Tag Archives: humor

Prosthetic flagpole after-market extensions for that permanent half-mast look – Half-mast inflation

Posted on July 12, 2014 by | 3 comments

the forbidden door

Hi readers.  Jeanne and I pulled into the parking lot of the Olathe Community Center prepared to do serious battle with exercise machines.  But my focus was distracted by the half-mast status of the flag.

“Why’s the flag at half-mast?”  Me, trying to think of how many living ex-presidents might have kicked.

“I dunno.  I guess someone died or got killed somewhere.”  She didn’t pause from gathering her water bottle and unbuckling her seat belt.  “Maybe someone in Iraq or somewhere.”  She shrugged.  “Half-mast inflation.”

They seem to do that a lot in Kansas.  Running the flag up to half-staff as frequently as possible on the safe assumption somebody died.  But I suppose that’s everywhere.  When I was in Texas and only got to town every couple of weeks I noticed they held off dyings of important Americans to coordinate their half-staff flag-flyings with me being in town.

But it probably began a lot earlier.  Hell, it got in style when Elvis Presley died, I think.  Damned flags all over the country celebrating the day the music died.  Bye, bye Miss American Pie.

There are only, what?  365 days sometimes, and either 364 or 366 other years, and so damned many important people.  Finding some days when the flag flies from the top of the pole is going to leave someone who ought to have a half-pole lying dead with a full masted flag.  Not properly recognized.

The obvious solution is to retrofit extensions on all the damned flagpoles across our great nation so’s the default position is half-staff and there’s no option of insulting any deserving half-staffers.

Considering how many important people we lose every year to drug overdoses, suicides and downsizing there aren’t a lot of options.  Although they’ve got a Commemorative US Postage Stamp of Jimi Hendrix, I noticed.

But even having a postage stamp with your picture on it becomes inflationary.  Next thing you know they’ll be naming cars after the Killed In Actions [KIA] and changing street names every time a two-bit politician or a button pushing drone-jockey in Afghanistan falls off a bar stool and offs himself.

Old Jules

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The Third Opium War – China’s long memories

Posted on July 11, 2014 by | Leave a comment
A part of what the British and French troops destroyed to punish the Chinese dynasty.

A part of what the British and French troops destroyed to punish the Chinese dynasty.

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by.

We can thank our lucky stars the Chinese aren’t barbarians.  Otherwise we’d need to batten down the hatches on the British Museum, the Louvre, the Met, the Smithsonian, et al.

Because the Chinese are getting damned tired of their shipments of opium and heroin being intercepted and confiscated by French, British and US law enforcement people.  Wars have already been fought over the subject.

The second Opium War is a good example.  When the Chinese intercepted a million or two pounds of opium the British were attempting to sell to Chinese and confiscated it, all hell broke loose.  French and British troops invaded the Summer Palace, burned and looted 8 miles square of priceless art objects, gardens and artifacts as old as 3500 years.  It took a couple of thousand British and French troops to get the fires going all over the place to destroy it.

And a lot of what wasn’t destroyed is privately held in France and Britain today, as well as in the British Museum.  So it’s a clear precedent.  All that Chinese poppy has a right to make it into France, the UK, and the US.  Provided the Chinese are powerful enough militarily to cram it down the throats of the folks who did the cramming in 1860.

Including the US, though only some US Naval vessels were involved then.  Mainly it was just clear where the sympathies of the US found themselves.  Although the US commander wasn’t under orders to intervene for the French and British, he justified his action with the words, “Blood is thicker than water.”

Fact is, we westerners really don’t mind anyway, so long as US politicians get the right cut of the action.  Heroin and opium are on the rebound because they aren’t so bad as cocaine and meth about destroying the nasal tissue and passages of the users.  The Chinese have plenty of poppies and history on their side.

Along with an economic ramrod and a Russian built aircraft carrier.  Drones, submarines, and dozens of factories working 24/7 manufacturing US flags to fly as they approach the coasts.

Israel can count itself lucky it didn’t share any borders with China so’s to be tempted to snatch a little free territory.  They’d be looking at having their school kids shooting heroin down between pistol range practice and waterboarding Palestinians.

Anyway, the rubber monster toys and SUPPORT OUR TROOPS ribbon things couldn’t last forever.  Something was bound to replace them as Chinese imports.

Old Jules

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I respect Native Americans and other minorities because it’s so dehumanizing.

Posted on July 11, 2014 by | 3 comments

Imagine it readers.  Someone saying aloud, no hint of humor, “I respect white people!”  Imagine that bullshit.

Now, turn that around and imagine you’re hearing what you’ve heard a thousand times from the lips of a white person speaking about this or that minority group.  Or women.  [Parenthetically, I think males, especially white males, are the minority in the US gender-wise.  I haven’t checked the statistics, but I recall somewhere women live longer than men because they don’t have the stresses, wars to fight, and don’t have to do the hard, dangerous work all us men do just for the fun of it.]

Anyway, think of it.  Suppose you were a self-respecting US citizen of color, and some white person said to you, “Hey man, I respect blacks.”  Do you suppose he’ll just figuratively roll his eyes back into his head and grunt?  Or will he say, “Just what the hell are you talking about you freaking lying hypocrite?  You believing your own bullshit again?”  Because it ain’t like he’s been living on the moon.  He’s living in the world where the prisons are full of black males, where black males are gang banging, selling black women off to prostitution, and strutting around being proud of it.

How the hell could anyone except some stupid white person insult, dehumanize decent black people who aren’t doing those things by saying he/she ‘respects’ generic, stereotyped, cardboard cutout blacks?

Same with Hispanics.  The only Hispanics a person could claim to respect and mean it across the board are the ones illegally crossing the US/Mexico Border to work their asses off for peanuts doing anything lazy assed US citizens don’t want to do.  But just saying, “I respect Hispanics,” is to stereotype them in a way any fool knows is a blasted lie because it simply isn’t possible in the real Universe.

It’s a similar with Native Americans.  That’s because the insult is compounded, squared and cubed.  Probably 90% of people guilty of even thinking such assinine thoughts have never even spoken to anything remotely akin to whatever the hell they think a Native American is.

There ain’t any such thing, is what I’m saying.  No such thing.  No such thing.  There are Lakota, Zuni, Navajo, Mojave, Mescalero.  As different from one another as a NYC black trumpet-player living in Greenwich Village is from a bayou Coonass in Louisiana.

About the only thing descendants of  aboriginal tribesmen in North America have in common is white people and Mexicans and blacks.  Every Rez is full of people who know how stupid white people, Mexicans and blacks are.  The Rez is full of stupid people too, but mostly they don’t know it.  But they could be a lot stupider than they are and still recognize how stupid white people, Mexicans and black people are.

And they’re damned well sick of being dehumanized by being respected by them.

Remember where you heard it first.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America

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Getting rid of weevils in oatmeal and flour – rediscovering the past

Posted on July 11, 2014 by | 9 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read this morning.

I want to share something I’ve discovered with those of you who cook:

Have you notice that when you bring flour, oatmeal or corn meal home it frequently has weevils already in it?  Do you find it disgusting, annoying, irritating?

Well, here are a couple of things you can do.  First off, put the bag of grain product into the freezer a few days as soon as you get home.  That will keep them from reproducing, eating more of your flour or whatever.

But once you take it back out there’ll be a lot of little bug carcasses dotting things.  Your grandmother would have sifted those out before using the grain product.  Her grandmother would have shrugged, if she noticed them at all, and ignored their existence.

So depending on which generation of grandmothers you want to emulate, you might try one of those methods.  Or you can do what I do to make those dead bugs vanish in a heartbeat.

Flax seed.  Every time you use flour, oatmeal or cornmeal for anything, toss in a tablespoon full or hand full of flax seed.  All those dead or alive weevils will vanish.  I don’t know whether the flax seed eats them, dissolves them, or waves a magic wand and sends them to an alternate reality.

But what’s strange about it is the fact that flax seeds themselves resemble tiny roaches.  Or bugs of some other kind.  Maybe that’s what they are, predatory little bugs going around eating weevil carcasses.

Maybe grandma’s grandma knew that, maybe that’s what she did, too.  A lost old wives tale.

And here I am rediscovering it by modern science.

Old Jules

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Posted in 2014, America, Food

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Being alive puts things into a whole different light

Posted on July 11, 2014 by | 10 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read.

Those of you who’ve read here a while probably remember when I did my dramatic exit scene from Texas.  Middle of the damned coldest winter in memory, hopped in that RV trying to beat death to Kansas.  Two cats freezing and scared, me pushing things to a razor edge because I was determined to die somewhere the felines would have a home when I kicked.

Made it as far as one of those north Texas towns above Dallas, checked into a motel to croak.  And Jeanne’s sons dropped what they were doing and came down to drive me the rest of the way.

I had every reason to believe one of a couple of unhappy body parts was going on strike and planned to kill me.  The VA in Texas tried hard to avoid giving me the bad news by not examining me, but I sneaked past them into a private emergency room.  Old Gale hauled me to town when I was in bad enough shape to agree to it.  Took care of the cats while the Kerrville hospital made faces at one another every time they got the results of another test.

So I had every reason to believe my goozle was an ugly cancerous disaster, funny como se llamas on my lungs, but that those couldn’t get to me fast enough to kill me.  My ticker was going to do that honor.

So when I arrived in Oz and checked into the Olathe Medical Center through the Emergency Room I figured there was a middling chance I wouldn’t be coming back out with the amount of alive I had when I checked in.

But the cats were taken care of.  Every time a sawbones wanted to look at something else going ugly or stinking on my old jalopy of a body, I said okay.  And afterward he, or she would come around looking somber, suggesting we have a better look and by the way, I hate to tell you this, etc.

But I’ve digressed.  My point I want to make to you is that nobody anywhere along the program was saying, “On the off chance you don’t croak this is going to cost one hell of a lot of money.  Let’s discuss whether you could pay it in your wildest, most optimistic dreams.”

Hell, I’m a Social Security pensioneer.  Whatever medical care I get is through the VA, or Medicare paying the bills that have any reasonable hope of getting paid.  There’s copays, and I had a vague awareness of the fact it exists, but hell, I was having conversations with the grim reaper.  I wasn’t worrying about bill collectors.

And seemingly neither was anyone else.  Sons of bitches thought I as dying, every swinging Richard of them.  Maybe if they thought there was any hope I wouldn’t someone would have sat down with me and said, “Uh, you know, if you die you’re going to be okay.  But if you don’t, we’ve got people over in accounting who are going to try to make the REST of your life challenging.  Maybe you thought you had it bad before you came in here, but dying’s just a way to escape the accounts receivable people down the hall.  People do it all the time.”

Okay.  This defibrillator and the VA paying for physical therapy did a lot, and I believe, my home remedy herbal cancer killer took care of the goozle and lungs.  For a while it still appeared the damned ticker could still croak me, but it gradually slid down on the job.  Every physical therapy session I came away feeling better physically, and suspecting the financial world had some dark clouds looming on the horizon.  Lucky the national debt already admitted nobody gives a damn about paying debts anyway.

Well friends and neighbors, barring any unforeskinned circumcisions I won’t be seeing anymore doctors for a year.  They’ve got this ticker surveillance device hooked to me, reports to them all the time, and I’m down there three times a week on walking machines and sitting down peddler things, putting all this crap behind me.

And the bean counters are scratching their heads, dunning me and fretting over the phone about how I’m going to pay those copays that didn’t make any difference so long as I was exiting the vehicle.  Every month they get their $10 checks, and the big ones rack up a charge to neutralize that in the form of a penalty because it wasn’t enough.

And threatening to turn it over to the Roccos.

Sheeze!  I was needing a new adventure.  Aside from some help from a few good friends, I haven’t had any personal debt since Y2K.  If I didn’t have money I didn’t spend it, no matter what.  Sometimes they turned off the electricity, and it stayed turned off until I got enough money to turn it back on.

I suppose this could be called the cost of living.  I can send them $10 per month, they can call that $10 and raise, until nature can find some other way of wiping me off the Monopoly board.

But damn it’s good being alive.

Old Jules

 

 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure

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Palin and Clinton’s surprising similarities

Posted on July 9, 2014 by | 8 comments

Hi readers.  I don’t know much at all about politicas and political figures.  But I lived through the Clinton years and couldn’t avoid a middling familiarity with Clinton’s wife, wossname.  Margery?  Anyway, the woman who was such good friends with, and a supporter of Janet Reno.

A business partner with her old man in all the real estate dealings in Arkansas that would have landed me, or you readers, in jail.  I’d sum the Clinton woman up as a selfish, venal female at worst, and someone who oughtn’t be involved in politics, at best.

But now that there’s been a black American in the White House female Americans have begun digging around to find some warm body of almost any description, minus male genitals, to occupy it next.  And I’ve seen the name of this one bandied about, seen people I’d ordinarily attribute good sense to, people I’d otherwise respect, mention her name in the same sentence with the phrase Oval Office.

Okay, so the black American occupying the White House is something of a mangy dog we all expected a lot better from.  Or most of us did.  I don’t recall expecting more myself, but I know I heard people talking at the time as though they expected a lot.  Ore at least expected SOMETHING.  It came as something of a shock to a lot of people that they’d elected a black white man.

 But equally surprising is the evident need on the part of otherwise potentially sane American womanhood to trump the whole thing downward.  To elect a white man woman to the White House who will almost certainly neutralize the concept of electing a woman to the office might make things better.

In the interest of fairness, I thought I should learn something about the woman the other party was excited about somewhat recently.  Palin.  Attractive, intelligent looking woman about whom I know almost nothing.

So I watched a couple of movies on Netflix about her.

Sarah Palin: The Undefeated2011PG-13117 minutes This documentary recounts the sudden and surprising emergence of Sarah Palin as a national political figure after two years as Alaska’s governor. Cast: Sarah Palin, Andrew Breitbart, Mark Levin  Genre: Documentaries, Biographical Documentaries, Social & Cultural Documentaries, Political Documentaries  This movie is: Controversial, Provocative

Sarah Palin: You Betcha!2011NR91 minutes Filmmaker Nick Broomfield tracks down friends, relatives and colleagues of polarizing Alaska politician Sarah Palin in this irreverent documentary. Cast: Nick Broomfield, Chuck Heath, Sarah Palin Genre: Documentaries, Biographical Documentaries, Political Documentaries This movie is:  Irreverent, Controversial

I came away puzzled a lot worse than I was when I began.  I’m left with the distinct impression that in all ways that matter the Palin woman is indistinguishable from the Clinton woman.  Shallow, venal, malicious, probably insufferable at a personal one-on-one level.

Can’t help wondering whether all women in politics are just cardboard cutouts with everything inside being everything nobody ought to want in a politician.  Same, probably, as black men.  White men, too, for that matter.

Old Jules

 

 

 

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Posted in 2014, Adventure, America, Politics

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Palestine and Israel – Their Movies

Posted on July 9, 2014 by | 2 comments
Hi readers.  Here are some fairly watchable movies streaming on Netflix portraying how the people in the troubled land of Israel and the areas it occupies outside its established borders, and the people on both sides, would have you view them:
 
Omar 2013NR 98 minutes With his girlfriend, Nadia, living on the other side of an Israeli-built boundary wall, young Palestinian Omar regularly scales it to visit her. More Info  Starring: Adam Bakri, Samer Bisharat  Director: Hany Abu-Assad

 Tehilim  2007 NR 95 minutes .  When Eli Frankel gets into a minor car accident with his sons, he sends the older one to get help. But when the boy returns, his father is gone. More Info Starring:Michael Moshonov, Limor Goldstein Director:Raphaël Nadjari

Curfew 1994 NR 71 minutes .  This pointed drama portrays a day in the life of a Palestinian family — a day that quickly changes when the Israeli military imposes a local curfew. More Info Starring:Salim Dau, Na’ila Zayaad
Director:Rashid Masharawi

 A Bottle in the Gaza Sea 2011NR 99 minutes Newly arrived in Israel, a French teen struggling to understand the violence around her develops an unlikely connection with a young Palestinian man. More Info Starring: Agathe Bonitzer, Mahmud Shalaby Director: Thierry Binisti

Haifa 1996NR 72 minutes This social drama set in a Palestinian refugee camp portrays a broad cast of characters struggling to get by in uncertain times. More Info Starring: Mohammed Bakri, Ahmad Abu Sal’oum Director: Rashid Masharawi
 
Room 5142012NR91 minutesHeder 514 An investigator in the Israeli military is ordered to interrogate a senior officer who has been accused of abusing an Arab family. Cast: Asia Naifeld, Guy Kapulnik, Rafi Kalmar Genre: Dramas, Foreign Movies, Crime Dramas, Foreign Dramas This movie is: Provocative 
 
 Inch’Allah2012R101 minutes Political tensions take on personal overtones when a Canadian doctor living in Israel befriends a patient at a refugee camp in Palestine.

Cast: Evelyne Brochu, Sabrina Ouazani, Sivan Levy Genre: Dramas, Independent Movies, Social Issue  dramas,  independent Dramas This movie is: Gritty, Dark
 
Yossi 2012NR84 minutes While driving through a remote part of Israel, a closeted gay doctor crosses paths with a group of soldiers who inspire him to live life in the open. Cast: Ohad Knoller, Oz Zehavi, Lior Ashkenazi Genre: Dramas, Foreign Movies, Romantic Movies, Gay & Lesbian Movies This movie is: Understated, Romantic
 
 Off White Lies 2011NR89 minutesOrhim le-rega Thirteen-year-old Libi is sent to Israel to join her father, Shaul, a wiz at white lies. But it doesn’t take long for her to chafe at his lifestyle. Cast: Gur Bentvich, Elya Inbar, Tzahi Grad Genre: Dramas, Foreign Movies, Independent Movies, Foreign Dramas This movie is: Understated, Quirky
 
 Lost Embrace 2004NR96 minutesEl Abrazo Partido / Le Fils d’Elias A young Argentinean man yearns to understand why his father left shortly after his birth to fight a war in Israel — and why he never returned. Cast: Daniel Hendler, Adriana Aizemberg, Jorge D’Elia Genre: Dramas, Foreign Movies, Foreign Dramas, Latin American Movies This movie is: Understated
 
The Time That Remains 2011NR 109 minutes From Israel’s creation in 1948 through the early 21st century, a Palestinian family experiences triumphs and tragedies over the course of generations. More Info Starring: Ali Suliman, Elia Suleiman Director: Elia Suleiman
 
5 Broken Cameras 2011NR 94 minutes This Oscar-nominated documentary centers on Emad Burnat, a Palestinian farmer trying to make a living amid Israeli occupation. More Info Starring: Emad Burnat Directors: Emad Burnat, Guy Davidi
 
Probably a person shouldn’t form opinions based on movies.  At least not the ‘plots’ and characters of movies of a fictional nature.  But the background settings, the societies where the plots move, probably a person could allow opinions to sneak in as a consequence of those.
 
The background settings and society are more-or-less taken for granted by the movie makers usually.  They expect their audiences to already have intimate knowledge of them, to recognize immediately if they’re flawed or don’t depict something akin to reality.
 
In that sense I’d call these movies thoroughly worthy of the time spent viewing them, as a bonus you might say.  A bonus thrown in behind the plotting, the characters, the suspense, the button pushing.
 
Old Jules
 
 

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About that Herb Ox Bouillon – MSG Deniers

Posted on July 9, 2014 by | 5 comments

Low sodium / no sodium Saimin

I got this in an email from Jeanne sometime during the night:

it has two ingredients which  minimize the amount of MSG, but they don’t remove all the MSG in the product.   Better read up on them before you decide it’s safe to consume any.

http://healthybliss.net/the-truth-in-food-labeling-food-additives-to-avoid-hidden-sources-of-msg/


http://www.livestrong.com/article/551058-disodium-guanylate-vs-monosodium-glutamate/

 

To be honest I hadn’t gotten around to hoping it would be this complicated.  MSGs more of a poison to me than too much salt.  But I’m not sure I’ll be able to figure out yea or nay without bellying up to the bar and watching my blood pressure afterward.

Old Jules

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Jasper Fforde – The Fourth Bear

Posted on July 8, 2014 by | 4 comments

Hi readers.  Thanks for coming by for a read, despite the fact none of you ever take my advice about authors and books.  I’d be disappointed in you if I didn’t know you probably wouldn’t have liked them anyway.

For instance, Balzac’s Droll Stories, you’ll probably recall, I told you was the funniest book I’ve ever read.  Told you where you can download it free on wossname, gutenberg.org website.  And I’ll go to my grave confident not a damned one of you bothered to have a look.

So when I tell you about Jasper Fforde I can do it with a high level of confidence I could say anything and not get caught in a lie.

I first told you about The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde, along with The Well of Lost Plots, and maybe some others in that series.  I’ve managed to actually get a few people to try some of those and nobody liked them.  Gave some the books free.  Poof!  Not a, “Hey!  Funny, intriguing book.”  Nothing.

Jeanne likes Jasper Fforde.  Might well be she introduced me to his works.  Shows how the coincidence coordinators are always at work.  Two people, the only two in Christiandom who’d enjoy Jasper Fforde, happen to be close friends.  I love those guys, the CCs.

Anyway, The Fourth Bear is a good book I think you’d enjoy if you were ever stuck in a prison cell the way Steve McQueen was in Pappilon and not allowed to talk to anyone for several years, do anything but read the book.  Fforde explains the deep mystery, for instance, of why three bowls of porridge all poured at the same time, are vastly different temperatures.

 Fforde, for the purposes of this book, lands the reader in a world where talking bears are fighting for their rights, trying to become civilized the way Native American tribes tried to become civilized to keep from being slaughtered by whites.  But the bears come at a later time in history, when a larger or more vocal part of sympatric humanity carries some weight. 

Not to say they’re able to pass legislation, THE RIGHT TO KEEP AND ARM BEARS, to allow bears to defend themselves from hunters.  But the do put them on reservations where it’s more difficult to shoot them.

 Fforde’s main character, Detective Jack Spratt, heads the Nursery Crimes Division of a city police department.  Constantly he’s chasing down criminals out of nursery rhymes.  Persons Of Questionable Reality.

But he’s one himself, and from the time his wife died from overeating fat, he’s able to overcome certain behaviors considered compulsive.

This  plot contains a fast moving set of  plot devices involving the Gingerbread Man, various bears, Goldilox, and giant cucumbers responsible for cuclear detonations threatening the bears, the humans, and possibly world peace.

Read it if you’re ever in prison.

Old Jules

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Low sodium / no sodium Saimin

Posted on July 8, 2014 by | 6 comments

Hi readers.  My occasional yearning for saimin [ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saimin ] experienced a hiccup when the various sawbones convinced me I needed to be serious about sodium if I wanted to keep making a nuisance of myself.

The other ingredients aren’t a problem, but finding a low sodium, easy to prepare broth is.  I tried using the onion ice cubes and it almost worked, but not quite.  Onion ice cubes, jalapeno ice cubes

But there’s an auction near here every Saturday, and everything that doesn’t sell goes out into the parking area to be sifted through by anyone who wants it before they haul it away to the dump.  I occasionally find things I want there because Jeanne’s been a frequenter and trafficker of auction castaways for a number of years.

Saturday I hit the jackpot.  A brand new, unopened box of Herb Ox NO SODUM chicken bouillon broth.  I never knew such a thing existed.  Never thought it might enough to search for it.

So when I arrived back at Jeanne’s I immediately used one package to test as a cup of bouillon hot drink and it was great.

Yesterday I used one of those onion ice cubes, a package of Herb Ox NO SODIUM bouillon as the base for my first post-discovery saimin.  Everything added was sodium free, or only had naturally systemic sodium.

I used bean sprouts, thin wheat noodles, shredded cabbage and carrots, mushrooms, some corn off-the-cob, and various seasonings.

Tasted precisely as saimin ought to taste, which varies.

Old Jules

 

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Posted in America, Food

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