Are we still the land of the free? Do we still feel the same about the huddled masses yearning to be free?

This has been on my mind for a long time. Does Rush Limbaugh’s radio show really emanate from the executive office building next to his sponsors office in the west wing? If it doesn’t you could sure fool me. That was a lame joke. Although I believe in truth that Limbaugh’s views of the world are much more conservative that the occupant of that west wing office. His views from way over there on the right, way over there, could and should evoke a grin and the comment ‘Oh that Rush is at it again’. But too many people take what he says very seriously, I think. Rush personally though is not really the subject of my small rant, but the complete partiality of what he says is. It seems to me that his three-hour ‘show’ really could be best described as doctrinaire in the mildest terms, or propaganda in the harshest terms. It would seem impossible to me that anyone could talk for three hours on political issues and not concede a point or two to the other side, unless of course objectivity is not the goal at all. A propaganda organ for the right wing is his agenda, and he does it very well. The phrase callers to the show proudly proclaim is that they are a “ditto head” before they ask their question, and proclaim their obedience to his current marching orders. I would be appalled to be called anybodies ditto head. It presumes you cannot have an original thought on your own. I think that the time has long ago passed since Rushbo hit upon his successful formula and a gig that has landed him steady employment. He has now become something a lot more serious and a little frightening.

Isn't this cartoon about Pickles being frightened by the guy looking back at him from the mirror right on the button. I've heard many times of the predicament we all face when we get to a certain time of life. The question always is, Why can't I work all day like I used to? I feel fine. But time and nature always wins. But our brains either don't want to admit that it's host body is wearing out or it is very clever and does not want the host to lose all hope too soon. So it fools us, but we are soon found out after working at a task that in times past was thought of as a piece of cake and having to stop and rest or worse quit for the day. But in the end hopefully we all become philosophers about our dilemma and enjoy the slower lifestyle. I have.

Damn
Damn it all. I've been doing my homeowner obligations for several days now. Moving several gardens, eliminating some, edging, making it all a little more presentable. I even after much thought called and arranged for Chemlawn to come and do their stuff. I had to. The green portions of my yard which if I remember is supposed to be something called grass is green as it should be, but the weeds have won the war far beyond anything I can do to drive them back. So environmentalist look away because the chemicals are on the way. But why did I start this harangue with a damn it all? After several seasons I again have contracted POISON IVY. Drat it all, there that's better language, I bring it on myself. I get overconfident by getting through several years and then bang it gets me again. Yeah I know whiney baby. I hope the end result is worth the itch I will have to put up with for a while.

why do we like corny jokes?
Why do we like corny jokes? I admit I do. Is it because they are usually clean jokes or perhaps because they appeal to the lack of sophistication that resides right under our public persona? They’re usually brief, but then again not always. Maybe it’s because simple is best. A psycharitrist could write a paper on it I suppose. A medical doctor would tell you it’s good for your health to laugh. As they say in the vernacular of the day, Whatever. Just for an experiment let’s read a couple cornies. This is just an experiment remember so if you laugh it will help medical and psychiatry science.



A turtle was walking down an alley in New York when he was mugged by a gang of snails. A police detective came to investigate and asked the turtle if he could explain what happened. The turtle looked at the detective with a confused look on his face and replied "I don't know, it all happened so fast."

and....

A doctor says to his patient, "I have bad news and worse news."

"Oh dear, what's the bad news?" asks the patient.

The doctor replies, "You only have 24 hours to live."

"That's terrible," said the patient. "How can the news possibly be worse?"

The doctor replies, "I've been trying to contact you since yesterday."

The Two Stuarts
The two Stuarts

Two of my favorite authors are also two of the most prolific guys out there. Stuart Woods writes an easy to read book featuring several different main characters. My favorite is Stone Barrington, a former NYC cop turned attorney. Woods puts him into adventures that sometimes take him out of the big city into plush surroundings with well to do friends. Of course he’s a stud who flies his own airplane. In fact, and most of us I think are glad of it, he is bigger than life. Sounds like it could be kind of banal but Woods is a master of plotting and the books always move along quickly. Buying his new books, which come out frequently, can be quite costly, as you all know. Books new are never less than 25 bucks a shot and that’s too much for my wallet for a book I will read once and give away eventually. So I get him from my very, very good local library. I am currently on the list of his latest and as usual I am 68th on the list. He is popular, give him a try.

The other Stuart is Stuart Kaminsky. Kaminsky is another very prolific writer with many different heroes featured. My favorite so far because I am a glutton for anything ‘forties’ is his series featuring Toby Peters. Toby is a private eye living in Los Angeles and works in Hollywood employed by various movie stars of that period among others hoping for him to get them out of some predicament. WWII is in progress and he lives in a boarding house with a variety of strange folks. It is light and interesting because at the same time entertaining it brings back to life how it was to live in those days on the homefront.

I give a high recommendation for both for just pure enjoyment.

Marbles
The other day I was dreaming of the old days, the really old days when I was in elementary school and one of the games we played at recess was marbles. Remember that game? I was wondering if the kids nowadays play the game anymore. I don’t know, but I would guess not. One of the reasons that came to me was pretty obvious why they might not. My elementary school was a huge old building surrounded by gravelly, dirt playgrounds front and back. I doubt they have such amenities anymore, certainly not playgrounds ideally suited to drawing a circle in the dirt in which to play the game. I don’t recall being much good at the game, but I do remember having a lot of marbles. We would carry them around with us in a little bag with a string tie. I’ll bet it was from a bag of tobacco used to roll your own. It was a simple game with few rules, but there always seemed to be one boy who was an ace at the game and would strip us of our marbles, like any game through life someone will excel. A life lesson learned early, how to cope with being average.

a frozen ted williams
I was thinking the other day about Ted Williams family, a majority, not all, deciding to put Ted's body in a vat of water and cryonically freezing him to unthaw at sometime in the future. When it is said medical technology will be able to use a magic pellet and zap he is up and running again. What a bunch of baloney. I guess Ted wanted to be cremated and his ashes tossed into the Pacific. But I guess he also said he didn't really care what they did with him. That was his mistake I would say. When I think of it I just shake my head thnking of the nonsense of it and also what was the son's rationale behind his decision to do that?

What's up in the funnies
I read maybe half a dozen comic strips from my daily newspaper each day. A couple cartoons, Dagwood, Beetle Bailey, and Funky Winkerbean. Recently though Tom Batiuk, the cartoonist responsible for its creation and its storyline, has written himself into a corner it seems to me. A corner that I don't find amusing, a comic strips prime requisite I thought. In fact it is quite distressing watching the character of Lisa anguish over her recurrance of cancer. Where can he go with this? Hopefully it will be a case of a misdiagnosis, which happened to me years ago, but even if that is where he's going, it's not funny. I know comics have tended toward more bases in reality but come on let's not have to watch them being killed off and the survivors grief. Tom, where are you going with this?

Ran across this today in the Huffington blog. I thought it interesting. I was thinking recently that the democrats are in dire need of an eloquent spokesman, ala Mario Cuomo in his heyday, to state the case for the party and to illustrate to the people of the U.S. why they should throw out the republicans and bring in the democrats.
Thus far it's been pretty silent from the middle to the left.

this then from the Huffington blog:

Bill Press: Senator Tom Harkin our guest on The Bill Press Show. Senator, your colleague and buddy Russ Feingold had a hearing last Friday on his motion to censure President Bush over the NSA spying program. Why haven’t more democrats lined up behind him?

Senator Tom Harkin: Well, Bill, quite frankly I don’t know, and I’m embarassed that more democrats haven’t lined up on this. I mean, for crying out loud, the republicans, they can see fit to impeach… IMPEACH a president, Bill Clinton for lying about having an extramarital affair. But they won’t stand for a censure. The democrats don’t have the guts to stand up to censure a president who misled us, who lied to the American people, who broke the law and violated the Constitution of the United States in spying on the American people. I tell you, we’ve got to get some more backbone to a lot of democrats.