May 2011 · Zepp's Commentaries

May 29, 2011

Brinkmanship

Where even fools fear to tread

May 29^th 2011

I came across a hilarious table today that Think Progress, the liberal web site, gleefully posted on their Yfrog page. ( http://yfrog.com/h7rjekp ) The table was a listing of projections of when Medicare would go insolvent, on an annual basis dating back to 1970, when the Hospital Insurance Trustees solemnly affirmed that Medicare was going to go bust in 1972.

The Hospital Insurance Trustees released this annual report, and in all but three of the subsequent years, declared that Medicare was on the ropes, and would go belly up in the sweet bye-and-bye. The length of time varied enormously. Two years was the lowest, but by 1975 they, with seeming reluctance, concluded that the Trust might last into the late 1990s. The previous two years must have shown sharp improvement, because those were two of the three years they didn’t make any forecast at all.

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May 23, 2011

The End of the World

There’s a new Last Airbender movie planned, so that’s not a bad thing

May 22^nd 2011

Yesterday, about 6pm Eastern Time, three o’clock on a sunny warm afternoon, I took the dog for a walk. At no point during the walk did he vanish in a puff of smoke. Dogs will sometimes vanish if you don’t hold the lead tightly, but they don’t generally smoke, and my dog has never vanished in a puff of smoke before, so you might find it was odd that I thought he might fall into the habit now.

But it was the Rapture, and I read somewhere, or saw a movie, or something, that “all dogs go to heaven.” It’s one of those Leviticus things, along with “People who weigh more than 250 pounds shouldn’t wear thongs” and “Most sequels are going to be a disappointment.” I don’t know many people who would qualify to get Raptured, and the ones I do know probably wouldn’t consent to be walked around the block on a lead, so I had to use my poor dog as a lab rat. I figured being outside might help with the god rays or something.

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May 21, 2011

A Litter of Kittens

A Litter of Kittens
Hauntings from the past, joy in the present

May 21^st, 2011

We were a bit slow in getting to the vet, and as a result, our youngest cat got pregnant. We believe the father was an orange and white tom, a pleasant cat who lives about 50 yards from here. The mother, Snickers, is a sweet, affectionate little tortoiseshell, and so we expect some nice kittens.

We should know in a day or so. I set up an old dog crate with blankets, food and water, and put a cardboard box with flaps in so she would have a little kitty cave in a warm, secure, dark place.

So naturally she had her litter late last night under my reclining chair. In a way, it was a compliment to our rat terrier, Rygel, since he sleeps on that chair at night. Obviously Snickers saw him as an ally and protector. (We’re still going to watch him with the kittens for the first couple of months, since, while not vicious, he is exuberant, and tends to pounce when playing).

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May 19, 2011

Obama and the Middle East

A good speech, with good intentions. But…

May 19^th 2011

Barack Obama, focusing on the middle east, gave a speech today that would have reminded older Americans of the sense of what the country stood for in the days before the Kennedy assassination and Vietnam, before the deep national cynicism and before the methodical erosion of American dignity and pride by a far right monied faction determined to steal America for itself.

Had Eisenhower or Kennedy given a similarly-themed speech 50 years or so ago, it would have been a clarion call, and praised as a great speech in American history.

Even now, it is a damned fine speech, and if nothing else, it shows that Obama recognizes the value of the time when people referred to America as “the leader of the free world”, and it wasn’t said with a smirk, or based on America’s economy or military might. It was said because American ideals and commitment to freedom really were a beacon to the rest of the world.

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May 9, 2011

The Ten Year Itch

Scratching the surface

May 9^th 2011

Anyone who has ever broken a bone, suffered a dislocation, or suffered other injuries to muscles or tendons knows that one of the first signs that it’s beginning to heal is that the affected area starts to itch. It’s usually a deep itch, the type you can’t scratch, and fortunately, not a constant annoyance. The injured person will scratch at it a bit, and when that doesn’t work, rub or massage. Or, if wearing a cast, he will get grumpy, and start marking the days on the calendar until the cast is due to come off.

It’s the same for cats and dogs, and one of the reason why injured pets are made to wear what the movie “Up” described as “the cone of shame”: the plastic Elizabethan collar that prevents pets from biting at injuries, or trying to pull off dressings.

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May 3, 2011

Osama bin Laden

A good death

May 3^rd 2011

He had kind eyes.

They were brown and glowing, and seemed to be brimming with compassion, empathy, and a touch of mirth. They were the eyes you might expect to see in the face of a Buddhist monk, the lady who runs the local Toys For Tots program, or a Hollywood priest.

He was almost certainly the man responsible for 9/11, the worst crime ever committed on US soil, a crime that killed 3,000 people in one hideous day.

I know about the dangerous charm of sociopaths and demagogues, and so the eyes shouldn’t have been so jarring. The most lethal monsters in the history of the world were nice fellows, often jolly, and made people adore as well as respect them. The fires and deaths and screams would come later, after they had achieved unassailable power. Everyone knows about the power of Hitler’s oratory, but it was his ability to charm and create trust that put him in the position where he could become the horror he was. It’s downplayed in the history of the Third Reich, but there were literally millions of women in Nazi Germany in the 30’s who would have gladly abandoned their husbands and lovers and families for a chance to have his baby. Just as England had the far more benign “Beatlemania” thirty years later, Germany had “Hitlermania”. When Stalin died, millions of men who had been shunted into the Gulags on trumped up and Kafkaquese charges wept openly in their cells. They had lost, not just a leader, but a friend.

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Month: May 2011