Adaptive Curmudgeon

I once had a neighbour  neighbor…

Editorial rant follows for no particular reason:

Dammit…my spell check is hopelessly Anglophile.  It’s going to Defcon 4 because I’m overriding it’s little irrelevant electronic dictates.  Also it doesn’t like Defcon 4 because it’s woefully uninformed about 1980’s B grade movies. (What’s this?  “Movies” isn’t a word?  No way in hell am I calling Wargames “cinema”.  I need more coffee ASAP.)  Wait!  ASAP is a word and movies isn’t?  WTF?  (Another non word.)

Ok that’s it.  I’m ‘Merican, a victim of public schooling, and a blogger.  It should be happy I’m literate at all.  Spell check is a metaphor for the government.  It’s incredibly handy but it has a tendency to forget that I’m driving the boat and it’s just a silly little utility to help things along.  I’m turning the damn thing off.

My neighbor (retired) used to grow corn every summer.  Man he grew corn.  It was like his life’s mission and he took it seriously.  He had all the equipment you can name and tilled a massive set of gardens.  The rows were arrow straight and the gardens were picturesque and bountiful.

Everything he grew was delicious.  He sold it at a roadside stand and gave away plenty too.  He always beamed with pride whenever he harvested another ear.  I liked him and ate all the corn I could get my hands on.  I think I liked the idea of his beautiful garden and pride as much as I liked corn on the cob.  The “you didn’t build that” meme reminded me of him.  Nobody would look at those gardens and fail to see the pride and skill involved.

I’m not much of a gardener so I focus on critters.  I’m too lazy to weed a garden.  Plus I’ve never seen a stalk of corn strut around the lawn and annoy the cats like a rooster.  (The things you’ll watch from a porch swing.  It’s better than cable.)  Our homestead doesn’t provide 100% of our diet but it’s pretty uncommon that we buy meat.  (Hunting has a lot to do with that too.)  It’s not as exceptional as my neighbor’s massive garden but we derive some pride from raising food too.

Beer Can Chicken BBQ. There are many like it but this one was mine.

In other news it remains a year divisible by four with a D in the big chair.  Thus the press is hopelessly upbeat even as one guy says stupid things (which has the side benefit of being perfect satire fodder), the other guy is vilified by making legal private sector profits (because it would be better if he drove companies into the ground?), and the Federal debt is $15,918,983,548,548.25.

I don’t know about you but I don’t give a shit who sewed Olympic uniforms ten years ago when it takes sixteen digits to type the debt.  In the long run, debt matters more than almost anything else.  Which is why both parties are ignoring it like a 600 pound gorilla in the room. (A gorilla that’s angry, rabid, armed, and painted orange. Nothing to see here.)

Which is to say that summer 2012 politics continue to be largely content free.  As I’d planned in advance I’m (almost) ignoring it all.  (I’m also ignoring blog fodder like tractors and homestead stuff.  Call it a mental vacation.)

Happy summer.

The following post has no point or defining theme:

Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high

Oh, Your daddy’s rich
And your momma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry

One of these mornings
You’re going to rise up singing
Then you’ll spread your wings
And you’ll take to the sky

But until that morning
There’s a’nothing that can harm you
With your daddy and mommy standing by

Summertime,
And the livin’ is easy
Fish are jumpin’
And the cotton is high

Oh, Your daddy’s rich
And your momma’s good lookin’
So hush little baby
Don’t you cry

Summertime, George Gershwin, 1935

I’ve had Summertime in my head for days. The haunting rendition by Janis Joplin and the verbosely named “Big Brother and the Holding Company” is my favorite.  I’ve been humming it all day. (Note: I’m not listening to it from a recording because iNinjas still have Janis in their clutches. I’ve liberated a lot of the iPod but that bloodsucking swine in a sweater still controls too much of my music; including Janis! In the end I’ll jailbreak the rest of my property if I have to use a crowbar. However, it’ll have to wait until I’m motivated to begin Phase II of the iPod liberation wars.  When I’ve won the war…and there can be no doubt I will win… I might take that infernal contraption on a short trip to the shooting range.)

No matter. I don’t need iDevices. Just a porch swing and a view composed mostly of nature. When it’s hot enough that the oak looks like it’s going to start sweating, Janis’ voice just comes into my head. How a drug addled hippie could muster such beauty is a mystery.

Also; what is it with Gershwin? It’s almost embarrassing to like his fluff derived of showtunes and lullabies; yet he was brilliant. If you can sit on my porch swing in July and not hear “Summertime” you’re a mutant.

…

Meanwhile folks have been haranguing me about letting my blog slide. “Crocs? You’re writing about crocs?!? Have you gone mad!?!” (You know who you are.) Thankfully my commenters (which I’ve been ignoring) report they’ve generally defeated the specter of Crocs. (Good show! I knew my readers were a cut above.)

As for the ones seeking more substance; tough. It’s summer and all I hear is birdsong and Gershwin. It’s a seasonal imperative. I live far enough north that the winter weather can break your soul. One must loll in the heat the better to endure the bitter cold that will arrive as surely as death and Christmas shopping. Making fun of lamentable electric cars and typing all 14 digits to the debt is best reserved for cold months. Nobody can take clammy gutless political talking heads seriously in this weather. Well there are exceptions; earnest unemployable community organizers and determined people who sleep with Atlas Shrugged under their pillow. The rest of us know sunshine is too valuable to waste.

My summer is mostly booked with relaxation and working my ass off. There is no contradiction in these two things; the good lord kindly gave me extra sunlight all summer long. You thought it had to do with tilted axes of planetary rotation? How silly! It’s so I can finish homesteading chores and still have time to go fishing.

So for the moment every time a blogging idea pops up it risks losing steam. Sunshine cannot be denied. I must amass firewood. I must butcher chickens. Actually I must sit on my porch swing and sip beer while the firewood is ignored (and baked) and fattened chickens live on borrowed time.

Yet the campaign threatens to ooze into our homes. How to react? Simple. Ignore it.

Trust me on this.  Nothing said or done by either side in 2012 has been surprising so far. They’re all following their ruts with clockwork precision. (Except Ron Paul who is always fated to be dismissed. That poor guy could resurrect an orphan on TV and be harassed for causing overpopulation.) Everyone else will stay in their foxholes until they’re dragged out by desperation when things come down to the wire in October. Tune out for now. Wait until you’re starting to daydream of hunting season and pumpkin pie. You’ll have missed nothing.

Here’s an example to illustrate the irrelevance of news this month. I was recently exposed (like one is exposed to a pathogen) to a press article. It breathlessly claimed that campaign ads have “turned unexpected negative”. Unexpected to whom? Anyone who expected positive campaigning in 2012 is either a six year old girl or a college student. The rest of us consult the calendar and think “the corn is waist high, I’m suddenly appreciative of air conditioning, and campaign ads are negative. Seems like mid-summer in a year divisible by four.”

In fact the only political surprises of 2012 so far have been the following:

1. The Obamacare Supreme court ruling ruling was not the wishy washy half-measure I predicted. It was a full fledged ballsack crushing punt through the goalposts. It proved that there are no limits to anything ever. In a way I found it cathartic. Watching the Supremes try to saw a baby in half always annoyed me. Plus life is simpler when your opponent has set fire to your car, fed your child’s hamster into the garbage disposal, and poisoned your houseplants. Clarity has value. Anyone who was sitting the fence pondering when government will start to self-limit either got the hint or will smile all the way up the ramp to the railcar.
2. The price of gasoline is vaguely low. It’s barely double what it was when the press was yelping about evil profiteering right wing cowboys in the white house.  (Factoid: gas was $1.47 when Bush entered office on Jan 2001 and $1.78 when Obama entered in Jan 2009.  It is now averaging $3.46 for regular grade.  Doubling Obama’s start price would be $3.56.)  I’m not alarmed about the price of gas but the press would be hyperventilating if it was up 200% in a year divisible by four if the guy in the big chair didn’t have a “D” after his name.  I was betting on $4.00 (see #45). I missed by $0.50 a gallon.  So far I have been (gasp!) wrong. Which is good news.

If seven months of politics has no more surprises than those two; 2012 is demonstrably on auto pilot.

Join me. Turn off the TV (and set it on fire). Kick back and grab a cool drink. I’ve been spending as much time as possible sitting on the porch, watching the rooster um… “herd” his hens, and pretending I might actually split some wood before sunset. (Hint: I’m won’t.) That’s what summer is for.

Happy summer.

A.C.

Until recently the world was a better place.  This is because I did not own Crocs.

I was (apparently) the last human on earth to hold out against them. Aside from me, they were everywhere. Even Curmudgeon Compound been infiltrated. The only two members of the household without a pair were me and the dog.

Then, tragically, my most recent set of “cheapskate moccasin” slippers was declared a Superfund site and banned from the house. Did you know that it’s pretty rough on slippers to wear them across the snow to the chicken coop? Ah… life has so many lessons to impart.

At any rate I now have Crocs.  Their camouflage design does nothing to cover the fact that I’m a lesser man for it.  The worst part is that they feel pretty good.  Ugh…did I just say that?

“But”, said I, “I shall never be seen in public with Crocs.” For this was a slippery slope from which there was no recovery.

You know where this is going don’t you? After the Crocs were in the house for several months there came a time of weakness. I was ill. I was missing a day of work and royally pissed off about it. I was also starving and in no mood to face whatever I (being a bad cook) would serve myself. I limped out of the house and made my way to the nearest cafe where I could drown my sorrows in half a pot of hot tea and whatever else I could keep down. Hey, I was desperate!

Only after I was already served did I realize I was wearing them.  In public!  How appalling!

Then a few months later I watched The Dictator.  Satire is the home of truth.  The horrible fact was delivered by the gentle hand of a Sasha Cohen script.

“You’re wearing crocs!?!”

“Crocs are a sign of a man who has given up. Next you will be wearing sweatpants and spending your nights at Applebees!”

Nuclear Nadal knows that Crocs are totally unacceptable.

Yes.  It is true.  I have not yet succumbed to Applebees but I know the day of reckoning is nigh.  Sometimes you cannot avoid fate.

Don’t let the whiners and their creeping weakness get to you.  Our nation is just as awesome as ever.

I have no idea of the ultimate source of this image. I like to think Uncle Sam ventured to hell and carved it on the skull of Stalin’s soul; before coming back for a frosty brew and a fireworks display. I simply linked to where I found it.

From WWII. In keeping with our capitalist nation, this poster is for sale. In keeping with tradition, I don’t get squat if you buy it. Linked to seller.

Of course, my all time favorite, Rosie the Riveter. You tell ’em Rosie!

Make noise and celebrate, for today we commemorate a most improbable event.  A bunch of rednecks bumpkins told the most powerful Monarch in Europe to get off the damn lawn.  Once they survived that little roll of the dice they created the freest nation on earth.

While you’re pondering that, go read the Declaration Of Independence (it’s short, it won’t kill you).  Feel the tone of it.  The folks who wrote it were not interested in consensus, appeasement, or avoiding conflict.

It isn’t Stuxnet but for some reason my spell check keeps deciding I’m British.  It defaults to favourite instead of favorite.  (And it flags my proper redneck spelling as incorrect.  The nerve!)  It probably thinks I drive a lorry and crap in a loo.   WTF?

As a certified British individual I have used the Queen’s authority to commandeer your computer. I will not let it go until you renounce your ownership of a Dodge.

You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.

[Editor’s note: this was supposed to go live before the Supreme’s made their announcement.  So much for my scheduling program…]

The Supreme Court is inches away from deep sixing the whole Obamacare debacle. Wow! Dare I hope?

No!

The Supremes (like the Federal Government and the voters who created it) have gotten into the habit of having their cake and eating it too. Given the duty to make a tough call they’ll do their best to split the difference.  Here’s an example of looking at a hard decision and bravely deciding to wimp out:

In 2003 the Supremes declared that “affirmative action will be wrong at some future date possibly about 25 years from now but it’s just hunky dory now”.

Got that?  It’s bad and evil in the future.  It’s good and noble now.  Who thinks like that? They had to come up with an answer that is either yes or no and they said “whatever we think is cool is the right thing to do so long as we keep feeling groovy about it”.  Which is the kind of answer I expect from a six year old and not a wise counsel of highly trained thinkers.

This is why even if Obamacare created a police force that kidnapped surgeons and forced them to do elective surgery against your will, on your dog, at midnight, on your kitchen table, while humming showtunes… the Supremes will find some part of it to retain. The Supremes can be just as wishy washy as the general populace. Robes or not, they’re just making shit up.

In the case of Obamacare the tragic question the Supremes face is “where is the line?”. The answer is “in the rear view mirror”.  That’s the problem.  Once you’re drunk, naked, and puking in a gutter in Tijuana how do you logically decide if the next beer is one too many?

Consider the true silliness of their current dilemma; “if not buying insurance is interstate commerce what activity (or absence of it) isn’t interstate commerce”?  In a sane world you wouldn’t have to even ponder such horseshit. In a sane world interstate commerce is damn well commerce that’s interstate.  Commerce is something bought or sold, like a truckload of toasters.  Commerce is not interstate until the truck goes hurtling across a damn state line and not a minute sooner.  That’s what interstate commerce is.  What the hell else would it be?

Ahh…such a shame they can’t say that because they (and all of us) have filled the basket of “what the hell else would it be” with “everything” and they’ve either got to grow balls of steel and strike it down with a death blow or keep muddling in the mess created over generations.  Hard problem!  Not a new one either.  They’ve been playing games in the name of interstate commerce forever.  Here’s one example:

Growing wheat on your own land for your own use is Interstate Commerce.

Got that? Even if nothing is sold it’s commerce.  Even if nothing leaves your property it’s interstate.  Go back and read those last two sentences.  I didn’t make it up.  Smart people wearing robes said so.  They were playing the game as far back as 1942.

Interstate commerce, like herpes, is the gift that keeps on giving.  The court debate pondered “Can you be forced to by broccoli? What about funeral services?”  What about other things that somehow passed muster?  They once used interstate commerce to mandate 55 MPH speed limits.  I think it was the basis of the CFL lights regulations.  It’s used for everything.  People decide what they want to do for (inflict on) the people and interstate commerce is pasted on the top as a default endless justification.

To me, and lots of people, our government has limits. Let me repeat that; there are things the American government ought not and cannot legally, do.  In theory the Supremes would more or less agree and therefore make predictable decisions.  Life could be simple.

However, the limit has been exceeded so commonly that it’s an object of consideration whether my proctology exam is both interstate and commerce.  You have to think real hard to make that an actual reasonable idea.  Which leads to a patented Curmudgeonly Gem Of Insight:

“People with flexible morality can construct logic to justify doing whatever they want to do. The logic will be flawed but that’s irrelevant.  This is as true of the Supreme Court as it is of anyone else.”

The trick to all of this is to recognize a wrong action (regardless of how totally cool it might be and how noble your intentions) and don’t do it.  It’s not easy but it beats weaving webs about interstate commerce.

As I type this post a handful of robe clad deep thinkers are pondering the matter of Federally socialized medicine in America. I am cautiously hopeful that the Supreme Court can (and will) nudge the train back toward the rails. But hope is thin soup, if they do, I will be not merely delighted but surprised.

One of the reasons I started this blog was Obamacare. I doubted the true believers could exercise restraint before they went too far. I was correct. The 2009 Christmas Eve vote on Obamacare was so much overreach that if it has been written in a work of fiction it would have been unbelievable.  Here’s what I had to say about it:

The last time the Senate held a roll call on Christmas Eve was in 1895. (They lifted a ban on former Confederate soldiers serving in the Post-Civil war U.S. military.) What was the reason for the recent historic, first in 114 years, life or death, gotta’ happen now on Christmas Eve vote? World War I? World War II? The Wall Street Crash of 1929? Nope. It was a health care vote during a brief window of time when the Democrats had a solid majority.

The faithful were hell bent on expanding the Government’s control over private lives even they self immolated in the process. They did expand the Government’s control over private lives.  They did (partially) self immolate.  They haven’t given up.  They never will.  The show isn’t over yet.

A blog was not my first idea. My first idea was Obamacare Bingo. I made cards with some of the most insane predictions I could imagine. Off the wall, batshit crazy, utterly unhinged, “unexpected consequences” of socialized medicine. I intended to print Bingo cards with a ridiculous event in each square and distribute them to several friends. Nothing, no matter how utterly stupid, was too weird for the cards. That’s what made them funny. (Don’t ask, I’m not giving out the cards.) As the complex system yielded “unexpected” (to some) results the block would be marked. A card written years in advance would make swirling the drain that much funnier. Imagine the possibilities!

I’d check off events block by block until someone shouted “bingo”. At which time I’d… uh celebrate? (I never had an idea how I’d celebrate … only that foolishness would ensue.)

Think I’m wrong? How about this; one bingo block prediction was “old nuns and monks who work for a church will have to pay for one of the following; abortions, birth control pills, a sex change operation. Bonus if it’s a minor. Double bonus if someone gets fired or excommunicated.” It took less than two years for a kerfluffle about workers at church operated hospitals to hit the birth control mandate.

Ridiculous right? Yet I saw it years before Nanci Pelosi signed it so she could see what’s in it. Amusingly, I wasn’t thinking crazy enough. Could I have imagined a block that said “a Harvard law student will testify before Congress that birth control pills are too expensive. Rush Limbaugh will be hammered for making fun of her”? I couldn’t imagine it; too weird. But it happened. Once you create an unconstrained system there’s no limit to it’s inanity.

Alas, instead of making millions on Obamacare Bingo I wrote a blog. I’ve mostly ignored Obamacare choosing instead to whip the Volt like a red headed stepchild. Why not? The Volt is funny in a way that thousands of pages of minutiae isn’t.

So, will the Supremes kill my bingo game? I suppose the news will hit soon. But (before the Supremes rule) I’ll post part II with my theory that it’s not time to break out the champaign yet.