Posted in politics, thoughts, walking on November 28, 2008| 6 Comments »
I had NPR on my radio headset while walking the dogs out along the shoreline Thanksgiving morning, as they discussed Obama’s cabinet and economic panel selections so far. Both the interviewer and his political pundit agreed that “left wing bloggers” are upset so far about Obama’s choices, and they made much of the irony that conservatives so far are happy with the selections.
While the dogs galloped about joyously, I grit my teeth.
Posted in commute, culture, life, politics, rants, thoughts, travel on November 24, 2008| 5 Comments »
Amidst the national election, the mortgage crisis, the banking bail-out, and everything else going on from endangered polar bears to Somali pirates, I’ve been listening to the pundits talk about throwing a $25 billion bone to the automakers. At first, I accepted the notion that cars are different from airlines. An airline can reorganize under bankruptcy without scaring off customers – buying a plane ticket isn’t the same commitment as purchasing a car.
So bankruptcy for “The Big Three” would be much more catastrophic. But lately I’m changing my mind.
Posted in animals, birding, dogs, gardening, thoughts on November 21, 2008| 5 Comments »
We have numerous flowering plants and a half dozen or so trees in our long thin backyard, so that it’s green and leafy for most of the year. As such, we get a lot of birds stopping by. Once, just as I flung a rawhide chew toy off the back deck while our Ernie boy dashed wide-eyed and pell mell down the steps to get it, a hawk came swooping low between the houses, hunting.
Posted in animals, beer, birding, cooking, e-scrapbook, entertainment, humor, nature, pets, thoughts, writing on November 19, 2008| 16 Comments »
Tagged again, or memed, as Amuirin put it. Meme is one of those slippery weords for me which I have to look up to find it’s a cultural concept that gets passed around, but still somehow it remains elusive for me, so I keep looking it up. (And weord is so a word, it’s just one I made up, combining weird and word. Jabberwocky is a weord, as is gonzo.)
Posted in culture, humor, politics, rants, television, thoughts, TV on November 15, 2008| 2 Comments »
Well, maybe fun isn’t the right word — maybe “not too depressing” or “capable of disseminating optimism” or “might increase your faith in our leaders.”
Posted in culture, politics, thoughts on November 10, 2008| 6 Comments »
Two thoughts about our president-elect:
The first is that I share the optimism for his victory – at home and abroad. While it is foolish to become too optimistic about what anyone can accomplish given the fractious state of the electorate and body politic, the change of administrations does remind me of a joke I heard a long ago about a boy sitting on a street corner, crying and hitting himself on the head with a hammer. A man saw him and rushed up exclaiming, “kid, what are you doing?! Why are you hitting yourself with that hammer?!” “Because,” the boy answered, “it feels so good when I stop.”
And that pretty much sums up Dubya Bush’s departure – it feel so good when he stops.
Posted in animals, beer, commute, cooking, dogs, entertainment, humor on November 9, 2008| 1 Comment »
Yesterday, I described how I decided to take a day off from work to brew a second batch of Belgian wit ale this autumn.
Posted in beer, culture, entertainment, life, thoughts on November 8, 2008| 4 Comments »
I may be providing the beer for our office holiday party. So this year I’ve brewed some of the recipes that have turned out well for me before, rather than experimenting. I’d like to bring an assortment, from last winter’s lager through a few ales and a rich stout, but something went wrong with September’s batch of Belgian wit ale, one of the brews my friends like best.
Posted in culture, entertainment, politics, thoughts on November 5, 2008| 10 Comments »
He won, he won, Barack won! Woooo hooooo! Woooooooooo hoooooooooooooo!
I’m still hoping for Al Franken, and 60 senators, and a few other things; but still …
He won, he won, Obama won! After eight miserable years, a President we can be proud of!
Wooo-hoo-hooo-hooooooo! Wooo-hooo woooo-hoooo woooooo-hoooo!
I’m also happy that proposition 2 passed out here (enlarging cages for farm animals, giving them more humane conditions).
I’m so glad that smirking unilateralist neocon fool will soon be out of the White House. Maybe it’s not too late, maybe our “planet in peril” (from Obama’s victory speech) can be helped. The President-Elect (my, that was fun to write!) has evoked ideas from FDR at times, including the four freedoms. How refreshing is that?
It feels like this glorious, rosy new dawn; yeah, there’s trouble in the air, but there’s fresh promise in the new day, too.
OmbudsBen 