DUE TO THE CURRENT FIRESTORM TRAGEDY HERE IN SANTA ROSA, WE
INTERUPT THIS RANT IN ORDER TO REFLECT
UPON IT’S MAGNETUDE.
I really didn’t mean to make a big deal of this initially
way back in 2006., but My wife , Joy was complaining about my endlessly
repeated stories as well as my complaining about virtually everything that I
started this blog. Now . eleven years and 100 rants later, I’m still
at it. Seems I never ran out of people and
things to rant about. I know you
find that hard to believe, but just remember the One Thing that really drove me crazy, which was
this:. When ever I went to a bar, the
first thing the bartender did was spin a napkin or coaster at me , then sat my
beer/wine/or cocktail on it. Observing others at the bar, I realized it was
de-riguer to keep your drink on the napkin at all times. Why? I am accustomed
to the sound of my glass on a substantial bartop. There is something satisfying
in the feel and sound that is therapeutic to me, and the Bar Tender is
depriving me of this. Oh, I do know that
this may be a code they use to let
everyone know you have been serviced and are only waiting longingly for your
libation to arrive to soothe your shattered nervous system.
WHATS A CURMUDGEON?
It’s time to define
what my license plate says; Dictionaries
define curmudgeon as a
churlish, irascible fellow; a cantankerous old codger. The origin of the word
is unknown, but it might come from an old Scottish word that meant “murmur” or
“mumble”. The archaic definition made it a synonym for miser, and the word has
had recent currency in a somewhat milder connotation, to describe a more
entirely unlikable grouch. A curmudgeon’s reputation for malevolence is
undeserved. We’re neither warped nor evil at heart. We don’t hate mankind, just
mankind’s excesses. We snarl at pretense and bite at hypocrisy out of a healthy
sense of outrage. We hurl thunderbolts at middle class values, sometimes even trying
to do so with a dry wit.
It is a fine thing to face machine guns for immortality and
a medal, but isn’t it a fine thing, too, to face calumny and loneliness for the
truth which makes men free? H.L. MENCKEN
AN ULTIMATE CURMUDGEON
(When questioned by Jack Paar) “What do you do for
exercise?” Oscar Levant answered “I stumble and then fall into a coma”.
MAO’S RED BOOK
He died in 1976, You can visit his supine
cadaver, well preserved , Like Lenin.
China seems to be coming out of a Communist era so I thought
it about time to see what that was all about and read the biography of Mao Tse
Tung, the guy responsible for most of it.
For all his
brilliance in shaping the destiny of China, Mao remained essentially provincial,
ill-equipped to understand the realities of the outside world except through
the books he read, mostly nineteenth1century authors. Cut off from the world by
America’s boycott as well as by his own isolation of China, He was not unlike
the ancient Chinese emperors who, convinced that China was the center of
civilization, he replaced the old regime with a newer, if not more benign,
one.
During this time
of strife and ‘The Long March’ I had
gotten the impression from our media that his nemesis, Chiang Kai- Shek was our choice, and not the brutal dictator he
may have been.
Most will agree that
Mao was a historically important figure who set in motion forces that not only
changed Chinese society but also affected the balance of world power. One unanswered question is : who was
responsible for killing more people? Mao or Stalin? Both chalked up more that
40 million deaths. Those communists
really do leave a bloody trail.
Mao was furious at
Krushchev’s charges had thrown into doubt the whole decades the credibility of
the communist line Mao felt contempt for Stalin’s henchmen.
The rise of
Krushchev to power in place of Stalin had a profound influence on the course of
word events. Russia could devote its
treasure and energy t to economic growth instead of sterile conflict.
An early gesture
of compatability would reappear 22 years
later as “Ping-Pong diplomacy”.
“Every man has food
to eat and clothes to wear” Mao said “Every man understands the rights &
duties of citizenship and has a fair chance of education and amusement.
Marriage customs are to be reformed, roads built, industry developed, a six
hour day established. No foreign aggression, there is only equality and love.
No one ‘ll get anywhere here if he ‘s after promotion, or out to make a
fortune. His ideals , except for the
last three above sentences, sound like our Capitalism.
SMART FIRELINE
We Americans spend billions a year to invent, produce and
deliver Death to thousands of people every year. I’m addressing only the portion of our
Military who hire our Industrial giants that is so successful in pinpointing a
particular corner in Iraq or any
unfortunate country that has lots of people who hate the other half. I’ve heard that most of this death from
the sky is controlled in Australia. Is that possible?
If that is possible,
then how about trying this out? Let’s have a program, funded by the Federal Government
( Let’s take 10 Billion a year from the Military budget) that will design and develop a system of delivering some kind
of water/fire retardant/ stopper directly to the fire line? Come to think of it, better not use any
government entity but hire a private
company like Tesla, who can hire real innovative thinkers, or maybe even some
Dutch designers.
Just imagine the
scenario! A Wild fire reported just
outside your city limits! Call the FEMA
folks who are standing by for a disaster to strike, They fly out their drones, from a
giant storage building in central United States to the nearest airport to the
fire. They set the drones up, activate their infra-red, heat source
identification systems, load them with
the magic material (Look, it cost billions of dollars to invent this,
right?) The controleers whip out their
Joy Sticks (does this sound dirty?) and go to work. I suppose some of these drones would be
destroyed as designed when used but
larger ones could drop and re-fill just
like manned choppers nowadays, except you might have a better retardant to use, and not just water or retardant. We got really good at dropping a linear
inferno of Hell upon the countryside in Vietnam, maybe we could utilize some of
those scenarios to stop a fire instead of starting them?
