Wailin' Wheelie and Me

Things break

2009-06-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

First let us consider . . .

EVERYTHING THAT breaks does so because essentials are violated, basic elements collapse under the strain. Analyses and proposed remedies must start with clear-headed investigation of what fundamentally broke. What basic laws and rules were stretched to the breaking point?

This theme is expanded here.
[Opinion] Be Good and Grow Rich: Reversing the Economic Meltdown

Meanwhile in Florida . . .

The Florida legislature and our erstwhile governor have just made insanity holy writ in the face of a disaster that is still sitting on Florida like a hurricane that won't go away.

That disaster specifically is that our landscape is dotted with abandoned developments that have sewer lines, streets and electrical utilities in place. There are a few finished, occupied homes sitting on these developments. There are also unfinished spec and partially paid for custom homes sitting untouched. There are also sitting on more mature developments, homes emptied by foreclosure or abandonment awaiting foreclosure.

Now our governor and legislature have given the green light for developers to start up on new residential projects. That must mean that there are investors available to make such things happen. There must be banks with money to let for such projects. It also means that there are buyers ready to occupy such developments . . . or NOT. The wind is just not blowing in that direction despite the jaw boning and last ditch prosperity affirmations of Realtors and there ad placements that surely had to be prepaid.

I sell business related goods and services to real estate, title and mortgage services. The things I sell are like mercury in a thermometer. My business thermometer has settled in the frigid end of the scale and I will be the first to know when some businesses will be headed to summer like comfort again.

The flowers are blooming, but it isn't honey just yet.

Who is running the show??

2009-05-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

As some may know, I like a good think. Today, I am thinking about universal or cosmic agency. I started with a search and landed here:

From the June 2009 Scientific American Magazine

Why People Believe Invisible Agents Control the World:
A Skeptic's take on souls, spirits, ghosts, gods, demons, angels, aliens and other invisible powers that be

By Michael Shermer

"There is now substantial evidence from cognitive neuroscience that humans readily find patterns and impart agency to them, well documented in the new book SuperSense (HarperOne, 2009) by University of Bristol psychologist Bruce Hood. Examples: children believe that the sun can think and follows them around; because of such beliefs, they often add smiley faces on sketched suns. Adults typically refuse to wear a mass murderer’s sweater, believing that “evil” is a supernatural force that imparts its negative agency to the wearer (and, alternatively, that donning Mr. Rogers’s cardigan will make you a better person). A third of transplant patients believe that the donor’s personality is transplanted with the organ. Genital-shaped foods (bananas, oysters) are often believed to enhance sexual potency. Subjects watching geometric shapes with eye spots interacting on a computer screen conclude that they represent agents with moral intentions."

The excerpt is expanded here.

Magic and Chicago

2009-04-16T16:43:00.000-07:00

How to Feed Yourself for $15 a Week

2007-09-08T15:43:00.000-07:00

Here is a very interesting piece I found at Get Rich Slowly .

How to Feed Yourself for $15 a Week

Saturday, 8th September 2007 (by J.D.)
This article is about Frugality, Food, Real-Life, Money Hacks

If you're new here, you may want to learn what this site is about. I encourage you to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Our discussion about how to eat for cheap generated a lot of great tips. Daiko shared a detailed explanation of how he once got by spending just $15/week on food. This is a great real-life example of how it’s possible to eat well without breaking the bank. I’m posting it here so that more people will see it.

Although I don’t do this now, I once lived on $15 a week for food in the early 1990s. This was helped by the fact that my workplace fed me five meals a week, but I was still carrying the weight of sixteen additional meals (for slightly less than a dollar per meal). This was not easy or comfortable to do — I did it by necessity — but I believe it could still be done for $20/week in most parts of the U.S. Also, while I was satisfied at the time, the fare was probably a bit more spartan than most would willingly eat.

Here is some of what I did: Follow link

This is a very interesting piece. I grew up eating purposefully and with simple intent. I keep staples and bulk items and I freeze leftovers for later variety. I eat very little meat and when I buy it, I look for half price tags on Thursday evenings because Friday is toss out day and the meat cases are prepped for the weekend shopper. Then I use the meat as an adjunct to dishes rather than as the main course. I am fortunate to live in a very competitive neighborhood with three major grocery giants jockeying for customers. I have their web sites marked and I am for each, their worst kind of customer. I also buy store brands as much as I am able or want. I have a failing just now for Kozy-Snak sugar free tapioca pudding. It is usually six serving cups for $3.00. I now have tapioca pearls, a double boiler and I make my own tapioca custard for about 25 cents per serving. I also have a failing for Kashi Go-Lean Crunch. I have made a perfect knock off with bulk supplies from the health food grocery.

My skills have earned me a spot on hunting, fishing and sailing ventures. My principle collaborator and mentor is my long time friend Big Kat. BK can smoke a varmint or produce a pan of or scratch biscuits ready for butter and preserves in about 30 minutes. Together we can do things to egg plant that would make Em'ril weep.

Please go on to the link above.

Hourly Update

2007-06-10T09:39:00.001-07:00

I have very fond memories of this institution in Gethsemani, KY.  I met and heard Thomas Merton speak there.  Before Merton, I had little understanding of the deeper side of of what has come down to us as "religion".  Since my youth, I have spent several weekends there in retreat. 

http://haloscan.com/tb/branemrys/5806807367974378479

HolyJuan: Not really the color I expected...

2007-06-05T20:12:00.000-07:00

HolyJuan: Not really the color I expected...

Honoring the Dead

2007-05-27T07:33:00.000-07:00

I had the honor of performing this duty twice in my transshipment from Oakland Army Terminal to Japan in 1965.

The bus ride up to Edwards Air Force Base was alway noisy and full of ribald humor. The ride back in the convoy of Graves Registration vehicles was always somber and much less mirthful.

It is my contention that most American men at about 19 or 20 will take on the responsibilities of soldiering if asked. It is also my contention that American GIs are willing to be lead but will balk at being driven. It is now reported that the young officers corps and, formerly eager NCO cadre are avoiding further service in record numbers. They have been used and abused. They have driven hard. They are asked to step back into the line of fire over and over. It is not the way that an American Army has been asked to work in the past. They can be used a bit, but when it comes to being abused, all bets are off.

This era will go down in history as the blackest mark recorded in our brief two hundred and odd numbers of national existence.

How did you support the troops today. Did you fill your tanks with $3.75 gasoline and drag the boat to the lake?

A Strong Smackdown

2007-05-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

I don't believe that I have ever seen such a strong rebuke of any political or government official by his "peers". This is serious. This is a strong statement of Government of the People, by the People.

LB

AN OPEN LETTER TO ATTORNEY GENERAL ALBERTO GONZALES

May 15, 2007

Dear Attorney General Gonzales:

Twenty-five years ago we, like you, graduated from Harvard Law School. While we arrived via many
different paths and held many different views, we were united in our deep respect for the Constitution and the
rights it guaranteed. As members of the post-Watergate generation who chose careers in law, we understood
the strong connection between our liberties as Americans and the adherence of public officials to the law
of the land. We knew that the choice to abide by the law was even more critical when public officials were
tempted to take legal shortcuts. Nowhere were we taught that the ends justified the means, or that freedoms
for which Americans had fought and died should be set aside when inconvenient or challenging. To the
contrary: our most precious freedoms, we learned, need defending most in times of crisis.

So it has been with dismay that we have watched your cavalier handling of our freedoms time and
again. When it has been important that legal boundaries hold unbridled government power in check, you
have instead used pretextual rationales and strained readings to justify an ever-expanding executive authority.
Witness your White House memos sweeping aside the Geneva Conventions to justify torture, endangering
our own servicemen and women; witness your advice to the President effectively reading Habeas Corpus
out of our constitutional protections; witness your support of presidential statements claiming inherent
power to wiretap American citizens without warrants (and the Administration’s stepped-up wiretapping
campaign, taking advantage of those statements, which continues on your watch to this day); and witness
your dismissive explanation of the troubling firings of numerous U.S. Attorneys, and their replacement with
others more “loyal” to the President’s politics, as merely “an overblown personnel matter.” In these and other
actions, we see a pattern. As a recent editorial put it, your approach has come to symbolize “disdain for the
separation of powers, civil liberties and the rule of law.”

As lawyers, and as a matter of principle, we can no longer be silent about this Administration’s
consistent disdain for the liberties we hold dear. Your failure to stand for the rule of law, particularly when
faced with a President who makes the aggrandized claim of being a unitary executive, takes this country down
a dangerous path.

Your country and your President are in dire need of an attorney who will do the tough job of
providing independent counsel, especially when the advice runs counter to political expediency. Now more
than ever, our country needs a President, and an Attorney General, who remember the apt observation
attributed to Benjamin Franklin: “Those who would give up essential Liberty to purchase a little temporary
Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” We call on you and the President to relent from this reckless path,
and begin to restore respect for the rule of law we all learned to love many years ago.

Yours truly,

THE SIGNATORIES ARE ALL MEMBERS OF THE HARVARD LAW SCHOOL CLASS OF 1982
David M. Abromowitz
Boston, MA
Jonathan B. Baker
Bethesda, MD
Valerie D. Bell
St. Louis, MO
Raymond Angelo Belliotti
Fredonia, NY
James S. Berkman
Boston, MA
McKey W. Berkman
Boston, MA
Scott Brown
Hanover, NH
Robert D. Chesler
Roseland, NJ
Armond Cohen
Cambridge, MA
David Currier
Freeport, ME
Stuart W. Davidson
Philadelphia, PA
Daniel M. Elkort
San Francisco, CA
Matthew E. Epstein
Newton, MA
Mary T. Esposito
Cape Elizabeth, ME
Gary M. Fallon
Seattle, WA
William L. Fleming
Seattle, WA
Jonathan A. Funk
San Francisco, CA
Keith Halpern
Cambridge, MA
Matthew M. Horgan
London, UK
Elaine Johnson James
West Palm Beach, FL
Keith A. James
West Palm Beach, FL
Emily Joselson
Middlebury, VT
Cheryl D. Justice
Los Angeles, CA
Meredith J. Kane
New York, NY
Susan Kaplan
New York, NY
David Karnovsky
New York, NY
Gregory F. Keller
Great Neck, NY
David Kelston
Cambridge, MA
Otho E. Kerr III
New York, NY
Marisa Lago
New York, NY
Kathleen Larocque
Santa Rosa, CA
Karen Levinson
New York, NY
Christine A. Littleton
Los Angeles, CA
Nancy R. London
Pacifi c Palisades, CA
Beverly R. Lopez
Dallas, TX
Julian W. Mack
San Francisco, CA
Andy Miller
San Francisco, CA
Barbara Moses
New York, NY
Beth H. Parker
San Francisco, CA
Wendy E. Parmet
Newton, MA
Brendan J. Radigan
Providence, RI
Catherine Redlich
Ridgewood, NJ
Michael B. Reuben
New York, NY
Clifford S. Robbins
San Mateo, CA
James Rosenthal
New York, NY
Rusty Russell
Cambridge, MA
Eric Schneiderman
New York, NY
Eric Seiler
New York, NY
Jeffrey P. Smith
Evanston, IL
Lorna Soroko
Tucson, AZ
Alan M. Spiro
Boston, MA
David S. Steuer
Palo Alto, Califonia
Kelvin R. Westbrook
St. Louis, MO
Mary Whisner
Seattle, WA
Jeannette Anderson Winn
Greenville, SC
Marshall Winn
Greenville, SC

A response to my agrieved . . .

2007-05-04T07:45:00.000-07:00

friend.

I am certainly glad to see that I am back on the Billy Net.

About that crate thing; if one is shoved in front of me, I'll jump up on it and speak.

I have become a snarky bastard since turning 62. My phone is red hot with what to turn over next in my IRAs and 401Ks. They are pitifully small but the advice is myriad.

I have put off the Social Security thing so as to maximize that eventual outcome. My right ankle and leg structural integrity have reached a point of constant pain. I can not, however, in good conscience bring myself to tap VA.

It was a scene of utter irony this week to find the Prez'dent sitting down with that brilliant Nancy Pelosi. There was further irony to be found in the scene of "Mommy" and that Austrian fellow, Ahnold entering the Rebup debates. I was completely blind sided by the participation of Mike Gravel. I had completely forgotten about him.

I don't know about the intricacies of your city and county tax and financial structure, but it appears that the merde is going to be much deeper in that area for the immediate future. The cities and county staff reductions here are being made in the worker bee section of those programs. the administrators are staying with bonuses. I had high hopes for our new governor, Charlie Crist, but he has now started the doo-doo rolling down hill again.

Meanwhile: our beach tourist industry is gutted by the loss of a thousand or so rooms for visitors from all over the world. The condos that were to replace them are standing empty and unfinished. The county won a new penny of sales tax and then started closing services that maintain the parks and facilities that went before. There are now clandestine activities going on to sweep clean preserve land that is the last of the natural in our county and building "ball fields" on them.

On the plus side, my garage is unloaded enough to get around in it and do some work with my tools. My yard is now up to specs with the rest of the neighbors. My good friends Jim and Wilma are moving along with their plans to leave the hurricane zone for the tornado zone. My daughter and her boy friend have an apartment in a rual setting. They are the human security for a small horse related supply business, beyond where the sidewalks end. Schlepping them around to school and back to their "accommodation" is a small price to pay. My relief will be complete when they clear "My" spare bedrooms of their stuff.

This response has become so good that I am posting it to my blogs with names changed to protect the . . . aggrieved

Happy Cinco d'Mayo. It is as much a celebration for el Norte as it is for Atzlan. Google it and find out why.

LB

Bottle and Glass Trees

2007-04-30T20:27:00.000-07:00

I just watched "Ray" again. I saw it twice on the big screen and now once on DVD. It is an outstanding portrayal of an artist of my time by a young artist, Jamie Fox. That is not the point of the post.

In the Ray and Mama scenes, there are trees decorated with glass of all kinds and especially bottles. The structure is not new to me. I have seen it elsewhere, but where. Ah. Yes. Because of Winn Dixie. The last movie that I took my now twenty year old daughter to. Cecily Tyson's character has a bottle tree in her hermitage.

I grew up in a section of the South where flower beds were constructed with tractor tires. Trees trunks in yards were white washed. As the times progressed it became popular to save the old hay rake that set up cut and wilted hay into windrows for the balers. They were painted usuallyr ed or blue depending on whether your state university of choice was the Cats or the Cards. The most intriguing cultural relic was the claw foot bathtubs that were buried upright about three quarters exposed and a Madonna was contained there in. Some were plain. Some had a spotlight. Some were trellised over with roses. Some were further clad in geodes. The mix was myriad. I have not however seen any bottle trees. I have visited every southern coastal city from Jacksonville, NC to South Padre Island. I have visited slightly inshore and it the backwaters of the croppers villages and the various islands of African culture near the coasts. I have tramped around Eatonville, Florida with my copies of Zora Neal Hurston. I experienced some "Sniglets" but no bottle trees.

In the village in which I now live there is a long settled and owner inhabited neighborhood where the wafting of illegal mangrove smoke is mixed with mullet drippings. That is inter mixed with ribby clouds of smoke and a big pot of well seasoned collards sitting on the side. It is all for sale. Just bring your own tote bowl. It is all quite illegal and on occasion the city and county fathers crack down a bit. I know people there andI visit. I sit on porches with couches knocking back 40s and a little smoke. I also siton screen enclosed pools just outside the living areas of fine Florida homes. Yet. I have not seen a bottle tree. I have never even seen a statue of MLK set up in a claw foot bath tub.

I may just be the first on my block . . . hell, in my village to have a bottle tree. I have the resources - lots of wine serving restaurants in the retail neighborhood and there are at least two martini bars that have gin and vodka bottles of every color.

I am glad that I am 62 and I can think about really important things.

"I am just an old hippy, and I don't know what to do. Should I hang on to the old or grab on to the new?"

LB

2007-04-10T20:44:00.000-07:00

I have been experimenting with blog editors. I am composing this on Google Docs. I usually compose post here using the lnative Blogger editor. The reason I am posting from Docs now is that I have also been experimenting with Scribefire. It is a Firefox Add-on recently estranged from its nest at Performancing.

Much to my disappointment the Scribefire linking to this Blogger site is buggy. I have Googled for comments and a fix but to no avail. For now I will continue to keep the Scribefire pane open on my screen because it is a very nice tool that incorporates my del.icio.us categories into the Categ. button. The buggy linking will eventually work out. I do have one gripe about the del.icio.us functioning. Whenever I close out the original window in my speed browsing, I have to sign back in when I want to post another bookmark. There is no remember me next time and Firefox does not invite a remember.

I have been a user of Google, Firefox, del.icio.us, and other web based services for things that here-to-fore I kept on my HD. Well, that is not completely true because I am not fully trusting of the off HD storage just yet and I back up to CDs by category and project.

Old school blogging has been a practice of getting your thoughts out there in as many places as possible and to have a blog on one or several blogging hosts. I have had several experimental sites that reached my email list and some of the sites that usually turn out to be cat fight venues. Otherwise, I have been spammed dizzy by every sort of racket. The recent rise of social network sites has not changed the cat fight game. Those sites (MySpace, Facebook, Friendster and others ) have become notorious for "Girls Gone Wild" and stalking content. As an aside, much to my delight I have found a Google Group that is named after my home county in Kentucky and draws contributors from surrounding counties. It is quite amazing. I know some of those people personally, I may know their families and I may even be related to them by either blood or marriage. There are the usual curmudgeons there but there is an amazingly deep and simpatico number of individuals with whom I would have never communicated otherwise.

The newest push in blogging is in the direction of what has come to be called web2.0. It is the new school. The goal in web2.0 is high quality original content and monetization from the presence of clickable ad placement. In other words, if you are good you get checks. I can go for some of that. How about you.

In these four short paragraphs, I have discovered why I would prefer to be able to post to my blog from Scribefire. The foremost reason is that I have several words that I always misspell and even though Google Docs calls my attention to it, it does not allow me to correct with a right click. I have just noticed that my Firefox Spell Checker has disappeared since a recent update. The linkmaker that presents you with the Blue Links is also a bit clumsy. 'm'I bad! I just spotted the Check Spelling button.

I believe that I will post this at that my home county Google Group site.

Got to go. I heard a noise in the yard. I believe that a coyote is trying to get in my new chicken run.

Duck is gone.

2007-04-09T19:59:00.000-07:00

the chicken remains. It is even beginning to pay its way. I have moved the chicken from the pool lanai to an enclosure in the yard with much more room. I may add another half dozen chickens.

It's like . . . being a post modern suburbanite. I am also sprouting mixed baby greens in shallow plastic mortar tubs. I will pitch them to a small local foo-foo eatery when I get the process down.

LB

Note for Nov. 8, 2006

2006-11-08T10:48:00.000-08:00

My duck has gone south with the coming of the cool blast that arrived here with yesterday's torrential rain.

The duck was in the yard last evening, but gone this morning. On Sunday morning, I discovered him walking around on the screen enclosure for the pool. I suspected it wouldn't be long. I will visit some of the ponds and gathering spots for his kin later today. In my neighborhood there are probably several thousand Muscovy ducks on the ponds. Many of the ponds hold Mallard, drakes and judies. There are also a great variety of less common call ducks and a few of the domesticated, white variety. In those same ponds are to be found, wood storks, a variety of egrets and cormorant.

Yesterday just before the rain, I saw a great vee of white pelicans arriving for the winter. The Canadas will arrive soon and also the brackish water ducks that winter over on the bays. The Harris hawks and the wintering over red tails are also marking territories and screeching at each other.

This is also the beginning of Sheephead season. They are an outstanding food fish, tastes like oysters, but they are either caught quite by accident or by careful technique and great skill.

I can't think about that now- too many other deadlines and commitments to go fishing now.

I know that it's already . . .

2006-10-31T08:42:00.000-08:00

Chilly-ish up yonder where some a you all live and sometime your assigned far-starter can't git up enough wind to "git-er-done"

Well, here's the cure.

This is door and winder season where I am. All the doors and winders are open. I got the big ol' Shop-Vac out and set to blow and, I am git-er-done. I used to do that with the compressor stringing a yella hose thru the house, but my woman caught me at it. I also tried it with the Echo Back Pack leaf blower. Even when I put a little vaneler in the gas mix, it just didn't set right with her.

There ain't no pleasing some women.

I have a duck.

2006-10-30T14:38:00.000-08:00

It came with the daughter's previous boyfriend. When he came here he was black and yellow fuzz. Today, he is kind of a Rottweiler of a duck. He is a Muscovy Duck. He lives in my yard and eats lizards and Palmetto bugs. Today, I was watching and he and my six foot pine snake were facing off. The Pine Snake has lived in my yard since the second Clinton administration. They say that dinosaurs were reptiles. I think not. I believe they were ducks.

I have a chicken.

Saturday night, I got to listen to the Wailin' Jennies on PHC, then this American Life.

Cosmo Coaltrain

2006-10-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

Cosmo Coaltrain, Cosmo Coaltrain, Cosmo Coaltrain, Cosmo Coaltrain

"Cosmo Coaltrain"

It is Cold Here Today . . .

2005-11-21T15:36:00.000-08:00

for here. I know my limits and this is one of them. This blast will drive the Sheep's Head to feed very heavily on the bridge pilings. They are not considered a game fish and are unworthy of a sportsman's attention. Most sportsman just can't catch them. Taking a six pound Sheep's Head off of big structure is a challenge for anyone. But you have to hook up. Good lightly grilled with glarlic-butter and each bite rolled in toasted bread crumbs. Tastes like aw-stuhs.

Half what?

2005-11-20T14:32:00.000-08:00

The clothes are the man; especially the tie.

Owl Baiting in America

2005-11-16T16:30:00.000-08:00

Inventive minds should never be idle. Years ago I discovered the great fun that can be had with a fishing rod, a soft hookless teaser mouse and an 8 pound Siamese cat on a tile floor. I know that cats are not stupid, so their method of continual play with a repetitive game must just be compulsive or manicy. My cat would attack that mouse on the fishing line for hours. I know that I wore out a drag set the first several months that I played the game. I would flip the mouse across the tile floor. The cat would pounce and hold and I would drag him across the slick tile until he got some purchase in the grout lines and then the drag would squeal. It was great fun.

About a month ago I was approaching my drive way and as I illuminated the street ahead of me I saw the movement of a relatively large insect skittering across the road. I slowed and as I did a miniature owl swept down out of a tree and pounced on the insect. He was just twelve or so feet in front of my car. He stared right into the lights, gave a blink, and then took off with his snack. I am impressed by things like that. My wife was fearful, and asked, "Will that thing get in our house?

Tonight, I let the dogs into the back yard just as it was getting past dark. I heard an owl calling. I immediately asked myself, "Where did I put that mouse?" I am going to try it when I get back from my walk.

Noodling Flatheads

2005-09-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

Some days it just all comes together.

http://good-fishing.info/193/

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High Five

Wailin' Wheelie and Me

2005-09-12T20:34:00.000-07:00

Families are sometimes messy affairs. Things happen. You just go with the kids as they come to you.