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Had you noticed that? The dead silence until they could figure out something badbadbad happening they could yell about and pretend to investigate where the Japanese radiation wouldn’t fry their grandkids?
I’d wondered where they were on all this north Pacific stuff, them not uttering a word. But it turned out they were following their Geiger counters to the point of diminishing returns, finding something threatening the environment where it’s safe to find it.
Old Jules
Posted in 2013, Human Behavior
Tagged culture, environment, Human Behavior, humor, Life, lifestyle, society, sociology, survival, Wildlife, wisdom
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
The hmmm government is shut down. Federal holiday of sorts, I reckons.
NSA’s almost certainly still bugging your phone today. Homeland Security people are sitting around backyard barbeques bouncing around ideas for the next terrorist scare. The war profiteers are still working three shifts trying to find computers fast enough to tally up the money they’re making, but months behind in doing it. International Bankers are sitting around boardrooms thinking up reasons they need bailing out with a government injection.
But, the hmm government’s shut down. Scary stuff.
Imagine all the stuff government does that won’t get done today. Without anyone noticing it, all kinds of stuff I can’t think of right now isn’t getting done, and if I had any inkling what it was it would probably rattle me down to my bootheels.
Heck, what if that stuff doesn’t get done tomorrow? Or ten years from now? Hells bells, eventually someone would notice. Scaryscaryscary.
But what’s going on is intended to fill the heads of people who pay attention to what the government is doing. Assume, for the sake of the argument, this whole thing is theater. An illusion of drama to keep everyone focused.
Where is the goat with the golden horns? What is ACTUALLY going on someone doesn’t want you seeing because you’re too busy worrying the FDA and US Department of Agriculture are home not protecting you from genetic modified food grains and Monsanto?
Where’s the goat with the gold plated horns?
I don’t know the answer and I’m not searching for one. But if I were I’d stand as much chance for success as I’d have going to Israel collecting money for the Palestinian Relief Fund.
Likely as not it’s something fairly large though. The dust will settle, the government will go back to work, and you can bet there’ll be something brand, spanking new crept onto the scene when you weren’t looking.
Old Jules
Posted in 2013, America, Government, Human Behavior
Tagged culture, economy, Human Behavior, humor, Life, lifestyle, politics, senior citizens, society, sociology
A few old guys of the same species sitting around Kerrville, Texas wondering where the world went. Each too different from the others to guess which parts they missed. Old guy the others knew walked up and sat down.
Silver gray hair in a ponytail, 70ish, shorts and sandals with athletic stockings, heavyset. We shook hands and I studied his features. In Texas he looked definitely out-of-place, though he could have been Hispanic throwback gene pool. But something in the features and skin pigment had me suspecting he was a Navajo or Apache. A curiosity because Native Americans aren’t much drawn to Texas as a home.
Finally my puzzlement got the best of me. “Where are you from?”
He grinned at the others, then at me. “I’m Swedish.”
“Yeah, but what TRIBE Swedish?”
Minneconjou Lakota, it turned out. Born in a US Public Health hospital on the Rez in Minnesota. Mama a party woman, no idea who his pappa was. Reared by his grandma, then sent off to Indian School. Learned to be a welder and pipe-fitter.
By 1970-or-so he was up in Alaska on the North Slope a few years building the first Alaskan pipeline across the permafrost. Had a few stories to tell about that, then all of us began picking his mind for all manner of details. “How deep did they have to go setting the pilings holding up those pipe joints?” “How were you housed?” And so on.
Turned out all the oil from that field was shipped directly to Japan. US refineries weren’t tuned to that sort of crude. But the fields are still producing.
Guy has a tribal census number, but never went back to live on the Rez, but visited his grandma there until she died. Brought tears to his eyes thinking about her. Never used the free health-care/dental-care for life benefit available to him because of the tribal census number US Public Health Service offers.
“I worked hard all my life and settled here. Paid my own way every step along. Making a lifetime job of being an Indian didn’t appeal to me much. When they quit shooting us they tried to offer that as the next best thing.
“They’re still trying, got all those liberal white people to worship blanket Indians. Better than getting shot, but not as good as kicking the whole damned mess.” He shook his head. “Damned white people and their congratulations for being victims will finish off all the ones left.”
Nice meeting him. I hope I see him again before I head for the tall timber. Being born into a trap doesn’t mean there’s no escaping it, I reckons.
Old Jules
Posted in 2013, America, Human Behavior, Native American, Native Americans, Texas
Tagged alaska pipeline, culture, Human Behavior, humor, Indian, lakota, Life, lifestyle, minneconjou, native american, philosophy, reservation, rez, senior citizens, society, sociology
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
Those who read here, I assume, predominantly wish they could be me. Most likely you think living the life I’m blessed with is all smooth sailing. Figure all I have to do is remember to be grateful for the flat tires and 47 different ways to cook potatoes, 98 raman recipes, and clean the burrs out of the cat hair.
Sometimes I even think that’s true. But the fact is, even the flood of blessings I enjoy in life become a trap. Complacency slips in through the cracks and sometimes I forget to look for all the reasons those rough spots are actually a gift the Universe gives me, sometimes only as a reminder.
As an example, there’s a dragon lady in the courthouse in Timewarpsville who’s in charge anytime someone wants to try licensing or registering a trailer or motor vehicle. I’ve found, if a person wants to get it done in fewer than three 100 mile round-trips he’d best find a time when she’s out to lunch and the other lady’s the one doing the business.
In the name of just doing her job that dragon lady can find more tees that need a 50 mile drive to cross and eyes that need dotting next trip any the average person who hasn’t experienced being Adolph Hitler could imagine.
But that’s okay. That’s actually the Universe reminding me again I’m the luckiest man because, you see, I don’t have to be her. Hells bells, I rarely even have to deal with her. Don’t have to live in the same town, don’t have to have her for a relative, barely have to acknowledge such people are alive on this sphere and are part of the human species.
Sometimes I forget. But that’s just the downside of being me. Complacency.
Old Jules
Posted in 2013, America, Human Behavior
Tagged Affirmations, country life, culture, Gratitude, humor, Life, lifestyle, luck, society, sociology
The part about rolling it in little balls had scientists tearing their hair out. Putting periscopes under the partitions trying to catch someone doing it.
If they’d looked at the floor they could have solved it decades earlier.
Hi readers. Scientists have finally solved one of the most puzzling mysteries of the 20th Century. The poem beginning, “The men who write upon these walls,” found on the stall partitions in Mens’ rooms was a phenomenon more pervasive than the “Kilroy was here” riddle of the WWII era.
Now they can finally settle down to studying why the magnetic poles of earth wander around from hell to breakfast.
Old Jules
Posted in 2013, Human Behavior, Nature, Science
Tagged animals, country life, culture, environment, Human Behavior, humor, Life, Nature, science, society, sociology
Good morning readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
Boswell told the story of how he and Johnson were in a group with a lot of aristocrats when a woman sitting near Johnson passed noisy gas. She immediately began rubbing her own leg against a table leg to create the illusion the noise was a friction sound vibration resulting from the two legs in two-part harmony.
“We heard you the first time, Lady. You don’t have to find something that rhymes with it,” Johnson pointed out.
Which sums up a lot of the problems we human beings have trying to solve what we believe are our major issues on any day. We fudge on our rhymes. On big issues we’re especially bad about boxing ourselves into lousy rhymes.
For instance, after Roosky peasantry had been beaten and starved by their aristocrats a few hundred years they wanted to find something that rhymed with the French Revolution. They talked about it endlessly, batted it around, finally created a poem with rhyme and rhythm of their own.
But it took Joe Stalin to write the last stanza. The one about Napoleon.
For some reason that particular poem always ends with Napoleon. Evidently no way of avoiding it.
Today in the US and a lot of the world the folks in power are trying to find something that rhymes with Edward II and the Dispensers. The folks who aren’t in power are trying to find something that rhymes with the American Revolution. And both agree there’s a sidebar hope of finding something that rhymes with the crusades.
You don’t hear much out of Washington DC about Edward II and the Dispensers these days, but you see a lot of attempts to find things that rhyme with it. But nobody’s doing much thinking about the final stanza of that one, either.
For the ones trying to find the US Constitution behind trees and under rocks, the final stanza to the American Revolution was probably the Civil War.
I can’t recall the final stanza of the Crusades, but I suspect a piece of it had to do with the massacre and looting of the Templars [and Edward II and the Dispensers].
When human beings passed gas back in the time of Johnson, or Edward II, or the French Revolution I’m betting it smelled and sounded pretty similar to when they do it today. We aren’t much better at rhyming today than we were then.
Old Jules
Posted in 2013, Education, Government, Human Behavior, Science
Tagged Boswell, crusades, Dispensers, Edward II, flatulence, french revolution, History, revolution, Russian Revolution
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
The wise men who framed the US Constitution knew all about how power, wealth and decadence caused every generation of aristocracy, every generation of human being born to power and wealth was weaker, lazier, stupider, more arrogant and shiftless than the previous one.
They knew, those men writing the Constitution, the time would come when the White House and both houses of the US Congress would be filled with the descendants of black slaves. Because they recognized the only alpha-males left in some future time would be those same black descendants of slavery. That was obvious to them. They knew representative democracy was the only way they could assure that when blacks outnumbered whites they’d be able to bloodlessly emerge as the dominant power.
Of course, they didn’t know about Hispanics and other prolific minorities, but they had the general idea. It was a tough, courageous decision because all of them were white. But they knew there’d come a time when their own progeny were a herd of worthless, stupid, lazy followers and worshipers of anything resembling an alpha male, no matter what ethnicity.
History proved them wise. Football was the first hint the dream of the forefathers was coming true, followed by rap music and population explosions in ethnic ghettos. The long-awaited takeover of the US government was moving right along in accordance with the plan of the founding fathers. And concurrently with similar emergence of alpha-types from minorities in other cultural fields.
It’s on the doorstep now. Finally ethnic minorities will soon be in a position to assume the reins of power, wealth, prosperity and government.
Patriots and believers in representative democracy should be preparing for the victory parades and celebrations. The sooner a full slate of ethnic minority candidates is offered up in a general election the more rapidly the aspirations of the founding fathers will be fulfilled.
Finally our great nation will once again be run by alpha males and females, same as music and sports. Rejoice! Up the [r]evolution!
We white males can finally get back to getting our hands dirty doing the grunt work, stoop-labor and heavy lifting we degenerate betas are best suited for, aside from toadying to alphas. And white females can try to find open minded alpha ethnics to procreate with without being criticized.
Old Jules
Posted in 2013, America, Government, History, Human Behavior
Tagged culture, History, Human Behavior, humor, Life, Nature, other, philosophy, politics, society, sociology
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by.
I used to see I don’t know, bumper stickers, signs, something stirring up doubts about whether the prez was born in the US. Haven’t seen them for a while.
But I went over to Yahoo News to see who was puffing out his chest most about Syria this morning and came across something I think will clear things up. Saw a pic of the father of the prez, or his brother. Obvious and indisputable.
It was under the headline, Real Estate Mogul to give $200 Million to U. of Michigan. http://news.yahoo.com/real-estate-mogul-200m-u-michigan-204130688–finance.html
Says the guy’s name is Stephen Ross and he’s a NY real estate salesman, owner of the Dolphins. That would be some ball club or hockey team, I figures. Reading a little further it’s obvious it is a ball club of some kind.
Anyway the guy looks just like the prez, the way all that passle of Kennedys looked alike, and all those Bushes.
It’s been a long time since anyone’s been able to say with any certainty who the biological father of anyone was, though the mothers tend to be a sure thing. But with those Kennedys, those Bushes, and with this guy now there shouldn’t be any doubt anymore.
Hope this eases the minds of any of you who worry about that sort of thing.
Old Jules
Posted in 2013, Human Behavior
Tagged Human Behavior, humor, miscellaneous, musings, other, politics, Reflections, Stephen Ross, Syria
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
I promised the other day that I’d relate one more precious memory of John and Jackie Kennedy’s Boston adventure.
So here it is.
All those men lined up along Boylston Street, including Julio, Tonyand I were still mesmerized by the thoughts of whether Jackie Kennedy would be an inspired bed partner. The street between the police cordons was vacant for a moment, when suddenly the sound of a bell clanging brought our attention back.
Hell bent down empty Boylston came a vehicle pulling an open trailer. A guy was on the back of the trailer ringing a huge bell mounted there, big bell. Church bell sized, rather than locomotive sized. On the side of the trailer was a huge sign, “KRUSHCHEV SAYS, ‘WE WILL BURY YOU!”
They zipped past us, hung a hard left around Boston Plaza, and swung in behind the emptying motorcade in front of the Plaza Hotel. Still ringing that damned bell. [Likely the granddaddy of the patriots of today, I’m thinking by hindsight.]
Friends and readers, this whole thing was not in keeping with the high standards Boston wanted in their welcoming Ken and Barbie to town. Every cop on Boylston forgot about that yellow tape and ran across Boston Plaza, pulling their billy clubs out as they ran. Wasn’t any time at all before that trailer was surrounded by Boston’s finest and all an observer could see was the backs of cops and a forest of billy clubs rising and falling.
They weren’t aiming for that bell, either. Didn’t hear it clang one single time after the first club rose and fell.
But you’ve got to admit the guy had imagination and class. A freaking liberty bell! You surely don’t see that anymore. All these teapartying occupiers just go around telling one another inane BS about what they think about guns and abortion and Wall Street.
If that guy with the liberty bell lived through the next five minutes after the cops got him, he might be still alive. He could teach these modern jerks a thing or two about how to deliver messages to the Kens and Barbies.
Having some Secret Service or Homeland Security thug put a rifle bullet through your face before the cops arrived with mace and 20,000 volt non-lethal zappers to finish you off ought not deter anyone from a little display of class and imagination.
Old Jules
Posted in 1960's, America, Government, Human Behavior, Politics
Tagged Boston, boylston street, cars, cops, jackie kennedy, John Kennedy, Kruschev, occupy wall street, Plaza Hotel, transportation
Hi readers.
Representative democracy isn’t working and pretty well everyone knows it. Potential voters aren’t interestedand most don’t even recognize the costumes candidates wear to disguise themselves. Citizens have learned from hard experience that they can vote for Snuffy Smith, L’il Abner or Joe Palooka and they still end up with Daddy Warbucks.
Moving the seat of the US government to Disneylandwould go a long way toward correcting that. Everyone would know the candidates, known them all their lives. A vote for Mickey Mouse or Goofy wouldn’t get you Scrooge McDuck in the White House. Everyone is honest in Disneyland, and you get what you pay for. Drucilla doesn’t get any glass slippers, Chittychittybangbang doesn’t have an atomic warhead and the Lady and the Tramp are all right there where everyone can see the fire hydrants.
The other advantage is that the Powerball Lottery HQ is right there in Orlando, close enough to move the IRS in there with them and do something about how the government can raise money on a more even-handed basis. They could have billion dollar jackpots and just end their foreign wars a day earlier to pay off the winners. Hell, everyone would be buying tickets. And they wouldn’t gripe about doing it.
They could have a drawing every day giving away a billion dollars, all the while cutting off one day in the distant future when they’d end the wars overseas, bring the troops home. It would assure that someday the past would catch up with the future and voila! No more foreign military adventures!
Mary Poppins would make one hell of a lot better president than any we’ve had since wossname, Washington.
Old Jules
Posted in America, Animals, Gambling, Government, Human Behavior, Lottery
Tagged Disney World, Disneyland, Human Behavior, Mickey Mouse, miscellaneous, musings, politics, Powerball Lottery, thoughts, US Government, Washington
74 years old, a resident of Leavenworth, KS, in an apartment located on the VA campus. Partnered with a black shorthaired cat named Mister Midnight. (1943-2020)
Since April, 2020, this blog is maintained by Jeanne Kasten (See "About" page for further information).
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