The Cynic

With apologies to those who are also my friends on Facebook.

Halloween 2009 - not for the faint of heart

I'm a bit behind posting things here - but I've been busy, and hospitalized. So... for those that don't know, I have a new dog. Her name's Zoe. She appears to be a pitbull and about a year old.


More Pictures Here

As a result of the puppy coming home, the cat freaked out and bit me on the right hand. Hard. It got infected. The shot and pills my regular doctor gave me wasn't enough - so on his advice I went to the ER. They loaded me up with an IV antibiotic and hospitalized me for about 30 hours, giving me another dose of the same IV the next day. I got released Monday night with a new prescription for extra strength antibiotics, and have been exhausted ever since. Two days in a row I'm in bed before 22:00 and still can't quite get rested. But the hand is getting better.

But enough of that... Puppy!

A quiet day at home. Not much to report. Did a little reading, a little shopping a little cleaning and some serious TV watching. I've been stuck in a book-series for about 3 weeks now - have seriously neglected turning my brain into soup. In a small way I made up for it today. Will try to be a bit more productive tomorrow.

Oh, come the fuck on!
House near vote to admonish Wilson over 'You lie'

Bitterly divided over an accusatory outburst — "You lie" — lawmakers neared a vote Tuesday on admonishing one of their own for his jarring interruption of President Barack Obama.

Are you fuckin serious? They "neared" a vote?! To "admonish"?!

As per Merriam-Webster:

* Main Entry: ad·mon·ish
* Pronunciation: \ad-ˈmä-nish\
* Function: transitive verb
* Etymology: Middle English admonesten, from Anglo-French amonester, from Vulgar Latin
admonestare, alteration of Latin admonēre to warn, from ad- + monēre to warn — more at mind


1 a: to indicate duties or obligations to b : to express warning or disapproval to especially in a gentle, earnest, or solicitous manner
2: to give friendly earnest advice or encouragement to


I don't care where you stand on the issue of health care. I don't care how you feel about Obama, Wilson, Democrats, Republicans, lions, tigers or god damned bears! We - well... the 65% of us that actually pay taxes - just paid give or take 435 people to debate for a week whether or not to take a vote to slap someone on the wrist.

By the way - not counting increased salaries for Speaker and Majority and Minority leaders, that's $174,000 per year per representative. If you do the math, you'll see that a week worth of time for a full house would be $1,455,576. Assuming they didn't devote more than one hour per day to this discussion (which I personally believe is severe underestimation) we paid them $181,947 to not reach a decision to vote to slap someone on the wrist.

Eight years and approximately 16 minutes ago (I've been trying to post this for almost an hour), I was on the roof of the AT&T building, with a somewhat distant but fairly clear view of Manhattan, watching the first of the two towers collapse. We were sent home before the second one followed suit. While comparing to thousands, if not millions, my experience with 9/11 was brief and impersonal - as I was reminded last night, some things you just can't unsee.

Transcript of President Obama's address to the joint session of Congress 09/09/2009

OBAMA: "A bill for comprehensive health reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943. Sixty-five years later, his son continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session."

There is a huge difference between dedication, inability to admit defeat and failure to learn from one's mistakes. The first is admirable. The second is laughable. The third is dangerous. Regardless of how one may feel about health care and reform there of, sixty five years of beating one's head against the same wall without so much as trying to put on a helmet should not be seen as a great deed and should not be revered by our leaders.

I looked it up, by the way. I haven't been able to find the exact text of the bill - because I have a job that doesn't deal with politics and a few hobbies besides working my blood-pressure up by listening those whose job does. However, the common consensus between those who critique it and those who applaud it, is that it is quite literally the same bill being presented every single time.

"We have learned some things from comparable experiences of the 1930s' Great Depression, perhaps enough to reduce the severity of the current contraction. But we have made no progress toward putting limits on political leaders, who act out ...their natural proclivities without any basic understanding of what makes capitalism work." - James Buchanan.

I'm told that my memory of the reading lessons is a bit distorted. That what I recall was already at the point when I could, somewhat, read - and it was essentially one of the "follow-up" sessions I was describing. One I was, apparently, particularly not in the mood for and therefore felt strongly about. The rest I stand by, and have heard no case against.

The last post made me want to tell the story of the Dragon books by Gordon Dickson, and their importance to me.

I was an avid reader as a child. One of my first memories is of Dad teaching me to read when I was barely old enough to speak. This being back in Russia and some small number of years ago - before this 'edutainment' shit started producing illiterate college grads, he did it the hard way. Sure, I had reading blocks and little spelling games as a baby, but when it came time - well... I remember it being hell. He sat me down, got a book (I don't remember which one) and proceeded to teach me how to read. Basically, in that one sitting. We came back to the torture session for the next several days, of course, to reinforce the lessons learned, and of course I needed help and some guidance now and again for days/weeks following. After that - things are a bit of a blur. I read a lot, and didn't waste time with too many children's books - illustrated with large letters and such. I read some classic fairy-tails like Brothers Grimm and Christian Andersen. Of course I read Alice ind Wonderland and Wizard of Oz (followed by half dozen sequels written by Russian writers). But in the mix were things like Grecko-roman mythology, which had always fascinated me, Master and Margarita, 12 chairs, Three Musketeers and Count of Monte Cristo (which I desperately need to re-read). This incomplete list, simply illustrating the kind of reading I was doing, brought me up to about the age of 6. This trend continued for another couple of years, but severely impaired by both the crap books I was expected to read in early grades of school - and other school work that got in my way of reading. Until finally, around the age of 9 - I pretty much stopped.

Can't readily say why. I just stopped. Then, of course, came the immigration which didn't leave much time for reading, nor were books in Russian readily available in Italy. Then we came here and combined with having to learn a new language, the culture shock, and need to learn how to live in a whole new way - left little room, desire and ability to read. Higher grades of high school brought with them classical literature, made interesting by a great teacher, Mr. Johnson, who threw in a few really interesting works in addition to standard high school reading stuff, but I read as little as I had to to get through the class. With exception of Brave New World, Faust and several Stephen King books I didn't enjoy the process.

Once in college, or more importantly, once I began hanging out at The Edge, I realized that there were a great many books that I had not read - and that my friends had. So I slowly began catching up. I read The Guide, of course, Stranger in a Strange Land, Picture of Dorian Gray, some philosophy books etc, but short of The Guide, I still wasn't enjoying reading. I felt these books had to be read, so I did.

Then came the dot com boom. I was flying all over the country interviewing and spending much of my time in airports, planes and hotels. After a few of these trips, I started wishing I had a book along, so I stopped in one of those bookstores at the Airport and grabbed something that looked like it may hold my attention. It turned out to be a book called "Dragon in Lyonesse". I grabbed it because I recalled Lyonesse being part of Arthurian legends, which I read as a kid, and thought it would be at least interesting. Several thousand feet in the sky, a few hundred miles away from Memphis and about 80 pages into the book, I could not shake the feeling that the author of the book expected me to know something of the characters, the world and to some extent the events of the recent past (relative to the present of the book). A closer examination revealed that this was book 8 of the series - and at the time the latest. Interesting side-note, it's been my curse ever since then to randomly come into possession of a book half way through the series, discovering it too late and having to hunt down all preceding books. But I digress.

Having come back from the trip, I explained the situation to Alice (my girlfriend at the time), expressed a bit of curiosity catching up on the story, but felt no urgency in the matter. Alice saw an opportunity and got me the first 4 books for what I believe was St. Valentine's Day - which was only a few weeks after the trip. This, of course, forced my hand and now the books had to be read.

It was slow going at first. I had been quite out of practice of reading for long periods of time, my vocabulary was pathetically small, and my reading in general was slow. Not to mention, my lifestyle at the time, did not allow for much free time. However, these books hooked me. I slowly but steadily worked through the whole series. Shameful as it may be, it probably took me more than a year to finish the 8 books. But that began the process. After I was through with the series, I kept wanting to read. I picked up other fantasy, fiction, classical works anything that sounded interesting or was conveyed to me as a "must read". And so it has continued since. I go through brief phases when I do little reading - but they usually last no more than a few weeks, and even at that, the reading is minimal, but not nonexistent. A lot of what I read is what many people call trash. It's pointless fiction that does nothing but tells a good story. But there are times when I throw in something of substance - though I still prefer fiction, even at that. I call it Didactic Fiction.

So to bring this overlong post to a conclusion of some kind, I credit Gordon Dickson and in particular his Dragon Knight series, with reigniting my passion for reading. The books themselves are both really interesting, and fairly simple. I've read much better works since then, and even now as I'm rereading all of the Dragon Series (at a considerably increased pace that the first reading proved to be. I'm probably going to finish book five tonight, which will put me on an average of 4 days per book) I find myself periodically sighing at the cheesier moments - but I'm still enjoying the books on their own merit, and not purely from the nostalgic point of view. As I draw this to a conclusion, I was going to mention the recent death of Gordon Dickson - when I suddenly recalled that I think I may have made a very similar post around the time of his death. In a moment, I'm going to have to go look that up. It'll be interesting to compare the two.

Lets see now. Friday I had a somewhat failed attempt at going to the gym. It's been two weeks and my arm muscles just refused to work. It was highly annoying - but I realized just about half way through my normal routine that I was no longer doing anything productive. So I cut it short. Then onto the political rally, which lasted till a little after 1. Pretty good time - though a bit rough standing in place for three hours. With Dragon Con going on, there was little else happening after that, so I went home and read until about four in the morning. As I mentioned in the previous post, with the weather being as nice as it is, I'm pretty much a semi-permanent fixture on my patio these days.

Saturday... what the Hell happened Saturday? Oh... right. I woke up reasonably early to find myself completely out of coffee. And I was supposed to help Thy get her oil changed. So I met her at Dunkin Donunts for proper morning caffeination. And then off to Firestone we went - only to find out that they would have to keep the car overnight. So we abandoned that plan and spent the rest of the afternoon hanging out at a restaurant, periodically munching and consuming large quantities of bad coffee. That night Crystal had her cookout planed, so parting ways with Thy, I grabbed a few supplies and with a quick stopover to shower, headed out that-a-way. The party as usual. Sitting around, bullshitting, poking fun at each other. Took off at around 2 and having been stood-up for the after-party company, proceeded to camp out on the patio reading. (this is going to keep coming up a lot, get used to it)

Sunday was spent in near-complete sloth. Short of a quick lunch with Thy, I didn't really get off my ass - which, as you may have guessed, was planted in a chair on the patio.

Monday went much the same - sans Thy's company and with addition of washing literally every piece of clothing I own, cleaning out the litter-box, refilling the turtle-tank and sweeping the kitchen. But pretty much any time I wasn't working, I was outside, enjoying cool weather, hot coffee and a good book.

Speaking of books, I recently ran out of reading materials and being too lazy to go hunting for one just that particular moment, I picked up my old favorite Dragon series by Gordon Dickson. At that time, I really wasn't expecting to be doing as much reading as I had been, nor had I expected to get back into the books. You know... best laid plans and all. I find myself just burning through these. Last night's end found me three quarters of the way through book five.

I made it to the gym. One hour on the treadmill, which is the minimum I always do. It went by particularly fast yesterday, since I found a commercial-free showing of Casablanca. Nice. Usually I push myself extra hard for an additional 10 to 20 minutes, but opted against it last night. Good thing I did, it turns out, for while at it, everything was as fine as could be expected. Within about 10 minutes of stopping, however, my lungs filed a formal complaint with the management and threatened to go on strike. Round two tonight. Friday - weights get brought back into the mix.

Memphis has been heaving an unseasonably temperate weather as of late. This combined with a screened-in patio of my house compels me to spend much of my free time parked in the comfy chair on said patio, with a cup of coffee and a book. Actually three in the last 10 days. Which, I admit, is a rather high consumption by my standards. Granted, I'm not exactly reading literary masterpieces here, but still. Last night was particularly nice, and having come home from the gym, I cleaned up and parked myself outside for a bit of pre-slumber reading. I then, much to my own surprise, found myself face to face with the back cover of the book. Which is when a thought crossed my mind, suggesting that quite a bit of time must have passed since I sat down to read, since I had well over 200 pages left when I began. Checking the phone - which was at my side the whole time, confirmed my suspicion and revealed that it was in fact 2:20. Leaving me with no more than three and a half hours of sleep. Surprisingly, I'm fairly ok so far today, though I've procured a red-bull at lunch just in case.

Turns out I know the woman with the four kids who was beaten, tied up, and left for dead (actually in a coma) in Bartlett. Not very well, but I met her on at least two occasions, and have several mutual friends/acquaintances with her. Odd feeling. I don't know her well enough to truly care, but the proximity (both geographical and social) is a little unsettling.

Helped a friend of mine pick her kid up from the hospital last night. She wanted to show me some of the things she's done to her new house, and we wondered over to the back yard. There, she showed me a dog that her neighbors found just the other day. A puppy. Looks to be largely Pit. Starved to near-death, has some open sores on the hind legs. Sweet animal, though. Not overly emotional, but not skittish either. So at a brief glance I'm guessing neglected more than abused. Crystal, of course, is actively trying to get me to take this animal. I am, for the time being, resisting.

More as a "note to self", a rather informative research paper concerting city/county consolidations. Has a general pro-consolidation feel, but is full of information regardless.

http://www.alleghenyconference.org/PEL/PDFs/CityCountyConsolidationsComparativeAnalysis.pdf

Due to recent budget cuts, the rising cost of electricity, gas and oil, current market conditions, national deficit and national debt, the Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off.

I'm torn. I've never used this journal as a journal. It's been a way to communicate with others. I may have, at times, shared some pretty personal thoughts and feelings - but never forgetting that I was as on stage and in view of others. Through the years that I've kept this journal, I've had but a handful of friends-only entries, and probably no more private ones than there are fingers on my hand. Yet I find myself tempted to write, tempted to put some of my thoughts and feelings on paper - or on that which passes for paper in modern days - but not share it with those around me. And at the same time two things occur to me. One, the overwhelming pointlessness of such an act, for I find myself unlikely to continue it for very long. Several previous attempts at actually keeping a journal have failed, though it's been some time since my last attempt. Second is the question of using LJ as the medium for such a purpose. If it's to remain private, I can simply store it on my computer. Something about that, however, seems even less appealing than writing private posts on LJ. Exactly what it is I can not say. There is also, of course, the distinct possibility that all of this is simply a result of my virus-stricken body and my consequent, week long absence from "the temple", as the gym has come to being called, resulting in what may just be a mood swing. I have noticed that during the last day I have been both more emotional and more sensitive than I normally am, and far more so than I allow myself to be when of able body and of sound mind.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jul/01/mollie-sugden-comedy-actor

The comedy actor Mollie Sugden died today at the age of 86 after a long illness.

Yorkshire-born Sugden was best known for playing Mrs Slocombe in long-running BBC sitcom Are You Being Served?, a role later reprised for Grace and Favour.

Ed, Farrah and Mike? You gotta be shitting me?! Who forgot to pay the life-support bill? Hmmm?!

That's a Mossberg 500 Persuader. Picked it up earlier today. Field-stripped it. Took about 3 damn hours to figure out how to put it back together. The instruction manual left out a very, VERY important step. But I got it back into working order. Now I just have to wait till next Saturday to go shoot the damn thing.

That's two down, at minimum one more to go. I want a .357, damn it! After that... it's all gravy.