Monthly Archives: June 2014

Hyundai – Jeanne’s new ride

Hi readers.  Jeanne’s 1991 Oldsmobile’s headed for someone poorer and more desperate than she is.  Found herself a spanking new Hyundai with less than 100,000 miles on it and less than a decade old.  Ran it through all the mechanic pre-purchase checks and online automotive and title histories, and concluded it might be okay.

Maybe it will.  The Oldsmobile was doing some threatening and complaining it wasn’t getting enough treasure spent keeping it running.  So I hope the Hyundai measures up and lasts a while.

I’m thinking it’s named after a place I visited in Korea while I was on leave, travelling around site seeing.  Went somewhere, Taegue I think, saw a giant Buddha, rode a coal fired train around all over the countryside.  And came to Hyundai down the other side of the bay from Pusan.  Beautiful place.

Beautiful place all to hell, it was.  Trees blooming, a serene bay with all manner of Chinese junk looking boats and smaller boats with wiggletails used as oars.

People around Hyundai didn’t see much of GIs, same as up at Taegu.  I spent 30 days travelling around and a week-or-so at Hyundae.  A fond memory I hadn’t remembered until Jeanne decided on that car.

Hell of a deal.

Old Jules

Iraq? US? Weird weird weird! How many trillion did you say?

Hi readers.  Nowhere in the modern world.  Maybe nowhere in the history of the planet has a nation squandered such treasure and so many lives for absolutely nothing.

Nothing.

Iraq.   I-freaking-rock.  Invaded the damned place twice.  Presidents of both parties sent men and women to waste away there, then left Iraq in chaos and ruin for the first set of armed fanatics to arrive.  From all directions.

Hell, the French caused the Vietnam War and a lot of what’s happening in the Arab lands today in their incompetent dealings with their vanished empire, but they’d have to tip their hats to us on this.  They only lost Algeria and Vietnam etc, and their own country to the Germans.  And they did most of it with money from US taxpayers by pretending to have been an ally during WWII so’s we owed them money to rebuild. 

But even with US money the French couldn’t get up there in the neighborhood of a billion dollars a day.

It took two Bushes, a Clinton, and this guy now to pull that off.

So now nobody knows where any of the borders are to Iraq, and the only people who probably won’t end up with a piece of it are the Israelis.  Not for lack of wishing, threatening with nuclear weapons,  and thumb sucking.  Be assured.

US foreign policy use to make a certain amount of sense unless you viewed it from a distance.  But I think we’ve finally reached the point where it ceased making any sense and nobody in his right mind would attempt to make sense of it.

That way lies madness.

Olde Jules

 

Personal lessons learned from the 20th Century

Hi readers.  This is mainly advice for my progeny, though I don’t have any progeny.

  1. Don’t live in places where the ruling individual is called, “strong man”.
  2. Don’t live in places where the governing body is called, “ruling Junta”.
  3. In places where the police enjoy broad discretionary powers including making people disappear avoid situations they might see as confrontational or provocative.  Avoid trying to explain your viewpoint to them.  Especially after they’ve disappeared you.
  4. Stay out of groups protesting the activities of right wing death squads.
  5. Avoid situations requiring mastery of the local language to communicate  the phrase, “I demand to contact the US Embassy.”
  6. If you believe you need to contact the US Embassy try to escape immediately.  Never mind the US Embassy. 
  7. Don’t volunteer for anything.

I’ve never done most of these things and I’ve survived thus far.  The proof of the pudding is in the eating.

Old Jules

Humanity Surprised It Still Hasn’t Figured Out Better Alternative To Letting Power-Hungry Assholes Decide Everything

http://www.theonion.com/articles/humanity-surprised-it-still-hasnt-figured-out-bett,36361/

The Onion

Humanity Surprised It Still Hasn’t Figured Out Better Alternative To Letting Power-Hungry Assholes Decide Everything

News • world leaders • News • ISSUE 50•25 • Jun 25, 2014

 Billions worldwide agreed that, by this point in human civilization, they would have expected a better process than entrusting all their political, commercial, and social decisions to vindictive, self-absorbed fuckers.

NEW YORK—Noting that it has had thousands of years to develop a more agreeable option, humankind expressed bewilderment this week that it has yet to devise a better alternative to governing itself than always letting power-hungry assholes run everything, sources worldwide reported.

Individuals in every country on earth voiced their frustration that, in spite of generations of mistreatment, neglect, and abuse they have suffered at the hands of those in positions of authority, they continue to allow control over the world’s governments, businesses, and virtually every other type of organization and social group to fall to the most megalomaniacal pricks among them.

“We’ve all seen what this system leads to, so you’d think that by now, someone, somewhere would have sat down and thought up another way to keep our societies functioning without giving all the power to arrogant, amoral dicks whose only concern is improving their own status,” said Mumbai software designer Ankan Rao, one of 7.1 billion humans who conveyed continued surprise that their species has so far proven incapable of formulating a method of governance that was even slightly more tolerable. “Everybody dislikes the people in charge and everybody knows they’re only serving their own personal agendas at the expense of everyone else, but we just keep allowing these jerks to make our decisions time and time again. And it’s not just here—it’s everywhere in the world.”

“Boy, maybe we shouldn’t do that anymore,” Rao added. “Anyone have any better ideas?”

Speaking with reporters, citizens across the planet unanimously expressed their bafflement at the consistency with which they either formally or informally select corrupt and self-obsessed sacks of shit for leadership roles in all facets of life, including positions atop corporate boards, judicial and legislative bodies, religious institutions, parent-teacher associations, the military, intramural softball teams, and international and national professional associations, as well as groups of friends deciding where to eat.

In addition, sources offered countless examples of the counterproductive and perplexing practice of entrusting power to the world’s least scrupulous individuals, ranging in scale from a domineering dictator who plunges his country into civil war in order to consolidate his power, to a Foot Locker shift manager who forces his subordinates to close up without him so that he can go home early.

Moreover, everyone across the planet acknowledged that the tradition of allowing an exploitative asshole to take charge of a given situation has been the principal system for group decision-making from the earliest formation of tribal societies to the present day, an admission that caused each member of the human race to either emit an exasperated sigh, shake his or her head, or mutter a profanity.

“My old boss, my sorority president, my congressional representative, my current boss—they’ve all been soulless, backstabbing dickheads whose only concern is getting what they want,” said administrative assistant Sheryl Gittens of Forth Worth, TX, who went on to list the bully back in her seventh grade class, her homeowners association president, and the coordinator of her Bible study group among the legions of selfish jagoffs who have inexplicably been granted commanding roles by the acquiescent masses. “What’s even more annoying is that we essentially reward these people for only thinking of themselves and repeatedly screwing us over. If you stop and think about it, that’s pretty messed up.”

“Jesus,” she continued. “What the hell’s wrong with us?”

Given the prevalence throughout history of compassionless, two-faced leaders whose lust for control and inflated self-importance have led to disastrous results for society at large, many individuals questioned if, going forward, they should instead try giving power to someone other than a greedy, self-serving bastard.

“Maybe we should try letting a kind, responsible person run things for a change,” Cairo resident Nathifa Bakhoum told reporters. “I, for one, don’t want to be told what to do by another narcissist who’s drunk on power and who has absolutely no regard for my well-being. It’s just a thought, but perhaps we could go with a good, decent human next time, or at least someone who’s not a completely egotistical pile of dogshit. That seems like a good thing to try at least once, right? Could we even do that? It’s probably worth a shot.”

When pressed for further comment, however, every member of humanity agreed that the current system, though deeply flawed, remains far better than one in which they actually have to make decisions for themselves.

Some lessons learned from the 20th Century

Hi readers.  If we didn’t learn anything from the 20th Century, it wasn’t from lack of opportunities. 

For instance, 

  1. we should have learned not to get into any wars, alliances, or trading partnerships with Japan.  We tried all three and each one ended a step closer to our economic destruction.  The US prospered until it became involved with Japan.
  2. We should have learned not to get into any wars, alliances or trading agreements with anyone on the Korean peninsula.  The US prospered until it became involved with people living on the Korean peninsula.
  3. We should have learned not to get into any wars, alliances or trading agreements with anyone in the Middle East.  Too confusing.  The US prospered until it got involved with people living in the Middle East.
  4. The US needs to prohibit more things and criminalize more things.  Many currently wealthy families, such as the Kennedys, arrived at wealth and power through the manufacture, transport and sale of prohibited substances.   Prohibiting things is win/win for the worthy who have the courage to break the laws, take the risks, and do a little discrete killing when needed.  The US prospers when the people who matter profit.  Prohibiting things raises profits similarly to the way wars raise profits for people who matter.
  5. Finally, we need to recognize once and for all we’re God’s Chosen People.  I wrote about this almost a year ago, but little has changed since then.  Why the Jews used to be God’s Chosen People but aren’t any moreThe time has definitely come to assume the crown, take responsibility for the burden we bear, and invade Mexico.

Remember where you heard it first.

Old Jules

Thank you for your service.

Hi readers.  Gotta smile.  Someone sent me this link to a Yahoo News article saying Executives running VA medical treatment facilities got themselves high-dollar bonuses the past few years.  And 65% of all VA employees got bonuses.

Ironically yesterday I also got another co-pay demand for the meager services I got from them in the form of prescriptions a while back.  Been paying $10 per month, and they ain’t happy about it.  Gonna take it spang out of my Social Security pension check.

I thought I had all that ironed out with them, but evidently I don’t.  At least I’ve gained the wisdom not to use their pharmacy again, to just use the Walgreen down the street and Medicare.  Co-pay isn’t such a killer.

The other up-side of all this is that people aren’t in any danger anymore of finding out I’m a veteran and saying, “Thank you for your service.”  The past couple of months have provided me with the reply I never could quite come up with before:

How about we go over to the VA Hospital and jerk each other off?”

Anyway, I’ve got the pharmacy co-pay worked down paying $10 per month so’s when they snag it out of my SS pension check it will only be $50 or less.  Provided they don’t hit me with a co-pay on this Merlin@Home transmitter to monitor my defibrillator they sent without me asking them to.  If there’s a co-pay on that I’m going to have to consider the VA benefits equivalent of going postal.

Not that I’m complaining.  Hell it ain’t as though I did anything to deserve all this special treatment they’ve been giving me at the VA, first back in Texas by stroking my bird for six weeks, then here by actually taking my blood pressure and giving me a prescription.  After all, they’re paying for my physical therapy.  I’m grateful for that.

Next time I’m over that way I’m going to tell them a big “Thank you for your service.”

And meanwhile laugh my ass off.

Old Jules

We few, we happy few

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Down at physical therapy we’re folks who’ve seen 17-year cicadas emerge the way they did in 2013 enough times so’s we shrug it off.  Old hat.  Centuries change and we say to one another, “Back in ninteen hunnerd and eight-one I was fishing out in Colorado or somewhere and caught one hell of a brown trout.  Or maybe it was the Black Hills.  Rainbow trout.”

Seventeen year cicadas just ain’t going to impress people such as us.  Because we all remember all the words to, “I’ve got a feeling called the blues since my baby said goodbye.  Lard I don’t know what I’ll dooooo, all I do is sit and cryyyyy oh lard that last long day she said goodbye, etc.” 

There’s an instrumental version on the boom box and a pair of octogenarian who quit whatever machine they’re on and stand together and sing it everytime it plays.  Not too bad duo, either.  And all the rest of us mouth the words while they sing it through.

She’s evidently one of the people who’s got the kind of insurance pays for her to go down there forever as a cost saver.  His ain’t so good.  I overheard them saying his will be running out in a few weeks, a little before mine.

So I’m thinking I might get a chance to get up and sing some old Inkspots or Otis Redding, once he clears out of here.  Maybe Hair, too.  Everybody’s Talking At Me I Don’t Hear A Word They’re Saying Only the Shadows of Their Eyes

Maybe run through a little standup comedy.  Some tap dancing.

Fact is, though, if it weren’t for the fact my energy level and limitations are being demonstrated to me while I listen, I otherwise feel more prone to do some jitterbugging and Texas Two Step and trying to remember the words to songs and sing them except as background noise to 17 year cicadas.

 Got to see a Century change, we did, got to see Haley’s Comet once.  Four times around for those 17 year cicadas.  And we got a feeling called the blooooose.

Ought to be ashamed of ourselves.

Old Jules

Just when you thought you had it bad

Hi readers.  Maybe it’s worth watching some foreign films just to remind ourselves that things could be a lot worse.   All these are for streaming on Netflix.  I’ve given them all four, or five stars:

Tall as the Baobab Tree, 2012 NR 81 minutes, When an accident threatens his struggling family’s survival, a father decides to sell his 11-year-old daughter into an arranged marriage. Starring:Dior Kâ, Oumoul Kâ  Director:Jeremy Teicher

Mandabi 1968 NR 91 minutes A down-and-out man receives much-needed financial aid but hits bureaucratic roadblocks as he tries to convert the money order to cash. Starring:Makhouredia Gueye, Ynousse N’Diaye Director:Ousmane Sembène

 The Grocer’s Son  2007 NR 95 minutes After his father suffers a stroke, a young man reluctantly returns home to his small mountain village to help out with the family business.  Starring:Nicolas Cazale, Clotilde Hesme  Director:Eric Guirado

Lost in Thailand  2012 NR 105 minutes  This Chinese comedy caper tracks the competition between two managers for control over their company, which has developed a miraculous new product. Starring:Zheng Xu, Baoqiang Wang

Aftershock  2010 NR 135 minutes   In the decades after her mother chooses to save her brother and leave her to die following an earthquake, a girl struggles to rebuild her life. Starring:Fan Xu, Jingchu Zhang Director:Xiaogang Feng

Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets 2000 NR 98 minutes A group of urchins living on the hard streets of Casablanca create a familial bond of friendship in order to survive amid violence and poverty. Starring:Mounim Kbab, Mustapha Hansali Director:Nabil Ayouch 

A Thousand Months  2003 NR 120 minutes 1981 Morocco, young Mehdi comes to terms with his own culture during Ramadan, secure in the knowledge that his beloved father is away in France. Starring:Fouad Labied, Nezha Rahile Director:Faouzi Bensaïdi

 Journey of Hope 1990 PG 110 minutes Beckoned by tales of economic prosperity, a Turkish family leaves their meager existence and sets off on a grueling journey to Switzerland. Starring:Necmettin Çobanoglu, Nur Sürer
Director:Xavier Koller

Times and Winds 2006 NR 111 minutes Reha Erdem writes and directs this award-winning film set in rural Turkey, where three friends entering adolescence share the struggles of growing up. Starring:Taner Birsel, Nihan Asli Elmas Director:Reha Erdem

The Deserted Station 2002 NR 88 minutes Inspired by a photographic jaunt, this lyrical film asks what happens next when a couple is stranded in a small village after their car breaks down. Starring:Leila Hatami, Nezam Manouchehri Director:Alireza Raisian

Tsotsi 2005 R 94 minutes After shooting a woman and driving off in her car, a ruthless thug is surprised to discover a crying infant in the back seat. Starring:Presley Chweneyagae, Terry Pheto Director:Gavin Hood

Munyurangabo 2007 NR 93 minutes A Tutsi orphaned by Rwanda’s genocide sets off to mete out rough justice with his Hutu friend but their tribal differences soon come to a head. Starring:Jeff Rutagengwa, Eric Ndorunkundiye Director:Lee Isaac Chung

Sounds of Sand 2006 NR 92 minutes With a drought killing their livestock and a war looming, the residents of an African village decide to migrate in search of an easier existence. Starring:Marion Hansel, Isaka Sawadogo

American Flyer 2010 NR 86 minutes After failed attempts to cross the border at Tijuana, a young man constructs a flying machine out of a wheelbarrow to try to fly into California. Starring:Douglas Spain, Julian Scott Urena
Director:Mark Christensen

 

 

 

It’s been a long century

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

June 28, 1914, the Coincidence Coordinators [CCs] finally got a belly full of a particularly venal form of aristocratic, dynastic and imperialistic exploitation of world populations.  They pulled the trigger on the first, Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, and started a ball rolling that didn’t end until the Berlin Wall went down in the 1990s.  Maybe didn’t actually end then.

But one of the problems with WWI was nobody could figure out what it was all about, so they couldn’t pick a direction and head there, cut out all the middle men.  That’s why WWI didn’t end until the USSR packed up its tents and left eastern Europe all the way back to Moscow.  Told them all to go, and sin no more.  Here’s the keys to this stupid wall we built in Berlin.

Certainly the dynasties are still around because human beings are creatures of habit.  There are still Kennedys and Bushes and possibly a Roosevelt-or-two hanging around threatening to rear their ugly heads.  But the last Century killed off an amazing host of parasites with names such as Romanov, Hapsburg, Magyar, Hirohito, Stalin, to name a few.

The only WWI museum in the US, the National WWI Museum in KC, says that while they’re going to have a lot of special displays and ceremonies between June 22, and June 28, they aren’t celebrating.  Standard cliché of “There’s nothing to celebrate in war.”

In one sense they’re right.  Damned shame all those commoners had to die fighting wars for aristocrats.  But when you think about it, all those dead Romanovs, Magyars, Kennedys have given rise to some opportunities nobody’s likely to take advantage of.  But the opportunity is still there to hang the rest from lamp posts.

Didn’t do much long-term good when the French did it way back in the day, but maybe they weren’t thinking big enough.

Probably not, though.  This guy in the White House now might as well be named Bush or Kennedy for all the difference between him, them, and the ones named Clinton-was, and Clinton wannabe. 

Maybe some black hand organization lurking around out in the bushes will rally around the flag, gather up all the Post Office workers, rooftop snipers and school killers and explain to them they’re killing the wrong people. 

I expect if that doesn’t happen something equally appalling will, and I’m damned glad I’m not likely to have to try to live through it.  20th Century was a piece of cake from where I was sitting.

Old Jules

Yong Dong Pollywood, Sollywood and Pusaniwood

Heck readers.  They’re calling the India foreign film industry Bollywood.  At least the part happens  down Bombay-way.  And they’re calling the Nigerian foreign film industry Nollywood.

But Korea, yeah, Frozen Chosun, has as good, possibly better foreign film industry than those.  And nobody’s assigning it any names with wood on the end.  So I’m nominating Yong Dong Po llywood as my favorite, because Yong Dong Po was OFF LIMITS when I was in Korea.  I enjoyed some great, but risky times in Yong Dong Po.  But failing that, Sollywood [Seoul] or Pusiwood [Pusan] works fine.  Further north foreign filmeywood might house Pyongyaniwood.

Welcome to Dongmakgol, 2005 NR 132 minutes , In a village in war-ravaged Korea, fate brings together a crash-landed U.S. fighter pilot, three North Korean soldiers and two South Korean soldiers. Starring:Jae-yeong Jeong, Hye-jeong Kang, Director:Kwang-Hyun Park, would make a nice debut for Pyongyangiwood, for instance.

The Warrior , 2001 R 158 minutes, Korean envoys on a diplomatic mission to China refuse to accept their fate when they’re accused of espionage and sent to a remote desert to die. Starring:Woo-sung Jung, Sung-kee Ahn
Director:Sung-su Kim, I’d hand over to YongDongPollywood.

And so on.

Just a suggestion, though.  What the hell do I know.

Old Jules