Passing Thoughts

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profound reflections upon life, death, events and anything else that pops into my head.  

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                                 ‘Passing Thoughts’

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Harvey

  No, not Paul, he’s dead and his son just isn’t the same.  Paul was pretty conservative but kind of a part of childhood, and growing up, and even ageing.  Hell, he was always around.  Sort of like Walter Cronkite.  A comfort figure, you knew he’d always be there.

  But this is about Jimmy Stewart, another comfort figure you knew would always be there.  He was an iconic ‘good guy’ like John Wayne was the iconic  tough, straightforward American hero.  It was a good to know they were there.

  I feel sorry that future generations will grow up without those examples of what it  means to be a man; one the kindest, most gentle person you could ever hope to meet, the other fearless and a defender of the weak.  Images, sure, but isn’t that what we seek in our search for meaning and order in life? 

Someone  told me recently that they hope that I accept Jesus as my Savior and recognize his message.  Well, J.C. is still up in the air to me (no pun intended) but I’ll go with the message part.  I condense that to the most basic and important part: ‘Love thy neighbor’.  I’ll buy that, and I don’t need to believe in a flying god to accept it.

Jimmy and John aren’t gods and don’t pretend to be, but the messages they conveyed are real: be compassionate, be kind, be strong in your principles.  Not so  bad.

  Which finally takes us to Harvey, the movie.  Took a while to get there, huh?

  Well, really don’t have much to say about it except Angie & I watched it last night for first time in many years.  This DVD version had an intro by Jimmy, and was absolutely wonderful.  Sometimes we forget how good they could make movies without Rambo and a dozen machine guns.  Like I said, we feel bad that the sheer pleasure of watching a performance like this will be lost to most of our children.  And the message it quietly conveys.  It’s funny as hell yet teaches compassion and tolerance through example, not by by thumping a bible or ranting at a podium.  It’s a message we should all take heed of.

But then again, that’s our Jimmy, right, how could we expect less?

Related:  If you’re a sucker for patriotism (ok by me), click on John over there and there’s a site full of stuff.  You can even hear him do the Pledge of Allegiance.  Much as I loved him growing up, remember that he spent WWII in Hollywood while Jimmy was flying combat missions.  Kind a weird reversal of roles, huh?  

   .

A Letter to my Brother

I wanted to share this with my bro, liked it, so you get it too.  Not Pulitzer material but kinda fun, I think:

Just saw this on the Military Channel.

You’ll appreciate this classic military clusterfuck.  Panama invasion.  Mission: Don’t let Norieaga escape.  So they sent a team of Seals in to disable his plane (must have been before cruise missles) and they did it, lost a few seals though.

Next, take out his escape gunboat.  More Seals, magnetic mines.  Oops, aluminum boat.  Gee, and we probably gave it to him.  Military intelligence?  Uh huh.

So they tied explosives to the prop, just as the motors start up.  Oops again.  Run away!  Meanwhile, as they stealthily are sneaking around stealthily, the soldiers are dropping grenades on them.  Hmm, not so secret after all.

At the same time, the motor on their waiting escape Zodiac pukes out and has to be replaced.  Guess they should have used a Honda.

As our guys are slowly escaping, with their 25 foot max depth rebreathers, they almost get run over by a freighter (who would’ve thought, in the Panama Canal?), have to dive to 50 feet.  Did we say ‘oops’ before?

Oh, that was after they ran into an unexpected underwater fence that blocked their way.  Hey!  Where did that fence come from?  I’m going to run out of ‘o’s for ‘oops’ if this keeps up.

They surfaced under a dock in the middle of a gunfight.  Did I mention that the dock was an ammo dump?  Shit in a basket.  40 pounds of C-4 tied to a heavily armed gunbout over there, ammo dump up above.  Shit.  Guess that’s what hazerdous duty pay is for, right?

To make a short story long, they got away.  Democracy was restored to Panama, American business interests were protected, the world is still gratefull, and Central & South America  love us tp pieces.  Only cost a couple dozen American moms their sons and Clint Eastwood got to make a crummy movie.

But I love that, magnetic mines, aluminum boat.  Geez.

Please, I’m not minimizing the valiant efforts made by our troops, it’s just a reminder that things don’t always work like they do in a Hollywood movie.  Rarely, in fact.

I’m Sorry, somebody just wrote a comment…

…about the Obama thing, and it was good.  Unfortunately the computer did one of it’s things and everything got wiped out.  Please try again.  Sorry!

A Little Nostalgia

   A posting I just did on All Nudist brought this to mind.  Sixteen years old with my Montgomery Wards 50cc bike (it came in a box, $150.00!), roaming the northern Illinois back roads, lazy summer day, happy as a clam.  Ran across a 1928 Ford Model A sedan, totally covered with rust but solid, for sale.  $200, a pretty big buck for 1966, but sooo cool.  Interior entirely gone, springs poking out of the seats, but ran well.  For a kid that grew up on Cagney gangster movies, who lived in the town that Baby-Face Nelson was killed in, this was irresistible.

  I went way back home to get my Dad, so he could lend me the money to buy my first car, and what a car!  We got back there and, it was sold.  Probably the saddest day in my young life up until then, other than the belated realization that Becky Olson was never going to fall in love with me, no matter how many times I asked her to dance.

I still miss that car…

  Instead, my first car turned out to be a ‘39 Ford Deluxe Coupe (a favorite of moonshiners for it’s speed and huge trunk), modified in the ‘50’s with a 371 Olds V-8 with a six-pack, custom headers and straight pipes, ‘39 La Salle 3 speed, silver and black tuck and roll upholstery, a slide up bar behind the seat, and bunches of toggle switches under the dash.  A bonafide kick-ass, terribly fast (clocked at 150 at a local track), way too much car for a 16 year old.  If I’d ever had decent tires, bet I could’a pulled a wheelie.  Well, maybe not…  

  Somehow, I didn’t die.  Also, nobody ever beat me road-racing between Barrington and Fox River Grove on Hwy. 14.  Not even the guy with the fancy ‘Vette.  Hell, blew the windshield wipers totally off once.  The car was hot, sexy, fast and loud.  But it never got me laid.  Poo.

  This kind of stuff is why we don’t trust our kids…

That’s all, memory lane.

Guys, Your Turn

 After writing that silly posting for the ladies, I thought, what about the guys?  What’s their perfect ‘date’?  Don’t we deserve a silly posting?

Didn’t take much Googling to come up with her.  This company claims to be offering for sale, in June, a beautiful female robot.  Loving, affectionate, sexy, and can cook!  Are we on the same page here?

Now, I understand that there are some pretty nifty rubber ladies out there that fit that bill, but they can’t cook!

It’s kinda funny that women are turned on by guys in tank tops vaccuuming while guys, a bit more basic, are interested in boobs, sex, and a good meal afterwards.

C’mon ladies, ya gotta love us, huh?  Grunt, grunt…    (Told ya I’ve been awake ‘way too long!)

More Health Care Stuff

Those few of you who stop in here have heard me griping about the health care system, and how it sucks. 

Now you get a brief respite, actually some good news for Angie and me, anyway.  After 7 months of trying, we’ve been accepted into a state/local program for poor people.  It’s still hard for us to feel that we fit that category, but I guess it must be true.  Hours cut in half, Angie unable to work, deep in debt, yup.  Guess that qualifies.  We’re poor now.

So all of a sudden now we have totally free basic health care, some advanced care, and our meds are either free or dirt cheap.  We just bought nearly $800 worth of needed meds for $25.  Holy shit.  I had a CAT scan last week (couldn’t afford one before, though it was supposed to be done four times a year to monitor my cancer), found the cancer has grown and spread.  Possibly terminal, will need surgery to find out for sure.  We owe about $60K from past uninsured surgery, will never be able to pay it off but they say I should still be able to get this one done.

Angie is also in a ‘Well Woman’ program that takes care of paps and mammograms, stuff like that.  This is a miracle for us, and we’re very grateful.

Pharmaceutical companies have programs to provide cheap or free drugs.  Why don’t they tell everybody?

This whole thing is insane!  Washington screws around trying to figure out how to provide health care for those who need it, and the programs are already in place!  It’s just that nobody knows about them, and they’re too underfunded to advertise.  Wisconsin has Badger Care which covers a lot of people, and is due to expand this summer.

Something else.  I’ve been out of the military for 35 years and just found out that I’ve been eligible for VA medical benefits all that time.  Huh?  All the folks we’ve talked to, all the bills we’ve run up, and nobody thought to mention that?

It’s time to get all these programs under one roof, efficiently run, and get some serious health available for Americans.

Now for the super-good news.  My new Doc signed the paperwork for me to get disabled tags for our car.  No, I’m not going to take up parking places from those that need them more than I, BUT:  This means I can get access to Mazo Beach via auto instead of making the mile-each-way walk to the Beach which I can no longer do.  This is a major quality of life thing.  We can go to the beach again!  Yay!

So see?  I’m not always doom and gloom!

Talking about this stuff here is just part of my way of coping with it, hope you don’t mind.  This is, after all, my place to vent.  It’s kinda like talking to myself, working things out.  Complaining to an audience of one, ya know?

If it’s getting too personal, just don’t come back, ok?  No hard feelings.         

Slum Dog Millionaire

Just watched it, it’s great!  Highly recommended. 

One thing, I bet the India Department of  Tourism hates it.  Never had the urge to visit India but if I had, I wouldn’t now.  Perhaps it’s not fair, like watching a movie about the worst of New York slum life and applying it to the whole country.  In any event, it’s a wonderful movie, and leaves you feeling good.  Sorta.  That’s all.  G’nite.

New Color Scheme

Just playing around, whadda ya think?  Too zingy?

Sonia-Belle: Only in the Muslim World

This a little complicated, but hang in there.  Sonia-Belle’s posting is nothing more than a link to an article about an 8 year old girl sold to a a 50 year old man in Saudi Arabia.  It’s the comments she received that are scary.   Such anger.  Felt the need to add a comment of our own but for some reason couldn’t, and her e-mail didn’t work.  So here it is.

  The idea is for you to go to Sonia-Belle , read the post and comments, then come back here and read our comment.  Then you can comment to us (or her, if you can).   Got it?  Interactive Internet!  Our comment:

  “Interesting collection of comments here.  Especially enjoy the erudite expressions of ‘Anonymous’.  Very well spoken and direct.

  Thanks to him we now know that you are an ‘ugly, anti-Muslim cunt bitch.’  Wouldn’t have known, otherwise.

  He speaks well for the message of love that Islam embraces.

  As far as selling a child, we have to say that there were many times we would have done so, but that was when they were in their teens so that doesn’t really count, right?

  One of our nation’s problems in dealing with the Middle East is the huge difference in the way we look at things.  It’s not really our place to tell them how to live, but we don’t understand it.

  Their religion and lifestyle has evolved according to their history and has worked for them so far.  The 21st Century hasn’t quite sunk in yet, and still doesn’t exist for many.

  The Muslim religion is a ‘new’ religion, growing from the ashes of perhaps the greatest society in history before Rome, a society that devolved into virtual nothingness.   Islam gave direction to the survivors and, as happens with all religions, starts out well and then is used to justify anything that it’s adherents want it to be.

  Most Muslims are good people that want no more than any of us.  Some use the guise of ‘religion’ to justify terrible things.

  Remember:  Christianity and Islam have the same roots.  Christians used to stone adulteresses to death too.  But they’ve had two thousand years to grow up.  Muslims have had only a few hundred, and living in a harsh environment.

  This no excuse for the barbaric excesses we see, but ‘Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.’

  And ‘Anonymous’, why don’t you just go molest a child and leave us alone.  You are one sick, angry cookie.  YOU are part of the problem, not the cure.”

  Whadda think, too harsh?  Insensitive?   

Sonia-Belle