In Pursuit of Yesterday's Glories

An apple a day keeps the doctor away

A scripture a day keeps the Republicans away

Behold at the judgement no act of human kindness will go unrewarded

Behold if the blood of lambs and goats were sufficient to atone for our sins, than the Messiah, the Annointed One, would have had no cause of action against those people when he came.

-Stu Sutcliffe

I tell you this today:  These Egyptians who you see all around you, vexing you today, from hence forth you will never behold be troubled by them again

And it came about that Leban no longer looked on Jacob with kindness.

Without first having respect, any potential Love is doomed.  And I don't respect Mitt Romney, no matter how many stories they tell  Actions trump words any day of the week.

Captain Piccard.  I'm sure this comes as no surprise to you but over the centuries I've managed to alienate quite a few cultures and people throughout the galaxy

-"Q" of TNG

You know, sometimes “sad days” aren’t what you think they are.  Do you want to know one of the most ominus days of 1992 was?  It was the day I’d found out I’d passed all my tests at ROP and gotten my DeBase IV certificate, which was my third there.  The depression didn’t hit all at once.  Since the last few days of February were warm and sunny I hung out with Kathy and Nicholas around the pool.  It wasn’t till that Sunday when I saw my family that depression was knocking at the door.  This day even though I had something to crow about, it’s as though I had lost, failed.  I felt as though I were being “glass ceilinged” by ROP.  Clearly the theme of this Republican Convention night was “Return to the Glories of Yessterday”, which to some degree appeals to a return of an America that never really War.  I checked sporadically before seven to see what the hell was going on in Tampa but nothing was.  At seven I turned to KNBC because I liked their commentators better.  First it was that “performance’ or exhibition or whatever it was with Clint Eastwood, who is obviously into his doteage, or just going Senile or something.  None of the people at NBC could make heads nor tails of it.  Then it was Marco Rubio’s turn and he spoke for fifteen minutes beginning at about 7:18.  His was the best speech of the whole convention and one only wonders why Rubio wasn’t picked as Vice President rather than Paul Ryan.  He stressed the values of hard work and family and the privilege of coming to America and escaping tyrannies and stagnation abroad.  It was an inspiring speech.  Then it was Mitt Romney’s turn.  His speech was accompanied with a lot of chants and cheering.  But if you  apply the Dr. Phil test, the speech fails miserably.  Dr. Phil says “The best predictor of future behavior is past behavior”.  Mitt Romney talked about taking risks and “everyone encounters failure”.  He didn’t.  He was betting with the house’s money one hundred percent of the time and never at any time was he in danger of any loss.  The stock holders of the companies he claimed to be helping took all of the risk, and suffered all of the loss when these same companies were deliberately crashed.  Mitt Romney lied when he said “Getting rich does not mean exploiting others so that they must lose”.  This just what Mitt Romney did.  Tom Brokov points out that the Moon landing was a government project with only later dividends in the private sector.  Mitt can talk about getting tough with China but he personally aided and abetted China.  In that touching Mexico story with his grandfather, he convieniently leaves out that his grandfather went down to Mexico in the first place to escape US polygamy laws.  And when he spoke so highly of his own father he failed to mention that his father was a progressive of sorts, who believed in inclusiveness in the Republican Party.  Mitt not only abandoned his father’s honest profession to strike out in a more shadowy realm, he also abandoned the values of his father.  I didn’t hear any of those stories from people saying Mitt Romney helped them.  But I do know this convention has as its theme a lie of “We built this” deliberately taking the Presidents words out of context and editing them with a little snip, snip, and playing it as though it were truth.  John Mc Cain thought it was scandalous the way Mitt Romney squandered the government’s money in the Utah Olympics.  And to answer his question- - - I am definitely happy that we have Barock Obama as President rather than George Bush.  What Mitt failed to mention is that he wants to put all the people that drove the economy off a cliff to begin with - - back into power.  Again words are one thing but actions are quite another.  And so the whole evening was an appeal to the past.  Perhaps Mitt was no more self relivitory than when he dismissed the idea that oceans rising or the planet being in danger was something to care about.  He virtually pledge to throw the rule book out the window and disregard all we have learned about ecology and global warming over the past twenty years.  He lied when he said that President Obama had hindered small businesses due to ever rising taxes.  He lied when he claims the Republicans were all hopeful and willing to work with the new President in January 2009.  You know what the truth is.  Mitt lied when he said that he alone really cared about the debt of college students or the medicare of retired people.  He lied again when he said that people’s IRA’s are LESS secure today than they were three and a half years ago.  He lied when he in essence says “He feels our pain”.  We know Mitt loves firing people and thanks to them a lot of families were utterly wiped out.  When he speaks of dealing with foreign leaders by “being a whole lot LESS flexable and showing more backbone” one must question just how far he would go to uncerscore his “lack of flexability”.  They all lie when they say this President has turned his back on Israel.  But the biggest lie of all is the one where he makes President Obama this omnipresent “boogy man” that is alone the source of all of our economic woes and discontent.  Other despots have come to power during trying economic times exploiting anxiety and resentment- - and harnessed that resentment into scape-goating innocent targets.   In short, Mitt Romney is one of the most dangerous demagogues we’ve ever known, and if we don’t stop him now at the ballot box, more extreme measures may become necessary.

This is Thursday August 30, 2012 and we are in “ocean”.  We have had a variety of “weather” in the basin this day.  KCET again did not have the convention – on any sub number.  But KCOE had it, but it wasn’t worth watching anyhow.  I’m tired of these flook minorities even Eye Witness was beguiled by.  “Oh we have minorities in our party here” but when you probe their lives you learn – as in the case of that guy from India in the movie – they are the farthest thing from typical.  Eye Witness disputes the 94 percent to zero Black support of Mitt Romney.  ABC has been notable for their moves to the right in just the past few weeks, and I don’t like it.  I made coffee this evening and gave Bill some.  Richard Moore relented and gave me a cigarette.  Tomorrow morning is not far off.  I had Dr. Oz on.  First they were talking about buying some things in bulk as bargains, but certain things such as frozen vegetables it does not pan out because all that reopening and closing produces freezer burn after a few times.  Shampoo and vitamins are good things to buy in bulk, but not tooth brushes.  Then they had two award winning dishes under the heading “From Take Out to Fake Out”.  I don’t know if you can confuse my metabolic system.  It’s likely to know when it’s been cheated.  But then they had a bunch of quicky stuff at the end.  I told you I bumped the digital clock up two minutes so I left in plenty of time for dinner and as it turns out dinner wasn’t served till a full fifteen minutes later than yesterday, when I was late.  We had spaghetti made with tube pasta.  There was meat in it.  There were green beans and a green salad with lemon pudding for desert.  Laura hit our side of the room first with seconds and I had seconds on everything.  The new guy made himself obnoxious by repeating about twenty times that he didn’t want spaghetti, he wants a sandwich.  Laura tried to explain how it works, for probably the tenth time or something.  This guy is a little dense.  We’ve been keeping the door open because the AC is rather inoperative.  By the way Paul Ryan made a fool out of himself if he thinks A to Z consists of AC DC to Led Zeppelin.  He obviously hasn’t the first idea of the filing system of rock groups- - not to mention he’s far too young for either of those groups.  Keep in mind he would have been eleven, if that, when Ronald Reagan assumed office.