I actually had this particular ramblings just about done until world events came along, that is.  (How’s that for an excuse…lol).  It was complete with an observation or two about Julian Assange.  You know the  guy who was the subject of a world wide manhunt for not wearing a condom. He finally got popped……I really did not intend the pun, but how could I possibly control myself? Since he broke NO LAWS, repeat, he has not broken ANY LAWS, now the powers that be who want to silence him will have to invent charges to keep him locked up for the rest of his life. The railroading, tar and feathering, etc will be both fascinating, and,  if you are anything but a mindless far right stooge, should be quite scary to those of us everywhere who love freedom. Definitely  we will all stay tuned. Without further ado…. below is  what I had written the other day….my take  on  Wikileaks and  Assange.

Well the latest crisis that everyone has their knickers in an uproar about concerns…surprise, surprise, the internet. Wikileaks to be exact. We are hearing the word “traitor” thrown around, mostly by Republican windbags, which is interesting being as Julian Assange is not even a US citizen. And of course the word “terrorist” is being lobbed by  the same pontificating and preening talking  suits and the fawning talking heads pretending to be journalists who do their bidding disseminating propaganda upon their master’s command. “He’s putting American troops at risk,” thunders  the architects of the unnecessary Iraq oil war and our Afghanistan empire building adventure. Really? I did not see anything in those documents resembling,  “ On 11/22/10, delta platoon is going on patrol at 0300 down route 101 in Helmut province.” Did you?  Personally, I think we all enjoy revelations like the one saying  that the  that Muammar Gaddafi  has a  Ukrainian porn slut for a  private nurse.  Where do I go to get a job like that?? And I have not seen or heard about any country going to cut diplomatic ties with us.  This is nothing but gossip, and it was not even secret, just classified. One million Americans had access to it, that’s one out of every 300 could read it anyway! Can you say frame-up? Let me give you my take on what is happening here.

First off, while I do not believe for one moment that Assange is some sort of evil Dr No, neither do I think he deserves the Nobel peace prize either. He’s an easy character to dislike, that’s for sure. He’s a typical computer geek, arrogant and pretty much anti-social.  I don’t believe he raped anyone, much less two girls, he might well have behaved like a drunken asshole around them on occasion.  No, what Assange IS  guilty of is pissing off the entire planet, especially our part of it. Julian Assange, more so than anyone else in history, using the one tool that the people drunk with the arrogance of power cannot control and don’t really understand, the internet, ripped away the phony façade the world swathes itself in order to function the way its sees fit. You know, that bring us endless wars, that part of things. That is his ONLY crime, he has not even broken any American laws.  He did not steal the documents, he simply published them…last time I checked one possible name for that is….Journalism.  If you want to see a poster boy for the phrase ‘trumped up charges’, and ‘witch hunt’, just look at that blonde Aussie.  With that as a backdrop here  is the real danger folk, and its not the color of Putin’s underwear or what  Hillary does at 2 am.

See, the powers that run this planet do not care for our..yes OUR internet one bit. It’s the people’s internet, it belongs to no-one, especially governments. That’s part of the problem the way THEY see it, no “government” controls it. Especially the government of (insert   the country of your choice here). Hell, one of the revelations Wikileaks blew the whistle on is the amount the Chinese have been screwing with Google. Our military killing civilians and covering it up, oh no, we are not supposed to know about that, might upset the surviving natives, ya know. What a crock of shit! No, governments fear the people having power, do you think it’s a coincidence that those here shrieking the loudest about Assange and wikileaks  are the Republicans who march us to war whenever they can??? They cannot do that if all of the dirty laundry, all of their lies and nonsense are paraded out for all to see. So, already there is a bill to make “illegal” what Assange has done. Here is the kicker, lets watch and see what other freedoms are thrown under the bus in this bill to protect the high and mighty from the light of truth.

Call me old fashioned (I’ve been called worse, trust me on this), but I really think that a whole lot of our modern gadgets and assorted electronic gizmo’s leave a whole lot to be desired pertaining  to their real contributions to the quality of our lives. Sometimes it’s  the relatively mundane object that  can become one of life’s simple pleasures, or become one of its irritants. In this case, I’m talking about the umbiquitous  coffee maker.  One of the primary reasons we pay up the wazoo at Starbucks and all the rest of the shops is that they deliver a piping hot cup of coffee. That is something that generally is lacking in the impersonal digital devices that masquerades as today’s home coffee makers. Apparently the desire to make a decent cup of coffee is something to be added to our list of things Americans no longer want to do. But it was not always that way, and its not that way around here either. All you need to do is reach back in the past a bit and morning bliss can be yours.  First, you need to lay your  hands on a Farberware Superfast  coffeemaker. And no, you cannot go to Amazon and get one, nor to Kmart either. See, the new ones are Chinese crap, that’s the problem. The really are not made the way they used to be. You want one of the old ones, like what your Momma used to use way back when. Or maybe your Grandmother. The point is, you want one that was made in the good ol’ USA, it will say “made in Ohio” on the bottom.  I bought mine on Flea Bay…. Craigslist, thrift stores and yard sales will also work well. Remember, do NOT buy it if it does not say “Made in Ohio” on the bottom. Don’t worry about whether or not it works or not, that’s the beauty of this oldie goldie, there is only a little bit that can go wrong with it, unlike the piece of Chinese junk, its easy to fix and parts are readily available.

Like many old things, it’s a bit more effort that the modern replacement, to me, that’s all part of the charm.  Its cool to get up in the morning and whip up a steaming hot cup of coffee with this American classic. This machine is beautifully polished stainless steel.  All the workings are stainless steel as well, you wash out the pot a bit, and then rinse off the components, drying the basket a bit. Then you put a napkin-like,  doily thingy in the bottom of the basket , then put your coffee in. If your like me, you have been grinding your beans while all of this has been going on. The you fill the pot with cold water, not to the top, to a point on the side that  varies day to day, operator to operator.  You do it all by trial and error, this machine is from a time when folks were expected to use their brains a bit. Then you put the steamer stem thought the basket,  lower it all into the pot, and then you sort of twirl it a bit, until it seats in the heating element. Fit the strainer on top, and the lid then snaps in place with a oh, so satisfying,  “clink/snap” You then plug the ancient braided cord…. that will someday shock the crap out of you….into the bottom of the pot, and in a few moment, you will hear this wild racket starting to emanate from the bowls of the machine.  Need I mention that by now, coffee or not, you are nice and awake, this thing doubles as an extra alarm clock. As it roars merrily along, you can see the perking going on via the clear see thru knob on the top of the lid,  and I swear at times the thing shakes. In a few minutes, voila, you will have brewed up  nice sized pot of steaming hot, yes, nice and hot perfectly made pot  of coffee!  No modern piece of crap can make anything like what this ancient wonder can produce for you each and every morning.  The fact that we cannot seem to make anything like this now speaks volumes,  I don’t think I want to ponder the implications about that right now either! Oh, and as for the parts, there is an outfit down in Miami that has anything you would ever need for these.  Besides getting a new  cord, which I really must order one of these days, the only things that can go wrong with it are the heating element and the thermostat. Dead easy to change out. I have new ones stashed away somewhere around here if I ever need them.

What a bummer about Don Meredith!! I remember him from Monday night football like it was yesterday. I was one of the many who discovered the game of Football directly because of the chemistry in the booth between those three. The comments and banter  between Frank Gifford, Howard Cosell and “Dandy Don” Meredith were priceless.  We lost one of those national treasures the other day for sure. On that subject, he would have been singing his signature; “turn out the lights the parties over” somewhere in the second quarter last night, what an asskicking Tom Brady and the rest of the Patriots gave to the Jets! As someone who has had to endure obnoxious Jet ‘fans’ for years in South Florida, I totally enjoyed watching every minute  of it last night!!  New England looks primed and pumped for another Super Bowl run, but a little birdie tells me that its dead last in the NFL  defense, despite what it looked like last night, will get exploited somewhere , sometime in January, by someone, probably  by that certain cold weather team run by that certain bad boy QB,  that plays in a place called Three Rivers Stadium. We shall c………

Lately I have been really trying to cut down on the clutter around here, talk about a lost cause! It would have been easier for Custer to solve his Indian problem, but one has to try, or so they tell me. I have this irritating, aggravating box of 78 Lp’s that I have been dragging around forever now that I am really sick of looking at. Now for those of you will have to Google the subject, these are old record albums, that played at 78 turns a minute. Yes children, there was a time that music did not come out of a computer, off of the internet, we had to carry each few songs around with us. And in the case of 78’s, that could well have been in a horse drawn carriage. These came from my Grandmother, who probably got them from Her mother, etc and etc. And, they are not worth a fucking penny. Literally. I have seen some on ebay that did not sell for a God Damn penny! WTF???? Here’s why: See, everyone of these things, since the beginning of time has been saved. Every friggin’ one of these things has been hung onto by every family across the land. “Bobby, I’m not going to tell you again, get rid of all of those old Superman comics so that there is a place for Grandma’s records”. “But Mom, this one is Superman annual #1.”  “I don’t care what it is, you get rid of that right now and all the rest of them or no movie for you this weekend.” This explains a couple of things, why the records are not worth shit, and why the old comics are worth, well, more than a couple of shits that’s for sure.  Its classic supply and demand and naturally I do not have the pile of vintage comic books, like most everyone else I’m stuck with the pile of records that cannot be played, and who would want to anyway, and cannot be sold, cannot even be given away for Christ’s sake! I am so sick of this raggedy, heavy box I could scream! I used to envy the guy who “died penniless”, he got rid of all of his pennies. This is oh sooo much harder! In fact………if I do figure out a way to get rid of these things I am going to write an eBook on it and sell that!  They are well made and all of that, but I’m sorry, to hell with the Stellar Quartette and the ancient music machine they spun in on!

I don’t mean to sound like a broken record, (they do that you know, one of the many problems with those things….. Lol), but I will be writing much more regularly from now on.  As you might have noticed, there have been some major changes in my site. Among other things, it should give me more opportunity to write on a regular basis more often…that’s the plan anyway. And we know about the best laid ones, don’t we? I am the best lay, but that’s another subjectJ Talk to you again soon, bye for now, Angie

Guns, Hate, Those Who Embrace Both…and The Rest of Us