Heading for Best Buy with son Paul on Saturday night seemed like a good idea, especially as I was without reliable keyboard and mouse, thanks to my wireless setup gentrifying.
In one of nature’s oddest ironies, the human brain is devoid of pain sensors. The organ charged by the body to manage and regulate all of its internal activity – including the thought processes believed to create self-awareness and intelligence itself – cannot “feel.”
If you can read this, then you are some of the lucky ones; still with electricity, and having free time from shoveling and plowing chores. Since we are now low on Pringles and instant coffee, this may be close to the end at our place, out in Dearbought.
“Hell froze over” Saturday at Winchester Hall, as the man known to his fans as “Frederick’s youngest good ol’ boy” was unanimously appointed to be its youngest county commissioner. Those knowing the man well were not at all surprised.
Pity the news and information junkie in making it through the last week. Taken in totality, and in “real time,” one can actually see the earth spinning a little faster on its axis; or, at least, notice changes occurring virtually faster than people can consider the implications.
Don’t “mis-underestimate” the value of humor in the politics of the day ’round this county of late. Pardon the Bush-ism, but it seems to fit the chaos. The amount of inherent comedy now is limited only by your personal perspective in our political matters at hand here in Maryland.
Last week two separate Republican Central Committees duked it out over the official appointment – short term – for the remainder of the term of the 3-B delegate seat being vacated by Rick Weldon.
In the beginning, the good Earth contained only two human beings. They had only one apple between them. Therefore, politics was born.
It is my distinct honor and pleasure to pass judgments for you once again on changes, transitions, and trends spanning this New Years period. So, after some not-so-insignificant pondering:
With little fanfare or media coverage, last Friday around noon, the last chapter of the “Citizens for Walkersville” saga ended with the sale of the old Nicodemus Farm to the Town of Walkersville.
The first step in solving a problem is to admit that it – in fact – exists. The churning “self-re-election system” that is our federal government has proven to Americans now that it has fully stopped listening to the people.
Bob Miller’s Christmas Cash for Kids is now on the books for 2009 with a record pledge amount exceeding $134,000. The total dollar amount beat last year – even in the depths of our Great Recession – but dollar amount does not tell the story.
More than a headline, title or subject line, considering the source author itself is most vital to comprehension when establishing the weight of your various media viewings and readings.
The corollary of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s famous “We have nothing to fear but fear itself” is that economically, it’s the “not knowing” that can damage us even worse than a specific negative indicator of our progress in recovery.
A quick overnight out toward Maryland’s Eastern Shore over the past weekend took yours truly and my oldest son Paul to Salisbury University for a pre-admissions visit.
Last week’s column went out on The Tentacle at over 1,400 words and I swore to do better this week. To wit, I offer you these nicely abbreviated sundry items:
The City of Frederick elections are now upon us, so it’s time to get your voting strategy together. Those stuck at simply “voting the party line,” will be at a distinct disadvantage in our municipal election tomorrow.
With scientists as the new high priests of the 1950s we officially entered the “Space Age” in 1958 with the launch of the satellite Sputnik by our archrival in the world, the U.S.S.R.
Boundless optimism toward future prospects and possibilities used to mark the American Spirit. Now, we make zero-sum choices in our lives, sometimes with no good outcomes, and are lead by a president who would have us borrow wealth instead of creating it.
The control of your future behavior on an epic scale is the goal by some that will make us “The Manipulation Nation.”
Freedom of speech may be relegated to the past, if the voices of our Founding Fathers are not re-remembered, and quickly. Some attempts to exercise our First, and most valuable amendment to the Constitution, upon examination, are really attacks on the message itself.
The greatest lie propagated on our children in public education today is that “fairness” will be a guiding principle in life.
Much has been said on all sides in evaluating recent protestors in Washington, as well as in Frederick. Just what is a legitimate “grass-roots” uprising, anyway?
The convergence of local politics with national is impossible to escape now, even to the casual observer. With the timeframe overlap between the newest “Tea Party” style rally, the observances of 9/11s “Patriot Day,” and municipal primary elections tomorrow in Frederick, the relationship between party and constituent becomes even more blurred.
Should you not have time to read my columns, then make an exception and read this one now. “I just don’t have the time” sounds like a personal problem to me, and that attitude will not advance your ability to get things done in our zero-sum time of “no time.”
One reason for the poor turnout at municipal elections is a perceived lack of differentiation between the candidates. This year we also suffer the fog of a large field of aldermanic candidates for the City of Frederick.
The Twitter.com phenomenon is not understood. It has nothing to do with text messaging, and more to do with poetry and “forced pithiness.”
Having been on my “staycation” last week, I did not present my usual column last week. With so much transpiring in the meantime, here come some mini-Tentacles in an effort to catch up and to make up!
Call me crazy, but I want to live longer, and into a fruitful old age. All events surrounding healthcare reform convince me of the opposite!
To the uninitiated, the very concept of a “meet-up group” can be worrisome, and a bit unsettling. With much curiosity about our local splinter organization emerging from the original “Tea Party Movement,” I jumped into the fray last Friday night at the Hampton Inn’s meeting room.
Forgetting politics and current events for a time, vacation is on my mind. One must only notice the missing traffic from Interstate 270 southbound in the mornings to fully realize this!
I deny that I wrote this column. The problem is that the technology exists today to record electronically the very keystrokes emanating from my wireless keyboard, and – that as it happens – in “real time!”
It was my honor and pleasure to bear witness to the first annual rally in front of the Frederick County Courthouse on the 4th of July. Not a “tea party,” it was about taking back America.
The House of Representatives barely passed the first stage in President Obama’s “Cap-and-Trade” energy/ecology legislation late Friday 219-212. This, with the help of eight Republican traitors crossing over to vote, and having not read the bill, hundreds of pages of which only just became available at 3 A.M. on the day of the vote.
The final form of changes to our current healthcare system, as is being pressed by our President Barack Obama, is still under wraps. A rational discussion of the ramifications for all concerned – including you – is an essential exercise now.
As complex as life and electronics are these days, I cannot help but look back fondly to my first big job and the consumer world of the 1970s, before computers, cell phones, and even home theater and large screen televisions.
Finally, some answers to persistent probing questions as to what is apparently the death of the old two-party political system, and the promised bipartisanship of our Messiah-president. As stunningly simple as it sounds, no matter the issue or facts at hand, get used to “We won, you lost; just get over it!”
Today you will be happy to note that I did not fill this space with the abundant fodder falling out from the nomination of 2nd Circuit Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the upcoming vacancy on the United States Supreme Court.
Government economists, in conjunction with the Obama Administration, have now decided we must tackle the struggling hair care industry immediately, even if this requires full nationalization of assets, as it is “too big to fail.”
How do civilizations die? How do cultures die? How do people die?
Time to break with your hibernation from the winter blahs; stop getting upset about the politics of Democratic deconstruction and more illegal immigrants for a time. Andrews Air Force base, in nearby Prince George’s County offers the best air show in the region once a year, and it’s this coming weekend!
Not being in the mood to write, blog post, or comment, I started to consider some plausible excuses for skipping my Monday Tentacle column for this week.
If you blinked at the wrong moment over the last few weeks, and rely solely on one part of the media paradigm for your news, you may have missed any of these following items. Not necessarily because of media-bias, but simply because we only have so much time and tolerance for added information in our lives:
My name is Steve, and I’m a “right-wing extremist.” That’s how I would start an “AA” meeting if those letters stood for “activists anonymous!”
What the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), once contrived to connect university research scientists to each other in the course of their daily work, has now become the world’s greatest tool, toy, and liability – our Internet.
News of the demise of America has been greatly exaggerated. Alas, one would never know it, though, as President Barack Obama disgorged his political capital recently on the tail end of the G20 economic summit.
Printed newspapers are under attack. Many will not make it. The “gray ladies,” now printed expensively in color, are ending up still plastic-wrapped in your recycle bucket.
Last week marked a watershed in the recent history of our newly transforming “Obamanation.” The anecdotal evidence was everywhere, although highly disparate, that what had once been hope, born of its own sake, was being replaced by a more healthy skepticism.
During the election cycle of 2008 it became the standard rhetoric for candidate Barack Obama and his wife to distance themselves from the elements of what it meant to “be American.”
In an age when the president is only now just picking up on the notion that his public statements and the stock exchange fluctuations are related and important, why is he inviting a business-celebrity from the social networking website, www.twitter.com to the White House for cocktails?
“Now is not the time to be making a profit” was a line from a speech from President Barack Obama that included disgracing corporate CEOs for being successful. The arbitrary “Maginot line” of selfishness had now been placed at a half million-dollars in salary.
Having many writers in the family, both close and distant, I have begun to wonder whether the urge to put pen to paper is an inherited trait, or a learned one.
In my efforts at ever expanding personal open-mindedness, the other morning I went straight for The Washington Post to learn the well-camouflaged details of the final $787 billion dollar spending package, called “The Porkulus” by Rush Limbaugh, and “The Spendulus” by Laura Ingraham.
Famous lies of our time include: “The check’s in the mail,” “The computer is down,” and, “You can trust me.” The smaller lies – and, thus, easier to verify – are the hardest to tell and to maintain.
With 40 percent of America having now achieved entitlement-class status, it stands to reason that the burden of supporting our welfare country is born by the remaining 60 percent of the citizens.
For those feeling unsteady and questioning their own sanity of late, fear not, as you are truly living through an experience akin to watching Doug Adam’s movie, “Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” while listening to a Pink Floyd album.
The observable operating philosophy of President-elect Barack Obama thus far comes to us in the form of a television situation comedy, as in an “Obama Knows Best.” It comes off as the blind requirement of our total trust.
Not all progress is linear in nature. As in mountain climbing, sometimes one has to travel down to get up. A glacial valley can lead to a better summit trail.
There is really nothing overtly negative about encountering an economic shakeout period such as the one we have entered. In fact, what we will discover this New Year is that long-term national prosperity for America herself depends on a boom and bust cycle.
Every year we have major shifts in trends, policy, attitudes, and happenings. The 2008 / 2009 transition is no different, and is more important than usual.
What are you doing reading this column when you could be out Christmas shopping?
American cars manufactured by the big three automakers are case studies of what not to do in a competitive environment. When engineering creativity and innovation fall by the wayside, what you get is a “car by consensus” aimed at the widest possible audience that – in the end – satisfies nobody.
In absolutely no particular order, here are some hot items for your reading pleasure, just in time for that water cooler conversation or company holiday party.
As usual, family gatherings over the Thanksgiving weekend allowed for more personal interactions. I have three wonderful teenagers and have confirmed that the scrutiny and evaluation that befall parents at this critical juncture are surely unimaginable to anyone not experiencing it first hand.
On Saturday I found myself waiting outside the Church of the Brethren for Chuck Jenkins, sheriff of Frederick County. He was late, but I don’t blame the man, as he is in highest demand during these troubled and newly formative days.
What strange days we are living in. My sympathy goes out to those whose intellectual process it is to attempt to make sense of the world around them.
Election 2008 is over. America now has a new president-elect, and an opportunity to evaluate just what Barack Obama’s victory means. Here are some lessons learned along with some 20/20 hindsight.
I have no crystal ball, but considering the events upcoming on Election Day, I feel compelled to prognosticate aloud. John McCain and Sarah Palin will be your next president and vice president of the United States of America. And here’s why:
What had been “supply side economics” and the economic school of “rational expectations” is now both an experiment gone bad and a “Ponzi Scheme” exposed.
How can pollsters possibly get it right? Sampling and trend analysis, and picking the correct “target groups” would seem to be impossible efforts, based upon my informal surveys.
This is The End. Not in the way the iconic 70’s rock group The Doors mean it. Not in a “depressing” way, but in another. This is not the beginning of “The End,” but the end of the beginning of a world economic reshuffling.
The People to the government: “A lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part!” Or does it?
What do the president’s speech to the American people on Thursday, and the performance of both the Democratic and Republican candidate at the first presidential debate in Oxford, Mississippi, have in common? Answer: None of them acted with full candor and in a bipartisan way, as advertised.
…With those words, and the threat of bipartisan congressional intervention, you may wish to do exactly that. Any rush to solution is certainly against the best interests of the citizens of the United States of America.
The market psychology of the financial investment world has now changed forever. What had been betting essentially on the fortunes of businesses will at least – for the short term – be replaced by betting on how we suspect the rules of the game will change.
Last Saturday my attention was taken from Tentacle scribing and also from my other compulsion, posting comments to www.FrederickNewsPost.com, by their Ask the Editor feature, “The dark secrets of our political bias,” by Comfort Dorn.
I’m loving the political jokes now: What’s the experience difference between Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama? Answer: Not much when taken in aggregate, but Governor Palin is a better ice hockey player and can shoot straight…
At least the conventions are a stepping-stone along the road to electing a new president, but here we sit, waiting. We wait for a president to solve our problems for us, as is human nature. Surely they will, as their speeches tell us so.
The argument continues: Let’s count the children who are from families that are not paying into Frederick County Public Schools so that we can get our arms around the problem of looming budget deficits.
What does a famous Texas oil baron do to ensure some personal legacy at age 80? He becomes an alternative energy activist, and starts a web site with a link to his own MySpace page, of course!
Seems like chaos rules anymore when analyzing the changing trends in world happenings and trying to make things make sense. Much of it just doesn’t follow, as in non-sequiturs. There are just too many data points now for old method.
When my kids convinced me that computers and the Internet were here to stay, I invested some time, mostly via trial-and-error, to set up a system of my own. Recently I sat back and took stock of what had eventually become the cyber-center of my organizational universe.
Vacationing in Bethany Beach, Delaware, took me past the iconic sub-watch towers, still positioned as they were during World War II, standing guard at the shoreline. These fortified cylindrical monoliths at one time dotted the East Coast from Maine to Florida, protecting our borders from invasion.
Having grown up with guns, little did I know that the politics surrounding them packed more energy than a .44 Magnum “wheel-gun.” Of course, that was when television came in over an antenna, was black and white, and afforded four stations of programming.
In search of straight talk about immigration law reform, happenstance found me at yet another “Maryland Thursday Meeting” in Annapolis. Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center For Immigration Studies (CIS) was the headline speaker.
Last Thursday The Neighborhood Advisory Council (NAC) Area 5 meeting for the residents surrounding the West End of Frederick, known as the “Golden Mile, headlined an appearance by the sheriff of Frederick County, “Chuck” Jenkins.
Once again, awash in too much real news, here is a smorgasbord of the events I witnessed last week. You may call it “Short Takes 2,” as I keep my ears to the ground for The Tentacle and Frederick County.
The loss by heart attack of Meet The Press host Tim Russert, especially after an excellent stress test recently, reminds us of our “unbearable lightness of being” on this earth. Friday the 13th, the date this shocked us, will have new meaning now and forever.
The anecdotal evidence has been building for many months. Now two top men are forced from positions of power in the United States Air Force for convenient reasons. Is our target Iran?
The more that I follow the divisive issues of our day, the more I feel we are in “The Age of Online Animosity.” Righteous indignity is having a field day, and there is far more posturing than productive discourse floating about. This is especially evident on the Internet.
Here are some short takes on happenings and observations from the last few weeks. From a Diversity Festival, to an Air Show, to English as a national language, to the proposal for 2300 new Beazer “green” homes, things are happening at a fast and furious pace!
How does one gage the pain level of rising energy prices on a household budget? When the price at the pump for gas at Sheetz hits $3.79 for unleaded regular, does that do it?
Time to break with your hibernation from the winter blahs, stop getting upset about the politics of Democratic deconstruction and more illegal aliens for a time. Andrews Air Force base, in nearby Prince George’s County offers the best Air Show in the region once a year, and it’s this coming weekend!
It has been said many times over the last week that before we can solve a problem, we first must be able to identify it; and thus get our arms around it. In many instances, by the simple act of stating the outline correctly, one can be drawn to solutions.
Congratulations for being smart enough to be in the United States of America. Everything is free here. And when you run out of money to spend, we’ll give you some of that, too. In Frederick County, if you can’t read this, I’ll bet there will be a sign on a bus in Espanol repeating it soon.
Now that you have been exposed to the various levels of potential hazards hanging over us all like Damocles’ sword in Part 1 on yesterday’s TheTentacle.com, the onus to take action now lies squarely on you.
Your radio or television begins the strange squealing, coded sounds you have heard so often before. “Here we go again” is the first thought that comes to mind. Programming is instantly interrupted. In disbelief, the Emergency Alert System (EAS) continues with “This is NOT a Test!”
I would never pretend to write a biography or obituary for Charlton Heston, and certainly have nothing first hand to offer as does The Tentacle’s Roy Meachum, but I have been affected by his life and his death. And his work.
Enabling legislation passed by our Maryland General Assembly will allow Frederick to use red light cameras for law enforcement. Frederick is now one small step closer to becoming Montgomery County. Your accuser may be “Big Brother” instead of a police officer. Beware the trend.
Survey says: You don’t want to hear it. The 4,000 war-attributed deaths in combat were reported as a “milestone” event last week in our Iraq War. Why did one have to turn to page A-3 in many papers to read the story? Strange, as we are told by President George W. Bush’s administration that this is the defining issue of our day, even in light of the “recession.”
Membership has its rewards! Just ask major credit card providers. Citizenship in America is much the same way. When we “brand” America, in the demographic sense, citizenship should be the upgrade, and it should not be provided with no strings attached!
The media fanfare trumpeted the coming of candidate Barack Obama’s urgent speech on race relations. Surely he could turn the audacious comments of his own Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright to make political hay, or at least defray the intense criticism of him and mitigate the close connection.
Just imagine that – in 10 years or so – you will be reminding yourself of just where you were and what you were doing when Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D., N.Y.) abruptly resigned his sacred office. Not!
Historians contend that “Nero fiddled while Rome burned.” While The Maryland General Assembly is allowing time for debate on key issues such as the protection for “Doo-Wop” singers against copyright infringement, consequential issues like the current illegal immigration disaster fall by the wayside. Do we really want to hold a nationally infamous title as a “Sanctuary State?”
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