Southwest Plagued By Turbulent Weather

               

Hurricane O-deal has made a direct on Cabo San Lucas,  where they worship the evil goddess Samantha.  They said it was a category three hurricane- - and for a direct hit they’re lucky they weren’t more wiped out than they were.  The water in the Gulf of California is around ninety degrees.  Just put in a little soda mixture and you’re got yourself a giant Jacuzzi.   This O-deal story will head north by northeast into the southwest desert where Arizona and Phoenix have already had their share of flooding.  Meanwhile little of all that moisture will help California out that much.  It’s almost as if God is playing a gigantic joke on us.  The local surf is up but not because of that hurricane but other Pacific terbulance.  And in northern California wild fires continue to ravage the area and the town of “weed” is getting wiped out.  Time to call out Company B.  It’s one of those little lumber towns you drive through it and think “This town is right out of another century”.   Air conditioner usage is tying the all time power consumption usage from around this time in 2010 I already referred to above, where the temperature was in triple digits.  They say that in 1989 we had record highs in late September.  I actually remember that.  It was about the time I decided to quit smoking for nearly the next two years.  I don’t know to what extent they tailor the “west coast” national news for us- - and whether the people back east get that share of coverage of weather here in the southwest.  Last night I got my medication at five thirty with Donnie again at the northern part of the east hall.  I went to Glen’s room and negotiated a price for some Swiss Miss.  I offered to pay Glen five cigarettes and he “negotiated” it down to four.  (These cases of “reverse negotiation” are not an uncommon feature with Glen.  At any rate- - I went out again at a quarter to seven.  It was just before sunset and the sun was shining on the fence and Wally was watering the grass.  They say to water and run appliances after six.  Anyhow- - it was the new Jeopardy after this with brilliant “Sunset” colors” like a Word backdrop I use.  Alex Travec has his mustache back for the first time in thirteen years- - or just about the length of time I’ve lived here.  Maybe it’s a good omen.  The questions were thankfully easier this week.  After Wheel of Fortune it was “Law and Order”.  I went out after eight- - and “hung out” a little before managing to get a cigarette from Steve Carone.  You have to be careful anytime Janet opens her mouth.  First she goes into this big lecture and says “Bill better not run out of cigarettes” but then later changes her tune and said she was going to give him a whole pack (which she hasn’t done yet)  I was careful to say that “I’m getting paid tomorrow” because being paranoid - - knowing her- - the next statement would be “I don’t want Bill giving you any cigarettes if I do that”.   But she didn’t say - - that.  Instead we sat there in almost total darkness for a minute or two.  Then Janet says “Well you’ve been out here every half hour or so trolling for cigarettes”.  Naturally I looked around to see who she could be referring to.  John?  It was plain she was referring to Me - - even though I hadn’t been out there in nearly an hour and a half.  Janet continued “You’ve been coming out here asking everybody for cigarettes - - you got one from Nancy Bell, you got one from Bill”.   I was confused.  The only cigarette I had either asked for or gotten from Nancy Bell was at 6:25 that morning.  But I know from experience- - if you challenge anything Janet says she’ll only get mad and start telling still more lies.  She fancies herself kind of the J Edger Hoover of this establishment- - kind of a “Jim Spencer light” but beware not to listen to any of these exhaustive analyses of people- - because keeping in mind the Golden Rule, if she’ll lie about You- - then they’ll most likely lie about other people.  A lot of lies were told about this fifteen year old hooker on “Law and Order” batting in the big leagues - - - swinging for the fences.  How would like to be her father.  She’s got her girlfriends lying for her- - and lying convincingly.  She starts in with boys her own age but gets bored with them and so turns to females for a while for that kind of sex- - but then she goes now to much older men- - and I mean major league Call Girl stuff- - where her boyfriends buy her all kinds of expensive stuff- - there was twenty thousand dollars worth of clothing in her closet when she was murdered.  And by the way she also had HIV and had gotten medication for that.  That’s something else she never told her dad.    The other case really ticked me off.   It was this college kid- - engaging in thrill murders and claims it isn’t his fault because he was a violent video game addict.  You see I would rephrase that.  He was a violent sociopath to begin with- - who ALSO liked video games.  But the New York jury didn’t buy this defense attorney’s rhetorical bullshit- - and the guy was found guilty.   On the plus side the air conditioning is still holding up in here.  I guess having an air conditioned dining room, though, if something we can live without.  The nights are so warm- - some of the local lows in the area are in the eighties.  But this will be the last day of the really bad heat- - and then we get clouds and thunderstorms.

Stephanie Miller has a point about how the Media is obsessed with “optics” and surface appearance these days, at the sacrifice of real substance and analysis.   For instance if Franklin Roosevelt were President today, FOX news would be merciless at showing the President at his most helpless getting in and out of cars and such- - and seeing the great difficulty with which he stands, even with braces.  Today they have people with their legs cut off running marathons, don’t ask me how.  Franklin never gave up hope that he would get better, and that is as it should be.  I’ve always disagreed with this one “politically correct’ statue of FDR showing him in a wheel chair, since it’s the last way he wanted to be remembered.  But of course nobody today has any tact or human decency.  This whole idea of kicking a man when he’s down has never been considered sporting, but that wouldn’t stop FOX news.  You know they’re scrambling around just looking for the best way to use sexism to attack Hillary when she declares for President next year.  Some have already gone after her for her health from that stroke or something two years ago.  I wonder when we’ll be hearing jokes about “You’d never allow decisions of life or death to be made by someone suffering from PMS”.  

Last night besides the NFL game there was also Sixty Minutes.  There was a segment on the capture of Whitey Bolger and his wife, who feeds catrs, living in Santa Monica all these years.  He was of course a major Boston gangster.  The other topic was a more serious and timely one.  The laws on mental illness are so lax it’s impossible to have even known dangerous people committed.  This one father had a very troubled son, who stabbed him in the back in a barn and then went out and blew his brains out - - using an unloaded firearm from his father that he bought bullets for.   The whole mental illness thing is just scandalous.  It was the last 20 minutes of America’s Funniest Home Videos, which was back on the air.  

 We had oatmeal for breakfast followed by scrambled eggs, and I had two toasts, and two hashed browns, with salt.  You need the salt in this heat for water conservation.  Paul is really helpful and not to get spiritual or anything but “God will reward him for his kindness in the afterlife”.  Right now I still have the Today show on.  Now the NFL is reinstating Avery Peterson because they’ve looked at the evidence and concluded that until the legal issues are decided in this case- - there’s no reason why he shouldn’t play.  I imagine this will make the Romulans happy.  I’d rather be a gardener today than a roofer or ditch digger or someone re-paving the street.  Duty calls.  Of course President Obama is a liar and he lies when he has no reason to.  He talks like he’s going to do something on immigration and then doesn’t.  His administration’s biggest lie is about employment saying “We have added jobs every month for the last four years” or whatever.  Of course he lied about “You can keep your coverage and keep your doctor”.   The thing with a congenital liar is that they will lie- - proactively.  They use the LIE as a weapon of attack- - - and create arguments and issues where otherwise there would be none at all.  Like Mary Beth on the soap opera.  The Bible singles people like this out for special condemnation.

Phyllis Green was saying something I agreed with.  Jerry Brown is so bent on eliminating the deficit and then building up a “rainy day” fund that he has gone nuts in cutting back aid for college students and a lot of other areas, even if the economy in the state sucks royally.  In the area of child discipline as Stephanie was talking about- - - I think a case can be made where a child is in a psychically fearful state about “getting it” from his parents, that he will feel pressured to lie out of “self preservation” because he learns that lying is the way to eliminate conflicts that would occur if you were like me and decided to be perfectly honest on an issue.  They will use your own words against you and twist them around.   The basic idea is to be psychologically and emotionally in touch with your children so you know what’s going on in their minds.   And as Chris says, if you beat a dog, there is no way of explaining to the dog WHY you are doing it- - and all the animal knows as the trauma.   Thom Hartman is talking about the wiping out of large mammals in the holy land.  Lions used to be a common sight.   Right now Mike Papentonio is coming on as a guest.  Today it’s “The disinformation industry”.    So, should you take a switch to these industrialists who manufacture dangerous products?

 Lindsey Graham was angry about not being more proactive in dealing with ISIS.  “This is not an anti terrorist operation - - this is WAR.  And they are coming over here to kill all of Us”.   I watched Meet the Press in the morning.  I never checked “This Week”.  Now I have Stephanie on and Bristol and her five year old son were at some gathering with Sarah Palin - - high tops with the American flag.  I saw the American Flag prominent in Time-Warner and it was a surprise to me that Time-Warner was right wing.  Meanwhile yesterday was the hottest day of the year and I could have sworn it got over a hundred yesterday.  Then said in the news the hottest temperature we’ve ever had locally was 113 in late September of 2010.  I remember it was really hot around that period with people scurrying for meager shade on the patio.  This was right about the time Dana first moved in here.   But of course- - the four answers they had on their quiz were 117, 118, 120, and 125.  I was virtually positive we’d never gotten to 120 around here, but I remember the 117 in late September of 1963.  But strangely the weather guy did not cite this figure.  I think the heat has us all batty and I can’t function.  Even the AC is showing signs of giving out since the agrigate temperature of this building is so hot.

Saturday afternoon also in C-Span I watched the Kansas governor’s debate, held at the County Fair.  They remarked what perfect weather it was.  Now there are temperature in the fifties and even forties in the Great Lakes area - - with isolated snow in places like Wyoming.  We still have a week of summer to go.  Saturday was the anniversary of the Live Peace in Toronto concert with John Lennon and the original Plastic Ono Band.   Last Saturday was a much more dubious anniversary in 1980 at the swimming party at Judy’s trailer court when relations with Laura took an adverse turn, on a fittingly overcast afternoon.  The trouble with this Kansas debate was that Brownback used the same trick that Paul Ryan used against Byden.  He’d stick on at the very end of his rebuttal to another question a bunch of unproven charges against the Democrat, that he knows ahead of time the Democrat will never get a chance to respond to.  I could not tell by their words who the better candidate was, and have to trust the experts that Brownback is a liar and an economic fraud, and I would vote accordingly.

Lynne’s class had a whole third verse to “Mary Had a Little Lamb” that goes “And so the teacher turned out but still it lingered near; the lamb sure did love Mary or so it would appear”.   I had suspected the existence of a third verse from some old thing like the Little Rascals reciting it.  I got one cup of iced tea.  In terms of the soap opera plot it was too tacky for words.  Clearly if Mary Beth wanted to ruin her credibility for all time with page and anyone else in their social circle, that little stunt on today’s episode would do it.  She makes an ass of herself wanting to horn in on J J’s and Page’s date to begin with- - going to a party which by her own admission she said she knew no one, and then uses that “all alone” ruse to get Page away from Jack Junior for perhaps an hour or more- - where Cheryl can conveniently drug him.  That plot is so thread bear they should give it up.  Meanwhile Dr Jonas continues to be a perfect asshole with Jennifer- - looking for any and every opportunity to do things he knows would piss anybody off, not just Jennifer.   They have a new Chad with heavier eyebrows wielding a gun of course, to make his point.  I think his anger comes off as - - exagurated.

The NE Patriots defeated the Vikings in the morning game in Foxborough.  The SD Chargers defeated the Seattle Seahawks in San Diego, which made my day.  I was even wearing the jersey.  And the Chicago Bears came back and defeated the SF ‘40ers in their new football stadium in Santa Clara.  It was 17 to nothing San Francisco but the Bears came roaring back in the second half and the final score was 28 to 20.