Thomas Eakins, NN

Sunday...Malasadas

For several years we would vacation at White Horse Beach. We rented a cottage as close to the beach as possible, packed our little Toyota full and drove straight down Rt 3 to the WHB exit and for two weeks it was sand, sun ,beach and wine coolers...lemon-aid for cherubs! This was bliss for Karen, Kim and  Mary Ellen, I on the other hand am not good sitting in one place. Needed a good book, so I am probably the only vacationer in history to have a library card in the local library. No over due fees either.

White Horse is actually a bit south of Plymouth so we did some of the usual touristy things, the Rock, the Mayflower II, Plymouth Plantation, etc. Occasionally friends would come down and spend a day or two or we would visit Alice and Murph (in-laws) at their place up the road. This was pre-fishing obsession for Karen so it was swim, walk, sun bath, nap, etc. 

We did have a couple of interesting moments though. While we were enjoying the sun, someone broke into our house and swiped some of Mary Ellens' jewelry. Trying to remember how that news got to us...long before cel phones. Another time a hurricane had us in its path...we stayed anyway and it missed us. Happier about something that didn't happen...since the nuclear plant is about two miles from our beach, I'm very happy that we never heard any alarms!

At the end of the beach was a shop that had Portuguese Malasadas on every sunday morning. Hot, sweet and delicious. I loved them. We all did. Thanks, Karen for this memory!

Post election Friends

I've never had any friends involved in politics. Successfully, that is. I don't remember ever asking about a friend's party affiliation. Didn't care, didn't matter and doubt that the answer would have changed anything. Still don't. That is part of what being an American is about, perhaps the principal part. Everyone can make up their own minds, form their own opinions and voice them freely without fear.

Where else??????????????

Like the song said...we just choose to disagree.

Now we try and make our lives and those around us better, let's go!

...conversations today should be fun though...right?
Oops! The left won!

Not gonna happen!

Today is the day we've all been waiting for. It's election day and I am soooooo excited! Eight billion dollars spent to elect someone to a job that doesn't pay as well as a Utility Infielder makes in Kansas City! I've reached the stage where I am looking forward to seeing commercials for Preparation H, Pristine, Smoking causes cancer and other more upbeat lies.

This country has survived many truly awful presidents and the Truly excellent have only made marginal differences. All the promises will be forgotten until the next election and the word progress put back into the safety deposit box. What the Hell is "progress"? Is it progress when a governor lops a billion or two off the education budget and then puts half of it back... Is it allowing the very causes (banks) of the newest, greatist recession to go unscathed, unpunished, unregulated, but instead letting them add new fees that we get to pay?

Here's an idea, fix the roads. That creates jobs and the roads need fixing...so do the bridges, tunnels, levees and utilities. What about a cohesive energy program? Call it what you will, but wouldn't a nationalized utility board be better than what we have? Why is the USA lagging behind so many nations in education...is it not a problem if you don't acknowledge it? What about the insurance companies? They certainly take your money quickly enough, no questions there, thank you...try getting something from them back. You'll find that you no longer speak the same language. Accountability, if it wasn't for spell check no politician could spell the word. On the flip side they don't have a problem with deniability!

Paragraph, "co-operation for the common good"!!!!!!!!!

Paragraph, "compromise"!!!!!!!

Paragraph, Do wtf you were elected to do!!!!!!!!!

Where did the 99% group disappear to? They were discordant, confused and dis-sheveled, but they were right.

Is there still a silent majority, a moral anything? Morality and pacs have no commonality. Permitting the rich to hide behind the guise of being "an entity" just like an individual is something not even Machiavelli could come up with. But our duly elected representatives did. Hooray and hallelujah!

Disgusted, is that going to be a permanent condition or an epitaph?

Thumb tacks or if cats had opposable thumbs.

Just saw a humorous piece in the Onion about dolphins developing opposable thumbs...and the trouble we humans would be in.

To carry that one step further, ok one ridiculous step further, what if your ferocious feline had opposable thumbs? Well, number one it would automatically improve their jig saw puzzle ability. And, perhaps they would actually be helpful assembling that balsa wood model.

 Now this presents the case where getting ones nails done truly means something. Otherwise all you've got are large, mobile, pissed off thumb tacks!

Let's toss PC to the winds here, would only the Siamese give pedicures? How many thumbs would they have? Front or back? Manicure...pedicure?

Lets face it, the real fear is that like humans they might also develop deductive reasoning...they could think! Why would they need us? Just sayin'...

16

Sixteen is the up to date, I think, number of places I have resided in so far in my life. One of them, the Navy is a cumulative number. While I was in the Navy my family actually moved twice without me ever seeing the place they moved to and from...didn't count that one. I do not recommend or endorse this practice. As a matter of fact, I detest it. Leaving the old familiar places and your friends  time after time is a sure way to create a cold spot in your heart. 

Learning new streets, locations, restaurants, etc is not that difficult a task. Changing jobs, if you need to, is getting much harder as I age. But, the act of forming new friendships requires a certain trust...that you are going to be in one place for some length of time. After you move a few times this trust begins to dwindle, a bit at a time until it no longer exists.

As the oldest child, I started learning at an early age how to pack. How to load. In other words how to move. I joke about being, by heritage, a mutt...perhaps there is some Gypsy blood somewhere in the line. Ideally we would move only one more time. Ideally we would never have left there in the first place. So we can only hope for the ideal...and wish!

Every time I have moved, I've been painfully reminded of the George Carlin "stuff-box" routine, when you accumulate too much stuff you move to a bigger box! True! When I put the truck in gear and pull away from the old place, the resemblance to divorce comes into my mind, you are only taking baggage and memories with you. You need to lighten the load, only take the good stuff and the beautiful memories. Ah, if it were only that simple! I'm ok memory-wise, but there's way to much stuff out there! Believe this, the next time, is certainly the last time...I hope!

They do kill!

 Of all of the so called advanced nations in the world we stand alone, at the top of the heap in gun deaths. From the chart it is damned obvious where we are in weaponry. Where  are gun deaths most prevalent? The second chart indicates that if you can get out of our nation's capitol alive it might be deemed a miracle! Of course we have a lot of trough-feeders there too, aka elected representatives. One of the most powerful lobbies plies its trade there. Threatening, cajoling, pandering and paying off our esteemed (gutless) representatives. There is some irony in this situation as they are sometimes in the cross-hairs themselves...money will out!

Our forefathers were intelligent men trying to write an all encompassing document when they created the constitution. But, they wrote it nearly 250 years ago without prescience. If any of them could have foretold the invention of automatic weapons I believe the wording might have been a bit different.

Does anyone really believe that they thought we should lead the world in senseless killing?

Regulation does not mean that you can't own a gun! Criminals can't! Legally that is, but the equally obvious adjunct to that is, if caught with an illegal gun you get to spend time with your low-life friends in a better controlled atmosphere...jail!

Statistically, Switzerland has a much higher percentage of gun ownership than we do. But there death by gun numbers don't come close. Same stats show that poverty is the number one indicator for criminal gun use. Switzerland is more affluent than the ghettos of our major cities.

There now ten states in our nation where gun related deaths exceed death by automobile. And the automobile death rate has been in a steady decline. State regulation, licensing and mandatory instruction come with driving a car. And another powerful lobby...insurance.

Guns are stand-off weapons, no physical proximity required. They have a kill radius of over a mile. That's an indiscriminate area, where anyone inside can be killed. Poison and arson are also stand-off forms of murder, but they don't approach guns in either usage or kill area. So, if you can't obtain a big bomb and you don't want to "see the white's of their eyes" a gun is your weapon of choice.

We are no longer an agrarian nation where the population depends on hunting to feed the family. At our discordant, dysfunctional worst we don't go out the door shooting. Where and when does common sense ever join this discourse?