KEEPING FIT

“There is someone in my head and it’s not me.”

Pink Floyd

We all have that nagging voice in our head that tells us it’s important to stay healthy.   The formula is pretty simple: control what foods you eat and how much, and exercise to strengthen cardio and keep muscles firm.

(You don’t exercise to burn off calories.  You would have to Jazzercise for six hours just to burn off half a hamburger.   Calorie control is eating control.)

I am pretty good on the exercise part; but I do love good foods and wine.  Also, at my age, I feel that austerity – not enjoying the things I like – is missing out on a quality of life for the time I have left. 

That said, keeping fit requires dedication.   I guess I can say I practice half-a-healthy-routine.  

Exercising to firm muscles and strengthen cardio is fairly easy for me.  Fifteen minutes a day.  Anyone can do that if they make exercise easily accessible. 

One of the best purchases I ever made was buying a Total Gym.   I keep it open beside my computer, so it is in my face every day.  I do ten exercises: three sets of twelve reps without a break between.  It takes me about ten minutes to complete my sets and then I meditate for five minutes bringing down my breathing rate and heart rate.     Fifteen minutes all total.

The Total Gym-1400 now sells through Walmart for $230.   You can buy a more expensive unit; but the 1400 does everything you need.

Take care

the Ol’Buzzard

GAME OVER: CONSERVATIVES HAVE WON

Thanks to Mitch McConnell we lost a Supreme Court nomination that would have shifted the Court neutral.   Now with the retirement of Kennedy we are looking at a Justice, to be nominated by President Trump, that will swing the court hard right for decades to come. 

The absolute worst-case scenario would be the nomination of Jefferson Beauregard Sessions.  Don’t laugh.  Trump could get rid of the Attorney General he hates and at the same time shift the court far right with a justice that is against abortion rights, immigration, gay rights, marijuana legislation, affirmative action and voting rights; and believes ‘God’s Law’ is above man’s law.  This would excite his base and be a win-win situation for him.
 

If democrats try and block his nomination until after the November election they could energize Trump's base to turn out and vote

There is no good outcome to this.

All the snow flakes that refused to vote for Hillary because of her e-mails have just inherited the wind. 

Bye Bye Miss American pie
the Ol’Buzzard

A SHOUT OUT TO DEBRA: SHE WHO SEEKS

It has to be tough for Daffyd when he is the only gay in the village.

Lesbian doesn't count.






the Ol'Buzzard

SHOVELING HORSE SHIT

The story of Noah’s Ark is so ridiculous that it’s laughable; and yet people attend the movie, visit the Ark reproduction in Kentucky and have searched the world for the Ark's remains.

Many adults believe, five thousand years ago, a six-hundred-year-old man sailed on a worldwide flood for one year with his three sons, their wives and two of every animal and bird in the world. 

Let’s deal with strictly mammals.   There are approximately 10,000 mammal species on the earth today, and 5,000 bird species.    Five thousand years ago without the pressure of human over population the numbers had to be at least the same. 

Two of every animal: elephants, rhinos, hippopotamus, bison, water buffalo, horse, donkeys, giraffe, kudus, wilder beast, zebra, elk, moose, black bear, grizzly bears, polar bears, sloth bears, lions, tigers, puma, leopards, jaguars, bobcats, lynx, badgers, wolverines, monkeys, orangutans, gorillas, baboons, camels, rats, mice, voles, llama, kangaroos, duckbill platypus, Tasmanian devils, koala, pander bear and thousands more...

Can you visualize the amount of plant food it would take to just feed the herbivores?  And the amount of meat for the carnivores?   And the bird food?

And then there is the shit.    Can you imagine 10,000 birds sitting on top of the ark – you couldn’t wade through the guano on deck.   I have shoveled horse shit in a barn and I can’ imagine shoveling the shit from 2 elephants, 2 rhinos, 2 hippopotamus, buffalo, deer, horses, zebra, camels, donkeys…  and only eight people aboard the feed the animals and shovel shit!

Perhaps you could have a litter box for the lions and tigers and other cats.

And then there is the dispersion of the animals after the flood: kangaroos back to Australia, buffalo to North America, penguins to Antarctica… 

I am sure that fundamentalist Christians can argue their point with scripture verse; but you have to shut down your brain to actually believe in the story of Noah’s Ark. 

the Ol’Buzzard

AMERICA IN PERIL?

  

“Fascism originates from aggressive Nationalism and massive intolerance for minorities.”

Origin by Dan Brown. 

A dictionary definition of Fascism:

A form of radical authoritarian nationalism, characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition and control of industry and commerce. 

Nazism was a German form of Fascism that emerged in the 1920.

The New Your Review of Books, June 28, publishes a review of a books on Nazi Germany, titled It Can Happen Here.   It is a fairly easy reach to make a comparison to the U.S. under the Trump administration. 

The premise of the piece is that during the Hitler years Germany was a nation gone mad.   It wasn’t a tyrannical few at the top, but a mass movement – a willingness of people to be governed by surprise.

  

Nazis attacked freedom of speech, treated critics as enemies of the state, they dissolved the checks and balances of government branches, they vilified newspapers using the term (Lugenpresse) lying press and they waged a constant attack on Jews and Romany declaring them morally degenerate.

  

The atrocities of the Nazi era is the brush Hitler has been painted with; but he was actually an avatar of the people who enthusiastically supported him.

Nazism was a movement of the people - of “aggressive nationalism and massive intolerance for minorities.”    This is also the mantra of the Republican Party base.

You can bet your ass this man voted for Trump.

It can’t happen here?

The Ol’Buzzard

PEELING A HARD-BOILED EGG

   

I love eggs.  I will eat them fried, poached, scrambled or hard-boiled.   I would eat eggs every day if my wife would let me.

 I love egg salad and stuffed eggs but have never known the trick to successfully get the shell removed from the hard-boiled egg without having to pick shards.    

Obviously, there is a secret society among chefs where they pass this knowledge down from master to novice.  

With stealth and the internet I have uncovered the chef’s Grimoire of kitchen magic.   My fear is not that I have penetrated the Secret Society of Fire and Knives; but, that in retaliation, the next time I eat out I may be dispatched with a poison mushroom. 

To insure my own safety, I have decided to make public the secret knowledge of hard-boiled egg preparation.   

Place the eggs in a small pot

Add enough water to cover the eggs

Bring the water to a boil then immediately reduce heat to simmer

Simmer for fifteen minutes

Pour out the hot water and fill the pot with cold water from the tap

Continue to run cold water into the pan for five minutes

Remove an egg from the pan and forcefully bang it on a cutting board, first on the pointed end then on the round end.

Roll the egg on the cutting board then roll it between your hands until the shell feels loose.

The shell will now slough off.

    

It is nice and early.

Think I will go down and have a bacon and egg sandwich for breakfast.

the Ol’Buzzard

SOLSTICE - A REMINDER OF NEW BEGINNINGS

In these dark days 

Erosion of values

Destruction of a Nation

Solstice is a reminder

That all things end

And of new beginnings 

Let the sunshine in

the Ol'Buzzard

SOLSTICE 2018

Forget Independence Day, Thanksgiving, New Years, Easter and all the other days of man’s invention. 

Solstice is the celebration of Mother Earth as we move from one season to the next.  

I would dance naked around a fire tonight, but it would shock the neighbors.

the Ol’Buzzard

AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH

If you are outraged at what is happening to this country and you voted for the Libertarian Party or Green Party or you wrote in Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Presidential Election, then by omission you elected Donald Trump.

The obvious reality was, there were only two possible outcomes to the election: either the Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton or the Republican Party candidate Donald Trump would become President.  

If you felt that you were distinguishing yourself as a ‘thinking liberal’ by ‘voting your conscious’ then you forfeited your right to complain about Trump; but perhaps in the next election you can redeem yourself.  This inflexible purity of the far-left works to the benefit of the Republican Party.

The real politic is, like it or not, the U.S. has a two-party system, and you either work within that system or, like the old man yelling at clouds, you get attention from your neighbors, but you accomplish nothing.

Sometimes the truth is uncomfortable. 

the Ol’Buzzard

GOD OF THE GAPS

“Science is the antithesis of faith.  Science, by definition, is the attempt to fine physical proof for that which is unknown or not yet defined.  When science affirms an answer, that answer is universal.  Humans do not go to war over it.”

Origin by Dan Brown

A computer is programmed to store, retrieve and correlate information.  When a computer is tasked with a query it cannot solve its response is insufficient data.

The human brain is a computer, but its programming differs from its electronic counterpart.   The brain stores information from a lifetime of personal experiences; but the human brain always seeks closure and order.

Our brain tends to fill in the gaps of insufficient data or uncomfortable realities with an imagined acceptable alternative, in order to bring comfortable closure to a subject. 

Early man was fearful of things he could not understand: death, storms, fire, night… so he fantasized Gods to explain the unexplainable. As civilization advanced, the stories of Gods became more sophisticated.  Poseidon ruled the Oceans (Greek), Vulcan was responsible for volcanic eruptions (Romans), Odin was the god of war and Valkyries carried the dead warriors to Valhalla.

Gods filled in the gaps of man’s knowledge in order to bring about closure to the unknowable.  But, as science and mathematics advanced the Gods became unnecessary and were replaced with known quantities.  

Religion has been the enemy of Science and Knowledge from the very beginning.   Adam and Eve were supposedly driven from the magical garden of Eden for eating from the tree of knowledge.  William of Ockham was tried for heresy for his math and scientific studies.  Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for declaring the sun was the center of the universe.

Galileo was threatened with the stake and make to recant his belief in a sun centered universe.  It wasn’t until 1822 that the Catholic Church finally accepted that the fact of that the earth rotates around the sun.  

People do not give up their Gods easily.   Science and logic have systematically shined a light on religious superstitious ignorance.  Yet there are still major populations of mankind that believe in a virgin birth, a flying horse, a talking burning bush, a man walking on water, reanimation of the dead, angels, devils, heaven, hell, bread that turns into flesh and wine into blood…

Religion has held its sway because children have been indoctrinated from birth by their religious parents, their religious communities and religious leaders.  Children and adults have been played upon by apostolic snake oil salesmen. 

 

But today, more and more young people are moving away from religion.  The major hold that religions still flexes on mankind is the promise of life after death.   It fills in the gap.    It is what people want to believe.   

Religion's promise is: I will pay you tomorrow for a hamburger today.  So religions will never go easily into that good night.

GOD OF GAPS




the Ol’Buzzard

IN AN EFFORT AT FULL DISCLOSURE

MRMacrum of Lost in the Bozone recently posted about updating his blog presentation.  I am satisfied with my blog appearance, but I had a look at my profile and found that the picture posted was eight years old and showed a younger buzzard who still had some black hair. 

Solzhenitsyn (The Gulag…) noted: “One and the same human being is, at various ages, under various circumstances, a totally different human being.”

So, in an effort of full disclosure I have updated my profile picture to reflect the real me at my age:

The Indian motorcycle shirt was a father's day present from my wife and cat - daughters.  I have never owned an Indian, but my grandaddy road one back in the thirties

 and I have always admired them and thought some day I might... 

but they are too expensive and now someday has passed me by.


But I have had a good ride so no complaints.
the Ol'Buzzard

HOT WEATHER RAMBLINGS

I was raised in the Mississippi Delta where normal summer temperatures were in the high eighties and nineties, often reaching into the hundred-plus range.  No one had air conditioning.   We ran window fans and at night slept with our windows open.   

We didn’t worry about crime.  Criminals were not glorified at the movies, on TV or radio; so young men weren’t prone to act out aggressively toward older or weaker citizens.   Drinking beer, racing cars or an occasional fight at the pool hall was as bad ass as young men got in our small Delta town.

I grew up in hot weather but have spent much of my adult life in the north; including Newfoundland, Iceland, Alaska and the high arctic.  I remember those hot Mississippi days and nights of my childhood and have no desire to relive it – part of the reason we have settled in Maine. 

In the western Maine mountains we usually have  two or three times during the summer when the temperatures will reach ninety degrees.   The rest of the summer the temperatures are in the seventies to mid-eighties, and at night drop into the sixties.    I know it sounds like a wuss to complain about a few days of extremely hot weather while the south and south west cook for weeks during the summertime.   But, most of the rural people here in Maine do not have air conditioning; feeling that the few days of discomfort doesn’t rate the cost and inconvenience of installation and removal.     So, when it reaches ninety we hibernate and complain – at least that is what my wife and I do.

Tomorrow, Monday, the temperature will be ninety degrees, then we drop back into the low eighties and upper seventies for the rest of the week. 

 

Beer was made of hot weather.  Silenus is the Greek God of beer, and tomorrow I intend to celebrate him.

The Ol’Buzzard

YouTube

In 1982 I was introduced to the Apple II computer – an 8-bit computer with 48k of memory.  

It is hard to believe forty years later we now live in a world run by computers and computer technology. 

Even an older buzzard like me, who to some extent resist technology running my life, has had to move into the 21^st. century techno-world. 

I have a Tom-Tom that I use when I travel.  I have a flip cell phone that I carry in case of emergency when I travel, I have a computer and have recently (a birthday present) been given a Samsung Galaxy notebook that I use to download books from the library.  

I am down on social media; but I am a hypocrite since I run this blog.  

I find my computer great for research, I use e-mail and I have Netflix; but the most useful function of my online existence is YouTube.  

I buy a log splitter – I research YouTube; I buy a slow cooker – YouTube; Slow cooker recipes – YouTube, I lay flooring – YouTube; generator conversion - YouTube, Repair my chainsaw - YouTube...

Any project I have I first run it through YouTube.  

If I could only have one internet site it would have to be YouTube. 

the Ol'Buzzard

OLD DOG NEW AVOCADO

I am not a great gastronomist – I was raised in the south.  We ate tomatoes, corn, rice, collards, eggs, grits, bacon, chicken, ham and catfish.  I was raised on wonder bread and oleo margarine.  My snacks were mayonnaise sandwiches.

I have eaten at some nice restaurants over the past forty years, but there are some foods that are still foreign to me. 

I have recently learned I like avocados; but half an avocado added to a salad for my wife and is enough, then the other half goes bad in the refrigerator overnight. 

In this day and age of unlimited information on line I eventually search YouTube for the answer of storing avocados.  

YouTube offered half dozen solutions for keeping avocados fresh and I tried them all and narrowed it down to one.

Leave the pit in and store it in an airtight container with chopped onions – it works for up to four days. 

two days old

  the Ol'buzzard

WE'VE COME A LONG WAY FROM ELMO AND COOKIE MONSTER

PBS airs a children's show called

Pinkalicious and Peterrific

You've got to be shitting me!

 How did they get that one past the censors?

I'm just asking?

the Ol'Buzzard

AN APOLOGY

Canada

We are sorry!

the Ol'Buzzard

HE’S BACK

I haven’t been able to post for a couple of months because of Trump burnout.  I am exhausted.   Before I can become outraged over any single atrocity committed by the Trump White House, another and another and another have been perpetrated.   A daily series of scandal and ignorance appears the norm.    I have paid too much attention to something I have no control over.

I need to put everything back into perspective - I need to go back to zen. 

It is what it is and it will be what it will be.

Or I could just smoke a joint.   That could work too.

the Ol'Buzzard

AMERICA'S DARK PAST IS BEING ECLIPSED BY THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION IMMIGRATION POLICIES.

The United States has a dark past that you will not find highlighted in high school history books: the brutality to slavery, KKK lynching of blacks, bigotry toward immigrants, white violence and resistance during  the integration of the south, racial violence during the seventies, unnecessary wars…

Rounding up of Jews and gypsies in Poland and German during the Second World War is well known; but we omit our history of rounding up Japanese Americans for transportation to detention camps during that same time period. 

We are incensed with the attack on the Twin Towers and the death of three thousand American civilians during nine-eleven; but somehow, we ignore the incineration of half-a-million civilian men, women and children in 1945 when America became the only nation ever to use a nuclear weapon. 

We are apathetic toward  American men and women still fighting a war in Afghanistan and other far flung corners of the world.   Perhaps we are too absorbed watching The Voice or Dancing With The Stars to pay attention to such triviality.  

Progressives seem to be able to rally against a stolen election, or a cry out for the Me Too movement and taking a knee for Black Lives Matter; but all of that pales against the new American atrocity.

Where is the outrage against American concentration camps for children?

Infants, preschoolers, adolescence and teens are forcefully taken away from their parents by ICE agents and placed in children concentration camps (calling them detention centers doesn’t make it any better.)

   Children are placed in cages like animals at a veterinary shelter while waiting transportation to ‘facilities’ run by for-profit private companies. 

  Because of the volume of children and the understaffed bureaucracy many of these children will never be reunited with their parents.  

The Trump Whitehouse, spearheaded by Attorney General Jefferson Beauregard Sessions, is responsible for this cruel and inhuman policy.

Where is the outrage?  Where are the marches?  Where are the outcries?

A few days ago, Senator Jeff Merkley tried to inspect one of the children detention centers and was barred from access to the government funded facility by local law enforcement. 

 

This is a time for action.   Write your Senators demanding they form a bipartisan children’s task-force and file a request with a Federal Judge for a warrant to inspect unannounced any facility housing immigrant children.   These Senators are representatives of the people and the people have a right to know the conditions in the American concentration camps housing incarcerated children. 

Senators, accompanied by U.S. Marshals, should demand access to these facilities, and the conditions made public. 

This atrocity against children will add to America’s dark history in decades to come. 

the Ol'Buzzard