Two Hurricanes-Two "Deciders

Concern for Peoples' needs trumps Cronyism. To head FEMA, Bush II chose a promoter of horse shows. (Immediately, this ex-farm boy has an almost uncontrollable urge to change the last three letters in the previous sentence to two different ones.) As New Orleans was drowning, that director of FEMA was most concerned that he be dressed well for his TV appearances. "You're doing a heckuva job Brownie" was Bush' praise as more than 15,000 died.

The nation seemed much better prepared for the onslaught of Irene. John Donne said, Every man's death diminishes me" but the death of about 40 from Irene is much less troubling that more than 400 TIMES AS MANY from from Katrina.

In the wake of 9/11, the nation's cowboy in chief sounded as though he had a posse already saddled up to go out and bring in the successful schemer "Dead or Alive". Some seven years later, the horses were presumably still saddled up but nobody sent them. For a little over two years, Obama must have been listening more intelligently to his intelligence team; one night, he got his advisors together in a briefing room and told the Navy Seals task force, "Go into this villa right near the Pakistan military academy. I think the big Kahuna is there". He was. Let's re-elect Team Obama in 2012.

If America is smart

it will make John Boenher a one term speaker of the House.

Is it better to be an unsung hero

or an unsung shmoe? Opera is full of sung heroes, such as Puccini's Cavaradossi and Golijov 's Federico Lorca. Interestingly, Hemingway borrowed a paragraph from a British preacher, John Donne, who finished a statement with " Every man's death diminishes me, for I am involved with mankind.......Therefore, never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee." The hero of the movie, played by Gary Cooper, arrived among the Spanish gypsies to demolish a bridge and prevent Franco's troops from using it, having had a pleasant night after Ingrid Bergman crawled into the sleeping bag with him. He blows the bridge, but on the escape is thrown by an unfamiliar horse, breaking his leg and having to be left, so they put him in a good place with a rifle and lots of ammo, to hold the troops off as long as possible. Good, wrenching scene there. The poet and playwright, Lorca, should have had sense to stay in South America, as urged by his friend, actress-director Margarita Xirgu, but you know, it is rare to find a tenor with good sense, so he comes home to join the supporters of the king, of all people and is promptly executed by Franco's police. The name of that opera is Ainadamar (Fountain of Tears, commemorating a 19th century conflict). Of course, France has a share of conflicted heroes: There is Andrea Chenier, the poet, comforting the scared chick being trundled to the guillotine along with him, and Dickens" Sidney Carton "It is a better death than my life was", or words to that effect. But for us unheralded standup comedians, one tries to leave them laughing.

Is Knowledge Still Power?

Or is it Ignorance? This writer grew up in a confident era. The U.S.A. had just brought to bear the weight of G.M., Boeing and its formidable food production to humble Naziism and Imperial Japan. Your blogger started college, learned theories of Newton, Maxwell, and observed that coal miners from Pennsylvania could be teamed with a smattering of muscles from outstate Michigan to humble the misnamed "Fighting Irish". He saw the world is willing to burn up millenia worth of stored carbon to power inefficient vehicles that deliver humans to very remote vacations Gradually, he stopped thinking of every live birth as a gift from a beneficent God. He came to doubt that the power of prayer could cause his Creator to vacate the laws of physics and biology which he must have created. He observed Fox News promoting the ignorance of female demagogues from Alaska and Minnesota and the great Satan from Rio Linda California and feels bad about the vast store of ignorance he has not wiped out in his career as an educator. He did not even enjoy the company of Helen of Troy along the way. Oh well, Faust had it good, but that is legend, not biography.

SHOW US THE JOBS

that were produced by the Bush tac cuts. After you find one, look for another. To justify further enriching the really rich, there need to be a lot of them.

Call Me Cassandro

The narrator of Moby Dick begins the story with "Call me Ishmael" and carries on for about 1000 pages of typical New England fiction. Now, Cassandra was the Trojan prophetess who thought it would be a great idea to incinerate the Trojan Horse, which she dreamed presciently would emit bloodthirsty Greeks to slaughter the people. However, she did not convince the citizenry, who thought the Greeks had brought a nice "no hard feelings" gift.

The reason for the revised opinion of the Blog title is to express the instinctive Norwegian pessimism of the writer. He is a male, hence the masculine formulation. He grew up precisely halfway from the equator to the north pole. He had doubts about the prophecy of the ground hog regarding "only" six weeks more of winter; in a leap year, that would land one right on the Ides of March. Yours truly often wished the woodchuck and chucked a couple of weeks more of wood so as to emerge into somewhat balmyer temperatures.

To everything there is a season---

but professional sorts promoters have hopelessly confused just what any particular season was. In the writer's youth, if there were windfall peaches over near Peterson Park, we knew it was time for the world series. Good Heavens, in the 2010 season, memory seems to recall a game in December.
Of course, the question is also muddled by another question, to wit, "When does fruit taste good?".Canny merchandisers always try to make sure the fruit they are selling has the colors seen in the seed catalog. Such fruit simply may not taste very good. It may have attractive shades of red and yellow, but a blindfolded taste test could make it difficult to distinguish fruit from a white potato. Now, those windfall peaches or pears may have light bruises. THESE BRUISES ARE NOT POISONOUS, or yours truly would not be eying fourscore years,nor his brothers. fours score and seven or five, respectively. In their experience, one is forced to preach the benefits of flushing Los Angeles fumes from their lungs.
The season for fresh air is always; the season for ripe fruit is more often than might be expected.