Thoughts At The Close

Three news items caught my eye today that are reflective of 2007. The one that jumped out at me was that a Japanese woman died after being turned away from 30 hospitals. The jist of the story is that the hospitals were all full and did not have room to treat her. What you are seeing is a glimpse of what will happen when the government takes over health care. Once we are blessed with health care for all, we will be blessed with health care as a rationed commodity. Hopefully, free enterprise will be an option or it will create a black market for emergency treatment and surgery.

The second story concerns the murder of former Pakistan Prime Minister Bhutto. It is a sad time when someone is assassinated and a nation is grieving for the loss of this leader but... If memory serves, she was under house arrest just a few weeks ago. The whole world was agog that she was being kept from attending anti-government rallies. Maybe Musharraf might have known a little more than he was letting on and was trying to save her life. Now we have Al Qaida taking responsibility for the murder. Could it be that she was a woman?

The last story is that the Iraq war is no longer center stage in American's thoughts. Wow, could it be that the liberal media has finally quit trying to hammer the "we are losing the war strategy"? Too much good news coming out of Iraq for the media to cover it up. Of course they picked the ecomony as the biggest issue for Americans. They cited the housing crisis as the big problem. When you buy too much house and cannot make the payments, it is your issue, not Americas. Can you say greed boys and girls?

Icool

Cobb

When Galaxies Attack

A recent news article describes a galaxy that is blasting radiation at another galaxy 24,000 light years away. The radiation is being generated by a black hole and will cause devastating affects on any body in its path. It sounds like a plot from a yet to be written science fiction series or a take off on the Death Star from Star Wars. In this instance, it is a black hole that is causing the destructive rays, not a man made object.

The scientists that discovered this astronomical wonder say that if the blast of radiation was to hit Earth, it would cause devastation and death to the planet in just days. Thankfully, nature once again shows that it can be more devastating than anything man can create. We create the nuclear bombs and the sun trumps us with nuclear fusion on a grandiose scale. It makes me wonder why some people seem to have such a high opinion of man’s capability to alter the Earth on the scale the global climate change wackos imagine. What is worse, they are turning the youth of America into a bunch of mindless environmentalist zombies, which makes Dawn of The Dead look like an episode of the Brady Bunch.

Nature will always surprise with the wonders it can throw at us. Every day, man is discovering unknown species. Every day, the predicted weather is not what we get. It is a standard joke that, wait 10 minutes, the weather will change. Yet we think we can with precision, predict how the Earth will change because we use fossil fuels to power our world. That is arrogance in the extreme. We need to get it through our pea brains that the only thing that is constant is change. We may not like things changing but I know I used to be 36 inches tall and now am 6 foot. I used to have hair and now am sporting much more scalp. I didn’t use to have to shave every day. I am sure that any planet that is in the way of the death beam hits will also have a world altering experience. I guess we just have to stay out of the way of black holes.

Icool

Cobb

Colonial Leftovers

The age of the European colonial expansion is long gone. We have the last vestiges of that period in what is left of the English Commonwealth. There is also the use of English, French, Portuguese and Spanish as the primary languages of the colonial possessions. You do not hear German and Russian as major languages anywhere except their native countries. Now you have those same European countries that pillaged these colonial possessions and created virtual slave states, becoming havens of apologetic liberalism. Their descent into socialism is the attempt to create equality for all in the desire to atone for these past sins.

Now you have those same European countries attempting to assign blame for the way of the world to the United States. It is amusing to look at the result of 400 years of European supremacy and the aftermath of what they practiced. The United states rose from one of the colonized to become the lone world super power in less that 200 years. As we try to steer the world away from the result of four centuries of bad decisions, we become the target of those who are the victims of those results. The hatred and desire to extract revenge is now focused on the United States, not for what we have done but because we are the only ones left standing.

As a result, we become the police of the abuses that have happened and give the appearance of wanting to be a colonial power. America has a different way of colonizing. We use the power of commercialism to bring about change and allow the abilities of people to create their own wealth to make changes. Look at the recent vote in Venezuela that rejected creating a dictatorship in a land where the government has grabbed power and gives the appearance of being on the side of the impoverished. People recognize that power corrupts and absolute power, well you know how it goes. Hopefully the world wakes up and realizes that America is not using its military might as a way to create extensions of America. Our melting pot has worked well as it allows a constant influx of ideas. Our heritage is to allow technology to pave the way for a better world. Creating commercially viable solutions for problems eliminates the need to fight senseless wars for territory and possessions. Freedom. What a concept.

Icool

Cobb

Death Of An Icon

American has lost an icon that defined cool for many baby boomers. Evel Knievel passed away last week. He rose to fame in the 1970’s as the red, white and blue motor cycle rider that could jump over anything on his bike. His two most famous jumps were over the fountains at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas and the Snake River Canyon rocket cycle jump. Both proved to be unsuccessful. The Caesar’s jump caused him grave bodily injury but vaulted him into the iconosphere of cool. The Snake River jump proved to be his downfall and left a bad taste in the mouth of America.

As the Evel Knievel mystique was fading, you had the rise of Authur Fonzarelli aka The Fonz. Happy Days spawned the next ultra cool motor cycle rider who wore a leather jacket and exuded coolness with everything he did. From the snapping of his fingers as a call to chicks, to the rapping on the juke box for his favorite dance tune, to the jumping over trash cans or a shark, the Fonz was the television replacement for the dare devil Evel Knievel. But as all television shows go, it ended up stale and after begging Richie to come back for the finale, went the way of all great shows, into rerun heaven.

Now that you have the extreme sports athletes, most of the stunts that made Evel Knievel famous are bland. He was a pioneer in the adrenaline junkie department making a generation think that bigger and more difficult were the cool way to go. Now we have people all over the world jumping off bridges with elastic cords or jumping from planes on boogie boards. Not that Evel Knievel started the extreme stunt trend but he made it cool to want the rush. Say a final farewell to an American pioneer and icon of 1970’s pop culture.

Icool

Cobb

Relaxation 101

When I need to take my mind off of the daily storm and strife, I have some pictures that were taken with my handy dandy digital camera that allow me to sink into that almost Zen state and just (big exhale) relax. On our trip to Colorado this summer, we spent a week on a reservoir at 9000 feet. The lake has a yacht club and people were actually sailing on the lake. The house that we rented looked out over the lake so we could see the boats on the lake with the mountains rising up behind them. It was wonderful to sit on the deck in the morning with a cup of coffee and just try to absorb that scene.
















These shots were taken as we hiked around the lake. I can just stare at these pictures and take myself back to that hike. The clouds were amazing. They never seemed to move and they were as fluffy as cotton candy.

















My daughter has set up an array of photos in a rotating slide show that we use as a screen saver. You have to love the computer savvy nature of kids. I wish I had that much time. These photos are part of that rotating display and as they show up on the screen, I slip away, if only for the instant and relive that week in the clouds. It is amazing how just a few seconds can add a charge to the batteries. These along with the story of our lives that flashes by are the memories that make life the trip worth living.

Icool

Cobb