Robin!

I ain't much on premonitions, but I had a feeling I was going to see  a robin today. I went into the office, opened the blinds, sat and watched for awhile, The sky is mostly overcast but the world has an impending springtime look to it. After a few minutes, I saw them; a pair in a tree across the street. In just a moment they dropped to the ground and began the hunt which was very successful, it seems; leaves were being flipped and bugs and worms were being eaten.  I grabbed the Pentax and went on the porch where I was able to shoot he pair from long distance at a grainy ISO 400. I brought the camera back to the pc and took a look at the results; not very good but not terrible under the circumstances. As I was about to upload one to the blog, I turned and again looked to see if maybe I had one closer stalking in my yard. Sure enough, there was. I put the card back into the camera and once more hobbled to the door, this time I was afraid to go onto the porch because early birds are skittish. I made a few shots through the glass and the one above is typical, shot at ISO 200; it is a huge crop. The most unusual thing about the robins is the pair across the street were male and female and they stayed together. In normal circumstances, the males always arrive here about two weeks prior to the females, and begin establishing their mating territories. So, I have learned something new this year and the last worsh day in January has turned out well.

Dumbed weekend

I am and I feel very distracted this weekend; as if nothing will hold still long enough for my mind to focus on it; probably tax burnout syndrome.
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In a few minutes, I shall abandon the PC for the porch where my bride will give me a haircut; my last one was in late summer or early autumn. She is a dangerous woman when she has sharply-pointed scissors in her grasp.
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I have it bad! I even dreamed about robins last night! I dreamed I was out shooting and came upon a huge puddle that had robins bathing and there were many ring billed sea gulls around! The temps were very mild yesterday and promise to be better today; of course I was stuck inside doing more year-end taxes and will have to do more today; they must be sent to their respective destinations before Tuesday!
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Being out shooting is becoming only a dream In just a year it has gone from three-to-four-times each week downward to none since late October. The knee has forced me to stay home so much that now I don't look forward to getting out. I hope a dose of warm spring will cure that malady.
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Today on TV, I plan to watch the Lady Vols play a good Arkansas team; I am torn between watching the game and getting out shooting. I still need to stay here where I can get some work done, as does Carolyn.
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At 2:00 this morning I finished reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. As do most mystery thrillers, the book deals with sex and murder. It is a long tome and could easily have been divided into two novels as their are two separate story lines and two protagonists, although these two characters intertwine their lives to solve a mystery. If you ask, I will tell you all I know about the mystery except I will not tell how Harriet Vanger died and how her brother, Martin, died; you must find that on your own. One important clue told at the beginning of the mystery solving is ignored throughout the book and is mentioned again only in passing after the fact. This is poor plotting on the part of the author because he goes into needless detail about other things while ignoring the obvious; he and the reader would have been better served if he had never mentioned it. Hint: flowers.
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Have a nice week, my friends.
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Jesus On The Wire

Run-down church, red clay

River covered in a smoky haze

Sunday morning, the fires out

Sunday morning, no one about

The earth is soft, this time of year

Boots get caked from there to here

Down the road, route 25

Found this boy barely alive

(Chorus) Jesus is on the wire

So far away, higher and higher

Took him down, off a fence

Cold as ice, almost dead

They said that he slept with guys

They said that he was gonna die

(Chorus) Jesus is on the wire

So far away, higher and higher

Photo upload test

Powder horn

On the hunt

Blog hits: Yesterday's blog had 395 hits in just over two hours. They were from around the world, but most were from Shawnee, Oklahoma. Why so many? I figure that one word pulled most of them in; "scrimshaw". It was the caption of yesterday's photo. The one from Okla. must have been using a "bot" to search out references to the word. The reason I think it all was not because of my superior writing is that the same blog appeared on Blogspot without the photo and caption and did not garner any extra hits. If you have a blog, make "Scrimshaw" the title and see if you get many hits.
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Last evening a read a bit more of The Birch Grove, a book of short stories sent to me by friend Jola just before Christmas; thank you for thinking of me and sending the book, young lady. It was originally written by Polish author Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz and is a well done English translation. The first story is very short and has no particular time frame. It takes place over a few minutes one evening in an apartment where a man is waiting for his new love to arrive. His want and need for the new woman in his life wanes as a dieing rose sheds its petals. I found the story a bit sad and also somewhat comical. The next two stories are set between the World Wars; I will write more about them later. Again, thank you for thinking of me and sending the book, my friend.
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Goodbye, Dennis Kucinich. I foresee the T-baggers jumping all over him in next election for his lawsuit against almost everyone. He claims an olive pit in a purchased sandwich wrap caused him to sustain "serious and permanent dental and oral injuries requiring multiple surgery and oral procedures". He is suing several food service companies for the alleged damages. He may as well go ahead and sue the people who imported the miscreant olives, the field hands who picked the fruit, the farmer who employed the field hands, and the nation in which the suspect olive tree grew. How about going for the big one, Mr. Congressman; after all, olives are one of God's creations so you may as well have Him as a respondent in you law suit. Good luck with that; I understand the Big Man is in Alaska on a hunting trip with Sara Palin and that He is trying to shoot her beaver and a little moose. He will likely be out of ethereal Heaven for a while.
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Have a Thursday!
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Reading, writing, and politics

I am down to reading two books, according to my mood. I began The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo evening before last. I've read four chapters and the one thing that troubles me is a plethora of characters are being developed along with a story line and plot. It is a good book so far and will make a very good read if it doesn't become over populated with character mannerisms. I've also had to (didn't have to but thought it was best) do a bit of research on Sweden's financial relationships with Eastern Europe and Poland in particular when Bolsheviks lost control with the fall of communism. I found that Sweden and Germany seemed to be the two main players in the attempt to make the former Soviet Bloc nations into capitalist societies. France, Italy, Switzerland, and England were also highly involved. The articles were interesting reading on their own. Anyway, with the background and what I've so far read in the book; this looks to be an involved and convoluted mystery. It is supposedly based on fact.
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It is 12:45pm and the rain has just changed over to snow. I had my doc's appointment rescheduled for nest month; my schnoz is fine and the scar is nice and pink; it will soon turn snow white. If it looks too bad, I can comb my mustache up over it.
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"As the President said last night, the most important contest we face as a nation is not between our political parties – it's a contest among our competitors across the globe for the jobs and industries of the future. It’s about winning the future.
To win that contest, we must out-innovate, out-educate and out-build the rest of the world.  We must take responsibility for our deficit and reform the way government works, so that it’s leaner, smarter and better equipped to meet the challenges of the 21st century."

The above is from an email propaganda which I received from the president's press secretary. All I can say is he better concentrate on fixing the problems at home before he saves us from the world. He should have jumped off his bipartisan horse when the Republicans treated him the way they did over medical reform. He needs to kick some corporate ass and grab some political  short-hairs. Make these jerks state their true case in public and point out every inconsistency in their words and actions. When Obama gets some control of our domestic fiasco, he can concentrate on our place in the world markets. He must move decisively and quickly.
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Have a good'un, my friends.
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Niggling and nagging

Today's photo is a processed version of the original. Yesterday's photo is a b/w converted (obviously) copy and has been mirrored. I made this photo in 2007 with my Canon S3 IS camera and it was picked for publication in a Swedish language magazine in, where else, Sweden. I've always liked the photo, but something niggling about about it kept nagging at me; I just could not figure what it was. I previously converted it to b/w and published it on Flickr and on my Blogspot blog, but it wasn't a full cup of coffee for me. A few months back, I was looking at some photos on Megashot's Critique Forum and saw where Cyrus suggested to someone that they mirror their photo and he had a mirrored copy of it below the original. That is when it hit me and I started digging through my college photography class notes and there it was: "See your photograph in every possible way; like a book, it should read from left to right". Thanks Cyrus for jogging my memory. Since I read the critique, I have been scrutinizing every photo I work with and have mirrored a lot of them, and I now consider the Tomatoes photo as being complete.
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Finally got my shot yesterday, my nose is healing, I haven't gained any weight in the past year, and life could be a lot worse. On the flip side, I still have to get the shots, my nose is itching, I haven't lost any weight in the past year, and life could be a lot better. Balance.
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Same old rhetoric from a same old political talking head tonight as President Obama tells his side of the story in the annual State of the Union address to our beloved Congress. He should have been out talking the talk and walking the walk for the past two years; if he is going to a president of the people, he surely needs to show us he is one of the people. Tell us the truth, Mr. President.
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Have a--damn, it's Tuesday already--great day, my friends.
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Stomach rumbles

Still plenty of walking about daylight at 6:00pm yesterday. Now if only the weather would get the hint.
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Fitness guru Jack Lalanne died at age 96. When Carolyn saw the news on TV last evening, she interrupted my reading to comment "I wonder what he died of?" Geez!
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I opened a black and white only account on Megashot; no color, no selective color, no tones, no sepia; just my black and whites the way I like them and not to please anyone else.
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I'm off to get my shot; Carolyn will drive me there so I won't have to walk as far. Wednesday I go back to the skin doctor for my nose checkup; I'm sure he will find some more places to either freeze, laser, cut, or scrape. I'm sick of doctors, I'm sick of cabin fever, and I'm sick of not making photos.
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Have a good worsh day!
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Reading

I've been feeling pretty good for a few days, but the way things have been going, I will get over it. Plenty of sunshine today; enough that I sat on the porch for a brief time.
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Have any of you read Steg Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo? I purchased the Kindle version from Amazon and I've read that it is a pretty good book. Along with a paper copy of The Birch Grove and Other Stories written by Jaroslaw Iwaszkiewicz, I am reading Ubik: A Novel by Phillip K Dick; it is on the Droid/Kindle. The Birch Grove has only four stories and I am in the middle of the third one, the title story. The first story, A New Love, is very short and very good. The second tale, The Wilco Girls, is not quite as good but is still worth the time to absorb it. The Birch Grove story is turning into a very good read. I also have A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court loaded on the Droid in the Google reader. I read it many years ago and I liked it a lot, even though it was probably written for young adults. It was written by Mark Twain and is quite funny as only he could write such a tale. Ubik: A Novel is as weird and twisted as only a master writer can put on paper.
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The pic is old but it is still one of my favorites that I've done. I generally don't care for sepia toning, but here for some reason it works for me.
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Have a wonderful week upcoming!
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Bobbing along

My grandma's only vice was listening to Hank on the radio
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Surprise! We again have snow on the ground! Not a lot, but too much of anything is enough. The temp is to remain well below freezing today and barely crawl above the frosty point for the weekend. I will go out and get my shot today and will probably stay in until I have to go again or the temps get into porch sitting warmth, whichever comes first. Carolyn is sick and I will have to drive myself to the docs office. Driving is not much of a problem; it is walking from the parking lot to the office and back that is almost becoming terrifying; at my weight and if my knee should fail and I go down, the thump will most likely set off car alarms.
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Looks like Chris and Kevin will be moving in with us at month's end.
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I generally begin my robin watch in mid-February, but they snuck in by early February last year so this time i will begin watching next Friday, the 28th. Who the hell do I think I am fooling? I can't sit still for ten minutes without looking through the window at the front lawn to see if any orange breasts are "bob-bob-bobbing along"; even in the skiff of snow. BTW: "snuck" is accepted good usage and can replace "sneaked" as a past tense of "sneak" in USA. It is an example of local dialect that has become common in all but business communications.
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Our friend Mark is wanting to become a homeowner; pipe and slippers, a good dog, and a roaring fire on the hearth. Let's all hope for the best for him as he is wanting to get away from the apartment life and have something to call his own. It is one of the major life events and with some planning, research, and advice from people such as his parents, he should do well. Good luck, my friend.
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Have a fantabulous Friday and weekend, dear friends.

I'm in a Celtic Mood

Celtic radio music from Scotland

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Today is Paul Cézanne's birthday

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Nose, tax, and Celtic lore

The beauty-marring scab came off my schnoz last night. I stopped reading at about midnight and not being able to quickly drop into the arms of my gentle sleep goddess,* I began working at my nose. In just a few minutes the scab came away and now I have a huge gaping cleft on my nostril. I shall forever more wear a sack over my head when I venture into public places. Oh, the shame; the shame!

I finally had to down half a Xanax and then slept well until seven this morning; now my nose is sore and swollen, there are boogers inside that need to be plucked out, and I cannot get my finger in there to do any work. Can you say "frustration", boys and girls?
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Carolyn has taken Ashley to the pregnancy doctor; today we should find out if the baby is a boy or a girl; hope it isn't a Republican.
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I am working on taxes and will be doing so off-and-on for several weeks. My blogging may be sporadic even as my ignorance stays fairly constant. I have no photos of consequence to upload, so I will leave you with a bit of music from my ancestral home.
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Have a Tuesday!
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*Caer Ibormeith - In Irish mythology, Caer Ibormeith was a daughter of Prince Ethal Anbuail of Sid Uamuin in Connacht. Every alternate Samhain she would change into a swan, in which form she would remain for a year before becoming human again the following Samhain. She eventually married Aengus of the Tuatha de Dannan, but first he had to pick her out, in swan form, from a group of one hundred and fifty other swans at Loch Bel Dragon (Now Lough Muskry  in the Galtees.) Having chosen correctly, he turned into a swan himself and they flew away, to the fortress of the River Boyne at Drogheda, singing beautiful music that put all its listeners asleep for three days and nights. With Aengus, Caer was the foster-mother of Diarmuid.

Wake up, America!

E pluribus unum

"Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"
Mr. King wasn't thinking about taxes when he made his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

Today I begin my bit of payment for all this freedom: Tax season is in full bloom. Thank God Almighty it is a winter flower and will be mostly gone when real flowers bloom in April. As a small business, we are taxed across the board at a minimum of thirty-three percent after expenses are paid. Carry your candle into the darkness of Big Corporation accounting offices and see how many of them will pay even five percent tax on their post-expense income.

We can no longer file paper forms with the government; it all has to be done by phone or internet. Why? THEY say it saves the government money, thus saving the taxpayer money. How does it save money? It causes government employees to to lose jobs which taxpayers pay for. Who benefits in the long run? Big Businesses who sell the machines and trains the fewer government employees to do the unskilled work. These Big Businesses also provide maintenance, repairs, and on site logistics for the machines they sell the government. Many of the machines are built in other countries thus American workers are forced to work in the fast food and janitorial service businesses. It is time for the Second American Revolution!
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Have a good worsh day where ever you pay taxes.
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Blanks, taxes, and scabs

I had intentions of Carolyn hauling my carcass around today to try and get some photos and a breath of fresh air; except for doc appointments, I do not leave this house. It has been months since I was on a dedicated photo hunt, and I am deathly sick of looking at and reworking my old photos. I'm no longer capable of walking around in my tiny back yard where I can at least shoot some birds and other semi-interesting stuff. Anyway, she came up with something else she had to do today, so I sit here trying to think of a lie for the blog and am shooting blanks.
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The thick, black scab seems to be about ready to come off the side of my nose; I will spend some quality time soaking it and hoping it will fall away; it is such a degrading blemish on my natural facial beauty.
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It is once again tax time; and I am a week behind on beginning them; some were due yesterday but I have had no motivation to proceed with the onerous tasks. To say the truth, I do not care if they are ever done, but I suspect Uncle Sam has a different mind-set about such laxity; of course, Old Uncle doesn't have to pay taxes; just collect them. It would be a great thing if the government had to pay taxes on its income; I bet the tax laws would quickly be rewritten if Daddy Sugar had to ante-up.
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A word about the coming and all important worsh day; the word "worsh" is used by mostly uneducated hillbillies; the folk with more than a third grade education prefer the classier high-society sounding word "warsh". My grandma always said worsh and she had only third grade schooling. Her sister said warsh because she finished part of the fifth grade. The reason Mom had only third grade knowledge is because her father became sick and in 1903 when she was eight years old and she had to quit school to help support the large family. Her dad died in 1906.
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A Sunday salute to You, my friends!
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Megashot Macro and Close-up Theme

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Chicken and other critters

Carolyn made me eat chicken for supper last evening and my stomach has been unsettled since. I don't think it was the food but more likely a tummy virus. Anyway, it set in at the right time so I could blame the chicken.
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R.A. doc says I need to get the knee replaced and I agree; if I don't, I will be in a wheelchair within months. I suppose I should do some shopping for some suitable wheels.
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This is our second straight day of sunshine, but the air is still not very warm. Still another month before I begin to look for any moderation. The robins arrived early last year but the spring was cool and short; maybe this year they will return early and bring lasting warm weather with them.
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I was down to the bird feeders yesterday and saw many critter tracks. The snow was displaying prints of rabbits, many small birds, ubiquitous squirrels, deer, and one set I had previously not seen there; wild turkey. When deer finally settle into suburbia, wild turkey soon follow.
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Have a super weekend, dear ones.
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Star struck ... no mayo

Still snowing but the skies are clearing; I don't recall it ever snowing this many days in a row.
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My favorite pick-me-up snack sandwich is grape jelly and mayonnaise. I like the two ingredients mixed, but will eat them laying side by side. This is a treat my grandmother made for me when I was a little sprat. I remember once being outside enjoying one of these delights when somehow a yellow-jacket bee got into my mouth and it stung my tongue and roof of my mouth. I cried ...
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Thirty-odd years ago a bunch of us partied a lot; the happenings would be at my house, or at Fred's and Alice's, or at Ken's and Brenda's, or at one or another of our friends houses. Mostly beer drinking for us--wine for some of the ladies-- and maybe a cookout in summertime, music of various sorts would be on the turntable, and there was always someone attempting to dance. At one such party in Fred's and Alice's finished basement, I became a little weary of the goings on and wandered outside. The house is situated on a fairly steep bank which had been back-filled and at the corner below where the carport is located, there is a small nearly level area which falls away to the main backyard. That summer night I went out and sat at the level place, contemplating the stars and life in general. In a few minutes, a young lady wandered from the party and sat down beside me, a very pretty girl with long, dark hair and even darker eyes. I was about 33 years old at the time and she was a mature looking lass of just 16 summers. She asked me why I came outside and what I was looking at and I told her I was just getting away from the hustle for a bit and was looking at one of my favorite views; a moonless, crystal clear night sky. She sat with me for a long while and we spoke very little, at last both of us got up and went back to the party. At the next party at my house, I did the same and went out and lay my body on the grass of the front lawn, again enjoying the stars of a summer evening. In a few minutes I was joined by the same young lady where she lay on the grass beside me. She asked a few questions about star names and constellations and such, but mostly we just sprawled quietly for awhile before going back to the shindig. Next time it was at Ken's house and the same girl followed me out where we sat alone beside the house. Nothing romantic ever happened between she and I, but I think we both felt very close to each other; maybe a karmic connection or such. Finally the summer party season crawled into cool autumn nights and my outdoors excursions ended for the year. The girl and I saw each other at many parties throughout the winter and early spring, and we would usually give each other a quick smile and even danced together a time or two. When the nights again grew warm enough for sitting and mentally conversing with the stars, I found myself alone; the girl became engaged and married over the "off" months, and it just would not have bode good for her to be seen sitting beside me when she should be with her new husband. The thing that pleased me the most about her was having her company on those special evenings, and the fact that the man she married was about my age; against everyone in her families wishes. Too old for her, they said. I suppose she is nearly 50 years of age now, he is in his mid-sixties and, as far as I know, they raised a family and are still together. Last time I saw her was at a funeral where we again smiled our own personal smile to each other and for a moment our fingertips brushed together. It was more than 30 years ago we first sat with each other on the grass at Alice's house, but sometimes on warm summer evenings when I am on the porch, I think of those moments together and wonder if they were as important for her as they were for me. Moments are the little things which define our lives.
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Tomorrow I have a date with the R.A.  doc for a checkup and to get my weekly fix, therefore I may be absent from the blog until Saturday.
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Have a Thursday!

Cold and cooking

Still snowing and the wind is like a saw blade against the skin! Carolyn went out to work last evening, got caught in a whiteout and blamed it on me. God must have closed up shop for the night so I was second in line for her fury. I looked out the window of our office and proclaimed in my deep, deity voice, "Peace; be still!" and in just a few minutes the snow stopped. Sometimes I amaze myself.
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Do you like coffee and biscuits? I do, since I was a very small boy. Take a couple of homemade biscuits, split them in half, pour some hot coffee into a plate, place the biscuits crust upward in the coffee, and as the bread sponges the coffee, pour more coffee over them. When they have soaked all the liquid they can hold, sprinkle on sugar and have at 'em. Poor man's donuts. Canned biscuits (bachelor biscuits) don't work so well, and I haven't tried the Pillsbury frozen variety, but they should be pretty good.
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I wish the Luck's company would resume cooking and canning October beans; they are much better tasting than pinto beans. Octobers are also called shelly beans or cranberry beans. They are the only variety of brown beans fit to eat with a common biscuit or cornbread, and Carolyn cooks them at least three times each month. They are best when cooked with a piece of streaked meat (pork belly that has too much fat for regular bacon). When I was growing up, we had them several times each week; in fact, Octobers and potatoes were the staples of our diet.
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May your Wednesday whatabouts be productive!
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Sun and snow

Tammy emailed me a photo of sunflowers from her garden; one day last week when I was whining on the blog about feeling badly she took pity on me. Thanks, Tammy; they brightened my day.
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The snow has stopped for a while at least; still supposed to be ratty for a couple more days and it will be Friday before the temps crawl just above the freezing mark. We seem to have layers of snow and ice but this old boy ain't going outside to find out. Mark says his side of the hill got only an inch of snow but they were predicting freezing rain for this morning. I can already tell that evening twilight is coming a bit later. The earth's orbit carried it closest to the sun about a week ago, but I can't feel that any extra warmth helped my aching bones.
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Hope the people in Queensland can brave through the disaster of the recent flooding and now the super-flash flood.
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"Gimme a 'T' for Tuesday, gimme a 'T' for Tennessee ..."
Have a Tuesday, my friends.
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"Then she tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up."

Illuminati not

One of my contacts on Megashot posted a photo of a bar stool and it got me to wondering; is it a good thing or a bad thing that bar stools cannot talk? Can you imagine the things they've seen and heard? One of these days I will interview a bar stool; should be interesting.
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It began snowing about 5:30 this morning and, along with what was left from Friday's snowfall, there is a bit more than 6" (15.4cm) on the ground. Most businesses have shut down, along with all schools including East Tennessee State University. We are now having mixed ice and snow and it can only get worse; I hope we do not lose electric as we have only enough kerosene for about a day and one-half.
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The RA is eased up for now; but it has left me lazier than usual, and that is a great accomplishment!
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I am having a fit of tarantism; anybody want to join me?
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It is hard ... it is damn hard to find good clementines anymore! I love bananas and I love good clementines but good clemmies have been a rare find for two years. Is it asking too much to grow decent fruit? It ain't atomic science to grow a freaking sweet orange!

Happy Worsh Day!
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I'm still too sore in my paws to write much; trying to be patient with myself and the weather. Down to 3° early this morning. If and when spring gets here, I hope it is warmer and lasts longer than did last year's.
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In the few government approved photos that come out of North Korea, have you noticed that the only overweight people are the supreme leader and his family? Those bastards have never missed a meal while their subjected population does without sufficient food and basic necessities.
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Our new semi-supreme leader, John Boehner, is praying for the people killed and damaged in the Arizona shooting. However, I doubt that he would ever consider handgun control as long as he is bought and paid for by the National Rifle Association. I can tell him this; I just now spoke with God and He said I should tell Boehner to take a flying sex act at the moon! Watch out, Moon! You are about to get screwed like the rest of us.
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Have a great week ... as if anything can be great that begins with a Monday!
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Tennessee calling

 

We finally got to talk with Keegan for a few minutes yesterday via telephone. He was preparing to leave for Guam today, and by the time difference, he should be there and sound asleep as I write this. He is ok and will be training at Andersen Air Force Base for a few weeks, then it will be back to Japan and then on to the Middle East.
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Speaking of telephones, we had our landline disconnected as of 8:00am today. Our internet is still provided by the phone company, but we will be using cellular for most of our voice communications. I need to purchase a decent headset so I can use Skype and Google Voice. As long as I don't have to hear people and I can do all the talking, it will work out just fine.
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Yesterday we got up to one of the prettiest snows I've seen in years; it was less than 3" (7.6cm) but was stuck to the trees and everything else. This morning it is again snowing but so far we have only about an inch (2.5cm) yet it comes down steadily.
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Shot day!
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Megashot.net 2010, Best of Nature Contests, Level 2

I'm very sore again today but it is just part of the game. I will try to write something later today or tomorrow ...

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Megashot.net Nature Contests--Best of Level 1, 2010

Fixin's

 

 

Mark (future President Sevigny) says that one way to relieve the high unemployment is to rebuild the nation's infrastructure; bridges, highways, electrical grid, etc. I agree with him that it would bolster the workforce and it would also enhance our national security; we do not need a systems breakdown during a crisis. How much this would help the unemployment picture I do not know, however, I doubt it would drop the unemployment rate by more than one-percent. I think the best way to get the employment rate in a manageable position is to begin bringing our exported manufacturing strength back home. If I were president, the first thing I would do, after my hangover is just a memory, is put all the trade agreements with every foreign country on the table for close inspection. The first thing that would come of that is the nations whom are the most lopsided beneficiaries of our bad trade policies would immediately squall the loudest. I am not saying that we should throw the agreements out the window, but that we should make sure they are fair; at present, free trade and fair trade do not walk hand-in-hand. We should begin getting the inequalities ironed out by making sure we are not our own worst enemy, and the North American Free Trade Agreement would be the first one scrutinized. I have not one iota of animosity toward other governments for taking advantage of what we give them, but we must make sure that we don't give away our best interests by allowing our own capitalists to become greedily richer at the expense of our domestic prices increasing as decent jobs leave our shores and borders and more citizens falling into poverty. When other nations and our own corporations see that the American people are speaking through their representative government instead of the those nations and corporations using our government as a puppet, we should be able to compete using our own manufacturing ability. My proposal is not a quick fix nor the only thing that needs to be done but it is a good place to start.
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The weather has been fair for a few days, and it has helped me cope with the physical and mental problems I have with winter. That is about to change as THEY say it is going to get nasty and cold once again beginning Thursday.
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Happy Tuesday!
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Megashot.net December 2010 Animals Category Winners Level 2

Gripe, grouch, and grumble -- I'm Back!

Some of the soreness has left my fingers but they are still swollen about the same. Day-to-day, RA "... is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get." I've been shying away from the computer and just about everything else; even grasping my cell phone has been painful. That's ok though; I could not have understood most of what anyone had to say anyway. Thank all of you for your well wishes while I've been down and I am going to try to to get back into the swing of things with this writing.
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I need to get my mind back on seeing that Mark has a chance of being president because uncaring Republicans and swoonfully stupid Tea-bag brains are taking over a big part of our future.
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Why does Medicare pay for certain medical procedures, supplies, equipment, and medications, yet will not shell out one dime for preventative care. Hell, we geezers are getting sick because it is the cheapest thing for us to do. After we have a good case of the miserables, Medicare will step in and pay a hundred times as much just to keep us half-way comfortable as they would have paid to keep us from getting sick in the first place. As far as I know, the only preventative medication Medicare pays for is influenza vaccine. Medicare will shell out a fortune to treat diseases such as RA, yet pay nothing to educate us about how is best to live with the disease. Uncle Sam spends billions of tax and borrowed dollars each year for joint replacements but will not fully pay for the necessary medications and will pay nothing for preventatives that can keep many of us mobile and self-reliant for years without expensive surgery. I trust that President-to-be Sevigny and his brain-trust have a proposal(s) to fix Medicare.
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Have a good worsh day, my dears.
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Megashot.net December 2010 Red Category Winners Level 3

Yours truly is honored to have a photo included in this video.

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