LET’S SUE THE REPUBLICAN CONGRESS!

I would love to see a class action law suit against each member of the Republican Congress for malfeasance. 

 Congressional Republicans wasted the Nations time and money voting 48 times to repeal The Affordable Health Care Act, knowing full well that the proposal was impossible to pass with a Democratic controlled Senate and a Democratic President holding a veto.  

They shut down the government causing a downgrading of the US world financial standing knowing full well that their effort was for naught.  

They caused serious damage to the nation over a partisan frivolity.  They did not act in the best interest of the electorate, the Nation, nor did they uphold the oath of the position they were elected.

Congress persons do have every right to bring to the floor bills asking for a symbolic vote opposing any law or government action; however, 48 votes on a proposal that can not pass is misuse of public power and position. Shutting down the government and allowing the Government to default on the faith and credit of our Nation and at the same time disrupting the pays and obligations to government workers and federal programs over partisan frivolity is malfeasance.

Would that we could…

the Ol’Buzzard

     

A RESPONSE TO POLL WATCHERS AT VOTING PLACES

The Republican strategy for elections all the way back to Clinton has been to gain an advantage by releasing spurious accusations against their opponent and to rig the actual voting precinct.   Now, along with Republican controlled states enacting voter ID laws and cutting the time polls are open and the number of voting places in minority areas; right wing outside groups are attempting to intimidate voters by sending ‘Poll Watchers’ to minority voting areas.  

I think there should be a response to the presence of Poll Watchers.   Once a Democratic citizen has voted he or she should take a place beside the Poll Watcher as a Poll Watcher watcher.   As a Poll Watcher watcher we should refuse to leave the voting place unless the Pole Watcher is also required to leave.   

If enough people would demonstrate against the Poll Watchers it would receive public attention and this Republican ploy would be shamed into ceasing. 

If there is a Poll Watcher where I vote I will become a Poll Watcher watcher.

the Ol’Buzzard  

A BOOK REVIEW

Christopher Moors has a new book out.

Serpent of Venice is a parody of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.   The main character is Pocket the Fool who first appeared as the jester telling the story of King Leer in the book Fool.

If you like a swashbuckling story with pirates, dungeons, dragons, mermaid sex, love, betrayal, poisoning, knife fights, transgender, racism and generally all around chaos - you will enjoy The Serpent of Venice.  

If nothing else you can catch up on Pocket's middle-English insults: "Toadies, bloody toss bobbin, lusty fuck bubble, mutts nuts, dog's bullocks, inbred syphilitic, up the bum, dog snoggins, enormous twit, awesome twattiness, bullix, tosser, walley, lick-spittle, catch-farts, slag, hag, bum-sniper, fuckstookings, great blazing flagon of dragon wank...."

Some other books by Moore are:

 

Just to name a few.....

the Ol'Buzzard

This video is produced by the students of the University of Maine in Farmington, Maine.

It is not just because that my wife and I graduated from the University of Maine at Farmington - It really is the finest small university in New England.   The college has received excellence awards for the last ten years.   The students are great - civic minded and valued members of the community.  Too boot, the town of Farmington is the perceived, ideal image of what a small Maine village is suppose to look like.   

Go Beavers

the Ol'Buzzard

NOT AGAIN!

God damn son of a bitch, fucking, asshole, flat headed bastard, shit fire and molasses: I have lost my reading list on Google Blogger again.........Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

the Ol'Buzzard

HISTORY, RECOLLECTIONS AND RAMBLINGS

When you are my age you have much more past than future.   This definitely skews your perspective.    You also find yourself thinking more about the past than the future.  

Paraphrased from Orwell’s (Eric Blair) 1984: He that controls the past controls the future and he that controls the present controls the past.  

In my seventy plus years I have seen the history of the past skewed and in some cases rewritten.   When I taught history classes in high school I would impress on my students that history is written by the winners of wars and that the same event seen from different cultures and different locations could be viewed totally different – and in all cases things are lost in translation.  There is no absolute truth.

Even just in this country events are seen differently in the west, south, north east, mid west and with different perspectives in different cultures.  Each of these groups will attempt to see history recorded from their own perspective. 

Where am I going with this?   Hell I don’t know. 

During my school years I was raised in the Mississippi Delta in a town called Rolling Fork.   Rolling Fork was the county seat of Sharkey County.  It had a strong Confederate history that it clung to – a pride in the South and the Civil War and a disdain for all things not southern.  The Confederate flag flew over the Mississippi Capital in Jackson. 

 

Rolling Fork was segregated and proud of it.  White people ran the town and defined its history.    Today Rolling Fork is a dusty Delta town and its only claim to fame is as the home of Muddy Waters. 

 

Events flow through time.  You can’t mold liquid.

The Ol’Buzzard

HOT DAMN, HOT DAMN, HOT DAMN!

I am back on NORMAL Ol'Buzzard desktop - I Hope.  As you know from all my complaints I could only read the most recent post on my reading list.   On the Google forum I found that many bloggers were having the same problem.   It turned out that somehow (???) my desktop had been switched to 'draft Blogger'.  In the address block at the top of the page the blog was coming up as reading blogger/draft.    The fix was to go into Edit User Settings and deselect 'draft Blogger.'   

I have no idea how the switch from normal blogger to draft blogger occurred.  Magic - I suspect.   

the Ol'Buzzard

STILL HAVING TROUBLE...GOOGLE'S REVENGE?

To feed my own conspiracy theory perhaps Google is getting me back for all the complaining I have done about Google.   I still can read only one blog at a time (only the latest post) even though All Blogs is selected.   In order to read all the blogs I follow I am now having to bring them up one at a time from my Reading List.  
I am also having trouble getting on my dashboard and publishing.   It is enough to really turn you off blogging; but for some dumb reason I keep trying. 

The good news is that the weather here in western Maine is beautiful.  Day temps are in the low to mid seventies and night temps drop into the fifties: extremely comfortable.  

Today is Solstice - the longest day of the year - and from now on we will be losing daylight and moving toward Fall.   

Looking forward to the final season of True Blood that begins tomorrow.   I have to admit we are hooked on HBO.   Actually I drive my wife crazy because I will look at almost any vampire or werewolf movie back to the silent days and I love the old B-movie horror films - the cornier the better.

Back to Blogger: I tried deleting the blogs I follow and reinstalling them but that hasn't worked.  Also my wife has a blog that she reads - Starwitch of Maine - (doesn't post or comment) and we both have trouble signing in to our dashboard.   If we are on one dashboard we can't bring up a new sign in window to get to the other dashboard.   

Well, sorry for all the complaining.   Sometimes we just have to live with what we have.  
the Ol'Buzzard 

SUMMER SOLSTICE

 

Solstice on Moosehead  Lake

My wife and do not chose to celebrate holidays – commemorative days designated by someone else.   We do celebrate the four seasons: Winter Solstice, Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox.   We also hold special each other’s birthdays and our anniversary.  

We are approaching Summer Solstice.   The days have gotten longer throughout winter and spring.   After the darkness and late snows of winter, extended daylight is always welcome.   However the extended daylight also brings with it the approach of summer, and summer is our least favorite time of year.   

We are not people who enjoy the heat – my wife is fair; and of course summer in Maine is bug season.   The only up side of summer is I get to ride my motorcycle; and summer play houses begin new productions.  

With the start of Summer Solstice the days will begin to shorten, and we count the time as we move toward fall, noting each day the number of minutes of waning daylight.

Unlike Christmas and Easter and Thanksgiving etc. the sun phases have actually regulated our life until the recent century.   Now cell phones and I-pads and computers – technology – has removed us from dependence on, and consciousness of the seasons.   We are a frivolous and self absorbed species and have at last separated ourselves from nature.  

Fresh crops are grown in foreign lands and shipped to supermarkets year around.  We air condition our houses in summer, heat them in winter with climate controlled furnaces and light our homes with electricity.   Time and seasons mean little to us: even ski resorts produce their own snow.  

We are the last generation that will remember a time when seasonal changes regulated our existence.  

It is a new technological world and I don’t belong; but in homage to nature my wife and I will continue to celebrate the points of seasonal changes. 

A blessing from Goddess Nature

A Happy Solstice

It is a special time

the Ol’Buzzard

MOVEMENT CONSERVATISM EXPLAINED

Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman published an article in the New York Times titled The Fix Isn’t In where he discussed movement conservatism.   Movement conservatism was a term I was not familiar with; but I have seen it in action and recognized it as the bait and switch that the Republican Party has played with their ignorant base and the one percent they actually support, since the time of Reagan. 

Below is an excerpt from his article and a link to the full writing.   It is a short piece and worth reading: food for thought.     

THE FIX ISN'T IN

"I don’t mean that conservatism in general is dying. But what I and others mean by “movement conservatism,” a term I think I learned from the historian Rick Perlstein, is something more specific: an interlocking set of institutions and alliances that won elections by stoking cultural and racial anxiety but used these victories mainly to push an elitist economic agenda, meanwhile providing a support network for political and ideological loyalists."

 This article seems to truly, in simple terms, explain the Republican Party of the last four decades.

the Ol’Buzzard

DON’T PEE IN THE POOL

Recently there was an article about the filth in hot tubs.   The article stated that almost everyone gets into the hot tubs with some small amount of feces on their butts and that over a short time with multiple people using the tub the water becomes foul – and then there those that pee in the tub.

I was an assistant instructor scuba diver and enjoyed swimming in pools.   But then my wife ruined it:  

She made the statement that most women will pee in the pool, and a number of women have confirmed it.   Myself, and most men I know will get out of the pool if we have to pee.  

We have an Olympic size pool at the University gym and I have become aware of the people that use the facilities.   Along with the college students, parents bring young children to the pool, and I am sure they pee in it.  There are numerous schools that bring their elementary students to the pool to swim, and they probably pee in it.  There are classes for Senior Citizens (and mostly women attend) and you know they have week bladders.   Retarded adults are often brought to the pool, and I am sure they are peeing in it.   Now realizing that all of these people are also getting into the pool with dirty butts…    I will never swim in a pool again. 

The Ol’Buzzard 

GUNS IN OUR SOCIETY

STAND YOUR GROUND AND CARRY A GUN: THIS IS THE PERFECT SCENARIO TO ENCOURAGE SOCIALLY INEPT INDIVIDUALS TO ACT OUT THEIR FANTASIES

Yet another shooting this week: two police officers and a double suicide.   This type of situation is no longer considered bizarre, but now has become an accepted norm in our society.    Children killing parents, social terrorist killing cops, and even children butchered in elementary schools will garner a few minutes in the news on the day it happens; and then we move on.  

I was pre -school age when I received my first toy gun.   My mother returned on leave from the Waves (Navy) and gave me a present of a plastic gun that clicked when I pulled the trigger.  This had to be in the early 1940’s during World War II.      

The first movies I remember were Cowboy and Indian movies that were all about gunfights. 

As a pre-teen I watched Army movies and read GI Joe and Battle Brady comic books.

I do not remember a time before mid-teens that I did not have a toy gun.

I received my first BB gun around ten years old; and my first 22 rifle (which I still own) about thirteen.

During my teens I owned two shotguns (double barrel 410 and single shot 12 gauge) and a 22 rifle.

Since that time I have owned numerous riles, shotguns and pistols.

And then there was the military…

I do not think my background is so different from other men of my age who were raised in rural communities.   Guns have always been a part of my life – but not an obsession.  

This new age of gun obsession has brought out people on the fringe of social normality.  The people who dress up and openly display a firearm are acting out fantasies.  They feed on the disquiet the public feels in their presence when they appear in a normal social setting brandishing a deadly weapon.     The obvious truth is these gun totters are not particularly bright, which adds to the aura of danger in their presence.  Without a gun they would otherwise be invisible.

This lunacy has been encouraged and condoned by politicians until now the inmates are running the asylum and we are past the point of no return. 

I do believe, at this point in time, there is no gun disaster so atrocious that sanity could prevail, resulting in common sense gun laws enacted and enforced.     

It is we the people who continue to elect politicians that do not serve the best interest of society that have allowed this genie out of the box, now we must inherit the wind.

the Ol’Buzzard    

A MOVIE REVIEW

If you like western movies with cowboys and Indians and cattle and horses and sheep and trains and outlaws and gunfights and bar room fights and sex and violence and swearing and fantastic scenery and color then you need to see: 

A MILLION WAYS TO DIE IN THE WEST 

Sarah Silverman is the good hearted hooker who can't have sex with her fiancee before marriage because they are both good Christians 

Perhaps not a movie to take your grandchildren to see.

the Ol'Buzzard

WE LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND

I am not a person who defines his life by his military service.   After twenty-two years in the military I moved on – a new life – a new career.   However, it burns my ass to hear non-combatants talking about the value in a prisoner exchange.    Chris Matthews on MSNBC setting himself up as authorities on one soldier’s value against the value of POW’s we hold, released in exchange, has me infuriated.  

Ask any combat veteran: YOU LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND!  

I spent eight years in SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape.)    

Among other missions we taught high priority military persons (SEALS, Special Forces, Combat Aviators) how to survive and behave as a prisoner of war.    One thing we always stressed is: You will never be left behind – you will never be forgotten or abandoned by your country.

As an authority I can tell you that every person has his or her breaking point.   During both the Korean and Vietnam wars POW s were forced by their captors to make public statements against the war effort and against their country.  These men were not traders – they were POW s under duress: day after day; week after week; month after month; year after year they were subjected to 24 hours a day of interrogations, propaganda and mistreatment.   Those few that went over the line and collaborated against their fellow POW s were brought home to stand before military justice; but they were brought home.   

YOU LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND. 

We do not know the mental state of this young soldier when he left is unit.   We do know he was an active duty military man serving in a war zone - and as such a brother in arms – captured by the enemy.  

One premise that has always kept our American military captives held in enemy hands loyal and resisting is the fact that they will not be forgotten – they will not be left behind by our country – they will be brought home.   Now, civilians seem to want to inject a quid quo pro value on prisoners of war to determine their worth in some sort of capitalism of exchange.

There is not one combat active duty or combat veteran (including myself) that would not willingly, today, go into harms way to free a POW – no questions asked. 

As our war in Afghanistan winds down we need to face the realization that international law requires the release of all prisoners.   We have already violated this precept by continuing to detain POW s from the Iraq war: and yes, the prisoners in Gitmo are POW s – suspected enemy combatants taken prisoner during war time, and detained in a military prison camp.   The United States does not have the right to detain POW s beyond the end of a declared war because of actions they may or may not perform in the future.

And regardless what some civilian, self proclaimed arm chair authority on the value of a U.S. military man may expound: we band of brothers, we combat veterans say:

 FUCK YOU – WE LEAVE NO ONE BEHIND!

the Ol’Buzzard