This is just after noon
on December 26, 2013 on a warm mid day where temperatures around here
spike. However I think the 85 degree
temperature reading for yesterday was a little bogus if you check temperatures
anywhere outside downtown Los Angeles.
Places that are normally warmer were not as warm. Nicole Sandler is on now and we turn our attention
to the various Christmas messages of yesterday.
Right now Nicole is reading the Pope’s Christmas delivered from the
famous balcony in St Peter’s. She says
she took out most of the references to the Almighty. The Pope mentioned Syria, and the Central
African Republic, and Nigeria, and the Horn of Africa. It was a gracious message expressing a wish
for Peace on Earth and for harmony among mankind. The Queen too delivered a Christmas message
and they released new photos of baby George in his baptismal gown- - perhaps
taken a couple months ago. The baby had
a certain regal look about him. By way
of “the opposition response” the Queen allows this too and this time was taken
up by an Edward Snowden message. Snowden
wants us to know that he did a good thing and that the dangers of a generalized
loss in the expectation of any privacy is a serious one. American children growing up today have no
expectation of privacy or ever having a private, confidential thought. However the British government was always
not so stellar in their desire for human liberties. The Queen yesterday officially pardoned a
patriot and a computer genious who pioneered computer technology during WW II
and helped to define just what a computer really is. He broke a lot of Nazi codes and did much to
shorten the duration of World War II.
For his efforts he was convicted in 1952 for “Being a homosexual” and
was compelled by the Crown to undergo chemical castration, which apparently
they had back then where your balls shrivel up to nothing. Two years later this guy named “Touring” (?)
took his own life by eating a cyanide laced poisoned apple. He said as a youth his favorite movie was
Snow White. There are those who think it
wasn’t suicide. But the conduct of the
State in this matter is totally disgusting- - more disgusting than any acts
“Touring” may have committed. It’s one
thing to be flagged for the “act” of sodomy or whatever in Texas. I can see being convicted for a certain “act”
where you pay a fine or something or spend thirty days in jail and then go your
merry way. But this guy was marked for
life and apparently his carrier as a computer technician or anything else was
completely ruined by what the Crown did in fingering him. It would seem that somehow the concept of a
“thought crime” rather than any specific Act- - is not new.
This morning I got up
at a quarter to six and I did not post yesterday or the day before. At least Moe Kelly and Nicole are live
today. Moe Kelly took off on Jesse
Jackson and I’m not at all sure why.
Other people have the right to weigh in on the Phil Robertson issue, but
apparently that right doesn’t extend to Jesse Jackson. I don’t get it. Moe points out that the KKK has all of their
rights intact and they have expressed their “opinion” such as it is, freely in
today’s favorable climate. They can even
hold KKK marches if they want to. But
they can’t threaten anyone or incite violence.
The “right to hate” is not an absolute right. They had coffee in the courtyard and I got a
half a ham sandwich from Dora with my coffee, and I also had a second cup. I called Paul at some point in the morning
and we managed to get a little caught up on things. Yesterday he mainly relaxed and had dinner
with friends in the evening, much as I supposed when I couldn’t reach him last
night. Paul and Judy both complemented
me on my progress in quitting smoking over the past six and a half days
now. I reminded Paul that there was some
book that stated a person could quit smoking in five days flat if they did it
completely cold turkey. Paul mentioned a
watch place and an optometrist place where I could get the needed things done
on those two areas. He wasn’t sure
whether it would be today or tomorrow and it turns out to be tomorrow. We have started on page three. I tried to downplay the extent to which I
have been having OCD and downright paranoid thoughts over the past week, as
readers of the beginning of this file done yesterday know. We had baked ham with fairly thick slices for
lunch and mashed potatoes and corn, so it was like dinner for lunch. We had mixed fruit for dessert. I got a long half cigarette from Gwendeline
and felt lucky. The only other
substantial smoke I’d had was a whole cigarette from Richard Moore this
morning. We had Raison Bran for
breakfast and after a protracted wait we had scrambled eggs with stuff in it,
and toast and butter and jelly, and Owen asked for his piece of toast back he’d
given me. Nicole is worried about the
“meaning’ of Christmas, with the enphasis on “meanness” because there has been
a spirit of meanness this year that people are fed up with and Moe Kelly was
just happy that Christmas was over with, since there seems to be more a spirit
of tension in the air this year.
Moe was ticked off
about UPS and not delivering on Christmas when they promised. I have mixed feelings about this. Moe believes that if you have a backlog of
orders and are running behind that you contact your workers and say “I know
what we promised you, but you have to work on Christmas”. But the other side of me just wishes more
people would honor the holidays and give promised holidays off. After all there are virtually no holidays our
family has celebrated since I can remember where we actually celebrated
holidays on the actual day. They are
talking about “It’s a Wonderful Life” now and in today’s political climate that
movie definitely does have a subversive “Non Romney” message. Nobody knows what the tea party stands for
nowdays anyhow. We don’t know if they
are Christian or Ayan Rand or what. And
theological distinctions like being a Mormon obviously don’t matter. Stephanie Miller this morning had her show
from last March just before the sequester was to go into place. Of course today’s “libertarians” don’t
really believe in liberty, as in “civil liberties” but they do want to “help
the unemployed out” by taking away their benefits because all that payment was
after all just “forcing them into dependency”.
Of course if you follow that logic to its logical conclusion then you’d
close down all of the hospitals because “there are a lot of sick people there”.
I noticed that the old
red Atlas was moved several books over- - and I wonder if Emma had done that
and I never noticed. I don’t think there
are any books missing. Nora noted that
the top of the CD cabinet hadn’t been cleaned- - but maybe that creamer was
just spilled. Last night I got a fourth
cup of coffee from Glen last night- - tepid instant- - and I told Glen “I’ll
try not to come around in the remaining two days”. I actually have enough in my ATM account
that I could use that card for a big cup of coffee at the liquor store for a
fat fifty cent “tip”. Last night it was
Jeopardy and Wheel of Fortune. Then it
was a Christmas I Love Lucy special, that was in color, with black & white
flashbacks. It really was a “special”
centering on the birth of little Ricky, who gets a drum set at five years
old. The last five or six minutes I
watched “The Middle’ and that show was a rerun.
Then I watched about the first eight minutes of the next comedy working
off the premise of “What the hell happened last night?” Then I turned to some animated thing on KTLA
and dozed off, and when I next woke this guy was singing- - and I guess he was
melodic. I turned it off and went to bed
maybe twenty after nine.
Today is “Boxing Day”
so does that mean your employer gives you a gift- - if we’re going to follow
tradition? Today is the beginning of
Quanza and Nicole says “This holiday is all about family unity”. I’m thinking that if African culture is all
that hot on “Peace’ how come the worse moral decadence and debotchery comes out
of “The Dark Continent”? (Selah) It could be that I could be a “non smoker” for
the first time in twelve & a half years, by the end of the year, before the
next seven days have expired. We’ll
see. It’s one thing to say what is
“supposed to happen” but it’s another thing for it actually to happen. “It’s” shouldn’t be green-lined.
Tuesday evening was
Christmas Eve but it sure didn’t feel like it.
The songs were playing on KOST radio, but it didn’t feel like Christmas
Eve. About seven thirty James let me
have another white cigarette and reminded me that I now owe him fifty
cents. One for that one and the other
one he “gave me as a Christmas gift” earlier. OK. I
had NCIS on and was feeling drowsy. I
prepared the laundry for Denise to pick up in the night, and made out a fresh
list. And luckily Denise even works on
Christmas Eve. Christmas morning was
totally strange, being desperate for a cigarette. However I did luck out this day. I got a cigarette from Richard Moore, and one
from Nancy Warwick and one from Paul Evans, and one from that brunette on the
west patio, and two from that Oriental guy (if you’re into smoking pencil
shavings) Phillies don’t really count as
a cigarette. Ricardo said Christmas Eve
morning that he would be off until after New Years. I’ve been going for my medication before
breakfast. We had oatmeal, and I got a
second bowl of oatmeal from Hilda. We
got a fried egg and bread pudding with whipped cream on top. Owen gave me his piece of bread pudding but I
didn’t finish that.
I finally listened to
some KLOS Christmas classic rock. They
played “Snow for Christmas” by Emerson Lake and Palmer, which I had been hoping
to hear right off. They played Tom
Petti’s “It’s Christmas Time” and “Rock and Roll Christmas” by George
Toorogood, and a rocking version of “Merry Christmas, Baby” of which Charles
Brown has the definitive version. Later
I heard that Hawaiian Christmas song by Bing Crosby, which sounds like he’s
joined by the Andrew’s Sisters. Most of
the stations had Christmas songs. Time
kind of hung heavy in the morning. I did
go out for morning coffee. Dora had
more of those bread pudding slices and I was so hungry that I had one. I had “Let’s Make a Deal” on for the last
fifteen minutes, and had “The Price is Right” on a little. Flashing to the present, “Days of our Lives’
was playing in the big room and I got another short from Gwendeline.
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