The big news of the couple of days, of course, is that we had a major 5.1 shallow earthquake centered in La
Habra. The shallowness increases the
intensity of it. And it was definitely
the worst earth-quake I have felt while living here, and I think the worst
earthquake I have felt since Northridge twenty years ago. It felt like a subway was going over our
heads, and that framed picture again fell over, and I think I got it back
together but wisely left it laying down.
There was a major aftershock about a half hour later. We had been watching this Dateline thing
about a murder and trial, that was scheduled to go on for two hours but they
broke for live earthquake coverage. I
continued to watch the coverage till ten after ten when I went to bed. There were damages in various stores like
wine bottles falling off the shelf, and shampoo bottles, and damage at a
super-market in Buena Park even. There
was a major water main break, and several gas line breaks, centered in La
Habra, Brea, and northern Fullerton. But
I actually slept well. There was another
aftershock about two thirty Saturday afternoon that was much shorter in duration. I have been hearing so much in the media lately to "expect the big one to arrive soon, perhaps the next few days". Of course new and full moons put more tension on the planet as anyone who has studied sea tides, knows. This paragraph was added here at eight o clock. Apparently there were versions of "Band on the Run" without "Helen Wheels" on it. But strangely I bought that album within a few days of first having heard tracks from it on the radio, and my copy has 'Helen Wheels". On the contrary Columbia said they would add "Groom Still Waiting At The Alter" on to "Shot of Love" by Dylan by popular demand. Yet my copy LACKS this track though I bought my album years after the thing came out.
The buzz now is that the Affordable Care Act will NOT be extended beyond Monday the 31st for new applications, which have been rising sharply the past few days. But it will only apply to applications already in the pipeline that haven’t been processed yet. On the Chris Matthews show they discussed Sheldon Addelson. Sheldon was actually a long time friend ot Newt Gingrich and not Mitt Romney, and of course Sheldon initially supported Newt because of their friendship- - and “deep down he never liked Romney”. Now Addelson is setting the bar higher and will personally “vet” every Republican candidate, before he blows millions more dollars on a loser. They will be cutting down the number of Primary debates in the Republican from about twenty to about five. The reason, strangely, is because the Democrats were able to snag material from these embarrassing debates to use in their own campaign ads. That’s a good point. Sheldon Adelson is firmly against “The two state solution” for Israel. That’s probably my biggest beef with him. His other idea is to warn Iran to get serious about Nukes, and then explode a major nuclear bomb out in the desert somewhere, and then tell Iran when they lodge a complaint “The next one will be aimed right for Teheran and we’ll level that city”. Matthews thought it was curious that you turn a country against Nukes by using them! Federico handed me that latest copy of “The Week” at the dinner table tonight. There is an article in there about Putin being the empowering force behind Iran. Also, they seem to think State and City employee pensions are really out of hand. They claim that 72% of the pensions that retired workers draw are actually higher than the salaries people get while they ARE working. Mom has said the same thing to me, and I thought maybe it was just an anomally with her. But apparently everybody gets these magically increasing “entitlements” once they retire, which apparently isn’t due to a prosperous private investment program, but the tax payers foot the bill and it’s breaking them, forcing governments to cut back in much more vital areas. There was also a piece about how Barnes and Nobel book stores are flooded with these ultra far right wing Books by Conservative authors. These really flooded the market for that sort of stuff after the 2012 election. I would be happy is all those authors were going bust now. We can hope. Of course Matthews points out that in 2016 that Liberals and democrats will profit from the very things that are dogging them this year, meaning that year will have a much more favorable alignment of senate seats. But also the demographic time-bomb is exploding in slow motion and will do in any Republican.
I watched the Mc
Laughlin group and segment one was about Putin of course and his speech earlier
in the week. Putin says that “The West”
meaning NATO and the United States, is “lawless” and “contrary to world opinion”. He cited examples of western Imperialism- -
the invasion of Kosovo by Clinton in 1999, and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan
by George W Bush and also Obama and NATO’s taking down of that despot Qadafi,
whom apparently Putin was fond of. Pat Buchannon
carried naturally about NATO “encirclement” and how humiliated Russia is now
that it’s no longer a “Bi-polar power” to counter-balance the West. Putin himself made much of this ideal of
“Bi-Polar” world dominance in his speech.
The second segment was on President Obama’s visit with the Pope this
week and how the Pope and he are in such major agreement on economic issues
which beset particularly this country.
One of the group said “Well, this only goes to show that the Pope is a
democrat”, which is a completely meaningless and stupid remark. Mort Zuckerman had the microphone relatively
little and kept continually getting cut off by Pat Buchannon, who spews out the
propaganda so much better. The third
segment was on privacy and NSA snooping.
Jimmy Carter was quoted again saying that he kind of identifies with
David Snowden and that Privacy for American Citizens is a problem now.
For the first time
since Daylight Savings time I caught some of that KFI program. I got up and it said 5:36 on the digital
clock and showered. That KFI show was
talking about the Beatles and how much they all loved each other and stayed in
the same hotel suite together, when they didn’t have to do that. It was a few years back they quoted some of
the specifications for that 1964 American concert and they were laughingly
modest demands. As you know Frank Sinatra
once put out a thing about a hotel “Just make sure I have clean towels” by way
of “demands”. Unlike this country now,
the Beatles all rallied together when attacked by an outside force. John Lennon was presumably in tears when he
learned that his remarks about the Beatles and religion were all twisted and
contorted out of shape by the media. Of
course really what John was saying would be like someone saying “The tea party
is bigger than Governor Arnold Swartzenegger”.
It’s not a value judgement but just a statement of fact. You may like the Governator ten years ago
when he was really big, but the tea party would regard him as yesterday’s news,
and John was, perhaps out of a sense of alarm, saying the same thing about
Religion in 1966. But anyone who’s
listened to “The Word” from Rubber Soul knows that some was basically a plug
for Christianity, at least as I read it.
John always called Yoco “Mother”, which I didn’t know. I thought he called her “Ocean Child”. Apparently after his death, there was a PA
announcement in a studio during a Yoco recording session, perhaps for “Empty
Glass” to the effect that “Mother, I miss you and I will always love you and am
thinking of you” or something. Some of
these weather related “heads up” messages I’ve gotten from John are interesting. But the other message anybody but careful
blog readers might miss is that- -John was saying “If given a choice, I’d
rather give you credit for some of my songs rather than Syd Barret “Pink”. As you know perhaps the most comprehensive
thing my blog ever put out in terms of compilations of Beatle album songs- -
were the stream of their first seven CD’s each with three extra songs added
playing off of “Seventeen”. Then there
were the Red, the White and the Blue albums.
The “Blue” and the “White’ you already know. We rearranged the White one a little but the
Blue is completely intact. In our new
version of the “Red Album”, it’s mainly stuff from the “Let It Be” sound track,
plus the best tracks off of the really early solo albums of all four
Beatles. These compilations are buried way
back in the archives somewhere.
Last night on “Dateline”
at nine, it was this Michael Peterson case in North Carolina about allegedly
blugening his wife with a fireplace poker while both were on the stairs. But it was pointed out that in the narrow
confines of that stairwell, there is not one nick on any of the walls, nor is
there any blood or the least sign of damage or that the poker had even been
used lately. Peterson was convicted
mainly because “the case just smells”.
That’s the impression one would tend to get from hearing the primary
evidence. However Mike Lee of OJ fame
testified for the defense and talked about “irregularities in the crime lab”
and also police carelessness in handling blood evidence and lettint outsiders
walk all over the crime scene. Again it
was shades of the OJ Simpson trial.
Peterson was convicted after the jury deliberated for four days. And every single appeal of the case was
turned down. But then there was the
theory that Kathryn (?) was attacked by a swooping Owl, and owl feathers were
found in the scalp wounds that weren’t mentioned. But then this head hauncho Dwane Dever - - I
have here- - planted blood in someone elses’s murder case- a guy who had been
locked up for seventeen years. Peterson
was granted a new trial and is now out in $300,000 bail, and gets once more to
see his family, who have always stuck by him.
Technically the prosecution could have declined to retry this case, in
which case he’d be completely free. His
attorney feels vindicated since after the defeat he was asking himself all of
the usual questions such as “Could I have tried this case any different, or
better”. I went to bed at ten. They were predicting rain but as I look out I
see a clear sky dawning.
After showing what had to be the two most obscure teams and not the Elite Eight in NCAA, channel two "rolled up the sidewalks" as it were, by three in the afternoon, and didn't have any more basketball the rest of the day. Of the games we missed Florida beat Dayton, and I would have been routing for Dayton because I don't like Florida. And Wisconsin beat Arizona in the evening game, I think. I don't get it, and hope this isn't a trend that now they won't even show the NCAA play-offs. OK I know ABC has ESPN you can go to because they own it, but CBS has always been a bekin of showing everything, and I know they used to have free games not televised on line. I haven't checked my blogger numbers but after not posting for two days I don't expect them to be very good. I honestly didn't know that Denny Lane sang "Deliver Your Children". I have never heard the B side "I Lie Around" in my life. This computer comes in really slow when loading "personal preferences" but not all the time. In terms of that photo if you recognize the face, it's that devil in the red dress- - only as you can now see it's actually a green dress. This is an untampered photo taken the same day I came accross while I was compiling photos for a Power Point program. It was taken around Halloween of 2011, when I was still at the other table.
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