To customers perusing the notice-board in the village post office, the job advertisement must have seemed too good to be true. For £7 an hour, with all expenses paid, a man was required to visit a local pub and drink beer.
The assignment was to be carried out at at least twice a week at the Compass Inn in Winsor, Hampshire, in the company of an elderly gentleman.
The advert is genuine, and the four men who have applied for the position so far are to undergo trial drinking sessions in the coming week, though their potential employer is open to applications from new candidates.
It is an appeal from a desperate man. Until recently, Jack Hammond, 88, would drink four times a week with a neighbour in Barton-on-Sea. Then he moved into a nursing home a few miles away to be closer to his family. Forest Edge Care Home boasts a garden and easy access to shops; what it cannot offer Mr Hammond is a suitable drinking partner. All but one of his fellow residents are women. Which is how the advertisement came to be placed in the nearby village of Cadnam.
For some it is a sign of the times that an elderly gentleman lacks a companion with whom to visit the local pub, although it is increasingly common.
Mr Hammond’s wife died 12 years ago, and the upheaval of moving into a care home has left him feeling isolated. “It was a bit upsetting when I had to leave as I left all my friends back home,” he said.
Jeeze…I’m only 54 and I can already relate. I moved to Baltimore and left all my friends behind in Washington because up here was where i was getting work, and I could actually afford the rents. But at least I’m healthy enough I can drive down to Washington to see my friends regularly. The day is coming, when all I’ll have is what’s within a short distance from where I make my bed. But maybe by that time I’ll have voices in my head to keep me company.
People have had to buy sex since before the written word. Here’s what it’s come to in our age: people are having to buy friends. Except you can’t.
Better to go down dignified
With boughten friendship at your side
Than none at all. Provide, provide!
So said Robert Frost. He was wrong. You can buy sex but you can’t buy love. You can buy a companion but you can’t buy friendship. Hopefully Mr. Hammond has had enough love and friendship in his life that he can find all he needs now in a bought companion. But the rest of us need to look at this and worry about what we are becoming. It shouldn’t have to be like this. In an age where advertisers can track our every desire and feed us up products we’re likely to want, just by tracking our web browsing habits, we are loosing our humanity. How is it, that this guy was moved away from his friends into a nursing home located where it is, simply to be closer to his family, and nobody seems to have given any thought to his need for companionship?
Chris Perry, director of Hampshire Age Concern, often sees elderly men who lack a companion for their regular pub visits. “It is easy to become socially isolated at this age due to bereavement or from people moving away,” he said. “But this man needs to be commended for using his initiative for putting an advert in the window.”
And you need to feel ashamed, very, very ashamed, that he had to. So it’s easy for people to become socially isolated at that age is it? So you often see elderly men who lack companionship do you? Then what fucking use is your goddamned Hampshire Age Concern?
ORLANDO, Fla. — A recent survey that found some Florida teens believe drinking a cap of bleach will prevent HIV and a shot of Mountain Dew will stop pregnancy has prompted lawmakers to push for an overhaul of sex education in the state.
Fat chance.
The survey showed that Florida teens also believe that smoking marijuana will prevent a person from getting pregnant.
If you think this sort of thing isn’t what the people who are pushing Abstinence Only sex education intended you aren’t paying attention. This is exactly what they want. Remember, these are the same people who don’t want young girls vaccinated against the virus that can cause cervical cancer because…well…because people who have sex without their permission deserve to die horribly. They Want kids to get HIV. They Want kids to get pregnant. They Want their bodies to shrivel with disease that could have been easily prevented. And not because it’ll serve as a warning to others about the dangers of sex. No…no…no… Not because it’ll serve as a warning to others about the dangers of sex. Because they hate them. Because they hate the joy of life they see in them. Because they hate humanity. If people can’t be taught to hate their bodies, if they can’t be taught to feel shame for being human, if they won’t beg god to forgive them simply for existing, then they have to die. It really is that simple. If you think that bottomless hatred of humanity only exists in radical Islam you are not paying attention.
The organization collecting signatures for a proposed amendment banning same-sex marriage in California says it is close to meeting the requirement.
Protect Marriage says it has collected 881,000 of the 1.1 million signatures needed. The deadline for turning in the petitions to county registrars is April 21.
Registrars are then required to take a random sample of signatures to verify. If that sampling shows at least 10 percent more valid signatures than required the petitions will be certified and the measure will be placed on the November ballot.
"The numbers are good, solid," Ron Prentice, a spokesperson for Protect Marriage told The Christian Examiner, a conservative Christian publication.
"We are well toward our goal. There are thousands more yet to be counted with a steady stream still coming in."
Among the major donors to Protect Marriage are a group of San Diego County businessmen. Developer Doug Manchester alone has contributed $125,000 prompting gays to urge a boycott of his properties. Manchester owns the Manchester Grand Hyatt and the San Diego Marriott Hotel and Marina.
Mission Valley developer Terry Caster has donated $162,500, Carlsbad car dealer Robert Hoehn gave $25,000, and La Jolla businessman Roger Benson has given $50,000, according to state records.
It would just break my heart if the land of my birth did that to me. I’ve noted before that the only reason I can travel freely around the United States is that I’m single. If I had a spouse, there are many states in this so-called union that we simply could not set foot in because if one of us had a sudden health problem, or there was an accident, it would become a nightmare for both of us. Even with a so-called durable power of attorney, we could be denied the right to simply be with each other in a hospital…even with a medical directives document…we could be denied the power to make medical decisions for each other should one of us become suddenly incapacitated. Some state constitutional amendments, like Virginia’s are so stringently and thoroughly crafted to ostracize same sex couples from the protections of the law, that they can even be read to deny same sex couples the right to hold a joint checking account.
There are simply not that many people in this country who hate us enough to want to do that to us. The problem, like it was for another hated minority group over in Europe back in the 1920s and 30s, is that the rest of the nation doesn’t care enough to tell them to stop it. So when these amendments are put up to a vote, they stay home and allow hate to have its way. These are the people who say later, "We heard the rumors, but we didn’t believe them…"
Once upon a time I planned to move back to California after mom passed away. Then I got the job I do now, and my little Baltimore rowhouse, and I stayed in Maryland. But even now I think sometimes that when my time to retire comes, if it ever does, I’d like to spend the last years of my life back there where I was born. It’s a lovely state. It would break my heart if the day ever came that I couldn’t even visit California again.
I have a book on my desk waiting for me to read, titled, The Lavender Scare, about the persecution of gay government employees during the height of the cold war. So this story, via Talking Points Memo, caught my attention…
The Department of Justice’s inspector general continues to conduct its wide-ranging investigation of the U.S. attorney firings and the general politicization of the Department under Alberto Gonzales. And as we reported back in August of last year, one area of focus by investigators is allegedly political hiring practices by Monica Goodling. The inspector general and Office of Professional Responsibility sent out a questionnaire to anyone who had interviewed for a job at the DoJ during Gonzo’s tenure. One thing investigators wanted to know about was whether the interviewer had asked about the applicant’s sexual orientation.
NPR today provides some more evidence that Goodling and her associates might have decided that being gay was a disqualifier. Leslie Hagen was the liaison between the Justice Department and the U.S. attorneys’ committee on Native American issues until her contract was suddenly discontinued in October of 2006.
And from NPR…
Justice Department e-mails obtained by NPR show that Gonzales’s senior counsel Monica Goodling had a particular interest in Hagen’s duties….
The Justice Department’s inspector general is looking into whether Hagen was dismissed after a rumor reached Goodling that Hagen is lesbian.
As one Republican source put it, "To some people, that’s even worse than being a Democrat."
Several people interviewed by the inspector general’s staff said investigators asked whether people drew a connection between the rumors and Hagen’s dismissal….
Someone who worked in Hagen’s office says that in a 2006 meeting, senior officials were told that Hagen’s contract would not be renewed because someone on the attorney general’s staff had a problem with Hagen. The problem, it was suggested during the conversation, was sexual orientation — or what was rumored to be Hagen’s sexual orientation.
One person at the meeting asked, "Is that really an issue?" But the decision had been made.
"To some people, that’s even worse than being a Democrat." The party of hate. It’s not always about cynical manipulation of people’s fears. A lot of them really do hate us that much.
No…This Is Not Going To Get Detroit Back In The Game
Picasso said, a poor artist copies…a great artist steals.
A friend of mine, who owns a simply lovely Acura TL, (which simply lovely Acura TL motivated me to finally buy my own dream car) said somewhat bemusedly a few weeks ago that the TL had become the new "It" car…at least around our neck of the woods. And it’s true in a way. You see a more of them then you do the Lexus ES or the Infinity G, or any of the other "entry level" luxury cars. There’s at least two of them living in my little Baltimore neighborhood. Honda hit a really nice sweet spot with that car, price and feature wise. And it’s a Honda, which means it’s reliability isn’t in question, unlike my Mercedes which has to prove itself.
But if my friend is bothered by not having such a unique dream car as he thought when he first bought it…he should count his blessings. Here’s what I’m going to have to put up with in the not too distant future…
Oh…did you think that was a ‘C’ class? I sure did when I first laid eyes on that photo. But look at the bumper…it’s a goddamned Chevy. And a Caprice at that. Caprice. Caprice. That used to be American for River Barge On Four Wheels. Here’s another view…
All that’s missing on that one is the hood ornament. Just for comparison…here’s one of my shots of Traveler shortly after I bought it…
They even copied the wheel design, and the black plastic at the base of the sideview mirrors. GM is currently selling it’s ‘C’ class Caprice in the Middle East. But don’t worry…they’re marketing a Buick version in China right now, that should be coming to our shores real soon too…
…possibly to be sold by WalMart, along with all the other Chinese knock-offs coming into this country. The Koreans apparently didn’t want to be left out of the new design paradigm either. So here’s the new Daewoo…
Joe…at least all those other cars on the road that look like yours, really Are Acura TLs.
Why complain? Ford started doing this back in the 70s, when they came out with the Granada right around the time American consumers started getting fed up with Detroit’s lackadaisical interest in quality, and started looking more seriously at imports. People started noticing that Mercedes’ tended to stay on the road a hell of a lot longer then Fords. So in typical Detroit fashion, Ford brought out a car that looked (kinda) like one. It even had a hood ornament. GM later set its sights higher, and brought out the Cadillac Seville, which tried to look like a Rolls. But the problem wasn’t one of style, but substance. It still is. Decades after the Japanese started kicking their asses on quality And Price they still don’t get it.
A poor artist copies…a great artist steals… It’s not that beauty is only skin deep, it’s that to see only the skin is to miss the soul. That applies to humans, and as it happens, it also applies to the things humans make. It is all art. If Detroit invested the effort in duplicating Mercedes passenger safety engineering that they’re investing in simply copying the appearance of their automobiles I might actually applaud. But I don’t expect the same industry that dragged its feet putting seat belts in cars at the same time Mercedes was busy engineering crumble zones into theirs to do that, let alone the industry that has been selling people the same cars for decades with only different "skin jobs" applied, year after year after year. I didn’t buy an empty status symbol. No, your Caprice is not a Mercedes-Benz, and you’ll find that out, regrettably, if you’re ever in an accident.
You can tell a lot about the people in the boardroom by how well they treat the workers who are the public face of their business. I think I just learned today everything I need to know about Starbucks: they steal tip money from their servers.
Thousands of Starbucks employees got a personal message from their upset boss, who said the company was being “grossly mischaracterized” in the media over a recent tip pool controversy that could cost the company more than $100 million.
Chairman and Chief Executive Howard Schultz, in a voice-mail message to employees Wednesday night, called last week’s ruling by a California judge "extremely unfair and beyond reason" and said he wanted employees to know the truth.
"I want to personally let you know that we would never condone any type of behavior that would lead anyone to conclude that we would take money from our people," he said.
In a separate statement, the company also said, "Contrary to some reports, Starbucks has not taken money from any of its partners, and nor is there money to be refunded or returned from Starbucks." A spokeswoman said Thursday that Starbucks Corp. has no intention of ending the practice of sharing tips among baristas and shift supervisors in California while it seeks an injunction.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Patricia Cowett, in her ruling last week, said there was "uncontroverted testimony that Starbucks continues to utilize the distribution of tips from the tip pool to compensate shift supervisors as well as baristas." Cowett ordered Starbucks to pay thousands of California baristas $86.7 million plus interest for breaking the law.
Now…read that again, particularly that second to last paragraph. Starbucks is saying that "contrary to some reports" they don’t take money from their "partners"…and then in the next breath they insist they’ll keep on doing it. The weasel word there is "partners". Starbucks doesn’t take any money from its "partners". But "partners" isn’t the issue, however Starbucks chooses to define who is and who is not a "partner". The issue is, are they taking tip money from their servers. And…yes as a matter of fact, they are. That’s what, specifically, they were found guilty of doing, and that’s what, specifically, they’re insisting they’ll keep right on doing.
The tips belong to the servers. Customers aren’t tipping the business, they’re tipping their servers. In most cases, the tips are what the servers depend on for a decent income. Taking their tip money is not only immoral, it also happens to be illegal in many states, including California. Now…it’s one thing to insist you weren’t breaking the law. It’s another to insist that the law is unconstitutional and you’ll fight it all the way to the supreme court. And it’s another still to insist that you didn’t do it, in the same breath as you assert that you’re going to keep right on doing it. Starbucks isn’t just giving the finger to it’s servers and customers here, it’s laughing in the face of anyone who can read plan English.
A dear friend of mine works as a waiter, but that’s not the only reason this behavior makes me angry. I never worked for tips in my life…I’m just not outgoing enough to make a go of that kind of work. You have to have a bit of the stage in you I think to be good at that and I am more stage crew then stage. But I know very well what it’s like to work in the service sector and it’s many hours of of hard, thankless work for mostly uncaring, rude and overbearing bosses, usually for not enough money to make ends meet. From what I hear, most folks who work service sector jobs these days need two jobs to earn a bare bones living. And a lot of those businesses nowadays do their damndest to avoid having to pay their service people a decent wage…from limiting their hours so they don’t qualify for full time benefits (and federal protections), to creatively placing them into pseudo-management positions so they don’t have to pay them overtime.
I guess stealing your employee’s tip money is just another way of lining your pockets being a successful businessman in Republican Party Of Moral Values America. How Howard Schultz can live as well as he does and take his servers’ tip money and still look at himself in a mirror every morning and think he sees a decent man looking back at him and not a slimeball is beyond me. Thankfully.
I noticed it the day after I got Traveler Back from its service ‘A’. When I shut down the car after a brief drive, the central speedometer display flashed a warning message that the tire pressure was low. So I took my gauge out of the glove compartment and checked and it wasn’t and I wrote it off to a random spurious signal that must have happened when I turned the car off. Some voltage spike that sent a signal down the wire that the car’s central computer misinterpreted. But the next day it was back. And the next. And then this morning, while I was driving to the hardware store the warning flashed red on the display just as I was pulling out onto the highway. I pulled over and checked and everything was fine. None of the tires were low at all.
The problem with the legendary Mercedes reliability, is that from the mid-1990s to about 2005 it was anything but. The company had a reliability problem…a bad one…mostly with the electrical systems…and owners and fans of the brand were getting royally pissed off. But the company fessed up to it, and promised to make changes and do better, and from everything I’ve heard, the cars built from 2005 onward are much, Much better. But I just know that every time something like this happens I’m going to stress that it’s a defect.
I’m assuming for now that something was done in the shop during the ‘A’ service that made the tire pressure monitoring system forget its baseline values and so it started complaining that the tire pressure wasn’t right. You’re supposed to reset the tire pressure warning system every time you adjust the tire pressure. There’s a routine you perform…you let the tires cool down for at least three hours after driving, then check and adjust the pressure as necessary, then you tell the system to accept the current values as the baseline. This morning I took my air compressor out to the car and, as a matter of fact, one tire was about 2 psi low. But I doubt that’s low enough to set off the warning system. In any case, I set all the tires to their correct pressure and then reset the warning system and then took Traveler out for a long drive and so far the warning hasn’t reappeared. If it doesn’t again then I think I can safely assume that it was a result of something the shop did during the ‘A’ service.
You Knew The Parts Would Be Expensive When You Bought It…
So…yeah…gasoline for Traveler is just going to be expensive. It has about the same size tank as the Accord, but its V-6 is thirstier, so it gets emptied sooner. And it requires premium. I knew this when I bought it. A Mercedes-Benz is just going to cost me more to own then a Honda Accord. I went into that with my eyes wide open. For weeks before I bought it I stressed over whether or not I could afford it After I’d bought it. Once I’d satisfied myself that I could, I went to the dealer and put my money down. I admit I didn’t expect the price of gasoline to rise so…rapidly. But there’s no getting around it. So I’m more careful nowadays in planning my trips to the hardware store or the post office. Is there anything else I need that I can get along the way? Better one long circle then two or three trips back and forth.
Recently, the original equipment wiper blades on Traveler started streaking ever so slightly. Most of you probably know how it is after that. At the first sign of streaking it just gets worse really quickly. So I figured today I’d go buy myself another pair. Traveler came with a spare set, and my plan was to put the spare set on the windshield and make the new pair the spare. And because I am such a Mercedes-Benz fanboy and I don’t want anything on my car that isn’t factory approved, I went to my dealer to buy the new blades.
I had a hunch they would be a tad pricey when the parts department guy behind the counter whistled under his breath when the part number came up on his computer display. Sixty bucks. That’s right…sixty dollars for a pair of wiper blades.
Maybe it’s the falling dollar. At least they’re lasting me about six months. And I’ll say this about them…yes, they actually do their job better then the blades on any other car I’ve ever owned, including the Accord, yet their design is simple and elegant. I’m a geek…shoot me…but one of the subtle little things that told me I was in a different world now was trying out the wipers and seeing how smoothly and thoroughly they cleaned the windshield. Partly that’s the odd little articulation Mercedes puts on the passenger side wiper to make it get more of the window. But also it’s the design of the blade itself, which distributes pressure more evenly across its length then any other design I’ve ever seen. In the package they’re actually curved inward. When flattened out on the windshield every point along its length is exerting an even steady pressure against the glass. I can swallow the extra cost of something if it gets me a better made something, and that is in fact the bargain you make when you buy into the brand; the theory being that a Mercedes-Benz costs more because it’s over-engineered a tad and that costs money. But that means the maintenance is going to cost more too.
Here’s a lesson for all of you dreaming of that supercar you want to own one day. Don’t buy it until you can afford the maintenance too. Even if you see one in cherry condition on the used market and you can afford it. Investigate how much the upkeep will cost. I was reading on one of the Mercedes forums about a guy who bought himself a very nice "previously owned" ‘S’ class, only to discover that when it needed its next routine servicing work it was going to cost him close to a thousand dollars.
The breakdown was this: the service schedule on the model ‘S’ class he bought called for the plugs to be replaced, and the oil and gas filters, really close to the mileage it had on it when he bought the car. That’s something you have to consider when looking at a used car: when is the next maintenance due. It had a V-8 engine with two plugs per cylinder and it used the most expensive plugs Bosch made. The oil and gas filters were equally state of the art, precision made and just as expensive. But that’s what you buy when you buy a high end car like a Mercedes-Benz. I’m sure the top of the line BMW or Audi are just as expensive to maintain, and I don’t even want to think of what it costs to do routine maintenance on a Bentley or Rolls. Between the parts and the labor the scheduled service on that guy’s ‘S’ class was getting close to the thousand dollar mark…
…which you figure someone who can afford one of those things new can also afford. But not necessarily someone buying on the used, excuse me, "previously owned" market. You may have bought the car for half of what it was worth new, but you still have to pay full price for the maintenance. Unless you get it done in Butthead’s garage and junk yard emporium…and do you really want your lovely ‘S’ class worked on by Butthead? Oh sure…a I can fix that…a little duct tape and glue and it’ll be good as new…and hey…sorry about the greasy shoe stains on your carpet there…
I could have held out for an ‘E’ class…barely. I hear the new one coming out in 2009 is going to be really nice. Sometimes I catch myself thinking that maybe after I’ve paid off Traveler I’ll trade up to one. But if you can just barely afford the car, you probably can’t afford the maintenance too. Unless I jump a few more rungs up the income ladder, a ‘C’ class is probably all I’ll ever be able to afford. But that’s okay. Every day when I go out for my after dinner walk I stop and just…gawk…at my car. My neighbors are all probably getting the biggest kick out of seeing me standing out there nights just staring at it. But there was a time in my life when I couldn’t even afford a car.
A New Zealand man who claimed he was raped by a wombat and that the experience left him speaking with an Australian accent has been found guilty of wasting police time.
Right. Now, I’ve noticed a tendency for this precinct to get rather silly. Now I do my best to keep things moving along, but I’m not having things getting silly. Those last two reports I received were very silly indeed, and that last one about the wombat was even sillier. Now, nobody likes a good laugh more than I do. Except perhaps my wife. And some of her friends. Oh yes, and Captain Johnson… Come to think of it, most people like a good laugh more than I do, but that’s beside the point! Now! Let’s have a good clean healthy outdoor crime report. Get some air into your lungs. Ten nine eight and all that.
However, You’ll Never Walk Away From What You Did To So Many Innocent Hearts. Never.
John Smid has resigned from Love In Action. In the spirit of wishing someone the best as they move on to new endeavors, I’d like to repost the following…
"I would rather you commit suicide than have you leave Love In Action wanting to return to the gay lifestyle. In a physical death you could still have a spiritual resurrection; whereas, returning to homosexuality you are yielding yourself to a spiritual death from which there is no recovery."
-The Final Indoctrination from John Smid, Director, Love In Action
Judgment Day is every day John. Have a nice rest of your life.
Apple doesn’t want folks running it’s OS and most of its software applications on non-Apple hardware. iTunes being the only exception I know of, and that probably only because they wanted to take the online music marketplace away from Bill. Off the top of my head I know of no other Apple software products that run on any other platform, but MacOS…and MacOS doesn’t run on any other hardware but Apple’s.
They’re very strict about that. Very strict. Very. Very.
In using Apple Software Update to slip his Safari browser onto millions of Windows PCs, Steve Jobs didn’t just undermine "the security of the whole Web". He’s made a mockery of end user licensing agreements.
As spotted by our Italian friends at setteB.IT, Apple’s Safari license says that users are permitted to install the browser on no more than "a single Apple-labeled computer at a time." This means that if you install Safari for Windows on a Windows PC, you’re violating the license.
There’s an adorable little screen capture of the license agreement on The Register’s site. They say one of the hallmarks of cult behavior is an all consuming paranoia of the outside world…
Man…You Really Don’t Like Them Brown-Skinned Spanish Speaking Folks Do You…?
Via Media Matters… Lou Dobbs digs in a little deeper…
Dobbs asked if Obama is "pandering to ethnocentric special interests again" by accepting Richardson’s endorsement
Summary: Lou Dobbs introduced the March 21 edition of CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight by announcing: "Tonight, Senator [Barack] Obama wins the endorsement of the nation’s only Hispanic governor, Bill Richardson. Is Obama pandering to ethnocentric special interests again? We’ll have complete coverage." The subsequent report included no discussion of whether Obama is "pandering to ethnocentric special interests."
The Difference Between Mainstream American Journalism And European
Two news stories today about the commonplace schemer whose fantasies were used by the Bush administration to gin up support for president Nice Job Brownie’s splendid little war.
First, from the network that white washed the murder of Matthew Shepard, ABC News:
Curveball’s false tales became the centerpiece of then-Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech before the United Nations in February 2003, even though he was considered an "unstable, immature and unreliable" source by some senior officials in the CIA. The CIA has since issued an official "burn notice" formally retracting more than 100 intelligence reports based on his information.
Notice, they’re not even doing their own reporting there on the source of the claim that Saddam had those mobile biological weapons labs.
Now…from the people who actually did do some reporting…Der Spiegel:
Above all, however, the spymasters failed to do what is indispensable in the intelligence business: They did not sufficiently examine “Curveball’s” personal record. Perhaps they could have learned early on that, for a time, Rafed tried to make a go of manufacturing eye shadow. Later he stole 1.5 million dinar-worth of gear from the partially state-owned film and television company Babel TV, where he was responsible for equipment maintenance. A warrant for his arrest had been issued as a result — the real reason why he bolted from Iraq in 1998.
The BND would not even have had to go to Iraq to learn about Rafed’s real character — he remained true to form in Germany as well. Despite an explicit ban by BND authorities, Rafed worked for a time in a Chinese restaurant, and even behind the counter at a Burger King restaurant. He quickly attracted attention to himself. Several Iraqis described him to SPIEGEL as a "crackpot" and "con man."
Notice any difference? Go read both of those and see if the difference doesn’t just leap out at you and laugh in your face. The American News Network is tactfully refraining from holding its own government accountable for its behavior in that affair. If anything, ABC News is suggesting that was all the fault of those wily Germans. The German news magazine on the other hand, is almost blistering in holding its own government to account.
All through this goddamned war I’ve had to read European news sources to learn what’s going on over there. For an American with just a shred of appreciation that there is, in fact, a world beyond our shores, that’s not necessarily surprising. I’ve never once set foot outside of the continental United States, but many hours of my childhood were spent sitting raptly in front of a shortwave radio, listening to the BBC or Radio Netherlands and marveling at how much there was to know about the rest of the world that I simply didn’t get from the home grown broadcasts. That a more complete picture of foreign events would come from foreign news sources is unsurprising. What’s really pissing me off now is that I get a more complete picture of what my own government is up to from foreign news sources.
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