Bailing Out of the Bailout, and Some Obamacomment

Bailing Out of the Bailout, and Some Obamacomment

 

Most interesting in the House defeat of the Bailout Bill was that most of those voting against the bill will be struggling in the November election.  They didn’t want to take the heat for voting for an unpopular, expensive bailout bill. 

It took a mighty confident incumbent to vote for the bill. 

The cost of not voting for it will come too, but that will be after the election.   No pol wants the shit hitting the fan before an election.  After, is okay.  They can deal with it.  And who knows?  Maybe we will all be dead of plague or nuclear radiation or some mysterious substance in Chinese imports com December, and that particular shit will never hit the fan.

Obama.  You hear a lot from Republicans about the “liberal media.”  Which, IMHO is much exaggerated.  But it is true that the media have treated Obama with kid gloves.  There are tough questions he has not been asked, in such a way that he has to focus and answer.  

When McCain and Palin are asked tough questions, they get all steamed and declare that it’s gotcha journalism and walk away.

No candidate is dealing with the tough questions

What’s in an Name?

Trade names, that is.  Brand names.  How imprtant are they to you?

I don’t feel much brand loyalty.    But as I think about it, that’s not really true.

Some brands stand out.  Toyota, Honda, Brother, Canon, Panasonic, Arm & Hammer.   Dickies.   I trust those brands. 

Hmmm.  5 of 7 are Japanese. 

Did you know that the name “Canon” was taken from “Kwanon,” their first camera model?  No matter.  I have Canon cameras going back to the FTb, which is nearly 35 years old.  Fine camera still, one of the last of the old mechanical cameras, as opposed to electronic and plastic.   My Canon copier is going strong and is nearly 10 years old.  I have tried to stay in the Canon brand for photographic equipment, except for my little Olympus digital.

(If you are looking for a good camera with manual exposure control, try the Canon FTb, the Nikon FM, the Minolta SRT 201 & SRT 202.  Heavy cameras, mostly metal, but good.  Perfect student cameras.  And all Japanese.  Many are going strong after 25-35 years and are available on Ebay.  For a good pro camera, try the original Canon F-1; mechanical and solid, the only problem being that so many have had very heavy use.)

Ah, the glory days of photography, the 1970s and early 1980s, when there were a dozen quality camera brands from Japan and 20 or so aftermarket lens manufacturers.  The Big Five being Nikon (=Nippon Kogaku), Canon, Minolta, Pentax and Olympus.  Yashica, Mamiya, Konica, Ricoh,  Fujica and Chinon getting honorable mention.

A great deal ot the success of those brands were their generally high quality product, marked with those “JCII” stickers (for Japanese Camera Inspection Institute). 

With digital, now Sony and Panasonic are big players in the camera market.

Ever look at those brand names on cheap tools imported form China?  Pittsburgh.  Chicago Electric.  Etc.  Fully, really, that naive intent to deceive.

Southwestern Bell I felt an affinity for, mostly because as a little tyke, I went the the SWBT offices with my grandfather, and was given that booklet about Alex Graham Bell and the telephone.  But when SWB bought AT&T, they changed the name–to AT&T.  Which IMHO has negative loyalty for me.    There are no good connotations for the name AT&T.  I would stop doing business with them if I could, just because of the name.

Potpourri, II

Should I support Obama because he has black ancestry, or Hillary Clinton because she is a woman, or McCain because he spent hard years in a prison camp?  Somehow, much of what has happened politically in 2008 comes down to that.  Everybody would be trumped by a one-legged blind, black woman.

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From the 21st century gazeteer:  “Lubbock:  A four-Walmart / one Sam’s Club community 50 miles South of the West Texas distribution center.  Approximate gross purchases, $27.4 million annually.”  That says it all.

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Like adventure novels?  So do I.  Two names you might not have heard of.  Hammond Innes and Geoffrey Jenkins.  Innes is famous and published worldwide for nearly 50 years.  Jenkins, a South African writing in the late 1950s – 1960s, is less well known.   If you like settings involving mining, the sea, ships, wanderings in the desert, lost treasure, give them a try. 

I first encountered Jenkins in the pages of Argosy magazine, which carried his novel, “A Grue of Ice.”   The images of that story, which combined whaling in the antarctic  with the discovery of an island graveyard of lost ships captured by a Nazi raider, stay with me to this day.    Jenkins’ best stories though deal with diamonds on the Namib coast of Africa.

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I’ve described before my discontent with the public library’s policies of culling books from the shelves.   The people who make these decisions have no idea of what authors are staples of the genre, what writings are modern classics, and what books are of no enduring interest whatever.  Seems they no longer repair books but discard them if they are torn (maybe the use of tape is a lost skill or perhaps it has something to do with the librarians’ union).   

Some libraries, I am happy to report ARE REAL libraries, retaining books even if they are old or worn.

This was brought on by my visiting the sci-fi section of the Lubbock Public Library and seeing that almost all of Clifford Simak’s books have been culled to make room for new fantasy and Star Trek novels.

And yes, most of Hammond Innes’ and Geoffrey Jenkins’ books have been culled from the shelves.

BTW, the process of editing out the old occurs in encyclopedias too.  The 13 and 14th editions of the Brittanica are still better than those that came later, and if you want a good Viking Desk Encyclopedia, get one no newer than 1965.  The editors cut out the old to make way for the new, and what you end up with are long articles about Marilyn Monroe or, horrors, Donald Trump, and nothing about Edward Devere or Roger Bacon.  There is an argument that we are becoming more and more rootless, living only in the pop culture present.

Lubbock’s Cowboy Symposium

The 2008 ”Cowboy Symposium” is dust.    I didn’t go.

My non-attendance was in spite of their featuring three of my favorite performers:  Don Edwards, Sons of the San Joaquin, and Waddy Mitchell.  I first saw those three on PBS’ Austin City Limits as part of the Michael Martin Murphy show.  I thought they were all great.  Still do.

Don Edwards had a song that began “pushin’ horns weren’t easy…”  that I consider about the best real cowboy song I ever heard.  And as for the Sons of the San Joaquin, well, if I were to rub my laptop and  invoke a genie who offered me three wishes, one of those wishes would be to sing like the lead of that group.  Or like Colm Wilkinson, depending on my mood.  I have always loved beautiful voices and harmonies.   Waddy Mitchell is a leader among cowboy storytellers and poets making the rounds, and he is an authentic cowboy, or drover, buckaroo, or vaquero–whatever he prefers to be called.  (I recollect that Northerners like buckaroo.)

But I didn’t go.

Various reasons.  The $25 ticket wasn’t exactly cheap, but is in line with live entertainment at the Cactus Theater.   And I was busy with little things, and didn’t have a date.    And the last time I went, a strange and, for me, alienating thing happened.

Wilford Brimley, a marvelous actor, was being honored.  Mr. Brimley got his award and spoke.  He happened to comment that he would not be unpleased were the whole Arab region in the Middle East to be nuked into radioactive slag.  Or words closely to that effect.  That got a lot of applause.  In fact, the only ones who did not applaud with enthusiasm were me and mine.  All of the $500 boots and XXX Stetson hat set attending were real receptive to Mr. Brimley’s proposal.  The rest of the program was enjoyable and entertaining, an excellent mix of storyteling, jokes and music.  But a few words left a bad taste in our mouths.

Then there is the odd cultivated anachronism of the Cowboy Symposium.  As I cycled by Thursday evening as they were getting set up, I looked at all the $250,000 RVs and giant pick-up trucks and $30,000 trailers and the old-looking chuck wagons and tack and livestock they unloaded and thought to myself, “it’s like a spaceship landing.  A hatch opens and out comes…a whiskered prospector on a mule.” 

Most of the spectators wearing boots use those boots mostly for the gas pedal and brake pedal of their trucks and SUVs and to limp a few feet to house or office.  It’s a rare boot that ever gets put in a stirrup.  It’s a rare hat that gets worn to keep away the snow or the rain.  

I would like to say that the performers are at least keeping alive a way of life.  But as I look at their fancy RVs, and the life they appear to lead, I don’t see that.  It all seems a show, a pretense, unreal fantasy like an old Red Rider western flick.