It’s All Newton’s Fault

I’m not talking about Sir Isaac Newton. I’m referring to Newton Minow, an American who was Director of the FCC during the Kennedy Era.  In 1961, he declared television to be a vast wasteland.  This irritated many within the industry, to the point that, the SS Minnow that washed up on Gilligan’s Island was named after him.

The cost of accessing this wasteland by cable continued to increase. About 12 years ago, we dumped cable, and went with satellite TV.  Satellite rates soon followed Cable rates.  Two years ago, when the wife’s mobility problems meant that she had trouble going down to the basement rec room to watch TV, we cut the satellite cable also.

Almost 50 years of marriage means that we have little new to talk about, so we relied on books to fill the excess time. OH!  WOW!  Last year’s list of 51 books, has increased this year to 57.

Jim Wheeler’s question about rereading books had me going back to reread some old Sci-Fi. I have quite an interest in time travel and temporal paradoxes. Note toward the bottom of the reread section, the time travel group.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Continuing with the time travel theme, I recently bought and read

I also purchased Book II, and will read it this year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                      

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a couple from an up and coming author – not published yet, but look forward to them.
He’s Will Greany.

Blue On Blue

Domestic

  This one came highly recommended by BrainRants.

  Not what was promised.  Quite disappointing!

Now that you’ve spent all that time lookin’ at the pretty pitchurs, you won’t have time fer yer own readin’.  Sorry!

 

Roast Lame Duck

In a comment about my recent, less-than-glowing satire about the boy King Tut Justin Trudeau, Canada’s second-youngest Prime Minister, BrainRants, always the instigator, challenged me to skewer U.S. President Obama next.  That’s as hard as trying to nail Jell-O to a tree.  As Gertrude Stein said, “There is no There, There!”  I’m going to try to roast him, even though he looks like he’s already lightly roasted.

Here is a view of Obama’s reign Presidency, from one Canadian Curmudgeon’s point of view.  It has been a most cynical political presentation, not necessarily from Obama, who may actually believe the hype, but by his backers and controllers.  Oops, I almost said ‘owners.’

I was particularly unimpressed with both the early ‘Birther’ scandal, and then, following it, the ‘His second name is Hussein.  Is he really a Muslim?’, both of which seemed designed to keep him in the public eye,  as a victim of Big Business and those nasty, entitled, entrenched Republicans.

His handlers offered him up as a ‘Black President,’ with the motto, ‘Change.’ The more things change, the more they stay the same.  Obama has been about as exciting as tapioca pudding – and almost as white.

Even the idiot-child, George W. Bush, as POTUS – The Next Generation, America’s equivalent to Canada’s ski-bum, yoga instructor Trudeau, could be counted on for something memorable whenever Dick Cheney let go of the marionette strings.

I think Georgie Malaprop has been misunderestimated. He will always be remembered for comedy gems like, “The French don’t even have a word for entrepreneur.”, and his aircraft-carrier comedy show, titled “Mission Accomplished’ will go down in the annals of humor.

Obama will be remembered for…. Sorry, I dozed off.  He doesn’t have the presence and rememberability of even the least of the Kardashians.

Mr. ‘Sunny Ways’, Sonny Trudeau has been castigated for taking selfies at International Meetings, when he should have been practicing Statecraft. Obama just seems to slouch and stump around the White House, hoping that, when it’s all over, he can get a free copy of the official photographer’s Photo-Ops book, when he has to go back and get a real job, and earn his own money.

Obama has been like the black hole of politics. No matter how much heat or light was shined on him, none of it seemed to escape his event horizon and reflect back upon the public.  His P.R. handlers have had to rely a lot on the females of the family. ‘Here’s Michelle, planting and tending a Victory Garden.’ Probably growing poke salad and collard greens, and trying to remember how to make Soul Food.

Or one of his two terminally-cute daughters – usually Malia, the elder. Here she is, out on her first date, where social propriety and birth control are guaranteed by Secret Service Glocks.  Then there’s the story of how she’s going to take a bridge year between High School and college, to do some studying, because she failed Secondary Geography. “Daddy, where’s Kenya?”

Even with the good possibility that his replacement as President will be either Broomhilda the Witch, or Hagar the Horrible, it doesn’t seem to indicate that a lot of people will miss him when he’s gone. Most of them, intentionally or not, have missed him while he was in office.