First Anniversary of that "debt repayment"...

It's now a week since my youngest brother "mailed" me a load repayment check. My said "don't hold your breath"!

Truth about political advertising...

This cartoon tells the horrible truth about "modern" political ads.












http://content.todayscartoons.uclick.com/?feature=98c60bd3bbe82e752d4e207e15eed753"> tells the horrible truth about modern adversiting.

An amusing cartoon about Greorge W. Bush and the Religious Right...

An amusing cartoon about George W. Bush and his former allies in the Religious Right. Actually, probably not former but if not, why not?

This cartoon (Slate on 24 Octrober 2006) was used without explicit permission; it was used in the spirt of "fair useage" and I will take it off this blog should anyone complaign.

the check is in the mail today

This is the day my youngest brother is going to send me a check for his latest loan.

debt payment coming???

I called my youngest brother to see how he was doing and he said he would repay me for the money I loaned him. He had gotten his share of our Mother's Estate and had way too much money! When I sent him a check on 9 October 2006, I had put a 3 page typed letter of advise (well, 2 1/2 pages). Anyway, he said he'd "put the check in the mail tomorrow". I thanked him for the forthcoming check, he thanked me for the loan (the $100 and not the $300 we loaned him in 1983).

He didn't mention the advise letter I included. I was afraid he'd blow his new cash without paying off his bills and would then hit us up for an even bigger loan and we've got enough money problems of our own to deal with...

In remembrance of the Scottish War Dead...

Here is a column by Margaret Cook in the Friday, 14 November 2003 issue of "The Scotsman" entitled "Remembrance sorrow can turn to outrage". She made some very good points.

P.S.: I obtained this by being a subscriber to their web version and I don't know if I can legally post this. If not, please let me know and I'll pull it (actually, I'll probably just pull it for a couple of weeks and put it back on my blog figuring that:

1. Anyone reading this blog won't care,
2. no one objecting is likely to check back on me in a week or a month or a year and
3. given the vast number of blogs available to be read, I figure this blog won't be read. Think of it as intellectual masterbation.

The Libertarian Quiz and my spot in it...

The "World's Smallest Political Quiz" is an offering from the Libertarians which ranks folks on the basis of "Personal Issues" and "Economic Issues". It is both provocative and quite amusing. To my surprise, I rank as "Left Liberal". Here are two of my "test results".The first is my earlier and the second from tonight (10 October 2006).


The second is an admitedly poor image and I'll have to do something about that...

Basically, it shows me as being slightly less Liberal?

This quiz, like all things political, has it's detractors.

Here is a webpage listing a long litergy of Objections to the "World's Smallest Political Quiz. These objections make some sense.

My main objections to the Libertarian Party are:

1. We need government to maintain order,
2. We need government to provide military and police and social
   security,
3. A purely Libertarian Government would allow "Big
   Business" to run rampant and that would be worst that our
   version of "Big Government".
4. But then, "Big Business" already runs the government so it may be a bit hard to really support objecton #3.
   

A point in favor of the Libertarian Party? At least they would get the Government out of people's private lives! If concenting adults want to have consentual sex, well, it's a private matter and the government should stay out of it! As for "pot", let private individuals (adults) indulge in private. Treat it like booze and please, keep the government from issuing bullshit objections (i.e. gateway drug or the "pot make maniacs")

disowned: the once every decade event!

On 13 February, I called my brother Jeff to wish him "Happy Birthday". I got sent to his answering machine and never did get a call back from him. I then called our Mother, who mentioned she'd talked with Jeff 20 minutes before I called him and she relayed his family news.

My wife mentioned that Jeff screens his calls. I guess I've pissed him off again (don't know why though) and I'm frozen out again...

In the early 1990s, I got to brooding about how my father got into a pissing contest with both of his brothers. He didn't talk to Bob from 1971 to around 1988 or 1989; he never did talk to his brother Don and being dead, my Father sure can't now...

So, I was thinking that my brothers and I should get closer and at least tell each other the occasional "I'm fine, how are you"? Our other two brothers were good with this but when I wrote Jeff, I got a real ball buster of a reply. He basically said:

I live in [at the time, a micro sized state in New England] and you live in [a big mid west state]. We never see each other. If we weren't relatives, we were never have met [no shit?]. I'm very busy with my wife, our kids, her family [damn sure not his brothers or our families], my job and our church. I simply don't have the time to devote to a relationship with you." [I don't want a fucking relationship, I just want my next-to-youngest-brother back!"]

 It kind of reminds me of the joke popular in the US Navy (the 1800 community anyway) during the 1980s. The commanding officer of a ship is pissed off at another senior officer and sends a Naval message:

"FUCK YOU. STRONGLY WORDED LETTER FOLLOWS."

It doesn't seem quite as funny as it did 20 years or so ago but it still in funny (Navy funny).

I didn't respond but did tell me other two brothers. One brother had gotten a similar communication (I don't remember if it was a letter or just a phone call) and the other brother got the "FUCK YOU" impression from phone calls and letters that went unanswered.

Tuesday, 21 February 2006, I sent Jeff a letter. The first paragraph was a mei culpa in which I apologized for being a "bad brother" and for not paying enough attention to him. I figured the odds of him replying and they came up "he ain't replying".

So, I figured he'd get my letter at most a week after sending it (28 February 2006). If he replied immediately and giving the postal service a week to deliver, I should have gotten the response no later than today. (I didn't get any letter from my dear brother.) I'm going to be hopeful and give him until this coming Tuesday (14 March 2006) before I officially give up hope and officially let myself realize I've been disowned again...

So, why am I so upset about this?

He is family and we did grow up together. We had the same good times and probably many of the same bad times. We're blood...

There is a line in the "Farscape" movie "The Peacekeeper Wars" (which I saw on DVD this morning. John Crighton told another character something like "if you don't have family, you don't have anything" [or words to that effect]. I wonder if Jeff will ever figure this one out.

One of Jeff's daughters "claims" to be afraid of flying so when Jeff and younger daughter flew out to the West Coast to join the rest of us in a family birthday dinner, this girl didn't come out. Her Mother stayed behind to care for her. It sounded a little fishy; why not give the girl a tranquilizer and put her on a plane? Well, we've recently heard that "Mother" has been taking both of her daughters on long plane trips and I didn't get the impression that either girl was afraid of flying. (Come to think of it, Jeff's wife has never seemed happy to be around my other brothers and I and doesn't seem to like our wives either...)

Still, it bugs the shit out of me and I wish I could be reconciled with Jeff. I tried a decade ago and I tried less than a month ago and I don't have that many more decades left in me (given the average life expectancy for our blood line). Well, I tried and I can only hope for a change of heart at the distant end...

a loan to youngest brother...

My youngest brother called to beg for $80 to pay some bill. Now, I know he's expecting a windfall soon so I wasn't too thrilled about getting hit up. However, I've always been the brother who tries to help him out. (I didn't really think that and found out another of our brothers has been helping him out a lot more...)

So, I sent him a check for $100 and youngest brother said "I'll pay you back as soon as I can!

We won't talk about the $300 he borrowed from me whilst he was in the process of flunking out of college in 1983 or the $1800 he borrowed from my in-laws or the $800 he borrowed from the same brother who is taking care of him now...