Low-Back Up-Date

As my friends and correspondents know, I have been plagued for the best part of the last five-10 years with pretty constant, pretty significant discomfort in my lower back and extremities. Enough that, finally I undertook to seek some relief. So, after the diagnostic preliminaries--x-rays, MRIs, ultra-sounds, etc--I presented myself at the Spine and Pain Clinic for treatment.

The discomfort has been considerable, enough to interfere with anything like a "normal" life--I shall not claim my infirmity has caused me "pain," as women who've endured childbirth scoff at such claims from/by men; but for duration and duress, I am pretty sure it qualifies as AT LEAST "severe discomfort." I was unable to stand for more than about 10 minutes, or walk for more than about 100 yards without crippling, simultaneous numbness and bone-deep aching in my hips the effected spots would ease my uncomfortableness.

So, on Monday, a pal drove me to the clinic (on Dr's instructions) where the nice people went through the same questionnaire for the third or fourth time, then laid me down (under a machine that in my mind's eye resembled the infamous Harrow, oif Kafka's "Penal Colony"), gave me an epidural, and then proceeded to shoot the interstices between my vertebrae full of a steroid called Kenalog http://www.webmd.com/drugs/2/drug-9275/kenalog-injection/details).

The resu8lts have been startling.

I do not know whether the effect is "placebo," from the mere attention paid to my aching back, but after yesterday's injections, I found I am able to move the next morning with FAR more ease, and FAR less discomfort, far less stiffness (and with far fewer, and far less voluble grunts and groans) than at any time in the past five years, at least. I could/can sit and stand without theatrical expostulations and/or gyrations.

Since mobility was the main issue, the first day after the treatment, I went to make groceries at the local supermarket (Smiths/Kroger) as a sort of first venture/foray. However, for me, the key situation will be presented the next time I go to Costco, for dog food/treats, whisky, beer, and breakfast treats. Until this week, I had been unable to consider fully traversing the acreage of the local store without planning necessary, recuperative breaks. I now think there's a chance I can navigate the whole place without discomfort! Whether or not I can once again lift a 35-lb bag of kibble will be the acid test. The Smiths store is about a third the size of Costo, whither I must go for prescriptions, whisky and dog food/goodies--though not THIS week.

The results were encouraging. The absence of discomfort in my back was constant, but the hip-thing was still evident--though not immediately, as hitherto. Instead, it began only when I was standing (a long time) in the check-out line AFTER fully 40 minutes on my feet.

I'm delighted!

The magical substance that was introduced into the interstices between my vertebrae on Monday morning, by a machine I had visualized as something akin to Kafka's Harrow, was a formula called Kenalog. My vet sez they use the veterinary analog, "Vetalog," on critters like horses. I don't yet feel frisky, but we'll see...

I do not yet have the faintest inkling of the duration of this relief. I have a follow-up appointment in a month. So far, I am thrilled with the amount of relief I have so far experienced, though I am still wary that the hip-nerve-numbness thing will be less satisfactorily resolved, on current evidence. It is definitely diminished. I was able to stand at the sink and wash about four days of dishes without having to take a break, though not without discomfort entirely...

Sitting and standing are significantly easier, and involve far less oral expostulation, huffing and/or groaning, which is terrific, since those are the two things I do the most of. 

So far, I'd have to pronounce the procedure a limited, but definitely encouraging success.

Tom & Jerry Party

The holidays always remind me of my grand-parents in Santa Fe hosting their annual Holiday Tom&Jerry Party, an affair that was much enjoyed and anticipated for many years, from 1946 onward. 

My memory of it is vivid, though I was quite young at the time of the only one I ever witnessed. In fact that might have BEEN the last one, though I'm uncertain of the year. 

It was before Camino del Monte Sol was paved. I remember that because it was my "job" that evening to greet the arriving folks in their party finery at the end of the drive-way. There, earlier in the day, my Dad and his Dad had set a pathway of pine 2x12 planks down atop the semi-frozen caliche mud upon which the guests would debark from cars. It was my job to slosh along through the frozen and freezing muck where woman in heels might have something upon which to steady herself and NOT plunge into the icy goo. 

"Gramps" (whom all knew as "Thar", short for Lothar--ironically a contraction of Lothario) passed the next year, in the Spring.

Thirty years later, while closing down the house in preparation to sell it, after "Honey"--my grandmother--went on to her reward, we discovered a stash of four gallon jugs full of already-blended rum & brandy mix. It had apparentlly been there since the last party, in 54 or 55.

It was still potent AND potable...Each of the kids got a jug..

Here's the recipe for Tom & Jerry cocktails:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/180917/tom-and-jerry-batter/

• Spoiil-sport alert:
  This recipe contains raw eggs. We recommend that pregnant women, young children, the elderly, and the infirm do not consume raw eggs. Learn more about egg safety from our article, Making Your Eggs Safe. Making Your Eggs Safe http://allrecipes.com/HowTo/Making-Your-Eggs-Safe/Detail.aspx

.

Andrew Konopak is Belcore, in "The Elixir of Love"

Act One: Act 2:

Woody'z Wurdz of Wizdom...

DR. WOODY'S DROLL DICHOS & HOMEY HOMILIES 

• "Tweet" and "Twitter": Last gasps of cultural canaries in this hyper-mediated "coal-mine."
• A 'gentleman' should be known by the quality of his intoxicants and his generosity with them.
• A 9-letter word meaning "Thinking 'Everyone's out to get me. '" 'Paranoiac? "No,"Observant."
• A MINIMUM wage that is NOT also a LIVING wage is makes a mockery of "working for a living."
• A burning flag injures no one who is not wrapped in it.
• Age inflicts the subtlest injuries.
• Agnosticism: A conviction that arguing over the 'existence' of 'gods' is only idol speculation...
• Algebra is the grammar of calculus; calculus is the language of "the modern World."
• Allowing White people to "define" racism in Murka is like letting priests define pederasty.
• Atheism is a "religion" the same way "Off" is a TV channel.
• Belief is redundant in the presence of sufficient evidence.
• Causation in human affairs is ALWAYS retrospective.
• Celebrities are known for BEING known, not for WHAT they know.
• Childless: at least that's ONE mess I won't leave behind.
• Civility is the shit-soaked ball-gag the powerful force onto the People to silence their rage.
• Class war only occurs when the workers fight back
• Correlation is not causality, but it is close enough for schadenfreude,
• Credit cards are nothing so much as renewable instruments of indenture.
• Depressions are only really bad for 98-99% of folks. The rest do okay.
• Dogs read languages most humans don't know we are speaking.
• Do not automatically impute to 'stupidity' what can equally well be explained by 'malice.'
• Do you have the sense that it's already been as good as it's gonna get?
• Don't expect to be treated nicely by people to whose faith you are a living rebuke.
• Economics is the scientific application of high-level maths to the job of making the Rulers look good.
• Everybody's got 'baggage'. What matters is how and what you pack.
• Faith is NOT an automatic dispensation from the requirementrs of reason and logic.
• Free will (#1) is a handy myth by which the Owners can blame the Losers for their own fate and make the Losers accept the verdict.
• Free will (#2) is a metaphorical trap by which the Oners/Owners persuade the powerless to blame themselves for their own oppression.
• Freedom in any civilization is measured by the distance between the Church and the State.
• Freedom isn't free; so quitcher bitchin', and pay your fucking taxes...
• Folks who now blame vaccines for their children's infirmities once blamed witches for still-born calves.
• Grafitti is the art of "self-inscryption."
• Great wealth is never "innocent."
• Grown-ups don't expect "credit" for doing the right thing, or for NOT doing the wrong one.
• Hope is emotional morphine. It doesn't relieve pain, it anulls anxiety about it.
• How can one trust ordinary citizens to be 'responsible gun owners' when so overwhelmingly MANY of them are not even 'responsible citizens?'
• Humanity: A cosmic experiment, testing if Life can survive self-consciousness. The Null Hypothesis appears safe.
• I always scored "high" on drug tests...
• I believe in higher powers; they're called "exponents."
• I bid you all peaceful slumbers--but if not, then poor memory...
• I find the most vitriolic critics of lawyers usually have NOT been "defendants."
• I never lost a job; I knew where every damn one of 'em was the day they let me go...
• I'll believe you don't solve problems by throwing money at them when people with money stop throwing it at their problems.
• I've not got much use for those who gotta have "God" to be good.
• If I know your religious beliefs, and I haven't asked you about'em, you've said too much.
• If it's my weed, we're on my schedule; if it's yours, I'm flexible.
• If men were conditioned from birth to autofellate, they'd never have to leave the house; there'd be world peace in a generation...
• If religious people were susceptible to reason, they wouldn't BE religious people.
• If the fascist boot ain't on yer neck, it might be cuz it's on yer foot.
• If you can be trusted with a gun, you can be trusted with a joint.
• If you get better with age, I must SURELY be approaching "splendid" by now.
• In a dog's eyes, there's no such thing as "size."
• In principle, there are a gazillion explanations for "things" that DON'T require "god," or "divine will" and only one that does. I like the odds.
• In the "real" world, nobody cares HOW you win, only THAT you do...
• In the Corporate State, corporate media are State Media.
• Irony is incomprehensible to the true believer.
• Is "freedom" an intellectual/emotional antidote--the speculative antivenin--to the snake-bite certainty of determinism?
• It is often easier an more effective to beg forgiveness than to ask permission.
• It's hard to quit being an asshole, because it requires admitting you were an asshole to begin with.
• It's your pain. Nobody gets to tell you what hurts, how much or what helps.
• Law functions best to insulate the Rulers from the insolence of the unruly.
• Life is so rich, so variegated, so fecund that I find it unlikely that it is rare.
• Life's an existential tautology: It's only purpose is to "be."
• Life's too short to drink cheap Scotch,
• Men seldom realize they're in the shit til it closes over them.
• Men who weep at tragedy are "compassionate"; a weeping woman is "weak."
• Metaphor: The art of calling something what it is not, and being understood.
• NOTHING of which humans are capable has NOT at some time been both a sin and a sacrament.
• No 'quiet desperation.' Not here; here, the despair is LOUD and RUDE.
• No language is either "inferior" or "superior." None is "better" nor "worse." Each one uniquely conveys the conditions its speakers require it to describe.
• No people is humane or civilized which sells its victims to the highest bidder.
• No reliable CorpoRat sycophant, of which ever "party," ever left Congress broke.
• Nobody gets religion like a slut gone "good."
• Nobody's ever too old to be an orphan.
• One is only as 'free" as one is wealthy. 
• One may be honestly mistaken; but upon learning what is true, one must thereafter cease to be either 1) mistaken or 2) honest.
• One may safely ignore those who loudly or proudly proclaim their own sanctity or enlightenment.
• One seldom mutters imprecations when drunk that one does NOT think when sober.
• One thing "faith" makes possible: ENDLESS self-deception!
• One thing about being a solipsist is, you're never really alone.
• Optimism is the secular equivalent of "faith."
• People who mock lawyers mostly have never been defendants.
• Religion is how folks who need 'purpose' invent it.
• Religion is the safest grift: Nobody can say "God" didn't "say" what you say "He said."
• Sarcasm: For when it's really NOT worth prison.
• Sex is just sex. All the rest is adjectives.
• Speed kills. Weed chills.
• Television: Electronic thorazine for an irritable polis.
• That I am not surprised does not mean I am not outraged.
• The "positive thinking" and "self-reliance" rhetoric is a tool the Bosses use to blame the proles for failing to overcome the hurdles, pitfalls, and obstacles the Owners set before them.
• The "sin" at the root of all "religious" crimes is "thought."
• The Bosses don't have to control what you think as long as they control what you think about, and how you think about it."
• The Difference? Drunks run stop-signs; stoners wait for 'em to turn green.
• The Rich make "choices": Porsche or Jag;the poor make "decisions": Food or rent.
• The Secret of Life: It's doable, once you quit expecting it not to suck.
• The biggest difference between "flying" and "falling" is in the landing.
• The epitome of human hubris is the frantic search for the cure for death.
• The greatest privilege the privileged enjoy is the privilege of pretending they aren't privileged.
• The more knowledge there is, the less "miraculous" the Universe seems, but the MORE astonishing.
• The older I get, the better I used to be.
• The worst thing about having a good education is that it won't let you forget.
• The person who says money can't buy happiness probably doesn't know where to shop.
• There CANNOT be a meaningful political "democracy" amid a totalitarian economy.
• There is no such thing as an "outside" joke.
• There's nothing in the 'worst' of us that isn't in ALL of us.
• They say, you can't cheat an honest man. Don't belive it. You can.
• Thinking: What we call the process of turning feelings into words.
• Treat your 'faith' like your dick: Don't shove it in somebody's face unless they ask...
• United, we bargain; divided, we beg.
• Usurpers are endlessly inventive in "defense" of the stolen.
• We're all gonna go sometime. There is no law that says it's gotta be awful. 
• What Coprophagy is to nutrition, so exactly is Ayn Rand to intellect.
• What we detest most in ourselves, infallibly we detect immediately in others.
• What you see depends not on what you're looking at, but what you're looking for.
• What's the loneliest waterway in the world? Bayou Selphe...
• When in doubt, you're probably right.
• When you have nothing, you have nothing to lose. But if you have ANYTHING,m then you have EVERYTHING to lose.
• Who can convince you to believe the impossible can induce you to do the unthinkable.
• Who sees fraud in every program for the poor only attests to their own avarice and sloth. 
• Who would be both safe and free/Asks what ne'er was nor e'er can be.
• Without deadlines, I'd have had far fewer headlines.
• Wolf pups snapping at one anothers' heels aren't simply "playing," they're PRACTICING.
• You are NOT "What you eat." You are what you don't excrete.
• You can't sell your soul and then pretend you still have one.
• You do not "know" what you cannot "say."
• You don't have be very smart to confuse the truly stupid.
• You get what you'll settle for.

Fuckerberg's Revenge

I am going through withdrawal.

Facebook, through means and for reasons I have not fathomed, has removed me, and erased all prior trace of my existence.

A non-person.

Formerly, due to physical infirmities which substantially impair my mobility, "Dr. Woody" / "Yer ol'  perfesser" was accustomed to spending 8-10 hours daily interpreting the transient phenomena--the "passing parade"-- and remarking upon it. It was almost my only pleasure: Without daily doses of the exquisite schadenfreude, that I have hardly any 'freude' at all, since Sunday. The travails of such human refuse as the "diddling" Duggars, and their toppling from the precipice of celebrity into the mire of snickering, knowing, leering, lurid supposition was ths sort of thing I lived for and do still. Without Fuckerberg's folly where can I turn?

I like to think that I am/was impartially disgusted by and universally dismissive of stupidity where EVER I have found it.

I intend to remain as much so as my time and resources permit, but for the time being, it will probably have to be conducted from my blog-pages.

I therefor invite any and all of my F-book comerades, commentators, and correspondents to join me here, and help me persist in my avocation of obloquizing and calumnizing the deserving, and trying to rationally confront and repel the raging ignorance and bloody chaos all around us.

SoCal Sojourn

Onomatopoeia ALERT!
Yer ol' perfesser's freshly returned from a rail journey (to Los Angeles), the first one in perhaps as many as 30 years, with a sad report: "Clickety-clack" is DEAD!"
No more "Dodes-Kaden."
No, really.
Trains now pass almost silently over the rails with no more hullaballoo than the drumming of fingers on a desk, from within,
It's because in former days rails were laid in 16-20' sections, hammered into place with spikes. THose days, like so much else, have passed; rails now are carried in lengths up to several hundred yards on linked rail-cars which pay out the rails in long, continuous sections onto concrete ties. The section are then welded, in place, by thermite reactions.
I travelled west on a standard coach seat which I am not well-enough padded in the nether regions to again endure; returned in a compartment, which is FAR the preferable alternative, albeit at about three times the price: $70 (coach) v. $230 (sleeper--though the meals are covered).
However, there in one's lonely splendor, one is spared the idiotic drivel and moronic byplay of the proles, drones, and yokels maintaining contact with their primary identity groups on their "smart phones," and their noisy, banal, interpersonal prattle.
BTW: I have no idea how often the Bill of Fare in the dining car is changed, but it's not often enough. Selections are few, are not particularly appetizing, and are not inexpensive, either. I had the chicken going out. On the way back I had the steak. There was also a pasta dish. Not an inspiring selection.
(Aside: Once, when coming to New Mexico for Christmas with my Dad's parents on the Super Chief from Chicago, on the way UP Raton Pass, we were side-tracked for a train a train coming down, and several of the kitchen staff detrained long enough to scramble down to a stream below, to catch a few fresh trout for dinner. That was no later than 1955.)
But I would travel by train again, long before I'd subject myself to the tender mercies of the TSA at airports.
(Another--and final--Aside, Silk Purse/Sow's Ear Dept:  I may have inadvertently stumbled on a way to defeat drug dogs--spill scotch inside your luggage where you're toting your (small amounts) of contraband. The residual aroma apparently camouflages the faint odors of weed which might escape yer little stash.
How I know?
It "worked" for me.
I had brought a (sterling silver) flask with me into which I had decanted the last remnants of a bottle of Glen Morangie (18 yrs--thanks again, David Williams), with the eye to having a drink or two en route. However, on my way to Union Station (LA), foor my return trip, I was compelled to come to an abrupt stop, which tipped over the bag in which I was carrying the flask. The stopper wasn't tight enough--the cork was worn--and much of the remaining contents leaked onto the two Harper's Magazines between which I had squeezed the flask to forestall just such a disaster--for naught, because the contents of the flask had soaked into the magazines.
I bemoaned this briefly until, as I was awaiting the train in the AMTRAK lounge in LA, a detachment of cops came through the lounge with a drug-dog. I held my breath as unobtrusively as possible, while the dog passed by my dunnage without a pause. The same casual attitude attended the further three passes the crew made on the platform and through the train between LA and Fullerton--whereafter I never saw them again.)
Whew.
The purpose of the trip I shall address in my next post.

Play BALL! Closing and Opening Day

Take me out to a ball-park!
There is a sort of poetic cyclicity to the NCAA Div 1, hoops season ending this year on Opening Day of the Major League Baseball season. Only 161 games to go til the Play-Offs!Baseball is my first love, the first sport I "played" on a real team: The first at which I fancied I might be good.
"Little League."
I shall never forget the smell of the "uniform" t-shirts with the sponsor's name spelled across the front. I guess it was not much unlike the smell of the wood alcohol from the ditto pages they fed us in school, but outside, on the field, it was different. I didn't take the thing off for the first week I had it. And the team cap! Worn just so, with the brim boxed and bent just so...sooo cool.
I was an outfielder. I have a canine gene and love to chase fly balls. I was quick of foot. and had a good eye for judging 'em, and I didn't usually drop any, and I had a strong (though erratic) arm.
I got a mitt when I was about seven, I guess. There was nothing but sandlot ball, before LL (chronologically) in my youth, in the early 50s.
Played a LOT of "catch" in the street. There was a park (Empett's Field!) with a primitive diamond not far from home, near the elementary school I attended. There, all the kids of a certain age--mebbe 8 to 10 or 11--in the neighborhood would gather, choose up sides, and play, weekends all day, and every day after school until it snowed; and in spring as soon as the snow melted and the ground firmed up, we were back.
This was in Cleveland, but I was born in Chicago--both baseball towns. I, however, was an ostentatious WhiteSox fan when we lived in Cleve-town, But my Dad did get us tickets to Game 3 of the '54 Series. Vic Wertz homered. The Giants swept.
My own baseball dreams were abruptly ended in the summer I was 12. That was when kids started firing curveballs around. This was the 50s, before batting helmets. I got beaned by a nasty kid a year older named Tommy Fleming that summer, and my competitive diamond days were done.
I played a little slow-pitch soft-ball over the years...on a bar-team in Renton with my housemate, who was 'the eternal gamer.' I can't move well enough these days to serve as a base.
But I love to watch it, both live and on the screen.
I go to one or two "Topes" games a year. They're the Triple A franchise club, nowadays for the Rockies, I think; usta be a Dodger club. I saw all the great Dodgers of the 70s when they played in Albuquerque for the "Dukes." That incredible infield: Garvey, Sachs, Russell, and Cey. Lasorda managed a couple of years, too. There was a drive-in, parking  lot on the bluff above the right-field wall where you could park and watch the game.
I usta collect ballparks in my conference attending days, (including Olympique Park in Montreal when there was still a team there). Got up to around 20, all told--not Camden Yard or the new park in Cleveland, either. I sold beer during Mariners games at the old Kingdome.
It's the springtime air, I can hear the smack of the ball on leather, the 'pock' of the bat, the cheers of the crowd...
That is to say, it's springtime, and I am ready to "Play Ball!"

In Memoriam: To All the Good Dogs Who Have Gone On...

There is no direct, immediate stimulus for this post other than I find occasion to share it with other, bereft canine companions. I cannot read it aloud without my voice cracking,  and tears welling up in my eyes, though I've read it dozens of times. I find it consoling that my own sentiments are so accurately reflected.

The House Dog’s Grave (Robinson Jeffers)
(Haig, an English bulldog)

I’ve changed my ways a little; I cannot now
Run with you in the evenings along the shore,
Except in a kind of dream; and you, if you dream a moment,
You see me there.

So leave awhile the paw-marks on the front door
Where I used to scratch to go out or in,
And you’d soon open; leave on the kitchen floor
The marks of my drinking-pan.

I cannot lie by your fire as I used to do
On the warm stone,
Nor at the foot of your bed; no, all the nights through
I lie alone.

But your kind thought has laid me less than six feet
Outside your window where firelight so often plays,
And where you sit to read- and I fear often grieving for me-
Every night your lamplight lies on my place.

You, man and woman, live so long, it is hard
To think of you ever dying.
A little dog would get tired, living so long.
I hope that when you are lying

 Under the ground like me your lives will appear
As good and joyful as mine.
No, dears, that’s too much hope: you are not so well cared for
As I have been.

And never have known the passionate undivided
Fidelities that I knew.
Your minds are perhaps too active, too many-sided….
But to me you were true.

You were never masters, but friends. I was your friend.
I loved you well, and was loved. Deep love endures
To the end and far past the end. If this is my end,
I am not lonely. I am not afraid. I am still yours.

Sunday Sermonette: Violence & Religion

In yer ol' perfesser's opinion, religion is a mass infatuation with delusion.
It has NOT 'caused" violence among humans.
It has merely become the MOST convenient excuse for it.
It should be recalled that, through our known history, we humans are not "peaceful."
At best, they/we are ambivalent; at worst, murderously hostile, to other members of our species to whoim we do not happen to be related.
This condition, this predisposition toward violence, clearly PRECEDED the establishment of "religion"-- though possibly by not a very long time, in evolutionary terms..
The matter of "Religion/"God", because it typically has--by DEFINITION--no concrete referent in "reality," can be disputed as endlessly and as bloodily as desired.
Believers also typically assert certain privileges on the basis of their faith.
Of course, this is philosophically unwarranted and unacceptable as a practical matter, and this does occasionally lead to social friction, which COULD stimulate violence.
So, I again propose the following bargain which, I know many faithless/godless folks would welcome and accept immediately.
Here it is:
I promise never again to inveigh against, or criticize, or deplore, or revile, or otherwise calumniate or publicly deprecate ANY god-blighted bible-babbler for their idiotic delusions, stupid rituals and ignorance, ever again!
...If, and ONLY if...
Those same god-bothered 'faithful' will refrain, forever, from bringing their holy baggage into the public sphere, and if they will never again demand public prayer to their 'gods'; if they will forswear trying to use their "god" to seek advantages or privileges or entitlements NOT available to those NOT proclaiming their particular brand of theosophic allegiance...
I haven't had any takers.
Wonder why?
I'll be (metaphorically) at the beach if you want me...

Just sayin...

The Managerial "Ham Sandwich"

I received this in response to a comment I posted on someone's Fbook page.

Mr. Konopak, I sincerely respect your formidable intellect. I always read your posts when I am on Facebook, and very often your comments. You, as well as a notable couple of your friends on this social media site, are, I think, (and your grossness aside,) the most brilliant people, especially in political matters, that one could possibly ever have the good fortune to know. But when you go out of your way to so rudely correct anyone who disagrees with you it seems like a kind of verbal bullying. And I disagree, but would do so in a civil manner. I simply think we can accomplish more, in an exchange of ideas that way. And for me, that is what FB is about. I think your relentless cynicism is again and again a defense of the current state and a the very reason things do not change. Cynicism, like anger, seems to me to be a form of cowardice. (As does attacking people online, as you can not face-to-face, which is why it is so prevalent,) And I have a right to my opinion, whether you like it or not. But no matter what you say to me, I will still post whatever I like, Bernie Sanders and others. (At least he is out there doing something, not just sitting at a computer, popping off a shot at every head that sticks up.) I have been threatened with beating, by someone who could easily find me and do so, on this site for my political views, and I am still here. So if you disagree with me, fine, but I hope you use your intellect, and not a viscous attempt at force. Lord knows, I am not in your league intellectually. Would that I were.

I replied:

^^^Whatever...I have never treated you disrespectfully, that I know of. if I have, or you have taken offense, I apologize. As to my cynicism, I am a 69-year-old veteran of BOTH the US military and the counter-culture. I have paid ALL my dues, and if by doing so I have lost most respect for "ordinary" people, it is both unfair and dishonest to label me a coward. I have faced the police, I have face the bared bayonets of the National Guard, I've been to war. When your CV contains those details, I shall acknowledge your right to describe me so disrespectfully.

As it was her page, I politely refrained from my normal profanity. The first message is, however, a textbook sample of the 'ham sandwich" approach to employee discipline. It's in the books; handbooks and shit.... It is. No, really, I've seen it... First you butter up the mark, flatter 'em. Then you drop the hammer. Then you end with a little more flattery and some self-disparagement: "that hurt me more than it did you." Was it good for you, too?

"Communications"and business majors write like that...

My Little Town: Still-life, circa 1970

Image courtesy of "Old Santa Fe"an, Tomas Mas...

My Home Town: Santa Fe, circa 1955.

The view is westward, down San Francisco Street. The story goes (not in this film) that the man who killed Trotsky, Ramon Mercader, prepared for the deed in a room he rented above the pharmacy, visible in the foreground.
http://www.ibtimes.com/forgotten-assassin-ramon-mercader-man-who-murdered-leon-trotsky-1091298

My Neck o'the Woods, circa 1940...

My Grand-parents' Santa Fe and environs...

M-M-My G-G-Generation

"We" as in the "Boomers?"  "We trampled...tanked and trashed," it all, you mean?

Woody sez: Fuck you!~

Boomers--born 1945-61--were the ones lucky enough to have been "born at the right time." And it's true: Nobody else--no other cohort in history--has had access to all the material advantages, opportunities, technological devices, scientific advances, economic developments, etc., in which we were whelped, weaned and grew to adulthood.

But it's not like "we" wasted "our" opportunities. And if we squandered resources, it was because, at least in part, because no one knew ANY BETTER...

It was sheer luck to have been born then. I claim no inherent value nor virtue from it. But neither to I accept "blame" for  my good fortune. I think I have contributed in proportion to my bounty.

The system into which we were born was there before us, and it will survive us, if possibly only for a handful of decades. Both "Second Nature" AND "First nature" were more fragile than they looked. But if yer lookin' to heap PERSONAL responsibility on me for the accident of my birth: BITE ME!

Re, Boomer's' contributions: Apart from the trans-generational struggle of the black community for civil rights, Boomers--the student/counter-culture movement of the 60s and 70s-- were the ONLY cohort in the last 70 years to mount a coherent, albeit somewhat disjointed, national, cultural movement FOR peace, justice, and equality.

So, yeah. BITE ME!