He definitely thinks the world would be better if these silly neurotic White liberal women would just stop voting Democratic. But how? He suggest nothing to address their fears which drives them to vote Democratic. Deep down, I think he wants them to settle down with a nice White Republican male and, after experiencing the unparalleled sexual prowess of such a manly man, they will meekly follow his lead and vote Republican. Good luck with that.

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The refrigerator’s ice machine stopped working. Bob called customer service to get help. The customer service department is located in a country where English is not the primary language. I have no objection to this as long as the person can speak English. Bob’s Customer Service agent was incapable of understanding what he needed and botched the information that Bob gave him. In order for the agent to understand the problem, Bob was forced into a back and forth where Bob corrected the agent’s frequent misunderstandings of what Bob was saying but Bob stuck with him in the hope that the agent would eventually get it right. Unfortunately, the Customer Service Rep got it wrong which required a second phone call to clarify the details. All which Bob had given in the previous call. A service call was arranged for a week down the road.

The refrigerator is brand new. Someone probably accidentally touched the wrong button and the ice machine got turned off. A service person will push the button and all will be good. The problem is that it took numerous phone calls, long waits for available Customer Service Reps, call backs and a long wait for service people. All this work, which will probably be resolved by a service person pushing the right button, in order for the ice machine to deliver ice. This is not good customer service.

Bad customer service doesn’t seem to trouble most companies. My eyes were opened to this twenty years ago when I had a friend who managed a customer service department. She didn’t have enough staff. This meant that anybody who called in had to wait in a queue, sometimes for longer than an hour, to actually talk to a Customer Service Rep. It got so bad that the corporate heads decided that a certain percentage of callers would get a busy signal. They weren’t even given the opportunity to wait for over an hour to speak to someone. They were just told to call back later. Now if management was getting more staff, a call back later might sound like a good option. But management had no intention of getting more staff. All they were offering was calling back at a later time to wait in a long queue or to be ignored. I repeat this is not good customer service.

Customer Service departments are almost always dealing with problems with the product or the service. Customer Service Reps are supposed to solve the problem and rescue the companies good name with the customer by doing so. This, at least in theory, is the whole reason for Customer Service departments. What we are getting now are long waits in phone queues, busy signals and a long conversation with someone who has difficulty even understanding what you’re saying. This shows you how interested companies are in resolving your problem. Not much.

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My doctor told me to get a home blood pressure machine because my blood pressure was borderline high. I could monitor it with this machine. Well, I can now tell him what is causing my blood pressure to go up — looking for a doctor.

All I want is an eye doctor. My old eye doctor doesn’t take medicare, so I must find a new one. I went to the Medicare web site. Or, at least, I thought I went to the right website. There are two large groups of physicians in San Diego — Scripps and Sharp. My medicare card says Mercy which I assumed belong to Scripps because you always hear Scripps Mercy. This may or may not be right because I couldn’t speak to an actual person, I was live chatting.

After a bit of to and fro with the live chat lady, I finally asked is this the right number for Mercy Physician Group. She helpfully replied, “Sort of” and gave me a CS service number where I can talk to an actual person. I called it and was told to leave my number and that somebody would call me back soon. Soon. I don’t like the sound of that but I left my number any way.

In the meantime I now know that the surest way to raise my blood pressure is to try to find a doctor in my plan. Not a total loss that.

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I was going to mention this in my previous post regarding Ron Johnson (see my thoughts here) but there are two different topics here and so I decided to do two separate posts. Welcome to the windmills of my mind. Never ending or beginning on an ever spinning reel.

Johnson writes “This is all preplanned by an elite group of people.” Isn’t planned sufficient? What different meaning does the pre give to preplan. Nothing, right?

I was disappointed to find a definition for preplan. It means this travesty has been on the loose for some time and has wandered a bit too far to bring it back into the barn. But, I am sucker for losing causes so please remember to plan and avoid preplanning at all costs. If nothing else using plan will save you some time. I mean thats three less letters to write. That’s something. Pretty please.

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Senator Ron Johnson, Republican from Wisconsin, thinks the an elite group of people pre-planned the COVID crisis in an attempt to take over the world. That is some accusation and disappointingly Johnson provides no proof of his assertion. He says it is happening and, he is guessing, that we will take his word on it. I don’t. The Elites are not particularly good at world domination as they have proven year after year since the dawning of recorded history.

So I am not particularly worried about it. Now, if he had said that the COVID crisis was mishandled, I might listen. There are questions I have about what happened. But that’s not what Johnson is talking about is it? He is talking about a group who planned to spread a deadly disease to every human being on the planet (including themselves) in order to gain control of the entire world. That is what Senator Johnson expects me to believe. And, to make matters worse, but I feel it is my civic duty to point out — Johnson is U.S Senator. Shocking, right?

If we learned only one thing from the COVID outbreak is that a lot of people will do what they damn well please no matter what they are told. I think they were absolutely wrong in this case but I take great comfort in the fact that they did it. Human Beings are amazingly difficult to control. Which brings me back to the Elites taking over the world. I’d like to see them try.

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To say I am dumbfounded by the proposed fight is an understatement. Why on earth would two successful businessmen fight it out in a cage? It proves nothing. It doesn’t prove who the smarter person is, or the better person, or the most courageous, or anything other than who is a better cage fighter.

They are acting like two high school boys planning an after school fight. Musk’s take on it is particularly embarrassing. He wants the Prime Minister of Italy to help him secure an ancient Roman site as the venue for the fight. A cage fight in a regular sports arena just isn’t enough for Musk, he wants a classical Roman feel about the event. There must be doric columns and ruins to capture the full scale importance of the fight. And this is from one of the most brilliant men on earth?

I thought Zuckerberg was being reasonable when he announced he was tired of waiting for Musk to commit to a date and, given Musk’s vague availability, has stated there may not be a cage fight after all. Of course, Musk, not willing to see this as an opportunity to gracefully bow out, upped the ante by calling Zuckerberg a chicken. Now, boys and girls, we all know what that means. You can’t call another boy a chicken, it is the worst possible insult. Once someone has been called a chicken there has to be a fight. It is a manner of honor now.

Thems the rules of after school fights. It is better to be beaten to a bloody pulp than to be called a chicken. Zuckerberg’s reputation is now at stake. If Zuckerberg doesn’t show up now, he knows he will be eating lunch with the nerds for the rest of his life. People will point at him and laugh.

In this day of hyper awareness over casual sexism it is a wonder that nobody is making a bigger deal out of the underlying reason for the cage fight. Men have to fight when challenged. There is no question. If he doesn’t, he is a coward. That two of the most powerful men in the world are wasting their talents and time on a cage fight match is disappointing enough but even more telling is that the world can’t wait to gather around the combatants to see them come to blows. I know I will be there.

And what lesson are boys learning from this. It is really swell. A boy must fight when challenged. There is no way to back down without damaging your reputation as a man. Although largely unspoken in today’s world, boys still thinks that the better fighter will be seen as the better man. So whenever the great minds of the world are pondering why young men are so violent, they might remember the lessons they learn at school because they are still very much at play.