Why Do I Have My Own Blog?

Hmm.  Oh yeah.  Once in a while, I have something independent to say.  Plus I really needed an outlet when PFC left for Boot Camp.  However, I've always known that I'm more an editor that a writer.  I'm an excellent "assistant;" I'm good at adding to, analyzing, and clarifying what others create.  Even when I read the newspaper, I mentally reword sentences an correct grammar and spelling.  (Oh yes you do.  C'mon, admit it!)  What I'm not good at, is choosing a topic and narrowing it down, weeding out the tangents and side issues.

I've spent several hours in Blogland this past week, more than usual, and I've written thousands of words, most of them pretty good.  On another blog.

 http://johnshore.com/2011/06/20/am-i-seeking-the-truth-because-i-want-to-justify-my-sin/comment-page-1/#comments

(Here she goes again...)  I love that blog.  Almost 400 comments on one post, and most of them were insightful and considered.  (When HuffPo publishes one of his posts, he gets easily as many comments, but 380 of them are vitriolic one-liners, submitted by angry, semiliterate cretins.)  I'm pleased with my participation, although I'm a little embarrassed by having spent so much time engaging the Passive-aggressive-blog-troll-from-hell (Brian W.)  Usually creeps like that go away once they realize they're dealing with intelligent commenters who can cut through their bullshit, and show the fallacies in their logic.  Or John bans them for being uncivil. Brian is one slippery, slimy troll, though.  His logic was so vague, it was hard to pin down.  I didn't know what he was saying a fair amount of the time, and the conclusions he drew from others' comments were just plain weird.  He completely missed the point on more than one occasion, and I was reduced to giving him the kindergarten version of several points, and not just mine.

I know that's a classic troll tactic, distracting us from the main topic by dissecting irrelevant details to death, but most trolls get bored with it sooner.  Once you've clarified your point, they leave you hanging and either disappear altogether, or they go nitpicking on another thread.  This guy is either very very stupid, or very very smart.

I brought this up because it slapped me in the face with something I've been considering for a while, changing my blog.  I try to keep in mind the concept of writing for myself, but I can't help considering my audience.  And that's a good thing, really.  It keeps me from saying immature and regrettable, offensive things.  Not that I care if anyone is offended by my honest opinion, but sometimes my opinions aren't all that honest.  No I don't actually lie, but I don't always inform myself well, because, you know, facts can be boring and some of them simply interfere with my brilliant wit.  So I'm going to spend less time stewing over coming up with original posts.  I'll be linking more posts and articles from other sites, and cut-and-pasting dialog I find interesting (my own included.)  It seems pointless for me to put up a "fresh" post on a subject, when someone else has already done it so well.  Or so poorly.  It's not that I'm lazy, but more that I'm not very original.  It's redundant to simply find different words say the same thing.  I'd rather discuss what has already been said.

In other news...BH and I are biting our nails waiting for a phone call.  According to scuttlebutt, he will be offered a new job very soon.

I ordered the coolest earrings from Carteach; and they should arrive tomorrow or Tuesday.
 http://silverandstone.blogspot.com/2011/06/steampunk-earrings.html

Karma is progressing.  More charges, including two felonies, have been filed.  The investigation is being handled by the State Police, and the case will be handled by another county.  The Arrogant Prick has finally been suspended without pay, and his cronies are running for cover.  His political enemies are positively elated, and I am one of many people who are pleased to see his true character coming to light in public.  Technically, he has broken very few laws; like most sociopaths, he's smart that way.  He has "merely" spent his career collecting official and unofficial knowledge, which he uses to put and keep all sorts of people under his thumb, apparently for the hell of it.  He likes knowing people are afraid to cross him.  I'm quite certain he thinks his only mistake was getting drunk and ruining his reputation by showing his ass.

Maxine is back to her old self, only more distracted and less organized.  The part of me that gloats over Arrogant Prick, wishes I could be a fly on the wall when Maxine has to train my replacement, and she realizes she doesn't know how to do my job.  When I first started, the only thing she couldn't do was the driving.  Currently, when I'm not there, a fair amount of my work simply doesn't get done.

Good new/bad news:  When BH starts his new job and the pension payments stop (yes, he checked,  Grrr...)  we will have to stop buying cigarettes.  Expect me to turn into an irrational, nail-biting, screeching bitch.  But a healthier one.

Common Ground

I follow Bunkermeister's "Sgt. Says" blog; it's full of common sense law enforcement advice.  Occasionally I pop over to his "Hysterical Right Wing" blog.  Being a moderate, I disagree with a fair amount of what he says there, but this post is dead on:  

http://hystericalrightwing.blogspot.com/2011/06/tv-news.html

They can't tell us what they stand for until after they're elected.  That's when the power brokers and puppeteers will tell them what to stand for.

One of the reasons Obama was elected was that he tried not to play that particular game; they reined him in and neutered him pretty quickly, and it's laughable that anybody still thinks he's a threat.  This crop of "presidential" candidates, Obama included, is proof positive that the the Democratic and Republican parties have no interest whatsoever, in what real people want or need.  Both parties serve themselves, at our expense.

Considering the depth of the fear and anger aimed at Obama, you'd think that the millions of intelligent conservative PEOPLE in this country, could come up with one viable Republican candidate.  Just one person who would fight the corruption that rules Washington.  He (or she) exists, but he'll never reach the national spotlight, because The Party has has carefully selected our options for us, just like both parties did three years ago, and previously - ad nauseum.

Sadly, neither party even pretends to have principles anymore.  They tell the candidates what to say, the "news" media gobbles it up (and gets arrested or beaten when it asks questions) then pukes it back up for us to consume.  The power brokers keep hoping we won't notice what's missing: useful information.  And apparently most of us don't.  Kudos to Bunkermeister for noticing and speaking up!

Karma's a Bitch

OK, now I just might find out if any locals read my blog; I still hope not, especially since I'm tattling.  You know those failed cop/firefighter-wanna-be's-for-all-the-wrong-reasons, the ones who hang around the fringes of the emergency personnel crowds, kissing ass and looking for coattails to ride?  Well I'm slightly acquainted with one, and he's actually managed to make a career of it.  He's wormed his way to near the top of our local public safety machine.  Heh heh heh.  He just got arrested for domestic battery, and this isn't his first rodeo.  It's a misdemeanor charge that would likely be a felony, if committed by anyone less connected.  It has not yet been decided whether or not he will keep his job. 

I've known that prick for years.  His arrogance is absolutely colossal; not only does he think the law doesn't apply to him, but behind his itty bitty penis is nothing but a malicious, meddling gossip who likes to stir up trouble for innocent people.  He has a lot of "friends," but he also has a lot of enemies.  I've watched those very same "friends" ditch better men than him during an embarrassing crisis.  I'm glad he made the front page of the local rag; I hope they run the skankoid fucker right out of town.  Pardon my French.

A Little Distracted...

Maxine is back at work, still a little stressed and doing estate stuff long-distance.  The circ gals have been making a point of telling her how hard I worked while she was gone.  Of course, the Curse of Suzy is always hovering:  I messed up a few details, being so sick the last few weeks of her leave, and I didn't have time to catch and fix them before she got back.  Yeah, she found them.  Oh well.

BH put in his bids for The Airline, and it's a safe bet he'll be offered a position soon, but there's one snag - his pension.  The Airline no longer has a traditional pension, so there's a sticky legal/policy issue.  He started collecting his "old" pension when he turned 55, but if he goes back to work for The Airline, they tell him he has to stop collecting it until he "retires," again.  That would make sense if The A were still connected to the pension plan in any way, and if he were to resume contributing to the plan, but no.  He will be starting at zero, with a brand new 401k; it will be as if he has a pension he can't touch, from a past job.  That would be fine with us if he weren't old enough to collect, but he is.  He was allowed to start collecting it at age 55 while he was laid off, even though he never formally retired.  If The A hadn't declared bankruptcy and ditched it's obligations, I'd be cool with it, but that's not the case.  The only past obligation The A will honor is his seniority; it wouldn't cost them one thin dime to allow him to collect his old pension.  Even without a new contract, his pay increase would be slightly more than his pension payment, so we'd still be ahead, but hey, we're greedy - we want both.  So sue me.

I've been scouring Realtor.com for homes within commuting distance of our nation's capitol, and thanks to the real estate bust, we might be able to buy something a little nicer than a cold-water tar paper shack.  If we can get our hands on a non-forged title.  VA's taxes are lower than MD's, and its gun laws aren't very restrictive, so we're looking in that direction.  (How does it come to pass that we must look up a state's gun laws simple because we don't intend to relinquish a family heirloom and a couple of handguns?  That's just sad.)  My next step is to look through the local newspapers to get a grasp of the mom-job market, and understand the local repercussions of all those short-sale/foreclosed homes.  Thank God we don't have to look at school districts!  If BH doesn't have a new contract (raise) or a pension payment, we can't afford to live separately for long, so we'll have to unload this place in a hurry.  Fortunately, we've decided on terms for a FSBO contract that will be appealing to buyers, and give us something close to what this place is worth.

So I haven't been spending much time in Blogland, (although I'm researching a few details for a post on congressional term limits) and my Facebook garden is going to seed.  The Minute Man's Wife gave me my very first blogger award, (!!!) and  I'll be celebrating that in the next couple of days. http://minutemanswife.blogspot.com/2011/06/power-trippin-overload.html
Thanks MMW!  I feel like I've joined an elite club - is there a secret handshake?

PFC is thoroughly enjoying the West Coast, and he finally got to shoot a ".50 cal."  I think he likes big guns.  His "new" car is far from a lemon, but it needs quite a bit more work than he was told.  He knew to expect as much, but still it rankles.  Being from Hooterville, he's doubtless presumed to be a naive sucker.  The end result is that he's on the phone a whole lot with BH, figuring out what's next and how best to do it.  All good.

Political Rant: Part 1

Yeah, there's way too much crap rattling around in my poor brain to do only one political rant, but here's a start.

How many modern Republicans know that the party was formed primarily to end slavery?  How many modern Democrats know that? Abraham Lincoln and the early Republicans pushed through the 13^th and 14^th amendments, abolishing slavery and granting full civil rights to former slaves.  Does anyone think it’s ironic that 100 years later, it was the Democrats (Southern Democrats not included) who pushed for Kennedy’s Civil Rights Act?  I don’t.  Guess which party is really and truly FOR racial equality?  The party that’s currently willing to offer the most to disenfranchised minorities.  It’s a matter of buying votes.

Years ago, I read a wonderful book called “...And Ladies of the Club,” by Helen Hooven Santmyer.  1400 or so pages long, and the author was not happy with her editors, who insisted she pare it down from several hundred more.  Then I read it again, almost once a year for about ten years.  Yes, it’s that good.  It chronicles the life of a woman in post Civil War Xenia, Ohio – her family and her friends, their relationships, their work, their religions, their politics.  Somewhere along the way, I started to wonder why I was a Democrat, because the Republican ideals as described in the novel were so sensible!  

Of course I was a Democrat because my mom is one, and so was her father.  Grandpa was a good man, a moral, hard working union man, whose job provided a modest but decent living.  Plus back in the 70’s and 80’s, the “tax and spend” Democrats were always being criticized by “borrow and spend” Republicans.  I was not impressed.  At least the Democrats made a pretense at compassion.  Right? 

I have finally reached the point where I wonder why any intelligent citizen is loyal to either party, because neither party is loyal to the citizens.  Both parties are loyal to whichever Special Interest Group can give them the most power.  How many people in either party, run for congress with the intention of serving a few terms, then returning home to their previous careers?  You can count them on your fingers, even if you’re missing a few.  Congress is no longer a place to serve; it’s a career.

William Randolph Hearst is Alive and Well

Meet the most powerful man in America.

 http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/06/ta_060211.html

Yes, he is.  This article may be from a liberal website, but that doesn't mean it's false.  The influence of FoxNews drives subject matter in nearly every news outlet in this country.  Pro and con, everybody discusses what Fox lays on the table.  And heck, why not?  It beats the hell out of addressing real problems and debating real solutions.  Remember when FoxNews had real news, maintained standards resembling journalism, and was a credible source for a conservative viewpoint?  I do.  It's been a while.  Mr Ailes is one of many powerful people, both conservative and liberal, who wants to keep us distracted and ranting, so we don't figure out the nuts and bolts of how our country is really being run.
More and more thinking conservatives are ditching Fox, perhaps because they don't have the energy to waste getting all riled up over senseless bullshit.  'Bout time.