Rawrah's Year in a NUTSHELL -OR- Helena Handbasket

Tom Paxton updated for 2008:

My friend, Deep Green, gathers firewood -OR- Getting Away From It All Ain't For Sissies.

From time to time, Deep Green recounts a little adventure in his back to nature life.

He tells great stories. His yarns are wonder filled. The recaps of his exploits and routine, mundane chores can make almost anyone feel better about living in civilization. Better him than me?

For BustedKnuckles and the rest of the weaning off the grid gang, I proudly present
DEEP GREEN- A Day in the Life

"The Chinese engine on my American wood splitter refused to start the other day.
It's less than a year old. I assume the fact that it had been sitting out in the
middle of the barn lot, uncovered, in a twenty-five degree below zero wind chill
might have had something to do with that.

The next day I bought a heat lamp, one of those big cheap round things with a
springy clip on one end. I also bought two heat lamp bulbs, since Mal-Wart did
not see to throw one in with the lamp. I got everything set up, extension cords
ran, the light on, and the whole shebang covered with a nice tarp. I left the
heat lamp on overnight.

The next morning the news said it was going to rain any moment, in fact it was
past due, so I unplugged everything and left it sit. I hadn't cut any wood
anyway and didn't have anything to split.

We ran on the gas furnace for two days while it rained. I probably could have
started the thing then, but I'd be fighting mud as much as I would wood if I'd
tried to cut and split any.

Last night it froze again and this morning warmed up suddenly. There was a
pea-soup fog outside when I got up. Visibility was around 1/8 mile or less. A
wonderful late December day. I LIKE fogs. It means it's phenomenally warm, for
one thing, and I just like them for the looks of the things--so long as I'm not
driving.

I truly love being out there in any weather conditions, at any season, and at
any time of the day or night. I'm thankful I found this place. It's home now, my
real home. It feels right here. And fog or no, I was going to make one enormous
pile of firewood today.

When I unwrapped the carefully-tucked in engine and heat lamp, I saw that the
clamp came loose and the lamp had fallen onto the tarp. That area of the tarp
was in a slight depression in the ground and water had collected around the
lamp, cord, and bulb. It was all frozen into kind of a flat block. I carefully
loosened it from the tarp and carried the whole frozen contraption into the barn
to allow it to thaw out and dry. It will probably explode the second I plug it
in next time.

The Chinese engine fired into life as if nothing had ever been wrong with it. I
had an elm log dragged up and I cut it into stove lengths, allowing the splitter
to warm up well while I did so. I obliterated that log in no time flat and used
my giant two-wheeled wheelbarrow to bring it into the basement in a mere three
trips. Then it was off to the tractor to drag up another one.

I have several logs already dragged out of the woods and "staged" in the barn
lot so I can get to them easier in the event of a heavy snow. I pulled up a
sassafras tree about eighteen inches in diameter and hoped that it was cured. We
had several go down during the hellacious storms early this summer. I kinda
sorta got 'em mixed up and I forgot which ones had cured, being dead for a year
or two, and which ones were "green", having only gone down a few months ago.
Sassafras will burn either way, but it makes for a sorry fire if they're green.

Anyhow, I cut the thing up and put the saw away, restarting the splitter. I
lifted a chunk of it, hoping I could tell from its weight if it was green or
not. Couldn't do it. It felt kind of borderline. Green wood is much heavier than
cured wood, simply because all the sap has evaporated and/or leaked out.
Whatever. I began splitting it.

When the wood pile was higher than the splitter and the stove sized logs were
actually getting in my way, I stopped the splitter. Hmmm. This was a helluva lot
of wood. Too much for the wheelbarrow. I fired up the Mule, attached a wagon
behind it, and loaded it. Then came my first bad surprise for the day.

The Mule would not go into four wheel drive. It was locked in two wheel drive. I
fiddled with it a bit, but didn't force it lest I really break something. Now
another problem came up. Would the Mule pull the wagon out of all the mud I'd
stomped up around the area? As the ground thawed, dragging whole trees, marching
back and forth, tossing logs about, and driving the tractor had stirred up a sea
of mud. I was mud from head to toe, having slipped in it a few times, but that
didn't bother me. What bothered me was that I might have a fully loaded wagon
full of split wood and not be able to move it with the Mule.

Only one way to find out...

The first five feet was touch and go, but once the rear tires bit into the
gravel on the drive around the barn it sallied forth handsomely, as the Brits
would say. I also knew it wouldn't do it twice.

Oh, well. It will either rain and make things worse, or it will stay dry and
eventually all turn back into dirt, or it will freeze as solid as granite.
Whatever happens, I still have the giant wheel barrow, my 4x4 truck, the
tractor, and various and divers ways of moving things that do not want to move
through mud.

What to do now?

I'd cut a really great dead elm tree down last fall. It was far back in the rear
field at the edge of the woods. The base of the tree was well below the level of
the field, down into the woods, but it was so tall that when I cut it the top
fell out into the field, an easy snatch. Elm burns hot and long, excellent
firewood. I fueled and oiled the big chain saw, tossed it into the scoop of the
tractor, and went to whack off about a third of the thing and drag it up to cut.
The entire tree was too much for my tractor to even budge. I knew because I
tried it a couple of months ago. It's an uphill drag and a huge tree. No
problem, I'd just cut it into thirds and not worry about it.

You must remember my 1957 Ford tractor does not have any brakes. Well, it has
them. They just don't work. To approach this tree, I slowly backed directly into
it, using the tree itself as a chock for my rear tires. This would keep me from
making a fast and nasty trip to the bottom going backwards on a tractor. You
can't jump clear when it's going backwards. I tried once. Only ridiculous luck
saved me. Dropping the scoop as an anchor works only when going forward. The
rear of the scoop is curved and merely slides along the ground like a sled, not
nearly enough drag to even slow the thing down.

The slope wasn't steep. Twenty feet farther and it began to drop off much more
rapidly. With the rear tires secured against the tree, the scoop down, and the
tractor idling, I hopped off and fired up the big saw. It was just starting to
get dark, the fog was rolling along about waist-high (a great horror movie fog)
and I stood there looking at the big elm. I decided to cut it just below where
it had branched out into three large sections, each of them as big around as my
waist. This would leave two-thirds of the log to retrieve later and give me all
the wood I wanted to deal with tonight.

I laid into it, the big saw roaring. The area of the tree where I was cutting it
was probably two and a half feet in diameter. The dust and wood chips built up
quickly on my muddy clothes, making me look like some kind of wooden statue. I
was using a "chisel blade" chain on the saw, one that cuts very aggressively but
also carries a greater risk of kick-back. You're always careful with them.

In a couple of minutes I was nearly through. The big tree creaked and sagged,
settling where it was about to part. Suddenly I was through. The saw bar dropped
quickly and I pulled back just as quickly, so the teeth on the chain would not
dig into the ground and dull themselves.

Ta-da! Nothin' to it! Then...

Something very strange happened. Through the darkness and the fog, it seemed as
though the larger part of the log...moved.

It did! And it was moving faster! The damned thing was sliding back down the
hill, picking up speed every second. I couldn't believe it! Here I'd felled the
thing perfectly, allowing me easy access to the entire tree, and now it was
headed for the foggy, dark, unseen bottom of the woods! In less time that it
takes to tell, the log was sliding straight back and down like a rocket,
crashing saplings, knocking smaller trees over, throwing aside woodland debris
and dead branches. And even now I don't know which made more noise, the runaway
tree sliding down through the darkness like a juggernaut, or me, cursing and
bellowing at the thing at the top of my lungs. It was all over in less than ten
seconds.

It was good that there wasn't a single living soul around me for over a half-mile. Oh, I cursed. I drew upon a
lifetime of profanity and roared it down into the fog and the dark. Had the
woods been dry, I'd have started a fire. I just know it. After taking a huge
breath I was about to start all over again when a thought came to mind that shut
me up instantly.

If THAT piece could slide...

And the OTHER piece, also on wet ground, was holding the tractor...

And I was behind them both...

I just sprang with both legs, landing squarely on my arse about five feet away,
the chain saw (still running) landing a bit farther. I was ready to do some
serious moving when I realized the upper log hadn't moved a bit. The large,
crooked branches were dug into the ground securing it like a bank safe.

Well. Now I had a lost log, it was dark, my butt was sore as hell, and I had no
idea if I could move the tractor without setting off an evil chain reaction that
would land me next to the first log, or under it. Or the second one. Or the
tractor.

I shut off the saw and slipped the protective cover over the chain and bar. I
went all around the remaining log, assuring myself that it was indeed stuck well
into the earth. Well, it seemed to be. I might as well find out, I figured.

I climbed atop the tractor and started the engine. My plan was to pull away
about twenty feet onto more level ground, then run a chain back and wrestle the
elm branches (still connected to each other) away from the side of the hill.
This would make things safer, and I'm a stickler for safety.

The tractor went forward about six inches and began sliding backwards. The earth
had thawed completely under the tires. I eased her back, put it in forward gear
again, and let off the clutch. This time the tractor moved a little, then slid
back into the tree with greater force. I was about to try a third time when it
dawned on me that all I was doing was knocking my safety net--the elm tree
top--farther backwards every time it hit it. Gee...maybe I'd better not do that
again.

So, it's ten o'clock at night, the tractor is still back there somewhere, either
on top of the hill where I abandoned it or tangled up in elm splinters at the
bottom of a black and foggy ravine. I carried the big saw back, noting that it
was heavier than I thought, and came in the basement garage door, mud, sawdust,
and woodchips from soaked top to dripping bottom.

Just another day on the ranch, folks. Nothing new going on around here."

2-4 2sDay 21 Days Edition -OR- What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

0 Yeah buts

What to do with tons of toxic mortgages? -OR- Thank you for playing our game

Just a little blurb that confirms Opposite World LIVES!


As the Financial Bailouts Grow, So Does the Federal Reserve
WaPo
Monday, December 29, 2008;

Real estate analysts have predicted that federal bailouts could be a
boon for Washington commercial space, as federal agencies and the
contractors that serve them expand in the face of the economy's problems.

A new deal supports that theory: The Federal Reserve is broadening
its office footprint at International Square 1, 1850 K St. NW, Washington.

The agency leased an additional 80,000 square feet -- two more floors
in the building. It already has about 35,000 square feet on one floor
in the building.

Art Greenberg and Vernon Knarr, both brokers at Studley, represented
the agency in the latest deal.

Meanwhile Back In Opposite World -OR- Doh!

Waiting can be a tedious chore. Doubly so when the crowd arrives blaming you for the delays. Trebly so when they insist you must carry their load. You packed light, wore comfortable, sensible shoes and have been ready to go. They arrive painfully late, fashionably dressed and insist on bringing everything with them. Sorry. If this is the trip, I'll wait for the next one and hope it isn't another 30 years in coming.

As I read/watch/hear all the epiphanies dawning on the dim, affected, pretentious spawn of our recent awakenings, I can't help but want to see some heads on poles, some pillories in the public square and telltale tar/feather residue along the rails.
You may be that civilized, I'm not. Not to be mean, harsh, rude, crude or insensitive, but fuck that. It's not really all that complicated.

WE endured their circus. WE didn't inhale. WE didn't drink the kool-aid. Not WE. WE didn't start the fire. WE refused to be stupid. WE were roundly laughed at, dismissed, insulted, marginalized and ignored. WE downsized, compacted, prepared for the worst which you were intent on providing. WE watched the farce unfold.

Now it's here and has only just begun. There's a lot of rhetoric about the need to preserve what remains. Why? For whom? So the privileged can continue without having to face the harsh reality they wrought? Nope, ain't gonna do it. Wouldn't be prudent. It's still clear that WE are unwelcome with our logic and science and underlying insistence on equity and fairness.

WE will not allow you to do us again. WE do this together or you can do it yourself. WE do this for all of us or WE stop pretending to be okay with your precepts of fairness. Otherwise, WE've already played this game.

More of the same, without fundamental, ironclad agreements on the terms is unlikely to fly. Tamping the pain threshold down below a level that will perpetuate this crap is a surefire plan to be back at square one again. The HAVES "earned" the lion's share of the tab. Any intention of shirking one iota of responsibility must be dismissed as unfair and irrational.

It'll take WORK to get things done. Not just rhetoric and paper promises, but real work by those who understand WORK. The premiums attached to capital and the parasitic froo-froo who've attached to the commonweal need the most serious correction.

While it will never be utopia and there will always be inequity and unfairness, the scales must now be re-calibrated for a more sustainable model.

From Me and Mine To You and Yours

Last Night I Had A Dream- OR- The Dream is over

Whaddaya expect ME to do about it? Sure, I tell them that black ain't white and up ain't down and taxes aren't evil. They just laugh at me. I mention that there's a huge difference between legal and ethical. Especially when you get to write the laws. Then like my fellow Amurcans, I shrug emphatically, wish a pox upon them all and to all a good night. For longer than half of my life I've joined the calls for transparency in government. Now I'm thinking we should have been MUCH more specific. All in all, things are pretty transparent right now. They know they're lying and so do we. We knew they were pretending to be in charge, we let them because if they were over there pretending, they weren't here messing with us.

I'd dearly love to adopt and carry on my father's political philosophy, "Son, you pay taxes so they'll leave you alone". It was logically sound. It was simple. It worked for him. He went and fought in WWII for the exact same reason. "If I do this, THEN you'll leave me alone? Cool, let's get this over with."

I know exactly what he'd say if he were around to witness our current transition.
"If I do THIS? THEN you'll leave me alone? Cool, let's get this over with."

To him, government would not dare to bite the hand that feeds it. The upside of this being my 35th Christmas without a father is that he wasn't around to see what his laizzes-faire approach has wrought. But he still wouldn't complain. They do what they do. That's a given.

Then again, he didn't have to fit this visage into his calculations.


Nope, that's for me and MY dreams.

Merry Christmas from Casa Rehctaw

At approximately 6 p.m. CDST tonight there will be a re-creation of this platter for rapid consumption by those in proximity. Merry Christmas Everybody. Even the Fuckhead-in- Chief. 25 Days!!!! Can't think of a better reason to celebrate!

Deep Green Holds Forth Once More -OR- Arrrg Matey, I are a pirate

WHY I "STEAL" MUSIC FROM THE RIAA


Actually, It's Mine Already. Several Times Over.


by Hector Askew


In 1970, when the seminal "Bridge Over Troubled Water" album came out, I rushed
down to buy it. Back then albums were really albums, a large black vinyl disc,
protected by a large cardboard envelope and sheet plastic cover. The album cover
itself was often worth the price of the record, and in some cases it was better
artwork. Albums in 1970 ran around $6.00, depending on where I bought
them. "Bridge Over Troubled Water" was worth every penny. Not only did the album
live to become a genuine rock classic, but the back cover of the album had the
words to every song therein. Paul Simon, Art Garfunkle, and the recording
industry had given me my money's worth.

By the year 1971, after a nasty ex-girlfriend stole my album, I marched down to
the record store to buy another copy of the same. I paid the same price, or a
dime or two more, and had my beloved songs back.

Later in that decade, when eight-track players were the rage and you could
listen to your favorite albums in your car without needing to rely on
phoney-cool FM D.J.s or semi-hysterical AM disc jockeys to play a good song once
or twice an hour, I bought "Bridge Over Troubled Water" again. This time it
was on eight-track tape. This was my third purchase of the same songs by the
same artists. I did not get a discount for having paid all royalties twice before.

Then cassette tape came out. You could carry more of them in less space and
some claimed the sound quality was better (I heard no difference, but never mind
that). Cassette tape players, too, were smaller and many car manufacturers began
to include them with their on-board stereo systems. For the fourth time, I
purchased the same album. And it wasn't just "Bridge Over Troubled Water". There
were probably a dozen or more albums that I did the same thing with, following
the technology and shelling out a considerable amount of money to do so.

Ah, but we were at the zenith of the technology and I had my wonderful music in
a nice, well-protected little plastic cartridges that were practically
indestructible. Cassette tapes were probably the best form of media music ever
took. You could sit one one and not hurt it. You could toss luggage on them.
Unless you genuinely worked at it, the case was tough enough to stand up to
almost anything. The greatest problem was with the machines which played them.
"It ate my tape" became a common complaint--but only for low-end devices. No one
will ever be able to count the number of hours music was enjoyed--and is still
being enjoyed--on the Sherman tank of sound reproduction equipment known as the
cassette player.

While purchasing all the newer music coming out by fresh artists, I also
replaced many old albums by the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Peter, Paul, and Mary,
Steppenwolf, Tom T. Hall, Bob Seeger, Johnny Cash, the Who, Fleetwood Mac, and a
host of others. Buying all the old and new music from the Stones themselves
became a considerable financial undertaking with my disposable income! And there
were newer artists, good ones, that I added. Tom Petty, Warren Zevon, Dire
Straights, U2. The Eighties and early Nineties found me adding scores of new
cassette tapes to my library.

Then a genuine calamity happened. Some miserable fool invented the CD.

Why this fate befell music lovers remains a mystery to me. CDs are fragile to
the point of being delicate, like attempting to handle a birthday cake while
driving your car. They scratch. They skip. They make rude noises. They're
destroyed instantly when handled by careless people. But they have one thing no
other media form had. They can be copied on computers.

In truth, cassette tapes could be copied too. Many high priced (and not so high
priced) stereos came with twin cassette decks, one for playing, the other for
recording. But you had to have physical access to an original tape to copy one,
and CDs triumph there. You don't need a copy to make a CD. You just need a
computer and an Internet line.

Having the sense God gave a goose (and perhaps not much more) I had already
taken all my old 45 RPM records of "one hit wonders" and put them on cassette
tape so I could listen to them while driving. The quality was middling at best,
but I had already purchased the records and was simply trying to listen to the
bloody things while on the road. According to some of the more draconian
dictates summarily announced by the RIAA later, that in itself was illegal.
Never mind that I had paid good money for the records. Never mind that I had
already paid everyone in line with his hand out, the artist, the record
manufacturer, everyone involved with shipping the product, the record store
owner, and the RIAA itself, no, they wanted more. They wanted me to buy all the
individual cassettes, all of them containing just one good song, and pay them
all again.

This was sheer nitwittery. I had already PAID for that music and would listen to
it wherever and however I wanted.

But with the advent of file-sharing, the RIAA began squalling they were losing
billions of dollars and were about to starve and have their limos repossessed.
If this is so, why do stores have endless racks of music CDs for sale? If no one
was buying them, no stores would stock them. I saw a kid once buy almost $130
dollar's worth of CDs at one purchase. He got eight of the things and some of
them had sale tags on them. (In the late 1960's, you could almost start your own
band for that kind of money.) Why do new hit CDs rake in millions of dollars in
just the first week of their release if file-sharing is so prevalent? It's
because most people, myself included, will buy new hit CDs.

I do not consider myself a "thief" by listening to music that I have paid for
the rights to, in some cases as many as four or five times over. This is akin to
paying a carpenter who installed a new door in your home every time you walk
through it. It's no longer a mere door, but a toll booth--and a genuine cash cow
for the carpenter. And if the RIAA cannot understand that simple fact, they have
no business being in business. Yes, I have the timeless songs of "Bridge Over
Troubled Water" on CD. I did not buy them in a store but downloaded them. I also
have the tattered old 33 RPM album with its faded cover and the cassette. The
other two albums and tapes I paid them for are long gone now, but in the eyes of
the RIAA I am just this side of being a sheer terrorist and at least a common
thief and danger to polite society for downloading music I have paid for over
and over and over.

When an interviewer asked John Lennon why people still bought Beatles
eight-tracks and cassettes long after the Beatles broke up, new generations
after new generations shelling out money for their old music, he just shrugged
and said, "A good song is a good song."

And bad laws are bad laws too, John. I know you'd be the first to agree.

Instead of adapting to the new way of accessing music and the new forms of media
people use to listen to it, the RIAA is still defending its Maginot Line while
faster, more mobile listeners are roaring through the Ardennes Forest at the
speed of light.

People should be rightfully compensated for their work. This includes every
band, singer, manager, PR shill, secretary, janitor, truck driver, and even RIAA
executive. But the active word there is "rightfully". If I made wooden rocking
horses for a living and attempted to charge every different child who rode it
for the next sixty years a fee I'd be laughed out of court, and possibly laughed
out of the country.

I won't pretend to have all the answers, as some portions of the RIAA arguments
are genuine. But a good start would be not bringing suit against anyone who
could prove they already owned a purchased copy of something for which the RIAA
wants to sue them to death. And the sums they demand in their suits are utterly
ridiculous, completely out of line even if the person in question did indeed rip
it off without paying a dime. The RIAA is now spoken of in the same terms as the
Mafia, the Black Hand, or any of a number of other criminal enterprises.

They need to rethink their positions, realign their rules to fit the 21st
Century, and use the Internet to gain listeners--and potential buyers--for their
products. Hounding and battering them are not conducive to cooperation. Holding
Inquisition-style court cases against single mothers, eight year old girls, and
people like me, who are only trying to stay abreast of technological changes in
their cars, are no way to go about finding solutions. In short, they need to
drop all existing suits and find another way to go about the business they are
supposedly protecting. Thumb screws and hot pincers aren't working, boys. Grow a
brain. Think. If nothing else, call in a dozen teenagers and ask THEM how they'd
set up your business if they were paid to do so.

You have the law teams. You have the powerful attorneys. You have scores of
millions of dollars merely to pursue endless lawsuits. But you do not have
common sense. And you have a vicious excess of corporate greed. Drop the latter
and find some of the former, and you will make even more money and the world's
music lovers will thank you for it.

2-4 2sDay Light at the End of the Tunnel Edition -OR- TWENTY SEVEN DAYS!!!

What has two thumbs and doesn't give a crap? -OR- Detox Day 1

A constitutional crisis intervention. Twenty-eight days is a time frame our Gumby president should be able to wrap his micro-brain around with ease. Kick back, dream tremulous dreams of what could have been. Ignore reality. Create your own reality. Whatever it takes. "Not my job anymore. Not my problems."

Work on your post-prez material. Start wearing your underwear over your pants or on your head. No more "hard work". Nosiree, those days are over. Timing is everything in opposite world. Now might be the right time to remind everyone that you did EVERYTHING you could to loot, pillage and plunder protect the Amurcan people.

It's tough to have your thinking constantly questioned. "He does?!?! Really? I don't think so. If so, why did he quietly name this guy his sekrit Economy Czar?

Happy Burfday Frank -OR- Ripping Weasel Flesh

Word.

Take the plunge. Beyond the music. A decent departure point
Mr. Zappa spoke well. The sum of his parts was far greater than the slot destined by the slotters. He found various ways to break out of his bounds and play the whole symphony.

Below are a couple excerpts from his 1993 Playboy Interview.



Playboy: But you're all for smaller governments and more local control, aren't you?

Frank Zappa: No, because that means more governments.

Playboy: But smaller governments might better reflect their constituents.

Frank Zappa: That's a reasonable assumption, if it were all going to work fairly. But I think that behind each breakaway movement is a breakaway demagogue who will set up his breakaway demagogue government. In many breakaway countries the governments now say, on paper, that you are free to be an entrepreneur. Well, that's great if you have cash to invest. But who has the cash? The party bosses who were there before are the new entrepreneurs. Guys who got thrown out of office wound up buying restaurants, hotels or factories. The drones who were wandering around the streets are still wandering, even though they have the right to be entrepreneurs. That's certainly true in Russia, Hungary and Czechoslovakia. I haven't been to Poland yet.

Playboy: Yet you've always pushed people to vote. Why bother?

Frank Zappa: Even if you don't like the candidates, there are issues that affect your life. Bond issues affect your pocketbook. That's the only real reason for voting. As far as the rest of government is concerned, forget it. The amount of overstaffing, overlapping, wasted energy and pompous pseudograndeur is science fiction. All of it is supported by this universe of political talk shows. CNN is one of the worst offenders on the planet. It maintains the fiction of the theoretical value of the thoughts and words of these inferior human specimens who manage to become Beltway insiders.

Playboy: Do you want to name names?

Frank Zappa: Do we need to see John Sununu as a talk-show guy? Or, on CNBC, Gordon Liddy or Oliver North? Let's face it: Some of these people are criminals. Why do we need to be presented with them as voices of authority whose opinions are something we should even waste our time with? Why?

Playboy: What do you think is behind it?

Frank Zappa: It's a whole program designed to modify behavior and modify thinking on a national level. They're happy to take the slings and arrows of the outraged minority in order to keep these voices of stupidity in your face all the time. It's all propaganda.

Playboy: How planned is it?

Frank Zappa: Completely. It is the residue of the domestic-diplomacy department that Reagan established during the Irancontra days. The idea was to control the news. From that office, a guy would make phone calls and certain journalists would get fired and news stories would get changed. Then it was the obvious control of the media we saw during the Gulf war.

Playboy: So you maintain that the media are no more than pawns?

Frank Zappa: The media are part of the package. You think really liberal people own those outlets? I don't. Even if they were Democrats, it wouldn't mean anything, because who can tell the difference between those two criminal classes?

Playboy: it sounds as if you are as cynical as ever.

Frank Zappa: It's hard not to be.

Playboy: Yet you feel it's worthwhile to raise some hell?

Frank Zappa: Pessimism and the natural instinct to raise hell are not mutually exclusive. Raising hell comes naturally to me. Still, I am not optimistic about what will happen to this country unless some radical change is made. It's going to take more than just firing a few bad guys.

Word.

Money in my hand -OR- BOHICA&A&A&A&A&A&A&A

Although it's been said, many times, many ways....



What the Hell did you do with the $20 I gave you YESTERDAY?

Seriously?~?!?! Pissed it away didja? Spent it didja? Well, okay, shit happens.
So for what do you need THIS $20? Howzzat? You still owe from yesterday's binge?
Hmmm, I see. And if you don't come up with the $20 a bunch of bad things will happen?

Do I look like a fuckin' ATM?

Not to brag or anything, but I've never had this conversation with either of my kids.
They know what a dollar is, where a dollar comes from and that when it's gone, it's gone for good.

I guess that makes me a bad father. Since the rest of the world, seemingly, no longer works that way, my kids are at a distinct disadvantage. We consciously chose NOT to enter that world. We felt strongly that "strong revenue growth" was a euphemism for sticking the next guy with the bill. Living within one's means isn't all that difficult. When the bills are paid and the necessities are covered, NOT blowing the rest on fleeting pleasures is the name of the game because rainy days happen.

Ignoring reality does not make it go away. So how does that become MY problem?

My Christmas Present to the World -OR- In A REALITY based world it would work.

Riffing on Mel Brooks I bring you Rehctaw's solution to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Shock and Awe Part II

Using the materials and machinery in country, at a semi-isolated location with advantageous terrain, under cover of darkness, the boots on the ground will erect a theme park to rival any on earth. Complete with jugglers, clowns, costumed characters and thrill rides.

When construction is nearly complete, pack up everything else, troops, tanks, Humvees, mess halls, and bug out. Move everything to a secure location. (Kansas?)

Leave signs and directions to the festival announcing 24/7 free unlimited rides and kids under 12 eat free. Plenty of free parking available. Price of admission is one lethal weapon per person.

When the natives wake up we'll be gone. The only reminders will be the manned and unmanned aircraft monitoring events on the ground. Other aircraft, containing strike groups will be stationed within reasonable distances to deal with party poopers and malcontents.

Merry Christmas from your friends, the United States of America.



Before you tell me the million reasons it wouldn't work, keep in mind that none of the current military/police projections of "success" hold any promise of ending U.S. involvement.

A military that could pull this off would indeed be viewed as formidable.

Any suggested names for the operation?

Potential Squandered -OR- Worry About It A Little Bit. But That's All.

Quick. You are a prominent member of your community. Your next-door neighbor gets arrested for skullduggery and it is revealed that he has been under audio/video surveillance for at least two years. Among the 100 pages of charges there are any number of references to unidentified prominent citizen #'s 1-36 (inclusive)

You have had conversations with the neighbor. You are a prominent citizen. You KNOW somebody has audio/video documentation of your conversations with your next door neighbor. VERBATIM! The press arrives (don't they always?) and asks you to DETAIL your conversations with said neighbor. The Prosecution has released transcripts of some of the juicy bits while promising a full release soon. How soon? Whenever they decided to do it, but not before.

What would you do? You are confident you didn't say anything that drags you into the skullduggery, but you don't remember every word said, verbatim. You don't know how your conversations play against the others in the evidence. You are completely unaware of the context of skullduggery or how it might relate to your conversations.

Since the audio/video evidence is a verbatim record, why would you say anything that might later be shown to be not EXACTLY what you said? Because the press will say your silence is absolute proof that you're hiding something? Because your political enemies will make political hay? Because the 24/7/365 noise machines will tap their vast resources to find willing assholes to engage in stupid wild-ass guessing and speculations over what may or may not come out on the recordings?

Perspective is reality folks. We draw parallels to actions and activities of the past. Unless you say there is no there...there. Unless you know for certain that nobody brought your name into this in ways you neither approved or knew...

RELEASE THE FUCKING TAPES ALREADY! Let the feces hit the air mover. End the fucking "what if" brigade. Nobody cares what they think will happen.

Oh, and by the way, your next-door neighbor is a full-blown narcissist who's thrilled to be the center of attention. He hasn't said word one about the case against him. He's the one who was arrested. He's the one who was involved in ALL of the conversations yet nobody is allowed close enough to ask him any questions.

Oh yeah, and while this circus is playing out in the side tent, the world around us all is imploding.

YMMV.

2--4 2sday Meet the Cabinet Edition

A metaphor; moral tale for our current state -OR- The first rule of Fight Club

I had an uncle who ran a Catholic high school cafeteria. (He also had an early morning milk route, coached team sports, was an umpire/referee AND attended night school at Northwestern University. Hard, mostly thankless work and lots of it.) He had a wife and six kids to support, so he did whatever it took. We lived fairly close to the school, so it was common for him to show up to collapse on our couch for a hour or grab a quick bite to eat between gigs. He was a great guy, always giving back far more than he might have. He also told GREAT stories. All true!

For years, he was the lone full-time employee of the cafeteria. Moms and students filled out his staff. Hot lunch for 500 students. 5 days a week during the school year. He worked on a very tight budget.

The pop machines in the cafeteria were never a big money maker, but they were expected to pay for themselves. Shortly after the start of a new school year he went to refill the machines and empty the coins. One of the machines had NO COINS. He had the machine serviced assuming that it was somehow giving free pop. He tried to keep an eye on the machines during lunchtime, but when you're spooning up slop and keeping things moving along, you can't see everything. He saw kids getting pop from the machines and it appeared that they were putting coins in. Problem solved.

A few days later when he went to fill the machines, same machine, NO COINS. Something was definitely wrong.

He again filled the machine and kept a closer eye on things, assigning one of his workers to stand by the machine and see if kids were somehow getting pop without putting money in. The report came back that everything was normal. At the end of the day he opened the machine and found the receptacle half full of change as it should have been. This was just weird.

For a week he was emptying the machines every day. Not a big deal, just another chore for an already over chored worker. At the end of the month, he reconciled the books. Then he went back over the books from previous school years. He started putting things together.

He started staying late, eventually he was sleeping on one of the cafeteria tables. Until one night, after basketball practice, his vigilance paid off. A student came into the cafeteria, took out a key, opened the pop machine and emptied the change AND coin changer into his gym bag.

Uncle flipped on the lights and caught the crook red handed. The student, a senior, over the course of the interogation, admitted BUYING the key from a team mate who had graduated the previous year.
That student was contacted, admitted that he had sold the key, he also said he had bought the key from yet another graduate the year before. When the trail ended, the key had changed hands at least a dozen times over ten years. All the former students admitted that they had used the key, taken a few bucks in change, periodically over the course of the school year.

The last keyholder was either greedy or stupid. Instead of taking some of the change, he took it all, which led to his undoing. If he had brain cell one in his head he would have known better and the "leakage" would have gone on until the machine was replaced. Because he was such an idiot, years of chicanery were exposed. The criminals "voluntarily" offered to make restitution and other considerations to avoid embarassment and/or prosecution. A settlement was reached that satisfied almost everyone. The idiot student (with his dad's support) was uncooperative, "lawyered up", so in addition to being expelled, he was charged criminally.

I suppose there are three morals to this story?

27.37%? Really?!? -OR- What happened? You miss the memo?

27.37% of Rawrahs visitors arrive here using Internet Explorer. I appreciate you stopping by, truly I do. I wish I could do something for you. So in the spirit of the holidays, hie you over to one of the following sites:

Mozilla Firefox
Google Chrome
Opera Web Browser
Apple Safari
links for A whole bunch of others

I could be way off base here. The 27.37% might be super-duper propeller heads who scoff at binary dangers. Maybe they just got lost and wandered in? But as the guy who frequently gets called when computers stop acting reliably, from friends and friends of friends and even a nice old woman who got my number from the lady at the deli counter at the local grocer, I'm here to tell you that IE is evil.

80% of PC owners still use it. WOW! How can THIS be, yet Detroit can't sell their buggy buggies? Why wasn't the Pinto good enough? So what if it exploded in rear-end collisions?
What's that? Inferior products give way to superior ones? Okay Sparky, let's look at the opening sentence of this paragraph again. rephrased: 80% of PC users click on IE to surf the web.

That just defies explanation.

Suggestion Box for the Car Czar -OR- DEEP GREEN Lives

Deep Green is the guy I know who lives in Indiana. Back in June I relayed his reports of midwest floods and his experiences. He used to work for one of the big three as one of those greedy union bastards, stuck between his union and Mother Company. Eyewitness to the up close and personal horrors of being in the trenches of Car Wars. Needless to say, since separating from Good Mother, he has reflected on his career and counted his blessings *for reaching a lifeboat*
albeit a leaky one. Lamenting what could have been, what used to be and how it could go so wrong for so long without serious consequences. The consequences are unfolding now, fast and furious. He was asked what he would do. His "plan" follows.


Okay, I'd remind the guy that America's first auto company bailout WORKED. The
K-Cars were great sellers. Lee Iaccoca paid the government back in full--with
interest on the loan and shares of the Chrysler company, which the Feds sold at
a profit--and Chrysler paid them back seven years early. In that bailout,
American taxpayers actually turned a profit and a quick and handsome one at that.

The message is, you gotta believe in the possibility that this can actually
work. If you don't believe that, let me know and I'll resign now and save us
both a lot of headaches.

#2. Be as independent of Congressional and White House influence as you possibly
can. They have no bloody idea what goes on in a coffee shop, let alone what it
takes to turn iron ore into something a soccer mom would be willing to spend
tens of thousands of dollars on and drive at 70 MPH with her children aboard.
Congress is running for reelection. The American auto industry is running for
its life.

#3. We must lay the groundwork very quickly. This will mean 24 hour days for us
and the car maker execs. Quietly arrange meetings with me, you and the CEOs of
each of the Big Three. These meetings will take place in a neutral area, not
Washington, not their corporate headquarters. The CEOs will come alone, without
their usual battery of lawyers and yes-men. We will talk informally but firmly
with each man to sound them out about their personal beliefs about their
companies chances of success. We will talk about what Iaccoca did when everyone
said he was going to fail and did not, and what they intend to do. We'll accept
"I don't know but I'll find out" and not accept empty words. We will tell them
we need straight talk from them at all times or we will see to it they are
immediately severed from their companies without further compensation,
no second chances.

Some of the language will be foul and tempers will flare from time to time.
Man up and deal with it. This is real-world hardball and neither side must
forget for a moment we're not offering a bailout for a corporate logo or a
single man who already has been paid more than any human being can possibly be
worth. We are offering our taxpayer's dollars--and trust--in a business deal to
secure American jobs and the American economy. That is more important than the
personal beliefs or prejudices of any of the three of us and any biases we
might have. We'll tell each CEO that we expect two things from them, besides the
truth: we will expect each man to do his best with the full backing of our
office to save what jobs are left in the United States and this country ONLY,
with no concern whatsoever of their foreign assets unless they can prove to us
it will affect the U.S. stock market, and we demand full transparency from them
and their staffs at all times. Corporate secrets, such as they are, will be
carefully guarded by the FBI if need be, but we will require an immediate and
honest answer to any question we have currently or after a turn of events--good
or bad--that come along during the span of this loan. Each CEO will be informed
that we'll be having similar talks with the leadership of every union connected
to and/or contracted with these companies. And then we will dismiss them.

#4. Rapidly contact ten different individual auto plants and arrange meetings at
each with 100 hourly employees picked at random. Listen to them. Go in with the
knowledge that these people are angry and frightened and some have little
education but lifetimes of experience with their companies. Go in expecting that
some will be stupid, some will be confused, and a very few of them just might be
brilliant. Come away with every good idea or honest question for the
corporations that we can get. No news media will be allowed in any of these
meetings. We will conduct and finish these meetings within the span of one week.
Auto companies work around the clock and we must too.

#5. Contact all union leaders, especially the UAW, and have private meetings
with each along the same guidelines as set out above for the CEOs. Go in with
the knowledge that their members have been bled white and are still bleeding. In
some cases union wages have been cut by half and benefits cut even more. Scores
of thousands have lost their jobs entirely already. Nevertheless show them no
mercy either. Sound them out about their willingness to change and adapt not
only their shop work rules, but the very structure of their unions themselves.
Suggest, for example, that the UAW allow its members to vote directly for the
office of President of the union, instead of that officer being selected by
other high union officials who have not worked an hour on shop floors in
decades. Listen carefully to what you hear. We may need to lean on the union
leadership as hard as we lean on the companies themselves. Remember, our goal is
the salvation of American jobs and perhaps the entire American economy itself.
We are not out to support OR to harm any union or its bylaws, but we are totally
willing to crush anyone who gets in our path towards that salvation. We can't
use those words but we must make that abundantly clear.

#6. Have a quick and very open question and answer meeting with the press. The
American taxpayers are being asked to boot up this money and they have the right
to know what we're doing and how procedures are going. Be honest with them and
tell them we are still gathering information. Point out this is a tightrope walk
for both the government and the industry with every American's fate being held
in the balance to a greater or lesser extent. Ask them how much they want us to
hurry with our guidance and advice to Congress in light of what is at stake.
Remind the press--and the people--that this is much more than just an
interesting news story. We have been given the task to defend America against
the possibility of another depression and the resulting effects of one which no
economist or public official has yet dared to estimate. Be quite frank and tell
them that since handed this task, your office is now capable of making the wrong
decisions and offering the wrong advice and becoming a part of the problem
instead of part of the solution. Therefore you do not look at failure on your
part as an option.

#7. Complete all of the above in fourteen days. Then we really get to work. This
is a national emergency and we must treat it as such.

#8. Assuming we have a staff--and what Congressional czar doesn't?--we break
them into separate groups to study separate issues. One group will be tasked to
investigate everything the car companies spend money on. Where does the money
go? Follow the money. Hourly, salary, and executive pay will all be made
transparent to your office, as well as energy costs, steel prices, subcontractor
costs, business trips, how much they spend on warranty work, transport of their
vehicles, entertainment costs for investors and subcontractor execs, lawyers
fees, lobbying, and bonuses. Who gets them, how often, and how much? We need to
account for each companies expenditures to the nearest dollar figure we can come
up with in the *next* two weeks. A second group will investigate all their
income from every source, each car sale, each dealership, every associate
business (GMAC comes to mind here), where they save their money and where they
reinvest it *and where that money is reinvested* most importantly. The next
three groups--and by "group" this can be merely two or three individuals, but
with the full weight of your office behind them--will focus on where the waste
in steel, manpower, energy, individual parts, and cost overruns are in each
company. Where do they sell their scrap steel, for instance? What do they get
for it? How is the bidding for their junk and scrap dealers held? Is there any
bidding allowed at all, or is it just the whim of an appointed manager? (I've
long suspicioned a crooked "sweetheart deal" between the local scrap dealers and
individuals in each plant in various cities. This could explain millions of
dollars of engineered "waste" and "scrap" each year. Expensive motors and
controls bought for "proposed improvements" that eventually wind up, brand new
and still in the box, in the scrap bins to be sold at a mere fraction of their
purchase price. Again, "follow the money" rules here.) A final group will study
the impact of outside forces on the American car companies, including the
contracts offered for business advantages to operate foreign "transplants" in
various states, the wildly fluctuating price in oil, general inflation,
subcontractor shortages and delays, everything that has an impact on the way
they are forced to do business that is beyond the control of their headquarters.

Included into this we must factor in the expenditures they are bound to by
Congress itself. Congressional meddling in the car business started decades ago
with the publication of "Unsafe At Any Speed" and for the most part it has been
a good thing. We are all driving safer and cleaner cars because of it. But you
must also search very deeply into each and every law passed over the years
looking for mistakes that other Congresses might have made in the past. It's
possible, knowing Congress' capacity for stupid errors, that some of these laws
may need to be altered or revoked entirely. You must be prepared to fight
Congress itself if we discover they are an impediment to the very job to which
they have appointed you. Be advised that we may have to jettison California from
the American car market for a year or two and be liberal with our mileage
demands for the national car fleet for roughly the same time period. You cannot
legislate technology. I spent almost twenty years making pickup trucks and
repairing the industrial infrastructure necessary to build them by the millions.
You cannot alter the known laws of physics by issuing decrees. Believe me. I've
seen people try that. They all failed.

I am aware, as you and the American public are, that Japanese and most
European cars get better gas mileage than the average American car. You must
start with "why"? I see three reasons: lack of engineering and shoddy
workmanship that is partially due to workers being driven to produce large
numbers of units in a very limited time without proper inspection allowing junk
to get through the lines. That, and the fact that the average American family
car owner will drive the largest possible vehicles they can afford to buy and
operate. Every other factor being taken out of the picture leaves that.
Americans will buy the biggest vehicles they can afford. You cannot stuff a
family of 3.4 people into a subcompact car and do it legally in the United
States if you are required by your state laws to use child booster seats,
rear-facing infant seats, plus carry a cargo equivalent to a week's worth of
groceries or luggage for a trip without grave discomfort. When Congress passed
legislation requiring better mileage, American automakers met the goals by
simply making smaller and lighter cars. This caused the boom in SUV and crew-cab
pickup truck sales. People wanted better mileage but did not want to sacrifice
personal comfort. This ultimately led us to where we stand today. The automakers
forgot the average family by not leading with new technology and staying with
junior high school physics and simply making smaller cars. Congress forgot the
average family when they mandated new fleet MPG ratings without looking at what
the public actually bought or was even willing to buy.

It was like a warm and a cold front moving into each other in the
atmosphere. This caused the storm we now face. Every family which could afford
one bought an SUV or pickup, every family that could not bought a foreign car
for its superior engineering and low cost. As fewer and fewer American families
could afford to buy either one, the perfect storm was set in motion.
Auto-related jobs were slashed and auto-related paychecks dried up. This plus
the ludicrous real estate scandals fed on each other. As debt consumed the
public they had less discretionary money on hand and credit dried up. Americans
soon got to the point in the curve where they quit buying any kind of vehicle,
foreign or domestic, and continue to drive older and older cars being passed as
they age down through differing economic levels. Detroit answered by cutting
more jobs and making even less desirous cars. People bought fewer of them still,
or switched brands. The two forces fed on each other and continue to do so.
Therefore you must carry the fight all the way down to the individual factory
worker who might make the same widget five thousand times a day, every day, and
have no idea what they do or where they go on a car. Their portion of the cause
and effect chain reaction is collectively as large as the CEOs of their
companies. Shared among the few thousand who still are on the job in America,
that responsibility is minimal compared that that of the CEOs--but it does exist
nonetheless. And you cannot improve the attitudes, teamwork, and pulling power
of a team of horses by simply beating them harder. Your job will involve human
psychology as much as it does economics and physics. Henry Ford II and Walter
Reuther of the UAW once toured a Ford plant together. Ford showed Reuther one of
the first industrial robots and smugly announced that it would work 24 hours a
day, seven days a week, and never ask for overtime or a break period to use the
restroom. Reuther said that was true, then told Ford it would also never buy a
car. That was true too. And prophetic on both their parts. The automakers never
retrained their workforce for advancing technology or demanded more from the new
people they hired in. The rapid rush to robotics and their saving in labor costs
led automakers into a robot buying frenzy, while workers were untrained in the
act of cooperating with non-human coworkers. This should have initiated a
massive skills training program from either the unions or the companies. Both of
them dropped the ball.

Your job now is to save as much of that manufacturing infrastructure as
possible in the short term and lead it onto a different path in the long term.
We need this manufacturing base for America for the rest of our foreseeable
future. The time will come when it is no longer necessary for the American
economy as a whole, but that time is not here yet.

Order your staff to move with all possible speed and accuracy. We will act
as if we are at war. If we fail, we may well help lead to one within our
lifetimes. Greater than the real estate market collapse, greater than the Wall
Street bailouts, the bare bones of America's manufacturing base must be
preserved because that is simply where all our money originates. People who have
never seen a car factory are involved in this much more deeply than they yet
realize. You must not only turn a single industry around, you must be willing to
lead, educate, inform, reform, and even be harshly critical of ignorance on all
fronts: from the actual buying public, to their state legislatures, to Congress
and even the White House and press on one hand, and from the lowest shop floor
janitor to the chief executive officers of the American automakers on the other.
Currently none of them are working together, in fact they impede progress more
often than not.

This may well be a job that is impossible to do. But we must try. And we
must move quickly.

Hit and run blogging -OR- I got nothing to say.

Write something interesting?

Hasn't all the interesting stuff already been writ?

Come up with a trademark? Something to set my blog apart from the rest of the herd?
Something cheap, tawdry and salacious? Post pictures of kittehs?

I bet nobody's done that yet!

Do you want to understand? -OR- Tell me another story.

Cyril Northcote Parkinson was a fucking genius! If you don't know the name, you know the law.

"Parkinson's Law can be stated very simply: Work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion. The consequences of this law--which appears to be applicable to all organizations--are traced by C. Northcote Parkinson in a book which at first glance seems merely hilariously funny. At second glance,the reader feels a kind of chilling sense of recognition: What if Parkinson's Law is true?"

Parkinson's Law (and Other Studies) [alt title: Parkinson's Law and the Pursuit of Progress] (c) 1955

I'm here to ask you, beg you to consider this as POINT A on our slogging, brutal trek out of this nightmare. Consider it required reading. Keep the tome always at hand to use as reference. (Must not be a LAW since my copy is currently out on loan.)

Professor Parkinson was the Raffles Professor of History at the University of Singapore when he penned his definitive work. He was a man, firmly grounded in a reality based world, who wrote Speculative Fiction based on his knowledge of REAL history.

He identified an immutable characteristic of life, the universe and everything.
PDF of the paper he expanded into the book


What we are witnessing, yet again, is nothing less than absolute proof of the man's genius. Will this time be enough to make it stop?

Cable News Networks? Yesterday, Today and for as many tomorrows as possible Blago fills 80% of their airtime. Commercials for Erectile Dysfunction, Time Saving, Financial, Lawyers, Credit products fill another 10%. Leaving a sparse 10% for actual news. Oops, check that. Gotta do the Entertainment segment, the lead-ins, the snappy patter between experts. 2% NEWS YOU NEED?

Why? Professor? Got an answer?
Law of Triviality Sure, that's easy. Everybody has a viewpoint on dirt-bag politicians.
Everybody can speak and wax poetic, and snipe and snark. And the audience will lap it up. Feel "informed" and validated. Win-Win?

Explaining the other news is HARD. They were trying on the whole financial meltdown, but it's just too HARD. Truth wouldn't work. Truth would expose the vapidness of the whole fucking structure upon which the media survives. What they needed was another OJ! Trust me when I say that the Blago saga will drag on for-fucking-ever. He is the tip of a systemic disease. If you forget this, he will also be the end. Once taken down, all will be right with everything. Yep.
Fucking brilliant.

Urinalistic Integrity -OR- I'm shocked I tell you! SHOCKED!

So. Now you've seen this guy

Let's make a deal!

2-4 2sDay YIPPIE, Zappie, Hippie edition

2-4 2sDay Got extra time on your hands edition?

Working on your resume'? Here's some food for thought.

Is it wrong? -OR- Just asking this stupid question exposes your cluenessness.

One of these things is Opposite the other.

Republic Windows AND DOORS
"Empowering employees and encouraging the free flow of new ideas creates enthusiasm, pride, and a spirit of innovation at Republic that shows up in every window we manufacture."

That free flow was ONE WAY? Republic downsized from 600 to 300 employees and increased production by innovation beating the remaining workers with the threat of losing THEIR jobs too! Production increased, PROFIT increased, workers got mandatory overtime. Hooray! The 7-Day 80 hr. workweek returns!


Republic Windows CLOSES Doors
"Republic Windows & Doors will shut its doors Friday, causing about 300 workers to lose their jobs at the North Side manufacturer."

But wait! That's not the whole story. In a 2007 Press Release Republic Trumpeted "great news"
"Republic Windows & Doors, LLC, a leading manufacturer of vinyl windows and doors, announced today that Chase Capital Corporation, a subsidiary of JPMorgan Chase & Co., has acquired a minority interest in Republic."

This would be the same Chase who has done quite well with bailout money too. What influence would Chase have on Republic?







Mission Accomplished?


Maybe Not if anyone's paying attention like
Driftglass?