Category Archives: Current Affairs

My kind of people

Current Affairs, Politics

 

Watching the two political conventions, I was impressed by the difference in the crowds. Maybe it was the result of the cameramen trying to make them look different, but I doubt it. It is not just the color of Conventioneer skin, the variety of dress vs. the lack of variety, that caught my – and the cameraman’s – eye, it was the tenor. The Democrats seemed to be having fun; the Republicans weren’t.

In 1964, I remember talking to my dad about the Republican National Convention that was being held in San Francisco. (I had been to the 1960 Democratic Convention in Los Angeles – not officially – and Los Angeles was one giant party and I had expected San Francisco to be the same.) My dad thought it would be pretty dull saying that the Republicans just didn’t have as much fun; that the Democrats were big spenders, big partiers, while the Republicans were – for lack of a better word – conservative. It turned out that my dad was right, San Francisco was pretty boring during the Convention.

Even more now than in 1964, the Republicans just seem pissed. And full of hate for Obama. Irrational hate.

Yesterday, Obama visited the Big Apple Pizza somewhere in Florida and the exuberant owner – a Republican – picked up Obama. It turns out that he voted for Obama in 2008 and will vote for him again this year. Apparently the Yelposhere went nuts with Conservatives bad-mouthing the pizarra.

Notice how Yelp only published “reviews” from libtards…just goes to show you how biased coverage of the annointed one is. More hate comes from the dumbocrats than anywhere else.

Food was terrible, atmosphere even worse, emplyees were discourteous, was going to bring 500 students there for stop before and after Disneyworld.  After him, a proclaimed Republican, embracing, bearhugging Obama.  Wouldn’t recommend this restaurant even for Obamas Dog, Bo,  Stay away from this place
john John is listed as being from Rockville, MD. Is he so clueless as to think we will believe this is a real review? or is he just so filled with hate?

Horrible food, dirty, rude staff.  Saw roaches crawling around and flies all over the food in the kitchen.  Don’t waste your time or money, unless you enjoy getting sick. From a guy in Tacoma WA.

The pizza left a bad taste in my mouth…. Tasted like poo…God bless America!! Mark, from Lake Forest IL.

I don’t know what bothers and surprises me the most, the hate or the cluelessness. I guess that it is the hate that most surprises me. I expected it even less than the cluelessness. I just didn’t know that there was that much hate out there. To me, Obama is just not that liberal, although I guess that I would qualify as a libtard (umm…should that have a capital “L”, like Libtard?).

Forgetting Obama, forgetting Romney, just going by the crowd, the ones I want to hang out with is the crowd at the Democratic Convention. The crowd having fun, the crowd backing the guy who I want to win. 

 

Neil Armstrong RIP

Americana, Current Affairs

 

Neil Armstrong died today and it has almost no emotional meaning for me. He was the first man on the moon and, somehow, he always seemed like he was a cog in a bigger program. He was a Navy pilot, became a test pilot – including flying the F101 Voodoo which I feel in love with when we were both at Hamilton AFB – he flew combat missions in the Korean war, got shot down1, and he always seemed like he wasn’t real to me.

Even his “That’s one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind” quote seemed so perfect as to be plastic (a favorite term of disparagement in the 60s). Part of it was the over-choreographing, by NASA, of all the Astronauts (this was the height of the Cold War and it was – in a major way – the Christian west against the godless Commies, it was important that we look good and that only included, for some reason, white men). Part of it was the complete inaccessibly of something so outside our normal, daily, life and part of it must have been watching  the whole thing through a low-resolution, black and white, TV camera.

So, while I can remember every detail of my watching the moon-landing and Neil Armstrong walking on the moon and my emotional experience, I never felt emotionally connected to the guys on the otherside of the fuzzy, black and white image. The Apollo astronauts never had their Right Stuff movie to make them real. So, it was only when I learned that Armstrong had manually landed Eagle and that it was getting low on fuel – with the Low Fuel light flashing as I remember reading much later – that the enormity of what he had done really hit home with me.

I imagine, driving home from San Francisco – late at night – when the low fuel light comes on and the effect it has on my stress level. Then I imagine that light coming on with no gas stations for the next 240,000 miles: with only enough fuel, not to mention battery power, cooling water, and breathing oxygen to return to lunar orbit, and now the fuel gauge is showing “low fuel”. I imagine not ever having flown a real lunar lander before and having the presence of mind to switch to manual control to find a place to set down.

In a way, taking huge risks right on the edge of oblivion – like the lunar landing – is what the entire Man-on-the-Moon program was about and Neil Armstrong was the Poster Child. What a guy!

 

1 technically he got shot up, lost the outer six feet of his wing while evading more fire, and managed to fly back to safety.

Pussy Riot

Current Affairs

Richard Taylor took exception to my post on Pussy Riot and, because I think he is right and I was wrong, I am posting his comment on the front page (so to speak).

I agree that protest comes at a price. The goal of protest is to call attention to extremism and prompt criticism from outside. And, protesters take a chance that what comes form the outside will not be criticism, but instead support for the system. I appreciate the disclaimer of any affinity with Putin but am saddened to see this space being used to support a verdict that is based not on breaking and entering or for injuring anyone but for “offensively violating public peace in a sign of flagrant disrespect for citizens.” (http://www.interfax-religion.com/?act=news&div=9734) Oh, and because the song was also blasphemous from the point of view of the church. And this a verdict handed down with very little of what we would call due process.

So, being offensive or blasphemous in the eyes of the church can get you 2 years in jail? Not a system I want to defend. I think it is a system that should be questioned if not condemned. While I view them as mainstream, I’m sure the occupy protesters (http://tinyurl.com/93vscou ) offended a good portion of the public and I’m certain the Gay Pride Parade (http://tinyurl.com/8rwnh7n) is both profoundly offensive and blasphemous to many. Yes, the Pussy Riot actions were offensive to many devout members of the Russian Orthodox church (and bravo to the Church for asking for clemency for PR), but I’m not sure that offensiveness alone (there was no damage to property, nobody injured) should land someone in prison for two years.

I do want to add – and I hope it is not just because I want to be argumentative – that because of their arrest and prison sentence, Pussy Riot is now one of the most famous girl bands in the world (and, certainly the most famous that has never sold a recording or given a real concert). Russia, by arresting Pussy Riot, trying them while they are in a guarded glass box  – like they may infect the court or make a mass jailbreak – and then giving them a two year sentence in prison, had made itself look foolish.

It is amazing how Russia couldn’t help but act self-destructively in this case.  I think that all governments have that tendency, but the tendency to do stupid things is worse in direct relation to the level of autocraticness. (There must have been dozens of people in power in Russia who knew the jailing of Pussy Riot was not a good idea, that it would not make the state look powerful, it would just make the state look scared of three young girls.)

21 Years WTF

Current Affairs

Anders Behring Breivik was declared sane and given a sentence of 21 years. That seems preposterous to me. He is 33 now so he would be 54 when he is released. I read that Norway has a maximum prison sentence of 21 years and, presumably, no way to make that 21 years for each murder.

Then I read that Breivik could also be sentenced to indefinite preventive detention after his sentence is over and I realize they are just screwing with us.

 

 

Pussy Riot

Current Affairs

I want to start  – scratch that – I feel it necessary to start this by disclaiming any alliance with Russia, Putin, child beating, or kitten killing, but two years in jail, even a Russian jail, does not seem like cruel and unusual punishment to me for what Pussy Riot did. They forced their way into Moscow’s biggest Orthodox  cathedral and sung an anti-Putin song – using the term loosely – and had to be dragged out. I have been told by our neutral, Western, press not to like Putin and I don’t, but imagine if  Dave Mustaine of Megadeth had forced his way into the Washington National Cathedral, sang a song against Obama – saying, for example, that Obama should be impeached for staging the Aurora shooting –  and had to be dragged out. I would be very surprised if he didn’t go to jail or get slapped with a huge fine and I, for one, would be all for it.

From all I read, Russia just sounds like a nasty kleptocracy and I would not want to live there and there is still something hypocritical about our State Department’s concern, about Madonna’s taking up the cause, about all the Western hand wringing. I imagine that Tolokonnikova, Alyokhina and Samutsevich wanted to raised concern and outrage about freedom of speech in Russia and they are getting it. They just aren’t getting it for free.