December 17, 2016

Yesteryear
One year ago today: December 17, 2015, a very poor lecture.
Five years ago today: December 17, 2011, my predictions for 2012.
Nine years ago today: December 17, 2007, Broward Community College sucks.
Random years ago today: December 17, 2012, EVERYBODY’S birthday.

MORNING
           Don’t give me a performance report today, I woke up exhausted and stayed that way. I dragged my butt around, surprised I made it to Dunkin Donuts, where I had one of their breakfast wraps. That’s how tired or lazy I was—I ate in a restaurant. If I was awake, I was reading, and that brings me to a point covered last day. I found the website of the Alabama Borderkeepers (no link). It’s the type of organization that Liberals love to call down, but I could not find any instance of anything illegal.

           It looks like they attract the usual fringe types that make inflammatory remarks on their chat page and the SPLC is gung-ho to parlay that into tagging the whole organization as hate-mongers. Most people would see right through that, but the SPLC does persist. Unless we cross paths again, neither of these organizations has done anything worth taking up my time to follow.

           So feast your eyes on a bridge across the Peace River. In grade school we were taught the Peace River was this major waterway that went from the mountains in British Columbia nearly two thousand miles into the Arctic Ocean. By comparison, this Peace River is a creek, but it is a major waterway into Tampa Bay by the time it gets there.
           I was amused to see high-water marks on the trees next to where I parked the Rebel. Around twelve additional feet deep, so don’t camp there overnight if it looks like rain. The bridge in this picture is barely twelve feet over the current surface. Oh, and Agt. R reports he has seen waves high enough to wash over the causeway we traveled two days ago. I’d like to see that. Tell you what, let me see if I took any photos of that high-water position. I probably did, but you’ll have to wait. Only one photo is twenty-two makes the blog these days.

Picture of the day.
More outback.
Remember to use BACK ARROW to return to blog.
NOON
           Okay, I cave. You want to see another pic of the new Honda Rebel 450 motorcycle. This is as close as I’ve got to a picture for now. It is the chromed battery cover. Now, is that class or what? Have you ever tried to take a picture of chrome? Dang. Well, look close enough and you can see the reflection of the little red camera at top center. I will learn to love this motorycle.

           While reading some details about the SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center, a radical Liberal publication) I came across referenced to “Irish slaves”. Well, I’ve read the actual reports and news items of the great migration, it is reviewed also in this blog. I have no doubt famine victims could be and were exploited, but they were not imported as slaves ever. However, the fact that SPLC takes such inflamed exception to the concept means I investigated it.

           I found that it is one of those fake news stories making the rounds. It compares indentured servitude to slavery, and there are plenty enough accounts to prove that the living conditions were about the same. The diet and work performed were probably indistinguishable between servants and slaves. And everybody without money that got to America before 1930 necessarily came over in the hold of a ship. These facts invite comparison, but the SPLC are infuriated by those who do so. Hmmm, what’s getting their panties in such a knot? T’was the hue and cry caught my attention.
           Whose side would I be on? Neither. But when I look at the labels and hate literature spewed out by the SPLC, I don’t like those guys. They use terms like Neo-Nazis, White Nationalists, Neo-Confederates, racist trolls, Holocaust deniers, Klansmen, skinheads, Christian Identity adherents, and White Supremist. This is the language of unbalanced and irrational people trying to shove an emotional cause through anybody who will listen. Plus, they have advocated banning their enemies from the Internet, a policy always worse than what is being attacked.

           For me, it would be an issue of censorship. I do not believe there is any published article that should be banned. Anybody should be able to read anything they want if it is or ever was published and if they so choose, to read it privately and anonymously. To those who say I myself have spoken out against certain publications, you are making a mistake. I was not against the publications themselves, rather I was against the use of taxpayer money to promote those publications. Big difference. As it stands, I’m now more curious where the SPLC gets its funding than any of the groups they hate, segregate, and vilify.
           You see, I have more against the taxman than I do against the majority of organizations on the SPLC hate list. Taxes are not collected for the benefit of the taxed.

           [Author's note 2017: the above does not extend to the separate issue of whether the party that published the article had the right to do so, and also reminds the reader again that the right to do a thing does not mean it is the right thing to do. I'm referring only to an individual's right to read anything he pleases AFTER it has already been published.]

Country Song Lyric of the Day:
“I Spent My Last Ten Dollars on Birth Control and Beer.”
NIGHT
           Quick, pick the nicest motorcycle in the parking lot. There it is! I’m going to need a jockey box, there is no place to conveniently carry anything on the bike. And the gas leak is serious, I’m surprised the seller didn’t tell me about that after the deal was sealed and he had nothing to lose. I realized now how close I came to running out of gas on the highway on the way home. Yet, he must of known that was likely. And still didn’t say anything. It leaks constantly, and I ran dry this afternoon. I was a half block from a gas station as I was staying close because I could smell the leak.

           Band rehearsal. This is the first round with the young man from the jam session. We got through five tunes, all of which he is really going to need to work on independently. He has trouble with the circle of fifths, but at least he is struggling to learn it. Got that, Eddie? He’s actually trying. The guy is disorganized as hell, but who wasn’t when they were 22? It’s the same old story of the gifted amateur and the hard-bitten professional. He’s been heavily influenced by guitar playing, but we are slowly working around that.

           It’s entertaining in itself to hear the rationale for the nth time, the argument why somebody in the band wants to play a slow song.. “Well, you know, sometimes after you play a lot of fast music, the crowd likes to kick back a bit and hear some romantic slower tunes.” That, reader, is very fucked up thinking, and if you disagree, I got ten bucks say you haven’t got a tenth the experience you need to succeed in music. There is a time and a place for slow music. The time is never, you figure out the place. You don’t need a live band to play slow ballads at a rock bar.
           Arguing to play slow music usually means a guitarist who wants to play some dreadful dirge that he thinks is his theme song. Permanent amateurs never learn a dance hall is not the venue for the song of your people. No, your presentation isn’t meaningful if they would just listen. Slow music kills the moment. I like slow music, but I listen to it at home. I’m not anywhere near stupid enough to think it projects my taste in music helping me find kindred spirits. That teenage misconception of music can be an impossible hurdle for the small-minded and inexperienced.

           The rehearsal is 18 miles away. It’s all freeway and the 450 makes light work of it. I’m again getting that resistance to providing [me with] a song list. Everybody has a list of ten songs they would not be happy playing in a band without. I just quit a five-piece band because they would not even consider playing any Johnny Cash. Now this is the fourth time since I got here that the other guy won’t hand me his list. The last two times, they waited until enough effort had been put into the band that they thought I would not walk away. (Always a bad move.) They not only had a hidden list, they had a hidden agenda.
           Do you recall those? The first guy announced he wanted to use Karaoke backing tracks. The second guy just wanted to jam but not commit to a band. The third guy lasted one rehearsal when he figured out forming the band was not going to consist of me learning his song list.

           But, as I said, disorganized. A lot of it is sheer inexperience. When I ask if you have a PA, that means a PZ set up in a location where we can use it to practice. Not stored in a shed downtown. When I ask if you have an MP3 player, of course I mean connected to a set of speakers so we can play music through it now. Not in three pieces in the trunk of your car. He got a first class lesson today that listening to music is not the same thing as learning it. Alas, all he did since last week was listen to the tunes on the list I gave him.
           I have not analyzed the rehearsal yet, I’ll do that Sunday morning. The young man, who does not yet have a blog nickname here, is contributing something I have not heard in years. Enthusiasm.

ADDENDUM
           The tards at the Lib factory are now pushing the big Russian hacking theory. It was them dirty Ruskies what got Trump elected, yup, yup. Why? Because Libtards are never going to accept that people don’t like Libtards because Libtards are such wonderful, wonderful people. The Ruskie theory adherents claim to have known this way back on November 7. As Trump tweeted—then why did they wait until after Hillary lost to complain about it? That pretty much says it all.
           And pooh-pooh to the little minds that say Trump should stop tweeting now that he's president. Such people don't have the IQ to grasp why Trump bypasses their beloved mainstream media.


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