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Thingish Things

Time Marches On; Ask Alice

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Jul• 18•11

The Fantastically Cool Grace Slick

Okay, this is pretty far outside of the realm of this blog.  But I keep running across Alice in Wonderland references and I have heard “White Rabbit” on the radio at least a half dozen times in the past month (is that song making a comeback or something?). So today, when I saw one of those “Then and Now” items online with Grace Slick of “The Jefferson Airplane” featured, I just had to click the “now” button.

The result came as a shocker, not because Slick doesn’t look good, but because she looks grandmotherly. Just as she should at age 71.   Adorably grandmotherly I might add. 

Still it is a freak out. The hippies have officially gotten old.  The Mick-Jagger-will-be-sixty-[fill in the blank]-this-year remarks are no longer amusing. They have become alarming. Seeing Slick today reminds me that we all were once young and shiny.  Even the little old ladies on the bus. 

Fortunately, Slick and so many others remain forever young in the film/digital age.  Below is how I always will think of her, but I wouldn’t mind meeting the Slick of today.  She must have amazing stories — and even more amazing perspective. 

Time.  It does march on. Rather relentlessly, I might add. 

http://youtu.be/R_raXzIRgsA

 

Pressure Ramps Up on Tappan Zee Bridge

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Jul• 18•11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSax5A36Q0Y&feature=player_embedded

America’s infrastructure is in awful shape at the worst possible time. One of the key bridges in the New York metropolitan area is the Tappan Zee Bridge, connecting Westchester and Rockland Counties.  The Tappan Zee, which already has exceeded its 50-year-shelf life, serves 179,000 vehicles a day, including trucks that deliver crucial goods and services to New York City.

Here is ace YNN reporter Nick Reisman interviewing Westchester County Executive Rob Astorino, who is ratcheting up the pressure on Albany to do something about the Tappan Zee before havoc strikes.

 

Sheer Naked Politics

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Jul• 18•11

Have Russian politics ever been boring? 

Can you imagine trying this in, say, Iowa?

 

 

Kitchen-Table Economics

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Jul• 18•11

Associated Press had a good piece over the weekend on the debt crisis, equating the nation’s challenges to that of family households. It helps drive home the severity of the nation’s spending problem, which, just a few months ago, many on the Left were arguing does not exist.  Definitely worth a read. 

Congress’s Bright Idea

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Jul• 17•11

 

from engadget.com

Great piece by Jeff Jacoby in The Boston Globe about The Fluorescent Light Bulb Industry Scam of 2011 going into effect in December. That’s when perfectly good, reasonably-priced  incandescent bulbs will begin to be outlawed to boost/mandate fluorescent bulb sales. The new law was driven entirely by fluorescent light manufacturers.  

Writes Jacoby: 

“Defenders of the ban insist that moving to compact fluorescent will save money in the long run, conserve energy, and be better for the environment. But countless Americans have found the case against CFLs more persuasive: They are more expensive to buy, are slow to reach full brightness, don’t work with dimmers, contain toxic mercury, and can’t be used in many ordinary fixtures. And, to many people, fluorescent light feels cold and sickly.

“But even if the case for CFLs were unassailable, since when is it the government’s job to make consumers’ choices for them? Americans have no trouble adopting a superior technology once it’s ready for prime time – no law was needed to force people to switch from vinyl records to CDs, or from landlines to cell phones. Deciding what light bulbs to buy is probably a challenge they can also handle without congressional interference.”

A lot of smart people also suspect that fluorescent lighting contributes to migraines.  Two people I know who suffer from them swear to it.  But they don’t have lobbyists in Washington.  They’ll have to buy the new migraine medicine when Fluorescent Lighbulb Syndrome — or FLS — is identified.  (Warning. May cause: Severe allergic reactions (rash; hives; itching; difficulty breathing; tightness in the chest; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue); blurred vision or other vision problems; change in sexual ability or desire; chest pain; confusion; fainting; fast or irregular heartbeat; fever, chills, or sore throat; new or worsening mental or mood problems (eg, aggression, agitation, anxiety, delusions, depression, hallucination, hostility); numbness or tingling of an arm or leg; one-sided weakness; painful or frequent urination; red, swollen, peeling, or blistered skin; seizures; severe or persistent headache; severe stomach pain; severe weight loss; shortness of breath; sudden, severe dizziness or vomiting; slurred speech; uncontrolled muscle movement; unusual weakness or tiredness.)

Think those Tea Party hardliners could toss light bulb repeal into the Big Ugly? 

Going for It

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Jul• 15•11

 

from newhartfordnyonline.blogspot.com

Met an inn owner in Bartlett Village, NH this morning –a British expat who abandoned New York City with his wife after 9-11 for a new life in the woods. He had been a banker; she an advertising executive. This particular morning they were flipping omelets –good ones –pouring coffee, and generously advising guests on local attractions. They appeared to be quite happy doing it.

I was green with envy while chatting with this owner. Here was a guy who had actually done it. He had gotten out. He had escaped the madness.

It was breakfast rush hour and guests were waiting on eggs, so I asked him only a couple of inane, cursory questions: (while my Blackberry buzzed like a vibrator inside my pocket) “how are the winters? Is this your busy season?” “You must go through a ton of bacon…” But what I wanted to do was yank him by the collar to the closest table and demand, “How did you do it? How did you pull this off? Tell me, damn it, tell me!”

His has been my dream for going on 25 years. Not so much running an inn –it’s probably back-breaking work –but escaping from the gravitational pull of New York City. From its pace, expenses, and competitiveness.

Whenever I leave New York’s sphere of influence, moments of clarity wash over me. I ask myself over and over again why do we have to live this frenetic lifestyle? Why are we burning, at a rabbit’s pace, our few days on earth with appointments, deadlines, and endless tactical career moves? Why do we have to live where everything is so back-breakingly expensive? Sure life is exciting, but is it worth it? Really. What’s it all about, Alphi?

Friends laugh at me mercilessly whenever I mention this wanderlust. “Who are you kidding?,” they chuckle. “You? You’d go out of your mind in a week.”

Maybe I would. But I’m beginning to realize that maybe it is not escaping to the country that most intrigues me. It is what that represents. Doing so means you have willingly abandoned the quest to “become someone’ in this world, whatever that means.

That’s what I really wanted to ask the inn owner about this morning. “Is this enough? Will you feel that you gave it your all at the end of the day? Did you give up larger dreams? Could you have been a contender? (Collar grab: Damn It! Could you!?”)

I needed a couple of days off. I’ll be back in the cycle on Monday.

Gallup Shocker

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Jul• 14•11

A just-released Gallup Poll has President Obama losing to a generic Republican 47-39.   No wonder Mr. Obama is getting testy. 

 

 

Pelosi: Obama and I “Almost Too Busy” for Debt Talks

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Jul• 14•11

http://youtu.be/mBm0J4vqY8g?t=41s

Nancy Pelosi probably wants this one back. 

 

I Don’t Get Bastille Day

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Jul• 14•11

I have always wondered why the French celebrate Bastille Day with such zeal. The occasion marked the beginning of the French Revolution, which led to one of history’s mass genocides. Up to 40,000 Frenchmen (and women) were beheaded in The Reign of Terror, with neither charge nor trial, before hysterical, blood-thirsty crowds.  A mob mentality overwhelmed the French nation necessitating a counter-revolution to restore order.

Whenever I read of the Khmer Rouge massacres in Cambodia, I think of the French Revolution.  Khmer Rouge leaders were all French-educated and their decision to execute the ruling class and educated eerily reflected what happened in Paris 180 years earlier.    

I realize the French Revolution is considered by many to be the culmination of The Age of Enlightenment, but those read like pretty dark days to me.  I don’t see enlightenment in what happened at all. Sure, the French got rid of the monarchy, but does the way it was done warrant annual firework shows? 

I have some French/Swiss ancestors, but I will never get the French. 

Scrutiny Greets Mr. Obama

Written By: William F. B. O'Reilly - Jul• 14•11

The President's Ever-Fading Halo

 Today’s headlines focus on President Obama’s walk-out (from his own office) of deficit negotiations with House leaders yesterday.  But a potentially more consequential story today, by New York Times reporter Kevin Sack, questions not Mr. Obama’s temper, but his truthfulness.  It is the type of story easily remembered in the voting booth by undecided voters. 

Mr. Sack writes about a finding in the book “A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,” by Janny Scott.  Ms. Scott is a former New York Times reporter herself.  What Ms. Scott discovered in researching the Obama family story is that the President, in speeches all across the country, as a candidate and as Chief Executive, told untruths about his mother’s health insurance coverage in the weeks before her death.  The President, at event after event, in hushed tones, told audiences that his mother had been denied health insurance because of a pre-existing condition, when in fact she had not been. She had an argument over her disability insurance, which is a significantly different thing.

Mr. Sack writes:

“During his presidential campaign and subsequent battle over a health care law, Mr. Obama quieted crowds with the story of his mother’s fight with her insurer over whether her cancer was a pre-existing condition that disqualified her from coverage.

“In offering the story as an argument for ending pre-existing condition exclusions by health insurers, the president left the clear impression that his mother’s fight was over health benefits for medical expenses.

“But in ‘A Singular Woman: The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mother,’ author Janny Scott quotes from correspondence from the president’s mother to assert that the 1995 dispute concerned a Cigna disability insurance policy and that her actual health insurer had apparently reimbursed most of her medical expenses without argument.”

Here are a couple of the President’s quotes included in the story:

“I will never forget my own mother, as she fought cancer in her final months, having to worry about whether her insurance would refuse to pay for her treatment,” (Portsmouth, NH, 2009).

“For my mother to die of cancer at the age of 53 and have to spend the last months of her life in the hospital room arguing with insurance companies because they’re saying that this may be a pre-existing condition and they don’t have to pay her treatment, there’s something fundamentally wrong about that.” (In debate with John McCain.)

Ardent supporters of the President will say “so what?” The issue of pre-existing conditions and insurance companies is real, so Mr. Obama’s point was valid.  The President will say he mixed up the facts. But the voting public will tuck the story away in their heads. It gives them a glimpse into Mr. Obama’s character, and they may not like what they see.