NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS ET AL

As I have in the past , there are certain resolutions which I renew each year.I hereby solemnly swear to eat no egg plants or Brussels sprouts, two of the most disgusting so called foods often consumed by people of omnivorous taste. This year I have added a third item, cous-cous. I have never tasted a cous-cous nor have I ever seen one. I do not intend ever to do so. The ridiculous name is a complete turn-off and on this basis they make the list of new years resolution no-nos.

On a different subject, I understand that it is customary to list those things for which we are thankful during the now ending 2011. Mainly I give thanks for my extended family of smart ,funny ,loving people who surround me and Jan during holidays such as Thanksgiving and Christmas. I doubt if there is another family anywhere with everyone liking one another. I sit back in wonder as they engage in Boggle, poker, pimg pong, and other games and pass times, filled with fun and laughter. For me these are the best of times.

KILLING GINGRICH

Killing Lincoln is a book by Bill O'Reilly with an assist with Martin Dugard. We know that O'Reilly is a good writer. He has published several best sellers. This book is no exception. He sets the stage for Lincoln's assassination which we know is going to happen. I haven't gottem that far in the book yet. He writes in such a learned manner that I suspect that his co-author did most of the research. I highly recommend this book.

Which brings me to another method of getting rid of political figures. My choice for president among the candidates is Gingrich above all the others. However he is being eviscerated by his fellow candidates and by much of the media. Even National Revue, heretofore a bastion of conservatism has chimed in. At this point, he has probably been eliminated as our next president.They might just has well have put bullet in his head. What a disgusting spectacle !

AGE RELATED AILMENTS

As the years accumulate one finds many things going wrong. Most are minor irritants such as creaky joints, ingrown toenails, and odd unsightly spots popping out at inconvenient places. Then there are the major old age maladies which one does not wish to discuss in thus venue.

But the latest malady is dandruff. Some time ago I suffered an outbreak of dandruff of unbelievable virulence. I tried every known OTC remedy to no avail. Finally I tried Johnson&Johnson baby shampoo.Like a miracle, one application and the problem seems to be solved. I wonder if I should tell J&J about this and perhaps they will send me a huge check for my discovery.

MORE RANDOM THOUGHTS

1)V.P.Joe Biden has, up till now, been a fairly handsome man. Suddenly his physiognomy has undergone a very noticeable change. I suspect a botox treatment gone bad. He looks terrible. He has always been an idiot but some of his recent statements make me believe that he has actually gone mad. I think he should be removed from office.

2)The US government from time to time issues it's estimate of the ongoing inflation (i.e the debasement of our currency ). These estimates seem to have very little to do with reality. Evidence of this is readily available in your local food market. This was brought forcibly to my attention when I discovered, to my chagrin, that a six pack of beer has gone up by a dollar, a 20% increase in price.

3)Bloomberg, mayor of NY city has shown himself to be gutless. He has failed to control the bunch of unwashed freaks that are messing up his city. This bunch, it seems to me, are a conglomeration of clueless individuals, many of them spouting anti US and anti capitalism statements. I suspect that behind them is a socialist or Communist sentiment which is spooky to say the least and perhaps even dangerous. My hope is that NY experience a particularly cold winter. That might chill their ardor.

4)I really am getting tired of these endless so called debates by the Republican candidates. They are doing great harm to each other and are solving nothing.

ELECTRIC SHAVERS AND POLITICS

I have used electric shavers for years. My previous one was a Remington ( Shaves closer than a blade or your money back )which never lived up to it's slogan. I had a five o'clock shadow right after shaving. Not very satisfactory. I never did get my money back.

My birthday benefactors, in a stroke of genius, got together and presented me with a new shaver, a Panasonic. What a difference ! This one really does shave closer than a blade. It looks quite complicated but by ignoring the thick instruction book I was able the charge the device up and shave. I was told that I must use it for a month to get used to it. My first shave was a revelation. I was used to it at once and got the closest trim of my life. Whatever it cost, it was worth every penny.

Now back to politics ( one of my favorite subjects ). I can hardly believe that I favor Herman Cain for president. Another black guy in the WH ? This one is different. Perry ( alas ) has faded and Romney ( I like him ) does not inspire. I hesitate to predict that Cain will be the candidate but if he is I will gladly vote for him. Meanwhile, Rubio continues to have a lock on the VP position and this will line him up as president the next time around.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

Doctors orders: Drink more water ! I cannot recall ever drinking water for the first 82 years of my life and survived in reasonable health. Now I take on enormous amounts of H2O. I started this drinking only the best( or so I thought ). It turns out that there is an great controversy over the merits of distilled over tap water. Tap water seems to have won and now that is what I drink with its horrible chlorine and fluoride.

What a shame that the Feds poke their noses into all phases of our lives. They have made a mess of the education of our kids to the tune of $100,000,ooo ,000 or more. Somehow it has become the duty of the government to feed the kids. How nice for the parents to be relieved of this responsibility.

The Feds also seem to think that every one should own a home whether or not they can afford it. What a pretty kettle if fish this has made of the ruined real estate market

My love of country knows no bounds. You may call me a jingoist and I will take it as a compliment. I do not need the symbolism of the flag or the anthem ( an ugly piece of music ) to stir my patriotic feelings.

Awl yew due knot knead two no.(ONE WORLD TRADE CENTER)

The ridiculous monstrosity now under construction at ground zero is to be 1776 feet tall and 195 stories high. This building is to be hardened in such a way as to be virtually terror proof. New technologies are being used. A new and special type of concrete and specialty steel frame are incorporated. 70 high speed elevators are apparently needed to keep each floor properly accessible. An express ride to the top will take one minute. A special design and shape of the upper floors will minimize wind resistance. I often wonder how water is supplied to the upper floors. It surely requires pumps. What happens in case of a power failure ?. Three other buildings are also under construction at this site.

It is said that the buildings will be beautiful. My personal preference would have been a nice park

PREDICTION

I can now tell with certainty who the next president and vice president of the US will be.

Rick Perry, Texas governor is it.He speaks clearly and openly about his opinions, some of them controversial. Just the other day he came out squarely against same sex marriage and in one moment lost the homosexual vote. That isn't all bad. Most vote Democratic anyway.

Meanwhile, Obama has lost the Jewish vote due to his covert anti Israel agenda. The Jewish vote for reasons that I don't understand, has heretofore voted overwhelmingly Democratic but that surely will change in the 2012 election.

40 year old Marco Rubio, Cuban American senator from Florida seems almost too good to be true. He is unbelievably handsome, eloquent, university professor, published author. Previously speaker of the Florida house of reps. and now a US senator. He spouses all that is good about conservatives. The Latino vote, heretofore overwhelmingly Democratic will certainly swing the other way.

So that's the ticket-Perry Rubio. I'll bet the farm on it.

HEALTH PROBLEMS

Heretofore I have eschewed discussing such things as referred to in the title of this blog. For the last two years a recurring problem has manifested itself causing constant worry . Several trips to the ER and a couple of short hospital stays have so far failed to fix me up. Very depressing.

My numerous readers may have wondered why I have failed to blog for a few weeks now. If health permits, I shall try do better . It helps me keep my good spirits up.

SECRETS OF THE DEAD (Aztec massacre)

PBS has done it again. This great program kept us enthralled . It was the story of the Aztecs and their decline. When Cortes arrived, the Aztecs dominated a large part of central Mexico, using strong arm tactics against the surrounding tribes, principally the Tlaxcalans. The Aztec culture was quite advanced in many ways but primitave in religious practices which included human sacrifuce and rectual canibalism.

Cortes, with a small and stalwart band of men invaded and, with aid of the Tlaxcalans was able to enter Tenochtitlan ( now Mexico City), Their first foray was not successful but later they returned and destroyed the city block by block. Small pox decimated the Indians, making the final conquest easier. This short explanation hardly does justice to the wonders of this history.

My family did have a tiny echo of these historic times. When I was about 12 or 13 my family purchased the historic Los Naranjos, built originally by a Cortes officer. The place was in ruins but it was restored beautifully. As it happened, there was no municipal drainage in Coyoacan and so a large hole was excavated for a septic tank. In this hole there were many pieces of Aztec pottery, mostly destroyed by the careless peons who did the digging. However, two beautiful pieces were recovered intact. I remember them well. All I have is memories. Somehow in the ensuing years these priceless items disappeared.

A FEW THOUGHTS ABOUT JEWS

The Jews cling to their identity in spite of the terrible things that have been done to them. They have been herded into ghettos, exiled, and slaughtered. Somehow they have survived. Many of them have come to the US which is a relatively safe haven for them.

The American Jew has been subjected to some hardships. There has been a pervasive , covert anti Jewish feeling shared by many. In my younger days the stereotypical Jew was pictured as a loud, pushy, obnoxious New Yorker. Clubs, corporations and universities excluded them. In spite of this they prospered. They avidly pursued education. Although they make up less than 3% of the population, their contributions to medicine, science, music, the arts, literature,and more are outstanding. They are powerful politically all out of proportion to their tiny numbers.

50+ years ago the Balfore declaration allowed the establishment of the State of Israel. Now, about 6 million of them are showing what remarkable people they are. From their tiny strip of desert they have created a powerful industrialized island. They are surrounded by ignorant, poverty stricken Arabs and Muslims whose envy and hatred knows no bounds. Only the US can prevent the overrunning of Israel and the current US administration does not show the support that heretofore they have previously enjoyed.

Today the anti Jewish feeling is fast disappearing. My personal feeling is one of great admiration. I love Israel.

A FOOL AND HIS MONEY ARE SOON PARTED

With a flurry of media attention,Prince what's his name and his bony bride arrived in California. What's his name played in a polo match. To play against him cost a cool $50,000. To play on WHN's team cost only $100,000. Those who wished to watch this spectacle could do so for $400 unless they wanted to hang around with the skinny princess in which case it was $4,000. The princess, by the way, wore a dress designed by Jenny Packham. We are safe in assuming that Miss Jenny provided the gown free of charge so that her name could be mentioned.

So the motive for this over reported trip appears to be a money making scheme. The enormous amount collected should keep the royals comfortably for a few months of their lavish lifestyle.

The fading monarchy is on life support. It serves no purpose whatsoever. But the suckers will continue to bow and scrape and pay big bucks for the privilege of debasing themselves in the presence of the likes of prince WHN

LAWNS

In the 17th century the only people with lawns were the royals and aristocrats. They mowed with goats and sheep. Lawns slowly spread to the US suburbs as a status symbol. Now they are a symbol of leisure and prosperity. It is now a heavy burden for over 80% of homeowners.

Mowing, fertilizing and watering are constant tasks. An enormous industry has been created. More water is consumed for lawn care than farmers use to raise corn wheat, or any other agricultural product. Some experts estimate that over 1/3 of water from public sources goes toward landscaping. In some of the drier states, this may rise to 70%.

Environment: Lawns are damaging to the environment. Fertilizer and pesticide runoff pollute our steams and lakes. Gasoline mowers emit as much pollution as 11 automobiles. There now exists an anti lawn lobby.

I wonder what people did for their yards before the age of lawns.

MORE CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

My recent blog about Mexico reminded me that I lived through the latter part of the Mexican revolution. I was just a child during the Calles regime (l928/1934)

In 1929 or 31 my Dad was still flush from his successful stock market plays.Carl, Dean, Lee and I were bundled off to an upscale boys summer camp in Wisconsin. Soon after that the disastrous world depression caught up with us and Dad had to sell his beautiful plane. Somehow, his business , Mexican Trading Co. survived and later became prosperous again. But there were a few lean years. I was blissfully unaware of this until about 1936. However, my clothes were mostly ragged hand me downs. I also got a lousy little bike handed down to me. Lee, to my chagrin, got a new bike. He was a sullen, rebellious child and got many privileges like bribes.

Work for privileged kids was not available in Mexico. Newspapers were delivered by men on bicycles, trying to eke out a meagre living. Fortunately, beans, rice and tortillas were cheap and formed the backbone of the poor folks diet. Mexican agriculture was all but destroyed by president Lazaro Cardenas (1934/40) and his Ejido program. The haciendas were broken up and given to the peasants in the form of communities. The peasants had neither the knowledge or means to grow large crops. The great sugar industry virtually disappeared. Trainloads of corn and wheat from the US saved the country from starvation.

No wonder I was not aware of the situation. My family ate well even in these times.

RANDOM THOUGHTS

I paid a visit to my urologist on June 9th. To my h0rror he prescribed what he laughingly called called a procedure, requiring another operation and a one night stay ( more like a nightmare) in my favorite hospital to be done the very next day.
Now I am recovering but feel weak and tottery. My progress is supervised by me. What a lousy idea. Every little symptom is alarming. I want to run screaming to my doctor almost every day. I am suspecting that Dr. Lim's procedure may have failed, I am in a terrible humor.
Good news : It has started to rain for the first time in about three months. Too late, alas, for our garden and lawn. Too late to save large areas of Texas from devastating forest fires. My fig tree is dropping all the little baby figs.
Brilliant red cardinals flit about in the gardens of our neighbors. All we have here is a few forlorn bishops.
It still seems that our elected officials are incapable of doing what must obviously be done for the welfare of the country. Mrs.Obama is not helping very much. She loves to travel along with groups of superfluous companions at enormous ex pence. Mr Obama is a very busy president. Between golfing, fund raising and reading peculiar speeches from his teleprompter there is little time left to attend to the real needs of the country.
Let us select governor Perry for our next president.

THE STORM THAT SWEPT MEXICO

NPB occasionally does good things and the program mentioned in the title was , for the most part, remarkable and factual.

This is the history of Mexico post Porfirio Diaz ( Long time dictator from 1890 to 1910 ). The great agrarian revolution that rocked the country through 1920 and beyond is shown with great photos and crude motion pictures of the events. The story is clearly explained in English and Spanish and for the first 2/3 , is factual and accurate. What a story !

After Pancho Villa , Zapata and other agrarian leaders were killed or marginalized, Plutarco Elias Calles more or less stabilized the government under what became the PRI ( Partido Revolucionario Institucional ) which stayed in absolute power for the next 50 years. He seized the land and churches of the Catholic Church. His intention was to destroy the church by such methods as murder and exile of all priests and nuns. He provoked the Cristeros revolt in Guadalajara which was quickly and brutally put down. This was not mentioned in the title program.

At the end of Calles term in office he appointed Lazaro Cardenas president and Cardenas soon turned against his sponsor and took complete control. He is remembered for the expropriation of the American and British oil fields. He made the labor unions powerful allies and with them, became extremely corrupt. One need not hesitate to say he was a communist.

Simply not mentioned in this program was the destruction of the church and the social machinations of Cardenas. Alas, it became a puff piece for the corrupt PRI.

If you can find this program, by all means watch it.

let us stretch your credulity

Your scribe always writes in longhand ( illegible cursive ) and checks it out hours later for corrections and improvements. Two blogs in the last two weeks did not live up to my standards of excellence. Hence the prolonged silence.

However, I have once again found a subject worthy of a blog. Looking ahead on my kitchen calendar I discovered yet another important date of which I was completely unaware. Please mark on your calendar the 28Th of June. Some one (I cannot imagine who does these things ) has designated that day as TAKE YOUR DOG TO WORK DAY. It's true. I swear it is.

This special day creates several problems for me and perhaps for some others. Where would I take my dog since I retired some years ago ? Also, I don't own a dog. Perhaps I could borrow one but where would I take him/her*? It is indeed a conundrum.


*Isn't that him/her or he/she repulsive? I put it in just to tease my readers.

I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP

I was bemused , shocked and disgusted to note that the week of May 15/21 is NATIONAL DOG BITE PREVENTION WEEK. I, of course, will do all I can to avoid being bitten during this time and I strongly recommend that you do the same.

However, I wonder what congressperson introduced this bill and why they did so. Much better would have been NATIONAL MOSQUITO BITE PREVENTION WEEK. Perhaps some officious legislator will come up with that next. Whoever it might be will certainly get my vote.

This sort of rubbish is more common than one might think. Our state legislators are not immune to stupidity. Every state seems to have a state flower and a state bird. I cannot imagine why. However, this at least does serve an important purpose. Where would our trivia games be without such nonsense.

IS OSAMA REALLY DEAD/

Why is it that so many questions arise when the Fed does anything ? Here are a few things I would like to know.





1) Did Pakistan know where Bin Laden was for the last 6 or 7 years?


2) Did Pakistan know we were coming to get him ?


3) Was the mission to kill or capture Bin Laden ? Did he resist or endanger the seals ?


4)What was the object of disposing of the body so quickly ? Why did they honor him with an honorable burial ? Was it really him that they dumped ?


5) What's with the photos ? Why not release them ?


6)What happened to the other men in the compound ? Should they not also have been captured for interrogation ? Should we not have interrogated the women also ?





These and so many other questions are about, casting doubt on the entire operation. Is Osama really dead or maybe being held in some secret place for further interrogation ?

RANDOM THOUGHTS

#1) I have always thought that our black citizens overreact to the N word and the B ( boy) word. Only 150 years ago that was what they were called. It is history, not intended as an insult. Use these words now and it may cost you your life.
Now I see the inbred, snooty British royalty looking down their noses at what they like to call commoners ( The C word ). Were I a Brit and referred to as a (C word ), I might feel the urge to inflict an injury on them.

#2) Isn't it peculiar that the last 12 US presidents all graduated from Harvard or Yale ? It has not always been necessary to have a college degree, Andrew Jackson never went to school. Abraham Lincoln had two years of formal education. Large numbers of them scarcely got out of High school.

# 3) The Feds on average are spending $166 million every hour of the day, 7 days a week. They love to spend our money and are very generous. Buy a hybrid auto and get a $6,000 dollar gift. Put in an efficient air conditioner and get a $2,000 gift. If you have a smallish income, be sure to file a tax return whether you owe taxes or not. The EIC ( earned income credit, often miscalled earned income tax credit ) will present you with a gift of up to $5,666 . This program has been plagued by cheats and fraud, aided and abetted by unscrupulous tax preparers. These and many other giveaways should be eliminated.

THE NEWS STORY OF THE YEAR

Apparently we must be utterly fascinated by the British royalty. Our media has concentrated for weeks now on the impending nuptials of William and Katherine. They have finally decided to get married after 8 years of being shacked up. One might say, it's about time.

Each day Willie is looking more and more like his half witted father who may inherit the throne, along with his blowsy consort. This looks like one more embarrassment for Great Briton and the royals.

My principal interest in the story is the hysterical reporting of the event. Do we really care what gown Katherine wears ? Are we going to watch our TVs for many boring hours before, during and after the ceremony ? The answered to the above , a resounding yes.

On a personal note, I hate royalty. Can you imagine bowing and curtsying to these people as though they are somehow our superiors ?

Maybe I'm just pissed because my invitation got lost in the mail. I have heard that the Obama invitation also got lost in the mail.

EMPTY NEST

One by one the kids left home to make their way in the world. This wasn't always easy for them but all have survived and seem to be doing fine. But how about Jan and me?

Although we worried about the kids and even missed them, we never felt abandoned or alone until now. Here it is, Easter eve and no kids. We try to make the occasion happy. We went out to lunch and to a movie (Water for Elephants which followed the book closely and we loved both the book and the movie). We don't do this very often so it was a treat. Tomorrows plans, spare ribs at home (alone). Darn it ! We wish we had some kids here but the nest is empty.

KNOW WON REEDS MY BLOG

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ANOTHER DISASTER

The pretty, chirpy weather girl announced yet another glorious day, warm and sunny. Know weigh ! She got it wrong. A glorious day here would call for clouds and lots of rain. It's been a month now here in Houston since we have had any rain. This area is in a severe drought situation. Much of Texas and some surrounding states are in an extreme drought. Much of the agriculture is in ruins. Cattle are being shipped off to slaughter to avoid dieing of thirst or hunger. As of today, this is considered the worst drought in 44 years and if it keeps up much longer it will be the worst ever. The Texas deer population, calculated at over 20 million, will mostly perish. The huge feral pig population may thrive, eating all the dead carcases. Huge forest fires are breaking out.Are we going to have a new dust bowl? So far, no water restrictions have been declared for Houston but it shouldn't be long. I already feel guilty when I water the lawn

STUPID COMMPUTER

The previous post was supposed to consist of 6 paragraphs. I cannot imagine why the machine does not do as I tell it. It seems to have a mind of it's own.

AFTER THE APOCALYPSE

As you may recall, in 1986 in northern Eukrain the chernobyl nuclear power plant blew up with devastating effect lighting the sky a brilliant purple and laying waste to 1669 square miles, including the town of Pripyat. This area is now know as the exclusive zone, Just 25 years later strange things have happened. Flora and fauna have flourished. In only 25 years the forest has reclaimed the area. Enormous feral pigs, dogs, wolves, lynx, foxes, badgers, red and roe deer, elk, frogs and fish abound. It is like the garden of Edan, a paradise of wild life. But------ The birds are showing the first signs of the unstable DNA taking place, showing freakishly high levels of albinism. Some trees have taken on unusual forms. We may soon see evolution taking place at an unprecedented rate. This is probably what the world looked like before mankind altered the landscape and how it might look again when humans are gone. This is an abridged version ( mine ) of a much longer article by Henery Shuckman that first appeared in Outside Magazine and reprinted in The Week magazine of April 1, 2011.

FAMILY TREES

I was proud of my effort in making a fairly extensive family tree with over 300 family
members included and covering six generations.

At this time, Jean ( McAlister ) Brooks was also making a tree but hers, I am sorry to confess, makes my puny effort look bad. There are pictures galore and histories on almost everyone.
Most of my stuff is included in Jeans tree with well over 1000 individuals.

Access :Mar vista ancestry.com Go to bottom of first page displayed and click on ancestry.com. click on ancestry. com and look for Mar Vista

DID THE GOVERNMENT DO SOMETHING RIGHT /

One of our toilets developed a habit of leaking all of the time. I tried to fix it many times. No luck. A plumber came and charged a hundred bucks. It still leaked. Finally, in despair, I hied myself to Lowes and inspected the vast array of multicolored, shiny new comodes, priced from ninety nine bucks to over 1000. I selected a modest 250 dollar model on sale and got an additional 10% off due to my long ago military service. 8% sales tax and seventy five dollars installation and now we have a gleaming white one piece throne. Unbeknownse to me this is a modern toilet which flushes using almost no water. The government's intention in forcing us to put in these water saving devices was to save water and indeed they do.

Much criticesm about toilets that don't flush has proven to be untrue. Mine never fails. It was made in Mexico by American Standard

ENERGY

Our wonderful government seems indifferent or ignorant of the crisis facing the US. This need not have developed into a nearly insoluble situation. Basically, there are only a few players in the energy field: Coal, petroleum, natural gas, water power (Dams),nuclear, and to a lesser extent, wind and solar.

The environment lobby has a stranglehold on most of these .Coal, our principal source of energy is dirty. They don't like petroleum either.

Drilling is forbidden in most places Natural gas is being obtained by a process called fracting and now they are trying to tell us that it is ruining our ground water. Dams have already been placed everywhere so no ability to expand this. Nuclear looks to be our main hope and, to give credit to Obama, he is favoring this and already several plants are being constructed. The Japanese disaster has given the environmentalists more ammunition to try to put a stop to this.

I wonder where we go from here. It takes time to develop the petroleum and nuclear, assuming that we start working on this at once.

SINGULARITY

We received a Time magazine article from an anonymous source ( she surely wishes to remain unknown. We will just call her Julia. How embarrassing to have it known that one still reads The Lying Rag. That's my pet name for Time which I have not read in the last forty years )

Considering the source ( the magazine, not Julia ) it is a remarkable article which could well have appeared in a learned scientific journal. It's thesis is the rapidly advancing world of technology. From a relatively slow start many years ago it seems to be advancing exponentially, so much so that within a short time we can hardly imagine where this may take us.

It seems likely that computers will be able to pick our brains and perhaps even take them over and give them input. Diseases will become a thing of the past and old age will become a distant memory. Space travel will become commonplace. No problems will remain unsolved.

Try to imagine some point where there can be no more progress. Everything will be done. I don't know if the singularity people have gone that far.

FREEMASONRY-SHRINERS

I know very little about the Masons and the Shriners but I love discussions and controversy and so express my thoughts. My Catholic upbringing causes me to be suspicious. The church does not allow it's members to belong to this secret organization and we must wonder why.
Most Masons are fine people. I have know a number of them. I believe that most of them do not have a clue as to why they are looked on with askance. They do charitable work, build nice children's hospitals and are just a jolly bunch, not unlike the Elks. Sure they stand together and favor each other whenever possible. Nothing wrong with that.
The Shriners have 193 temples in the US. It sounds a little like a religion. They wear ceremonial red fezzes with black tassels and on this headgear are mysterious Islamic symbols. The full title of the organization is ANCIENT ARABIC ORDER OF THE MYSTIC SHRINE.
Is there a secret agenda ? I think so and present the following shocking evidence. Did you know that all US presidents were or are Masons ?( Possible exception, JFK )
This goes way beyond the possibility of coincidence ! How extraordinary! How could this be ? They seem to have their hands on the levers of power. I do not know why .Do you find this spooky ? I do.
As an afterthought, Mexican presidents are also largely Masons. I have no data on other world leaders. I suspect that many of them belong.
Just another afterthought. This is a sexist group. No women allowed

NOT SO GOOD ( conclusion )

I hearken back some 40 or more years ago to life in Mexico City. From time to time we would purchase roast chickens from any one of the rotisseries which dotted the city. They were small birds, almost skinny. One bird would make a moderate meal for two. How great they tasted, from the delicious crispy skin to the tiny wings, legs, thighs, and breasts.
Fast forward to the present: We purchase a rotisserie chicken from the local grocery store. This is one big bird, almost the size of a small turkey. Four people would be hard pressed to consume it. The slimy skin we discard at once. The enormous parts of the fowl are encrusted with globules of fat. I say, thank you very much but no thank you.
In conclusion, those of you who may have had the pleasure of eating carnitas in Mexico may look in vain for the equivalent in the US. If we can put a man on the moon, why can we not make good carnitas ?

NOT SO GOOD

Another negative blog ! This is in reference to American meat products, especially sus scrofula, more popularly know as pork. As a youngster in Mexico I ate no pork since my parents felt that it was unsafe. It was not until I was 16 or so that I first experienced pork. How delicious ! I could not get enough of it. Even when Jan and I moved back to the US 35 years ago all the pig products were still great. About 20 or 25 years ago something happened. Porcine products were no longer so good. I can only think of a few reasons:1) Farmers were breeding swine with less fat; 2)Pigs varied diet was suspended and they were fed almost exclusively corn; 3) Perhaps my aging taste buds are not as good as they once were. I hope I never see another pork chop.They are generally tough and tasteless.

More about blog

As previously mentioned, I recieved my beatifully bound and printed blog from blog2print. Yesterday I spent a pleasanr hour or two reading all my posting since 2007. A few comments on that: There were about 140 real blogs ( 20 false starts ). Many of the posting were brilliant or near brilliant but some were really lousy. I also noticed that recently I have been blogging only once in a while and I intend to do more of this in the future.
I have a blog all hand written and ready to go but discovered that much of it has already been covered over the years, This unposted blog was to be about our stupid government and I listed 14 stupidities. When trying to figure out how to write such a blog without going into too much detail, I found that I was not able to read my writing on 4 of them. It was to become 1o stupidities. I found that most of the ten were enacted with the best of intentions and every one of them backfired. Herewith are the ten listed without comment:
Earned income credit
Minimum wage
Food stamps
Unemployment payments
Cost of living adjustments
Peace corp and Americorp
Bailouts
Payments for puchases of autos and other items
Earmarks and other porkers
Foreign aid

ABOUT BLOGS

This is a blog about blogs. Daughter in law Holly mentioned that she had gotten her blogs printed up by Blogs2print and I sent off to have mine printed. In a couple of weeks the book arrived. It was very well made, complete with an illustrated soft cover and included 160 blogs written since March of 2007 complete with comments. The cost was an astoundingly low $26.oo. I don't suppose anyone would care for a copy but should this be the case, I would gladly order such a book for them.

MURDER IN ARIZONA

As everyone in the world must know by now , there was a terrible, tragic mass murder
of a fine young congresswoman, a federal judge and a few others by a crazy madman.

This happened about ten days ago and the left wing nuts jumped on the occasion to
blame the usual subjects (Palin, Limbough, Hannity, and Beck). Upon a quick and easy
investigation of the matter, this turned out to be a preposterous idea and should have been
discarded. But somehow the story persists. Sad as it is, in the overall scheme of things,
this is not that big a story. By now it begins to sound ridiculous with POTUS appearing on the scene and giving yet another speech and congress taking a week off. Each funeral of the victims
is covered at great length.

No one ( but me) has suggested that it was anti semitism that motivated the crazy
idiot. I really don't want to hear any more on this greatly over reported subject.