28. December 2007 by Ken.

This one shows why I (a life-long Democratic voter, with a VERY few exceptions) am becoming disheartened by the Dems. No, I won’t become a Republican, either! I have some strong libertarian (small “l”) views, and might even consider becoming a real Libertarian (capital “L”) at some point in the future. I know that there are some who say you can’t make that switch, but I would beg to differ.

I would recommend you take the quiz here and see where you stand. I scored 100% on personal, 90% on economic, placing me almost at the apex of Libertarian.

I found a similar quiz on the internet which scores you against famous persons. I scored closer to  HH The Dalai Lama than anyone else. It’s here, and if you’re interested in scoring yourself against me, I’m Economic Left/Right: -3.62 and Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.87. You’ll have to take the test to see what that means

Thanks and a “tip o’ the hat” to my friend Ali for sending me this one

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26. December 2007 by Ken.

I’m 55, so I was young (in my 20s if you can imagine that!) when The Eagles had their first hits in the 70s. They were good then, and you might think that as they aged, they lost some of their edge. Not so! I received their new two CD album for Christmas and it has delighted me six or eight times already. There isn’t a song on it that I would put in the “bad” category, although I do prefer some more than others. Interestingly enough, some of the ones which have the best music don’t have the best lyrics and vice versa. If you like slow ballads, you’ll find them here. If you like hard rockers, you’ll find them here. If you like thoughtful lyrics, you’ll find them here.

You might also think that they had lost the parallel track between performance ability and song-writing ability with one being worse than the other now. Again, not so! Most are written by Frey and Henley, but Schmit and Walsh put in their songs, as well as a few others. The styles are almost a dead giveaway as to who wrote them if you’re a long-time follower of their music. Try guessing when you listen, then go to the liner notes and see how close you are. As for their voices, they are as good now as ever. Some songs remind me of the original Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young harmonies, they are so close and so perfect. Each voice complements the other.

Some of the lyrics I really like are in “Frail Grasp on the Big Picture.” It’s overtly political in places, with my favorite lines being:

• And we pray to our Lord, who we know is American
• He reigns from on high; He speaks to us through middlemen
• And He shepherds His flock
• We sing out and we praise His name
• He supports us in war; He presides over football games
• And the right will prevail; all our troubles will be resolved
• We hold faith above all, unless there’s money or sex involved.

I’m not sure about your spiritual beliefs, but the somewhat accurate picture painted of many people’s view of God in those lines reveals a God too petty for me. Mine is bigger than being an American!

If at any time in the past you liked at least one of the songs by The Eagles, then by all means buy this one and you will be pleased. I’m sorry to say that the last line of that song quoted above, about money being involved, wasn’t heeded by them in that they have an exclusive marketing deal with that evil empire of quasi-capitalism and rampant consumerism run amok, the giant Mart beginning with W. Aside from that, I’ll still recommend you get it.

I signed up for their email list here and hope they come somewhere close to me soon, so I can part with some cash and see them live for the first time. Anyone want to go with me?

***** of *****

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24. December 2007 by Ken.

Steve Berry has become one of my “buy it when it comes out in paperback” authors. This book (ISBN 978-0-345-48576-2, 494 pages including the author’s notes and interview, $9.99–or $7.44 at your favorite international Mart starting with “W”) is one of the so-called DaVinci Code knockoffs. I use that appelation in a nice way, since I enjoyed reading it. I’m sure you have often heard the phrase, “You can’t tell the players without a scorecard.” Well, even if you kept a scorecard on the players in this novel, you would have a mess by the time the book ends. Those whom you think are the “good guys” are erased from that column, moved to the “bad guys” column, then back again so many times you have put holes in the list from constant movement from one to the other. This is a present-day novel based on events occurring millennia ago. It’s political, religious, philosophical, fast-paced, and so many other adjectives I can’t begin to list them all.

The recipe for this book might be as follows:

1. One retired US agent, now a bookseller in Denmark
2. His divorced wife and son (or is he?)
3. An international cabal of businessmen caring for nothing except profits
4. A clueless president of the US who is unknowingly a tool of his Attorney General, Vice President, and National Security Advisor
5. A secret group protecting what was thought lost ages ago
6. Lots of chases and guns
7. Israelis and Saudis teaming up for (or against?) the US interests
8. Etc., etc., etc.

I’m sure some of you will say after reading that this is a shallow novel, with no “redeeming social value” akin to cotton candy–all fluff and no substance, but I beg to differ with you on that. It exposes the reader to a lot of history (some real, some imagined–the astute reader will know which is which) and gives one of the great “what if” cases from my question to others: what if time travel were a reality and you could go into the past and change one, and only one, thing? For decades I have posited that humanity would be much better off if the person(s) who torched the Library at Alexandria could have been stopped. It’s an ongoing debate as to when this happened, and perhaps it really did occur multiple times.

If you want a quasi-mindless entertaining book to while away the winter, you could do a lot worse than this one, or others by this author.

**** of *****

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18. December 2007 by Ken.

“Horizons” by Mary Rosenblum (ISBN 978-0-7653-5515-7, $6.99, 324 pages) is the first book from this author I’ve seen, and no others by her are mentioned in or on the book. I will admit I sometimes *do* judge a book by its cover, and this one has a nice write-up on the back which intrigued me. I won’t say it’s the best sci-fi book I’ve ever read (probably something written by Asimov or Heinlein if you really press me), but it’s fairly good and kept my interest.

Civilization on Earth has advanced to the point where there are several orbiting “cities”, asteroid miners (rock jocks), and a quasi-UN organization which is made up of some small nations and some large federations, like the European Union and the North American Alliance. A faction of ecologists called Gaiists are wanting to twart independence efforts by these Platforms from the Earth, humanity has started to evolve into another species in the micro-G environment, nano-tech augementation allows empaths who can read emotions but not thoughts, and several other interesting twists provide plenty of backdrop for what appears to be both inter-family and intra-family feuding but on second glance things aren’t quite what they appear to be.

I won’t give away any of the plot but I will say two things: the butler didn’t do it, and the good guys (sans white hats) do win in the end.

This one will never sit on the classics shelf next to “The Time Machine” by H. G. Wells, but it’s a good way to occupy a cold winter’s evening or three.

*** of *****

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16. December 2007 by Ken.

Here’s a picture I took a few minutes ago out my back door onto the deck. It’s about 23F (-5C) outside right now. Notice the table with about 8-9″ (200-225 mm) of some strange unknown substance which appears to be falling from the sky? Anyone with a clue as to what this might be? I’m totally stumped on this one

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16. December 2007 by Ken.

A friend forwarded an email containing a long list of trivia, including this one:

If a statue in the park of a person on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle. If the horse has one front leg in the air the person died as a result of wounds received in battle. If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.

I knew there was some sort of rule for this, but never found it written down anywhere. I was born in Monroe, Michigan, and recently went back there to meet with my mom, sisters, a couple of aunts, a niece, and a cousin for a weekend. While there, we went past the statue of General Custer (who grew up there) and I mentally noted that all four of his horse’s feet were on the ground. See the pictures here. According to rule of this item, he died of natural causes. Well, I guess if you’re a white man deep in Indian territory and both sides are shooting at each other, it seems very “natural” that you would die of bullets, arrows, or spears, huh?

Monroe is pretty proud of the dead General, and I’ve been told some restaurants serve “Custered” pie and one ice cream stand (I was last there while it was almost snowing, so no ice cream for me!) have frozen “Custerd”. My dad once told me that he actually grew up in a house near where Custer lived as a boy. Of course, that house was probably gone then, but I’m sure there must be a bronze plaque noting the location. I have no affinity for someone so dumb as to defy the odds and believe that the “superior” white men always win–they don’t…. My personal observation on immigration reform is that if the Native Americans had an effective border patrol several centuries ago, they would have been much better off and we would still be somewhere else, probably Europe!

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15. December 2007 by Ken.

I purchased my domain a few weeks ago and I’ve been slowly building a website and exploring all the options. Blog? Why not? I’ve done it before, here and every once in a while, I really have something to say or get off my chest. So, I’ll try my luck here. Compliments and comments are always welcomed, and if you have to, complaints will be read also! I guess there will be an email link somewhere on the page, but I don’t know until I publish this post and check it out.

More later.

Alright, it’s later. I published and updated my profile, and see that the only way for you to find my email address is to go to the right, find “Ken’s Home Page”, go there, and find the email link. That will probably be best, as I want to try to minimize the places my address appears to cut down on the spam. I have had quite enough of the “My father in Nigeria died last year…” or “Are you satisfied with what you have now?” type emails. The person who solves that problem easily will win every conceivable Nobel Prize for several consecutive years

Of course, there is a “comment” link on here you can use also, and I’ll see it. I can’t test that because I can’t comment on myself. Do you want to be the first to try it and perhaps win valuable prizes?

OK, more later than later: a friend wrote and said she tried to comment and couldn’t. I poked around and found an option which allows comments only for those with previous comments. Huh? How can you do it with that rule if you haven’t done it before? It’s almost like applying for a job which requires experience and you have none and can’t get it because you don’t have it. Sometimes the world just doesn’t make sense.

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