FRESH HORSES

Me Lord,news.

What ?

The stock market closed up.

Ah, Good news - the economy is improving!


Me Lord, news

What?

The Republicans did not agree to a compromise and we have gone over the fiscal cliff.

I like it not.
This news is not so good.
Bring me some other news.

Pardon Me Lord?
THIS NEWS IS NOT GOOD - BRING ME SOME OTHER NEWS!


Me Lord, news.

What?

The Republicans compromised and we did not go over the fiscal cliff.

Ah, good news!
LET THERE BE JOY AND CELEBRATION.  LET JUBILATION RAIN.

Yes, Me Lord.

Chiswick!   Fresh horses!

ONE MORE FROM DAVE MALLETT

In this song  Mallett sings about the greed and avarice that drives our economy and destroys our ecosystem.

Enjoy

the Ol'Buzzard

THE STRANGE CONNECTION TO DAVE MALLETT

When I retired from the Navy my military background didn't translate to a civilian job.  I had to retrain or begin working manual labor at age 42.   My wife and I decided that we would both attend college and major in education.   As there was no GI Bill available for me at that time, the only way this was possible was to down-scale our life style.  

We bought a house in the woods in north-western Maine for $9,999 (the sellers came down one dollar.)   It was an old, run down – but structurally sound 1832 farmhouse at the end of a two mile dirt road.   The house had been used off and on as a hunting camp for over forty years and there was no electricity, running water or sewerage.   We had to let our Chevy van go but kept the motorcycle which was paid for.  We worked on the house over the summer to make it livable.  

The garden was our second year

When we started school in the spring we were heating with wood, hauling water from the creek behind the house for drinking, cooking and bathing.   At night we would come home, gather standing dead wood from the woods in front of the house, start the fire , cook supper and then zip up in sleeping bags to study by lamp light for our classes.  

The old house and our winter transportation

 

During that first year Dave Mallett played at the commons area at the university, and my wife and I attended.   We were immediately hooked.   Dave Mallett is the quintessential Mainer and his music speaks to life in rural Maine.  

Four years later  (still living in the farmhouse - much improved, but still without lights, water or plumbing) to celebrate our graduation we made reservations for dinner  at a historic, in-home restaurant in a village 25 miles north of the college.   We were surprised when we arrived that Dave Mallet had been booked to play.   There were only twelve guest and Dave played for us in the small living room while we guest sat in the few chairs and on the floor – a very intimate setting.

The day we pulled out for Alaska in our new Toyota truck I had a cassette of Dave Mallett cued for his rendition of North to Alaska. 

North to Alaska

Four years later we vacationed back in Maine, traveling up to Bangor and then to Bar Harbor.   Our first night in Bar Harbor we went to a bar and restaurant and Dave Mallett was entertaining.    

We left Alaska after teaching for nine years in the Eskimo and Indian villages, and as we crossed the border into Canada they were playing Dave Mallett on the PBS radio station.  

After living for six years in Kentucky we returned to Maine.  In that first September we attended the Common Ground Fair, and that night Dave Mallett was playing.   We have seen him a half a dozen time since then at small performances around Maine. 

Most of Mallett’s songs are about Maine; however, after Obama was elected President Dave released this song: This is Where the North Meets South. 

It is a song of hope and healing – a new beginning for the country – but unfortunately it didn’t evolve.

 the Ol'Buzzard

NOTHING HAS CHANGED

I have always been a Bob Dylan fan, much to the chagrin of my wife.   During the mid 1960 I was in the military in a Navy special unit.    The Vietnam war was in it's beginnings and the counterculture seemed alien to me - out of step with my military commitment and programming.   But, the music haunted me.   As I got older and the concept of war soured, the protest songs of that era spoke to me in a deep resonance.  

We have a new car and it allows me to connect my small Sonsa music recorder to the car stereo    

Running numerous errands this morning (the wife at home) I  selected a Dylan album.  Dylan's gravel voice boomed through the six speakers with 'The Times They Are A Changing."   I played it again, and then again.   The power of Dylan is not in the music but in the words; and I couldn't help but reflect back some forty years to the hope for the future that was the basis of the protest generation.  

And I realized that nothing has changed.

 Come gather ’round people

Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth saving’
Then you better start swimming’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changing’

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no telling’ who that it’s naming’
For the loser now will be later to win
For the times they are a-changing’

Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside and it is raging’
It’ll soon shake your windows and rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changing’

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging’
Please get out of the new one if you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changing’

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fading’
And the first one now will later be last
For the times they are a-changing’

Copyright © 1963, 1964 by Warner Bros. Inc.; renewed 1991, 1992 by Special Rider Music

We are still at war
The poor are still down trodden 
The government is dysfunctional
There is defacto-racism
And a drive to disenfranchise women and minorities.


The times did not change.

the Ol'Buzzard

BUSHMASTER

HEY POSER: You want to carry one of these?   Join the military.

the Ol-Buzzard

PROTECTING LIBERAL VALUES

I left a comment on the Hump Day offering of Yellow Dog Granny’s blog and in retrospect feel so strongly about it I decided to post.

As we approach the fiscal cliff the White House is trying to strike a deal with House Republicans to avoid increasing taxes and across the board cuts to spending.  

I hate to say this, but because of the Presidents past track record of capitulating to Republican demands before attempting compromise, I do not trust the President to stand strong against cuts to Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security and other social programs that protect our most vulnerable.   

Thank goodness (notice I didn't say God) for Nancy Pelosi.   This powerful woman has our back and I can believe she will stand strong against severe cuts to entitlements.  

the Ol’Buzzard

A MOMENT OF GEEK

In an earlier post I mentioned that I believe that time is perceived differently by people of different ages.   So here is my reasoning.

According to Einstein’s theory of Special Relativity time is not absolute – it can vary according to the speed of an object.   The theory pertains only to the time relationships between two objects where one is moving away from the other at a fixed speed.

To simplify the theory let me give an example:

 A            rocket              B

A is a base station that shoots a burst of light to station B every two minutes.

There is a rocket ship traveling between A and B at ¾ the speed of light.

Every time the rocket receives the burst of light from A it fires an identical burst of light to B. 

Because the speed of light is constant B receives both beams of light from A and the rocket simultaneously at two minute intervals.

But, because the rocket is moving away from A at ¾ the speed of light (constantly increasing its distance from A) it is receiving the light flashes from A, not at two minute intervals, but at three minute intervals. 

Ref: Einstein’s formula – for geeks…

Elapse time = the square root of the  time in reference-one divided by one, minus the speed of the rocket square divided by the speed of light square.

The crux of this is that A is transmitting light burst at two minute intervals - and B receives the light from station A and the rocket at identical two minute intervals; where as the rocket is receiving and transmitting its light burst at three minute intervals.

Time is moving faster on the ground than it is on the rocket ship.  What takes two minutes to happen on the ground takes three minutes to happen on the ship. 

By the way, this has been proven in experiments.

Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity deals with time variations due to strong gravitational fields.   

But we don’t have to go into that - it is enough to know that time is not constant but can seem to vary under different circumstances.   (Actually the cosmos doesn’t give a damn about time and gravity and space – these concepts only matter to humans as we try to understand and catalog everything to our limited understanding.) 

Now for the Ol’Buzzard’s Theory of Relative Time:

A child of ten perceives a year as one tenth of his life.   It seems forever between one Christmas and another, or birthdays.

A man of seventy perceives a year as one-seventieth of his existence – a relatively short time between birthdays.

Time is experienced seven times faster for a seventy year old than for a ten year old.

Each year I seem to get older faster.   That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.  

the Ol’Buzzard  

THANKSGIVING DINNER

We are now approaching the Winter Solstice (my wife and I don’t celebrate X-mas.)

As you grow older time seems to pass faster; we go from one season to another in what seems a blink of and eye (I have a theory about that; but more later...)

The point is that we just got through Thanksgiving and now we are headed into another holiday season.  

So, before it changes again I decided to share my Thanksgiving dinner with you. 

In years past we have traveled five hours to have Thanksgiving with family.  There would be twenty-five to thirty people or more (most who we did not know,) the noise level was high - the dog show ran continuously on TV; the food was great but …

This year we decided to stay home. 

My wife prepared turkey breast cutlets that we got at a local farm store, along with mashed potatoes, savory dressing, peas, squash and cranberry sauce.  

We broke out a good bottle of Beaujolais wine and laid aside a Maine wild blueberry pie for dessert.  

Me in my long johns, my wife in pajamas – we had a great meal

while watching and old tape of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow

It doesn't get any better than that.

the Ol’Buzzard

to everyone who left a comment about my computer complaints: thanks.  
Perhaps it is time I replaced this machine.  
the Ol'Buzzard

More Computer Complaints

My computer is running slow and funky.   A computer repair company in town said they would scrub the hard drive and reinstall the programs I want for $200.00.  

My quandry is: should I put out $200.00 on a seven year old computer or buy a new cheap one for a hundred and fifty more?  

As I am not in the 2% the extry $150.00 is a concern for me. 

Has anyone had a harddrive scrubbed?  And if so, what was the results.

thanks
the Ol'Buzzard

GOOGLE CHROME DELETED

.




In the past I have posted on a problem that seems connected to Google Chrome. My complaint is that sometimes, when I am working off-line in Microsoft Word, my disk drive will start to whirl, things will slow down and I will get a message stating HIGH CPU USAGE BY GOOGLE CHROME.

What the hell is Google doing in my computer when I am not on the Internet? Sometimes the computer will even lock up and won’t let me shut down; and the only way I can stop the disk drive from spinning is to do an emergency shut down by holding down the On/Off key.



I have removed the program and reinstalled it before, but the problem still continues.



I like operating in Chrome as it seems faster and more efficient; but I have had it. Bye Bye Google Chrome.



Has anyone else had this problem?

the Ol’Buzzard

CHRISTIAN SHARIA LAW

SOMEBODY PLEASE: GET THE FUCKING MORALISTIC CHRISTIANS OUT OF MY LIFE.

One of the blogs I follow is OneAngryZebra posted by a retired Air Force sergeant. About a third of his blog posts are pictures of naked women – the other two thirds are aircraft pictures and history post…and some politics. As I clicked on his latest entry a WARNING came up from Google stating that a number of people had complained to Google about the content of his blog and in order to proceed I had to click a Continue Button.



My question is: if people find the blog distasteful – why not restrict it on their computer and troll someplace else? You don’t like it – don’t look at it.



I get disgusted with Christians trying to tell me what books I shouldn’t be allowed to read, and what music I shouldn’t be allowed to listen to, and what sexual activity I shouldn’t be allowed to practice, and what my wife shouldn’t be allowed to do with her own body and what restrictions she should have concerning her own health decisions.



We know that God hates women – ergo Christians hate women. In their doctrine women are responsible for original sin and their bodies are dirty. It is O.K. for a man to show his tits and nipples but women’s tits are dirty – hide the children’s eyes for if they see a woman’s nipples they will go blind…it will scar them for life.



I am sick and tire of Christian attempts to turn the U.S into a theocracy. If they had the political power to do it they would enact a Christian Sharia Law and we would see nudity of women a felony offense; abortion a death penalty crime and jails full of atheist – there would be crosses in all public offices along with copies of the Ten Commandments.



Let’s get rid of In God We Trust on our money, and reaffirm that We the People and not We the Christian People have a right to Life Liberty and Happiness; and as the founders of this nation decreed - free from Christian religious censorship, tyranny and control.



the Ol’Buzzard