Crashing Back Down to Earth

If your name is Sarah Palin or Harry Reed, today was not a good day. That's because the book "Game Changer" on the 2008 Presidential campaign came out today. In the book Reed is quoted as saying of Obama, "If you can get a lighter skinned black man who does not naturally speak in a Negro dialect, unless he wants to, you just might have a viable candidate". Michael Steel, the Black republican chairman is demanding that Harry Reid resign his leadership post. The Republicans would just love that, with health care hanging in the balance. There are times when I feel blacker than Obama. Personally, I'm not an Oreo' I'm the opposite. I'm that Nabisco cookie with the vanilla cookie part and the chocolate filling. Actually there are times I cringe at the label of African American, when I think of how our forebearers sold slaves of other tribal peoples to the Moslems, not to mention the genital mutilations of females. But really we're all African Americans. Because if you read a recent post, all the smart people evolved in Africa and did not emigrate to Europe to the Neanderthal Valley. Actually I'm an Abyssinian. If Lisa Simpson can be of the Hatachi Indian tribe, I can be an Abyssinian with a proud ancestral and cultural heritage. Randy Rhodes did not like the general National Enquirer tone of this book. Edward's estranged wife apparently threw a fit in a public place and began ripping her blouse and saying "This is what my husband did to me". There was lots of mud to go around. Hillary told the President that she could not consider being Secretary of State "Because of my husband Bill. You know what he is like and the time will come when there is an (adultery) incident." And Obama said of Byden "When is that idiot going to shut up?" in response to Joe Byden's remark about "Mark my words. Obama will be severely tested his first six months in office". Also Sarah Palin was raked over the coals. Mc Cain was all set to pick Joe Lieberman. But there were grave fears the Republican convention would not support him because he was too liberal. But Sarah had to be tutored from square one. She was ignorant about World Wars I and I and the Korean War and the Cold War. She also kept referring to her VP opponent as "O Byden". All of the facade and froth of her book was stripped away in brutal fashion. People who know say she'll never run for office again.

Now they want to bank the DNA of living wild animals in danger of becomming extinct, such as the Lion and the Elephant. They successfully "cloned" a rare cat species by first sucking the DNA out of the egg of an ordenary house cat, and them implanting the DNA of the exotic cat. The litter was germanated and born normally and the offspring are able to mate and reproduce. They want to attempt to clone animals that went extinct in the ice age twelve thousand years ago such as the woolly manouth. This whole line of experimentation was begun about twenty years ago. Then are close to reproducing the "genome" of the woolly mamouth, but what they need is a living cell to work with. That way little girls would have a real live pet to play with like in the song "I want a hippopotamus for Christmas". I think banking of DNA of living species is a good idea, given current rates of going extinct.

People may take heart from the news that this "virtual electronic border fence" idea isn't working. Boeing sold the government the high tech equipment but the Feds don't know how to properly implement it. However it is my feeling that the current problems they seem to be having are transitory, and that they will eventually work out the bugs and overcome the weather problems. What we need to fear is using electronic surveillance everywhere in society so that privacy becomes a thing of the past. Google has face recognition software where you have only to click on any face you may see in "street view" or elsewhere, and learn all about the person. I also believe a time is coming when a form of eugenics will come back in fashion. Insurance companies will use it to screen for such things as sexual proclivity, and people prone to psychological depression, or other diseases. Employers will have a field day when that day comes. I think these nude screen scanners will become comon place in airports because they will be sold as the most expediant way to get the job done. Also these brain scans where they can read what you Intend to do, will be used first by the CIA on terrorists, but then by law enforcement in the general population to know whether to cut a deal with the suspect or throw the book at him.

I didn't expect this to come in formatted.

Typed a few minutes ago.

Sometimes you make the easy decision and decide you’re just going to “kick the can down the road”. That’s what I think I’m going to do with the phone company. I am running out of options as to “finding that twenty dollar bill”. I’ll short change them the way I believe I was short changed by [name withheld]. I talked to [name withheld] today. I was coming in from afternoon coffee break and met [name withheld[ in the lobby and spoke to her. She says “You know I always count the money out for you people”. That was that. Since I had just run out of cigarettes I found it hard to borrow cigarettes and decided it wasn’t worth it, not to mention a little pointless to borrow and then pay back. So I went to the store and baught a pack of Strawberry Santa Fe’s. I asked about grape but they didn’t have that. I then listened to the Ron Reagan program. We had pepper steak for dinner with rice and carrots, and I had seconds on the first two. I then went out to the bakery for coffee, which was not as hot as yesterday. Eye Witness news was on when I returned.

Today’s session with Dr. Levy brought back a lot of bad memories with group therapy and Al Kaders back in ’69 and ’70. Dr. Levy was in the dining room at lunch greeting people. When he came to me he smiled and gave a thumbs up signal. But one shouldn’t always read too much into things. By the way we had hot dogs and potato chips and Will gave me his chips, too. I went out for what I thought might be my last cigarette and then headed to the room. Dr. Levy broached the subject of anticipation and excitement about each New Year. I made the remark, “Yeah – this year I felt good about the first few days, but after that money disappearance and also the family’s generally apathetic about any topic I would raise on the phone about my interests- - that kind of killed it for me”. Right now my “excitement” over the new year has crashed to zero on the NYSE. Dr. Levy mentioned that in our hopes and such for the year we should pretend that money doesn’t matter, because a lot of the people in the class were buzzing about “Yeah if I only had money I’d be excited”. There’s one thing I don’t like and that’s a group leader who strives to deny the obvious. Instead we were treated to a litany of stories about volunteer work. He said maybe I could do office work. You know- - sharpening pencils, running the Xerox and getting the boss coffee. I was thinking “At least he didn’t suggest cleaning out toilets”. There was a guy Mike there from Founders. I found in him a vessel for articulating things I had been only thinking but hadn’t put into words yet. When Dr. Levy said we could go to a senior center for dating women, Mike said, “Well they are going to know where you came from at some point”. In response to the line about offering to go Dutch treat Mike said “Well – some of us can’t even afford that. No woman will want to date you if you don’t have money”. He also said “I don’t need a woman to make me feel complete”. He also said “You know they call it SSI because it’s money you get because the State regards you as unemployable”. Amen. Dr. Levy mentioned at one point they have some “make work” work experience opportunities at founders where you can work for three dollars an hour. So after working for three hours you can go out to Carl’s and buy a hamburger, fries, and a Coke, and blow most of the money you just earned. Whopee! Back in the late summer and fall of 1980 when I was checking out jobs at CETA the usual going price for a new person was five dollars an hour. So working at founders would be a 40% cut in that, or a wage that would have been illegal even by standards of thirty years ago. I don’t even know if an illegal alien would settle for work like that. Dr. Levy carried on about work for work’s sake and because it gives you self esteem. There was talk about classes in water color painting. I’m not really sure that is my artistic medium. Oils would be too dangerous. I had been told [name withheld] would not be in at all this week, and when I heard she was in her office I excused myself and went down there, fearing that if I waited I’d feel stupid if she had already left. But she was with another client. As to the three things lately I’ve sent to Dr. Levy I’m proud of all three of them. For all of Dr. Levy’s ravings about my intelligent insight to family members, he was surprisingly lacking in praise for any of these three submissions. People like Arlene deserve a real break. They need someone to help market their wares. If you put Arlene’s paintings all over the internet for free, who is going to pay money for them? As Dylan said “The guy who ran the club said he loved my sound- - - a dollar a day’s worth”. I’m reminded of that thing on TV about these “fruit pie” things that are advertised as healthful, but when you look at the ingredients, actually fruit is in fifth or sixth place, preceded by such items as sugar and corn starch. There were complaints about how the cooking class is not really “hands on” and the time could be spend just as well watching Martha Stewart on television. Dr. Levy said “When you get that twenty what are you going to do with it, smoke cigarettes?” I felt insulted by that remark. That was my Mom talking. I left the class feeling rather wrung out. I went and watched the rest of Days of our Lives, and Maggie crying on Melanie’s shoulder.