Ken Russell - The Devils

Women in Love - 1969.

Well in keeping with the current stuff on this site and to see if it is the computer or me that is the problem. Plus of course in honor of Ken Russell.

Its Time

McCabe & Mrs. Miller

I've been thinking about this movie for some time or at least the end.  Well I guess that is the point.  So who are you?  The blind townsfolk, Warren Beatty defending his little capitalist empire, or the thugs?

What is Perfect After All

I started to write at another location that if Obama was re-elected the things would not be getting quite as bad quite as quickly, but they would be getting as bad eventually.  Perhaps the republicans would eviscerate us, but the democrats would merely slit a vein and hang us up to let us bleed out.  I'm not sure about that any more they are both out to bleed us dry.    Why wait? 

Now with the more or less simultaneous raids on the various OWS encampments. None of which were assisted or coordinated by any federal government agency at all. Add that the medical marijuana busts along with our militaristic foreign policy and what just is the major difference again?  Oh yes, forced private insurance, with no provisions for abortions.

And yet still people are defending the bastard in the Oval Office.  I've been wondering around a few of the more "main line?" blogs.  Balloon Juice and Lawyers, Guns and Money.  The pure hatred of most of the commentators at Balloon Juice concerning OWS and when that is not right out there then their not particularly well hidden contempt for the demonstrators is breath taking.   Their disdain for the people who are out there doing something is depressing. A great deal of the anger at the OWS crowd seemed to be because of the way they dress.  Same sort of stuff that they say about the hippies and anti-war people from the 60s and 70s.  God I guess that war will never end.  "If people would just dress nice and act like ladies and gentlemen then the powerful will listen to you and you will be able to sit down and reason together."   That is the reason the anti-war crowd didn't end the war sooner back in the day and that is why the powerful won't listen to the OWS people today. Well I guess it is a way to deny their actual powerlessness and to avoid blaming their betters.

I can understand how people who have put all their belief into a party and system that have completely let them down now feel the need to cling to those people and that system even more as that system  basically kicks them in the teeth (or nuts as the case may be).  Clinging to their god and party I guess.  Where their god is Obama.

New Toy

Still on the front edge of the learning curve.  Had to download this through my other computer.  This is the Caravaggio[?] in Columbus.

A new toy.  As a veteran I decided to spend the holiday in a way that truly is a celebration of the reason We Fight.  Essentially I bought some crap from China that full fills my serious need for More Shit That I Don't Really Need.

In short I got a tablet with a pull out key board.  (If I mention the makers ASUS will I get a kick back do you think?)

Well we also went into Columbus to the Art Museum to see an exhibition about Caravaggio.  I say about because there was only one Caravaggio (which some but not most art experts do not think is a Caravaggio).  The rest of the paintings were by people who were heavily influenced by Caravaggio.  It was interesting, but a little surprising. I guess I should have read the on line description a little more closely.  Still since I do not know that much about Caravaggio or the other painters I was not disappointed and I learned quite a lot.

So election results in Ohio, not shabby. 

My wife and I worked the phone banks on the anti-2 campaign.  Kind of interesting.  Since I wasn't the one who organized the thing, I thought it best not to point out to the people running it that they were using Verizon.  I wonder who decided that and why?  An example of how Americans seem to be simply unable to see beyond the immediate.

We had a couple of interesting calls.  The best being the teacher my wife got who immediately told her:  "I'm a teacher.  I don't live under a rock.  I know the issues and I don't need you to tell me."  My wife's response was to say:  "Sister Marie?  Is that you?  I thought you were dead."

The results of the election (I only voted on the issues, I knew nothing about the people running for local office.  My wife's god father has retired as mayor, so I don't have him to vote for and the only other person running locally whose name I know runs a great restaurant down town that is just great so I did vote for him.   Does this make me a bad American?) would be something that I think might cause the president and his minions to question just about everything they've done since he's been in office.  That is to say that Ohio defeated the anti-union bill with about the same percentage as they passed the anti Obama Lets Us Give a Shit Load of Money to the Pharmacy, Insurance, and Various Other Health Care Industries With No Oversight bill.

But I am sure that the villagers who run the democratic party will not be able to figure out this simplest of conclusions.  I mean after all they were unable to figure out what happened in 2010.  Hell they were convinced they were brilliant both before and after they got their asses handed to them on a platter.

Oh To Be in Prague Now That Winter Is Near

I think I need to use as my mantra the saying at the top of this blog: "I used to be disgusted now I try to be amused."  Thanks Elvis.

In reading about the Greek crisis I have a difficult time believing that the Greek people will permit the government to call for a referendum and then call it off to go with what the vast majority of the people do not want.  But there you have it.  I completely expect this to happen now and to go through with only "some" violence by the hot heads (do I need more quotation marks?).

This is the kind of thing that makes me feel that our own little Occupy movements will peter out and amount to nothing.  No violence no real bad manners because if either of those things happened then the Occupy movement would be discredited in the eyes of ............. just who exactly?  Those who matter I guess.

If there is violence it will be crushed with massive amounts of paramilitary police power.  Boys and their guns as we recently saw here in beautiful Muskingum County Ohio, give them a chance and they love to use them.

At any rate we have seen this same scenario play out in multiple third world nations over the last thirty or forty years as the IMF comes in to rescue the economy, starves the people and makes sure that some of the oligarchs and none of the foreign investors have to take any kind of a loss.   Wellllll, I guess we are all third world peasants now.

I was in discussion on a post on Lawyers, Guns and Money about the referendum a few days ago (its two or three or more pages back not worth going to any more really).   The original post was basically simply suggesting that the powers that be thought that a referendum was a little too much democracy.  The original poster kind of disagreed with them.  The comments were interesting:  too much democracy many said, things would be really bad for the Greeks if they defaulted on the loans others said.  Essentially:  TOO SCARY.  And of course, it is the Greeks' fault they essentially deserve this out come.  At least I think that was the implied conclusion.  It was suggested that the Greek government was able to hide its finances from the poor deluded bankers. 

Well now the finance minister jumps from his hospital bed and rushes to assure (I originally wrote insure, calling Dr. Freud) the German and French money men.  And the world is made safe for a few more days for our rulers. 

Time to defenestrate.    

Beautiful Ohio

The new homes I suspect.

A second post about my "home town or really county."  Muskingum county has determined to close the county home.  This is so even though the citizens passed a level last year to maintain the county home for five years.  A new county commissioner has taken office and his position is:  "The county should not be in active competition with private nursing homes"  this is of course a conclusion, not an argument.  This is assisted by a nursing home owner who has fought for a couple of years in court to decertify the county home.  I suspect that there has been more going on here for longer then I have been aware, since several years ago the county moved all of the clients out of the country home that was owned by the country and into a building only leased by the country.

My wife volunteers at the county home and she has been told that last time the patients were moved several died (merely because of their age and they couldn't deal, well I guess that is the way the cookie crumbles, and sorry for your.....death). 

There is an argument that there are enough beds in the country to take all of the old people, so no big deal.  Fungible elders, widgets if you were.  It matters not what will happen to those who will occupy the beds, nor what will happen to those who have made friends.  After all they are money to the private owners so if they made friends at the county home (which incidentally is an incredibly well kept place and staffed with very dedicated workers) and their friends can't come with them.  Fuck 'em they'll be dead soon enough anyway.

(An aside the old country home had animals living in the home, they were not allowed in the new one.)

The second interesting thing that is going on here (rumor has it) is that the very same county commissioner has determined that it is time that a creche be placed on the court house lawn again, after several years of not having one there.   An interesting position, and one as an atheist I really don't give much of a shit about, except putting only a nativity scene without other symbols of the holidays is something that the Supreme Court has frowned on in the past.

On the other hand dealing with these rural politicians who seem to think they are god can be interesting to say the least.  Back when I worked for legal aid we were continually running into towns and cities that would turn off the city water or gas service to a residence without notifying the actual person living there that was going to happen.  Now the interesting thing about that is that there was a Supreme Court case which said that notice had to be given.  That case came through the 6th Circuit (it covers Ohio) and was pretty clear.  There were several District Court cases from the Southern District of Ohio that said they same thing, including a couple that had been filed and won by my legal aid. 

So I would go to meet with the law director and some of the city councilmen and perhaps the mayor and I would bring my cases and say see:  All you have to do is give people notice and give them a couple of days to see if they can come up with some money (normally the slumlord would have stopped paying at that point and that is why the water was being shut off).  In addition, if we actually filed a case in federal court then the client would not only be entitled damages but legal aid would be entitled to attorney fees.  In every single case they refused to enter into the agreement and we were forced to sue and we always won.  The law be damned.

Beautiful Zanesville, Ohio

Too painful to put up photos of the dead.

Anybody there?  Is this thing still working?   1,2,3,1,2,3.

Having several briefs due in the last month and the stuff going on around here that I feel that I should write about, but it is too painful so I haven't written.

I had met Terry Thompson, but I didn't know him.  However, I did know several people who did know him.  Many years ago (well over the statute of limitations, thank you) friends of mine and I were into the consumption of various pharmaceuticals.  They seriously considered going into distribution.  So they went to talk.  They came back and made what was perhaps the most intelligent decision of their lives and decided not to go into distribution.  Mostly because the female friend told me that she realized that her boyfriend of the time would have gotten them either killed on in prison for a very long time within six months.  However, she remained friends.  Whenever there were busts around town, busts that made the front pages and busts that allowed the cops to puff out their chests, flying squads from the state.  They never reached him for serious stuff.

Many other friends knew Terry in other ways and knew that he and his wife cared for and loved all the animals out there.  She was heard screaming: "They're killing my babies" when the killing went down.  Yes I know that he was charged with animal cruelty, but he did not (from what I saw of the court records) and speaking with people involved in the case, ever think he did anything wrong and he certainly did not harm the big cats.  There was both less and more there then most people cared to find out after the holocaust.   I was told that he raised his own cattle to feed the cats.

I need to add something right here.  The allegations concerned whether or not there was enough water let out for horses and dogs.  His defense was that he put food and water out in the morning and it was gone by the time the animal control people came by in the afternoon.  Whatever the truth was the judge allowed him to serve his time on house arrest so he could take care of his animals.

I am told that the police had No Other Choice last month.  It Had To Be Done.  Perhaps, but what I've seen of cops over my life time and here, I will withhold my approval on that.  I will go further, I sincerely doubt that the slaughter was really necessary, but that cops with their assualt rifles need to use them every once in a while.

They said that he let the animals out and killed himself.  Perhaps.  I've also seen people with serious anger and depression issues do things that I cannot understand.  My first thought was that it was a murder and then the animals were let out to cover things up.  

Some how one thinks that things could have been done differently, reached back only a little bit and changed things.  Crap.