It has come to your and my attention...

1993-2009

The Bush and Clinton's ruled (will stay in rule) in the USA for sixteen years. Is there a good reason to continue that trend? If Hillary gets to be elected it will sum up to be twenty years, perhaps 24 years of two families dominating the course of history and in particular the history of the USA, for a quarter century.
Maybe it is time to change the course. I am not thinking of the Vietnam-vet as an alternative this time around ... he had his chances before, and blew it.
See, I do not wish to start my first post after the election with the sentence:
"We now live in a Monarchy..."! That would be distasteful.
It is all about persona, not leadership qualifications, the latter a myth.
Therefore Hillary has no place in my deck of cards, she makes me shiver.

who is mightier, the sword, the needle or the pen?

I would suspect the "needle" 'cause she mends all ripped tissues delicately with sometimes even allegedly broken stitches. But who am I to tell. I grew up only learning about swords and pens.
I was going to post a survey here today. But I couldn't find the code, and so now I lost interest in the original mission. There you are, you are on your own. You have the questions but you have to answer them yourself, those questions that haven't yet been answered, or the ones that continually come up, or the ones I preciously had prepared to be answered by you all.
So much for that poll.

I had it with spam:

... now eat this:
...yeah right!
I don't need either. But as of lately I get so many spam-messages by e-mail, it is total injudiciousness - in other words, annoying bullshit. So the only rescue I can see out of this dilemma is to make my e-mail go "dead" for a while, or either diligently upgrade my spam filter, a task I do not enjoy.
I mean really, how many cars, homes, hot chicks and other gadgets can you buy in your neighborhood in a day. This is stupid - a ridicules mess!
We are living in a recession, if not even a depression. Got to keep the essentials straight and not open up new mortgages - either of the heart, soul or body (home). The sharks are getting desperate, I can see it now. Every little blood drop you are willing to bleed, they suck it up, they search it out. Merchants in despair are lousy predators though. Bad breath from a mile away.
So I just trot along, like a Grey Haired Monkey, stubborn and incorruptible - a bit slow at times. That's my method.
And there you go, this is a personalized spam-message just for you - to brighten up your day.
What else do we have to offer?

Lee is a master of many things. You should check out his BLOG, funny and depth coverage at the same time.
In other news. Tomorrow is Friday, actually the Friday before easter. Came early this year. In Europe you wouldn't work on this day if you could avoid it. Time to think about inward changes. But here we just hop on, waiting for the easter-bunny to poke its ears above the shrubs on Sunday.
Perhaps I will think about inner change while I work tomorrow.

Steer's, money and the golden calf

I don't know what comes first.
Went down with my truck to pick up a pack of cigarettes this evening and spotted an injured calf around the corner from my place. It was just lying there in the mud, helpless to move itself to the barn. I stopped and talked to the animal, trying to shoo it away, out of the nasty cold rain. It didn't move. Well it did. It got up and walked three steps, then collapsed again.

Today I was also pondering about the US economy. Banks and credit institutions have given loans to borrowers who have no money, except the assets they speculate on. The point is, those assets are not theirs. They are pebbles, framed on the prognosis of endless growth, your typical capitalistic frame of operandi.
Guess what, the US economy is in as bad of a shape as the calf I encountered on my after dinner mission. What I find amusing (or not), is the fact that the government is trying to bail out companies who have slandered their assets without second thoughts, all in the name to "recover the economy". Now, what is that supposed to mean? I truly believed until now, that we live in a Darwinists capitalist society, where the stronger of all will survive. I guess that is not so. There must be a hidden agenda I do not comprehend.
So the fifth largest trading company on the New York stock exchange the other day got bought up for a song by J.P. Morgan & Chase and on top of it the government pays half of the bill? Wait a minute, something is not quite right here. The culprits who speculated to own the golden calf ... and lost, now get MY (the taxpayers) money to continue their atrocities? I thought this was a straight forward game. The one who looses bites the dust. But no, the US Bush gang has to swagger and become socialists at convenience and pump in money they don't even have in the the first place in the name of supporting global cooperations, their buddy's per say. In the mean time the common man has no clue and lends his or hers millions of hours of labor and income to a cause that has no benefit to him at all.

What is a trillion? I don't know, I have never seen one. The only thing I know, is that the US government has accumulated a debt during the Bush era that has arisen to astronomical figures. It doesn't help to have a war either, who drains 16 billion a month and then ended up to be almost a 500 billion on this five year anniversary of insanity. (is that half a trillion?)

All I am trying to say is, the US is broke and the rest of the world is reacting accordingly. What escapes my good will of empathy is, that hardly any citizen in the US is concerned about this. This is like sleepwalking while being secretly drained of all life resources.

So much for the "golden calf rant".

After I picked up those nasty things that create blue smoke, I still worried about the young steer and stopped again on my way home. No change in the situation.
Finally I found out the farmers number and I made my call.

I wish I could do the same and call to the US government and warn them about the "golden calf", before it is too late -

...but I lost that number in the pile of mess abound.

pictures later, OK?

My Fortune Cookie told me today:
Try spearmint-flavored wallpaper in the bedroom.

... maybe I'll make a test run in my basement first before such a bold move.

a bit of local history

I got images from downtown Hillsdale yesterday, but I have a blockage to write or post much about them. You can though (as always) click on images to see them a bit bigger, if that tickles your fancy. Is bigger better?
So there, I'll give you a few lines anyway.
The Mount Washington Hotel (or "house") had been build in the early 1880's, an historical pearl within the context of American perspectives. After the turn of the century it was known as a very fine house for woman who are not afraid to show their true skin, may it be black or white, or any other color for that matter.
Times changed, and the once famous brothel turned into an ordinary establishment.

Across my driveway there used to be Mr. Miller, a very intelligent man, who made his fortune with advertisements for an established agency based in New York City. He had a lovely wife who tended the garden roses well, but she died of cancer - bless her soul.
Thereafter he got together with the woman who owned the "Mount" (Mount Washington Hotel) - a big fat lady called Marge. She was sweet and spiteful acrimoniously. But alas, she died soon after they met due to a heart attack (to much weight I guess), and then left poor Mr. Miller slip back into a lonesome chamber in his NYC loft.
Anyhow, the daughter took over. Are you following me? The daughter of the mother, who once was the lover of my neighbor who presently lives in New York and might as well be dead , who knows - this daughter now runs the "Mount Washington Hotel."
There you go, it took me all this time to tell you this, that I ate a hamburger there last night and that this thing actually tasted yummy, and the pickles on the side were fresh.

for your amusement only

In a smoky cafe over 20 years ago (actually it was smoke free even back then, besides the outdoors) I played some improvisational music with a troubadour from the deep down woods of Bavaria.
Two samples are uploaded on Gcast on the sidebar here, recorded life with a wobbly cassette player. If you click on "Posts" you will see the whole present list of originals. (only 4 so far).
"dr Fluss" (the river) is my favorite. The violin playing and improv actually worked out to my liking then, despite the monotonous melody line. "a liebesblues" was the antidote of what was going on in the mid 80's, the full servings of streamlined pop. I play the melody first on guitar, then switch to violin.
Look out for Gcast and press POSTS in the coming days or weeks. I might be tempted to load up some more stuff that is even older, from California back in the days ... or I might fabricate something totally new, like from 2008 with Lee or Pete on hand - or just me and my Chinese computer (no punch intended).
P.S. just uploaded a scratchy rehearsal from 1981 of a cover tune: One more cup of coffee by B.Dylan (beware, lead voice of me is OK, but my violin playing is sketchy. Nevertheless, I am proud to announce that this cover of that particular tune rivals the original)

photo of the "Altstadt Cafe" back-porch in Freiburg, Germany where Pesold and Zee played

Spitzer, Beijing Olympics - and dirty air

Dirty air all abound.
The governor of New York resigned today because the air was filthy. Prostitutes are a mans second to last answer. With all due respect, let us call them companions.
I have a lot of respect for the hard working woman who do these "escort services" for three and up to $5000 (thousand) an hour. Spitzer (the governor) might not even ever have used the opportunity of added sexual pleasures, nobody will ever know.
But spending thousand over thousands of dollars to walk beside a hot chick down the avenue is beyond my comprehension. It is actually unreal. I would personally never do such a thing. It would turn me off, not on.
So now he is done for, he resigned, that's that.
The dirty air conversation continues. The summer Olympic games are supposed to be in China this year, an other polluted breeze of air. Athletes may take their pollution-control masks along. The air is so bad, an average American infidel might drop to the ground within 10 minutes.
But that's not the point.
China has (in my book) one of the worst human rights records in history.
China is not in their right minds, they know nothing about Olympia on the Pelepones in Greece, the traditions where this "olympiad" came from, the honors required to give to the god Zeus. Nothing at all. Blank, blank, blank ....
I went to Olympia three times in my life, the place is astounding, the sculptures in equilibrium. I am glad the fires there last summer did not destroy everything. I wish to visit one more time,

So, back to the "dirty air". You, the consumer buys 86% Chinese products, from pocket knifes to under-garments, batteries to computers, shirts to wall paint. I challenge you to act otherwise, to buy locally if you can. But you will not do so, because you just have no choice. So you will stay a conformer, a good consumer - until the walls are crumbling a'down. (the € euro is now worth $1.50)
Thereafter, hail to fresh air!

my annual daylight savings rant

Over the years, supporters of Daylight Savings Time have advanced new reasons to support it, even though they were not the original reasons behind enacting DST.

One they say is safety. Some people believe that if we have more daylight at the end of the day, we will have fewer accidents.

In fact, this "benefit" comes only at the cost of less daylight in the morning. When year-round daylight time was tried in 1973, one reason it was repealed was because of an increased number of school bus accidents in the morning. Further, a study of traffic accidents throughout Canada in 1991 and 1992 by Stanley Coren of the University of British Columbia before, during, and immediately after the so-called "spring forward" when DST begins in April. Alarmingly, he found an eight percent jump in traffic accidents on the Monday after clocks are moved ahead. He attributes the jump to the lost hour of sleep. In a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine, Coren explained, "These data show that small changes in the amount of sleep that people get can have major consequences in everyday activities." He undertook the study as a follow up to research showing that even an hour's change can disrupt sleep patterns and "persist for up to five days after each time shift." Other observers attribute the huge spike in accidents on the first Monday of DST to the sudden change in the amount of light during driving times. Regardless of the reason, there is no denying that changing our clocks has a significant cost in human lives.

While some people claim that they would miss the late evening light, a presumably similar number of people love the morning light. And projects, postponed during the sun filled summer, will be tackled with new vigor when the sun sets an hour earlier each day.

Congress appears to have felt we were not having enough of a difficult time so in 2007 they passed a law starting Daylight Savings time 3 weeks earlier and ending it one week later. This will cost US companies billions to reset automated equipment, put us further out of sync with Asia and Africa time-wise, inconvenience most of the country, all in the name of unproven studies that claim we save energy.

One farmer on the radio said today, his herd of about 300 milking cows are startled. They muuhhed and looked at him in a disgruntled way: "What the heck are you doing so early in the barn?" He then decided to take it easy ... just an half hour earlier for one week. Thereafter switching to the change ...

In my view we should start a campaign to stop this madness. It is bad enough that the government taxes us out of existence, but taking away our "time" with flawed reasonings of "saving something" is too much to bear.

My friends, conspiracy theories left me lukewarm in the past. But now they are gaining momentum. I believe that "daylight savings time" is just a cover up for a psychological experiment, ordained by the government, to see how successful a few people can influence the masses without the "common man" to object. "Daylight Savings" is an illusion, a fabrication of the second world war when electricity was scarce during production times. With our factories presently illuminated 24 hours a day, we don't need this "savings" bullshit anymore.

to the mysterious one

Not long ago, a couple or weeks or so...
someone precious came back to life.
It had been years since the last contact.
So she said: ascending, birds, prayer, song - something moving upward.
She said this after I had used a chain saw to first cut the rough edges. The final image now rested in her palm.
She is a good lady, standing her own grounds and she helped me out without upsetting my own turf. So there you go, miracles are still possible.
As for the sculpture, it was due the other day. But somewhat later - I still will make it.
Cause this one is for the muse - and therefore I will take the proper time to do this without haste and all these enforcements of daily life that usually try to choke you into congested submission.

the dawn of days to come

March has that subtle promise. You are neither here nor there. Winter is not gone, but spring is in the air.
For Lee and I it was a voyage in a haunted house. Good spirits had left the premises, instead black poisoned mold had crept in. I could taste it on my tongue, bitter and acidic.
The owner is trying to redeem the place by us installing warped and moldy doors salvaged from a dumpster behind the Home Depot parking lot.
As you can see on the picture, I am trying to glue back a delaminated bi-fold door that truthfully belongs to the trash pile it came from.
"Winter" is not over in the USA, it merely started despite the change of season.
The chill of high oil prices, the falling US currency, unemployment rising... looks like a real recession to me. Can you convince me otherwise?