Miscellany Slouching to 95 !

No blog because unable to get brain in gear. When brain has to fight pain I can’t always be sure who is going to win. Past week goes to pain. Me and doctors trying to find the cause. In this time of reprieve. Let me sound off.

Start with sorrow. The end of the print addition of the Encyclopedia Britannica makes me sad. At my desk there is a bookcase within arms reach. In all its Gold and Brown glory lives the 30 volume Britannica. It’s my intellectual pussy blanket. It has always given me a felt sense of security regarding all the things I don’t know. Or things I thought I knew but needed a backup to say, “THIS IS A FACT” How do you know? “Because the Bible, no the Britannica told me so.

Oh yes you will now have the “one click” and there’s that same fact on your computer screen. You now what you will miss? Browsing through the before and after pages learning about stuff you never thought of. And the feel and smell of those rustling pages as they have done since the year 450 when the monks in the “Scriptoria” were handwriting books. Yea yea, I know we must press on. Why? I’m not sure? Next item.

The War on Woman seems to have grown right out of, “Woman Are Now a Majority in the Workforce.” Yupp he big man are increasingly suffering from a sense of loss. That sense has to do with their domination of the workplace since the invention of work. Back in the 1930s I remember the adds in Popular Mechanics of poor little skinny guy on the beach. He was losing his girl friend to he big muscle man. Exercise bar could change all that.

Yet, the men in power are once again trying to take charge of woman's bodies. In Virginia they Legislate that women wanting an abortion have to have a metal wand stuck in her vagina to see the heartbeat. Woman across the country raise hell. Republicans shiver. Governor McDonelle backs away. Substitute outside belly ultrasound. Don’t matter that women says I don’t want to do that.”

Same folks who want the government off our backs want the government inside woman's vagina's. Home run for hypocrisy. Governor of Penn. where they pass similar laws. Says, “If we’re doing an ultrasound the women can close her eyes and not look.” Can’t make this stuff up.

I admit, I never in my lifetime thought my “breadwinner” role would decline so rapidly. How come? The outsourcing of manufacture from the USA and the emergence of the electronic age speeded up the change. The new cubicle workplace does not require big brawny men. Mostly it requires brains and discipline. No shortage of that amongst woman. Men are now becoming increasingly Peacocks to attract the girls. Latest big promotional advertising is “Dove For Men.” A whole line of soaps, perfumes, body washes etc. all for the grown up boys just like Estee Lauder for the girls. Wow how fast things change. Next item?

Sergeant Bates on a shooting rampage, not a “spree” in Afghanistan is another crime like the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. Soldiers living in totally unfamiliar cultures and not having a clue why they are there are known to snap. They are suffering from the absurd reality that the whole idea is insane. They are just acting out what many of us back home just thought. They had come face to face with the lunacy. Reminds me of Dr. Winkle in the Remarque novel “Black Obelisk.” Dr. Winkle told Remarque, “if you understood all the lunacy in a mental hospital you would be a patient there.” That should be the diagnosis of Sergeant Bates”s actions. He simply could not grasp why he was in Afghanistan except to kill, kill, kill. That sent him over the hill. He may end up spending his life in prison. How about the crazies like Charlie Wilson, George Bush Dick Cheney Obama who took us and keep us there? Next item.

The movie, on HBO ”Game Change” about McCain, Pailin fiasco. Yes, I don’t think Sarah Pailin is to swift nor the, “sharpest pencil in the box,” as they use to say in the Bronx in Bing Crosby time. I hate to admit this but by the end I was feeling sorry for Sarah. How so? Well the whole idea of Pailin being the VP candidate was cooked up by a bunch of smart ass guys who were about to make use of a woman for their very own purposes. To help elect their loser candidate to the Presidency. Yes, for sure I can fault Pailin for going along. My gut tells me that Mr. Schmidt and company were more responsible than Pailin. They cooked up the idea in the first place. They are suppose to be the leaders. How about their responsibility? We seem to be in an epidemic of leaders failure to accept responsibility for their actions. They just kick it on down the line to some junior in the command structure. In this case they blame it all on Pailin.

Heah! For now I am glad to be back. PS see my blog of 2/10/11 “On Abortion” I am very proud to say that Planned Parenthood asked my permission to use it. A very happy, “Yes” of course.”