One spring our boy scout troop participated in a "jamboree", a
camping trip and contest to show off our skills for all the troops in
the area. We all gathered on a piece of land adjacent to the CIA.
Two boys did get over the fence and into spyland, but that's another
story.
The big shots organized inspections of our campgrounds, our
entrance ways, the monkey bridges or other rope constructions,
our cooking and our latrines. They also held contests on the
common area, such as a pancake-flipping contest. I was chosen to
represent us in the fire-starting contest.
Each contestant was given a small area to build a fire.
We were completely restricted to natural materials that we gathered
on site and we were given two matches. Our areas had been prepared
with two cotton strings at twelve inches and twenty four inches.
Our materials could not exceed the first string. We were each to
have, I think, 5 minutes to in which to burn away the second string.
Everybody went to work while the judge circulated. I was way
at one end, there were twenty or thirty contestants. I had carefully
prepared some green cedar branches and, underneath and inside,
some tinder from the shreddings of the cedar bark.
We all were instructed to light our matches at the same time.
After a couple of minutes the judge made his way down to my site.
By then, it already looked as though a few boys were going to be
successful but a large majority had already failed, probably for
lack of sufficiently small, fine tinder.
There was nothing but prodigious smoke coming out of my
green effort. The judge pompously proceeded to pronounce my
effort a failure in advance of the time limit. He patrimoniously
explained to me that green material would not burn, that I needed
to use dry material.
Just then, in the middle of his speech, four things happened
v.bery quickly.
First, the second string completely disappeared.
Second, the smoke disappeared.
Third, in its place suddenly burst forth the largest, biggest
licks of orange fire in the whole area.
Fourth, the judge stopped talking.
I was the first to burn through the second string. I was not,
however, awarded the first prize, because, the judge explained,
I had not done it according to the way he believed that it should
have been done. My frends and troopleader protested that I had
been ripped off but their protests were ignored.
The rest of my life is pretty much going along the same lines.
Saturday, February 6, 2010
Thursday, February 4, 2010
Structural Deflation
...must be Lloyd (God's Work) Blankfein's worst nightmare.
think about it ... suppose society gradually builds in an expectation that prices are gong to fall, like, say, 2% or 5% per year, forever.
Then what happens?
For one thing, people postpone important purchases - most especially real estate - for as long as possible, knowning that the prices are sure to come down.
Then, by the same token, they become very reluctant to borrow money to make a purchase because the loan balance could be expected to end up larger than the value of the purchase.
And, by the same token, banks and bankers become even more reluctant to make loans, because there would never be adequate collateral to make sure they were repaid.
It'll never happen here. We love you too much, Lloyd.
giggle ...
think about it ... suppose society gradually builds in an expectation that prices are gong to fall, like, say, 2% or 5% per year, forever.
Then what happens?
For one thing, people postpone important purchases - most especially real estate - for as long as possible, knowning that the prices are sure to come down.
Then, by the same token, they become very reluctant to borrow money to make a purchase because the loan balance could be expected to end up larger than the value of the purchase.
And, by the same token, banks and bankers become even more reluctant to make loans, because there would never be adequate collateral to make sure they were repaid.
It'll never happen here. We love you too much, Lloyd.
giggle ...
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
Evelyn Fields
I flatter myself to believe that, just a little bit, Evelyn Fields was my friend.
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=evelyn+fields&gwp=13
From time to time, she would come in to work out of uniform, wearing jeans or some old throw-on dress. I must admit, the first time that I caught her doing this, there was just the merest fleck of gold from her hat, peeking out of her purse, to clue me off. I quickly understood that this was a game … maybe the only pleasure she had in a very, very difficult position.
Because, of course, you know what happens. During the day, in uniform, she received stern, dignified respect from the white pot-bellied associate directors. But let her show up out of uniform and not even the guards recognized who she was. Instead, they would treat her the way they saw her, as some old black lady trying to take advantage of the system. And so she would be openly dissed.
And I? Well, I guess that I was the only little white boy to ever look her in the eyes, and see what she looked like, and recognize that little twinkle of an impish. boyish miscreant that she got when she knew she was making fools of them. I knew exactly who she was and what she was doing. She earned huge respect from me for the incredible rigidity that she had to display, without the faintest hint of a crack, whenever she was around other folk. Once in a while, we got to do silly stuff alone together in the elevator.
At the end of her career, when she announced that she wished to retire, she was asked to serve for six months more while they found a replacement. Reluctantly she obliged. And during that time, the application for promotion of my boss’s boss, among others, came to her desk. Perfunctorily she passed on it.
And at the end of six months, it came to pass that someone noted that those applications for promotion had not been passed on through Congress as was the protocol.
Don’t you know that after her brilliant career, after attaining a rank never before held by either a woman or a black person, and executing it with aplomb and grace, they had to find this petty, petty excuse to denigrate her and even demote her, after her retirement.
As for my boss’ boss, she was soon forced to leave the corps because she had difficulty keeping her mouth shut, at the dinner table. She stayed on in her position for many years afterward, in a most undistinguished role, bringing many a man to his knees begging, yelling, pleading, her to allow them to do some useful work.
So it goes.
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery?s=evelyn+fields&gwp=13
From time to time, she would come in to work out of uniform, wearing jeans or some old throw-on dress. I must admit, the first time that I caught her doing this, there was just the merest fleck of gold from her hat, peeking out of her purse, to clue me off. I quickly understood that this was a game … maybe the only pleasure she had in a very, very difficult position.
Because, of course, you know what happens. During the day, in uniform, she received stern, dignified respect from the white pot-bellied associate directors. But let her show up out of uniform and not even the guards recognized who she was. Instead, they would treat her the way they saw her, as some old black lady trying to take advantage of the system. And so she would be openly dissed.
And I? Well, I guess that I was the only little white boy to ever look her in the eyes, and see what she looked like, and recognize that little twinkle of an impish. boyish miscreant that she got when she knew she was making fools of them. I knew exactly who she was and what she was doing. She earned huge respect from me for the incredible rigidity that she had to display, without the faintest hint of a crack, whenever she was around other folk. Once in a while, we got to do silly stuff alone together in the elevator.
At the end of her career, when she announced that she wished to retire, she was asked to serve for six months more while they found a replacement. Reluctantly she obliged. And during that time, the application for promotion of my boss’s boss, among others, came to her desk. Perfunctorily she passed on it.
And at the end of six months, it came to pass that someone noted that those applications for promotion had not been passed on through Congress as was the protocol.
Don’t you know that after her brilliant career, after attaining a rank never before held by either a woman or a black person, and executing it with aplomb and grace, they had to find this petty, petty excuse to denigrate her and even demote her, after her retirement.
As for my boss’ boss, she was soon forced to leave the corps because she had difficulty keeping her mouth shut, at the dinner table. She stayed on in her position for many years afterward, in a most undistinguished role, bringing many a man to his knees begging, yelling, pleading, her to allow them to do some useful work.
So it goes.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
660,000
Last month, according to the US Department of Labor, approximately 660,000 individuals stopped looking for employment. They did not find jobs, each one must have reached some other arrangement. The whole situation enabled the DOL to report an unemployment rate of 10.0%, whereas if those 660,000 people had still been counted, the rate would have climbed to 10.4%. Of course, this gradual process of exclusion has been going on for quite some time.
I liken the current economic situation of the country to a passenger train going down the tracks. In the cars, there are a lot of people seated with tickets. Some of them read the paper, some of them sip their drinks, a few are engaged in quiet conversation. Occasionally they may look out the windows and enjoy the scenery going by – the backs of warehouses, the chain link fences with barbed and razor wire, the junk yards and bus lots. Because the tickets they bought say that they are going to Pittsburgh, and because that’s where the same train went yesterday, and the day before, they all believe that they are going to Pittsburgh.
In the locomotive, the engineer and the fireman are the only ones who can look forward through the glass. They sit transfixed by the image of a washed-out bridge over the river ahead of them.
The conductor, back in one of the passenger cars, has been alerted to the situation. He, of course, and not the engineer, is the one empowered to make the decisions. He doesn’t see the bridge. He does understand that the train has too much momentum, that even if the emergency brake is thrown and all the wheels locked, that the train would not stop in time to avert disaster. He sees no reason to throw the paying passengers out of their seats and into a panic. No benefit would incur. And so he has made the decision to carry on as if nothing is happening. He has told the engineer to do nothing and he himself has not alerted the passengers over the loudspeaker system.
On top of the train, riding in the wind, there happen to be an odd collection of fellows. They have arrived to where they are via hitchhiking, hoeboeing, or otherwise ostracized from the crowd below. They are the only ones on the whole train who can see the whole situation, all around, and feel the wind in their hair, the rapid speed, and see the black swirling water ahead under the bluff. If the train could be slowed down they could get off but now it is moving too fast for them, they are prisoners. If they could talk to the passengers below them, the passengers would not listen to them anyway because they are outcasts, vagabonds, who did not pay their way. And so the train continues on.
That’s just how it is, and how it’s going to be. Might as well enjoy the ride….
I liken the current economic situation of the country to a passenger train going down the tracks. In the cars, there are a lot of people seated with tickets. Some of them read the paper, some of them sip their drinks, a few are engaged in quiet conversation. Occasionally they may look out the windows and enjoy the scenery going by – the backs of warehouses, the chain link fences with barbed and razor wire, the junk yards and bus lots. Because the tickets they bought say that they are going to Pittsburgh, and because that’s where the same train went yesterday, and the day before, they all believe that they are going to Pittsburgh.
In the locomotive, the engineer and the fireman are the only ones who can look forward through the glass. They sit transfixed by the image of a washed-out bridge over the river ahead of them.
The conductor, back in one of the passenger cars, has been alerted to the situation. He, of course, and not the engineer, is the one empowered to make the decisions. He doesn’t see the bridge. He does understand that the train has too much momentum, that even if the emergency brake is thrown and all the wheels locked, that the train would not stop in time to avert disaster. He sees no reason to throw the paying passengers out of their seats and into a panic. No benefit would incur. And so he has made the decision to carry on as if nothing is happening. He has told the engineer to do nothing and he himself has not alerted the passengers over the loudspeaker system.
On top of the train, riding in the wind, there happen to be an odd collection of fellows. They have arrived to where they are via hitchhiking, hoeboeing, or otherwise ostracized from the crowd below. They are the only ones on the whole train who can see the whole situation, all around, and feel the wind in their hair, the rapid speed, and see the black swirling water ahead under the bluff. If the train could be slowed down they could get off but now it is moving too fast for them, they are prisoners. If they could talk to the passengers below them, the passengers would not listen to them anyway because they are outcasts, vagabonds, who did not pay their way. And so the train continues on.
That’s just how it is, and how it’s going to be. Might as well enjoy the ride….
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Nigerian airplane bomb
I seem to be in hot water anyway ... I read the following account
in the comments section of The Washington Post
signed by a pseudonym, and decided that it was worth repeating ... if not
protecting from deletion ...
"We the people are not getting the full story on the underwear bomber.
Detroit attorney Kurt Haskell dropped bombshell revelations concerning his eyewitness experience of the Flight 253 attack and how the FBI detained a second man after dogs detected a bomb in his luggage on The Alex Jones Show today. The FBI has not only ignored Haskell’s story, but they have launched a cover-up by refusing to even acknowledge the existence of another man who filmed the entire flight, including the aborted attack, as well as the well-dressed man who aided the bomber to board the plane even though he had no passport and was on a terror watch list.
After being allowed to disembark from the plane by officials, passengers were detained in customs with their carry-on luggage for six hours while they waited to be interrogated by the FBI, according to Haskell.
At this point a bomb-sniffing dog pointed at carry-on luggage in the possession of a man Haskell described as Indian around 30 years old. Officials led the man away to an interrogation room. Haskell said he was concerned because the bomb-sniffing dog had flagged the man, indicating he may have had explosives in his carry-on luggage. The Indian man was subsequently led away in handcuffs.
Following this incident the FBI moved the passengers to another location. “You’re being moved,” the FBI told them, “it is not safe here. I’m sure you all saw what happened and can read between the lines and why you’re being moved.”
Haskell said the corporate media refuses to cover this aspect of his story. He has repeated it to “countless” news agencies and they uniformly have not included it to his knowledge.
Mr. Haskell questioned why officials have not released the Amsterdam airport security video that will undoubtedly reveal crucial information about the “sharp-dressed man” who escorted a disheveled Mutallab to the boarding area. Haskell described the suspected terrorist as appearing to be a “poor black teenager.”
The well-dressed Indian man did all the talking. He insisted Mutallab be boarded on the plane without a passport and when an airport employee refused to do so Mutallab and the Indian man went to talk with a supervisor. The Indian man tried to pass off Mutallab as a Sudanese refugee and have him boarded despite the fact doing so would be in violation of regulations concerning refugees. In general, documentation must be provided by an embassy in order for refugees to board international flights.
Mr. Haskell did not see Mutallab again until the botched terror bombing inside the plane on the approach to Detroit. He did not know how Mutallab finally boarded the aircraft.
The FBI conducted a follow-up interview earlier today in Michigan. Haskell asked them why he was not shown a full body shot of the suspect. Haskell was eight rows back from the suspect. The FBI agents did not answer and were displeased with the question. He also asked the FBI agents if it would be more appropriate to bring the surveillance video from the Amsterdam airport instead of still photos. “I don’t think they liked that comment from me,” Haskell added. The FBI said they did not have the videotape. They also made a point to tell Haskell they were asking the questions and not him.
See the interview here:
http://www.infowars.com/bombshell-eyewitness-revelations-confirmed-fbi-cover-up-of-flight-253-attack/
in the comments section of The Washington Post
signed by a pseudonym, and decided that it was worth repeating ... if not
protecting from deletion ...
"We the people are not getting the full story on the underwear bomber.
Detroit attorney Kurt Haskell dropped bombshell revelations concerning his eyewitness experience of the Flight 253 attack and how the FBI detained a second man after dogs detected a bomb in his luggage on The Alex Jones Show today. The FBI has not only ignored Haskell’s story, but they have launched a cover-up by refusing to even acknowledge the existence of another man who filmed the entire flight, including the aborted attack, as well as the well-dressed man who aided the bomber to board the plane even though he had no passport and was on a terror watch list.
After being allowed to disembark from the plane by officials, passengers were detained in customs with their carry-on luggage for six hours while they waited to be interrogated by the FBI, according to Haskell.
At this point a bomb-sniffing dog pointed at carry-on luggage in the possession of a man Haskell described as Indian around 30 years old. Officials led the man away to an interrogation room. Haskell said he was concerned because the bomb-sniffing dog had flagged the man, indicating he may have had explosives in his carry-on luggage. The Indian man was subsequently led away in handcuffs.
Following this incident the FBI moved the passengers to another location. “You’re being moved,” the FBI told them, “it is not safe here. I’m sure you all saw what happened and can read between the lines and why you’re being moved.”
Haskell said the corporate media refuses to cover this aspect of his story. He has repeated it to “countless” news agencies and they uniformly have not included it to his knowledge.
Mr. Haskell questioned why officials have not released the Amsterdam airport security video that will undoubtedly reveal crucial information about the “sharp-dressed man” who escorted a disheveled Mutallab to the boarding area. Haskell described the suspected terrorist as appearing to be a “poor black teenager.”
The well-dressed Indian man did all the talking. He insisted Mutallab be boarded on the plane without a passport and when an airport employee refused to do so Mutallab and the Indian man went to talk with a supervisor. The Indian man tried to pass off Mutallab as a Sudanese refugee and have him boarded despite the fact doing so would be in violation of regulations concerning refugees. In general, documentation must be provided by an embassy in order for refugees to board international flights.
Mr. Haskell did not see Mutallab again until the botched terror bombing inside the plane on the approach to Detroit. He did not know how Mutallab finally boarded the aircraft.
The FBI conducted a follow-up interview earlier today in Michigan. Haskell asked them why he was not shown a full body shot of the suspect. Haskell was eight rows back from the suspect. The FBI agents did not answer and were displeased with the question. He also asked the FBI agents if it would be more appropriate to bring the surveillance video from the Amsterdam airport instead of still photos. “I don’t think they liked that comment from me,” Haskell added. The FBI said they did not have the videotape. They also made a point to tell Haskell they were asking the questions and not him.
See the interview here:
http://www.infowars.com/bombshell-eyewitness-revelations-confirmed-fbi-cover-up-of-flight-253-attack/
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Healthcare
Healthcare: A Right or a Privilege? the headline read.
That's easy.
Back in the day, we all used to say "God heals the sick and the physician sends the bill."
God's healing is a right.
Paying the doctor's bill, however, is a privilege.
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