Corroded Trust

Five years ago, a couple paid cash for a home in Florida, then this year Bank Of America seized the house, removed their belongings, and changed the locks.  Jackasses had the wrong address on some foreclosure documents and couldn't be convinced otherwise.  Lawsuit time!  Do you think that's bad?  Just getting warmed up - Bloomberg reports that BoA laundered money for Mexican drug gangs.  I haven't heard of anybody going to jail over that, have you?  Charles Hugh Smith states on his excellent Of Two Minds blog, "The bitter truth is that the nation's Financial Power Elites are not constrained by rule of law, and as a result of this revelation Americans' trust in their government and political class has been shattered."

I've been trying to write a song - I can imagine David Coverdale of Deep Purple & White Snake wailing it - that starts "My cholesterol is higher than my credit score."  But I recently found out that can't be true, because my total cholesterol is only 205 (just a tad high), while credit scores for some reason start at a low of 300.  You can check your credit score for free.  It's the one our official bankruptcy counselor referred us to, so it's as legit as it can be.  But I'm turned off now by the whole concept of credit score.  Didn't credit in excess put us all in this whole big economic mess we're in?  Why would I want to go into debt again?  I have begun to think of it more as a cancer score.  Who wants a high cancer score?  John Matarese of WCPO-TV has some suggestions for improving your credit score and  I really question the wisdom of it all.  No, that's too polite - it's stupid and I say screw it!  And if an employer wants to check my credit score as a condition of employment, then I don't want to work for them.  In fact, I would like to see such employers be put out of business.  Ditto for employers who say "Unemployed need not apply."  Companies that do that should be named and shamed and we can make the choice to punish them with our spending choices.

Car Trouble With A Baby Chaser

I don't think there is anything I hate more than car trouble.

We had kept awesome grand-daughter Logan overnight.

Then it was time to take Derek to his last driving class.

We loaded Logan into her car seat, with a bottle packed for after we dropped Derek off.

She picked that time to be hungry, and the van picked that time to not start.

She is such a good baby but I never heard such crying from her, and poor Derek was trapped next to her, baby wailing next to him and the class clock ticking in his head.  We gave up on the van and took her inside and fed her.

We called AAA (great investment!) for a tow to Bob's Colerain Tire (great service!) and called the driving school to see what they could do for Derek.  Well, what do ya know, they had a power failure and cancelled class that night!

Friday Clearance On Pics & Links

Dark Reflections

The system just isn't working for us any more.  Tension, frustration - people take action or just run away.  A Washington State University student hacks into computers with a call to action like V For Vendetta.  A man beats the crap out of a priest who molested him as a child.  More power to him, take it all the way to the top.  Half the population of a small town turns out to stop those Westboro Baptist Church idiots from disrupting a fallen soldier's funeral with their "God Hates Fags" nonsense.  I would love to see a veterans group or some patriotic bikers do whatever it takes to "educate" those jackasses to show proper respect to a family mourning a flag-draped coffin.

Yup, that's our old bar in the background of the picture above.  It went on the sheriff's auction block last week.  The appraised value was less than half what we paid for the whole business less than 5 years ago.

A groundswell of discontent is growing like...well, like mold on yogurt.  "Revolt Against TSA" has become a top search term on Google this week.  Flyers' are forced to choose between a scanner that shows you naked or an intimate grope, and that's just too intrusive.  Pilots say that being fondled in public while in uniform is an affront to their precious dignity, but the do have a good point when they say the scanner is a dangerous additional radiation exposure, which is already high due to all that time they spend at high altitude.  It's true - us folks who worked at Fernald learned that in radiation training.  But that's a labor union vs. government "security" thing so we'll see how that flies, haha.  I wouldn't fly on a commercial airline even if I could afford it.  Are y'all gonna put up with it?  Some people are talking about putting up some resistance during the big upcoming Thanksgiving travel period.

And away they all flew like the down on a thistle.  Maybe somebody is laying the groundwork for selling airline stock short, the way it happened just before 9/11.  The Fat Cats feel entitled to "make a killing" using insider trading info.  We can pool our resources and make them feel our influence as well.  Max Keiser says "Buy a silver coin, destroy J.P Morgan."  One commenter suggested maxing out your credit card buying silver and then not paying the (unsecured) credit card bill, a double whammy.  Another person devised a plan for the people to take direct action against the banksters in "How To Destroy A Bank."

Once you get started on such a path, don't turn back because everything is pointed against you.  You may feel small and lonely, but you are not alone.  We have strength in numbers.  But some people are ready to play rougher still.  On the right, a Republican Congressional chief of staff threatens to use bullets if ballots don't work.  On the left, a political cartoonist says to prepare for revolution and has a book about it.  But regular folks like us have to remember that right/left/black/white/brown/male/female are just ways we get divided and conquered by the 1% elite who own the plantation that we are forced to toil upon like a banana republic.   Many realize that the left-right paradigm is over: it's you vs. corporations.  The Second American Revolution could be an all-out class war.

I don't expect a soft landing.  But come on, senator Mitch McConnell's admitted goal is for Obama to be a one-term prez - inaction is the best we can hope for.  Let things fall to crap and blame Obama.  But like I always say, the republicrats are like two pro wrestlers who roar and throw each other around then retreat backstage and take their cut of our money and pass the lion's share to their masters.  Sometimes it even reminds me of Battle at Kruger, two species of predator squabbling over who gets to eat our babies.

Light at the end of the tunnel?  Yes, maybe scuffed and dirty but we'll make it.

OMEB Halloween at Bobby Mackey's

This old mechanical bull at Bobby Mackey's has thrown many a cowboy wanna-be over the years.  We saw a few get tossed on Halloween night, one more worried about his hat than his ride.  Normally we wouldn't roam down to Wilder, Kentucky, just to visit a haunted honky-tonk since we used to own one ourselves.  However, our buddy Mike Carr, who performs as OMEB: One Man Electrical Band has made an unholy alliance with old Bobby, culminating in a FREE Halloween show to taunt the spirits into extra activity for the tours of Mackey's basement, mouth of Hell and all.

 

 We got there early for a good seat and enjoyed karaoke and line dancing hosted by Miss Wanda Kay the DJ and gift shop keeper.  She even had authored a book about the paranormal activities there, for sale in the shop.  Mikey debuted his new CD, "OMEB, Bloody OMEB" and also sold raffle tickets for a nice guitar to raise money for the late Ronnie James Dio's Stand Up And Shout cancer fund (click Dio's link to donate).

For those who have never seen OMEB, here's the deal.  He used to be in a band but grew weary of the hassle of dealing with 3-4 other guys and all the complications.  You know how us rockers can be!  So he began recording all the backing parts - drums, bass, keyboards, harmony vocals, etc. - and loaded the results into his laptop.  In his live performances, his laptop delivers the backing tracks, just like karaoke but of his own making, and he plays guitar live and sings live and feeds it through his PA system.  Add the evil clown and light show and you've got some real rock entertainment!

Mike covers a lot of tasty metal tunes from Metallica, Guns n Roses, Pink Floyd, System Of A Down and such.  With the new Bobby Mackey alliance, he cover's Bobby's song "Johanna" about the restless spirit of a young woman who used to work there but ended in tragedy.  It really works, since country and rock have ancestors in common (Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, etc.).  Ditto for a new song they do together called "Rockin' The Country."  Get out sometime and see OMEB play and visit Bobby Mackey's.  Tour the basement if you dare!

 

Comments On Canning

My online buddy Tommy runs the Freedom Guerilla blog.  He's an interesting guy who has worked for the forest service out West and got a medal from the Coast Guard for his involvement with the rescue effort when that jet landed in the Hudson River.  Now he is learning metal work and teaching at-risk NYC school kids how to garden.  He's not one to sit on his butt and pontificate.  A while back he did a post about how canning the food you grow is an essential part of self-reliance.  I added my comments about it there but I would also like to capture them here, just for my records.

Great post, Tommy! It touches off a string of memories… I was lucky to grow up in the country, not on a farm but surrounded by them, with enough of a yard for quite a large garden. One of my earliest memories is helping Dad plant tomatoes, then watching him use what he called a push-plow to make rows in which he planted beans & corn. We always ate the tomotoes & corn fresh, never canned them, but beans, yes, and as you say, a community event. I can picture my mom and her mom (Nannie) and maybe an aunt or neighbor or two, all settled in those folding aluminum lawn chairs, the kind that can snap a kid’s finger off, under the shade of that huge ash tree in the back yard. Several brown paper grocery bags, the tops cuffed over for easy access, would be distributed, brimming with fresh picked green beans. The women would commence to stringin’ and snappin’ the beans, all the while discussing family history & relations, or maybe what some of the folks at church were up to. I would most likely be nearby on a blanket applying calamine lotion to the many chigger bites I got from being primary bean-picker. They tended to cluster around the underwear elastic, occaisionally making it past that tightie-whitie bearier.

After the women finished prepping, the canning process took place. I remember lots of steam as the empty jars were sterilized then filled with raw beans. Was there a pressure cooker involved somewhere? I recall that it was treated as something as potentially dangerous as a nuclear reactor. We had to lay in front of the fan to cool off, never had AC. Quite a process, but in mid-winter mom could pull out a mason jar, unscrew the ring and pry up that lid with a “toink!” of the vacuum seal opening. Heat ‘em up, no butter – Nannie had a special little kitchen cannister embossed with the title “bacon grease” and kept on the stove top. Yum!

Friday Clearance On Pics & Links

"Remember, remember the fifth of November."  Maybe you know this quote from the movie "V For Vendetta," an entertaining film from The Wachowskis, who also brought us "The Matrix."  While you may not agree with the politics or the motivations of the characters in the stories, both films are required viewing for the modern freedom lover.  The reason I mention "V" today is that it hinges on the historical story of Guy Fawkes.  It's a tale of religious dogma made law by a tyrannical monarch, weapons of mass destruction, confessions extracted by torture, unfair trials, cruel and unusual punishments.  Quite fascinating, and today is the anniversary.  Read up on it if you can, or at least watch "V For Vendetta" tonight.

Come on, you're smart enough to recognise a trap when you see one.  You can think for yourself.  It's OK to check what Al Jazeera is reporting to the rest of the world.  Read it with the same skepticism and critical-thinking skills that you would use with Fox News.  I don't believe anything I hear or read, and only about half of what I see with my own eyes.

I'm currently re-reading one of my favorite books - William Least Heat-Moon's Blue Higways.  It's about his travels around America's back roads, avoiding cities and interstate highways.  That's where real people live.  You should explore America's Byways.

I don't know why but this cockleburr pic reminds me of our new friends Nan & Eric's asparagus farm.  They are some really nice folks, friends of our friend Dr. Dan.

Thanks to all who look and read, gratitude to those who comment, and much appreciation to those special few who spread the word about my blog!

Like A Fox...

Grand-daughter Logan, my favorite redhead in the multiverse, paid us a visit.  Four months old now and doing great, standing (with help), trying to hold her bottle, babbling and squealing like a little monkeybird.

Speaking of redheads, Marcy & I saw a fox yesterday.  We had dropped Derek off at Stanley's Driving School and had camped out just a bit down Bridgetown Road at Zen and Now Coffee Shop to spend time rather than make multiple trips.  We were heading back to pick him up, waiting for the light to change at the intersection of Glenway, Bridgetown, and Race when out of the corner of my eye I spotted the critter running in front of the car wash there.  Big bushy tail as large as its body streaming behind as it scampered on those skinny legs, pointy snout leading the way.  "Holy crap, it's a fox!  Look quick Marcy!"  It ran around the car wash into a parking lot behind the adjacent building and paused there.  The light changed and we had to move with the rush-hour traffic.  We picked Derek up and then we saw a deer on the way home, but we really expected that one, because we take the back roads that skirt around Mt. Airy Forest and it was getting dusky and in early November.  It was a doe starting to dart from the brush at the side of the road, probably being wooed by a randy buck.  I was hyper-alert and honked the horn and she reversed back into the woods.

Signs, portents and omens surround us.  I've been remembering a lot of dreams lately, too.  Last week in "reality" we got a letter from the bank that notified us that we were too broke to qualify for a mortgage modification via the Making Home Affordable program.  No surprise, really, we're just working through all the steps of the program as a delaying tactic.  That night I dreamed that I was in a car that I used to own, somehow perched on a window ledge high in the Fifth Third Bank building.  In my dream I considered jumping from my precariously balanced car to a nearby structure, a pipe or something, but it was just too far, too high to risk the long fall.  Then someone, maybe Derek, appeared in the car with me and somehow drove it from the bank building to safety.  What the heck does that mean?  Last night in "reality" I stayed up late and rewrote my resume and applied for a job at Children's Hospital.  I went to sleep and dreamed that a nurse wanted to take my temperature so she stuck an old-fashioned mercury thermometer in my mouth, but it was cracked and it shattered inside my mouth.  In my dream I was carefully spitting shards of glass and gobs of quicksilver into a safe container, carefully working the razor-sharp shards one by one from under my tongue and from between my cheeks and gums, uninjured and unpoisoned.

Better or Worse?

So thanks to our State of Ohio social safety net of welfare I was able to get an eye exam.  I picked the doctor out of the provider directory because he had the same name as Deep Purple's bass player back in the Seventies and the office was close by.  When you look through this machine they flip different lense combinations back and forth and ask "Better or worse?"  until it gets so close you can hardly tell the difference.  It makes me think of all the political ads that are infesting TV lately.  Better or worse?  A thief or a creep?  A Commie or a Nazi?    I want more choices, or even a "None of the above" selection.

They put drops in the eyes to dilate the pupils so they can look inside.  It makes you very light-sensitive so they give you a little sunglass panel to help shield the peepers.  It takes a long while for the dilation to wear off and it was a beautiful sunny day.  Women used to do the same thing with belladonna (deadly nightshade) so their eyes would be big, dark, and beautiful.  I'm not sure if they used the same stuff on me or not.

By the way, a couple of days later I also got a colonoscopy but I left my camera in my pants in the locker, plus I was narcotized/sedated, so no pics.  But they tell me it was something like this.  Except they didn't find any gerbil adventures, nor polyps neither, just a bit of diverticulosis.  That's right, I got me some pouchy chitlins.  I need less stress, more fiber.

Friday Clearance On Pics & Links

Greetings, my friends!  Once again I'm devoting Friday's post to clearing out my photo archive and Favorites list.  Here's one for my good friend Lili, who posts over on FEARLESS NESTING.  (Hey the pic reminds me of her white pumpkins!)  It's the 10 in 10 Diet.

The 10 in 10 Diet is a total system that makes it easy to transition off meat and cook healthy food conveniently while keeping your grocery bill under $150 a month per person, and reducing our contribution to climate change – think 10% reduction by remembering these 10 key points. It's a way to fast track to a simpler, more peaceful life. It's totally possible to really enjoy food while eating more like the majority of people in the world.

Too many people live just the way the Fat Cats & Corporations want them to live.  To live they way you want, you have to be as self-reliant as possible.  Check out Adventures In Self Reliance for some neat do-it-yourself projects, especially the food.  She has a recipe for Homemade Survival Bars that sounds pretty good, plus fruit leather and such.

You can see what nature thinks of fences.  Robert Frost's poem said "good fences make good neighbors" but he seemed not to agree with his own poem's character who said it.  I feel the same.  I haven't really been all that fond of neighbors since I moved out of Mom & Dad's place next door to Nanny & Grandy, and there was no fence betwixt.  Now, I've been called all kinds of hippy and anarchist for my views on property but my old pal George Carlin reminds us that we all need a place for our stuff.  He says if we didn't have so much stuff we could just walk around.  I got too much stuff - do you need any of it?

Did you ever feel that life was sending you coded message?  Ones and zeroes?  Just me, huh?  It figures.  If your Adobe Flash Player app seems hard to decipher you can get help, and make sure to protect your privacy and security.  You can also get lots of help with your Bleeping Computer.  Vigilant Citizen deciphers the occult symbols in modern buildings, songs, videos, and movies.

I'm not sure what my little friend here is up to but you can Enhance Beneficial Insects With Native Plants, highly recommended by my bee-keeping friend, Dr. Dan.  Maybe I can identify the little guy with Discover Life, a tool that has over a million and a quarter species pages.  There is also a huge amount of material at Encyclopedia Of Life.

Meet my friend Horace Wyche.  When I first met him he was a pretty skinny dude, then he made the decision to get fit.  He can help you do the same with his Hoss Innovative Fitness Training.