One thing I like about the game of crib is that the balance between luck and skill always changes. This morning at the Panera, I got royally skunked after an entire game where I rarely got over six points in a hand. That was my only trip out of the house today. I began to spruce up the study so it can be used for music practice. Even without teaching, music is too large a chunk of my income to try to squeeze practice into any schedule but my own.I heard a new term for Bud Lite, I’ll have a “Jenny Craig”. Ha ha. I got that surfing y’day to find a book on how to manipulate Craigslist. There seem to be a few advertising outfits that have managed to bypass the limits placed on the quantity of daily posts, as well has how to get around the geographic limitations. If they are doing like I think they are, it is just not worth any price. However, there is no book out there on how to be a total prick on Craigslist. I’ll keep looking for one but if it isn’t there, I think may have a great “how to” book for the tons of people out there who It was also a nice day to stay out of the heat and do some reading. I got today’s trivia from a history book. One of the reasons the industrial revolution worked better in England (than in Germany where it began) may have been because the English invented a power loom. This means the working class could afford to wear cotton instead of only wool. How is that important? Well, unlike wool, cotton can be washed, making for more sanitary conditions. The English factory workers were healthier (by comparison) and lived longer. In theory, anyway.
This information is thrilling compared to what was on TV today. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings and James Bond. I was reading because I could not tell the three movies apart, they had identical plots. Basic cable strikes again. As the temperature climbs in the summer, you’ll find me retreating to the libraries and bookstores. I was in the Barn on Friday and looked through the new issue of Hacker. Alas, all the useful “hacks” were written in Linux, which does not do the majority of users absolutely any good. Linux is a good concept with lots of promise, but the designers weirded out on us. Flavors, indeed.
I see I struck a nerve with my criticism of political lawn signs. I undo not a word, those signs are a retarded tactic meant to appeal to other retards. Same with debates and conventions, all are stale and outdated. Nor am I the first to see past politics, read Saint-Simon in 1819. He postulated what would happen if suddenly all the nation’s politicians, cabinets, counselor, church ministers, magistrates and “10,000 of the richest citizens” were to suddenly disappear.
They would be missed for “purely sentimental reasons and result in no evil for the State”. This underlines the most important fact of politics, that our social organization is seriously defective. The scientists, artists and artisans whose work is of positive utility to society, and cost it practically nothing, are kept down by politicians, who are simply more or less incapable bureaucrats.”
“Those who control honors and other national awards owe … the supremacy they enjoy to the accident of birth, to flattery, intrigue and other dubious methods. Society is a world which is upside down.”
Saint-Simon said a lot, so I may not be quoting him exactly, but you get the idea. Politics is based on the assumption that people need to led, and that is only true for the most ignorant and most uneducated specimens of mankind. I dunno, where do you stand on that (careful, leading question)?
