This ‘n That

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I haven’t written much in a couple of days.  I’ve been tired and fighting the aches and pains of a weather change, and just didn’t feel well.  Too, I’m not sure what to write about.   I have some ideas, but they all seem to take research I haven’t had time for.

I was thinking that this upcoming election for US Congress people isn’t really going to change things as much as a lot of people are hyping about, no matter who actually “wins.”   There is talk that if the Republicans win control of the Senate, they will enact sweeping legislation.   But that ignores some harsh realities.  As the Republicans have filibustered almost everything that the Senate has actually tried to get accomplished the last few years, despite the Democrats having the majority, they haven’t managed to get much done.  And the Republicans seem to think that if they win a bare majority such as the Democrats have had, that things will be different  Do they honestly believe the Democrats won’t turn about and stop them the same way?  Never mind that anything they pass will have to be signed by the President.  And I don’t believe President Obama is going to sign any sweeping tax cuts, changes to Medicare or Social Security, or any of a host of other pet Republican/Teabagger wet dreams.   And they certainly still won’t have the votes to pass anything over a presidential veto.  So, despite the dire claims that the country will be subject to sweeping changes foisted on the 99% by the Republicans indebted to the Koch Bros and other special interests, I just don’t see it happening.   A lot of sturm und drang for nothing.  A tempest in a teapot.

I have also been thinking about the Constitution and the 2nd Amendment. There is so much tension around the issues of weapons and whose hands can hold weapons in this country, that I wonder if it isn’t time to clarify things, perhaps by repealing or amending the 2nd amendment.  A lot of people seem to think the Constitution is inviolate and unchanging, but that’s simply not true.  Since the original Constitution and the first 10 amendments, the Bill of Rights, were adopted, there have been 16 other amendments to the Constitution passed and ratified.  Several other amendments have been proposed, some even passed, but so far have not been adopted, usually because of failure to gain ratification by 37 states, the last hurdle for an amendment to clear before being added to the Constitution.  The Constitution is not a religious text handed down by the anointed.  It is not sacrosanct or sacred.  It can be changed if needed.  And it may be time to change the 2nd amendment.  Maybe it’s time to say not every nut case in the country has the right to own a weapon.

Have been contacted by two ladies on an internet dating site.  One is about 10 years older than I am, and frankly extremely heavy.  (The medical term is morbidly obese.)   Frankly, I don’t want to date someone who is 70 and overweight.  But how do I turn her down politely?  Do I just not respond to her message?   I’m not sure the other lady is really what I’m looking for either.  I may go ahead and meet her for coffee.  We’ll see.

It’s early, early Monday morning.   My “Sunday night” off.  I slept very little earlier, and I think that I’m going to go ahead and see about getting some sleep now.

Another Day Older

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Trying something new for something to eat tonight.   Sliced some cabbage into 1/2-inch to 3/4-inch thick slices, drizzled them with extra-virgin olive oil, seasoned with seasoning salt and black pepper, and topped with 1/4-inch slices of sweet yellow onions, wrapped in foil, and put in the toaster oven at 350 degrees.

We’ll see how it turns out.

I’ve been pretty broke lately.   Got behind on my rent and can’t seem to get caught back up.   I’m not getting any further behind on that, but there are other things that crop up.  My annual $3000 deductible on my health insurance.   Haven’t bought any new clothes in so long that most of the shirts I own are out at the elbows, they all have frayed cuffs, stained collars.  There are some things I just plain want, that I can live without but that I’m tired of doing without.  A bedside lamp.  A hair dryer.  Things I’m sure 95% or more of the people who might read this take for granted.  (I had a hair dryer and a lamp, but they got left behind when I moved because I moved from Kansas to Texas with only what I could fit in my 20-year-old Cavalier station wagon on its last long trip.   Yet another story for another time.)

I’m thinking of going to one of those “begging sites.”  You know, you sign up, tell your sad tale and plea for people to donate money to you out of the goodness of their heart.  If nothing else, maybe I can garner enough donations to catch up on my rent.

You know, I’ll have to sit down and think about writing up how it is I came to be in this position.  When did I start losing everything to get to the point I am now?   What could i have done differently?  A large part of this was driven by health issues and some major surgeries; I’ve thought long and hard about a lot of those, and don’t really see much I could have done differently. Today, a large part of my income goes toward health insurance premiums, prescriptions, copays and deductibles.  Bad enough that I’d be poverty stricken without all that.

I came here late tonight to make this web log entry.   So it’s almost time for me to log into work.

Yes, that’s right.  All these money problems and I actually have a job.  I suppose I need to do a blog entry about budgets and how I spend my money and my time.   What obstacles I face to increasing my income through regular means.   For what it’s worth, I’ve got roughly 1200 days until I turn 62, and I have every intention of retiring from my job at that point.  I’m not sure my physical condition will let me keep working much beyond that, and I really hate the idea of just dying in the traces and never having any retirement at all.

Gonna go check on my roasted cabbage and onions!   I should have put some garlic in there, too, shouldn’t I?

This Has GOT TO STOP!

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Whenever anyone says, “It’s one of those days,” or “They said there’d be days like this,” it always seems to carry a negative connotation.   When I was younger, I would actually say that the worst thing that could happen is that I would get up tomorrow and do it all over again exactly the same.   (Long before “Groundhog Day”!  Loved Bill Murray in that, but never cared for Andie McDowell.  Never was attracted to her, and never really felt like she had any chemistry with anyone she was onscreen with.  Oh, well.)

Today was actually just a pretty blah day.   Nothing to mark it in the exception column, good or bad.   I worked,  Slept about 5 hours after work.  Woke up, messed around on Facebook and some of the other ways I spend my time, and now I’m thinking about napping another couple of hours before work, so that I’m not dead tired all night long.  (Like usual.  *sigh*)

Read a great analysis of the situation around the arrest of Danielle Watts, in LA.  This is a case where a black actress was detained and handcuffed for refusing to give her ID to a cop responding to a 911 call about indecent exposure.  I’ve seen I don’t know how many armchair lawyers insisting the cop had “probably cause” to detain her because someone called 911 and said someone was exposing themselves or committing a lewd act.

Now, I have no idea why someone thought this was an “emergency” and called 911, to begin with.  Be that as it may, I don’t know why a patrol car responded to this call.  Common sense says that unless the car was literally on the block where the “crime” was supposedly taking place, by the time they got there, chances were there would be nothing.  And unless law enforcement witnesses the lewd act or exposure themselves, all you have is a complainant saying they did and them saying they didn’t and no way is a DA taking that to a jury.  There’s no grounds for an arrest here.

In point of fact, a 911 call is not probable cause to believe a crime has been committed.  Any fool can call 911 and complain about damned near anything.  And many of them do.  It’s illegal to make a false 911 call, but they happen every single day in every major urban area.   What is especially ridiculous in this case is that the officer rolled up, and without witnessing a crime, proceeded to misinform Ms. Watts that he had the right to demand her ID.  Notwithstanding any question of whether or not California law allows him to do so, how would her ID possibly indicate whether or not she had been involved in a lewd exhibition that he did not witness?  Cop on a fishing trip, who then got out of control, steeped in his own ignorance of the law, and handcuffed her for not showing him her ID and walking away from him, when he had no cause to detain her.

I hope she sues the shit out of them.  I’m sorry for the taxpayers having to foot the bill to pay when it is all said and done, but damn I’m sick of cops that aren’t trained on what they can and cannot legally do. If Sgt. Jim Parker, of LAPD (who incidentally refused to give her his full name when she asked for it so she could make a complaint, which I strongly suspect is against policy), loses his job, I’m sorry.   I kind of hope he only gets a suspension without pay for a month or 6 weeks, and has to take about 50 hours of instruction on how to make a stop and what he is allowed to do during that stop.  If he takes those lessons properly, I’d rather have a trained, educated cop back on the street who knows better than to do this again, than just to get rid of him.

It seems like lately there has just been an epidemic of these incidents of law enforcement hassling black people mostly for being black while sitting, while walking, while carrying a toy, or while kissing a white person in public.   It has GOT TO STOP!

All right.  I’m going to try to get that nap in.  I have to work tonight.