The Ravages of Fire and Water

Today is Friday the thirteenth, as someone pointed out.  It’s a mighty unhappy day in two places- - in New Jersey and in Boulder, Colorado.  Now they are calling the deluge of rain to hit northern Colorado as a “thousand year storm”.  They say they got a full year’s worth of rain in just three days and it came down in buckets causing wide spread damage, floating cars away, and impacting Saturday’s athletic events.  They say that a car will get swept away in a tide of water less than two feet deep.  They expended a considerable amount of time covering this on the ABC news.   Obviously this is just another symptom of global warming, which the tea party right takes pride in denying the political reality of.  The boardwalk that had just been finished being rebuilt after Hurricane Sandy has been burned down completely due to a fire of suspicious origen.   They said something about thirty structures going up in flames.  But Rush Limbaugh can’t waste any moment to twist the knife saying that if President Obama doesn’t make a public visit to New Jersey, and offer money, then he’s being politically inconsistent.  Rush Limbaugh called it ‘Not respecting me in the morning” almost as of Obama and Christie were lovers.  Obviously there is a desire to get their hands on the dastardly people that set this fire.   Out heart goes out to all those who regularly used it.  I can’t figure it out.  I guess it’s just another aspect of God’s sick humor. 

Jerry Brown has signed a major minimum wage hike bill, raising the minimum wage in California a full two dollars per hour more than it is now, to ten dollars an hour.  I don’t think it is a good idea because money just doesn’t drop out of nowhere.  We will pay for it in lost jobs and a slowdown in the state economy at a time when it is just starting to get going.  The reason why Jerry Brown has signed this raft of related immigration bills is because the national Congress is doing nothing about this issue, to Jerry changed his mind on the drivers license issue, for instance, and figured he had to be more proactive.  My guess if that Moe Kelly ever gets in legal trouble,  he’s not going to turn down a pro bono offer from a state certified attorney, even if he’s an illegal alien.  Rush Limbaugh has always talked about “the left coast” but anybody can see that this political rift between the Pacific coast and midland America, is growing every day.

There was a nine hour charity event on the sand of Huntington State beach tomorrow from the hours of noon to nine PM, that were going to sell alcohol, by which they hoped to raise an impressive amount of money for a charity.  But the Alcoholic Beverages Comission gave it thumbs down- - and some government officials didn’t want the event to be held at all.  My judgement call on this would have been to go ahead and allow the selling and consumption of alcohol because my instinct is that this will be a well behaved crowd.  Of course people are getting paranoid out there.  In Seattle at the NFL game, they will have ununiformed cops dressed up at ‘49ers fans, like the opposition, as bait to see whether or not they get up.  My question is whether these people have the right to start firing randomly into the crowd should they feel threatened.  Or are cops as inherently not as trustworthy as a southern redneck civilian?  I think it’s a good idea and a lot of teams are adopting a similar policy.   In another story about paranoia for out-of-staters, apparently they have perfected a scientific earthquake warning system that gives you a full minute and are given a verbal message of “the shaking starts in 55 seconds” or whatever, like a Disneyland ride.   I would be less concerned about my own safety than getting various objects out of harm’s way.

We had breaded fish for dinner, and two things were wrong with this fish.  For one thing- - as a strong break from food we’ve been getting that’s too hot to eat- - this fish was between luke-warm and cold.  But also there was too much bread and not enough fish.  We had potatoes au gratin with it, and also squash, with red Jell-O for desert.  I haven’t been inclined to make coffee this evening because I’ve been more hyper lately, almost as if they’ve dropped something from my medication.  I chased Donnie down the hall on the first floor because he’d closed up shop early and got my meds and bologna sandwich.  Jeopardy is on right now.   Janet has been curious about my coffee situation.  I’m glad she’s become so generous by nature she wants to check whether I’m out yet.  And of course by now you know that Dr. Levy did not come this week and Yom Kippur is tomorrow and in fact may be beginning even as we speak since sunset had fallen.   He wants to give us all an excerpt of his new book- - but I’m not sure why I care since basically I don’t like his writing style.  (I like my own much better)

I don’t know what Bob Dylan has been doing these twenty plus years.  All I know is the last time I heard him publicly he was worse than Linda Ronstat claims to be now.  I have never received any news that his cosmic status has changed from Andromeda D.  I don’t know whether he even considers himself a Christian or Jewish at this point.  And I don’t have the vaguest information what his take on all this tea party nonsense is.  The only thing I know is people I’d never suspect have come down with tea-party-itus.

We had Cheerios for breakfast and Bruce was spouting off his usual patter and it was driving Brenda crazy.  I told Bruce he should “tone it down” and then Bruce said something about me.  We finally got two big pancakes and bacon- - and mericle of mericles - - we got two pats of butter to put on them.  That was a treat.  It was Stephanie and then Moe Kelly, and I guess I didn’t start this file till after lunch.  I watched the soap opera.  Mrs Bernardi took the stand and that was a major mistake for the prosecution.  There was absolutely nothing she could contribute to the prosecution’s case, but she did give Justin a foot in the door to ask her about Timmy’s bank pass book.  She just kind of blirted out the truth uncontrollably - - and now the DA has egg on her face.  Nick was asked about his association with Vargis, and there came a point when the judge realized she was just on a fishing expedition.