Ah, it seems like I haven't posted in over a year and it's only been a couple of weeks I've been down with pneumonia. Well, healthwise, thaat is the least of my concerns but the past couple of weeks have been interesting and even a little inspiring.
So...I got sick, and for the first time in over a decade wasn't able to do the police blotter. I tried to walk to the police station in a thunderstorm and just couldn't make it, not even half way. This in over a decade. I was humbly surprised by the number of people who called the newspaper asking where the blotter. I really didn't know they valued it other than as a crime gossip sheet. Then again, the chief proponent of that attitude has been spewed by a certain councilman and newspaper editor. Let's not focus on crime. If we don't report it, it won't exist and people wealthier more law abiding people will come to buy homes.
Yep, and put them up for sale a year or so later. But yeah, it was nice to learn that people valued my work.
One guy came into the paper to get a copy and of course mentioned that the blotter wasn't in the week before. A co-worker said the girl who does it was sick. I popped my head up from my cubicle and said, "I was sick."
His response? "Don't ever get sick anymore." Kind of sweet. Then there's the lady who gave me a ride when I was making the long walk to the newspaper. she said I do a great deal for the community. What? I don't attend any of the meetings, especially those planning groups that work under the auspices of the Department of Strategic Planning. That pretty much explains the problems of the group and why it will accomplish anything other than busy work and stroke the egos of those involved and supposedly in the corrupt City Hall inner circle.
I've given up on block clubs. I made that decision months ago, when a block club wrote a list of questions for the police chief.
Among the questions: "Should we call the 311 non-emergency number if xyz is happening."
UGH! How many times in over a decade have politicians told them to call 911! The calls to 911 are documented, stats are kept, stats determine call volumes and call volumes determine how much police protection we get. More crime, more need for more police. Yet here these morons are asking the same question about whether to call the emergency or non-emergency number.
I'm not the first person to abandon block clubs in frustration over these thing.
HELLO?? How many times do the masses have to make asses of themselves by asking if they should call 311/non-emergency number? NON EMERGENCY! You're not going to get a decent response time.
Still, I checked out a local Facebook page. People also complained about crime. Usual complaints about how the neighborhood has gone downhill. Blah blah blah. Then there's the response.
"We need to stand together and do something! We need to go to meetings!"
The same meetings where the same people have been asking the same question and disregarding the answers for as long as I've been here. To paraphrase Lewis Black on his Airplanes routine on his 22 hour trip to New Zealand. The airlines try to distract you with food food liquor liquor food food, and a movie and another movie and there's still 14 hours to go!
I roared when he discussed seating. They say you should book first class. Well, he agrues, the seat is more comfortable, "but they're still squeezing the F*** out of your head.
"And if you're in coach...kill yourself."
Then there's Lewis Black's take on the air raid drills. LOL. What hoot he is and a brilliant one at that. The government would go into his grammar school (as they did mine) and show films of nuclear blast blowing the *&^%$()_E out of the school, BUT, as Lewis says, there were the children, hiding safely under their desks, playing guitar and writing poetry. My government, he says, told me that "I could protect myself from a fire *&^%$% ball by hiding...under wood. I'm hiding under kindling.
"Maybe I should get some sticks so I can burn faster!"
OT again. Did you miss my way way OT veers? LOL.
To get back on track sorta kinda--there's only one person the local Facebook page on it who is making any sense, a Russian immigrant. I don't know his exact age but suffice to say he was attending the University of Yugoslavia when I was two years old, so I'm sure he's seen enough of the old Soviet Union inject some common sense and humor to the otherwise idiotic comments. I loved his "love to the Motherland" one and the thing about creamed corn.
"We Russians are a resourceful people. If we want creamed corn, we WILL find a way to get it." Naturally, people missed the point and started discussing whether they like or don't like creamed corn.
What? That's what your people aspire to? LOL. Love this guy.
But the creamed corn and nuke the dolphins comments had me in stitches and others thinking he was off his meds. Around the same time, I was talking to one of my favorite cop (gem of a guy!). I'll never forget his arrest of a man for marijuana possession. Nothing special about giving someone a violation for unlawful possession, but the funny part is that the car reeked of weed. Don searched it and could only find a single marijuana seed.
A single seed! As he explained recently, "the dollar begins with a penny." The weed smoking kid starts with a "penny" and moves on the bigger and greater things like crack and heroin, just like my Russian friend's quest for cream corn. Crazy couple of weeks and this whole thing had me in stitches. Maybe a little loopy from being sick, but I found truth in these comments about cream corn and dollars starting with pennies.
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Other updates--One of my long standing prayers, submitted to Aish.com and placed in the Kotel has been answered! My prayer request has at long last been answered and things are much better financially. As an aside to Aish, thank you for changing the response after the prayer is submitted. At one point it simply said, "Your prayer has been received."
My latest request brought this much more comforting response:
Dear Visitor,
Your prayer is now in Jerusalem.
Provided it is not found to contain objectionable material, it will shortly be placed
in the Wall.
May the Almighty answer your request.
Sincerely,
Rabbi Kalman Packouz
Thank you Aish.com for bringing that back. And a thank you to the Tehillim Hotline who continually send me letters saying that they are still reciting tehillim on my behalf (and requests I have made for others). Turn to Jerusalem, it makes a difference.
My Pursuit of Happiness/Property
It sounds shallow, but things are much better financially and I now have cable Internet (Time Warner), digital cable TV, and phone. The Internet has been easy to use. Click Explorer and here I am, able to communicate with just about anyone anywhere faster than before.
Digital TV. Sigh. I love all the extra channels but the DVR thing? Right now I am happy to just click channel up and down, volume up and down. I'll learn the rest later. I really do like the extra channels. RT (Russsia Today--America) is interesting, even if it is pro-Putin and funded by the Russian Federation.
I watched a meeting of the British House of Commons last night on C-span. Much more interesting and passsion than the US Congress coverage. The House of Commons questions to David Cameron brought on rather boisterous responses.
Oh boy, the Republican debates followed the British House of Commons on C-Span. I haven't followed the debates or much of anything about the 2012 elections. Frankly, I'm about ready to join Communist Party USA.
First impressions of the debates:
Bachman--tax attorney. Nope. My mother's "The Republicans are all for the rich." I don't see good things from having a tax attorney as president. All about money and little compassion for the working class. As I have written numerous times, she grew up during the Great Depression and would certainly relate to the Russian creamed corn comment I mentioned above. We were lower middle class. My parents owned a home, and actually lived to see the mortgage paid off and had a mortgage burning party. Not many of those parties happening now.
Nobody ever seems to pay off there mortgages, let alone celebrate it with a party!
So I have written Bachman off. On to Mitt Romney. Too slick and polished. Bad vibes about him. There's something off about him, a Republican Obama maybe? (Obviously I don't get into politics and rely on gut instincts.
Newt--child labor laws? Pass on him, too.
Rick Perry and Rick Santorum? Pass on Perry, Santorum sort of interesting and didn't seem to make a fool of himself. I think I'll watch him more closely.
But yeah, the Republicans of late have become a bit cruel lately and I can see where my mother would regard them as "rich" and at least offline and online they have come across as haughty and downright cruel to the poor. Not everyone wants to bleed the taxpayers and live on government handouts. They're not all leeches, but it seems every Republican (certainly Tea Party ones at that, come across as downright pit bullish and cruel.
Maybe if they stopped the love fest with the middle class and more on the "working class" I would feel differently. I'm working class. What did I do with more money? Treated friends to lunch, movies, and bought some modest property that has brought me happiness and convience--replacing a stolen Ipod, replacing a stolen digital camera, and getting cable TV, Internet and phone.
Small creamed corn type property, but think about it...originally Americans were given the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of property. Property replaced by happiness, since property seemed to be a source of happiness and drive. From creamed corn, to farms, to farming businesses, wealth, more stuff to enjoy and more satisfaction at getting what you aspire for, and of course, helping the less fortunate materially and through inspiration.
The sky is the limit!
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National Anthems. I believe my last posts were about the Occupy Buffalo movement and its clear ties to Russia and Communism. Long story short, I started watching videos of various national anthems. Hate for saying it, but the Soviet National Anthem is superior to just about any other, speaking musically. Sure, the Russian Federation's anthem has the grand instrumental as the Soviet One, but the lyrics are blah. Garden variety.
Now the Soviet anthem is incredible instrumentally and even lyrically, IF you take out the whole party of Lenin, path of Lenin, great Lenin. The whole united in brotherhood and working class theme sort of draws you in, though.
As an aside, I listened to the "Palestinian" national anthem, which is a really pathetic attempt it seems to mimic the grand Russian one. Pathetic, but if you listen to it, instrumentally it is much more Eastern European than Middle Eastern.
Apparently the Palestinian anthem is the same or quite similar instrumentally to the Russian one, again lacking the grandeur of the Soviet one (no, I am not a Communist). I am talking about music.
The problem with Communism from my perspective is that it has its roots in choas, chaos exploited by a charismatic leader who sifts through all of the disorganization under a common theme. From there, a clique develops. Those in the clique do well, the others? SOL. Forced to struggle for creamed corn and happy to get it.
United in brotherhood and work is great, but it gets to a point where the unity and collectivism becomes a composite. No individuality, creativity, and vitality. What a bland life that would be.
Maybe I do have Communist leanings...I like the unity to an extent, and the share the wealth, to a limit, if it means truly helping the needy and those striving for a better life, through their own efforts, but for all of the reasons above, it just doesn't work out the way people think Communist idealism should. Sounds good on paper, as they say.
You end up with a charismatic leader championing the rights of the people, who becomes a tyrant, creates an inner circle, who get burned if they step out of line and everyone else just struggles along, with not much to aspire to.
Long post, but it's been a while and I've had a lot on my mind and too much time on my hands for a couple of weeks.
To be continued...in a few minutes lol.
FYI: Spell check isn't working and I am typing fast and without much focus.
Monday, December 12, 2011
A Little Music--I'm Back! Pt. I
"Glad you're feeling better, and there's a bright side to being sick to realizing how people miss you
the palestinian anthem was composed by a Greek leftist so it's not too surprising that his influences would have leaned in that direction, it reminds me of the east german anthem"