What are they thinking, Part 3

So, I'm driving along today, on my way up to my Mom's to do some more overseeing of the reconstruction, when I ended up stopped at a light behind a guy driving a bright red Corvette. I immediately leapt to the conclusion that he would be off the line when the light changed like a shot, and I could get ahead of that Annoying SUV parked in the left lane. Instead this guy creeps ahead when the light changed. He was going so slowly that little old ladies in those powered mobility scooters were passing him; kids on roller blades were passing him. He was not going fast, in other words.

So, my question is, "Why did this guy lay out big bucks for a relatively uncomfortable car?" I mean, the Corvette is not, by any means, a luxury car: it is a fast, muscle car. It's got tons of power and it goes very fast. If you aren't going to tweak it at lights (when you have the chance) or on relatively traffic free back country roads, then why buy the damn thing? One thing it is not is a luxury car. I guess it all comes down to it being another case of somebody having more money than brains.

Snow Globes

The other day I was looking at some of the "seasonal gifts" being sold by my employer. One of these gifts is a Disney motif snow globe. I thought to myself, "Cool!" because I remember snow globes from my youth. The ones I remember from my Grandmother's house were usually the size of a softball, heavy glass and they had either snowmen, a country scene or a "Night Before Christmas" scene. You shook them up, set them down, and then watched the snow fall for a few minutes. All in all, they were pretty magical.

Now we get to what passes for a snow globe these days. The variety we are selling (and I have to think that this pretty much represents what is available these days), have some sort of white chunky stuff for the snow in a plastic globe. And, when you shake them up, you get to watch the "snow" fall for an soul satisfying 15 to 30...seconds. I don't think any little kids are going to grow up with fond memories of this.

In miniature, this is what is wrong with our society. There is very little pride of workmanship or creation any more. Today it is all about getting the money. Make it as cheaply as possible and sell it as dearly as you can. Gimme the money. And this is why, even when one makes it near the top of the income pyramid, there is no joy. Unless you are right up on the pinnacle of that pyramid where you can afford to pay hugely for one of those few true craftsmen/artisans left, the stuff you buy is no different from the stuff the rest of us buy...and most of that is crap.

I have watched huge buildings, that purport to be "homes", being built in the rich part of this county. For the most part, they are being built using the same materials and the same workmanship that one finds in those developments of MacMansions which sprout in former cow pastures seemingly overnight. In other words, the rich guy is building bigger, but not much better. Then that rich guy then gets to drive his big SUV over roads and bridges that are more and more rapidly falling into disrepair. It does not add up to an increase in the quality of life; at least it doesn't to me.

It has been awhile...

Yeah, yeah...I know...one does not develop a devoted following by not publishing for months at a time. It has been about 90 days (one calendar quarter) since I last set virtual pen to virtual paper and then nailed same up to the virtual chestnut tree. My only excuses are that; 1) I've had a great deal going on in my non-virtual life: 2) I've been more or less suffering from a form of writer's block. In other words, I have a lot of introductory sentences/paragraphs for pieces, but I don't have the bodies or the closes for them.

But, wait! That's not entirely true anymore. I actually do have a couple of complete, coherent posts to upload here. Not right now, however, Right now I have to get back to work...bleh! I will try to get one or two more posted later today/tonight. However, as a teaser, consider the snowglobe.

Just come out and tell me you want me to contribute...

Got this "survey" from the DNC the other day. While it purports to be a "Grassroots Survey of Democratic Leaders", what it really wants is my money. And, if I had any laying around, I'd be more than happy to give it to them since (as you might be able to tell from some preceding posts) I have nothing good to say about either the current incumbent President or the rest of his party. However, this stealth approach to my wallet does annoy me.

What also annoys me is that the questions on the survey are so constructed as to almost demand certain answers. For example, take question 7:

Do you support new tax cuts targeted at working families?
Response 1: Yes, with our econmy struggling, working families need a tax break. Response 2: No, additional tax cuts at this time will only worsen the federal deficit.

See? It is obvious what answer they want (and expect) respondents to supply. The whole thing is constructed the same way. And that annoys me as much, if not more, than the fact that the whole thing is actually a request for donations. (Suggested minimum being $35: inflation rears its ugly head.)

Ah, screw it...the whole thing landed in the circular file...They'll start getting money from me next month...but it won't be at the level they think they want...On the other hand, it will be regular and monthly from October through the national elections next year...

Somethng has gone terribly wrong...

I grew up in the post-WWII years. I was born in 1945 (OK, so now you know I'm an old fart at this point in my life...), so my formative years were pretty much during this country's golden age. Sure, there were termites in the foundations so the whole thing was pretty shaky to say the least, but, still, those were, for some of us, golden years.

I grew up in a town in central New Jersey where we could leave our doors unlocked pretty much all the time...as a kid I never had a key because I didn't need one...the doors of the house were never locked. My town was a town of...I dunno...about 30-40,000 souls, and we had no problem with kids wandering around at will. None of my friends and none of my younger sister's friends were ever bothered. As a ten-year old kid, I could ride my bike just about anywhere in town without worrying about "strangers". Hell, as a 5-year old kid, I used to walk a couple blocks to friend's houses to play. Nobody thought anything of it.

I bring all that up to emphasize that my background is not the same as the background of adults who are 30 years younger than me. In many ways, we are from different places even though, geographically, we grew up in the same physical space.

I have mentioned before how much I like Fred Clark's writing. Frankly, I think he should be much more widely known than he is. I think he writes as well as any syndicated columnist from my youth...Fred is one of those people who grew up in the same space I did, only 30 (mol) years later. However, he is one person with whom I feel that I share something. For example, his latest blog entry Inquisitors is, once again, something I wish I had the talent and skill to write. I heartily recommend it to one and all: click on the link and read this.

If you go back about 4 years or so in my blogs, you'll note that I did not support Mr. Bush for a second term (for that matter, I did not support him for a first term although my support for Al Gore was tepid at best...to my eternal discredit.) I did not think Mr. Bush was the effective leader he tried to portray himself as being. However, I did not think that he was, frankly, as evil a man as he has turned out to be. George Bush has made me ashamed to be an American. If I had been alive in the the ante-bellum years of this country (and had the same ethical bias I have today) I would have been ashamed to call myself an American while my fellow citizens held other humans as chattels. George Bush has, by his absolute disdain for our freedoms, put himself in that same class of people. And he has sullied and stained our name and our honor. He is, in fact, the same kind of man as was his arch nemisis, Saddam Hussein. One of the things that give me hope is my faith that he will join Saddam in some corner of hell once he sheds this mortal coil.

When I was growing up...when parts of this country were Camelot...for some..., I was proud that we were the "good guys". Of course, when we played "cowboys and Indians" the Indians were always the bad guys and the cowboys were the good guys...it took me a until I read "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" to realize that my European ancestors were good at treating anyone not from their ethnic branch of the human tree badly...but, still, we were the good guys. We stood up for the oppressed; we fought for the ideals enshrined in our founding documents. Even though we built this country upon the forced labor of black humans whom the white Europeans enslaved on land basically taken by force from the native inhabitants, the ideals embodied in our Declarations of Independence, our Constitution and our Bill of Rights were shining goals for us to strive to attain. George Bush has sullied, stained and defecated upon those ideals, and, in the process, he has mortally injured this nation.

I could say more, but...not now. All I will say is that it is ironic that the freedom of expression that this medium engenders is both a strength and a weakness. It gives a huge number of people a public platform from which to declaim, but those very numbers tend to obscure and attenuate...depreciate what they are saying. Like I said, Fred Clark should be a respected syndicated columnist rather than a slightly obscure Blogger. (I say "slightly obscure" because he does have a following, which is a lot more than I can say for myself...) Those of us who have been lucky enough to find him...to find this bit of gold amid the dross...are the better for it. I just wish that more of our fellow citizens also had the benefit of his clear vision.

'Nuff said...

When did this happen?

OK, maybe I'm old and becoming less and less in tune with the zeitgeist, but since when where vampires and werewolves the good guys? I thought that these particular denizens of the shadow world were pretty much the bad guys. I mean, they both run around killing people: they have to kill people...it is what keep 'em alive. But not so much any more. We have Remus Lupin in Harry Potter: he's a werewolf, but a nice guy too. Then there is Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden: Dresden is a wizard (a la Merlin), but his half-brother is a white vampire--and a good guy. (White vampires don't drink blood, they suck straight life energy from their "food". Now, this is not as immediately fatal as the blood sucking variety of vampire feeding, but, ultimately, unless the White Vampire is very careful, the food source does die.) Then we have Laurel Hamilton's vampires, whats-her-name Rice and now Stephenie Meyer's new teen heroine who appears to be a vampire.

Personally, I prefer the old model. Vampires, of any description, were the enemy, and one did whatever one had to do to kill 'em.

Moving on, now that the Harry Potter saga has come to an end, I would like to commend a new Harry to you all. I am referring to the above mentioned Harry Dresden. This Harry is also a wizard (the only practicing wizard in the Chicago phone book), who lives in a slightly more complex world than Rowling's Potter. The good thing about this Harry is that his creator, Jim Butcher, has already penned 9 or 10 (I lose count...) books in the series, and he plans to go for about 23 or 24 total. Butcher has created a world very much like our own, but larger. Butcher's world has wizards and witches, warlocks and demons, faeries and trolls, pixies and elves, Knights of the Cross and Fallen Angels. It is a very rich tapestry, and one that is still in the process of creation. Reality building is one of the reasons I like this series. Pick up the first book, Storm Front, and give it a whirl. I think you'll like it.

---------------- Now playing: Zero 7 - In the Waiting Line (Radio Paradise - DJ-mixed modern & classic rock, world, electronica & more - info: radioparadise.com) via FoxyTunes

Some further thoughts about Corporate America

It seems to me that greed driven capitalism is inherently and fundamentally antithetical to the ideals espoused in our constitution. Our country was founded upon the ideal that "all men are created equal": Meaning, of course, that we each have an equal voice in our governance. However, wealth perverts that ideal. The enormous economic power that our large corporations (and some individuals) wield readily translates into political power...especially in an era when political dialogue has sunk to the level of the 30-second sound bite/political attack ad.

Rather than looking for ways to make our society more egalitarian and to make this country a place where all citizens enjoy both political and economic freedom, the culture of greed has become pervasive. "I've got mine (or "I want mine") and to hell with the rest of you" has become our guiding ethos. That is partly the reason we have become xenophobic about our borders. Where we once welcomed immigrants to our shores, we now, selfishly, demand that our borders sprout walls to keep the rest of the world out. In fact, rather than spend the money those walls would cost to improve the lives of the poor of the world (so maybe they wouldn't want to emigrate to the golden shores of the United States), we selfishly think only of preserving our good fortune. I think part of this is an innate understanding that the pie is finite, and, if we share it with others, that will ultimately mean less for ourselves. Like I said, our ethos is now driven by greed and selfishness.

And even in our own country, the divide between the "haves" and "have nots" segments of our citizens is growing daily. The middle class, the skilled workers, the clerical and retail trades people are being squeezed like never before. Corporate employees in the high five figure and up pay ranges do their damnedest to squeeze more and more out of those in the lower pay ranges so that their salaries and benefits can become larger and larger. When corporate income does not meet expectations, it is not the upper levels who suffer--no, it is those at the bottom of the pay scale. The mantra from the executive offices is "cut the hours of the guys at the bottom first." It is wrong, but it is also the natural outcome when one has bought into the "gimme mine" mindset.

The great strength of the United States over most of its history has been the size and strength of the middle class. It is the middle class which has provided both the economic and political stability of this country. That middle class is now in danger of becoming...impotent. As economic and political power migrates to the wealthy individuals and corporations, the ability of the middle class to ameliorate the damage being done to our country evaporates. As the poor multiply, the society becomes more and more unstable. We are, in fact, sowing the seeds of our own destruction. It is time we, as a country, started to once again engage in substantive political debate and stop letting ourselves be lead by the noses by the spin merchants. It is, in fact, time for your wake-up call, America...

I've got writers block...or something similar

I got tired. I got tired of posting shit that nobody (except for one or two who do it out personal--for want of a better word--loyalty) reads. I got tired of being creative for no particular gain. Plus, I am still in the process of writing two business plans and the marketing materials for one business. And I am still working for the self-proclaimed "world's largest bookseller". That gig is sucking the psychic life out of me like one of Jim Butcher's White Court vampires.

Corporate America...I have come to the understanding that corporate America is as anti-American as was the old Evil Empire (and the newly aspiring reincarnation of same) . For example: on the 4th of July, the day that all, and I mean all but those who absolutely must be at their posts to preserve public safety, security and order, Americans should be celebrating the ideals and sacrifices that make this country possible, will see most corporate retail establishments open. OK, by corporate I mean big box. All the big box retailers will be open for business. This is, in my opinion, as anti-American as it can get. These retailers are cheapening the day by intruding commerce upon a time that should be set aside as being special. They are distracting the populace from the true meaning of the day. They are keeping their employees from being part of the communal celebration of the founding ideals of this society. And yet these self-same despoilers will drape themselves in patriotic colors and imply that coming to their stores is, in itself, an act of patriotism.

Bullshit!!

That's all...just Bullshit

Happy Fourth of July to all my fellow countrymen....

My Friday 10 on Sunday....

OK Fred, Here’s my Friday 10 a two day(s) late….

Kristin Hersh Echo
Kirsty Maccoli In These Shoes
Joni Mitchell Raised On Robbery
John Prine Ain’t Hurtin’ Nobody
Liz Phair Ride
Gomez How We Operate
Sinead Lohan To Ramona
(Also Bob Dylan, but I like Sinead’s
cover better)
Cowboy Junkies Las Vegas
Beta Band Dry The Rain
Zero 7 In The Waiting Line

No special theme: just what shuffled through the old…OK, new….MP3 player.

Twiddling thumbs

In effect, that is what this post is...I'm twiddling my thumbs while I reload my Sansa MP3 player. It has been about a month since I have posted anything...although I have had about twenty posts that I had planned--just never got around to actually writing them down. It has been a sort of up and down month. On the one hand, I got my Outback wagon so now I can haul stuff from point A to point B without nearly as much hassle as it was in the Saturn sedan, while, on the other hand, things like work and the swimming pool have been thorns in my side. First, let's deal with the good stuff. As noted above, I got my Outback wagon. In addition to making it easy to haul stuff around, it is just a cool car. It is, more or less, a basic model in that we didn't get any real whistles and bells. However, it comes with so much cool stuff that I didn't really think I needed much else. The built-in in-dash CD player plays MP3 disks, so I can use disks I burn myself...that works out to about 10 hours (mol) of music which is a day's drive anyway you look at it. In addition, it has a jack which allows me to hook up the MP3 player, and that adds about 2 gig worth of music or about 30 more hours. I don't have that much music that I really like. Aside from the music, we got the manual transmission 'cause I think it gives more control in snow and other adverse road conditions. And, anyway, I prefer manual trannies. All in all, it is a very comfortable car to drive and ride in. Not as quick around the corners as the Saturn, but, hell, it's a wagon. As I mentioned in an earlier post, I also got a gas grill this spring. I gotta tell the world that it is a great grill. Much less work than charcoal and the food tastes pretty much the same. I have been having a great time cooking on it for the past three weeks. My dear wife has pretty much closed down the stove and oven for the duration of the summer. About the only time they get turned on now is to handle overflow from the grill. I have the old charcoal grill out on the patio next to the new gas grill, but I have yet to have had the urge to fire it up. I think the only time it will be used this summer is this coming Memorial Day weekend when I plan to have a cook-out and pool party for my collegues at B&N. All in all, the gas grill is a real plus: big thumbs up!! Also, as mentioned in that earlier post, I got a new MP3 player. Way back when (2000, I think), my wife got me an RCA Lyra player for my birthday that year. I think the biggest memory card I ever had for that player was maybe 128meg. I don't think it could handle more than 256 meg...I know that it was limited to about 4-5 hours of music...and it ate batteries at a prodigious rate. That was it for me until two years ago when my daughter and her hubby-to-be got me a Sony Walkman CD-player which could handle MP3 disks burned on the computer. That gave me about 650 meg of storage to play with, and, for the most part, it has sufficed. However, now I am totally ruined. My new SansDisk Sansa player has a gig of internal memory and will handle up to 2 gig of external (SD card) memory. I just loaded the internal memory with 174 tracks or about 15 hours of music, and I am now working on building another playlist with about the same number of tracks for a 1 gig SD card. Now that I have been introduced to this slightly long-in-the-tooth technology, I am already thinking about my next player. This one's screen is a little small, and the firmware doesn't allow a great deal of programming flexibility. However, those small little quibbles aside, this little beast is soooo much better than any portable music player I have ever had that there is literally no comparison. 'Nuff for now...bitches and moans later...

Here's my problem with copyrights

So, the CRB has denied all petitions for a new hearing on their unconscionable ruling vis-a-vis royalties to be paid by Internet webcasters. Nobody is denying that royalties should be paid by said broadcasters, especially those who are using music created by others to make money. However, since most of the royalty money paid does not go to the artists who actually created the works in question, there is my first sticking point. My second sticking point has to do with people getting paid over and over for what is essentially one piece of work. Most of us regular people (as opposed to "creative" types)don't get paid multiple times for one piece of work. I understand the need for creative people to get paid, and paid well since it is they (and not the suits) who make our world a little better, and, if it were not for the suits taking such a big hunk of the pie, music would be available for mere pennies per track.

Sometimes this world really confounds...

I don't know where to begin. The shootings at the Virginia Tech campus just plain boggles my mind. That a person could kill 32 other people, with apparently little or no emotion or remorse, and then put the gun to his own head makes me believe in the existence of evil as something tangible in this world. To think that a mere human could do such a thing without being possessed by something black and horrible from outside of himself is hard for me. I think of the innocent kid that this person once was, and I wonder what could have brought him to this end. It is both easier and, in some ways, less scary to be able to assign ultimate blame for this horrible event to some outside agency which is both malevolent and self-aware. I would much rather have actual demons and a devil to contend with rather than something random and impersonal. At least with demons, one has some sort of a chance. At least if there was an absolute evil out there, the converse, an absolute good, would also have to exist. And that means we at least have a fighting chance. For things like the VT rampage to happen "just because" leaves us impotent and without any chance to alter events. That I can't accept.

My heart goes out to those left behind; parents, siblings, grandparents, other family, loves and friends. I grieve for all those promising lives cut short and for those who, although older, still had so much to offer this world. And I feel a sort of grief for the young man who did this atrocity, but I feel more grief for the innocent child he once was, and for the promise and hope that was snuffed out by his own hand.

Bushes' 2006 tax bill: $186,378 - Yahoo! News

Actually, I'm not really interested in the fact that that the Bushes' 2006 tax bill: $186,378 - Yahoo! News. I'm more interested in the fact that the President of the United States, a going concern with a budget of over a trillion dollars and at least a couple million employees (if you count the military), has a salary of $400,000. People, I think that the President of the United States should be the highest paid citizen in the country. Make his salary the cap, and then adjust all the rest to what they actually should be...

Really, if you want your sports stars, entertainment personalities and corporate executives to make tens of millions of dollars per year, then give your President a slightly larger amount. After all, he is the person who guides our societies destiny for his term in office. So, put a marginal tax rate of 100% on every dollar of earned income in excess of what the President makes. Be sure to include in the definition of "earned" income such things as performance royalties and bonuses. Allow people who build or create things to gain riches from those sources, but make sure that huge fortunes do not get passed on to heirs who have done nothing on their own to derserve such wealth. (If the holders of great wealth wish to create charitable foundations to preserve and distribute income from those fortunes, sobeit. That I can live with.

To get back to those taxes, my wife and I, together, made a little more than 1/3 of what the George and Laura paid in taxes, yet our tax rate was within a few percentage points of theirs. This is not equitable. What George and the rest of the "gimme mine" crowd forget is the concept of "noblesse oblige". For those who do not recognize this concept, it basically states that those who have more have a moral obligation to help those who have less. This can mean sharing your cardboard refrigerator carton with someone who doesn't even have that to "If you want to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me." Nobless oblige falls somewhere between those two extremes, but this generation of Americans have turned their collective back upon that concept. So, I say tax the rich more and more heavily on each and every one of those marginally incremental dollars.

I am such a consumer....

So, yesterday I checked my Yahoo email and there was the daily flyer from Buy.com, and the very first item was a Weber gas grill. And not just any Weber gas grill, but a Genesis Gold Natural Gas grill. Now, you have to understand that Home Depot (aka: The Toy Store) wanted to charge me $50 bucks extra to have it burn natural gas and then they were gonna toss in a shipping charge. The nice folks at Buy.com sold me the grill for the same amount that The Toy Store would sell me a propane grill, and they didn't charge me any shipping. In addition, because I utilized the Google Pay option, I got another $10 off. This is a win-win situation for me. So, I will be getting this really cool gas grill in about a week, and my lovely wife will take the summer off from cooking...

But that's not the all of this story. Today, when I got home from slaving in the book stacks of Barnes & Noble, I checked Woot.com to see what their deal of the day was, and there, staring me in the face, was a Sansa 1gig MP3 player...for $34.95 shipping included. One gig...MP3 player...expandable to 3gig with a 2 gig SD card. And those cards are on sale all the time either at Woot or Buy.com or one of the other discount sites. Right now I am using a Sony Walkman which plays MP3 discs...but I can only burn 150 songs on a CD-ROM. Just the native 1gig of memory on the Sansa player gives me almost 100 more songs. I bit with alacrity.

So, in a couple of days, I'll be getting a new gas grill and a new MP3 player. And tomorrow I'm going to go automobile shopping. I want a Subaru Outback. I'm going to get a Subaru Outback. The only undecided points are where and when. Tomorrow is the first major step in that direction.

Now all I need to do is ditch this loser job and move on to something more suited to my talents and temperment. I know that, while I could be a CEO type, I would/will most likely function best as some entrepreneur's COO. I do the detail, day to day operations while the CEO goes out and develops new business.

Oh yes, and I found an ottoman in my mother's attic. Granted it needs to be re-upholstered, but it will round out my office. I have streaming music to my bookcase stereo in here: I have streaming music to my powered speakers on the patio and in my basement workshop: I have streaming audio to the living room. I have DVR in both my living room and my office. Life is getting really, really good!!

Family Research Council: Tuesday, April 3, 2007 cites 600,000 year old "evidence".

First of all, credit to where credit is due: I got this from Fred Clark (aka Slacktivist) first posted this alert. It seems that the Family Research Council (FRC), an organization that steadfastly attacks any science which contradicts literal Creationism, has shown its true colors. Namely that its leadership are nothing more than cynical, hypocritical poseurs who actually believe in nothing more than maintaining their power and economic position in this world. You see, in their fervor to show that they are "RTBs" (that's Real True Believers as opposed to the rest of us who are not included in the elect) these people, Tony Perkins foremost among them, reject any science that purports to show that the world...nay, even the universe...is only approximately 6,000 years old. However, in this little attack on the science of Global Warming, Perkins et al cites their own scientific "evidence". The cool thing about this is that the "evidence" they cite is reputed to be 600,000 years old. That's 100 times as old as the Universe.

Assholes!

This is all sooo cool!

Yesterday I was excited because my third Logitech Music system (the link goes to a review site...much better than I could do and well worth a look if you are interested in streaming sound from your computer to other areas of your house)receiver arrived. As I noted, I hooked it up and things were rosy. I was wrong...they were better!

I spent the evening down in the workshop picking up on a couple projects I have been neglecting. I had the music streaming. The sound was awesome! So much cleaner than the old boombox I had for company before. In fact, that workshop is becoming close to Heaven. Think about it. Here I am in a room filled with tools and great music; wtf more could I really want? (I was joking about 30 concubines earlier, but, as I noted, my darling wife would, in her own quiet way, object to that arrangement--my life would become both painful and exceedingly short--and, besides, one can't really give proper attention to one's tools if there are a bunch of females hanging around...*grin*) No, what I have discovered that I really need is to build a glass-walled cubicle where I can install a reasonably powerful workstation with a 20-inch(or bigger) flatscreen monitor. The cubicle part is to keep the sawdust from the workshop part of the basement away from the delicate innards of the 'puter. That would make this machine in the office , the one I'm working on now, and its brother over in the corner could become my network servers/workhorses, while my workshop workstation could be where I play and do fun things like run CAD programs to design and build my home projects. I shiver just to think about the prospect.

The other thing I need, and something that has a much higher degree of probability, is a set of outdoor, weatherproof speakers. But what I want are a really powerful pair of honkers...something that, when I crank 'em up, neighbors two or three doors down get nice crisp clear sound...*snicker*. I wanna be able to hear 'em when I'm in the pool...under water.

To recap, I only need three things to make immediate life pretty perfect (except for the continuing need to work...but I'll address that injustice later...): 1)a big honking set of outdoor speakers, 2)a big honking workstation in the basement and 3)a Subaru Outback (I know...I just threw that in with no prior prep, but it is on the list.)

And look at this...two posts in a row...I'm on a roll!

Addendum: There is a small raincloud in paradise. No, nothing at all wrong with the system as is. The problem is that I have things to do this morning, and I find that I am reluctant to leave. This is all just too perfect. *sigh* Oh, and I'm going to have to increase my quarterly donation to Radio Paradise. If I listen to Bill's station virtually 24/7, I'm gonna have to pony up a bit more to cover my contribution to keeping the music flowing...and Fuck You, RIAA. (I had to add that: I can't say anything about the economics of the music industry without telling the RIAA to go fuck themselves...) OK, now I really have to get the hell out and going...damn!

It Came!!

I am so pumped. My latest Logitech Music sytem receiver (bundled in an iPod connection package) has arrived. There are times that the way we do business astounds me. The Logitech Music System is a Blue Tooth wireless delivery system. You hook up the receivers to things like stereos and powered multi-media speakers and you hook up the transmitter to your PC (range for that transmitter is 330 feet) or plug in to your iPod/mp3 player (range about 30 feet). But, wait....don't you load your iPod from your computer?? If you have all the songs on your computer, the only time I could see you needing this transmitter would be if you took a set of powered speakers someplace where your computer wasn't. However, that's not what amazes me.

What amazes me is that the receiver part of this system can be bought from Logitech and various retailers for about $75US. The whole PC music system now costs something like $150US: that's for one transmitter, one receiver and one remote control device(which is next to useless...) and some ancillary components. However, if one was lucky, one saw this on Woot! where one purchased it for less that $50US(including shipping). Then, if one looked around, one noticed that the iPod package was being sold for about 1/2 of what just the receiver alone cost. What was that? So, I've purchased two of these packages, stuffed the transmitter thingies in a drawer, and hooked the receivers up to 1)the bookcase stereo in my office and 2) powered speakers on the patio and in the basement. I've got to port the receiver between these two, but I won't be listening to music in the basement when I'm in the backyard and visa-versa. The upshot of all this is that I now have streaming Internet based music in four areas of the house.

I am ecstatic!! This is so cool! I have come a giant step closer to having my life with a permanent soundtrack running in the background. Now all I have to do is ditch the job at Barnes & Noble for self-employment again, and life will be perfect. Well, maybe not perfect...there might be something else that would need to be added...but I'll leave that to your fertile imaginations...*snicker*

Why does it feel like we are becoming a second tier power?

The fact that over 3000 active duty soldiersdeserted(registration required for NY Times) last year is bad enough. But the fact that our army numbers 500,000 troops is even more scary in these perilous times. We are a nation of over 300 million people, yet we can only field a defense force of 500,000 in our army. That sucks! Of course, the fact that we are involved in an immoral and, IMHO, illegal war might have something to do with the fact that we can't field a larger army and that more and more soldiers are heading for the exits.

There are no people on Earth who I despise more than terrorists who kill indiscriminately. There are no people on Earth who I think deserve to meet their maker sooner rather than later, and, if I can help them along, all the better. However, Iraq and the Iraqi people never fit that description. Saddam Hussein was a tyrant, but he was a local, petty tyrant. He terrorized his own people, and they were the ones who needed to, finally, rise up and throw off the yoke of oppression. When they did that on their own, then I can see us offering them aid and support. But, to make that call in the hubris of our own self-importance, was wrong, and we are going to pay the price for that folly.

So, let's get our forces out of Iraq and gird ourselves for the tribulations that are going to follow. Those hard times are going to come whether or not we withdraw now or later. If we withdraw now, at least some deaths will be averted and not laid on our karma. If we are able to say to the world that our President was wrong, wrong, wrong, and that we as a country repudiate his arrogance and wrong actions, perhaps the coming problems in that part of the world will not be quite as bad. Our main problem, of course, is the fact that we had our eyes on the wrong villian: we should have been looking at the mullahs of Iran. That is where the true conflict is going to come from. Remember, the Persians have been attacking Western Culture beginning with the Greeks and Xerxes. Iran, or at least the leaders coming from that part of the world , have never been our friends. Think about it.

RAIN: Radio And Internet Newsletter

Let's continue the rant against the RIAA. Here is a very good article about the copyright law by Kurt Hanson. I actually learned a lot that I didn't know about copyright...all of which simply reinforced my absolute disdain of the RIAA and the rest of the suits in the music industry today.

I just want to reinforce the idea that streaming audio is not the same as providing me a "perfect digital copy". It gives me a copy which is about the same quality as I could get from FM radio. And the process of me making a copy of that stream is at least as difficult as it is to record a song from FM radio. Look at most bookshelf stereos: they all have cassette recorders that you can set to record from whatever is being broadcast over the FM radio receiver which is also part of that bookcase system. Now, for me to record a music stream from Pandora or Radio Paradise, I have to be able to intercept that stream and copy it to a hard drive. Because I don't know what song is coming next on the stream, either I copy the whole stream, a process that takes up a lot of memory space, and is not all that convenient to pick individual songs out of, or I jump in a couple seconds into the song (oops, which makes it, de facto, an "imperfect" copy.

So, rather than go through all that hassle...and because recording music streams takes up a whole lot of time...I send my favorite streaming station Radio Paradise a set quarterly donation, and I listen with a clear conscience. If, like recently with James McMurtry, I find an artist whom I really like, I go out and buy a CD to "support" that artist (although I know that 99% of what I paid for that CD goes to people other than the creators of that music.)

So, to re-emphasize my stand on this, I have stopped purchasing music except from websites run by the artist themselves. If I see any instance of RIAA or record label involvement, I don't buy. Period. Screw them all. I have a couple hundred hours of music available to me, either through CDs I own or through CDs that friends lend me...which I will copy. I will not purchase any new music if that purchase benefits either the RIAA or the big 4 music manufacturers. I will listen to streaming music over the Internet, and, when the RIAA closes down all the domestic streams, I will listen to pirate streams from overseas. I won't copy these streams, because that is to fucking much trouble...but I will have 'em playing in the background as I go about my life...Personally, I would encourage every resident of the United States to do the same.

More on the RIAA

I have recently become aware of a number of sites which are addressing the new copyright fees being imposed by the CRB and the RIAA. The Internet radio stations I listen to (Pandora, Radio Paradise, Legato Cafe and Creamy Radio are all up in arms about the new rates, and have started to organize to fight them. Make no mistake, this is a direct assault upon one of the true gems of the Internet...independent music programmers. These stations perform a true service both for the performers and for listeners. However, the big businesses which control the music industry (music, to them, is simply a product to sell to make money...those businesses have no concern about any possible higher value intrinsic in music...) have managed to buy off the CRB (and, by "buy off" I do not necessarily mean that there has been some sort of payoff--what I mean is that the the RIAA convinced the CRB that, economically, this was in the best interest of the music industry. What they didn't tell the CRB is that they, and not the creators of the music, comprise the music industry.). As most of the Internet streaming radio programmers will tell you, the Royalty structure being set by the CRB amounts to a death sentence for 99% of the Internet broadcasters.

The more I dig into the music industry, the more I am ashamed that I have had anything to do with perpetrating this vast immoral conspiracy on the part of the "suits" against both the performers and the listening public. There was a time when record labels were necessary, but that time has, for the most part, passed. There is no reason why the creators of music cannot use the Internet to by-pass the major labels entirely and deal directly with the music consuming public. Seven years ago Courtney Love addressed the Digital Hollywood conference and said things that are still true today. The problem with her speech then was that our lives went on pretty much unchanged at that time. The RIAA was still chasing Napster and not going after pretty much the public at large. Well, that has changed. The royalty grab is going to effect every last one of us. Plus, the abomination that is DRM also effects us all.

So, follow this link to Gizmodo's RIAA Manifesto, read it and follow the links it contains to begin to learn more about the evil perpetrated by the RIAA. Then, take up the cause and spread the word. Email your friends with these links, write your local newspapers and your elected officials to protest the CRB's proposed royalty structure. If you are an aspiring artist, stay the hell away from the big labels out there. Record your music either yourself of in an independent studio, and then distribute it on the 'Net. The numbers don't lie: sell 1 track for $0.25US to 500,000 people (that's less than 1% of the number of people in only the US who have access to the Internet) and you earn $125,000US. Record and sell 1 song per month at that rate, and you will earn $1,500,000US per year. Even if it costs you $500,000 to do that, you still end up with a million dollars. According to Courtney Love (see above) that's about a million more than you would end up with if you went with a big label.

I will no longer puchase CDs put out by RIAA members nor will I engage in any other activity that could potentially put money in their coffers. I will endeavor to support musicians and composers out of those channels (i.e. directly), but, if this proves to be impossible, I will live with what music I have and only purchase music from sources I am positive do not contribute to either the Big Four major labels or the RIAA. I know, my personal boycott won't bring down the establishment as it stands and it won't really have an effect upon music, but it will make me feel better.

This is about the last straw....

Fuck 'em....Yeah, fuck the RIAA and all the suits and major labels who parasite off the works of the creative and the sweat and blood of the music consumers out there. Through high power lobbying, the RIAA has gotten the Bush administration's Copyright Board to approve a totally wrong royalty rate. So, while they drive Internet radio totally underground in this country by making it economically impossible to stream music over the Internet, the big corporate broadcasters continue to rake in huge amounts of money without having to compensate musicians at all (according to Bill Goldsmith)

Personally, I agree with Jefitoblog that this is a great time for a boycott. Only I think that it should be a permanent boycott of all major labels and anybody else who supports the RIAA. At the same time, I think we, all music consumers, should directly support the artists we listen to by, if nothing else, sending them money via their websites (all artists have a web presence...find it and figure out how to send 'em money.)

Frankly, I've written about the music industry before; this latest big "FUCK YOU" from the suits who have taken over this industry is just confirmation that change is more than overdue...it is vital. What is needed now is a paradigm change in the way music is distributed to (for want of a better term) consumers. Prior to Thomas Alva Edison, the only way to distribute music was via live performance or printed sheet music. That meant that if one didn't play a musical instrument, about the only way one could enjoy music was to physically be in the presence of a person making said music. Mr. Edison changed all that.

However, the making of music and then reproducing it post Edison required a considerable investment in both equipment and knowledge. In other words, recording music was not something that just anybody could do--until the invention of magnetic tape and the creation of relatively inexpensive recorders. I can remember my father recording stuff by placing microphones in front of speakers. Those weren't the highest quality recordings, but they sufficed. However, for the most part we didn't record stuff because it was simply too much trouble. When I could buy a 45rpm disc for less than a buck, why would I want to spend an hour trying to get a decent recording of it off somebody else's copy? And this reasoning pretty much held true as cassette recorders became available. I could (and did) record off FM radio stations by plugging leads into recorder and receiver. It made recording stuff easier, but it was still better to go out and buy the albums. They still weren't that expensive and it was still easier.

Now we have the internet and streaming media. But wait, capturing streaming media is a pain in the butt. If one is listening to Radio Paradise or some other station using Winamp, or Real Player or Windows Media Player, one can't click a button and tell the software to store that stream on your hard drive. No, you have to go get third party software, install it and then deal with the large file one ends up with . It is, in fact, a pain in the butt. I listen to streaming music, and I send my favorite online radio stations money as my way of supporting both the station and the artists the station streams. If I hear something really good, I either go out and buy the cd or I try to buy the specific track online. (I think that the online prices-per-track are way too high, but that is another rant...)

However, as of now my support for music is going to change. I will still send my listener supported radio stations donations in proportion to how much I listen to them. But...I will no longer purchase CDs or tracks from any sourse other than directly from the artist. Period! The major labels and the RIAA get not a cent of my money. I feel for the artists, I don't feel for the parasite bloodsuckers....

I am going to go back to the model I proposed a long time ago, and see if it isn't perhaps time to dust it off and begin to really work at implementing it. Also, I wonder just how much dark fiber optic cable is available in, say, Panama. One could run an Internet radio station from Panama, and the RIAA would, basically, be left with its figurative thumb up its figurative ass. Works for me!

“Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” Alphonse Karr

I couldn't resist the quote for the title of this post. I was using my updated version of Stumble Upon when I came upon HyperHistory which is, in itself, an interesting site. However, being possessed of natural curiosity, I clicked one of the links on the home page, and that link took me to...well, the following excerpt from MacroHistory:

A vociferous debate was taking place among Christians, with some Christians denouncing those who no longer believed in taking the scriptures literally. Among the denouncers was Billy Sunday - born William Ashley. He had been a farm boy from Iowa and a hard drinking, woman chasing outfielder for the Chicago White Stockings. He was the country boy awed and tempted by the big city called Babylon, and he continued to describe himself as brawling with the devil. "Hitting the sawdust trail" with his revival specialists and huge choir, he liked to preach the gospel wearing a good suit and expensive shoes. He preached with emotion and a rapidity of words, mixing wisecracking, slang and baseball terms, attacking rum, prostitutes, card playing and gambling. He railed against science, Galileo, Plato, Darwin, intellectuals in general and the modern world. He admitted that he knew nothing about theology, but he felt qualified to denounce Christians who no longer believed in heaven and hell. He was quick to proclaim his patriotism, and he announced that immigrants complaining about working conditions should "go back to the land where they were kenneled."

Reading that, I could close my eyes and see some of our current Fundamentalist Christian preachers lip syncing to Sunday's preaching. It is more than a little discouraging to see that memes circulating through our culture can be this persistent. Billy Sunday could walk into a meeting of the Left Behind crowd, and feel right at home because those people would still be mouthing the ignorance he preached over 100 years ago. One of the biggest mistakes progressive folk make is to think that ignorance is easy to erase. It isn't. Which is why the great explosion of progressive, liberal thought and action from the Sixties and early Seventies has actually produced far less change than one might have thought.

What a difference!

I forget exactly when I bought the Yamaha stereo receiver...it was either 1978 or 1979...but, when I bought it, it was a really top-of-the-line receiver. It has been my primary music system for all these intervening years, and I thought that it drove those JBL speakers pretty well. At least I did until about two weeks ago. I have to admit that over the past few years...OK, maybe more than a few...the sound quality has deteriorated a little...OK, a lot, and the left channel has gotten a little tempermental--you have to give the receiver a couple of whacks to get that channel actually putting out sound--recently.

About a month ago I saw a neat little gadget for sale on Woot: a transmitter that you can use to hook up your computer to your stereo...now you can stream that music anywhere in the house. I bought one, but now I needed to get the stereo actually working. So, I went out to buy a new receiver. I had been cruising the Best Buys and Circuit Cities of late, and had found a Sony unit that was selling for under $200. I figured Sony was a good name and that the price was right, At least I did until I talked to the sales guy. He looked at me with a certain amount of pity and condescension, then took me over to the other side of the audio show room. There he pointed out a high-end Denon and a comparable Sony system. Then he asked me one question, "Why, if the two units are roughly comparable in their specs, does the Denon cost about twice as much as the Sony? What can possibly cause that difference in price?" (OK, technically that's two questions...quibble, quibble, quibble.) Then he pumped some sound from the Sony through the speakers, and did the same for the Denon unit. WOW!! The difference was palpable even to my poor ears.

Then he took me to the front of the store and showed me a Denon unit that was on sale 'cause it was out of the box. It was about $100 more than the Sony, but he assured me that the sound was worth it. I am here to report that he was right. Those JBL's haven't sounded this good maybe forever. I find myself moving into the living room with the old laptop rather than work in my office. I sometimes stand in front of the speakers and wallow in the richness of the sound emanating from them. It is soooo cool. I can hardly stand it!

Sometimes life is good!

Things that are past...

There was once a Dead End Kids movie where, at the end of the movie, the good looking Dead End Kid was going to get out of Hell's Kitchen and go to where life was good: Somerville, New Jersey. I think it was Tommy who was going to go live on a farm, which featured an apple orchard, in Somerville. Needless to say, there is not an apple orchard in sight these days. However, it is not apple orchards that I want to talk about: it is old houses.

Recently, I began a walking program to maybe lose a little weight and to gain a little physical fitness. My walks have taken me around the west side of Somerville, and I have begun to really pay attention to the buildings I am walking past. (Mea culpa: I have lived in this town for over ten years, but I have never really given a great deal of thought to a lot of the older buildings on West End Ave., High St. and Cliff Street.) The majority of buildings on these streets are now commercial in that they house offices, but their beginnings were as private residences. And they are mostly Victorian.

In a way it is sad. I would much rather see these stately old buildings once again housing families, but I know this will not happen--economics militates that this does not happen. There are only about four blocks in the West End of Somerville where some older houses still serve their original function. A major factor in this lies in New Jersey's property tax structure. Here in Somerville, which is a county seat, our property taxes are almost 1/3 again as high as those in neighboring towns. And when you compare the property taxes here with those in Pennsylvania, well, let's just say there is a reason for all those Pennsy license plates on New Jersey roads these days. As I said in the beginning, it is sad to see the change...

Venezuela's Chavez tells Washington "go to hell" - Yahoo! News

If I were looking at this (Venezuela's Chavez tells Washington "go to hell" - Yahoo! News ) in a vacuum, with no concern about context, I would assume that Chavez is a total asshole. Well, it turns out that he is just that, but it is also true that a lot of what he complains about vis-a-vis George Bush is also true. S0, here we have a case of the pot calling the kettle black, and it turns out that they both suffer from overwhelming hubris. To tell you the truth, if I were a Latin American, I would resent how my country and those around me were treated by this administration. I also don't have a lot of problems with taxing the upper classes: they enjoy a much higher standard of living than the rest of their fellow citizens therefore they have a higher responsibility to share the wealth. That's just the way it is. Also I don't have a great deal of problems with Chavez raising the price of gasoline to something a little more in line with its true costs. What I do have problems with is legislation by decree and unlimited presidential re-election. Both of those are the tools of a dictator and not part of a free, democratic society. When push comes to shove, Chavez is not much more than a Banana Republic Dictator of the kind grown throughout Latin America for decades. The only difference between him and the thugs we have supported is that he spouts the Marxist line while our lapdogs paid some sort of lip service to capitalism. I cry for Venezuela and its citizens. Chavez has managed to pack the legislature with his Brown Shirts, so his "reforms" (especially the national police force--read NKVD or Gestapo) are almost a lead pipe cinch to pass. So Venezuela will have themselves a Castro to deal with for the foreseeable future...at least until some group gets the where-with-all to either kill him or stage a successful coup.