Monday, November 21, 2022

Nov 21

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THE ABSURD TIMES

Illustrations A couple versions of the greek Goddess Artemis, twin sister of Apollo.

Artemis

I was glad to see this last space mission named Artemis as she was the twin sister of the Greek God Apollo and known mainly for her Trojan, or Roman, name as Diana, better known as the Goddess of the hunt. Of course, it also reminded me of the insane campaign promise one Republican, Newt, made that if elected he would put a manned space station on the moon in his first term. Here we are years later, his contributor, Adelson, I believe dead, and it takes us 4 times to get this launch going. This, no doubt, is one indication of why they don't even bother to make campaign promises other than to mess with Hunter Biden's laptop and one to pardon all the "hooligans" who tried to overthrow the government to the delight of Donald.

Oh, you should know that Artemis is an eternal virgin and any male who ever saw her bathe naked died immediately. They did not comment as to whether it was worth it. I rather doubt it was.

POST-MORTEM

The Polls

About the only organization that sometimes comes close is 538 and that guy had years of practice as a baseball statistician (a great place to learn.) I digress a bit, but to consider who is the greatest hitter, you don't take averages - you take standard deviations. Home runs? Well, Ruth hit more in one season than half or more of the total opposite league. When's the last time a post Ruth batter did that? Never. Disraeli was right: 3 kinds of liars, liars, damn liars, and statistics. How many Cy Young pitchers these days can pitch a full nine innings? I saw one professional game where both pitchers went 15. The White Sox pitcher, incidentally, once hit 45 home runs in the minor leagues. Yes, the rules have changed. 538, by the way has just attributed any errors in their forcast to "data errors" that really didn't matter much. Harumph.

They claim that they have allowed for the fact that their sample is not truly random. Well, hooray! Let's hear it for the acumen of the pollsters! We can tell when the phone rings if it is someone we want to acknowledge or not. I imagine we are not alone. However, the people who do answer the phone and gladly participate in a poll are of a certain type. I don't know what to call that type, but they must be lonely.

Charlie Parker and Honkey Tonk

Here is an interesting story: a great Jazz musician (he is to Jazz as Hank Williams is to country) was missing before a performance once. His friends panicked and searched all over New York, and found him in a honkey tonk bar, drinking beer. They said "What ya doin' Charlie, that's the white honkey music -- you nuts?" Charlie Parker said "Yeah, but listen to the STORIES, man, listen to the stories [meaning,. of course, the lyrics]" Charlie Parker's nickname became first "Yard-bird" as a reference to his early "Rough and Rowdy Ways," and then just Bird. So when you hear about BIRDLAND, that's because of Charlie Parker. (I'll bet Willie Nelson knows about him. If you know about Ray Charles and his early days, you know about Charlie Parker. If not, go away.)

Ukraine

At the start, I was very much on the side of Ukraine. I felt that they for once had a leader who was competent and well-qualified as he used to be a stand-up comedian. No one knew the absurd as much as a stand-up comic, and no one thought as quickly, especially in handling a heckler. Now, I'm not so sure about all this. I know enough to resist the temptation to side with Putin, but there is simply too much idolization. Biden handled this perfectly as well. Most wars, if not all wars we get into, are conducted to make money for the arms industry. The one weakness was the dying and mutilating of our own citizens, Well, now we use Ukrainians for that purpose. Wonderful. Everyone's happy.

But I'm getting tired of it. Probably the most severe adverse reaction or development can be heard on the Classical music stations, especially during the early days or the war. Now the Ukranian Orchestra was in fact better than about half of the United States' orchestras, but one gets tired of hearing them playing every single piece. We just did not, and do not, need that.

In addition, it is always wise to attempt to see things from the other's point of view. Now, having done that, I've come to the conclusion that Putin is now about as insane as Donald. Actually, I think he misses him. I also understand that if what we spent on just 3 days of fighting, er excuse me, supplying the Ukraine war, we could convert all of our energy needs to renewables. I'm sure the big oil companies would be happy to see that happen.

Just recently, a missal landed in Poland and there were headlines about World War III. Turns out it was a Ukranian missal that, we are told, tried to shoot down a Russian missal. Zelinski, however, insists it was a Russian missal as MADE IN RUSSIA [or words or signs to that effect] were printed on it, but then mush of what Ukraine uses was made in the Soviet Union. An old missal.

Social Media

I had been pretty sure that the Orangeman

Subscribed

would not go back to Twitter as that would be to admit that his own platform was a failure. Well, he now seems to have millions of followers. Ok, so we have a lot of stupid people in this country and maybe Elon begged him to come back on. Twitter has not been doing very well since he bought it. Well, the whole thing is getting rather meta-silly. The last I heard, Orangeman said he will not go back on Twitter. Perhaps it has something to do with not being in control? I have no idea, and as a great philosopher once said "WHO CARES??"

A more recent observation about our political evolution: I had a similar experience in 1984. I remembered reading the book some years ago and thinking "Well, I'll be an old man, an adult even, so my life should be over. Well, 1984 came around and Ronnie Ray Gun was Pres., the spokesman for big corporations. Very frightening and things have gone downhill since. For context with today, Jimmie Carter wrote all of his White House Diary in the EAST wing so there would be no doubts about it belonging to the public. OK, Trump. Second, he put solar panels on the roof of the White House. Ronnie tore them down. Two great forecasts for the future of our "democracy".

MONEY ON LINE

I once took Spotify's offer of 3 months at .99/month and to withdraw before that with no penalty. Well, I decided I had enough after 2 months and tried to unsubscribe. They charged again. Kept trying to contact them, but they were in Amsterdam, somehow. Fourth month charge. The bank said they could continue, so I just shut down the account and moved everything to a different account, different place. It seems that even if you allow someone to deposit into your account, they can also withdraw from it. At least that was my experience. Obviously, that is now a thing of my past, so if you are online and asking me to contribute or anything like that, the information is not there and will not be there. Had the same type of experience with a private agency that wanted me to work for them once. Never again.

Conclusion

There is a great deal to cover, but we are approaching the "screw the Indians" holidays, supposedly black Friday [so-called from old accounting days when profits started to accumulate], and more ritual than I care to contemplate happens, so I need to get this on-line. So, "so help me God, I thought Turkey's could fly." [WKRP]

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