Denunciation as a form of punishment

My father, who was a lawyer, had a conversation with me when I was a teenager on the subject of rape.  I can't remember how it started, but ultimately he told me that allegations of rape were hard to defend against, and that angry women might seek revenge against an innocent person by alleging rape falsely.  Therefore the authorities were hesitant to prosecute such accusations because they could destroy reputations and even lives of innocent men.

  Of course, that was before rape kits and DNA and such.  But he had a point. 

  Now this Me too business has gone too far.  Mere assertions of rape or even loutish behavior are enough to destroy lives. No proof is necessary.  After the first accusation, more complaints pile up.  The accused grovel in public statements and lose their jobs immediately. Their wives leave them.  I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the family dog has bitten the offender. 

  Take Al Franken.  I never thought the day would come when I would defend Franken.  But mere accusations of boorish behavior--which is all that has been alleged--should not have destroyed his career and his livelihood.  And that photograph of him leering over that unconscious woman clearly is not harassment.  Rather, it is sophomoric showing off.  If every man who behaved clownishly were deprived of his job, there would be far less employment in this country.

  Being a nasty person is not a criminal offense.  If a man behaves boorishly, a woman should have enough self-respect to defend herself, not to accuse him of harassment years later, when nothing can be proved and all witnesses have forgotten the circumstances.

  There are other ways of being boorish.  Of being a lousy employer, of picking on subordinates.  If your boss behaves criminally, report him to the authorities.  If he's just a mean son-of-a-bitch, suck it up or look for another job.  Behave  like a grown-up. 

  My fear is that men will be reluctant to hire women.  Hiring a woman would be like giving someone a loaded gun.  It's likely to go off unexpectedly. 

  No one gets a chance to defend himself.  No one gets to confront his accusers. The press acts a judge and jury and the public buys it.  It's not a good way to run a country.

The Trump presidency--how can we stand it?

Sarcasm alert, of course.  Trump has been president for almost a year, and the secret police have not visited me even once  The stock market is up  I am still as free as I ever was.  So are my friends and relations.I can live with this distressing situation indefinitely., but apparently they can't.  They are more delicate, I guess.

  What has he done?  A lot of this and that, none of it affecting me.  He made anti-semitic remarks.  Except that he didn't.  He's racist, so they say.  Apparently they can sense this through the air, they know it in their bones.  Except their bones are wrong.

  The last I heard this kind of talk, it was about Reagan.  That damn fool made a speech asking Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall.  .  It was awful. The man didn't have a lick of sense. All his advisors warned him not to do it.  But he did it, and shortly thereafter the Berlin Wall was torn down, by a coincidence, no doubt.

  Trump haters, get a grip.

About Roy Moore and guys in their thirties attracted to teenagers

I am finally giving this my full attention.  -Not that I care who wins the election in Alabama.  They both seem like dopes, as do most of those already serving in the Senate.  So who cares who wins?

  By the way, how can any body that includes Alcee Hastings object to anyone joining their ranks?  He's already been impeached, convicted, and removed from the judgeship.  Good lord, if he can serve in Congress, so could Bugs Bunny.  So, for that matter, could Caligula's horse.  The horse, at least, could not preen himself about his high moral standards.

  Back to Roy Moore, now an old guy but once a thirty-something who was interested in teen age girls.   Let me cite my uncle.  My uncle, an unmarried physician in his thirties, met my aunt at a social event, and asked her out.  I don't remember her exact age at the time, but she must have been a teenager, because they got married when she was 20.  No one considered this scandalous.  They had three children and lived together for at least fifty years.  So it's not exactly unheard of for a man in his thirties to be interested in a younger woman.

  It was not unheard of, back in the unenlightened years of the twentieth century, for a woman to get married in her teens.  Both Elizabeth Taylor and Shirley Temple got married at 17.  No eyebrows were raised in either case.  And very pretty brides they were, too.

Bad courtship

I am gripped by the revelations pouring forth about all these esteemed entertainers and sages.  Aren't these fellows married?  How did they court their wives?  Did they show up for the first date and remove all their clothes?  As a chaser, did they feel her up?  Or rape her?

  Lots of married men have extramarital affairs, but they are usually the result of mutual consent. .Alexander Hamilton comes to mind, and crossing the pond there is the example of David Lloyd George.  JFK is an outstanding candidate--no complaints from his many girlfriends.

 The usual courtship template went like this in the 20th century:  call the woman up; ASK HER OUT, take her to a movie or  to dinner or to a ball game; start seeing her regularly, buy her flowers or candy for Valentine's Day.  Many of us followed this procedure and ended up in bed, married or not. You could even be single.  If you had a wife and family, you could work around this.  Malcolm Muggeridge was fascinated by what he called the Administrative Side of Love, involving logistics for the inconveniently married.

  There are plenty of ladies out there who go for married men with their eyes wide open.  Go find one of those,, and stop hitting on interns and teenagers.  Isn't life complicated enough without adding charges of rape to your resume?

A ragbag of ideas

1.   My internet was down for a week.  I couldn't get anything on my computer or my two Kindles  (Don't ask.)  I could get Internet on my phone, but I don't like doing it on such a small screen.  Therefore I was incommunicado.  Not a place I like to be.

I signed up for personal training in August and paid $320 that month.  For some reason, the credit card company thought this was a recurring item, and took out $320 in September and October.  If they hadn't written me a stiff note about the November payment, I might have been paying it still.

I went to the emergency treatment center Tuesday and they found several things wrong with me which I hadn't even thought of.  That's good, I guess.  I hope this does not mean that I'm dying of some mysterious disease.

My family was here for a week, during which time they misplaced the downstairs broom and the downstairs mop.  (I keep duplicates of these things as I don't like to carry them up (or down) stairs.  My daughter is famous for putting things where she believes they should logically be placed.  Therefore I can't find them.  Anyway, I brought the upstairs mop downstairs and mopped the kitchen floor.

Someone commented that I read so many books I should have a book blog.  I don't seriously want to do that.  I don't like reading most books, particularly those highly esteemed by the critics.  For instance, if you put lighted matches under my fingernails I would read the work or Margaret Atwood.  And if I could get to a sink or other source of water, I would put out the flames posthaste so i could stop reading her work as soon as possible.

Not good enough for the New York Times

A relative has kindly given me a subscription to the Sunday New York Times.  I enjoyed it for a while, then I didn't.

  Why?  Looking at the advertisements--expensive new New York apartments, jewelry, fashion--I realize that I am not a member of the demographic being sought by the New York Times.  I don't have enough money to buy any of the stuff they are selling.  So my readership is not valuable to the newspaper.  Also, I don't agree with the editorial policies of the paper. Only people who can buy expensive apartments overlooking the Hudson are in sympathy with these policies.  They don't fly with paupers like me.

  I also don't like to see President Trump brought into every issue discussed.  No issue can be mentioned without a disdainful mention of Trump being dragged in needlessly.  Just to show that the author of the piece exhibits and is shown to exhibit the proper disdain for Trump and the Americans who voted him into office.

  Endless publicity is given to Congressmen who draw up articles of impeachment of Trump.  The fact that these are unlikely to succeed and are not intended to go anywhere is not mentioned.  They are simply instances of cheap politicians showing off.  Trump is as likely to be impeached as I am to be named Miss America in 2018.

Ulysses wins another one

That's Ulysses S Grant, not the Ulysses of Homer.  He won the war with me because the book by Ron Chernow  is just to heavy for me to hold.  I will have to get the Audible version from Amazon.  I already know how it ends, but I have tremendous admiration for Grant and want to know more about him.

  Why can't they publish books in two volumes any more?  It worked for Dickens.  It worked for Trollope.It would work for me, too.  Even three volumes would be fine.

  Only don't make a musical out of this one.  Grant was not a music lover.  He is rumored to have said that he only recognized  two tunes:  "One was Yankee Doodle, and the other wasn't."

What's with this Russia thing? And Mueller, and other related bafflling topics

I have never understood politics--not since the Watergate break-in.  What was the brlght idea of breaking in to Dem headquarters?  The Republicans were a shoo-in to win anyway.  They actually won about 45 states, and would have won more if there had been  57 as  Obama seemed to believe. 

  So I can't quite understand what the Mueller investigation is about.  Wasn't it about Russia influencing the 2016 election? .  It's like you call an exterminator to get rid of the ants and he shows up and confiscates your car.  Is Mueller crazy?  Or is everybody in Washington crazy?

  Then there's the problem, greatly exaggerated, of delicate individuals getting sick or resisting Trump's election.   All they are doing is trying to undermine public confidence in  the election system which has served us pretty well for 200 years.  They should all go stand in a corner and repeat "res ipsa loquitor" over and over until they get it, which will probably take three and a half to seven years.  Or you can give them coloring books  Lots and lots of coloring books.  And don't forget the crayons.

  Meanwhile, perhaps we could dig up a few politicians under the age of  eighty to run for office.  An ability to walk up (or down) stairs unassisted would be a nice quality in a person running for office.  It would also be nice if they stayed sober a good part of the time. 

New biography of Ulysses Grant

I actually ponied up $24--a record for me-- for this new book by Ron Chernow and temporarily sidelined John Quincy Adams.  Grant is even heavier than JQ was, but he's always been a favorite of mine.  The book leaves a lot to be desired, physically.  The typeface is small and fiddly, and has a grey texture, not quite black but off-black.  The margins are too small, and so is the type.

  Whatever happened to books being published in two volumes?

 Let me give a shout out for the Library of America editions.   They are printed on thin but very good paper, with legible type, and are a pleasure to read.  I read Grant's autobiography in a Llbrary of America edition and did not get a hernia from lifting it.

  About that $24:  every once in a while I buy something at the local Barnes and Noble, in the desperate hope that they will not go out of business.  Perhaps if they tried publishing books in two or three volumes?  On nice preservation paper, with legible type?

I feel slighted

I've never been sexually harassed.  Oh, I've been harassed plenty on the job,  not because I am a woman, but because most local politicians are scum of the earth. I only know about New Jersey, but my husband informed me the New York variety  were the same, or even worse.  It really makes you wonder about democracy.  Could these pinheads be what the founders envisioned?  Did John Quincy Adams stay up nights to set our nation on the right course so these guys could play grab-ass-- or worse?

  When one woman complained about her butt being felt up by an ancient George H W Bush, I started to feel that I'm lacking on the sexual harassment front.  Even the choir director of a local church, who was known far and wide as a sexual harasser, left me alone.

  Am I missing something?  or have I just lived too long to be part of this nationwide trend?

  I dragged John Quincy Adams into this conversation because I am reading a biography of him, page by agonizing page.  It's interesting, all right, but the book is so heavy I have to read it sitting up or it falls out of my hands.  I'm thinking of bequeathing it to my heirs.  (Note to heirs:  you can start on page 307, if you want to skip his formative years.)

Met opera broadcasts

I'm very grateful to the Metropolitan Opera for these live broadcasts, since I could never afford a ticket to actual performances at Lincoln Center.

  I have seen two of these broadcasts over the last two weeks of two very different operas.  Let me mention at the start that the singing is superb in both.  No complaints there.  The orchestra, which was conducted on both occasions by James Levine, is one of the best there is.

  The two productions I saw could not be more different otherwise.  Norma, by Bellini, was unrelieved gloom.  Much care was taken to build authentic sets depicting the lifestyle of the Druids.  A great deal of money was spent building a realistic set, with the result that the entire opera looked like a black and white television show from the fifties.  Ralph Kramden would not have appeared out of place on this set, nor would I Love Lucy.  The only thing different was the lack of jokes.  Ayatollah Khomeini stated that there is no fun in Islam, and apparently there was not much fun in Druidic Gael.  

  The Druids worshipped Nature.   Apparently, if this depiction is accurate, they dressed in burlap.  Both men and women wore droopy burlap robes tied carelessly around the waist with something or other that might have been a vine.  Norma,the high priestess, however, had other problems.  Her lover, and father of her two children, was no longer interested in her, having transferred his affections to her second in command.  Then on top of that, the Romans were threatening the tribe.
 
  After much gloom and doom, the lovers were defeated by those pesky Romans but reunited in their love.  They agreed to be burned alive on a pyre together, which is as close to  a happy ending as it ever gets in Druidland.

  On the other hand, the Magic Flute sparkled.  Stars twinkled, fireworks went off, dancers danced.  The costumes were lavish and colorful.  The players had a wonderful time, and so did the audience.  All were excellent. Markus Werba as Papageno was a delightful clown, and the rest of the cast were uniformly excellent.  Especially notable was Golda Schultz--not the Golda who payed mah jong with your grandma, but a young, vivacious black woman from South Africa who played Pamina.

Does the mayor of San Juan speak Spanish?

I watched her interview and read the comments, which found it incredible that she could have found a shop which would print a T-shirt for her on an island that has no electricity.  That didn;t bother me.  I remember having to print silk screen items on a huge hand-cranked machine.

  What seemed out of kilter to me did not enter my consciousness until later.  (I've never claimed to be a fast thinker.)  Why in the world did she have her anguish printed on a T-shirt in the English language?  If I were crying for immediate help I would do it in my native tongue, which is English.  In my desperation I probably would not even remember the word ayuda, or aidez moi or even aiuto, or if I could I would not remember how to pronounce it.  No, help is the mot juste in this case.

  When I visited Puerto Rico seven or eight years ago, the people spoke Spanish.  Have they all gone to Berlitz since then?  Unlikely.

Myzled

I admit I was mysled (Debbie Wasserman Schulz and I know what this means) by the brouhaha about the kneeling of Football players during the national anthem.  (That would be the Star Spangled Banner, in case you've been living in a lead-lined cave.)

  Apparently the American public cares deeply what millionaire football players do prior to game time.  It has been suggested that there is no reason to play the song before a game.  It's not in the Constitution, is it? Does it cost anyone money? But that does not matter.  What's important is what is usual and customary, which has been honored for such a long time that it seems a necessary part of the game.

  I'm not interested in football myself.  Or in any activity which involves a ball.  I remember my complete astonishment and indignation when someone threw a ball at me for the first time
 in volleyball.  I was very nearsighted and almost fell over when the ball hit me. That was my introduction to ball sports, and it confirmed my suspicion that the universe was not designed for me.  Annoying, but there it is.

   








 


 

Cheap thrills

The people of this nation like to take an idea and run with it.  There's lots of comment, resentment  and nastiness on all sides, then the whole thing is completely forgotten.  It changes nothing.  As if it never had been.

The football players who protested the national anthem is an example of this.  What could be easier than to go down on one knee--unless you have arthritis--for the duration of a song.  Real easy virtue signaling.  Almost costfree and doesn't take much time either.  And how satisfying the response! You get people all riled up; it's wonderful fun.

Nothing makes a permanent impression on the American mind.  Scandals come and go, they disappear as though they had never occured.  Remember Russia interfering with our last election?  Me neither.  Hillary's e-mail scandal?  It's as dead as Betsy Ross.  Vallerie Plame?  Don't be ridiculous.

So you might as well get down on one knee to protest the national anthem.  Next season  it will be forgotten, replaced by unisex bathrooms or nutritious school lunches.

I'm reading a new book how.  It's one I read as a student but I don't recall it very well--Daniel Deronda.  I love it.

  I don't mind long books.  In fact I like them.  My favorite books are Middlemarch and Anna Karenina.  Once you become immersed in a book. you are transported to a new world where Melania's shoes are of no consequence.  Or Trump wishing the Harvey survivors to have a good time.

  One of my Facebook "friends" wondered whether Trump will pay for damages if his Florida property is destroyed by the hurricane.  Why wouldn't he have insurance, even as you and I do?  The comment dripped with motiveless malignancy.  Why so much vitriol?  Did Trump steal something from you personally?

  It will be 2020 before you know it.  If Trump is not re-elected, who will you take it out on?

The art business

I have relatives in the wine business, and it has been a revelation to me to discover how difficult a business it is.

  I thought you planted grapes, harvested them, made the wine, bottled it, and a truck backed up to your loading dock to deliver the wine to eagerly waiting customers.  I thought, in short, that after making the wine your work was done.  You might want to pour yourself a glass and sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor.

  Wrong!  wrong, wrong , wrong!  It is at this point that your troubles begin. You have to stir up interest in the bloody wine and persuade customers  to actually buy the stuff.  That's the hard part.

  I find the same problems in the art business.  I have exhibited in juried shows and actually have won prizes and received accolades from those who should know.

  I still find myself with quite a bit of inventory.  My walls are full.  My children and friends already have some of my artwork.  A couple of people have actually bought paintings almost by happenstance

  So now what?

Sleepless nights

I appear to have lost the ability to go to sleep.  It's like losing a key; I have no idea where it is.  I rack my brain but can't find it. 

  I go to bed, but sleep does not happen.  I feel like Macbeth, or is it Lady Macbeth,  but without the guilty conscience.  On some occasions, I do finally nod off, waking in the morning to find I have migrated to some hitherto unvisited part of the bed with sheets and blankets tangled around me.  But lately, even this has eluded me.

  So I lie there, trying to think of something, anything, to divert my mind and coax it to release me.

  Sometimes I get up and have breakfast and then sneak back to bed.  This sometimes fools my sub  conscious for a time, not always. Or I move to another bed.  I open the window.  I close the window.  I turn on the ceiling fan; it get too cold; I turn it off.  I turn on the electric blanket.  Then I turn it off again. I go downstairs, lie on the couch, and turn on the television.  My feet get cold.  Alternatively, I feel hot all over.  Neither condition lasts.

  I am wide awake, and alert enough to do my income tax.  But I don't want to do my income tax.  I want to sleep.  I want to knit  up the ragged sleave of care.

Evil machines

It is an established fact that mechanical devices are malevolent; I have proved that electronic devices are also imbued with evil intent.

Take, for instance, my GPS.  It was working okay, until Thursday night, when it was invaded by an evil spirit.  I had found my way to an area I was not familiar with, and was now headed home.  I turned on the GPS and programmed it to go home.  It led me out to the wilds of Pennsylvania, places which have never heard of street signs or lights.  From there it led me to Winterthur, three times.
Needless to say, I do not live at Winterthur.  Yet I went around Winterthur three times.

  It then directed me down a one-way lane, unlighted and creepy, and from there ordered me to turn at Dairy Barn Rd.  I refused to do so.

  I finally recognized my surroundings and found my way home without help from the GPS.  No one can ever persuade me that that device did not intend to do me harm.  Once lured down Dairy Barn Rd I most likely would never be seen again!  I'm sure of it!

Customer service

There isn't any.

Try calling Verizon, with which I have a hideously expensive account, to ask them to move the cable from one location to another in your house, and see where it gets you.  Clearly, the company has never heard of such a ridiculous request.  Verizon customers should leave their equipment where it was originally installed..  Or move to another house, if necessary.  End of discussion.

  Now suppose you are an. airbnb host.  Someone has sent you a message requesting the use of your house for a certain date.  You reply with an enthusiastic afirmative message.  Airbnb cannot forward your message except on their app, which has no link for sending messages.  Try the website.  It will notify you of wonderful venues where you can stay.  Anywhere in the world.  You could probably book a room on top of an active volcano in the remotest Godforsaken venue.  But there is no way to send a message to a potential guest.  Call the phone number provided for customer service.  Leave your number and they promise to call you back.  That is a lie.  They won't.

  End of rant.

Advice to mystery writers

In many mysteries I have read over the years, the villain makes a fatal mistake.  Having captured the hero (or heroine) and rendered him or her defenseless, he (or she) takes a much needed respite.  He decides to leave the victim where he is for the time being and go get some food, or take the dog for a walk, or any of a number of things that need doing.  He can always come back and murder her later.

  This is foolhardy.  The victim is bound to find a coat hanger or something and free herself.  You can make book on it.  In any room, no matter how little furnished, there is something that can be fashioned into a weapon in less than 10 minutes.

  In your absence, he (or she) will take a curtain rod from the window and fashion a lethal weapon out of it, a weapon with which she (say a 130 lb woman,) will subdue you, even though you're a 250 lb football player.  She will then take the discarded curtain and tear it in strips, which she will bind you with, before calling the police with your mobile phone.

The moral of this story is, Don't procrastinate.  Or as Lady Macbeth put "If 'twere done ,when 'twere done, 'tis best done quickly."  Or words to that effect.

What's the name of the new Communications director who just got fired?

This new guy, the new communications director who came and went like Haley's comet, is it worth my time for me to figure out his name?  He came on like someone from the Sopranos, only lower class.  What was his starting salary anyway?

  I'm  jealous.  In a just world, I too would get hired for a job I'm incompetent to fill, but with an inflated salary. I'm open to any reasonable offer.  An unreasonable one would also find me willing if the money was enough.

  During my last session of gainful employment, I had to cope with the public, politicians, and vicious Board members.  (You know who you are, Ed R, you slimeball.)  And all this for a meager paycheck.  Unfair..

What's wrong about being Myzled?

People have been having great fun at the expense of Debbie Wasserman Schulz because she mispronounced the word misled--pronounced misled.  Like this; miss led.  Just think of it as one of the contestants in Donald Trump's beauty pageants, like Miss Hospitality.  If there were a venue called Led, she would be Miss Led.  (It's in the Balkans, perhaps.)

  She actually pronounced it Myzled, with a long I in the first syllable.  Like this;  My- zled.  I totally sympathize.  Having read the word in books, but never heard it in conversation, I too was myzled.  I've been myzled  for a whole year, not to mention bewitched, bothered and bewildered.

  I think mysled is a fine word.  It sounds more important than misled, with an extra dollop of outrage.  You keep up the good work, Debbie.  Don't be mysled by your IT guys.  Or anything else they throw at you.

Odds and ends

Who had the good idea to appoint a special prosecutor?  I can't remember.  Now he's like an advanced case of cancer--can't get rid of him.

  The idea seems to be, if enough people say mean things about Trump, his feelings will be hurt and he'll resign.  Then we will get free health care, free college, free birth control and a bunch of tee-shirts with cute sayings on them.  No more mortgage payments!  No more rent!  Free food without GMOs.  Everybody will be in a union, whether they want to or not.  Nobody's feet will hurt!  No more bad hair days!

  I'm willing to bet my feet will still hurt, whoever's president.

Believing six impossible things before breakfast

What universe am I living in, where the President appoints a special person, a Grznd Guignol kind of guy, to investigate his doings? Why doesn't he just tough it out, as Bill Clinton did when his lying caught up with him. He said he was just going to do "Ma job." and by golly they left him to it. I don't believe any of this about Russia and furthermore I don't care. It's all over my head. Who cares about this stuff? You would have to be obsessed with getting the Donald as I believe they got Al Capone. Just keep looking through his life, his history, his associates and you will be sure to find something, as Patrick Fitzgerald did with Scooter Libby. You can dig up dirt on anyone, if you dig long enough.

I have great hopes for the movie "Dunkirk"

Going to see it tomorrow God Willing and the creek don't rise. I told a friend what it was about and she said, "How do you know this?"

I thought everyone knew about Dunkirk, like everyone knows about Gettysburg. Doesn't everyone?

Anyway, I love anything about WWII. Or the Civil War. I got that way from typing Mr Charm's essays and term papers. He majored in British History, but the Civil War was his passion.

A lousy movie

I went to see "Hero" with Sam Elliot at what passes for an experimental film venue in Wilmington. I strongly recommend that everyone make a point of skipping this movie. Sam Elliot is being promoted in this film as a serious actor. The filmmaker obviously thinks he is an attractive person, and trains the camera on him for hours--well, it seems like hours--as he pensively smokes a marijuana cigarette. Or stares gloomily at the incoming waves on a beach. He does have his virtues: slim and trim, with lovely wavy grey hair, an interesting voice. He also does not mug or overact. In fact, he hardly acts at al; he is all but comatose. It is creepy to see the camera lovingly focusing on him. I don't remember seeing this sort of thing in films about men, only those featuring beautiful young women like Liz Taylor or Audrey Hepburn. Sam Elliot is neither beautiful nor young. Nor interesting. Another annoying thing about the film is that everybody speaks very slowly, all the time. The whole thing could have been completed in 45 minutes, if it had gone at a normal pace. Miss it, you'll be glad you did.

Drifting away from sanity

During the past few months I have been plagued by insomnia. I tried to ride it out, but nothing solved the problem. Even sleeping pills just made me groggy. I truly cannot sleep four or five nights out of seven. It's making me crazy.

I decided to just ride it out, I figured eventually I will get tired enough to sleep naturally. Last night was a totally sleepless one, so I got up at 5 o'clock and tried to get something done. I resisted the desire to go back to bed, but went to the gym instead, doing my usual routine, but sluggishly. I was very tired when I got home, and my feet and legs were tired, so I lay down on the couch with a book. (Sometimes when I elevate my feet it relieves the tiredness. I'm a great believer in elevating the feet.)

I could feel myself drifting off, even though the air was hot and still. I woke up completely disoriented. I only knew I had been asleep a long time. My watch told me it was 5:30, but whether in the morning or the evening I could not tell. I looked at my phone and found it was still Tuesday. I was relieved. (I think.) Maybe not.

I could not help remembering a time, long ago, when I never knew what time it was. I was maybe 13. My family had just moved into a new house, my parents were separated, the house was horribly hot. I stayed up late, very late. I would be reading. Two o'clock would come, then three, and I would tell myself to go to sleep, but I wouldn't. I was reading P G Wodehouse at the time, I remember. I would wake up at 2 or three in the afternoon, feeling completely adrift from the society around me. It was unpleasant. More than that, it was frightening. I felt so separated from everyday life, unmoored from the ordinary life of ordinary people. Nowhere to be, nowhere to go. It was like being dead, but still alive.

Computer problems

So I wanted to order my medication over the phone, using Humana's automated service. I put in the prescription number. then was asked for my birthdate. I gave them the only birthdate I have, but the computer did not recognize it. So what to do? I am stumped. I can't change my date of birth, much as I would like to.

Blogger is driving me crazy

Yes, Blogger is cheap. In fact it is free, the very best kind of cheap. Otherwise, no-one would use it. It's a very clumsy tool. For instance, since I haven't been blogging, I forgot that, even though I put page breaks in, Blogger does not recognize them. They print all my stuff in one block of text--the print equivalent of a speech by the late lamented (but not by me) Fidel Castro.

By the way, for those who want to impeach Donald Trump: Getting rid of Trump doesn't mean that Hillary would be president. That's not how it works. Mike Pence would become President. I hope you all like him. He probably would not employ his son-in-law, and it's a sure thing that Melania is prettier than Mrs Pence.

Damn upset

I was expecting my airbnb guest today, but he stood me up. Admittedly, I was of two minds about having a stranger in my house, but now that he does not want to come I am desolate. I cleaned the house as though expecting an inspection by my most censorious aunt, a woman who has been dead for 20 years. I know this attitude on my part is unreasonable. I am fully aware of the stupidity of it. The feeling is strong though.

I am trying to get back to my usually scintillating self, but it's hard to get back on track. Bear with me please.

One pleasant development--I am glad to hear from my old blogfriends. Being surrounded here by incendiary Democrats, I am afraid to open my mouth lest I become a social leper. One Facebook friend expressed her annoyance with readers who commented only on personal matters but failed to respond to her political rants. Apparently it is not enough to live and let live, to agree to disagree, to withhold commenting on matters about which we disagree; she wanted full-throated agreement or nothing. Nothing is what she got, from me. Since I refused to join the Trump Assassination Club, I was persona non grata. Tough. I can live with that. But I like to know that out there in the Internet, there are people who agree with me!.

I'm starting a new career as an airbnb host

I put up the pictures, very poor ones to be sure, but someone is already coming on Monday!

Distracted by facebook

I admit it--I was distracted by Facebook. But I got burned out. Facebook can actually be very dull. Having seen countless Facebook videos of people's cats doing clever things, I have decided to swear off them. Unless you can train your cat to cook and serve a flawless dinner for 8 and then clean up the mess, I'm not interested. Or maybe she could knit a sweater or even a scarf. I will still watch videos of small children or dogs doing something cute. But it has to be really cute. I also like to see your grandchildren. i'm tired now. More tomorrow.

Back in business

I decided that since I am never going to be free of the Mysterious Ailment, to continue with my life as if I were normal and just avoid falling down. At this point, I am more or less normal except I don't take long walks without my walker. I bring it along because I have broken my nose. The break is not visible to the outer eye, but I do have two gouges, one under each eye, which the dermatologist says he can't fix, the result of collateral damage in the form of black eyes. However, I have been tested every which way and you would be surprised at how many diseases have been ruled out. I'm feeling quite healthy. Sort of. This is a notice that I am going to be just as annoying as ever. I am going to stay away from politics, though. The stuff that goes on every day is beyond satire unless you are Jonathan Swift. And I'm not. Just a humble blogger, thank you.

Who do you think won the debate?

I only watched a little of it. The consensus seems to be that Hillary won it, according to reports from the professional thinkers on television today. Frankly, I was gobsmacked when Hillary came to the mic, wearing what at first glance appeared to be a union suit; long red underwear such as you used to see in cartoons about hicks in the sticks, with a rear seat that comes down for sanitary purposes. But it was just one of her lamentable* pantsuits, possibly picked up during her stay in Arkansas. Or maybe it belonged to Bill. The woman has no fashion sense whatever, unlike Princess Diana, who had fashion sense but no other sense to speak of. She was like a paper doll--but at least you enjoyed looking at her. I am also sick of Hillary's voice. Did she always sound like the village scold? Trump is almost unintelligible. One suspects a brain is in there somewhere. Some of the stuff he says makes sense, but you have to work hard to figure it out. We need a new amendment to the Constitution barring people over 60 from running for office. *I should have said deplorable. Sorry.

Back and better than ever

This blog was hijacked for quite a while, but my computer expert sorted it out, so I am back to expressing myself, sort of.

I have been busy trying to renegotiate my mortgage while co-signing for a new car for  a relative.  Never do these two things together--it's like mixing chlorine with ammonia, which I understand is  toxic.  Actually it's more like trying to stand on your head while painting your toenails.  It can be done, but at a great cost to sanity.

I also am coping with a super sinus infection and other major or minor infirmities.  But I've always been a person who didn't know how to quit, and that hasn't changed.

Watch this space.  I'm open for business. 

Being sick

I have been feeling a little down for a while, but I ignored it.  Yesterday I felt that I was in imminent danger of dying.  All systems were shutting down.  I was coughing and sneezing, my head was stuffed up, I could not remember how to add, subtract, multiply of divide.  So either the grim reaper was coming for me or I had a galloping case of Alzheimer's.  To make matters worse, I was choking on a piece of raw cauliflower.  What an ignominious death that would be!  To choke to death on a humble vegetable!

The doctor did not agree that i was dying.  He thought I had a sinus infection, and prescribed some generic antibiotic.  After one day on this medicine, I feel better, although my mathematical skills are still shaky--but that might be because I am trying to do my income tax.

What a miracle!  What did doctors do for patients before antibiotics were discovered?

About Oscar Wilde,English history, and other harrowing events.

I saw the most marvelous film tonight--"Oscar Wilde," starring Robert Morley, who was perfect for the part.  Wilde's undoing was a libel lawsuit he instigated against his lover's father.  The film was 90 percent about the trial, and brilliantly done.  Of course, British actors are the best in the world.  Now I have to look up Wilde, Carson and the rest of the principal characters and see how true to history the film was.

The Marquess of Queensbury was represented in court by Ralph Richardson, who I finally figured out was playing Sir Edward Carson, a brilliant lawyer and, I believe, member of Parliament.  Carson, born in Ireland--as was Oscar Wilde--but of Scottish descent,was a firm Unionist,  and a real pain in the neck to the Irish Parliamentary Party. How I wished Mr Charm were still around to talk about the movie with.  He could tell me all about Sir Edward Carson.

Mr Charm took his PhD in English history.  His specialty was the late 19th century and early 20th century and he loved reading and talking about Sir Edward Carson, F E Smith and other brilliant lights of the period.  He really loved his studies.  He was the first person in his family to attend college and appreciated the opportunity to do so.  How I miss him!  We always watched the Olympics together.  They were not the same without him.  We always made presidential elections a special event, staying up till all hours to watch the results.  I don't find them very interesting without him.  Funny how that works.

Mayans and Muslims

The Mayans had some really neat art forms, civilization, yada yada.  Pyramids!  They also practiced human sacrifice, but hey, that was their culture and we mustn't be judgmental.   These wonderful folks are all dead.   The Spanish took care of them.  Does anyone wonder why the other mesoamerican tribes allied themselves with the Spanish invaders?  Perhaps they didn't want to be human sacrifices--just guessing, of course.

I would suggest that today's Islam operates under the same value system as the Mayans.  Their vengeful god demands human sacrifice, only in this case the humans in question are non-muslims.  Their god is the meanest in the Pantheon.  The Greek gods were pussycats compared to him.

We are wrong in considering Islam one of the Abrahamic faiths,   a religion of peace as our leaders keep repeating ad nauseam.  They are not like the Christians or the Jews, who consider all humans made in the image of God, all worth redeeming.  They are like the Mayans, a warrior religion which wants to rid the world of non-Muslims.   If we don't get tough with them, they will outnumber us soon.

   Being sick.

For the past year I have been under the star of some malignant force that has it in for me.  I got sick last year just about about Labor Day and spent several days in the infectious disease area of a local hospital and then 21 days in a nursing home.  I had a super-duper infection that required a special antibiotic and had to be administered by infusion into a port which they installed in my upper chest.

That was just the beginning.  After that I went to California where I suffered numerous urgent health problems, which I won't go into. And it's still not over.  The worst of it is the feeling of debilitation which leaves you helpless and angry.  It's difficult to snap back after a health crisis; your first impulse is just to turn your head to the wall.

The only thing that helps when you get that sick is physical therapy.  I felt immediately stronger after every session, and almost got back to my original state of health several times, but when I got sick again I went downhill fast.  Then I came back fast, though.

I am hoping that this Labor Day will see the end of this cycle of debility and despair.

My latest painting:

Bellieving six impossible things before breakfast

I am puzzled by the events in Orlando.  Grieved, of course, but puzzled.

Three hundred people were peacefully assembled when 1 (one) lone gunman murdered 49 of them and wounded 50 more. while at the same time chatting in Arabic on his cell phone and no-one did anything?  It's hard to believe.  Nevertheless. res ipsa loquitor.  Or is it ipso?  I got a C in Latin, but you get the idea.

I'm not blaming the victims.  I just cannot believe that 300 disabled Social Security recipients  along with 100 Brownie Girl Scouts couldn't have done something.  Got behind him and kicked him in the ass, for instance.  Jumped him.  Tackled him.  But it happened, so res ipsa whatever. 

Oh yes, and where were the police for three hours?

I'm confused

Please enlighten me.  Homosexuality is a no-no, how come some muslims rape little boys?  Is there a little boy exception to that law?

Just and juster

Once a year the Athenians would meet and vote on exiling someone. If a simple majority voted yes, then they dispersed and reassembled two months later. They brought with them their ostracon (a fragment of pottery), on which they had scratched the name of the person they thought represented a threat. The man with the most votes lost. He was exiled for 10 years, They not only voted people into office, but they had a regular procedure for voting one person per year out of office. It was an option which could be exercised but did not have to be. The exile did not involve confiscation or any other punitive measures.

Aristides was known for his probity, and often called Aristides the Just.  On one occasion, a voter, who did not know him, came up to him, and giving him his shard, asked him to write upon it the name of Aristides. The latter asked if Aristides had wronged him. “No,” was the reply, “and I do not even know him, but it irritates me to hear him everywhere called the just.”

There's a moral to this story, but I don't know what it is.

Second rate movies

I love to watch old movies.  But once in a while you find yourself watching a real stinker.  How you can tell:

1.  The sets are crummy, look like they are made of cardboard, but the picture is really dark so you can't tell.

2.  All the police are old, way too old to serve on a police force.  Imagine one of these senior citizens chasing a criminal!  He would drop dead of a heart attack after the first 60 seconds.

3.Much staged business around smoking.  Like this:  "Mind if I smoke?"  "No, have one of mine."  "No thanks, I have my own.."  "Nice cigarette case."   "Got a light?"  "Thanks,"  Cigarette is lighted, and both characters inhale pensively, followed by silent contemplation as they stare at one another.  This interaction takes a minute or two, advancing the action not at all.  Unless the book of matches comes from a suspicious source, in which case the mystery is solved.  This action can be varied by offers of cigars, fussing around fiddling with pipes, or scrutiny of cigarette butts in an ashtray with lipstick on them.

4.  Similarly, but not as frequently, pouring and consumption of drinks, which are always on a handy table, complete with seltzer bottle, glassware, and a bucket of ice.  Drinks don't take as much time as smoking, so are less frequently deployed.

5.  Final scene, when the murderer is about to murder the heroine, so the police chief orders "Calling all cars," and all the elderly cops get in their cars and drive madly around, sirens screaming.

Now you know.

Hillary's wardrobe

People are saying mean things about Hillary's wardrobe, particularly the $12,000 coat she appeared in recently.  I  think that's a cheap shot.  The coat is not becoming,--she can't carry it off.   She looks like she picked it up at some store that features garments for older women.  I can just see some upper middle class woman wearing it to church or to a do at the Women's Club, and looking better in it than Hillary.

No kidding, I think I would look better in that coat than she does; she is not interested in looking attractive, and I am.  Surely the pantsuits she wore in office were dreadful, but so was everything she wore, including her ugly hairstyle, which made her look like someone who does not visit her stylist  often enough, or maybe doesn't even have a hairstylist.  She does not place a high value on her appearance, having more worthwhile things to concern herself with, like how many bombs to drop on ISIS this week or what to do about hunger.  I'm not saying she shouldn't spend a lot of money on her clothes; no-one expects a millionaire in public life to shop at JCPenney. (Sorry, JC, not criticizing you!)

Everyone was always sniping at Jacqueline Kennedy for dressing elegantly, but she was a delight to the eye, very pretty, very stylish.  She brought grace to the White House.  Michelle Obama always looks beautifully dressed, although every time she opens her mouth she utters claptrap, and aggrieved claptrap at that.  Silence would do her a world of good.

Hillary is not a good campaigner, unlike her husband, who clearly loves, loves, loves speaking to a group who adulates him.  His wife is more like Nixon; she understands that you can't get elected unless you campaign for office, so she does, but you can see it is not her metier.  Bill liked to show off, and he craved attention and admiration.  He had a raffish sort of charm.  People liked him.  If you were seated next to him at a dinner party, you would like him.  If you were seated next to Hillary, she would talk about day care or getting out the vote.  Trump is more like Bill, he glories in being the center of attention.  He takes great joy in shooting off his mouth and more, in shocking people like a kid showing off in class.

Her voice is not passionate or persuasive.  It's not even pleasant.  That midwestern croak!  Crows could take her seminar and benefit by it.  She does not love her audience and they don't love her back.  As for her ideas!  She, like Muhammed Ali, keeps talking about fighting, but unlike him, she does not put on the gloves.  Her ideas are shopworn and have no substance.  Sincerity also is not her metier, unlike Bernie Sanders, who clearly believes every crackpot idea he so passionately advocates.

What Hillary clearly believes is that it is her turn to be President.  She earned it!  She's a woman,   She was gracious about losing to Obama, so she is now entitled to the presidency for being a good sport, and  it is her turn.

How to be Republican

I changed my party registration when I lived in New Jersey and someone I knew was running in the primary for some office.  Later I tried to change it back to Democrat but for some reason that option was not open to me on this particular day.  So I stayed a Republlican--it was easier. There were so few republicans in the district that I was asked to be a district leader, not because I had any value to anyone but simply because I was living and breathing.

This happened around the time Jimmy Carter was president.  I actually started disliking Jimmy when he decided to carry his own suitcase into the White House. What a tiresome person he was, chock full of false humility!   Him and his sweaters!  He was such a loser that I voted Republican in the next election and Ronald Reagan won.  Ron wore a suit and tie, not a cardigan like a Man of the People.  Good enough for me.

I became a staunch Republican.  At every subsequent election I voted for the republican candidate. Some of them were not so hot, I admit.  But probably no worse than their opponents.

This brings me to Donald Trump.  I plan to vote for him because he won the nomination fair and square.  I would rather vote for Abraham Lincoln, but he is not on the ballot.. I have two choices, and all the finely reasoned objections to him by highly educated intellectuals are so much hot air.  There is not going to be a Third Party candidate.  When I get in the voting booth there will be two names on the ballot and I am a Republican.

Vox populi vox dei, I always say.

Handling charges

I've noticed for a long time that when you order tickets for a concert or play over the Internet you don't pay just the ticket price.  Something else is added:  a "handling charge," presumably for the insult of ordering tickets or the inconvenience of the organization having to maintain a website for dolts like you, or possibly to cover the cost of the oxygen you are likely to consume at the venue.

So I ordered two $20 tickets for Tanglewood, and received a $17 handling charge.  Why not just charge $57 in the first place?  There are no good tickets for sitting in the shed, since there is no way you could actually watch the orchestra play because of the configuration of the shed.  You actually watch the live performance on enormous television monitors, which is much better.  The camera or cameras zoom in on the performers, shifting the focus from time to time: first the violinists sawing away, then the horns perhaps, then the soloist.  It's a wonderful experience:  the coolness of a breeze,  the clarity of the music heard in the night air, and of course the excellence of the performers and the beauty of the music.  I've never heard a bad performance, although the weather is not always clement. Sometimes umbrellas, raincoats, or even blankets come in handy.

The curse of electronics

When e-mail started to be accepted by everyone, I was thrilled.  I could keep up with my friends without writing letters or even calling them on the phone.  When someone died, I just had to post regrets on the funeral home's website instead of struggling to write a letter which is really hard to write and takes you half a morning to compose and then you have to look for a stamp and an envelope and put it in the mailbox, not forgetting to write your return address in the upper left hand corner.

So I was happy to have e-mail.  Until I started to get hundreds of e-mail messages every day from every retailer I had ever bought anything from and many I had never bought anything from, not to mention begging letters from Nigeria.

When I got stuck in California for 8 weeks I came home to find 7,000 e-mail messages on my server.  It took me quite a while just to erase them and I've been grumpy about it ever since.

But e-mail is not nearly as intrusive as the ads on my iPhone that keep popping up with gross pictures of women with black stuff on their upper lip or big fat stomachs or ads for first, second, and third mortgages.  I'm getting to hate my phone as it takes me half an hour to read a paragraph or two.

Facebook was a nice alternative for a while, until cute cat videos started popping up.  I don't want anyone to send me pictures of their cats, dogs, or even horses.  I'm also tired of elephants.  If you are a Facebook friend of mine, please no Fauna of any description.  Flora yes, fauna no.

Correction, and explanation

In a previous post, I stated that I had been doing this for 11 years.  Wrong!  It's more like 12 years.  I started in 2004, when I purchased my first computer with my first royalty check.  Of course I had been using computers at work, but this one was mine, and I wanted to take it around the block and see how it worked.  So I started blogging.

I was a lot more cheerful then, and so were the few readers I accumulated.  I have become more moribund, and the readers more reticent.  Hardly anyone comments any more.

I have an excuse.  I was very sick in 2015, of an unspecified disease.  So dire was my condition, that I actually believed that the angel of death had come for me.  This was an unusual event, since I am dubious about things spiritual.  I must have inherited a superstitious gene from Bubbe, my maternal grandmother.

When you are sick, you get very weak.  I could barely get out of bed and really thought I would die in California.  So I got out of CA, and have been spending time with doctors and physical therapists.  I decided to go back to the gym and see if I could recover my strength.  I'm still not up to standard, but getting better.

I've had a bit of good luck.  I won a place in a juried art show, and was just informed by Amazon that I had recieved royalties on my book for the first time in five years.  So I plan to resume my more than occasional posts here and be a little more regular about it.

Good God!

I have been doing this for over 11 years.  Is that depressing, or what?  You be the judge.

Slacking

My impulse toward self-improvement, never very strong, has been waning at present.  I got myself a copy of the Federalist Papers and sat down to read it, but I realized that what I really wanted was not to read it, but to have read it.  In short, I wished to have ti transferred to my brain without having spent any time with it.

Instead, I did what I always do when I don't want to edify myself:  I re-read Anna Karenina, one of my favorite books.  Every time I read it, I find more in it.  I see it differently.  In my youth, Anna seemed like a tragic heroine, but now  I am more inclined to side with the cuckolded husband.  I direct your attention to the part where Anna has just given birth to a baby girl fathered by Vronsky.  Everyone is weeping and lamenting at the top of their voices.--Are all Russians opera fans?--at the tragedy of it all, but everyone behaves in a surprisingly modern manner.  She is allowed to choose her own fate, and both Vronsky and Karenin are  supportive.

Imagine what Dickens would do with a scene like that!  Anna and the child would have been thrown out in the snow in a New York minute, and there is plenty of snow in Tsarist Russia.  Or at the very least, exiled to Australia.

Instead, Anna and Vronsky set up housekeeping together.  Everyone in their world snubs her, but not him.  He even offers to marry her, but she refuses to get a divorce--oh these Russian women!  More tragic weeping and wailing from all hands, eventually resulting in her suicide, under the wheels of the same train she arrived on.

Meanwhile, she takes little interest in baby Anna, nor does Vronsky.  She laments losing her son by Karenin, whom she is not allowed to see.  What is up with Anna? She's a tragic heroine, that's what.

I won't even get into the subsidiary characters, like Pierre and Kitty.  And Darya, Anna's brother's wife, very sympathetic and real.  Stiva, the philandering husband and lazy bureacrat.

Luckily, I don't mind reading long books, and Tolstoy apparently enjoyed writing them.

Anyway, I love this stuff.  All the characters are so real.

A poem I've always liked

Spring and Fall, by Gerard Manley Hopkins



To a young child

Margaret, are you grieving
Over Goldengrove unleaving?
Leaves, like the things of man, you
With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?
Ah! as the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep know why.
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sorrow’s springs are the same.
Nor mouth had, no nor mind, expressed
What heart heard of, ghost guessed:
It is the blight man was born for,
It is Margaret you mourn for.

Rejected by TurboTax

I'm just a mediocre person, incomewise, so I couldn't suppose the government has much interest in my taxes, as opposed to those of Al Sharpton, the presidential advisor, tax-evader and murderer.

But I digress.  My income consists of a pension, Social Security, and not much more.  It's generally pretty cut and dried.  So I've usually done it myself.  But this time I had a royalty check for a book I and some others wrote in 2002.  

When I entered the figure--about 50 dollars--TurboTax got all high and mighty, refusing to do my taxes for the regular sum of about $40.  I had turned out to be a very special taxpayer, one which would strain the algorithm and probably crash the entire system.  So complex was  my income that TurboTax stopped in its tracks.  It shied like a horse who was asked to jump a deep ditch.  I was informed that my royalty check made me an unusual taxpayer and I needed an extra $50 for them to continue my return.

I would now be paying a hundred dollars in fees for earning an extra $50.  For a couple of hundred I could hire a live accountant.

I pondered the problem for a couple of days and then decided to file for a six month  extension, thus evading the problem until the leaves turned color and started to fall from the trees.

I have so many diseases and they are so complex that I have enough doctors to make a basketball team, although some of them are too short.  I figured that the chances were good that one of them would kill me before October, if I was lucky.

 

Another poem

Another poem for poetry month:

Robert Burns. 1759–1796

. John Anderson, my Jo

JOHN ANDERSON, my jo, John,
When we were first acquent,
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonnie brow was brent;
But now your brow is beld, John,	5
Your locks are like the snow;
But blessings on your frosty pow,
John Anderson, my jo!
John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hill thegither;	10
And monie a canty day, John,
We've had wi' ane anither:
Now we maun totter down, John,
But hand in hand we'll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot,	15
John Anderson, my jo.

Anyone who has been married for a long time will get this one:

Psychologizing Trump

Since everyone else in the country is psycho-analyzing Donald Trump, I figure now it's my turn.  Fair is fair, no?  I know as little or as much as  anyone who has not been locked up in an abandoned coal mine for the last six months, so I'm going to have at it.

(That rumbling noise you hear is The Donald shaking in his shoes.)

He reminds me of my Uncle Doc, who would say anything that came into his head without pausing for thought.  He yelled at everybody who ever upset him.  You should have heard him opine on my father after he divorced my mother.  Or his son-in-law.  Or the government, Republican or Democrat; he had no use for any of them.  And he could change his mind at the tip of a hat.  Many times, he didn't know what he was opining about, but that didn't stop him for a minute.

It was all a sham.  Deep down inside, he was a generous and loving man, but no-one was allowed to know  this, it would ruin his reputation as a hard man.  But his parents knew, and so did his brother and sister.  He never let any of them down, although his siblings got plenty of verbal abuse.

I'm not saying Trump is a good man; but his statements about everything strike me as so much bluster. I'm sure he never gave abortion a moment's thought, for instance.  But on the basics he's got a few things right, and isn't afraid to say so.  That's what makes him attractive to voters, who are tired of the mealymouthed politicians of both parties, and their thinly veiled contempt for average Americans.

A poem for poetry month

“It was a lover and his lass”

By William Shakespeare

(from As You Like It)

It was a lover and his lass,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

That o’er the green cornfield did pass,

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

Between the acres of the rye,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

Those pretty country folks would lie,

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

This carol they began that hour,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

How that a life was but a flower

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

And therefore take the present time,

   With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

For love is crownèd with the prime

   In springtime, the only pretty ring time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding;

Sweet lovers love the spring.

I do like a good hey nonino from time to time.And hey ding a ding ding is very cheery too.

Share this text ...?

• Twitter
• Pinterest

Credit card fraud

I got a call from my  credit card provider.  They were questioning certain transactions  made in California last month: to wit,  a charge for gas at a Shell station, and a purchase from In n Out Burger.  The two together were less than $50, but the bank was right.  I was not in California at the time.
Neither was my credit card.  It was secure in my wallet.

So  somebody  committed a felony to get some gas and a burger. I'm struck by the modesty of their desires.  Why not buy an expensive camera or  a set of tires?  (These are the items a thief bought on my credit card last time I was robbed.)  Why would anyone risk getting a criminal record for a hamburger?  If I were going to steal something, or defraud someone, it would have to be for a much larger sum than that.

Update:  I am reliably informed that the modest first purchases are just a trial to see if anyone notices their card is missing.  If these go through, they know you or your bank are not paying attention and then they can really let themselves go.

My vote

If the Republican Party chooses Donald Trump as their candidate for President, I will vote for him.  Unless he is convicted of a major felony between now and November.  And no, he would not be my first choice.

I'm so sick of people on the right, and on the left, maligning him.  You cannot pick up a conservative magazine without encountering some learned dissertation predicting the end of at least the nation, if not the world, if he should be elected.   In my opinion, the Republic will survive. 

Mine is purely a protest vote.  I don't want Trump, but I want Hillary less.   The Democrats have had eight years to screw the country.  I want them out.  It's the Republicans' turn.  If this means Trump will be president, bring it on.

When do college students study?

I'm confused.  I was admittedly a slacker when I attended college.   I was fond of hanging out, drinking beer, and playing bridge with my friends.  Dating guys.  But I still had to study, pass exams, and write term papers.  Students at the time had sex, just like they do today--well maybe not that much--but we did in before 10 o'clock and never complained.  Or we stayed out past curfew and were helped to sneak into the building by confederates.

From what I read on the Internet, the average college student is having sex at all hours of the day and night, sober, or more likely, drunk.  Complaining, protesting, picketing, raping or being raped, making rude remarks to faculty and guest speakers, or being insulted.  Sending obscene texts to other students whom they fancy on their expensive cell phones.  Protesting when the recipients of the texts take them up on their texted suggestions.

How do they ever study?  What happens when their French professor schedules a pop quiz?  When do they have time to prepare term papers?  Why do they get all As when they are drunk, stoned, protesting social injustice, or preventing invited guests from speaking all day long?  Or painting obscene remarks on college property?  Or being so hurt and aggrieved when they encounter someone who thinks differently that they need a safe space?

What's wrong with Philly?

I live 20 minutes from the Philadelphia Airport, 30 minutes from downtown Philly.  It takes me 25 minutes to get to the Kimmel Center, 5 minutes to go to (paid) parking.  I have paid as little as $20 to attend a concert at the Kimmel Center (Obviously this is an exceptional price).  Last Friday I had tickets to a performance of Mahler's Eighth Symphony which cost $60 each.  We sat in the highest balcony, but the acoustics were superb, and the sight lines were perfect, if you had opera glasses. Plenty of leg room. The house was full.  And the performance was outstanding. 

Meanwhile, it costs $65 to attend a concert at the Delaware Symphony.   These concerts are held in various venues, including some private schools in the sticks which you need GPS to find and when you do find them they are crowded and you feel like you are back in high school. It takes maybe 15 minutes to find these places, if you are lucky.  Concerts in the Grand Opera House are more elegant, but parking in downtown Wilmington is no fun.  Also, residents of nursing homes are bused in and none of them pay $65.  One dollar is more like it.

The problem?  No-one wants to go to Philadedelphia.  I had a friend who used to attend concerts in Philadelphia with me, but she moved away.  And nobody else wants to cross the state line.  They will go to Philadelphia to consult a doctor, but to attend a concert?  It might as well be in Pittsburgh.

Meanwhile, there are excellent concerts in Philadelphia--not just the symphony, but the Chamber Music society offer concerts by world class musicians.

So what's wrong with Philly?

Hollywood actors and their teeth

I saw the film 'Race" over the weekend.  It was a well done movie, although they didn't mention that he was called the Buckeye Bullet.  He came from Ohio and so do I, and another bunch of famous people.  James Thurber was the only one I can remember--oh yes, William Howard Taft, who was so fat they had to put a special oversized bathtub in the White House.  But there were others.

The young man who played Jesse was extremely good looking.

When I got home I looked up Jesse on the Internet, and he was not nearly as handsome, and he looks like he had crooked teeth.  In fact, all the actors playing his family members had flawless teeth.  This was in 1935, during the depression, when people didn't have money for food, let alone fancy dental care.  My mother's clients were from the same demographic, people descended from sharecroppers and slaves.   by the time I encountered them, they didn't have such wonderful teeth except for the kind you put in a glass every night, maybe.

Anyway, if they ever want to make a movie about my life, I would like to be played by Jennifer Lawrence.

Two little girls

A visit to New Jersey

Trying to come home from Delaware Rt 13, I inadvertently got in the wrong lane, trying to get to I-95.  The entrance ramp was closed, so I ended up crossing the Delaware Memorial Bridge.  Twice.  Ended up in New Jersey, but not the part you see in tourist brochures.

Liquor stores, bail bondsmen, Payday loans, and for some reason, lots of dentists.  And laundromats. When you are in an area that has laundromats, you know you're not in rich people territory.  Rich people have washers and dryers, or even clotheslines. Spending time watching the clothes spin around is not something most of us want to do. Married to a graduate student, I put in plenty of time in laundromats.

Also, there was a bumper crop of road ragers; possibly angry because they were in New Jersey.  

I finally escaped to Delaware, to an area that was working class at best.  Also not featured in tourist brochures. but it was a sylvan glen compared to grotty New Jersey.

My parents

My parents were different in all the big things and many of the small ones.

Dad, for instance, was conscientious about punctuality. Mealtimes and bedtimes were as fixed as the stars. His clothing and other belongings were laid out the night before in preparation for going to work. I am sure that if he were ordered to attend his own hanging, he would make sure to be on time. Once, when I had promised to take him to the hospital for surgery, I had a flat tire and was 20 minutes late. When I got to his house, a taxi was turning into the driveway.

Time was a flexible concept to mother. She did what she was doing until she was finished doing it without ever stopping to look at the clock. If she got up in the morning and discovered there were no clean stockings in the drawer, she washed out a pair and read the newspaper until they were dry. Or made a phone call. Or went into the garden to pick a few roses.

Overweight

You didn't get this fat by yourself. You used the bakeries the rest of us built, the fast food restaurants employing minimum wage workers, the feed lots, the cattle breeders, the pastry chefs

Getting upset with Obama

It seems to me that people are wasting a lot of righteous indignation getting upset at little things Obama does.  It doesn't bother me when he behaves clownishly.  He's not a gentleman, obviously.  A gentleman does the right thing.

What bothers me are the big things he does, like the health care bill or the Iran deal.

So let him play golf whenever he wants.  He can even wear those deplorable shorts.  Put his feet on the desk.  Call the queen of England Liz.  (Okay, I made that one up.)

What a material at your post!

I only publish comments that make some kind of sense to me.  But don't think those are the only comments I get.  My spam folder is full of interesting comments, many of them by people with an idiosyncratic command of English.  Most are laudatory, though, which boosts my morale no end.  A sample:

I doscover your blog by accidental- great work!

Catching up with literature

I've been re-reading my old books.  Among them is the mystery classic, "Tragedy at Law" by Cyril Hare As I read it, the book is disintegrating  in my hands.  Pages, even whole signatures, are falling out.  A pity, because it's a clever, civilized book, an affectionate portrait of life on the legal circuit during World War II.

Cyril Hare was a member of the legal establishment, whose real name I have forgotten and am too lazy to look up.  He was a deft and amusing writer in that distinctive and civilized  manner of  English writers before Britain became a no-place whose main characteristic was a flabby "diversity.".

Since I am now more or less housebound, I considered   this a great opportunity to read some of the  Great Works of Literature.  I took down Beowolf from the shelf.  Can't understand its appeal.  Likewise The Red and the Black, and as for Ulysses, forget it!

My mind is impervious to improvement.

This is how I am feeling.  (It's a rusted water pipe from Flint)

I've been sampling the health care quality from coast to coast.

It has occurred to me that 50 % of medical graduates are in the bottom half of their graduating class.  I believe I've met a large number of them.

I fell off my treadmill--but good

I went to California to see the sights.  On Day 1, I tripped over my suitcase.  Then the fun started:

1. broken neck, two black eyes
2.) ischemic colitis. This means they don't know why you have colitis, and neither do you
3.) UTI
4.)they said I had gout;  I didn't
5. UTI
6.)Immmensely swollen leg, blown off as arthritis of the knee @ the hospital;
7.) broken ankle
8.) home
9.) x-rays and other diagnostic stuff in Delaware.

Now you know.

Remember loyalty cards?

You remember them, surely?  If you used them at the Acme, you could get 10 cents off of a can of beans.  At the Regal Theater, you got free popcorn.  It was effortless, if not brainless.  You didn't even have to bring the card with you; they could look up your phone number.

Well, those days are over.  Loyalty cards now represent an educational opportunity.  You have to use your brain--never an attractive option for me.  Now you have to go to the website of the loyalty card--let's say it's Plenti--log on, get yourself a username and a password, and then--but I never got that far, so I never got anything out of my Plenti card.

I haven't given up hope.  So today, I used my Plenti card at the gas station, and what do you know, the brain inside the pump asked me if I wanted to use the $12 I had on my Plenti card.  Did I ever?  I pressed yes, and proceeded to pump gas into the car.  However, the receipt said I couldn't use the Plenti points to buy gas.  But I got 8 more Plenti points.

Whole Foods also has a Rewards card.  Yesterday the cashier at my local Whole Foods advised me to just spend an hour familiarizing myself with the card, but that's an hour I will never get back.  Furthermore, I don't want to give Whole Foods my e-mail address and get lots of spam messages from the company offering me free range chickens.  I don't want to sign up.  I don't want an app on my iPhone.  I want 10 cents off a can of beans or free popcorn without making a gigantic mental effort.  Is that too much to ask?

To hell in a handbasket

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

These passages  by William Butler  Yeats could be  read at the beginning of every newscast, followed by the words, "Details at eleven," and they would describe the world situation perfectly.  We could then have a speech by Obama, explaining that this was the desired effect of his wise policies, and everything was going as planned.

On the treadmill

Every day when the weather is not good I walk on the treadmill at the gym.  The treadmill has television, I plug in my headset, and I am good for a mind-numbing session of the Food Network.  Or sometimes I watch the news on occasions when Obama is not speaking.

Yesterday, all the television sets were set on one channel, a sports channel, which was having special coverage on a basketball scandal taking place at the University of Louisville.  It featured a woman who procured women for prospective basketball players.  Among the prostitutes she recruited were three of her young daughters.  She had four daughters, but the youngest was left at home, perhaps to watch the cat or maybe do her homework.

Apparently life at the U of Louisville was just one round of orgies, with drugs, alcohol, sex and more sex, all paid for by the coach.  Occasionally the student athletes had to interrupt the party scene for basketball games or practice.  Writing term papers or studying for tests were activities not prominently featured in their schedules.  Student athletes could graduate from the University after a decent interval as ignorant as the day they started their university careers, or maybe more so,  having had their brains fried by alcohol or drugs.

I hate to be the neighborhood scold (or maybe not), but what does this stuff have to do with education?  Why doesn't the university of Louisville just hire themselves a  basketball team, pay them decent salaries, and pocket the profits, if any.  In this way, they could avoid the fiction that they were in the education business.  Nothing wrong with that; the New York Yankees do not award degrees.  They don't have to hire United States Senators and other worthies to give inspirational speeches at commencement.  In other words, they are honestly paid to provide a service which people are willing to pay for. The University of Louisville, on the other hand, is a whore.

I'm still here, and pissed!

I spent 20 days in rehab, getting infused every 6 hours with antibiotics.  They stuck a tube up my arm so they wouldn't have to open a new vein every time I got an infusion.  That would have been inconvenient.

Every few hours they pricked my finger to test my blood sugar, which was all over the place because I was sick, for God's sake.  After a while, I told them to knock it off.  My blood sugar was not what I was there for, and I didn't want any more finger sticks.  So they sent a nurse over to inform me that if I developed diabetes Medicare would not pay for insulin.  I managed to bear this news with equanimity.

While I was lying there in my bed of discomfort, I managed to read all the literature the hospital had given me.  It turns out that the hospital treats everybody over a certain age as a fall risk.  This means they put a Whoopie cushion in your bed, under your body, so every time you get up an alarm goes off.  You are supposed to ring for the nurse, who then might come and assist you out of bed.When she gets around to it.  Yes, the Wilmington Hospital treats every older adult admitted for anything like a toddler.  You could be a circus acrobat suffering from a sinus infection and still be humiliated this way.  It's not unpleasant enough to be in the hospital, so they make it worse, for their own convenience.

I think this procedure was invented by lawyers to prevent the hospital from being sued. 

I am angry enough about the lack of cleanliness.  Hand sanitizers and hazmat suits have taken the place of soap and water.  The rooms and bathrooms are never cleaned, nor are the patients washed.  I was in there for 5 days, and I must admit I reeked.  But the hazmat suits protected the staff, and the hell with the patients and visitors.

Florence Nightingale, call your office

I am not dead, contrary to rumor, not even close.

My life, or my health, was saved by doctors and nurses of various local institutions, and I am grateful to them.

However, gratitude is the most short-lived emotion, so I am ready to bitch and moan about cleanliness, or the lack thereof.  I was in the infectious disease ward.  Everyone who came in had to put on a garment like a hazmat suit, even if they only brought a pill or a blanket. But the floor was not cleaned once in four days.  There was something--I won't specify what-- on the floor in the bathroom, which had also not been cleaned.  For a moment I flirted with the possibility of cleaning it up myself, but sanity prevailed, so I told the nurse about it.  She immediately told someone, and a maintenance person was sent up.

The maintenance person said nothing, but every atom of her being bristled with the injustice of the thing.  Her body was eloquent with disapproval.  However, she did clean the floor.

Then I was transferred to a nursing home, where the same standard of cleanliness, or lack thereof, was apparent.  Someone came in with a broom and dustpan to remove whatever had spilled on the floor, if it was the size of a kernel of corn or larger.  The toilet overflowed twice, and someone wiped up the water on the floor, but no soap was applied.

Sanitation is something that interests me, for personal reasons.  My father died because an infected pacemaker was implanted in his body and he could not fight off the infection. So I consider the mop, the broom, and the vacuum cleaner vital to taking care of sick people.