Category: Orphans

One of these days we’ll figure out what kind of look we want for the blog as well as a format that doesn’t make your eyes cross looking at code. My Tokyo friend Paul changed the look sometime between now and last night. I like it. I will have to see now if I can navigate within it.

Like all large and lucrative industries, the television industry doesn’t like to be told what do by government regulators. So industry officials have agreed to set standards for themselves which would soften loud TV commercials.

The TV bigwigs announced their pledge to self-regulate at a recent hearing concerning legislation by California Democratic Rep. Anna Eshoo (Bless you!) which would have required the FCC to set volume levels for commercials.

Currently, the level for TV ads should be no louder during commercials than the peak volume within the show being broadcast. But these ads are often placed next to very quiet moments during the show, or so the explanation goes.

Since it was hotter than blue blazes this past weekend where I live — in Southeast Texas — I decided the healthy thing to do was stay inside read and watch TV if something decent was on the tube. I had read recently about this proposed law and I thought it was a good idea if it would make a difference in lowering ad volumes. My thoughts on this matter surfaced more than once this weekend when commercials by Time-Warner cable almost jarred me from my chair.

I am sure that if the TV industry (including Time-Warner) actually does something to soften the loudness, they’ll find other ways to annoy their customers. And, I am talking about something more than leaving callers on hold indefinitely or giving the viewer poor customer service.

It’s been kind of a heavy week what with the death of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. So I thought I would lighten my thoughts as they are portrayed out there on the dubya, dubya, dubya, dot, thing. Oh, this is “Jokerman” type from the Open Office word package in case you thought you were having some kind of an eye affliction.

Plenty has already been said about Jackson and more is sure to come in the days ahead. We probably would have heard more about Farrah had she not had the misfortune of dying just prior to that of the “King of Pop.” One of my best friends also died of anal cancer, by the way, not at all a pleasant affliction.

So here our society has turned another corner in its culture of celebrity, showing presumably an already dead Jackson being bagged by paramedics on the way to the hospital.

In the meantime, life goes on. The ships go sailing in and out of the harbor. A never-ending stream of cars and tractor-trailers buzz by on the interstate while some guy without a shirt and a bandanna around his head holds up a cardboard sign saying “New Orleans” in his left hand while he sticks out his right thumb.

It’s another scorcher and worker bees do the work while way up somewhere in the high floors of the office tower a young woman looks out the windows and thinks of that margarita she is going to have at the bar after work.

Bo and Tyrone are fishing off the jetty. They’ve not caught a thing and don’t much like the 100-degree heat, but they sure are glad to be where they are and with who they are hanging out.

So ends another sad week in America. The funny thing about it, it seems just almost like any week, doesn’t it?

Sitting here trying to cool off from what I hope is my final trip outside today, I can’t help but notice how my little Weather Bug icon is blinking between its little bug and an ominously red 103. Actually, the temperature down the street at the Catholic school is 102 with a heat index of 109 degrees.

It occurred to me just in the few minutes inside, and out of the scorching day, that I have learned some truths about extrme heat in my half-century plus of mostly living in climates subject at times to hot temperatures.  Those truths:

In the old days before air conditioning young women spent their spare time coming up with new meals to cook on concrete walls.

1. If it’s hot,  get out of the heat.

2. Nothing, not anything at all, beats a glass of ice water when it’s really hot.

3. Air conditioning is both a blessing and a curse.

It is tempting to feel sorry for the guys I see working on the street construction project downtown in which they are tearing up the sidewalk with a jackhammer to replace it with something to give downtown an old-time feel. 

However, these guys are getting paid to do what they are doing. They may or may not have air conditioning in their homes and/or cars. The places they came from in Mexico or Central America may or may not have air conditioning. These men will probably make enough to buy all the air conditioners they need for when they get to be my age.

When I was a young sailor exploring the wares of Magsaysay Drive in Olangapo, in the Philippines, I once thought I discovered the absolute cure for those miserably hot and humid days in which the only way a shower can be soothing is to stay under it the entire day. That cure, I thought was the local San Miguel beer, pulled dripping in ice from a chest in a dark bar. But that is kind of like something else I discovered: Staying in the water is great for soothing a bad sunburn. Getting out of the water isn’t so great and you eventually will have to leave the water unless you can somehow turn into a merman or mermaid.

I could survive this day without air conditioning. It would be miserable, at first, but eventually I could acclimate myself  to where it would be barely bearable.  I never lived in a place with air conditioning until I joined the Navy. Once I left the Navy, I did not stay completely immersed in air conditioning until I graduated from college. I worked as a fireman during most of that time period and survived some hot times but also suffered from heat exhaustion. But once I started having employment in which I didn’t want to look like one big mass of sweat, I became more and more a creature of A/C.

So to paraphrase TV’s “Defective Detective” Adrian Monk — the Tony Shalhoub character in the series “Monk” — in his amusing catch phrase: air conditioning truly is a “blessing and a curse.”

Those magic waves of cool air make life more comfortable. Why should we sweat and suffer prickly heat when we can sit back and, you know, be cool?  But A/C is addicting. You start out, you might only use it at home and in the car and at work. Eventually, you’ll be spending every moment of your life inside because you can’t get enough of that coolness.

It’s truly a monkey on one’s back. But damn, if it isn’t soooo cool!

“What happens in Iran is not going to be because of what Obama says, or Rush Limbaugh or any other Joe S**t the Ragman who might or might not have the voice of Americans.”

Here are my two cents on the Iran situation. The estimation of my opinion’s worth is most likely inflated at that but here goes.

I haven’t had much use for the Iranian government since the revolution 30 years ago during which more than a few dozen American citizens were held hostage for an entirely too long period of time. This Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president who it seems got millions of votes last week for reelection out of nowhere, is quite simply a jackass.

Millions of Iranian citizens appear to want real change, and even their own version of freedom and democracy. It is less than clear that the leading opposition candidate, Mir Hossein Moussavi, is the George Washington of a new Iran. From what I read and hear it does seem he might be the best hope for those craving a new Iran. But my guess is that most Americans are like me and can possess no more than a gut feeling.

Our own opposition party in the United States, it should be remembered, wants nothing more than to kick Barack Obama and the Democratic party until they can’t function without leaving any visible bruises. Perhaps some of the leaders of Republican party who criticize Obama at every turn in the Iranaian crisis and every other matter in which the president is involved are as sincere as their rhetoric. Unfortunately, GOP leaders don’t have much of a track record since the last election to prove that theirs is anything but a cynical attempt to damage the Obama administration which has been quite consistently kicking the Republicans’ asses in the realm of public opinion.

Today, Obama’s language became a little stronger against the current Iranian regime. I think he should maintain the careful course that he has traveled since this crisis began. It does no good for the administration play into the hands of a fool for a leader of a country (Iran for those of you who might get confused too easily) that could either be a dangerous enemy or once again a valuable ally.

What happens in Iran is not going to be because of what Obama says, or Rush Limbaugh or any other Joe S**t the Ragman who might or might not have the voice of Americans. Only the Iranians can be masters of their own destiny.