April 9, 2019

Yesteryear
One year ago today: April 9, 2018, fifty pounds!
Five years ago today: April 9, 2014, a little sparkle, please.
Nine years ago today: April 9, 2010, lost jobs never return.
Random years ago today: April 9, 2013, deciding to be rich?

           Not such a great day. But the mystery button on the stove is solved. The reason it appeared to do nothing is highly explainable. With my discomfortable shoulder, I would lean over the stove to operate the button. In the daylight, saw nothing. The stove has an automatic light that comes on when the oven door is opened. The switch is an override to turn the oven light on while the door is shut. Never having owned a stove with a window on the front, well, there you have it.

           We may get to the lake later but the cumulative activity with the dogs does tucker me out. Which is good in the sense I’ve gotten back the stamina to charge up the hill with them, like in this photo. That’s the banks of the Stone River, another of the TVA dams still in use today. I have no qualms about the dogs traipsing though mud and muck, it’s that when I got in my car today, I am becoming aware I may have a mild allergy to something about dogs. The fur, the aroma, who knows? But my car now kind of has an aura of doggie about it.

           Not that doggie is any worse than the stale cigar of the previous owner. It’s that I didn’t get sniffles over that and lately I can’t get in my own car without a box of tissues. An hour later, we did make it to the lake, so I have another mystery for you. What is happening in this picture? I’ll be nice and just tell you. The picture is called “Surrendering to the Russians”. We just felt that in this political climate, it was wise to be prepared. What? You want the real story? Okay. It is a carefully posed picture used to indicate back on the farm to the dogs that we had no food or treats for them, so no jumping on our clothes with muddy feet from the lake.

           Instead, the muddy feet get all over the back of my car, har-dee-har. Look at that sky. This was the second actually pleasant day in a month. Spring is finally well underway, the first time I’ve seen leaves growing out in twenty or more years. Note again the rocky lakeshore around the reservoir. It’s tough walking intended to tire out the dogs. They run between the stones as we step across the top, effectively quadrupling their mileage. Sneaky? Perhaps.

           From my why-didn’t-think-of-that room, I read about this guy who trekked from the Atlantic to the Pacific by walking east. Huh? That’s correct. He had two cars. He would drive one ahead a few miles, get out and walk east toward the other car. Then drive that one ahead, leapfrog fashion, and repeat. Thus covering around 3,000 miles in around six months. I’d heard about this feat back in 1993, but got the impression he had walked backwards. This was something quite different and I’m surprised more hasn’t come of it.

Picture of the day.
Viktor Kibenok
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           Last November, before I figured out how to make gifs without involving any on-line unknowns, I retained some videos of my birthday party in Redding, CA. Here is a clip of the bartender, what a dude, he was more of a standup comedian. I was looking for older footage when I remembered his antics as he came across my camera. Here’s the gif, then we can get down to business. Which this afternoon is not so much politics as my explaining why I don’t like politics and/or politicians.

           I realize there is not way one can opt out of politics in America, because both the prevailing big parties and democracy itself quickly learn to first depend on, then encourage, and finally to manipulate non-participation. The fact you don’t like anything about them is lumped with complacency. But is it now? When you hear stories about what happens to people who dare to actively oppose the system. Of course, anybody who’s career can only be ended by political castration doesn’t merely like complacency, they consider it a boon.

           There is something I’d like to explain. I don’t really have anything against this Cortis lady, my objection to her behavior goes way back further. When I was in university, I took a few courses that today would be called political science, a term that I find laughable at any time. I admit that long ago saw the most idealistic period of America but nobody knew it at the time. Like those who studied medicine to cure illness, one studied government because it also needed fixing. Are you with me this far?
           I took the class with the intent of learning what was wrong, who was doing it, and to point them out. But the lectures were totally liberal indoctrination. It was all about this bureau and that department and what they were supposed to be doing. The fact few of them were doing anything never got mentioned, the idea of the classes was to get you to accept the way things are. One quickly learned not to question anything, lest you draw snarky comments from the “professor” and slurs from the majority liberals in the room.

           However, within that majority, there existed a subset of those who wanted the knowledge, not to correct anything, but to use that to work their way up the political payscale. It was also known at the time that in the upcoming future, politics and newspapers would work together. To me, people who took the class for that kind of motive were sell-outs. They have no intention of fixing anything, but to use knowledge of the system to get power, and as a bonus, a mention in the history books. The problems remain, or get worse.
           So along comes AOC doing exactly that. A rising Democrat, but rising in the party only. She becomes the Devil’s advocate by asking very narrow questions about broad subjects. This always works since no expert on the other side can be versed in every possible scenario in his home jurisdiction. And, like in American law courts, any hesitation to answer or no answer at all is twisted into a maximum negative. She knows darn well the citizenship question on the census is ultimately anti-illegal immigrant. Rather than side with what is legal, she’s challenging the right of America to defend itself in this manner. Like nobody notices she’s got a vested cultural interest in the matter.
           That’s what I have against her, and would have about anybody who operates like that. To attach it my earlier comparison to medicine, I find what Cortis is doing would be like the doctor not intending to cure the disease, but to become the champion of the disease to make it the best disease possible. Her entire conduct reeks of this duplicity. Her questions are not aimed solutions, but just endless arguing while she is on the payroll.

Last Laugh